A Vengeful Longing Read online

  ‘What is this about?’ Behind him, the orchestra master tapped his baton on his music stand and called out bars for the woodwind players.

  ‘You are Bezmygin?’ demanded Porfiry.

  The musician nodded confirmation.

  ‘We have come to talk to you about Raisa Ivanovna Meyer.’

  An unpleasant smirk contorted Bezmygin’s face. ‘What has she done? Murdered that insufferable philistine of a husband of hers?’

  ‘No. In fact, I am afraid to say that she is dead and it seems someone has murdered her.’

  The shock of receiving this news seemed to knock some of the stuffing out of Bezmygin’s pose. It struck Virginsky as genuine. He remembered his own experience of how Porfiry used such revelations as psychological tools to prise out the truth.

  ‘Poor Raya,’ said Bezmygin.

  ‘Dr Meyer seems to think you might have had something to do with it.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Is it true you were having an affair with Raisa Ivanovna?’

  ‘I deny that.’

  ‘My friend, you may deny it and yet it may also be true,’ observed Porfiry. ‘Her husband’s view is that when she broke off the affair, your pride was wounded and you determined to exact revenge.’

  ‘He’s a fool. This would be laughable if it weren’t . . .’ Bezmygin broke off.

  ‘You were often at her house. Alone with her, when her husband was not there.’

  ‘Yes. We were putting together some pieces for a soirée. She . . . was a gifted accompanist.’ Sudden anger flared in Bezmygin’s eyes. ‘I cannot believe you have come here to ask me these questions. I should have thought it quite obvious that her husband killed her out of jealousy.’

  ‘Did he, then, have grounds to be jealous?’

  ‘No! Except that she was bored with him. The man is a philistine and a morphine eater who had no appreciation of her talents. Besides, he was having an affair with the maid, Polina. Did he tell you about that?’

  Porfiry and Virginsky exchanged a glance. ‘No, he did not,’ said Porfiry.

  ‘Well, it’s true. Raisa told me about it.’

  ‘So relations between Dr Meyer and his wife were strained?’ asked Porfiry.

  ‘I should say so. He had turned away from her. The man had a heart of ice.’

  ‘As far as you know, was there any specific reason for the deteriorationin their relations, other than her friendship with you?’

  ‘Our friendship had nothing to do with it. It was all to do with a letter he received.’

  ‘A letter? Who was it from?’

  ‘It was anonymous, apparently. The thing upset her terribly. Really, there are some quite malicious people in the world. Live and let live is what I say. But it seems there are those who hold to a different philosophy.’

  ‘Did she tell you what was in the letter?’

  ‘No. She wouldn’t go into the details. But it was pretty spiteful stuff, I should think, judging by the effect it had.’

  ‘You think the contents concerned Raisa Ivanovna?’

  ‘All I know is that after he received it, Meyer would have nothing to do with his wife, not in the normal way of married couples, if you take my meaning. If you ask me, he was looking for an excuse. And, anyway, it didn’t take long for him to fall into the arms of his wench.’

  ‘When did he receive this letter, can you say?’

  ‘Two or three months ago.’ Bezmygin shrugged his shoulders uncertainly. ‘I think it was about then that she first spoke to me of it.’

  ‘This is all very interesting,’ said Porfiry. ‘If true.’

  ‘Of course it’s true! You have only to find the letter. He would not destroy it, though she begged him to.’

  Porfiry pursed his lips distractedly, then it seemed as though he had remembered something. ‘Tell me, what were your feelings towards Grigory, the Meyers’ son?’

  ‘Pity, mostly. Why? What has Grigory got to do with this?’

  ‘Whoever killed Raisa Ivanovna, also killed him,’ said Virginsky, and he wondered why he had wanted to be the one who broke this news to Bezmygin.

  ‘What a terrible business,’ said Bezmygin, and there was something deliberate about the way he made this declaration. He looked back at the platform. The other musicians had stopped practising and all eyes were on him. His look to Porfiry, seeking release, was defiant.

  ‘Are you not going to eat that?’ said Virginsky, indicating the basket, which was once again on Porfiry’s lap. They were on the train back to St Petersburg. ‘You have taken it all the way to Petergof and now you are taking it all the way back without touching it.’

  Porfiry’s surprise at discovering the basket seemed a little overdone. ‘I have been so preoccupied, I forgot all about it.’

  ‘If you had ever been a starving student, you would have found it impossible to forget about eating.’

  ‘It has been on your mind all the time? Here, have it. Help yourself. I’ll perhaps have . . . just a few gooseberries.’

  Virginsky took the basket. He broke off a piece of the bread and sliced the ham with a knife that the cook had supplied. ‘So? What do you think now?’

  ‘I think we need to find this letter. I would like you to go to the dacha this afternoon to find it. You could meet young Ptitsyn there. He is a good man to have at a crime scene.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Perhaps you could give me a little of the ham, after all,’ said Porfiry.

  ‘But what did you think of Bezmygin?’

  ‘Obviously, he had nothing to do with it.’

  Virginsky nodded. ‘That was my impression too.’

  ‘I don’t suppose Zakhar put any wine in there, did he?’

