by R. N. Morris
Porfiry looked at Virginsky. The younger man gave every appearance of having recovered from his earlier slip. He drew himself up and breathed through his nostrils with eager, savage attack, as if to show he was ready for anything. His eyes flashed fiercely. Porfiry nodded grimly then looked up towards the block that housed the bureau.
‘We must concentrate on the meaning of the act,’ said Porfiry. It calmed him to be back in his chambers, positioned once again behind his desk. However chaotic and senseless events outside that room became, here was one place where he could order his thoughts and clarify his perception. He inhaled deeply from his cigarette; his eyelids flickered half-closed. ‘Rostanev excised his generative organs by his own hand. Perhaps it is a judgement on the act of generation itself? An expression of disgust at something he has fathered? Alternatively, we might imagine that he has found himself, a solitary man, to be tortured by his sexual drive, which he has no hope of requiting, except through self-administration or through visits to prostitutes - a class of woman he despises. That brings us back to Raisa Meyer, does it not?’
‘Perhaps it is simply the by-product of his madness,’ said Virginsky, seated at his desk by the window. ‘A random act, wholly without meaning.’
‘Everything has meaning,’ said Porfiry. ‘This could be interpreted as an act of self-hate, or perhaps more accurately, a symbol of what we might call life-hate. We could even consider it to be an act of childish petulance directed against - whom? women? or a particular woman? - in return for what we may imagine to have been a lifetime of rejection. As if to say, “They will be sorry now!” Of course, we have already alluded to the skoptsy sect. With them, I believe, the removal of the genitalia is understood to be a spiritual act, a commitment to the spiritual life, chosen over a more worldly existence - the life of the flesh we might say - which is utterly renounced.’ Porfiry broke off to consider the swirls of smoke from his cigarette. ‘He spoke of being defiled by women, I seem to remember.’
‘But you are proceeding as if you believe Rostanev to be the murderer,’ objected Virginsky.
‘I have a strong sense that someone wants me to believe Rostanev is the murderer. It would be convenient for this person were we now, with Rostanev dead, to consider these cases closed. If I want to get closer to this person, I must take a moment to follow the path he has laid out for me.’
‘But now you’re talking as if you believe this other person responsible for Rostanev’s death. And yet I thought you were of the opinion that that came about as a result of self-mutilation? There is a contradiction, surely?’ Virginsky seemed almost belligerent.
‘My dear boy,’ said Porfiry cheerfully, ‘the two hypotheses you mention are not mutually exclusive. Yes, I am certain that Rostanev mutilated himself. Otherwise, I believe he would have named his assailant when he had the opportunity. And yet, instead, he struggled - with his last breath, as it were - to blame it on voices.’ Porfiry whispered the last word with melodramatic emphasis.
‘I confess that I am confused.’ Virginsky’s tone was pettish.
Porfiry smiled sympathetically. ‘That’s quite normal. One gets used to it. One must grope for the signposts in the mist.’
‘But each of the signposts points in a different direction,’ complained Virginsky.
‘That’s perhaps because someone has played a trick on us, and twisted them around. But who?’ Porfiry drew from his cigarette. ‘Nikolai Nobody - that’s who,’ he murmured to himself.
‘Porfiry Petrovich?’ said Virginsky, sitting up so that Porfiry narrowed his eyes expectantly.
‘Yes?’
‘When we were in Rostanev’s room, did you hear something in the next room?’
Porfiry nodded slowly. ‘I believe I did.’
‘And yet didn’t Ilya Petrovich say that the room next to Rostanev’s was vacant?’
‘Nobody lives in it,’ said Porfiry wonderingly. ‘Nikolai Nobody. Well done, Pavel Pavlovich. I think perhaps we should take a look at that vacant room.’ Porfiry kept his cigarette at his lips as he drew deeply from it. He showed no inclination to hurry.
‘We let him go,’ said Virginsky, with a dead tone.
He was answered by a deep boom that seemed to fill, and expand beyond, the confines of Porfiry’s chambers. The windows rattled as it receded. It was not thunder. They had heard thunder only days ago. This was something different.
‘An explosion,’ said Porfiry, rising falteringly from his chair. ‘And nearby.’
Virginsky was already on his feet, craning to look out of the window.
‘Can you see anything?’ asked Porfiry.
Virginsky shook his head. Porfiry crossed his chambers and opened the door to the police bureau. Uniformed officers were rushing blindly in every direction, voices raised in panic. The faces of the men and women whose lives had brought them into the bureau at that particular moment were stricken with fear. Shocked into silence, they watched the disarray of the police in bewilderment.
Porfiry caught sight of Nikodim Fomich crossing the floor. They fell in together.
‘It’s very close, Porfiry Petrovich.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have a bad feeling about it.’ Nikodim Fomich seemed about to say something more but shook his head. ‘A very bad feeling indeed,’ he added, as they exited the bureau.
‘It feels like an attack,’ said Porfiry. ‘On us.’
‘Yes.’ Nikodim Fomich became tight-lipped as they descended the stairs.
