Natasha stopped short in the doorway, and her eyes came alive when they focused on something right in her line of vision. Masha craned her neck to get a glimpse of what her mother was staring at so intently, and swore to herself. Her room wasn’t a safe option, either. The black-and-white photo of her father regarded his wife and daughter from the opposite wall. He seemed more alive than both of them put together. The standoff lasted maybe ten seconds, until Natasha turned to her daughter and said, very quietly, “This is all your fault.” Then she clutched at her heart and, as if she were in a movie, slowly crumpled to the floor.
“Mama, what’s wrong? Is it your heart?” Masha shouted.
That same instant the doorbell rang, and Masha ran to answer it. She slipped on the rug and pulled the door open almost in midflight.
“Nadya!” She was no longer trying to act as if she were in control. Masha felt like she had shot back in time eleven years, and she was standing there, small and lost, over her father’s dead body. “There’s something wrong with Mama. I think it’s her heart!”
“All right, all right,” Nadya told her reassuringly and hurried inside. “Natasha!” Nadya squatted down on the floor next to her friend, and in one quick gesture took some sort of tablet out of her purse and slid it under Natasha’s tongue. She wrapped her long fingers around the patient’s wrist and felt her pulse. “Natasha, you need to be strong now. You need to pull yourself together, Natasha,” she was saying in a quiet, almost sing-song voice, while Masha stood by silently behind her and tried not to cry. “I’m going to give you a shot and bring you in to my clinic. My car’s outside. You’ll have a few days of rest. Masha can pack your things.”
She nodded back at Masha, who obediently turned around and walked to the bathroom, where she forced her trembling hands to gather up her mother’s makeup and the bathrobe hanging on the door. What else? A change of underwear? Masha hurried down the hallway toward the master bedroom, catching a glimpse of Nadya expertly inserting a needle into her mother’s arm, still talking soothingly.
“Wonderful! I’ve always been jealous of your veins, nice and big!”
Natasha was staring straight up at the ceiling.
Masha grabbed the first pair of underwear she found, and was turning to leave when she caught the scent of her mother’s perfume. Her throat tightened. She must not cry! She also saw, out of the corner of one eye, an empty silver picture frame. But she didn’t stop to look closer. Masha ran back into the hallway. Her mother was on her feet now with her coat on, standing at the door. Nadya took the bag Masha had packed and patted her on the cheek.
“I’m going to take care of her for a few days. Will you be all right?”
Masha nodded.
“Wonderful. You can come visit when she’s feeling better.”
Masha nodded again. She couldn’t take her eyes off her mother’s pale, frozen face. Nadya was opening the front door now, taking Natasha by the arm and steering her toward the elevator. Masha waved good-bye, the elevator door clanged shut, and she slowly retreated back into the apartment. She gave the lock four full turns, and turned away to look at her own reflection in the mirror.
The play of artificial and natural light made Masha look like a ghost, belonging to neither this world nor any other. Only now did she realize what her mother had said before collapsing on the parquet floor. It was all her fault. For some reason, Masha was not at all surprised. As always, Natasha was right.
Everything that had happened to their family was her fault. Hers and nobody else’s.
ANDREY
For the first time in his life, Andrey walked into a psychologist’s office, and despite his sour mood, he couldn’t help smiling. Lordy lordy lordy, his old grandma would have said. Quiet music was playing, slow enough to be hypnotic. Some extremely calming fish swam reassuringly in an aquarium. Soft rugs covered the floor, further muffling the unhurried footsteps of the staff walking to and fro. The sun was shining through the high windows, and Andrey squinted, wishing for a second that he could trade places with any of the poor saps sitting in this waiting room.
His own psychological dilemma was straight out of a classic novel. Andrey was caught between duty and emotion. It was his duty to go straight to Masha’s and grill her and her mother. His feelings, though, were whining as desperately as Marilyn Monroe. Give them time, his heart pleaded. Let them get their bearings. Lurking behind that generous notion was a quieter one: She’s going to hate you, and her mother’s going to hate you, too, and even if it helps you find the killer, you will lose Masha for good, Andrey, you provincial schmuck.
To distract himself, Andrey picked up a brochure off a table in the waiting room and started to read. A psychologist helps a patient look at a problem differently. With expert help, you will learn something new about yourself. Andrey smirked. It was true that he was hoping to learn something new, but not about himself. You will come to new conclusions about what you have experienced, arrive at a comprehensive understanding of your problems, and, finally, discover a path to a solution.
Not bad, thought Andrey. Maybe I should make an appointment.
