The Third Section (Danilov Quintet 3)

by Jasper Kent

  ‘Tolya!’ Dmitry hissed.

  Tyeplov stood upright and turned, looking first at Dmitry and then at Ignatyev. His face was the epitome of consternation. Ignatyev was on his feet now, changing his direction to move towards Dmitry. Dmitry’s pistol fired, this time with none of the chance and indecision of the fight in the casemate. The bullet went into Ignatyev’s neck and emerged the other side. Behind him, on the mantelpiece, a vase shattered and its fragments fell to the floor. Dmitry could see the wound, just below Ignatyev’s Adam’s apple.

  The vampire took a step backwards, but the effect was nothing like as devastating as when Wieczorek’s face had been just inches from the muzzle. Dmitry held his wooden sword tightly, low and out to his right, ready to stab upwards into the creature’s chest, but still he noticed how his hand shook. He tried to speak – to warn Tyeplov – but found that his throat could produce no sound. He sidestepped into the room, placing himself between Ignatyev and his unarmed friend. Ignatyev turned, always keeping his face towards Dmitry. His mouth was closed now, but the blood on his moustache and chin was a constant reminder of the vile entity that he was. It hardened Dmitry’s resolve as he readied himself for a fight to the death.

  But Ignatyev did not attack. He raised his hands, open-palmed in a gesture of pacification. The expression on his face was one of confusion, as if he was asking Dmitry what it was that he should do next. Dmitry did not care to fathom the voordalak’s motivations. It might be a ruse or it might be a sign of weakness. Dmitry guessed it was the latter and took a step forward.

  The room vanished in an instant. The rear and side walls were gone, along with the bed, the mantelpiece, the fireplace and half of the floor. Ignatyev was gone too. Dmitry felt the floorboards beneath his feet shifting, and suddenly he was falling, only to be saved by firm hands that he knew to be Tyeplov’s grabbing him under the arms and pulling him back.

  The shell had exploded just outside, its noise filling the air, but insignificant compared with its more concrete effects. Dmitry gazed out into the starry night and saw in front of him the rooms of other houses, much like this one, their walls ripped away to reveal what lay within. The gun had been way off target for it to have hit here, and in at least one of the buildings the occupants had been taken completely by surprise: a woman stood in her nightdress, her back against her bedroom wall with only just enough floor remaining for her to stand on. She was looking down, looking to where her husband – so Dmitry presumed – lay in the remains of the room beneath. He reached up towards her with his hand, then fell back and moved no more.

  Dmitry looked down into the crater beneath him. Two bodies lay there, in the rubble that was the amalgamation of a bedroom and a kitchen. One had been dead even before the shell hit. It lay on a wooden table, standing strangely undamaged in the chaos around it, partly shrouded by the striped rug. Ignatyev was almost directly beneath Dmitry, writhing as if he were a pinned insect. The floor beneath him had opened like a trapdoor, the end closest to Dmitry remaining in situ as though hinged there. Ignatyev had slid down until his leg penetrated a gap in the surface. At that point he must have swung round, for now he hung almost upside down, his leg still trapped against the floorboard, the femur clearly shattered. His fingers clawed upwards, though they could do nothing to free him.

  Dmitry knew that he would escape in time. He must finish the monster now, while it was vulnerable. He looked for a way down into the shattered kitchen and realized the fastest, or at least the safest, would be the most traditional. He half turned and gave a shout of ‘Stay there!’ though Tyeplov displayed no intention of doing otherwise, remaining frozen – pressed up against the wall. Dmitry raced out of the room back to the stairs and was down them in a moment. Soon he was in the kitchen, face to face with Ignatyev, except that from the view of each of them, the other’s face was upside down.

  Dmitry considered what to do. Ignatyev lay back on the sloping floor, watching him, waiting. There were two options. He could stab the creature with his wooden sword, or attempt to behead it with his steel one. The former seemed the more reliable option, except that Ignatyev’s chest was too high for Dmitry to reach, certainly not with the ability to apply any force. Dmitry looked around him. Nearby stood the kitchen table, the body of Ignatyev’s last – and thankfully final – victim still sprawled on it. If Dmitry could pull it just a little way across the room, then he could climb on it and plunge his wooden blade into the monstrous heart.

