Virginsky could not help looking at his father, who met his gaze then looked down sharply.
Natalya Ivanovna drank her tea through the sugar crystal. It seemed she sensed the tension and meaning of the silent exchange between her husband and stepson. She swallowed hurriedly and said, ‘You are referring to this fellow Golyadkin, are you not?’ She cast solicitous glances at her husband. ‘You believe he may be Colonel Setochkin’s murderer?’
‘Golyadkin cannot be Colonel Setochkin’s murderer, I am afraid. He himself died in a boating accident some years ago.’ Porfiry sipped from his tea. He closed his eyes for a moment, complacently almost, then suddenly stared over his cup, which he held to his mouth without drinking from it.
‘What is it?’ said Virginsky.
Porfiry lowered the cup slowly. He smiled but said nothing, basking in the speed of his eyelids’ oscillation. Instead he directed a mildly enquiring glance to Virginsky’s father.
He appeared discomfited by the magistrate’s attention. ‘But I don’t understand what all this has to do with Setochkin,’ he complained. ‘There is really nothing connecting Setochkin with Chermak School.’
‘Nothing?’ challenged Porfiry. ‘Apart from the fact that his murderer may have attended there?’ Porfiry sucked his tea up noisily and continued to watch Virginsky’s father with a greedy eye.
A distant rumble of thunder at first startled, then relieved, and, finally, depressed them.
3
The savagery of the storm cowed them. Hurled from a booming sky, the rain pelted the windowpanes in an angry fusillade. They could hear it hammering on the roof too, as if its rage was directed against them personally. The air was chill now; a stealthy gloom had taken away every memory of the sun.
Porfiry joined Virginsky at the window and watched the rain streak through the charged darkness. A flash of brilliance lit up the devastated patch of the city before them. Across the Yekaterininsky Canal, its surface frantic with motion, the tenement buildings behind the Haymarket seemed to shiver and flinch in the glare. Hunched figures on the embankments were momentarily frozen in their dash towards doorways. Another flash, a second later, and they had disappeared.
‘If this keeps up, the Ditch will flood,’ said Virginsky, as if he took pleasure from the prospect.
Virginsky’s father’s voice behind him reminded Porfiry of his guests. ‘It will be impossible to get a cab, of course.’
‘Oh, but you mustn’t think of going in this,’ said Porfiry turning, though in truth he was ready for them to go. He craved a cigarette and there was work to be done. In effect, it amounted to the same thing.
Virginsky’s father smiled weakly and cast an eye at the hostile weather. It seemed that he had merely been voicing a wish, the unattainability of which he well understood. There was resignation in his face and posture. ‘So. . it seems we are imprisoned by the storm.’
‘I for one am glad of the rain,’ said Natalya Ivanovna firmly. ‘It will lighten the oppression in the air. I hope it will freshen the generally noxious atmosphere of the city too.’
‘Indeed,’ said Porfiry. ‘If I may say so, you have not chosen to visit St Petersburg in its pleasantest season. Most people in fact choose to vacate the city in the summer.’
‘Those who can afford to,’ said Virginsky.
‘We had little choice in the matter,’ admitted Virginsky’s father. ‘The business that brought us here was pressing.’
‘Your business with Colonel Setochkin, you mean?’ said Porfiry.
Virginsky’s father’s eyes stood out with distaste. ‘So, we are back to that, are we?’
‘Will you be pursuing the sale of the land through another agent, now that Colonel Setochkin is dead?’ Porfiry tried to make the enquiry sound casual.
‘He was not my agent in any formal sense. He was merely an individual who was facilitating a transaction. But no, to answer your question. The need for the sale is no longer pressing.’
‘How fortunate!’ said Porfiry warmly. ‘That is good news.’ A moment later Porfiry’s expression clouded. ‘This change in circumstances, it would not have anything to do with Colonel Setochkin’s death, would it?’
‘Really!’ cried Virginsky’s father, rising to his feet. ‘That is the most despicable suggestion I have ever heard. Storm or no storm, I will not remain here to be subjected to this innuendo. Come along, Natalya Ivanovna.’ He took his wife’s teacup and placed it with his own on the tray. ‘Unless, sir, you are intending to formally arrest me?’
‘Not at all,’ said Porfiry, who gave every impression of being baffled by the outburst. ‘But really, I cannot let you go out into that storm. At the very least, allow me to give you some umbrellas. You would be amazed how many get left here.’
‘He once gave me a dead man’s boots,’ remarked Virginsky as Porfiry fussed to fetch two umbrellas from a stand by the door.
Virginsky’s father took his with a look of indignation, as if this represented the final insult. Perhaps his son’s comment had prejudiced him against any gift from the magistrate. ‘And may we consider ourselves free to leave St Petersburg?’
‘You may consider yourselves free to do whatever you wish,’ said Porfiry with a slight bow.
‘This came.’
Porfiry watched the receding figures of Virginsky Senior and Natalya Ivanovna. They crossed the floor with stiffened gait, carrying umbrellas tightly furled like grudges. Other figures cut across them, some steaming from the drenchings they had just received. Then the couple was lost to him, absorbed by the loose congress of the receiving hall.
He looked down at the letter Zamyotov had thrust at him. He took it uncertainly. It bore the crest of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Department of Public Health. He looked into Zamyotov’s face in amazement. ‘We’ve had a reply!’
‘Contain your excitement,’ said Zamyotov.
The brief, though beautifully scripted, note was signed by one A. I. Rostanev.
Re: Yekaterininsky Canal adjacent to Stolyarny Lane.
Your letter regarding the above has been investigated. No action was deemed necessary.
Porfiry read the lines again. An astonished rage rushed through him, rising quickly to his face. ‘No action necessary!’
‘I told you it was a waste of time,’ said Zamyotov, attending to a thread on the cuff of his frock coat.
‘This is outrageous.’ Porfiry rapped the paper with the nails of one hand. ‘Investigated? What do they mean? Nobody has been here. No one has talked to me.’
‘Ah,’ said Zamyotov, becoming uncharacteristically shame-faced. ‘I believe an official from that department did come here. But you were out.’
‘But that’s no good. He needed to talk to me. He should have come back. He should have made an appointment.’
‘It was the day young Virginsky started,’ Zamyotov offered, almost as an excuse. Virginsky shifted awkwardly, as if he felt himself implicated in the failure. ‘Word had just come in of that double poisoning,’ continued Zamyotov. ‘The German woman and her son. You dashed off and missed him by a matter of minutes.’
‘She was not German,’ said Porfiry studying the official letter as if he believed some meaning other than the obvious would make itself apparent. ‘She was married to a German.’
‘I let him into your chambers. He sniffed around a bit and then left.’
‘Good grief! Surely he must have noticed the stink? What did he say?’
‘Not much. Nothing actually. He just made some notes and was gone.’
‘No action necessary,’ repeated Porfiry. ‘This is an outrage. We will have to write another letter. We will take it higher up. Who is this Rostanev? He does not even give a rank.’