  Virginsky shook his head.

  ‘Really, that man. He persecutes me terribly. One’s servants always do.’

  Virginsky furrowed his brow in distaste at the joke. ‘Then don’t have servants.’

  ‘In which case, who would I have to persecute me? Or would you have me marry?’

  But Virginsky had lost his appetite for the banter, as he had almost for the food. He pretended sudden interest in a somewhat pretentious dacha that was gliding past at that moment.

  ‘Any bread?’ said Porfiry. ‘I think I must be hungrier than I realised.’

  They were driving north now on Izmailovsky Prospekt, having just crossed the Fontanka, when Virginsky stood up in the drozhki and called the driver to a halt. He leapt down from the cab and ran back some distance along the pavement towards a couple who had just come out of the entrance of an apartment building opposite the Novo-Alexandrovsky Market. A tall, well-to-do middle-aged gentleman was arm-in-arm with a very pretty and fashionably dressed girl about half his age. The gentleman’s expression when he saw Virginsky coming towards him was at first one of shock, which gradually gave way to shame-faced contrition.

  ‘Father!’ Virginsky called out. ‘You did not tell me you were coming to Petersburg.’

  ‘Why it’s Pasha!’ cried the young woman delightedly. At the same time she broke away from Virginsky’s father and threw her arms out towards Virginsky. He slowed his step and ignored the offered embrace.

  ‘Ah, my dear!’ Virginsky’s father at last began. ‘It all happened so quickly. There did not seem time. And besides . . .’ His father suddenly seemed to think of something. ‘We thought it would be nice to surprise you!’ His voice rose brightly, but there was something not entirely trustworthy about his eyes at that moment. Virginsky felt a pang of depression.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ he asked leadenly.

  ‘Oh, simply ages,’ said the girl, rolling her eyes. ‘It feels like a lifetime. Pavel Pavlovich has had all sorts of boring business to attend to with his boring old cronies. It has been the longest week of my life.’

  ‘A week?’

  ‘Now now, Natasha! Don’t exaggerate. Not a week, nothing like. A matter of days, that’s all. We were intending to pay you a visit once I had sorted out all my bu
siness affairs.’ Virginsky’s father smiled nervously.

  Natasha, that is to say, Natalya Ivanovna, Virginsky’s young stepmother, placed her hand on his arm and turned him gently away from his father. He was aware of a wild excitement that her touch provoked in him, something closer to hatred than desire.

  ‘Pasha, you must rescue me from your father.’ Her eyes were imploring. But again he recognised in them a suspect quality. Oh, how they deserve each other, he thought bitterly. ‘He has been neglecting me awfully. He prefers to spend all his time with that old lecher Colonel Setochkin.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Virginsky, his smile frozen anxiously.

  Natasha addressed him over her shoulder. ‘You wouldn’t object, would you, dearest, if Pasha were to look after me for the next few days, while you sort out your affairs with Setochkin?’ Then to Virginsky she confided: ‘You wouldn’t believe it. I have to sit on my own in a tiny room with only the walls to talk to, while they lock themselves away discussing I know not what.’

  ‘Business matters. It would be even more tiresome for you to have to listen to it all. But yes! Why not? What a capital idea. Pasha, you could show your mother the sights of St Petersburg. The Hermitage, the Summer Garden, the Fortress . . .’

  ‘No,’ said Virginsky quickly. He pulled away from the disturbing touch. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. I have work to do. Now.’ He gestured back to the waiting drozhki.

  ‘Ah! The magistrate! Of course. Is that the great Porfiry Petrovich?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you not introduce us?’

  ‘Another time, perhaps. Right now we are engaged in urgent business. A case. Time is of the essence.’

  ‘I see.’ Virginsky’s father dropped his gaze to the ground in disappointment. He worked quickly to dispel it. ‘Of course. You must devote yourself to your work. I am glad to see you taking so well to it.’ And then he remembered: ‘The letter! It did the trick then, the letter I wrote?’

  Virginsky frowned in annoyance and did not answer.

  ‘But what will I do?’ implored Natalya Ivanovna petulantly. ‘You men and your business, it is all you ever think about.’

  ‘Sweetest, I will make it up to you, I promise. I shall take you to the opera!’

  ‘Good day to you, sir. And you, madam,’ Virginsky cut in, tersely. He began to walk away without waiting for a response.

  ‘We’re at the Hotel Regina,’ called his father after him. ‘On the Moika Embankment. Charming view of the river. You must come and see us.’

  Virginsky shook his head at Porfiry’s questioning face as he climbed back into the drozhki.

  8

  The nasty letter

  Inside, the dacha was hot and oppressively scented with pine. An uncomfortable tension showed in Ptitsyn’s face. He seemed wary and eager at the same time: holding back to take his lead from Virginsky, yet more than willing to do whatever was asked of him.

  For his part, Virginsky felt hopelessly out of his depth as soon as they stepped inside, their footfalls met by the building’s creaking protests. The young politseisky’s expectant gaze only served to increase the sensation. Virginsky found himself wishing that Porfiry Petrovich was there with him. Then resentment drove out the wish.