  He grabbed the table with his left hand and gave it a heave. It wouldn’t budge. He glanced over at Ignatyev again and saw that he was still unable to move. He put the wooden sword on the table within easy reach, and then tugged at it again, this time with both hands. He pulled again, and again.

  On the third attempt, it yielded, as did the remainder of the ceiling above. Somehow the table had been supporting the fragile remnants of the wall, but with Dmitry’s help that support had gone, and the collapse of that part of the building was complete. Dmitry was thrown backwards, but managed to roll under the table itself, which saved him from being hit by any of the debris.

  It was quiet again within seconds, and Dmitry slid himself out of his protective refuge. He regained his feet as quickly as he could and looked around the room. The sloping floor had fallen in completely, and Ignatyev was no longer trapped. He was standing upright, his weight clearly on only one leg – his broken bones causing the other to bend at an impossible and unusable angle. In his hand, he held Dmitry’s wooden sword. He approached, hopping at first, but even as Dmitry watched, his left leg began to straighten and he dared to place increasing amounts of weight on it. He looked down at the wooden sword in his hand and then grinned, snapping it in two like a twig and casting it aside into the rubble. His grin became broader, so that Dmitry could see his still-bloody fangs. Whatever indecision might have come upon him in the room above had been forgotten in the fall. Now he approached Dmitry with only hunger and hatred in his eyes. Dmitry drew his sabre and prepared to defend himself, but he knew he could do little to stave off what fate had decreed for him.

  ‘No!’

  The voice came from above. Both Dmitry and Ignatyev looked up and saw that it was Tyeplov, still managing to find some small patch of solid floor in the ruined bedroom. Ignatyev looked at him for a few seconds, then turned his attention back to Dmitry. His leg seemed fully healed now, and his gait was quite normal.

  ‘No!’ came Tyeplov’s voice again.

  Ignatyev gave one last contemptuous look at Dmitry and turned away. He scrambled over the collapsed masonry of the walls and was soon out in the yard at the back of the house. The wall that divided it from the next property had vanished, and soon so had Ignatyev. Dmitry felt no urge to pursue him. Instead he looked up to see Tyeplov’s face just disappearing behind the edge of the jagged hole in the ceiling above. He heard footsteps going across the landing and raced to catch him, clambering over the table and the body that still lay upon it and making his way out into the hall.

  He was halfway up the stairs when he heard the sound of breaking glass, and at the top he quickly saw that the window overlooking the street had been shattered – not simply broken, as Dmitry had the window below, but utterly smashed. Tyeplov had thrown himself through it. Dmitry stood and looked out of its splintered remains, just able to catch a glimpse of a tall figure sprinting away down the street.

  ‘You will have heard of Sheshkovsky’s Room.’

  Yudin asked the question as they reached the bottom of the stone staircase. They were in a short cramped corridor. The brick walls curled over to form an arched roof which only just failed to brush the top of Yudin’s head. The walls themselves were only a little wider than his shoulders. If they wanted to pass each other they would have had to turn sideways, and it would even then have been an intimate operation. The only light came from the lamp in his hand, which made the damp walls glisten. The floor, again brick, was dotted with shallow puddles. Along each side of the passageway were three small wooden doors, with
another one at the far end.

  ‘A myth,’ Tamara replied dismissively.

  ‘Possibly – but a useful one. Some say that the room still exists, in the building beside the chain bridge.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ she replied, forcing herself to appear at her most rational.

  She could not see Yudin smile, but she heard it in his voice. ‘A fascinating approach to torture, nonetheless. The suspect would be placed in a chair and Chief Secretary Sheshkovsky would engage him in quite friendly conversation. And then at the pull of some unseen lever, the floor of the room would drop away, along with the seat of the chair, and a team of experts would use knouts to beat at the man’s nether regions until they bled.’ He took out a key and unlocked the nearest door, inviting Tamara to enter with an opened hand. ‘And then Sheshkovsky would resume his questioning.’

