‘Thank you,’ said Porfiry, looking Vakhramev in the eye. ‘You have helped us very much. This has provided the first real breakthrough of the case and I realise that it has been hard for you to talk of these things. Allow me to shake your hand.’ Porfiry stood and held out his hand.
A sob of gratitude shook Vakhramev. The tears sprang to his eyes as he took Porfiry’s hand.
8
Salytov stood at the entrance to the yard, in full view, watching the boy on stilts. Every now and then Tolya would lose his balance and jump off. He would regard the lieutenant defiantly before climbing back on and resuming his strange stiff-gaited walk. Gradually, the periods between his falls lengthened, and at last he was able to totter over to Salytov. He held on to the trembling handles grimly as he looked down on the police officer.
‘You’re not a very good spy.’
‘I want you to know that I have my eye on you.’
‘I was released. Without charge. You have no right.’
‘What do you know about rights?’ said Salytov.
Without warning, Salytov swung back his boot and launched it at Tolya’s stilts. The boy fell heavily. When he picked himself up, there was horse ordure over his clothes. His hands were bleeding.
‘You should be more careful,’ observed Salytov.
Tolya glared back at Salytov. ‘I have told Monsieur Ballet about this. He intends to lodge a complaint.’
‘Let him. I have closed his shop down once. I can do it again.’
‘Leave me be.’
‘What was that? A command? Surely you have learnt the dangers that ensue when you raise yourself above your station.’ The boy’s stilts lay one on top of the other on the ground. Salytov jumped on them, snapping one over the pivot of the other.
‘One day. .’ Tolya began.
But Salytov’s mocking, questioning leer discouraged him from saying more.
‘How nice that you have come to visit us,’ said Natalya Ivanovna, holding Virginsky by both hands. Her smile uplifted him. He felt it pour into him.
‘At last!’ added Virginsky’s father warmly.
Virginsky chose to take offence. ‘You could have come to see me at any time.’ He let go of his stepmother’s hands.
‘Please. Let’s not argue. The important thing is that you are here. And we are glad of it.’ Natalya Ivanovna’s smile now was anxious, straining to hold on to a moment already gone.
‘What do you think of the suite?’ said Virginsky’s father with a satisfied smile, as the sweep of his arm offered the sitting room to Virginsky. ‘A good set of rooms, is it not? And the view, of course. Natasha had to have her view of the river. It is an extra expense. But I am not the man to begrudge a beautiful woman that which she has set her heart upon.’
Virginsky looked about without commenting on the quality or size of the accommodation. At last he said: ‘I’m surprised you have requested a room overlooking one of the city’s stinking waterways. However, you must dispose of your money in whatever way you deem appropriate, father. It matters not to me. Please be assured that I expect nothing from you in that respect.’
The elder Virginsky’s lips twitched apprehensively. ‘There is no need to talk like this. Your inheritance is secure, you must know that.’
‘Then let us talk no more of it,’ said Virginsky, with some attempt at magnanimity. ‘Well, I have some news for you,’ he resumed briskly, but immediately regretted his tone and dampened it. ‘It concerns your friend, the gentleman you were visiting the day I met you. Colonel Setochkin.’
‘You know Setochkin?’
‘No. I don’t know him. Not personally, at least.’ One side of Virginsky’s mouth contracted. ‘I am afraid to have to tell you that Colonel Setochkin is dead.’ Virginsky looked down immediately.
‘No!’ cried his father. Out of the corner of his eye, Virginsky noticed his father’s arm float uselessly.
‘I am sorry,’ said Virginsky. He had the sense that he had unleashed something he could not control. To that extent, his apology was sincere. He thought of Porfiry Petrovich, of the power he seemed to draw from such disclosures: it repelled him, and he judged himself loathsome for having coveted it. ‘I had no idea you were such good friends. I have never heard you talk of him.’
‘It is just the shock of it, that’s all,’ said his father. ‘My dear, if you are to deliver such messages in future, it would be as well to adopt a more appropriate demeanour. So, Setochkin is dead. It was his heart, I suppose. But he was still a relatively young man, and he seemed quite healthy the last time we saw him.’
‘He was shot,’ said Virginsky. ‘Murdered. It is one of the cases I am working on with Porfiry Petrovich.’
‘How extraordinary.’ Virginsky senior found a chair and sank into it. His expression clouded, then he looked at his son wonderingly. ‘But this unfortunate event, it is not the reason for your visit, surely?’
‘You are my father, I am your son. Is it not natural that I should visit you? I recollect that you invited me.’ Virginsky looked away, abashed. ‘I merely mentioned Setochkin’s death because I believe you were coming from visiting him that day when I met you. It is just one of those connections that the mind makes.’
‘I see.’ His father’s tone was guarded. ‘Then it is not the case that you suspect me of somehow being involved in Setochkin’s death?’
Virginsky waited perhaps too long before replying. ‘No.’ After a further pause, he added, rather self-consciously, ‘It is merely that it is a striking coincidence. As an investigator, one learns to distrust coincidence.’
‘As an investigator?’ His father seemed to grow in his chair as he loomed forward threateningly. ‘What about as a son?’
Virginsky looked at Natalya Ivanovna. Her beauty was indisputable; his need to confirm it was a compulsion that he felt destroying him. ‘What was your business with Setochkin?’ Virginsky’s voice was cold. He did not look at his father as he asked the question.
‘Has he sent you here to interrogate me, this Porfiry Petrovich of yours?’
‘Porfiry Petrovich does not know I am here. He does not even know of your connection with Setochkin. I have kept that from him. There are other things I have kept from him too. This visit is not part of the official investigation. As you see, I am not in my uniform. I am here as your son. I ask you these questions as your son. Please answer me candidly as my father.’
‘Then I am suspected. By you, at least.’
‘I am trying to keep you out of it. For that reason I must learn as much as possible about your association with this man. If you knew the full details of the case, you would understand why.’
‘Then enlighten me.’
‘I cannot.’
‘I have always been too lenient with you. I listened too much to your mother. And this is how I am repaid.’
‘I would ask you not to speak of my mother in that way. Not here.’ Virginsky’s glance towards Natalya Ivanovna was sullen and pointed.
A related anger held father and son to silence. Natalya Ivanovna’s mediating smile was sweetly pained. ‘This breaks my heart,’ she said, ‘to see the two men I love most dearly at war.’
Virginsky heard his father say: ‘You are right, my dear. Let us talk of other things.’
But it seemed there were no other things left for them to talk of. Virginsky stared, absurdly, at an insignificant point on the floor, as if the fixity of his gaze was holding the room together. In a way it was: he knew that if he looked away from that point, there would be nothing left for him but to leave. Without releasing his gaze, he addressed the floor, his voice charged with aggressive reasonableness: ‘What my father must realise is that my filial loyalty alone will not be enough to protect him from the enquiries that must inevitably ensue once it is discovered that he is an associate of the dead man, and that he visited him the day before his death. He insists that I, as his son, consider him above all suspicion. Very well. I do and I will. However, there are others, more powerful than I, who will be moved by no such familial obligation. I know myself, from bitter experience, what it is to be suspected by them. It is because I wish to preserve him from a similar experience that I have asked a question on my own account. To be under suspicion is indeed unpleasant. To be incarcerated is far worse. I fear that my father, due to his age and habits, would be ill equipped to survive the latter. My belief was that he would prefer the enquiries of a dutiful son to those of an indifferent authority. I am sorry if I was mistaken in this. Good day.’ Virginsky bowed to the point on the floor and began to turn.