‘Of course,’ said Tatyana Ruslanovna. Porfiry was beginning to find her knowing irony tiresome.
‘Young lady. A man is dead. This man, I believe, was once someone close to you. Although your father is necessarily a suspect, I am not absolutely convinced that he is the perpetrator. What happened yesterday in Setochkin’s study remains a mystery. It could be argued that you yourself have a motive for killing Setochkin. Therefore, you are a suspect too. I urge you to take this seriously. You may very well find yourself in one of my cells sooner than you thought.’
Tatyana Ruslanovna clicked her tongue and turned her face away from him in a dismissive shrug. ‘The key is at the back of one of the drawers in his desk. The right-hand drawer.’
‘Thank you.’
‘However, that drawer is locked.’
‘I see,’ said Porfiry rather stiffly. ‘And where is the key for that drawer?’
‘That is in the left-hand drawer of the desk.’
‘And is that drawer locked?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And the key?’
Tatyana Ruslanovna turned on him a face brimming with mischief and excitement. ‘Where do you think? You’re a detective, aren’t you? Where would you look for it?’
Porfiry gave it only a moment’s thought. ‘Knowing your father as I do, knowing the tensions that his soul is subject to, the very real conflicts that torment him, and for which I pity him, as a man. .’ He looked steadily at Tatyana Ruslanovna. ‘I would not be surprised if you found the key hidden in the pages of his Bible. In the New Testament. If I were to offer a more precise opinion, I would say somewhere among the verses of the Book of Revelation, perhaps in proximity to chapter two, where Jezebel is mentioned, or, more likely, chapter seventeen, which as you know refers to the Whore of Babylon.’
Tatyana’s mouth dropped open, and her sense of her own cleverness seemed to fall out of it.
At that point, however, the interview was interrupted by another commotion outside, in which the voice of Nastasya Petrovna once again dominated. A moment later, the door to Porfiry’s chambers opened and a tall, severely impeccable man wearing the buttons of a high-ranking civil servant entered. In addition, he was decorated with the medal of the order of St Stanislav.
Nastasya Petrovna’s bustling form was visible behind him, protruding on either side. ‘He is here! Our saviour!’ Nastasya Petrovna peered around the man’s elbow, her mouth now pinched with vindication. She glared at her daughter. ‘You said he would not come but he has. You were wrong. Cruel and wrong.’ To Porfiry, she added, ‘You must not believe a word she says. She speaks only out of spite. What did we do to deserve such an ungrateful child?’ Nastasya Petrovna threw up her hands.
Porfiry rose from his seat. ‘Yaroslav Nikolayevich, good-day to you.’
‘Porfiry Petrovich.’ His name sounded like a summoning to account.
‘You are in trouble now, little man,’ cried Nastasya Petrovna triumphantly. ‘It is not for the likes of you to lock Ruslan Vladimirovich Vakhramev in a cell.’
The prokuror turned stiffly to Nastasya Petrovna. ‘Madam, kindly wait outside.’ It looked for the moment as if further protest would erupt from her, but she remembered herself in time and instead smiled simperingly. ‘And take your daughter with you.’
‘Tatyana!’
The girl rose slowly with a final tilt of her head and sauntered after her mother’s sweeping bulk. Virginsky’s magnetised gaze tracked her.
‘Thank God she is gone,’ said Prokuror Liputin as the door was closed behind them. The usual impervious dignity of his expression for the moment gave way to an almost hounded, certainly human, vulnerability. ‘She is the most annoying woman I know,’ continued Liputin, ‘but she is a friend of my wife’s.’ A spasm of regret tensed the muscles of his face. He then noticed Virginsky and his expression became guarded. He turned quizzically to Porfiry.
‘Allow me to introduce Pavel Pavlovich. A new recruit to our department. His appointment was approved by your office, naturally. ’
‘Ah yes, I think I remember the letter now. But were you not once. .?’