  ‘Where is the girl now?’ said Virginsky, unconsciously voicing a thought that came to him, apparently randomly, as he looked around. He was looking at the divan that the maid had been sitting on the first time he had come to the dacha, willing the memory of her to solidify into her person.

  ‘Polina? She is lodging with a relative in the Spasskaya district. We know where she is if we need her.’

  Virginsky experienced a pang of unearned jealousy. Ptitsyn had evidently conversed with the maid, from which Virginsky constructed a familiarity that tormented him. Of course, there was the question of class. Ptitsyn would naturally find it easier to talk to the girl, coming from a similar peasant background. There was none of the constraint that he himself would feel. Virginsky found himself envying the young policeman. Not knowing what to say, he nodded once tersely, but felt the gesture belonged more to Porfiry Petrovich than to himself and blushed. Then, quite self-consciously, he blinked rapidly, straightaway shaking his head at his own foolishness.

  ‘What are we looking for, Your Honour?’

  ‘A letter. It will be in the doctor’s study.’ Virginsky masked his uncertainty with a harsh, decisive tone. Ptitsyn smiled appeasement and led the way into the study, his step quick and untroubled, now that he had a direction to follow.

  Ptitsyn made straight for a walnut escritoire and opened it. ‘There are letters here.’ He began to sift through the papers. ‘All sorts of correspondence.’

  Virginsky joined him and looked down. He was aware of a frisson of transgression, a sense of himself as a voyeur that was both pleasurable and shaming. And yet, as he reminded himself, he had a right, a duty even, to pry. He tried to will his face into a mask of professional dispassion, as if by so doing he would suppress his inappropriate excitement.

  He picked up a sheet at random and read a printed letter in which certain details had been handwritten:

  Dear Dr Meyer,

  We regret to inform you that your article ‘Notes on the Non-Sexual Transmission of Syphilis in Peasant Communes’ has not been selected for publication in The Russian Journal of Public Health. We thank you for your consideration in submitting to The Russian Journal of Public Health and return your submission herewith.

  The note was unsigned, though a handwritten addendum below - Insufficient rigour. Findings not supported. Political. - was initialled K.P.N.

  The next letter was in German. It extended over several pages and was signed Deine dich liebende Mutter.

  Virginsky glanced up at Ptitsyn, who was watching him intently, his face open and inquisitive. ‘It’s from his mother,’ explained Virginsky.

  ‘And is that the letter we’re looking for?’

  ‘No. The letter we are looking for is anonymous. And malicious. It refers to Raisa Ivanovna, the doctor’s wife, in rather nasty terms.’ Virginsky now had in his hands a number of bills, some correspondence from Dr Meyer’s colleagues and superiors, as well as a letter from the St Petersburg College of Physicians concerning membership details. Also in the escritoire were a number of maps of St Petersburg.

  ‘Perhaps we should take them all in so that the investigating magistrate can decide,’ said Ptitsyn.

  ‘We do not need Porfiry Petrovich to tell us that none of these is the letter we are looking for.’ Virginsky avoided Ptitsyn’s eye. ‘However, naturally, it is too early at this stage to say what may or may not turn out to be relevant as the case develops. So, of course, everything here will have to be taken away and analysed at length by myself and . . . uh . . . Porfiry Petrovich.’ Virginsky added the name distractedly. He had spread out one of the city maps and was studying it closely. Someone, presumably Dr Meyer, had added to the map a number of markings: clusters of red dots and ruled black lines, connecting buildings with each other and with the city’s many waterways.

  Ptitsyn seemed to lose interest in the escritoire and its contents. He moved away, nosing the air as if he were a bloodhound. Virginsky watched him out of the corner of his eye, distracted by his purposefulness, competitively anxious. He pulled out the drawer of the escritoire and saw the faces of Meyer and his wife staring back at him in dusky monochrome and miniature. There were a number of studio photographs of each of them and even, at the back of the drawer, an albumen print of the baby that had once been Grigory, so faded that the ghostly infant was almost invisible.

  ‘Apparently, the good doctor was engaged in an illicit sexual relationship with your Polina,’ Virginsky felt himself compelled to say, as he picked up a photograph of Raisa Ivanovna. It must have been taken some years ago: the dark dress she was wearing showed off a slim figure. Her face was undeniably handsome, and still youthful, though a complicated unease shadowed her eyes. But perhaps it was just the discomfort of m
aintaining her pose for the portrait.

  Virginsky watched Ptitsyn to see how he was taking the revelation.

  ‘It happens,’ was all the young policeman offered. He had dropped to one knee and was running his fingers along the edge of a floorboard.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Virginsky, anxious and resentful.

  ‘The board was sticking up on one side. I thought it might be loose. Sometimes, you have to think like them, you know? They don’t always hide things in the obvious places.’ He followed the jutting board to a skirted chair, which he tilted back. ‘Ah now, there’s something here.’ Ptitsyn pulled out an open cardboard box that had been placed beneath the seat, concealed by the chair’s cover. He let the chair drop back down on to its four legs. ‘Is this what he did them in with, do you think?’ asked Ptitsyn, lifting from the box a small bottle made of dense brown glass.