  Inside, the room – cell would perhaps be a better description – was quite large, certainly in comparison with the corridor they had come from. It contained a single piece of furniture: a solitary chair. Tamara walked cautiously towards it, eyeing the floor as she went, but it seemed solid enough. When she reached the centre of the cell she saw that the chair was not entire – simply a wooden frame from which the seat had been cut out.

  ‘My re-creation,’ said Yudin. ‘Far simpler – with none of the unwieldy engineering.’

  She turned and looked at him. In his hand he held a knout; behind him, on the wall, hung several others. He caressed its three leather strands, each of them tipped with a small lead ball. Tamara knew that he wanted her to show fear, but she did not feel it.

  ‘They call this a plyet,’ he said. ‘His Majesty – His late Majesty – changed the law to make this form of lash the only one we’re allowed to use.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t disobey His Majesty,’ said Tamara, eyeing the plethora of different whips on the wall behind him that belied his words.

  ‘We serve His Majesty.’

  ‘And I’m sure he approved of everything you have down here.’

  ‘He didn’t disapprove.’

  ‘His successor might.’ Tamara glanced at Yudin as she spoke. He seemed to take what she had said in his stride.

  Yudin stepped outside again, taking the lamp with him, and the cell was plunged into darkness. By the time Tamara had followed him, he had opened up the door opposite and gone inside. The cell was the same size and shape as the last, but even more sparse – empty at first glance.

  ‘These chambers go back to Ivan the Third,’ explained Yudin. ‘The features are not entirely original – though the idea dates back even further.’ He glanced upwards and towards the centre of the room. At first, Tamara saw nothing, but then the lamplight caught metalwork and she saw, suspended from eyelets in the ceiling, two sets of iron manacles. Yudin walked towards them and put his hand in the air. He pressed his palm flat against the brickwork above him without even having to fully straighten his elbow. ‘Unfortunately, people are so much taller these days,’ he said.

  As they left, Tamara noticed two dark stains in the floor, neatly positioned beneath each set of metallic cuffs. Still she did not experience the fear or nausea that Yudin was clearly anticipating – that would be the reaction of most women. She thought of the train to Pavlovsk, and of Stasik’s little body cradled in her arms, and of the stench that came from his clothes. Yudin had not yet shown her anything to compete with the Lord above.

  ‘Of course,’ he continued, ‘these things have their advantages too.’ He opened the middle door in one of the walls. The space behind was tiny. Only a child could have stood up in there. ‘In olden days, these would have been quite spacious.’ Yudin’s tone was deliberately light. ‘Now, they can break a man in hours.’ He closed the door. ‘The one opposite is just the same.’

  They moved on. They were at the end of the passageway, faced with doors, one on either side, another at the very end. Yudin unlocked the one on the left, but did not open it. ‘We won’t step inside here,’ he said. He pushed the door ajar and thrust the lamp inside. A thousand tiny voices squealed together, punctuated by the sound of sharply pointed claws scrabbling over the stonework and the slither of scaly tails. He swung the lamp back and forth and a hundred pairs of black, gleaming eyes sparkled back at them.

  Yudin closed the door quickly. ‘They soon learn to lose their fear,’ he said. ‘Particularly when they’re hungry. Man’s fear lasts longer.’

  Still Tamara failed to feel the terror that Yudin so evidently wanted to induce in her. She had seen rats before – in the streets, beside the river, even running along the railway tracks, to hide under the platform when a train came in. They survived, like any other creature, and their greatest threat to man was that they stole his food – just as man stole theirs. A room full of wolves would seem a better way to make a person afraid. But Tamara was being rational – and she knew that that was a state of mind that Yudin would have eradicated long before he brought his captive to this room.

  ‘Why are you showing me this, Vasiliy Innokyentievich?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you expressed an interest.’

  Tamara searched her memory, but could not think of anything she might have said to give that impression. ‘I did?’ she asked.

