A Razor Wrapped in Silk (26 page)

The professor took hold of the brass handle and pulled. An enormous drawer came out smoothly and easily on a well-oiled sliding mechanism. The black entity shrank back with a grumbling murmur.

The tray of the drawer extended more or less the length of a grown man into the room, supported on iron rods along its bottom edges. The professor lifted the long side nearest him, which turned over and dropped, giving him easier access to the contents: six wooden crates, which could easily have contained the lovingly packed-up possessions of a family removing to their dacha for the summer. The boxes possessed the insolent
neutrality of inanimate objects. For it seemed a provocation that anything in the universe could remain unmoved by what Virginsky knew those crates in fact contained.

‘Four three six one, here we are,’ said Professor Bubnov, taking hold of the second crate. ‘May I pass this down to one of you gentlemen?’

Virginsky stepped forward to receive the crate. His heart raced as he took it. He felt also the hot blush of shame. What on earth had impelled him to put himself forward with such unthinking alacrity? Whatever else he might argue, he knew that he had wanted to feel the weight of the crate in his hands. He knew also that this was something he couldn’t blame on Porfiry Petrovich.

The box was heavier than he had expected, so much so that it almost slipped through his fingers as the professor released his hold.
How heavy could a boy’s head be?
flashed through his mind.

‘Be careful with it,’ warned Professor Bubnov. He scuttled down the steps to share the load, or rather to hover his hands in a precautionary manner close to the box as Virginsky carried it. ‘On the table, please.’

Virginsky slid it into the centre of the table. It gave a protesting screech. Professor Bubnov lifted the lid, which was only loosely in place. Virginsky peered in. To his disappointment, all he could see was tightly packed crushed ice. He felt a tap on his arm. Porfiry signalled for him to move back, inclining his head at the same time towards Maria Petrovna. Virginsky remembered himself with a grimace; his head hung as he backed off.

Professor Bubnov laid the lid upside down on the table, revealing that it too was backed with lead. He began to transfer
ice from the crate to the lid. Virginsky wanted to look inside to see what was being uncovered, but it was not his place to do so. At last, the professor nodded to Maria Petrovna. She stepped forward and stooped over the open crate, as if somehow she was readying herself to dive into it. Indeed, at one point, she seemed about to fall forward. She was forced to take hold of the sides of the crate to steady herself, giving the impression that she was drinking up whatever was contained in that bland cube.

Now, now was the time to look into her face. He might tell himself that it was his official duty to look there, simply for confirmation of the boy’s identity. But he knew that he was looking there because he was guilty of every charge he had laid against Porfiry Petrovich – of a kind of emotional sadism, in fact.

Even so, that self-realisation did not prevent him from looking.

Maria Petrovna closed her eyes, squeezing them tight over the terrible sight within the box. A sob broke from her. Her head nodded forwards once. This movement set in train a spasm of nodding. ‘Yes, yes,’ she gasped. ‘It’s Mitka.’

It was Porfiry who took hold of her, gently, with infinite delicacy, and guided her by the elbows away from the table.

Virginsky stepped into her place.

The boy was looking up at him, his head surrounded by a halo of ice fragments. His face was tinged with blue, eyes almost the same blue, wide open, in boyish wonder and excitement. His lips were parted, in a lung-bursting gasp.

‘Shall I put it back?’ asked Professor Bubnov.

‘No, thank you,’ said Porfiry. ‘Please leave it on the table. I will need to examine it more closely in due course. You may
replace the lid, however – for now, that is.’ Porfiry turned his attention to Maria: ‘How are you, my dear? Do you wish to sit down? Pavel Pavlovich, that chair, please.’

Virginsky fetched the chair from the desk. Maria sank into it gratefully. She covered her face with one hand, fingers spread as if to catch her pain and squeeze it into nothing.

‘There are other children missing.’ Porfiry’s voice was low, a husky whisper, awed at its own temerity.

Maria nodded.

‘They may be here.’

A wince as though of acute physical pain contorted Maria’s face.

‘Would you be willing to look at the other children here, to try to identify them too?’

‘Porfiry Petrovich!’ cried Virginsky.

Porfiry was ready for his protest. ‘Surely it is better to face it now, once and for all, and never to have to return to this room?’

