by R. N. Morris
He looked down at the letter Zamyotov had thrust at him. He took it uncertainly. It bore the crest of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Department of Public Health. He looked into Zamyotov’s face in amazement. ‘We’ve had a reply!’
‘Contain your excitement,’ said Zamyotov.
The brief, though beautifully scripted, note was signed by one A. I. Rostanev.
Re: Yekaterininsky Canal adjacent to Stolyarny Lane.
Your letter regarding the above has been investigated. No action was deemed necessary.
Porfiry read the lines again. An astonished rage rushed through him, rising quickly to his face. ‘No action necessary!’
‘I told you it was a waste of time,’ said Zamyotov, attending to a thread on the cuff of his frock coat.
‘This is outrageous.’ Porfiry rapped the paper with the nails of one hand. ‘Investigated? What do they mean? Nobody has been here. No one has talked to me.’
‘Ah,’ said Zamyotov, becoming uncharacteristically shame-faced. ‘I believe an official from that department did come here. But you were out.’
‘But that’s no good. He needed to talk to me. He should have come back. He should have made an appointment.’
‘It was the day young Virginsky started,’ Zamyotov offered, almost as an excuse. Virginsky shifted awkwardly, as if he felt himself implicated in the failure. ‘Word had just come in of that double poisoning,’ continued Zamyotov. ‘The German woman and her son. You dashed off and missed him by a matter of minutes.’
‘She was not German,’ said Porfiry studying the official letter as if he believed some meaning other than the obvious would make itself apparent. ‘She was married to a German.’
‘I let him into your chambers. He sniffed around a bit and then left.’
‘Good grief! Surely he must have noticed the stink? What did he say?’
‘Not much. Nothing actually. He just made some notes and was gone.’
‘No action necessary,’ repeated Porfiry. ‘This is an outrage. We will have to write another letter. We will take it higher up. Who is this Rostanev? He does not even give a rank.’
‘Porfiry Petrovich?’
Porfiry looked up to see Lieutenant Salytov frowning impatiently at him.
‘Yes, Ivan Petrovich, what is it?’
‘Could I ask you, please, to moderate your fury as I am trying to take a statement from a witness and your outburst is proving to be rather distracting?’
‘Y-’
‘Thank you.’ Salytov clicked his heels and bowed.
‘But — !’
‘Furthermore, Nikodim Fomich has requested me to notify you of the details of the case as he feels a criminal investigation may be necessary.’
‘I see.’ Porfiry passed the letter back to Zamyotov. ‘Of course.’ He angled his face away from the attention of the others as he took out and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. ‘I hope it is understood that I am not normally given to such shows of passion. However, the communication I have just received would be enough to try the patience of a saint.’
‘The case,’ insisted Salytov, with a note of censure in his voice, ‘as it stands is one of a missing person. The witness I am interviewing, one Lara Olsufevna Mikheyeva of Demidov Lane, came into the bureau to report the disappearance of her tenant, Yemelyan Antonovich Ferfichkin.’
‘I see.’
‘This Ferfichkin, according to Mikheyeva, has many enemies. In particular, a man called Gorshkov, a former factory worker, now an indigent drunk, was heard to threaten the life of Ferfichkin. It is Mikheyeva’s view that he has made good on the threat.’
‘Ah.’
‘Mikheyeva’s description of Ferfichkin matches that of a body discovered this morning in the Summer Garden, according to a bulletin released by the Eastern Admiralty District Police Bureau.’
‘Very well. Then the thing to do is to take the woman to identify the body. Do we know how the man died?’
‘He was stabbed through the heart. The weapon, a poniard, was discovered still in place.’
‘That is very interesting.’
‘Nikodim Fomich was of the view that you would like to talk to the Mikheyeva woman.’
Porfiry gave a wincing smile and sighed. ‘It is something of a distraction from the cases I am working on at the moment. Is it not enough that I am chasing two hares?’ He drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘I feel it would be better to wait until she has positively identified the body as Ferfichkin.’