Virginsky caught up with them as they reached the ground floor. ‘What’s happened? Does anyone know?’
He was not answered.
They stepped out into a sun-startled day and a pungent scent of burnt saltpetre.
‘Black powder. Primitive,’ said Porfiry and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t clear that the others had heard him, however. Their gazes were transfixed. He had seen what they saw but it was almost as if by not referring to it, he sought to un-see it; more than that, to undo it; to remove from the record of things that had occurred the scattered ground of writhing, wailing bodies that Stolyarny Lane had become, the charred faces streaked with blood, some stretched with pain and some in awed repose, the frayed and flesh-stripped limbs, a burnt-meat smell. And in amongst the human bodies, there were the horses, flailing, thrashing, twisting their necks against the pain and the incomprehensible loss of footing, turning a blood-filled eye on the men who had brought them to this.
‘These are our men,’ said Nikodim Fomich, quietly. ‘My men.’ And indeed there were police caps strewn about like garlands. ‘We need medical staff.’
‘A surgeon has been sent for,’ said a politseisky who was crouching uselessly over one of his wounded colleagues.
‘A surgeon? We will need more than that. We will need doctors and medical support staff. We will need to get these men to a hospital. See to it, man.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The politseisky rose to his feet, clicked his heels and ran off.
A pistol was discharged as the first of the horses was shot. Porfiry caught the heavy, relinquishing fall of its head.
Nikodim Fomich was scanning the faces of the fallen men desperately.
‘What is it?’ said Porfiry.
Nikodim Fomich let out a stifled cry and rushed forwards. Porfiry followed the line of his trajectory. A reeling dizziness came over him. Fiery red hair matted with a darker red, a face accustomed to the colour of fury, now more furious than ever, eyes that often bulged, now almost bursting: Salytov lay unmoving on the ground. His mouth was open as if he was about to let rip with a torrent of abuse, but no sound came from it. His eyes stared straight up into the clear, unblooded sky.
Porfiry felt a heavy dread inside him, burdening his limbs and coarsening his muscles. It was hard to move against it.
A weighted roll of Salytov’s eyes towards them released him. ‘Give him air! Don’t crowd him!’ cried Nikodim Fomich, who was pressing in on Salytov. He crouched over him, surveying the mangled body with great emotion, reverin
g it almost, unable to touch it, but covering it with his gaze, like a lover before his mistress’s naked beauty for the first time, greedy for it, it seemed.
Salytov clenched his teeth. His head quivered with a tremendous effort.
‘Don’t try to move,’ murmured Nikodim Fomich.
But Salytov lifted his head. ‘Trap,’ he got out, before his head fell back against the ground. Rust-smeared lids came down over his eyes.
Nikodim Fomich’s gaze flinched away from him, as if he had been slapped. He curled a fist over his mouth.
‘What is it?’ demanded Porfiry.
Nikodim Fomich stood up and moved Porfiry away from Salytov. ‘He came to me. Just before. He had a tip-off. Anonymous, of course. It purported to come from a member of the Ballet’s revolutionary cell.’
‘As far as we know, there is no Ballet’s revolutionary cell,’ protested Porfiry angrily.
‘It was you!’ Nikodim Fomich shouted in sudden indignation. ‘You suggested he should continue his surveillance. What were your reasons for doing so if you did not believe in the cell? Was it one of your pranks, Porfiry Petrovich? Were you trying to make a fool of Salytov?’
‘No, of course not. But I thought the surveillance had come to nothing.’
‘It came to this!’ Nikodim Fomich shook his head bitterly. ‘The contact requested a meeting, promising information about a bomb-making factory. I authorised Salytov to go. With a contingent of men.’ Nikodim Fomich looked over the carnage, away up Stolyarny Lane. ‘They were waiting for him. Revenge, of course. For all the pressure he has been putting on their boy.’
‘You do not know that,’ said Porfiry.
‘But it adds up, does it not, Porfiry Petrovich?’ Nikodim Fomich’s face was anguished.
‘We must be very careful. It is not clear what has happened here, except that a number of men have been killed and some others very severely injured.’
‘But you will now focus your investigation on the confectioner’s? ’
‘It may be that that is precisely what someone wants me to do.’
Nikodim Fomich gave him a scathing glare.
‘We will naturally talk to the boy from Ballet’s, as well as his associates.’ Porfiry looked down at Salytov. ‘It will help if we are able to get any meaningful statements from the survivors here. Was anyone seen, I wonder?’
‘That will come in due course. First we must see to their medical needs. In the meantime, would it not be wise to hasten to Ballet’s to pick up the boy, if he is there, that is? It may be that he has already gone into hiding.’
‘And if he is there, and has been there all day? If he denies any involvement, and has an alibi, and witnesses to corroborate it, what then?’
‘Talk to him!’ Nikodim Fomich yelled the command at Porfiry, as if he were giving a junior officer a severe dressing-down. He shook his head impatiently, then added, his voice only marginally softer: ‘It cannot do any harm to talk to him, can it?’
