A Razor Wrapped in Silk (29 page)

‘Do you not ever ask yourself whom are we fighting, Porfiry Petrovich?’

‘I am not fighting anyone,’ said Porfiry. There was a note of wounded innocence in the assertion. ‘There is a lot to consider here, Pavel Pavlovich. Are we really prepared to accuse Yelena Filippovna of murdering three children to whom she has the most tangential of connections, on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence?’

‘You saw the marks. You saw the ring. It is not fanciful. That bruise is a precise imprint of the emblem on her ring – which she wore twisted round in such a way as to inflict just such a bruise.’

‘But the woman is dead. She cannot defend herself against the charge. And as yet, we have no motive.’

‘We must … speak to Maria Petrovna.’ Virginsky’s eyes darted uneasily, as if even he shrank from what he was suggesting.

Porfiry sighed. ‘Even to voice such allegations to someone who was a friend of the deceased is brutal.’

‘Frankly I am surprised at your fastidiousness, Porfiry Petrovich. You have never baulked at brutality before.’

Porfiry met this accusation with a look of mild rebuke. ‘But she is dead, Pavel Pavlovich!’ he insisted.

‘What difference does that make?’

‘She cannot be saved. We can only pray for her soul.’

‘With all respect, it is not
our
job to concern ourselves with saving people, Porfiry Petrovich. We must only uncover the truth and set in motion whatever judicial process arises from that truth. We are not concerned with souls.’

‘Perhaps you are right.’ Porfiry felt suddenly light-headed. ‘But what if she is innocent!’ He made the cry plaintively. ‘The note does not accuse her directly.’

‘Now it is you who are making a specious assumption, Porfiry Petrovich. You are assuming that whoever wrote the note knows who killed the children. But we cannot even be certain that they are referring to the same dead children. The note speaks only of children
killed by the oppressive machine
. That could just as easily refer to children dying of malnutrition, unnecessary disease, or factory accidents.’

‘If whoever wrote the note fulfils his promise, we are facing a bloodbath – in which all the victims will be highborn.’

‘A revolution, in other words.’

Porfiry stirred the vaporous air in front of his face with the birch whisk, as if to see more clearly.

‘If Yelena Filippovna did not kill these children then someone else did. Someone wearing a Romanov ring. Possibly – it is not beyond the bounds of possibility – a member of the Imperial Family. Perhaps you now regret allowing
the Tsarevich the opportunity to make his escape to the Crimea?’

‘No!’ cried Porfiry. ‘Will you go from accusing a dead woman to making unspeakable allegations against the Tsarevich?’

Dim shapes stirred in the hot mist. The murmurs of outrage and excitement were audible.

‘Our first loyalty is to the truth, Porfiry Petrovich. Now, thanks to the Tsar’s own reforms, no one is above the law.’

‘But it always comes back to this question of why. Why would the Tsarevich murder these children?’

‘I do not insist that it is he. It could be any member of the family.’

‘You will exclude the Tsar, I trust!’

Virginsky rippled his brows. ‘To come back to your question – why would anyone? Perhaps there are some crimes concerning which the question of motive is irrelevant.’

‘Not satisfactory, I’m afraid, Pavel Pavlovich. There is always a motive, however twisted, petty, or tenuous. The motive never justifies the crime, never fully explains it. And we may divine something else at work within the criminal’s mind, whether it be sickness or …’ Porfiry looked away from Virginsky. ‘Some other influence,’ he added reticently, almost sheepishly. Virginsky narrowed his eyes, noting the evasion. ‘But the criminal himself will always provide a motive, in which he believes, categorically.’

‘Is it not sometimes the case that a criminal will provide more than one motive, and that often they are contradictory?’

‘Sometimes the criminal is the last person to understand his own motivation. However, that does not mean that we, as investigators, must forego the attempt to understand. If we
give up insisting on a motive, then …’ Porfiry stared into the steam. He had the fleeting sense that it swirled in an infinite abyss, that there was nothing behind it, and therefore nothing behind anything.

‘Then what?’

Porfiry’s expression as he sought Virginsky’s eyes was despairing. ‘Then we have opened the door to moral chaos.’