‘Porfiry … Petrovich …’ Her voice, though faltering, compelled their attention. ‘ … is right.’

Porfiry nodded decisively to Professor Bubnov, who mounted the steps again.

Five more crates were handed down, with Virginsky and Porfiry taking it in turns to receive them. They placed them side by side on the table. Then Professor Bubnov climbed down the steps to remove the lids. Still wearing the black rubber gloves, he began to scoop ice out of the first of the crates. His hands plunging into the ice made a brittle hawking sound.

There was something hypnotic about his execution of the task. His slow methodical movements seemed to create a
haven in time, which would serve to postpone indefinitely the dreadful spectacle to come.

He moved along the row of crates, clearing ice. Each time he worked with the same unhurried persistence.

Eventually, he came to the end of the last crate. He straightened himself above it and turned to Porfiry with a grim dip of his head. Porfiry reached out a hand to Maria Petrovna. Her face was stricken, nauseous. She was shivering, her teeth clattering violently.

She said nothing. Virginsky watched as Porfiry took her hand. He imagined the cold frailty of that hand. All her vulnerability and courage seemed to be concentrated in it. He wanted to be the one who was enclosing it in his own firm hands.

Maria rose shakily from her seat.

She stood over the first of the crates. An inarticulate cry, a gurgle of horror and grief, vibrated in her throat. ‘Lana!’ she cried. ‘That is Lana!’

Porfiry steered her on to the second crate. Maria shook her head, as she did over the third and fourth crates. The fifth crate, however, produced a gasp and a name.

‘Artur.’ She looked up, first into Porfiry’s face, then into Virginsky’s. Her gaze was searching. He felt her trying to look beyond his face, beyond his humanity even, for some explanation of what she had been shown. ‘They were my children,’ she said at last. ‘They came to my school.’ Her eyes narrowed as she processed a difficult thought. ‘Is that why they are dead?’

Virginsky and Porfiry exchanged a brief, almost guilty, glance, but neither answered her question.

24

Strange marks

At Porfiry’s instruction, the three heads were taken out of their crates and laid side by side on the table. Additional lanterns were fetched, their light reflecting garishly back off the livid flesh, lending it the illusion of animation as each lantern was swung into place.

Porfiry looked down at the children. Mitka, Svetlana and Artur. He tried to imagine that they were lying in a big bed, asleep. But their eyes were open, and that horrific emptiness beneath their necks mocked any attempt to take refuge in a sentimental fantasy. Their faces were united by death and childhood, but Porfiry made an effort to appreciate them as individuals before he hardened himself to the task of assessing their remains as evidence. Mitka’s features were elfin, his head coming to a delicate point at the chin. Svetlana, pale and blonde, appeared younger; her features less mature, her nose a mere button, her chin hardly there at all. Artur was the oldest. His features had begun to coarsen, his nose outgrowing the rest of his face. His hair was dark and wiry, and the faint smudge of his first moustache shadowed his upper lip.

Porfiry heard the door close behind him. He half-turned to acknowledge Virginsky’s entrance.

‘How is she?’ Porfiry asked, stooping again over the children.

‘How do you think?’

Porfiry twisted his head in Virginsky’s direction, then quickly faced back towards the table. ‘My dear Pavel Pavlovich, I cannot help remarking a strange, strained tension in your demeanour towards me. One might even call it resentment. May I ask what I have done to cause offence?’

Virginsky seemed to weigh up his options before replying. He gestured towards the heads. ‘You would have sprung this on her, as you once sprung a similar shock on me.’

Porfiry stood up to face Virginsky. ‘I did not want to warn her at the school, that’s true. I saw little point. I wanted to spare her the anguish of imagining this, at least for the duration of our journey here. However, I would have told her before bringing her into this room.’

‘I see,’ said Virginsky stiffly. It was evident that such a consideration had not occurred to him.

‘It makes little difference, I suppose,’ conceded Porfiry. ‘The anguish of imagining such a prospect, which was all I sought to mitigate, is nothing compared to the horror of seeing it.’ Porfiry widened his eyes, inviting a response from Virginsky.

But Virginsky withheld his thoughts.

‘Is there no other reason for your constraint towards me?’

‘I am not aware of any.’

