Cleansing Flames Page 4

  Porfiry gave a silent chuckle and nodded to release the sailor.

  Ordynov twisted his lower lip hesitantly. He looked over to his shipmates but did not rush to join them. ‘Do you think he had anything to do with . . . you know . . . that fellow in the water?’

  Porfiry smiled but said nothing. The roar of the nearby fair seemed to answer the question for him.

  *

  An hour later, they were back in Porfiry’s chambers in the Department for the Investigation of Criminal Causes. The department was attached to the Haymarket District Police Bureau on Stolyarny Lane, though the cases they investigated were not limited to that district. At his desk, Porfiry was bent over Sergeant Ptitsyn’s report, which was already written up and filed. Virginsky, who was seated on the cracked artificial-leather sofa, was treated to a view of the top of his superior’s close-cropped, bulbous head. The soft light from the window caught the almost transparent hairs in a phosphorescent flash. Virginsky had the impression that if he struck Porfiry on the back, a cloud of dust would rise to join the other fine motes swirling in the luminous corridor of the beam. He had no idea why the idea of striking Porfiry in this way came to him just then. Except for the fact that Porfiry’s frockcoat was stretched as tight as an overstuffed armchair and Virginsky had once had a habit of thumping armchairs. But that was a long time ago.

  ‘A fine officer, young Ptitsyn,’ said Porifry. ‘We are indeed fortunate that he was the first on the scene. This is an exemplary report.’

  ‘The spelling’s atrocious,’ commented Virginsky. It did not please him to hear other men praised, especially Ptitsyn, and especially by Porfiry Petrovich. Virginsky knew precisely where his dislike for Ptitsyn originated. He had once been assigned to search a crime scene with the young policeman, and it was Ptitsyn who had made the significant discovery. In his defence, Virginsky could say that he had not long been in the job. But still, he had underestimated Ptitsyn, deceived by the young man’s good-natured willingness to please, taking that for simple-mindedness. Virginsky could not forgive Ptitsyn for the fact that he – Virginsky – had all the advantages, and yet it was Ptitsyn who had proven himself more able. He knew that it was undemocratic to harbour such resentments, which only made him hate Ptitsyn all the more.

  All that had happened several years ago, and Virginsky should have been able to put his antipathy towards his social, intellectual and professional inferior behind him. But the fellow haunted him like a demon. He had an uncanny knack for turning up, like a counterfeit five-kopek coin.

  Porfiry Petrovich looked up, his face open in reproachful surprise. ‘The spelling is beside the point. He has recorded the exchange between the sailors and the mysterious onlooker practically verbatim. The art of investigation is all in the detail, you know.’

  ‘So you do think he had something to do with it? The man the sailors saw.’

  ‘It is certainly possible. It’s not so easy as these new men think to shake off such a deed. Murder, I’m talking about. However rational, useful and even necessary the death of this or that individual may seem in advance – after the event, it’s a different matter. So yes, I find it psychologically plausible that the murderer is drawn back to the place where he discarded his victim, especially at a time when there is a chance the body may come to light. That is to say, when the frozen canal begins to thaw.’

  ‘But the fact is, we do not know who this onlooker is – and we may never. Indeed, we don’t even know who the dead man is.’

  ‘Please don’t take this amiss, Pavel Pavlovich,’ began Porfiry inauspiciously. ‘But I find your attitude today strangely negative.’

  Virginsky felt himself flush.

  ‘It’s not helpful, you know, to have this constant carping and criticism to contend with. You could be more encouraging.’

  ‘I am only being realistic. If I may say so, you are not normally so easily discouraged, Porfiry Petrovich. Indeed, usually, you take such challenges as a spur to do your greatest work.’

  ‘Flattery. You can’t fool me, Pavel Pavlovich. I have never heard you sound so insincere.’ Porfiry rapped Ptitsyn’s report impatiently with his knuckles. ‘What singular feature most strikes you about this case?’ he almost barked.

  Virginsky widened his eyes as he considered the unexpected question. ‘That . . . the body was dumped in the Winter Canal?’ he suggested tentatively.

