‘But you are proceeding as if you believe Rostanev to be the murderer,’ objected Virginsky.
‘I have a strong sense that someone wants me to believe Rostanev is the murderer. It would be convenient for this person were we now, with Rostanev dead, to consider these cases closed. If I want to get closer to this person, I must take a moment to follow the path he has laid out for me.’
‘But now you’re talking as if you believe this other person responsible for Rostanev’s death. And yet I thought you were of the opinion that that came about as a result of self-mutilation? There is a contradiction, surely?’ Virginsky seemed almost belligerent.
‘My dear boy,’ said Porfiry cheerfully, ‘the two hypotheses you mention are not mutually exclusive. Yes, I am certain that Rostanev mutilated himself. Otherwise, I believe he would have named his assailant when he had the opportunity. And yet, instead, he struggled — with his last breath, as it were — to blame it on voices.’ Porfiry whispered the last word with melodramatic emphasis.
‘I confess that I am confused.’ Virginsky’s tone was pettish.
Porfiry smiled sympathetically. ‘That’s quite normal. One gets used to it. One must grope for the signposts in the mist.’
‘But each of the signposts points in a different direction,’ complained Virginsky.
‘That’s perhaps because someone has played a trick on us, and twisted them around. But who?’ Porfiry drew from his cigarette. ‘Nikolai Nobody — that’s who,’ he murmured to himself.
‘Porfiry Petrovich?’ said Virginsky, sitting up so that Porfiry narrowed his eyes expectantly.
‘Yes?’
‘When we were in Rostanev’s room, did you hear something in the next room?’
Porfiry nodded slowly. ‘I believe I did.’
‘And yet didn’t Ilya Petrovich say that the room next to Rostanev’s was vacant?’
‘Nobody lives in it,’ said Porfiry wonderingly. ‘Nikolai Nobody. Well done, Pavel Pavlovich. I think perhaps we should take a look at that vacant room.’ Porfiry kept his cigarette at his lips as he drew deeply from it. He showed no inclination to hurry.
‘We let him go,’ said Virginsky, with a dead tone.
He was answered by a deep boom that seemed to fill, and expand beyond, the confines of Porfiry’s chambers. The windows rattled as it receded. It was not thunder. They had heard thunder only days ago. This was something different.
‘An explosion,’ said Porfiry, rising falteringly from his chair. ‘And nearby.’
Virginsky was already on his feet, craning to look out of the window.
‘Can you see anything?’ asked Porfiry.
Virginsky shook his head. Porfiry crossed his chambers and opened the door to the police bureau. Uniformed officers were rushing blindly in every direction, voices raised in panic. The faces of the men and women whose lives had brought them into the bureau at that particular moment were stricken with fear. Shocked into silence, they watched the disarray of the police in bewilderment.
Porfiry caught sight of Nikodim Fomich crossing the floor. They fell in together.
‘It’s very close, Porfiry Petrovich.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have a bad feeling about it.’ Nikodim Fomich seemed about to say something more but shook his head. ‘A very bad feeling indeed,’ he added, as they exited the bureau.
‘It feels like an attack,’ said Porfiry. ‘On us.’
‘Yes.’ Nikodim Fomich became tight-lipped as they descended the stairs.
Virginsky caught up with them as they reached the ground floor. ‘What’s happened? Does anyone know?’
He was not answered.
They stepped out into a sun-startled day and a pungent scent of burnt saltpetre.
‘Black powder. Primitive,’ said Porfiry and immediately regretted it. It wasn’t clear that the others had heard him, however. Their gazes were transfixed. He had seen what they saw but it was almost as if by not referring to it, he sought to un-see it; more than that, to undo it; to remove from the record of things that had occurred the scattered ground of writhing, wailing bodies that Stolyarny Lane had become, the charred faces streaked with blood, some stretched with pain and some in awed repose, the frayed and flesh-stripped limbs, a burnt-meat smell. And in amongst the human bodies, there were the horses, flailing, thrashing, twisting their necks against the pain and the incomprehensible loss of footing, turning a blood-filled eye on the men who had brought them to this.
‘These are our men,’ said Nikodim Fomich, quietly. ‘My men.’ And indeed there were police caps strewn about like garlands. ‘We need medical staff.’
‘A surgeon has been sent for,’ said a politseisky who was crouching uselessly over one of his wounded colleagues.
‘A surgeon? We will need more than that. We will need doctors and medical support staff. We will need to get these men to a hospital. See to it, man.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The politseisky rose to his feet, clicked his heels and ran off.
A pistol was discharged as the first of the horses was shot. Porfiry caught the heavy, relinquishing fall of its head.
Nikodim Fomich was scanning the faces of the fallen men desperately.
‘What is it?’ said Porfiry.
Nikodim Fomich let out a stifled cry and rushed forwards. Porfiry followed the line of his trajectory. A reeling dizziness came over him. Fiery red hair matted with a darker red, a face accustomed to the colour of fury, now more furious than ever, eyes that often bulged, now almost bursting: Salytov lay unmoving on the ground. His mouth was open as if he was about to let rip with a torrent of abuse, but no sound came from it. His eyes stared straight up into the clear, unblooded sky.
Porfiry felt a heavy dread inside him, burdening his limbs and coarsening his muscles. It was hard to move against it.
A weighted roll of Salytov’s eyes towards them released him. ‘Give him air! Don’t crowd him!’ cried Nikodim Fomich, who was pressing in on Salytov. He crouched over him, surveying the mangled body with great emotion, revering it almost, unable to touch it, but covering it with his gaze, like a lover before his mistress’s naked beauty for the first time, greedy for it, it seemed.
Salytov clenched his teeth. His head quivered with a tremendous effort.
‘Don’t try to move,’ murmured Nikodim Fomich.
But Salytov lifted his head. ‘Trap,’ he got out, before his head fell back against the ground. Rust-smeared lids came down over his eyes.
Nikodim Fomich’s gaze flinched away from him, as if he had been slapped. He curled a fist over his mouth.
‘What is it?’ demanded Porfiry.
Nikodim Fomich stood up and moved Porfiry away from Salytov. ‘He came to me. Just before. He had a tip-off. Anonymous, of course. It purported to come from a member of the Ballet’s revolutionary cell.’
‘As far as we know, there is no Ballet’s revolutionary cell,’ protested Porfiry angrily.
‘It was you!’ Nikodim Fomich shouted in sudden indignation. ‘You suggested he should continue his surveillance. What were your reasons for doing so if you did not believe in the cell? Was it one of your pranks, Porfiry Petrovich? Were you trying to make a fool of Salytov?’
‘No, of course not. But I thought the surveillance had come to nothing.’
‘It came to this!’ Nikodim Fomich shook his head bitterly. ‘The contact requested a meeting, promising information about a bomb-making factory. I authorised Salytov to go. With a contingent of men.’ Nikodim Fomich looked over the carnage, away up Stolyarny Lane. ‘They were waiting for him. Revenge, of course. For all the pressure he has been putting on their boy.’
‘You do not know that,’ said Porfiry.
‘But it adds up, does it not, Porfiry Petrovich?’ Nikodim Fomich’s face was anguished.
‘We must be very careful. It is not clear what has happened here, except that a number of men have been killed and some others very severely injured.’