‘So, how do we stand now? Now that I have explained my earlier prevarication. Does my explanation satisfy?’

‘It does.’

‘And may I once again count upon your friendship, as well as your professional assistance?’

Virginsky drew breath noisily before replying: ‘Yes.’

‘A hesitation!’

‘No. That is to say … if I am honest …’

‘Why should you not be honest?’

‘That man. Slava. I confess I do not like him and I fail to understand why you have taken him into your employ. His interest in our cases strikes me as entirely inappropriate. To be frank, Porfiry Petrovich, I do not trust him.’

‘My goodness, Pavel Pavlovich! But he has the most glowing references, albeit from deceased individuals. Tell me, of what do you suspect him?’

‘I really cannot say.’ Virginsky glanced down at the disembodied heads, as if he believed them capable of eavesdropping. ‘Perhaps he is a spy.’

‘A spy?’ Porfiry’s face opened in what appeared to be genuine surprise. ‘That is an original suggestion. For whom do you suspect him of spying?’

‘You must remember your encounter with the gendarme at the Nikolaevsky Station. I told you at the time that it does not pay to cross those people. One hears of the Third Section attempting to infiltrate other arms of the state machinery, particularly the police and judiciary. There is someone in the Third Section who has every reason to take an interest in the conduct of this case in particular.’

‘You are referring to Maria Petrovna’s father, are you not?’

‘I am.’

‘But if he wishes to know details of the case, he has only to come into my chambers and ask me. There is no need for any subterfuge.’

‘You forget, Porfiry Petrovich, subterfuge is in the nature of these people. They know no other way of operating.’

‘But it is really rather subtle of you to suggest this, Pavel Pavlovich. After all, Slava gives the impression of not being at all interested in this case, but somewhat more interested in the murder of Yelena Filippovna.’

‘It is what I believe is known as misdirection. A classic trick of such people.’

‘I see.’ Porfiry blinked out a display of innocence. ‘How very cunning.’

Virginsky regarded him with narrowed eyes. ‘You knew, didn’t you? That is to say, you suspected the same thing? But why would you employ him, believing him to be an infiltrator?’

‘Let us assume you’re right. He is a spy. Now that we know he is a spy, he cannot hurt us. We are fortunate that he is a very bad spy. If I had not employed him, they would perhaps have sent along a better one. Besides, we have nothing to hide from them. Our conduct of the case will be exemplary, that is a given. It does no harm to play along. Consider it a game.’

‘I thought you employed him to keep me on my toes.’ Virginsky’s pronouncement had the cadence of a confession.

‘That is what I wanted
him
to think.’

Virginsky gave a reflective wince. ‘You know, Porfiry Petrovich, such misunderstandings between us would not occur if you confided in me more.’

‘I fear I do not have a confiding nature.’ Porfiry looked back at the table impatiently, as if he had been torn away from dinner with friends. ‘Now. Come. Help me. Look at these heads and tell me what strikes you.’ He made the invitation with the excited zeal of an enthusiast sharing his passion.

Virginsky approached the table. Porfiry studied his face keenly as he scanned the heads.

‘The bruising,’ said Virginsky at last.

‘Yes! Good man. The bruises around the neck. Strikingly similar, are they not, in every case?’

‘The children were all strangled.’

‘It would appear so,’ said Porfiry thoughtfully. He leaned over to peer at Mitka’s neck, pivoting backwards and forwards to find his focal point. ‘These damned eyes! Would you be so kind as to lift down one of those lanterns, Pavel Pavlovich?’

Virginsky unhooked a light from the ceiling and brought it towards the table.

‘Thank you. There is something here, I’m sure of it. Look! This mark, here just to the right of the larynx. Do you see it, or are my eyes deceiving me?’

Porfiry pointed to a small intense burst of purple almost in the centre of Mitka’s throat, a pinpoint darkening in the general discolouration at his neck. The mark was complex, though what drew the eye to it was its strange, almost perfect symmetry. It was a bifurcation of tiny hooked blobs around a central stem.

‘Yes. There is something there,’ confirmed Virginsky.

Porfiry now transferred his attention to the same area on Svetlana’s neck. ‘And it is here too, on this one.’ A quick glance at the third head confirmed his suspicion. ‘On Artur too. They all have it.’