‘That door is already open,’ answered Virginsky glibly. ‘You know as well as anybody that man is an irrational creature.’ When Porfiry made no reply but stared in mute indignation, Virginsky added: ‘And evil. You were going to say the word yourself, were you not? You drew back at the last moment because you understood that it undermined your argument.’

‘What do I care about arguments!’

‘In that case, you were afraid.’

‘No!’

‘Well then, it was to maintain your position. You do have your position, Porfiry Petrovich: that man, even the vilest criminal, is capable of salvation. You cannot allow that there may exist a man who is irredeemably evil. A man, for example, who would kill children just for the sport of it.’

‘On the contrary. I know such men exist. I have met them and talked to them. And listened to their motives.’

‘Did you manage to save any of them?’ Virginsky could not keep the sarcasm out of his question.

Porfiry closed his eyes and shook his head minutely.

‘No,’ confirmed Virginsky, relentlessly. ‘If you accept that such men exist, then logic insists that they may be found within any social class. Within any family. You can hardly believe that the propensity to evil may be contained by social boundaries.’

‘Enough!’ Porfiry began to thrash himself energetically with the birch whisk.

‘What do you intend to do?’

Porfiry Petrovich lifted the conical hat from his head and looked inside it, as if he expected to find the answer to Virginsky’s question there. ‘We must do our job. That is to say, we must slowly and methodically gather evidence.’ He restored the hat to its former position and met Virginsky’s challenging look blankly. ‘As far as the deaths of the children are concerned, we have hardly begun to scratch the surface. It is certainly too early to jump to conclusions.’

‘You think that is what I have done?’

Porfiry held out the birch whisk, as if it were an olive branch. ‘I think you are in need of this.’ When Virginsky did not take it, Porfiry shrugged and settled back into the heat.

*

After losing himself in the melting heat of the
banya
, the subsequent plunge into an icy pool restored the edges of his being with the vicious shock of a thousand slaps landing simultaneously. Once again his heart hammered out alarm. There was something reckless, almost self-destructive, about the rate of its pummelling. Porfiry felt the stab and twist of new pains. He tasted his own mortality. More than that, he sensed his heart at the edge of capacity. And yet, strangely, it seemed to gain strength from this forcible reminder of its own frailty.

Drying himself briskly with the threadbare towel, Porfiry acknowledged a new energy in his muscles, a lightness to his bones, and a mental clarity that he had not experienced for a long time. He felt almost sorry for Virginsky at the sight of the
younger man’s sullen, graceless movements. His limbs seemed to be weighed down with unhappiness.

‘Who are
you
fighting, Pavel Pavlovich?’

Virginsky gave Porfiry a guarded look as he held his towel in front of himself defensively.

‘Did you not ask me that question earlier?’ explained Porfiry. ‘I am intrigued to know how you would answer it.’

‘The criminals, of course,’ said Virginsky.

Porfiry laughed appreciatively. ‘Correct answer! Well done!’

Porfiry continued to pat himself dry. ‘There is much work still to do. Difficult work. This is a murky business. And it is set to become even murkier. Other agencies and interests are sure to get involved, if they are not already. We need to know who our friends are, for it will be far from easy to discern our enemies.’ Porfiry sensed Virginsky shrink back under the force of his scrutiny. ‘I need to know that I can count on you, Pavel Pavlovich.’

Virginsky’s mouth tightened pensively. Neither man said a word as they dressed.

*

Back in his clothes, Porfiry’s skin felt not just cleansed but renewed.

They took a carriage north along Liteyny Prospekt. There was a moist chill to the air, which was heavy with the threat of snow. But their naked exposure to the extremes of the bath house had fortified them for whatever shocks the climate held. Both men fixed their gaze on the District Courthouse as they rattled past it. The solid square building, with its high arched windows, like wide-open eyes searching out the truth, seemed to be the physical embodiment of an ideal.

Porfiry caught the challenge brimming in Virginsky’s look. ‘We must place our faith in it, Pavel Pavlovich,’ he said gently.

Virginsky blinked and shook his head as if he had been roused from a deep reverie. His brow contracted into a questioning frown.