‘Pavel Pavlovich recently graduated from the university with great honours,’ said Porfiry quickly.
‘Your face looks somehow familiar.’ Liputin frowned at Virginsky, then shook his head slowly. ‘Now, what is this all about, Porfiry Petrovich? I was about to leave for Pavlovsk today. I do not appreciate this delay.’
‘I am sorry that it has inconvenienced you, Yaroslav Nikolayevich. That was not my intention. It is not a straightforward case, however. A man, a former officer of the Izmailovsky regiment, one Colonel Setochkin, has been shot dead. That lady’s husband, Ruslan Vladimirovich Vakhramev, was discovered minutes after with the gun in his hand. The prima facie evidence is incriminating, I am afraid. No one else was seen to go into the room — or out of it, for that matter. There is no question of suicide. ’
Yaroslav Nikolayevich murmured distractedly. ‘If I were to act as guarantor for Vakhramev, if I were to take him with me to Pavlovsk. .? Believe me, Porfiry Petrovich, this is not something I undertake lightly. For one thing, I will have to endure that woman’s company for the duration of the train journey.’
‘Pavlovsk? That would not be very convenient if we need to speak to him again, as I feel sure we will.’
‘No, no, you are quite right. Here, I have a better solution. I will remain in St Petersburg and Vakhramev can stay with me; we will pack the woman and her daughter off to Pavlovsk to be with my wife. How would that suit you?’
Porfiry could not conceal his surprise at the prokuror’s conspiratorial familiarity. ‘He would be, in a manner of speaking, under house arrest with you?’
‘If you wish to put it like that.’
Porfiry thought for a moment. ‘Very well. There will have to be police officers in attendance. We will need Nikodim Fomich’s consent. ’
‘You may leave Nikodim Fomich to me,’ said Yaroslav Nikolayevich, drawing himself up with a sigh.
A mirroring movement from Virginsky drew the attention of the two other men. Liputin considered him sternly. ‘If I remember rightly, Porfiry Petrovich, there was a moment when it seemed very probable that this young man was a murderer.’
‘Yes, indeed, Yaroslav Nikolayevich.’
‘Let us hope that we have a similar outcome to look forward to in the case of Vakhramev.’ Liputin’s look to Porfiry as he said this was one of command rather than hope.
Porfiry smiled and nodded automatically as the prokuror left to meet the importuning cries of Nastasya Petrovna.
6
Salytov looked up at the glowing sky, away from the voices and the snatches of raucous music thrown out from basement taverns. In this nocturnal softening of the sun, some strange wildness was unbound, a spirit of recklessness and licence. The flowing waterways, the Moika, Fontanka, all the branches of the Neva, even the stinking Yekaterininsky Canal, shimmered. Everything was stirred and intoxicated. Salytov felt it too. Who could sleep at night in the summer in St Petersburg, without first exhausting themselves on the streets, wandering the embankments, pacing squares as wide as the days, in search of the promise of a passing scent or danger?
And it was now that they came out, in all their shameless glee. The Haymarket crawled with whores. Some of them, almost certainly the illegal ones, backed off at the sight of his uniform, though among this group were those too diseased or drunk to care. The yellow ticket carriers were undeterred by his appearance. They either ignored him and carried on their business or, seeing through the uniform to the man, approached him with brazen, beckoning eyes and coaxing words. Even a policeman has to fuck, was evidently their reasoning, as well as their experience.
He wanted to let them know that they disgusted him; that he saw through their daubs of face paint and tawdry dresses, even through their soft flesh to the soulless bones beneath. Without doubt, he wanted to punish them, even the legals, for the humiliation that their glances and their words inflicted. For is it not humiliating to be reminded of the things that are beyond our power, the forces that control us? At the very least, he wanted to inconveniencethem, to take them in, shake them up, scare them, if necessary hurt them. Then perhaps, when he had made his position and his power clear, he would consent to their proposals.