  ‘Good! Yes! Now you’re beginning to be useful to me! The body was indubitably dumped, as you so eloquently put it. Quite deliberately. Brought, by some conveyance, to the Winter Canal and deposited in it. It is inconceivable that he was shot and weighted with rocks in such a public location, immediately prior to disposal. No – all that took place elsewhere, we can be certain. But why then bring him to the Winter Canal? That’s the question. Why go to all that trouble when there are countless other, more isolated spots in the city where one could far more conveniently dispose of a corpse?’

  ‘Because the killer –’

  ‘Killer? You think this is the work of one man? Could one man contrive this? Would it not be more reasonable to assume some kind of conspiracy? The Winter Canal is a popular spot. A favourite haunt of lovers and suicides. People pass along it at all hours of the day and night. Would it not require some organisation, some small infrastructure, to ensure that this dumping of the body was not witnessed? A lookout positioned at either end of the canal, for example. We might also posit the existence of a driver, whip in hand, ready and waiting, should the need for a hasty retreat arise. And two individuals, at least, to manhandle the weighted body from the vehicle to the edge of the embankment. I picture it as a closed carriage.’

  Virginsky nodded in agreement. ‘A plausible reconstruction.’

  ‘The question remains. Why?’

  ‘By the way you are asking the question, Porfiry Petrovich, I suspect you already have an answer in mind.’

  ‘Where is the Winter Canal?’

  ‘Between the Winter Palace and the Hermitage.’

  ‘In other words, right under the nose of the Tsar.’

  ‘What are you saying, Porfiry Petrovich? What’s this man to the Tsar?’

  ‘Nothing – personally. But politically. Symbolically. It’s a gesture. One that I believe is known as making a fig.’

  ‘You think it is a political crime?’

  ‘I think it may have a political aspect.’

  ‘Therefore, we should alert the Third Section.’

  ‘Ooh, I don’t think there’s any need for that. Not yet, at least. This is simply a speculative conversation between ourselves. We have no proof of anything, yet. As you yourself said, we do not even have a positive identification of the body.’ Porfiry angled his head to appraise his junior colleague. ‘I know what it is about you today, Pavel Pavlovich. You are evincing an unwonted scrupulosity.’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’

  ‘First you remind me of the need for a medical examination. Then you insist on the involvement of the Third Section. An unwonted scrupulosity. With regard to form.’

  ‘I am a magistrate. I must uphold the correct procedure.’

  ‘An unwonted scrupulosity,’ repeated Porfiry, with energetic emphasis. ‘I can’t help thinking that you must have done something exceptionally naughty last night.’

  Virginsky felt the heat in his face once again, even fiercer this time. ‘But Porfiry Petrovich, that doesn’t –’

  ‘It is because you were naughty last night that you wish to compensate by being unusually correct today. Am I right?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Virginsky coldly.

  ‘But did you hear about the fires last night? My God, the fools! What do they hope to achieve by such acts? Can you tell me that, Pavel Pavlovich?’

  ‘I am not a spokesman for the arsonists.’

  ‘Five dead.’

  ‘Five?’

  ‘Yes, a fireman, a nightwatchman and some down-and-outs who were kipping on a straw barge that was torched. How can y
ou justify their deaths?’

  ‘I am not required to, as I did not cause them, and I do not defend those who did.’

  ‘What? Quite right. I’m sorry. I am simply venting steam. Sometimes, I mistake you – because of your youth – for someone you are not.’

  Neither spoke for some time, each considering privately the implications of Porfiry’s last remark.

  It was a relief to them both when the door leading to the Haymarket District Police Bureau opened and the head clerk Zamyotov burst in.

  He thrust some papers in front of Porfiry. ‘Sign this. And this.’ After a moment, he added, ‘And this.’

  ‘Begging your pardon, Alexander Grigorevich, but what exactly am I signing?’

  ‘You want a poster printing up, don’t you? That’s what I understood you to say.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then you have to sign the necessary chit. Even you are not exempt from that, Porfiry Petrovich,’ added the clerk sarcastically.