‘But what if she is right? That would give this fellow Gorshkov time to disappear,’ protested Salytov.
‘We cannot arrest people merely on hearsay. At the very least, we need to be sure that a crime has taken place. Ferfichkin may have returned home while she has been giving her statement.’
‘But somebody is dead and somebody has killed him,’ said Virginsky. ‘Do you not count it significant that she should report her tenant’s disappearance at precisely the moment a body is found answering his description?’
Porfiry rubbed a hand over his face and sniffed the air. ‘I had hoped that the rainfall would alleviate the fetid atmosphere. It seems merely to have added an unwelcome rankness to it.’
A distant cannon boom signalled a flood warning.
‘The Ditch is rising,’ said Virginsky.
‘The woman?’ pressed Salytov.
‘Very well, bring her to my chambers.’ Porfiry shook his head in weary defeat. ‘If I talk to her now it may save time later,’ he added over his shoulder as he made for his door.
Lara Olsufevna Mikheyeva inhaled the air in Porfiry’s chambers with her head angled back sharply. She regarded Porfiry down the bridge of a long straight nose, upon which a pince-nez was precariously imposed. It seemed she suspected him of being responsible for the smell that pervaded the room. Lara Olsufevna was self-evidently a respectable woman, somewhere in her fifties. The set of her mouth inclined Porfiry to believe her a spinster. She kept her eyes narrowed, in an expression of permanent distrust.
The thunder grumbled morosely now, the storm’s ferocity spent. The rain lashed the windows with an erratic beat, falling hard and sharp like cast gravel. The day’s light had not yet fully returned. But something else, a kind of cold glow, had taken its place.
Porfiry scanned Salytov’s transcript of her statement. ‘So, Lara Olsufevna. . You became aware of your tenant’s disappearance this morning.’
‘That’s right.’
‘We do not normally open a missing person file so soon after a disappearance is first reported.’
‘Ferfichkin is not missing. He is murdered.’
‘By Gorshkov?’ said Porfiry, checking the statement.
‘Yes.’
‘And why do you suspect Gorshkov of this crime?’
‘He said that he would kill him.’
‘I see.’
‘Gorshkov is not a bad man.’ Lara Olsufevna’s posture was as self-contained as her pronouncements. She lowered her head to look at Porfiry more carefully, but other than that she held herself quite immobile. She seemed uncannily at one with her stiff, charcoal dress. There was something of the schoolmistress about her, Porfiry decided. ‘He has that fatal weakness for drink that so many of our Russian menfolk share. But we have to allow that he has suffered terribly. Ferfichkin’s behaviour was the last straw. You can push a man only so far. Then, like the proverbial camel’s back, he will snap.’
‘How has Gorshkov suffered?’
‘He has buried six children, all girls. The last, a babe of three months, not long ago.’
‘And what has Ferfichkin to do with Gorshkov?’
‘Ferfichkin said the Psalms at his last daughter’s funeral. Like so many of the poor folk of this district, Gorshkov could not afford a proper priest.’
‘I don’t understand. Why would this lead Gorshkov to murder Ferfichkin?’
Lara Olsufevna treated Porfiry to a disappointed stare. ‘He could no more afford the services of a self-appointed Psalm reader than he
could an Orthodox priest. Ferfichkin was pressing him mercilessly for the settlement of his debt. He began to make his demands on the very day of the funeral. At the graveside, no less. The tiny coffin had not long been laid in the ground. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. Ferfichkin’s behaviour was shameful. He pricked and needled the poor grieving father, pushed him to breaking point. Gorshkov’s neighbours had to hold him back. If not, I think he would have killed him there and then, and ripped the cold heart from his breast. I remember saying to a gentleman who was there, “This will end badly”.’
‘What gentleman was this? We will need to take a statement from him, if possible.’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t recognise him. He was not one of the family, or one of the Gorshkovs’ friends or neighbours. I believe he had just been passing and had stopped to watch out of compassion.Certainly he was very interested in the family. He asked many questions and was most sympathetic to their plight.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Isn’t that strange? I find his face has gone completely from my memory. I dare say I would know him if I saw him again. I am usually very good at faces.’