‘Progress,’ continued Porfiry, ‘the progress of Russia, is taking place in there, through the exercise of legality. The judicial process, Pavel Pavlovich, the open examination of evidence, the presenting and arguing of cases, without prejudice or fear … progress. Adversarial dispute … progress. Cases heard before a jury … progress. And we – you and I – we are the agents of progress. Simply by doing our job, by investigating crimes, gathering evidence, pursuing leads, interviewing suspects – in so many ways are we taking Russia forward. We do not need a revolution, Pavel Pavlovich. The change you desire will come about simply by virtue of us doing our job.’

‘That is what
you
believe.’ Virginsky’s emphasis sought to distance him from Porfiry’s optimism.

‘Yes.’

‘But the tsar who gave this licence may just as easily take it away.’

‘He cannot. Besides, he does not want to.’

‘Perhaps not now, not today, not this tsar.’

‘Is that what lies behind your suspicions of the Tsarevich? Fear of a reactionary backlash?’

‘Do you consider me so naïve?’

‘It is not naivety, Pavel Pavlovich. On the contrary, it shows a sophisticated understanding of the power with which our office is invested. However, to bring a charge against an individual for political reasons would be an abuse of that power.
Anyone who did so would be guilty of perpetrating an injustice. I trust you would agree with that?’

Virginsky grunted his reluctant assent.

‘You cannot bring about a just society through injustice. In the same way that you cannot reach the truth through lying – though many are seeking to do exactly that.’

The carriage drew up outside the Surgical-Medical Academy just as the first fine particles of snow began to swirl in the grey.

‘By doing our job, Pavel Pavlovich. Carefully, meticulously, patiently.’ With that Porfiry forced himself out of the carriage, like a cork popping from a bottle.

27

I. P. S.

‘You have come back?’ Professor Bubnov held the expression of distaste that he had worn all the way across the foyer.

‘Yes,’ said Porfiry, his eyes flickering coyly as though he believed Professor Bubnov’s exclamation had been prompted by irrepressible joy. ‘We went away. And now we have come back.’

‘I see.’ Professor Bubnov touched the tip of one finger delicately to his lips. ‘This is about the initials.’

Porfiry gave an unconvincing performance of surprise. ‘Ah yes, the initials! How kind of you to remind us. Have you had any success in interpreting them?’

‘I know nothing about the meaning of any initials.’ Professor Bubnov seemed to be picking his words advisedly. ‘However, there is a man here who may be able to shed some light on them.’

‘Where is this marvellous luminary? You must take us to him immediately.’

‘He is not a luminary. He is a very lowly individual.’ If Professor Bubnov understood Porfiry’s pun he gave no indication of enjoying it. ‘Smerdyakov is a porter of sorts. It is his job to receive the bodies from the police.’

‘Then he truly is the man to clear up the mystery.’

They were taken to a large storeroom at the rear of the academy, with wide double doors of an unloading bay open to
the elements. A cloud of tobacco smoke hung over a screened-off area in one corner. Professor Bubnov approached the screen, seemingly to converse with the smoke. Eventually, a man dressed in a peasant’s belted shirt and high boots, with a pipe clamped between his teeth, stepped out of the booth. He had a lean, strangely bent face, his long jaw being at an angle to the rest of his head. His eyes were pinpricks of cunning. He took a moment to get the measure of Porfiry and Virginsky before approaching them.

‘You want to talk to me?’

‘You take receipt of bodies that are brought here by the police?’ Smerdyakov flashed a glance back towards the professor, who was in the process of vanishing beneath Smerdyakov’s smoke trail.

‘A-aye?’

‘Could you explain to me what happens? The police bring the bodies here … ?’

‘A-aye?’

‘And you record the receipt in the ledger book?’

‘No.’ Smerdyakov was startlingly emphatic in his denial. ‘I am not the one who writes in the book.’

‘But you do make some kind of record?’

‘I fill in a chit.’

‘I see. And the chit goes with the body to the morgue?’

‘A-aye?’

Porfiry experienced a strange surge of gratification at the return of the equivocal refrain.

‘What details are recorded on the chit?’

‘You know. The standard ones.’

‘Please be more specific. I’m afraid I don’t know at all.’

‘Sex. Age.’

‘You are qualified to determine the age?’

‘I have a go.’

‘What else?’

‘Date. Time.’

‘And the details you put on the chit are subsequently entered into the ledger book?’

‘A-aye?’

‘Who is responsible for that?’