‘Porfiry Petrovich?’
Porfiry looked up to see Lieutenant Salytov frowning impatiently at him.
‘Yes, Ivan Petrovich, what is it?’
‘Could I ask you, please, to moderate your fury as I am trying to take a statement from a witness and your outburst is proving to be rather distracting?’
‘Y-’
‘Thank you.’ Salytov clicked his heels and bowed.
‘But — !’
‘Furthermore, Nikodim Fomich has requested me to notify you of the details of the case as he feels a criminal investigation may be necessary.’
‘I see.’ Porfiry passed the letter back to Zamyotov. ‘Of course.’ He angled his face away from the attention of the others as he took out and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. ‘I hope it is understood that I am not normally given to such shows of passion. However, the communication I have just received would be enough to try the patience of a saint.’
‘The case,’ insisted Salytov, with a note of censure in his voice, ‘as it stands is one of a missing person. The witness I am interviewing, one Lara Olsufevna Mikheyeva of Demidov Lane, came into the bureau to report the disappearance of her tenant, Yemelyan Antonovich Ferfichkin.’
‘I see.’
‘This Ferfichkin, according to Mikheyeva, has many enemies. In particular, a man called Gorshkov, a former factory worker, now an indigent drunk, was heard to threaten the life of Ferfichkin. It is Mikheyeva’s view that he has made good on the threat.’
‘Ah.’
‘Mikheyeva’s description of Ferfichkin matches that of a body discovered this morning in the Summer Garden, according to a bulletin released by the Eastern Admiralty District Police Bureau.’
‘Very well. Then the thing to do is to take the woman to identify the body. Do we know how the man died?’
‘He was stabbed through the heart. The weapon, a poniard, was discovered still in place.’
‘That is very interesting.’
‘Nikodim Fomich was of the view that you would like to talk to the Mikheyeva woman.’
Porfiry gave a wincing smile and sighed. ‘It is something of a distraction from the cases I am working on at the moment. Is it not enough that I am chasing two hares?’ He drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘I feel it would be better to wait until she has positively identified the body as Ferfichkin.’
‘But what if she is right? That would give this fellow Gorshkov time to disappear,’ protested Salytov.
‘We cannot arrest people merely on hearsay. At the very least, we need to be sure that a crime has taken place. Ferfichkin may have returned home while she has been giving her statement.’
‘But somebody is dead and somebody has killed him,’ said Virginsky. ‘Do you not count it significant that she should report her tenant’s disappearance at precisely the moment a body is found answering his description?’
Porfiry rubbed a hand over his face and sniffed the air. ‘I had hoped that the rainfall would alleviate the fetid atmosphere. It seems merely to have added an unwelcome rankness to it.’
A distant cannon boom signalled a flood warning.
‘The Ditch is rising,’ said Virginsky.
‘The woman?’ pressed Salytov.
‘Very well, bring her to my chambers.’ Porfiry shook his head in weary defeat. ‘If I talk to her now it may save time later,’ he added over his shoulder as he made for his door.
Lara Olsufevna Mikheyeva inhaled the air in Porfiry’s chambers with her head angled back sharply. She regarded Porfiry down the bridge of a long straight nose, upon which a pince-nez was precariously imposed. It seemed she suspected him of being responsible for the smell that pervaded the room. Lara Olsufevna was self-evidently a respectable woman, somewhere in her fifties. The set of her mouth inclined Porfiry to believe her a spinster. She kept her eyes narrowed, in an expression of permanent distrust.
The thunder grumbled morosely now, the storm’s ferocity spent. The rain lashed the windows with an erratic beat, falling hard and sharp like cast gravel. The day’s light had not yet fully returned. But something else, a kind of cold glow, had taken its place.
Porfiry scanned Salytov’s transcript of her statement. ‘So, Lara Olsufevna. . You became aware of your tenant’s disappearance this morning.’
‘That’s right.’
‘We do not normally open a missing person file so soon after a disappearance is first reported.’
‘Ferfichkin is not missing. He is murdered.’
‘By Gorshkov?’ said Porfiry, checking the statement.
‘Yes.’
‘And why do you suspect Gorshkov of this crime?’
‘He said that he would kill him.’
‘I see.’
‘Gorshkov is not a bad man.’ Lara Olsufevna’s posture was as self-contained as her pronouncements. She lowered her head to look at Porfiry more carefully, but other than that she held herself quite immobile. She seemed uncannily at one with her stiff, charcoal dress. There was something of the schoolmistress about her, Porfiry decided. ‘He has that fatal weakness for drink that so many of our Russian menfolk share. But we have to allow that he has suffered terribly. Ferfichkin’s behaviour was the last straw. You can push a man only so far. Then, like the proverbial camel’s back, he will snap.’
‘How has Gorshkov suffered?’
‘He has buried six children, all girls. The last, a babe of three months, not long ago.’
‘And what has Ferfichkin to do with Gorshkov?’
‘Ferfichkin said the Psalms at his last daughter’s funeral. Like so many of the poor folk of this district, Gorshkov could not afford a proper priest.’
‘I don’t understand. Why would this lead Gorshkov to murder Ferfichkin?’
Lara Olsufevna treated Porfiry to a disappointed stare. ‘He could no more afford the services of a self-appointed Psalm reader than he could an Orthodox priest. Ferfichkin was pressing him mercilessly for the settlement of his debt. He began to make his demands on the very day of the funeral. At the graveside, no less. The tiny coffin had not long been laid in the ground. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. Ferfichkin’s behaviour was shameful. He pricked and needled the poor grieving father, pushed him to breaking point. Gorshkov’s neighbours had to hold him back. If not, I think he would have killed him there and then, and ripped the cold heart from his breast. I remember saying to a gentleman who was there, “This will end badly”.’
‘What gentleman was this? We will need to take a statement from him, if possible.’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t recognise him. He was not one of the family, or one of the Gorshkovs’ friends or neighbours. I believe he had just been passing and had stopped to watch out of compassion.Certainly he was very interested in the family. He asked many questions and was most sympathetic to their plight.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Isn’t that strange? I find his face has gone completely from my memory. I dare say I would know him if I saw him again. I am usually very good at faces.’
‘I imagine you are,’ said Porfiry with a smile. ‘Please, you were telling me about Ferfichkin’s prosecution of Gorshkov’s debt.’
‘With every day that passed he added interest. Really, he was a monster. If Gorshkov hadn’t killed him, there would have been others who would have done the deed, I’m sure. He has a history of such usury. One would have thought him a Jew, were it not for his religion.’
‘You sound almost as if you have sympathy for Gorshkov.’
‘Who would not have sympathy for the sufferings of a fellow human? And his poor wife, to have borne so many, only to bury them, one after the other. She herself was too ill to come to her baby’s funeral.’
‘And yet you have come here to report him,’ observed Porfiry.
Lara Olsufevna’s brows shot up. ‘However much sympathy one may have, the law must be obeyed. I would expect you, as a magistrate, to understand that. He has taken the life of another. We cannot have people doing such things, not in a civilised society. Besides, I am afraid for Gorshkov. The balance of his mind is disturbed. There is no saying what he might do next. He may take his own life. Or that of his wife. I would not be surprised if he were to go on a destructive rampage. When I last saw him, there was a wildness in his eyes that frightened me.’ Lara Olsufevna paused. Her breathing became short and laboured. It was some time before she was able to speak again. ‘I hope to prevent such a thing happening. ’