  ‘I appreciate that, naturally,’ said Porfiry, signing his name on the first of the sheets. ‘And this one?’

  ‘For a statement to be released to the newspapers. And this one is for an advertisement to be placed, calling for witnesses to come forward.’

  ‘There you are.’

  ‘You haven’t filled them in.’

  ‘Can’t you fill them in? I’m rather busy. I have signed them, as you requested.’

  ‘I don’t know the details,’ objected Zamyotov.

  Porfiry’s face sagged with despondency.

  ‘I’ll fill them in, if you wish,’ volunteered Virginsky.

  ‘Thank you, Pavel Pavlovich. That would indeed be a great help.’

  Zamyotov stomped from the room as if he had been cheated of something.

  Yarilo

  That night there were more fires. However, Virginsky did not venture out to view them.

  On the way home from the department, he had called in at Gostinny Dvor and purchased the samovar he had promised himself. And so he sat up drinking strong tea into the early hours.

  He found it hard to sleep, once he had turned in, and sweated more than usual in the night. Perhaps it was the constant ringing of the fire alarms, or perhaps it was the tea. He thought a lot about what Porfiry Petrovich had said to him: ‘Sometimes, I mistake you for someone you are not.’ What on earth had the old man meant by the remark?

  And yet, Virginsky did not need to ask the question.

  Sometimes, he mistook himself for someone he was not.

  As soon as he admitted this, he was able to drift off. He fell immediately into an overwrought dream: he was running through St Petersburg away from a fire. Suddenly, he felt his progress impeded. Something was dragging at his feet. He looked down to see that the pavement was carpeted with a thick layer of handbills printed with various manifestos. With each step he took, the paper carpet increased in thickness, rising first past his ankles, then up to his knees, and rapidly reaching his waist. It was no longer a paper carpet, but a paper quagmire. He could hardly move at all now. Looking behind him, he saw that the swamp of manifestos stretched away into the distance. He saw too that it was on fire, and that the fire was racing towards him. He turned to flee the approaching flames, but became distracted by the words of a manifesto right beneath his nose. That was how high the layer of handbills had reached now.

  The manifesto that caught his attention was entitled ‘Samovars for All.’ Now he was floating in a sea of lukewarm tea, and all the anxiety that the earlier phase of the dream had induced in him evaporated. He knew that he was no longer threatened by fire, but he was hot and thirsty. Whenever he wanted a drink, all he had to do was incline his head and lap from the sea of lukewarm tea.

  Somehow the reality of his situation, independent of his dream, forced itself on him. It was simply that he was once again bathed in sweat. He woke.

  The darkness of the room seemed to squat upon him, pinning him to the bed. There were matches and a candle on the desk, but he couldn’t bring himself to grope for them. He felt that if he concentrated hard enough, the vague mood of the dream would form itself into a resolution that he could act upon. At the same time, he half-suspected that he knew already what the dream was trying to tell him. He knew too that he did not like its message, even though he had not consciously articulated it. And so the dream still held him; he was as incapable of movement now that it was over as he had been during it.

  As he lay there, he felt his muscles and joints lock. There was a sense of surrendering to his immobility, of conspiring in it, even. This strange paralysis, he suddenly realised, was the product of his own will.

  Life was so much simpler when you were incapable of taking part in it.

  It occurred to him that in none of the manifestos he had read, and in none of the books on Socialism and Social Utilitarianism from which they were derived, had there ever been any allowance made for dreams.

  *

  The morning’s newspapers were spread out on Porfiry Petrovich’s desk. The magistrate’s face was hidden by a copy of the St Petersburg Gazette and so he could not have seen Virginsky enter his chambers. This did not prevent him from observing, ‘You look terrible, Pavel Pavlovich.’

  ‘But you –’

  ‘That is to say, judging by your shuffling step, and the fact that you walked into the door frame as you entered, I imagine that you must look terrible.’ Porfiry at last laid down the paper and looked at his junior colleague. ‘I see I am not mistaken. A bad night?’