The murmur of genteel conversation, teacups chinking, crises of decision over which pastry to choose; the starched, unsullied table-cloths, upon which the worst catastrophe that could be imagined was a spilled cup of hot chocolate: the whole confection was saturated in a cloying atmosphere of contentment that stirred a dangerous rage in Porfiry.
As he watched the self-satisfied clientele pick over their sweetmeats with a mannered fastidiousness, he felt revulsion grip him and a desire to overturn the tables. He imagined these people with their faces running in blood, their smart, fashionable clothes shredded over their twitching limbs. It was an after-effect of shock, a super-imposition of the scene he had come from, but he wondered if it were not also a visualised wish. He wanted to punish them, he realised. And yet they were blameless, at least in the matter of the bomb blast. He breathed in deeply and looked at Virginsky. The strain of the day showed in the rippling tension of the young man’s face, which was white and drawn. Once again, he was puffing himself up and breathing heavily, battening on his emotional armour.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Porfiry quietly.
Virginsky’s eyes flared antagonistically.
Porfiry winced in disappointment, bowed his head and approached the counter.
‘Is Tolya here?’ he asked.
A plump-faced man with a waxed moustache and very black hair treated Porfiry with haughty disregard. He directed a fawning smile towards a waiting customer, giving a precisely gauged bow. Porfiry noted with satisfaction that the elegant cut and superior tailoring of the fellow’s frock coat came under considerable strain as he bowed.
‘Monsieur,’ Porfiry said, switching to French. ‘Monsieur Ballet, is it? I have to tell you that I am an investigating magistrate, here on official business. I wish to speak to Anatoly Denisovich Masloboyev. He works here, does he not?’
The man continued to talk to the customer for a moment or two longer. When at last he turned to Porfiry, his eyes were lidded and his face looked as if he had just inhaled smelling salts. He too spoke in French. ‘Will you people never be satisfied? This is a respectable establishment with connections at the imperial court. I, Ballet, have vouched for Tolya. I had thought that would be an end to the matter. I had been assured as much by a very high authority indeed.’
‘Things have changed. Produce Tolya now and it will be better for him - and you. If you cannot produce him I will have to assume that he was in some way involved in the atrocity perpetrated this morning on officers of the Haymarket District Police Bureau. If that is the case, you will find that your high-placed friends will have no hesitation in removing their protection, as well as their patronage - if you persist in sheltering a wanted criminal, that is.’
‘I know nothing of any atrocity. I . . . am sorry to hear of it. However, Tolya has been here all the time. Please believe me when I say he is a good boy, a hard worker. I have no complaints.’
‘Let me speak to him.’
Ballet sucked in his cheeks and nodded to the stout female shop assistant who had followed their exchange apprehensively from the other end of the counter. At his signal, she disappeared through the door to the back of the shop. Ballet turned a sour face back to Porfiry.
‘The officer against whom you made a complaint,’ said Porfiry, blinking frantically at Ballet, ‘was injured in the atrocity.’
The confectioner was startled. ‘But that doesn’t mean that Tolya did it.’ He blanched under Porfiry’s steady gaze. ‘Or me! You surely do not suspect me?’
‘Have you discussed Lieutenant Salytov’s persecution of Tolya with anyone?’
‘Well, yes. I have discussed it with many of my customers - to universal outrage, may I say.’
‘With whom in particular have you discussed it?’
‘That is an impossible question to answer, monsieur.’
‘Let me put it another way. Of all those you have discussed the matter with, is there any one person who seemed to you to take an inordinate interest in it? That is to say, a greater interest than most of the other people you discussed it with?’
Ballet angled his head as he looked at Porfiry with something that could have been amazement. ‘Now that you come to mention it, there was one gentleman who asked very many questions. Indeed, he came back . . . and asked more questions. I thought, perhaps, he was investigating the case, in some official capacity.’
‘Did he give you his name?’
‘I asked him for his name. He said people called him, in Russian, Nikto. Nikolai Nikto.’
‘But nikto is not a name, monsieur. It simply means nobody.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought, after he had gone. I thought it was a strange name. I thought perhaps he was a police spy. An officer of the Third Section. I never saw him again.’
‘And had you ever seen him before? I mean, before he came here asking questions?’
‘It’s difficult to say. Possibly yes. He looked familiar. But then again, one sees a lot of people. Eventually everyone appears familiar. ’
‘I see
.’
Tolya came through the door and hung back, watching the magistrate with a look of queasy trepidation. It was a moment before Porfiry recognised him, such was his preoccupation. He smiled reassuringly at the youth and switched to Russian: ‘Ah, Tolya, there you are. There is nothing to be afraid of, if you tell the truth. Come forward; I wish to speak to you.’ Tolya moved uncertainly along the counter, glancing at Ballet as though for approval or permission. ‘There has been a very serious incident,’ Porfiry continued. ‘A bomb attack outside a police station on Stolyarny Lane. Do you know anything about it?’
The boy shook his head. There was fear in his eyes. His face was drained of colour, sickened.