‘I imagine you are,’ said Porfiry with a smile. ‘Please, you were telling me about Ferfichkin’s prosecution of Gorshkov’s debt.’
‘With every day that passed he added interest. Really, he was a monster. If Gorshkov hadn’t killed him, there would have been others who would have done the deed, I’m sure. He has a history of such usury. One would have thought him a Jew, were it not for his religion.’
‘You sound almost as if you have sympathy for Gorshkov.’
‘Who would not have sympathy for the sufferings of a fellow human? And his poor wife, to have borne so many, only to bury them, one after the other. She herself was too ill to come to her baby’s funeral.’
‘And yet you have come here to report him,’ observed Porfiry.
Lara Olsufevna’s brows shot up. ‘However much sympathy one may have, the law must be obeyed. I would expect you, as a magistrate, to understand that. He has taken the life of another. We cannot have people doing such things, not in a civilised society. Besides, I am afraid for Gorshkov. The balance of his mind is disturbed. There is no saying what he might do next. He may take his own life. Or that of his wife. I would not be surprised if he were to go on a destructive rampage. When I last saw him, there was a wildness in his eyes that frightened me.’ Lara Olsufevna paused. Her breathing became short and laboured. It was some time before she was able to speak again. ‘I hope to prevent such a thing happening. ’
Porfiry said nothing for a moment. ‘You are aware that the body of a man has been found?’
‘Yes. The truculent one told me.’
‘I’m afraid I am going to ask you to undertake an unpleasant duty.’
‘You want me to look at it.’ Lara Olsufevna pinched her mouth minimally.
Porfiry bowed solemnly.
Lara Olsufevna was already on her feet.
Outside, the day flickered with electricity, and a final, vast reverberation shook the sky.
The dark capsule of the police brougham hurtled through the rain, the horses’ necks slanting against the onslaught, their hooves kicking through the hissing spray. The weather snuffed the driver’s whip, as if brooking no rivals to its own immense voice. Huddled in oilskins, the driver raged equally at his team and the heavy drops that hit his face. A muted glow was concentrated in the buildings, the colours of which were strangely intensified.
Inside the carriage, the rain rapped like a thousand fingers on the roof. Lara Olsufevna was seated on her own facing the direction of travel. She looked out of the misted window with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. No doubt she was thinking of the task that lay ahead of her. Porfiry and Virginsky sat opposite, riding the buffetings of the carriage’s suspension, watching her with mild curiosity.
‘Tell me more about Ferfichkin,’ said Porfiry to Lara Olsufevna. ‘You say that he has many enemies.’
‘Oh yes.’ Lara Olsufevna’s impatience suggested this was something any fool knew. ‘It’s true. He had.’ The last word was given pointed emphasis.
‘We don’t know that he is dead yet,’ said Porfiry. ‘I suggest that until that is confirmed we refer to him in the present tense, as one still extant.’
Lara Olsufevna’s shrug was amplified by the jouncing seat.
‘So he lives with you as a tenant? How do you get on with him?’
‘We get along well enough by having nothing whatsoever to do with one another, other than that which cannot be avoided.’
‘But your dealings with him are rather different to most other people’s, are they not?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, he is regularly in your debt rather than the other way round.’
‘He has always paid his rent on time. I have had no complaints on that front.’
‘It’s just as well for you, perhaps, that he is so meticulous in recovering the debts owing to him.’
‘I do not believe it is quite necessary for him to do so with such unfeeling brutality.’
Porfiry nodded. ‘I cannot imagine he makes much of a living reading the psalter at paupers’ funerals.’
‘It was not his only source of income. He took in tailoring repairs, though I myself would never have entrusted a garment to him.’
They rode the rest of the way in silence, feeling the sun’s tentative return uplift the day.
Seagulls over the Neva pierced the air with their shrieks as the brougham pulled up at 2 Gorokhovaya Street. The building, indistinguishable from its neighbours in its geometric monotony, was the home of the main police administrative headquarters for the whole of St Petersburg, and also housed the Admiralty District Police Bureau, station number 1.