  ‘When you began to investigate a crime. An investigation leads to an arrest, an arrest to an interrogation, an interrogation to a confession.’

  ‘If the man is guilty.’

  ‘Or the denunciation of a friend if he is not. Either way, your investigation will come to an end down here. Are you prepared for that?’ As he asked the question, he moved to the door across the passageway and began to unlock it.

  ‘What about this one?’ asked Tamara, indicating the door at the very end of the corridor. It was different from the others: more sturdily built, with iron bands across acting as braces. In addition to the lock, there were three heavy bolts at different levels sealing it tight. And unlike the other six doors it had no grille in it at eye level to allow the activities within to be observed.

  Yudin glanced at the door and then at her, silent in thought. His face seemed to smile, although his lips never moved, and a look of excitement, exhilaration even, came into his eyes. Then, in an instant, the expression faded, and he turned back to unlock the other door. ‘Perhaps another day,’ he said quickly, and then disappeared into the room that he was happier to show her. She was reminded of the story of Bluebeard.

  Even before following him in, Tamara could hear the trickle of water. Inside, her first impression was that the room contained a coffin. It abutted the side wall and was made of stone – more a sarcophagus than a coffin. Above it a lead pipe protruded from the wall, pouring water into it, filling it almost to the brim. Not a coffin, or even a sarcophagus, she thought, but a bathtub. A small notch in the side allowed the water to flow out again without the tub brimming over completely. It ran along a gutter and then disappeared through another hole in the wall. The water stank with the familiar reek of the sewer.

  ‘Are you prepared to do it?’ repeated Yudin. ‘To do whatever it takes to extract the information you need?’

  She considered, but not the prospect of bringing a man down here to discover his secrets. She considered the image of Irina Karlovna, lying on the bed, the description of Margarita Kirillovna in much the same circumstances, along with those of the others who had died. If whoever had killed them had the stomach to do what he had done, then was it fair that she lacked the stomach to discover the truth?

  ‘If it becomes necessary.’

  The smell from the water seemed to become stronger, filling the room.

  ‘Many fear drowning more than anything,’ said Yudin wistfully, staring down into the rippling water. Then he looked up, straight into Tamara’s eyes. ‘Danilov is seventy-four years old. Could you bring an old man down here?’

  ‘He’s not the murderer – not of Irina.’

  ‘But he may know who is.’

  ‘Then he’ll tell me.’

  ‘He’s kept his secret f
or thirty years,’ Yudin persisted.

  Tamara corrected him. ‘Forty-three years.’ She was finding it hard to breathe. The stench reminded her of Petersburg and of 1848.

  He smiled, almost imperceptibly, then turned to look back into the water, its odour seeming not to affect him. ‘The water comes from the Neglinnaya, as far as I can make out, and must drain into the Moskva. Filthy these days, of course, but that only adds to the effect.’

  Tamara tried to breathe through her mouth, but the stench had already filled her nostrils and she could not escape it. She felt bile rising in her gullet and closed her mouth tightly to restrain it, which forced her once again to inhale the foetid air through her nose until she could stand it no more. She turned and fled, at last, she knew, giving Yudin the response he was hoping for, though not for any reason he would predict. It was simply the smell – the miasma that had filled Petersburg in 1848 and had brought with it cholera. It had spread from the rivers and canals and through the streets and into the houses and taken her children from her. Half of her wanted to stay there, to breathe deeply of the foulness and be taken by the disease that had taken her family, and it was not fear of the disease that made her run, but fear of the memories that the stench brought with it.

  Once out of the cell and away from Yudin’s lamp, she found herself in darkness. She turned the wrong way and felt the wood of the door that was forbidden to her against her hands. From the other side she thought she heard a sound – a voice pleading for help – but she realized it was only an echo of the cries she had heard from Stasik as he lay in agony, years before. She turned and went the other way, not quite running, trailing her fingers along the enclosing walls, counting the doorways that she passed. She tripped as her toe caught the first of the stone steps, but was able to push out with her arms and brace herself on the walls on either side before falling.