  Virginsky ran a hand over his face, as if to wipe away whatever ravages were evident there. ‘I didn’t sleep well.’

  ‘No? Well, that is to be expected.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘The fires, of course.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with the fires,’ protested Virginsky indignantly.

  ‘I’m not suggesting that you did. I am merely stating that it is not easy for any of us to sleep easy while such atrocities are perpetrated around us. They set fire to an apartment building last night, I see.’

  ‘An apartment building?’

  ‘Yes. Not far from you. Bolshaya Morskaya Street. So far the number of dead is estimated to be . . .’ Porfiry consulted the newspaper. ‘Six. Five of whom were children. The sixth was an adult male. There are no further details of the victims given.’

  ‘No,’ said Virginsky quietly. The word was as much a protest as a denial.

  ‘I’m afraid so. In fact, it is a miracle that so many were able to escape unharmed. It seems someone raised the alarm before the fire had taken hold in earnest. The devastation was largely confined to one floor. The fifth. Those living below that were evacuated safely. A blessed miracle, I say.’

  ‘But do we know for certain that this was the act of arsonists?’

  ‘There will have to be an enquiry, of course. And you are right to ask the question. It is easy to assume, in a spate of arson attacks, that every fire is deliberately started. In any individual case, there may be another explanation.’

  ‘Indeed. And if you extend that logic, then it is possible to say that perhaps none of the fires have been started deliberately. The frequency of their occurrence may owe more to unsatisfactory building materials and dangerous living conditions.’

  ‘It is simply that we are living in an exceptionally combustible city, is that what you are saying?’ Porfiry smiled ironically.

  ‘We are living in a city where men habitually drink themselves into a stupor and then reach for their pipes. I should add that it is invariably by gorging on cheap vodka, brought about by the Tsar’s reform of alcohol taxation, that they attain this dangerous intoxication.’

  ‘So it is the Tsar’s fault? I thought it might be.’

  ‘It is only the conservative newspapers, so far, who are laying the blame at the door of the students and radicals. And yet the idea seems to have caught hold. Everyone accepts it as the truth. Even you, Porfiry Petrovich. But you have to ask yourself, what could th
e radicals hope to achieve by these tactics?’

  ‘There are some men who are, undoubtedly, motivated by a universal love of mankind.’ Porfiry leant back in his chair as he warmed to his theme. ‘But they find that the mankind they love does not correspond exactly to the sordid, ungrateful, greedy men and women they see around them. Those individuals, they do not love. In fact, they hate them, for they only get in the way. While continuing to nurture a deeply felt love of mankind in general, and pursuing aims that owe their origin to this love, they find themselves acting in a manner that is consistent with their hatred for men and women as they actually are.’

  Virginsky exhaled loudly through his nose.

  ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘I wonder from where you derive such sentiments. From the editorials of The Russian Soil?’ Virginsky picked up the newspaper in question from the desk and held it out accusingly. ‘Or from the lurid serials they publish?’

  ‘You forget, Pavel Pavlovich, I have observed such men at first hand.’ Porfiry fixed Virginsky with an especially provoking gaze.

  ‘You mean me?’

  ‘I was not thinking of you.’ Porfiry’s expression softened. He regarded Virginsky solicitously. ‘Please, sit down. You really do look dreadful. Would you like some tea?’

  ‘No! No tea. I already feel rather bilious from drinking too much tea last night.’

  Porfiry picked up the newspaper that Virginsky had just dropped on his desk. ‘The Russian Soil has at least carried a piece about our body fished out of the Winter Canal. They have also published our announcement calling for witnesses to come forward.’

  ‘I trust that the information is satisfactory in both cases?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. I am grateful for your help with the requisite paperwork. Do you know when we might expect to take delivery of the posters?’

  ‘With luck, we should see something later today, or perhaps tomorrow morning. I emphasised the urgency of the material in my application to the Imperial State Printing Works.’

  Porfiry turned the pages of the paper. His eye was caught by an article headed ‘The Devil’s Professor’. ‘Tatiscev, Professor Tatiscev. He must have taught you at the University, did he not?’