Patches of clear sky were appearing now amongst the clouds. All that was left of the storm ran in muddy rivulets along the road. Leaves and refuse were scattered over the glistening pavements. Lara Olsufevna lifted her crinolined skirts to high-step over puddles.
They followed a politseisky to a room at the rear of the building on the ground floor. The windows were shuttered. With the light from the open door, it had the air of a lumber room, provisional, a space of temporary storage and transition. The objects it stored were elongated mounds beneath sheets, laid out on tables.
‘Would it be possible to have more light?’ asked Porfiry.
The politseisky struck a match, at the third attempt, and lit an oil lamp. The flare from the lamp chased the shadows to the edge of the room. ‘We never open the shutters,’ he explained. ‘Now, which one was it you were wanting to see?’
‘The body found in the Summer Garden this morning. An adult male,’ said Porfiry.
‘Ah yes, he’s easy enough to find.’
The politseisky approached a mound which had a curious projection in its sheet towards one end. It was from this end that he drew back the sheet.
The face that was revealed, though immobile, was not in repose. The eyes bulged and the mouth formed a small circle as if articulating an accusation or abuse. The hair and beard were long, grey and matted.
‘That’s him,’ said Lara Olsufevna with the primness that she said everything. She continued looking at the face. ‘Ferfichkin.’
Porfiry too was staring thoughtfully at the dead man’s face. ‘He has one of those faces, does he not? The sort that you are convinced you have seen before. Of course, it is entirely possible that he has crossed my path in the past. It would be as well to check the records.’
‘What is that?’ asked Virginsky, pointing at the tent-like projection in the sheet. His face registered an uneasy determination.
The politseisky lifted the sheet and pulled it down even further. The dead man’s shirt was drenched in blood. The hilt of the weapon that was sunk into his chest stood proud, an inverted crucifix of tempered steel. It appeared medieval, in design at least, made up of simple agglomerations of bossed, banded and cubic forms. Even
so, it made an elegant and evocative shape, slender yet solid, modelled after the Christian symbol, but murderous. Ferfichkin’s body lay awkwardly on the table, raised on the side that the dagger was plunged into.
‘It went straight through him,’ observed Porfiry.
The politseisky nodded. ‘There’s not much to him. He’s as skinny as a boy.’
‘The misericorde, or mercy poniard.’ Porfiry tensed a hand towards the weapon, though stopping short of touching it.
‘Undoubtedly a replica. Even so, an expensive item.’ He looked significantly at Lara Olsufevna. She returned his glance without expression. ‘If I understood you correctly, Gorshkov was not a wealthy man?’
‘He could have stolen it,’ answered Lara Olsufevna.
‘Pavel Pavlovich, your thoughts?’
Virginsky seemed startled. ‘It’s possible, I suppose.’
‘But really, why would he bother, though?’ asked Porfiry, wonderingly. ‘He does not need this particular weapon to kill him. He may kill him just as easily by plunging a kitchen knife into his heart. Why risk detection and prosecution for an unnecessary theft, before he has carried out the greater and for him more necessary crime of murdering his enemy?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Virginsky, staring at the dagger hilt crossly.
Porfiry raised an eyebrow at Lara Olsufevna but she declined to comment.
‘The choice of weapon is significant, I think,’ said Porfiry at last. ‘Here is a man who earns his living by plying a needle and it seems that his dying came about as the result of a fatal stitch. He was also a religious man, at least outwardly. But really he was a man who could be said to have profited from the word of the Lord, to have exploited the Christian message for venal gain. Perhaps the cruciform handle that stands out from his heart may be seen as some kind of judgement on that. It is suggestive, is it not?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Virginsky glumly.
‘Of course, it may still be Gorshkov who has passed this judgement on him and you may yet be proven right, Lara Olsufevna. He may indeed have stolen the dagger. We shall have to speak to him, that much is certain. Where may we find him, do you know?’