‘But isn’t your father still in Petersburg? Would not he and your stepmother appreciate a visit from you?’
‘That can wait.’
‘As you wish.’
They walked in silence along Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street.
‘Will there be anyone in the apartment?’ asked Virginsky at last.
‘No. The household, apart from Vakhramev himself, have removed to Pavlovsk. Vakhramev, as you know, is the guest of our esteemed superior, the Prokuror Liputin.’
‘Is it right, do you think, the way that between you, you drove a coach and horses through the justice system? Simply because he is a friend of the prokuror, he is allowed to go free. It is a pity that I did not have such friends when I was in a similar predicament.’
‘I am confident that Ruslan Vladimirovich will not abscond.’
‘That has not answered my question.’
‘Very well. Let me say that it is right, it is very right and proper that a friend of the prokuror, or to be more accurate, the husband of a friend of the prokuror’s wife, should receive preferential treatment in this way. It is right because it is necessary. What is necessary is always right. Is that not so?’
‘But it isn’t fair.’
‘Ah, Pavel Pavlovich, how are we to cure you of this morbid preoccupation with fairness?’ Porfiry looked up at the precise geometric facade of the street, following the upward lines of the windows to the pale sky. ‘This is the one, I think.’
They climbed to the first landing. A brass plaque on the wall beside the white double panelled door announced Ruslan Vladimirovich Vakhramev. Porfiry Petrovich placed the key in the lock and looked at Virginsky, who felt again the thrill of transgression that he had experienced reading the letters in Meyer’s study.
‘Where did you get the key?’ he asked as Porfiry opened the door.
‘Vakhramev supplied it. He had little choice.’
‘But does he know what we are looking for?’
Porfiry shook his head as he closed the door. ‘Neither is he aware that we know where to find it.’
There was an air of stagnant domesticity about the flat. The aroma of a recent meal, or possibly the accumulation of many such aromas, lingered in the entrance hall. A stand by the door was fully charged with canes and umbrellas. The floor was of worn painted boards and the walls were papered with a dull geometric design, reminiscent of masonry. The entrance hall was L-SHAPED and doors led off from every side.
Porfiry opened one door to the left. ‘Kitchen and washroom through there. And servants’ quarters beyond, presumably. So. . let us try this one.’
They entered a drawing room. The same wallpaper continued in here. A broad metal stovepipe running almost the full height of the room cut into the wall. There was a sofa with a table pushed up against it. The table had a cloth over it and an oil lamp in the centre. Virginsky had the sense of the social gatherings that had taken place around it, and imagined the ghost-like faces of the family turning in surprise as they entered. The shadowless dusk of a summer night lay like a soft filter over everything. It seemed to be a third presence in the room with them, and Virginsky felt the need to speak to dispel it.
‘We are like thieves in the night.’
Porfiry seemed surprised by the remark. ‘It is a necessary part of the job, I am afraid. This is what we deal in. People’s lives. In the course of your work, you will discover far more about people than you would wish to know. If this makes you uncomfortable, then I fear that the role of an investigator may not be suited to you, after all.’
‘Are you not uncomfortable?’
Porfiry gave the impression of being even more taken aback.
‘Or do you, perhaps, relish it?’
‘Relish? No. I do not believe there is any prurient element to my constitution, if that is what you’re implying. It is merely necessary, as I said.’
‘And what is necessary is right.’
Porfiry blinked in a self-conscious display of patience. ‘One must overcome one’s misgivings. Besides, what we may find may prove Ruslan Vladimirovich’s innocence, or at least support it. If that is the case, then I am sure he will forgive us this. . intrusion.’
Virginsky raised his eyebrows sceptically.
Another door led off from the drawing room, which Porfiry tried now. ‘Ah! This I imagine is Tatyana Ruslanovna’s room,’ said Porfiry, stepping through the doorway.
‘What are you doing?’ cried Virginsky. ‘There is no need to go in there, surely?’ But Porfiry did not hear him, or at least did not acknowledge him, so he had no alternative but to follow.
Virginsky was somehow surprised to see the omnipresent wallpaperhere too, as if he expected Tatyana Ruslanovna to impose her personality more forcefully on her living space. Indeed, at first he was at a loss to understand why Porfiry had assumed this was the daughter’s room, unless it was the subtly invasive perfume. But then he saw the toys, the large doll on the bed, the doll’s house on the floor, the rocking horse in one corner.
‘And she wonders why they treat her like a child,’ said Porfiry. ‘She is a strange, contradictory creature, do you not agree? Fascinating, but dangerous. Is she really as worldly as she would have us believe? And why does she cling to these relics of her childhood? Perhaps she grieves the passing of it more than she acknowledges.’
‘She is neither child nor woman,’ said Virginsky, absent-mindedly running one hand over the smooth surface of the room’s stovepipe. It was as if by this touch he believed he could possess her life.
Now Porfiry was opening another door, which faced the one they had entered by. ‘And here it is. Her father’s study. Everything is connected. Room connected to room. Life connected to life. That is the way in St Petersburg.’
Virginsky felt a sudden firmness in the beating of his heart at their proximity to their object. Something too disturbed him about the juxtaposition of rooms.
Now the insistent wallpaper struck Virginsky as an infestation. He was repelled by it. He saw its straight lines and unvarying angles as the imposition of an unfeeling authority, of which the study was undoubtedly the source. No wonder she rebelled against him, he thought.
A icon of the Redeemer looked down from one corner.
On the desk was a large leather-bound Slavonic Bible. Porfiry moved briskly to it, crossed himself, and heaved it open. He turned the rough-edged, thick pages eagerly. At last he held up a small key. His smile was triumphant. ‘It was chapter seventeen.’ Virginsky was beset by a strange dread.
Porfiry sat down at the desk to try the key in the left-hand drawer.
‘Do you really want to see what is written in those diaries?’ asked Virginsky, voicing his dread.
Porfiry hesitated and looked at him questioningly. ‘We have no choice.’
‘But think of her reading them. I cannot help feel that it is these diaries that have made her the way she is. That have corrupted her.’
Porfiry nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes. They may have played a part.’
‘I find myself exceedingly reluctant to know what is written there,’ confessed Virginsky.
‘Sometimes one must be forced to do what one most desires,’ said Porfiry, looking up at him with a strange expression.
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Virginsky. He felt the heat of his rage in his face.
Porfiry didn’t answer immediately. He turned back to the Bible and flicked through the pages, looking for a passage. ‘Here we are. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians. Chapter five, verse two. Sami bo vy izvestno vestye, yako den Gospoden, yakozhe tat v noshchi, tako priidet. Which, if my understanding of Church Slavonic is correct, can be translated as “For you know perfectly well that the word of the Lord comes as a thief in the night”.’
‘Your point?’
‘My point is that even subterfuge may result in good.’