He flipped over the brochure and found the price list. A personal consultation with Dr. Yury Arkadyevich Belov, whose photograph graced the cover (apparently, Dr. Belov was the head of the whole operation), cost two hundred euros. VIP consultations were available for two hundred fifty euros. So this place was too fancy to list their prices in rubles? Andrey made a face. He wondered what was included in a VIP session. A deep-tissue massage to ensure the patient was totally relaxed? Suddenly he lost all desire to finish reading the brochure. The whole idea of VIP therapy sessions had made him lose faith. What’s more, even if he spent all that money and arrived at a comprehensive understanding of his own problems in return, surely new problems would arise: financial ones.
A tall, imposing woman had walked into the room. Her hair was dyed the color of old gold and arranged in a low bun. She looked over the small crowd of patients, their faces tense despite the Mozart and the fish, and easily picked out Andrey.
“Tatyana Krotova,” she said, offering him a warm hand manicured with light-pink polish. “I’m second-in-command here.” She coughed and dropped her eyes. “Or I was, before Dr. Belov . . . Let’s go talk in my office.”
Andrey rose obediently and followed her until they reached a door bearing the sign “T. A. Krotova, D.Psych.” She opened the door to reveal a spacious office with the expected couch for patients bowled over by life, and Dr. Krotova gestured fluidly to Andrey to sit on it.
“Well now.” Krotova smiled sadly, and sat down behind her massive desk. “From what I understand, you’d like to ask me some questions about Dr. Belov. But I’m, ah, not sure that I can help you. Everyone here loved him. His colleagues and his patients. He was an expert in his field, and we are, well, mourning.”
Andrey fidgeted on the couch that was the tool of this woman’s trade. How could people pour out their deepest, darkest secrets here? Wasn’t it too awkward? He took a deep breath. It was clear that Doctor of Psychology Krotova was not about to share with him the things that were most paining her. She wasn’t the one on the couch, after all.
Andrey expected himself to start with the standard questions, but instead he blurted out, “Did your boss have an affair here at work?”
Dr. Krotova’s lips tightened, almost unnoticeably.
“No. Yury loved his family very much.”
Andrey kicked himself. Why on earth had he asked this lady about adultery? Maybe because of the family portrait the man had in his pocket? Or the tollhouses on Masha’s list? In any case, Andrey had to get his questioning back on track.
“How long have you been acquainted with the victim? Was he in any sort of conflict with colleagues at work? Or with patients? Have you noticed any recent changes in his behavior?” And on and on down the list. But Krotova didn’t give Andrey even a tiny toehold, nothing to work with.
He hadn’t actually expected much. After all, the Sin C
ollector never left a trail. Why would there be one this time? Andrey suddenly felt incredibly tired. These past few days had been shot through with helplessness, terror, and blood, and he was worried sick over Masha. He desperately wanted to hear her voice, so he could better remember what had happened between them the night before. But all he could recollect was their sad kiss outside her building that morning. He wrapped things up with Krotova quickly, shook her hand one more time, and almost ran past the enormous aquarium and away from the place where his childhood fears were supposed to evaporate to the sound of cloying music.
The air felt fresher outside. Twilight had fallen, and the city smelled of rain and gasoline. Andrey was reaching into his pocket for a smoke when a whole pack of cigarettes suddenly materialized before his eyes. A thin, bony hand was holding the pack up for him. He turned and saw a man next to him, probably thirty years old, tall but slouching. He wore a long jacket he had thrown on right over his white lab coat.
“Thanks,” Andrey said, taking the cigarette. Then he leaned over to take advantage of the elegant gold lighter, which seemed strangely out of character for this odd-looking stranger.
“Timofeyev. I’m a psychiatrist and sexologist here.”
Andrey shook his hand gingerly and tried to imagine, awkwardly, what kind of work a sexologist must do.
“Sexology,” Timofeyev explained, as if catching the glint of alarm in his eyes, “is not the same thing as gynecology. Or urology.” He smiled. “We work on things above the belt, not below.” He leaned toward Andrey again and added, “The brain, I mean.”
“Huh,” answered Andrey, grateful that the cigarette was providing him an excuse not to fan the flames of this conversation.
“You’re a detective, right?” Andrey nodded, and the sexologist went on. “I saw you walk into the Serpent’s nest.”
“The Serpent?”
“Yeah, that’s our loving nickname for our unloved Tatyana.” He made a grand gesture in the air with his glowing cigarette and quoted Pushkin. “‘And she was called Tatyana!’ She calls herself a doctor, too, which isn’t actually very funny.”
“She doesn’t have a doctorate?” asked Andrey. Now he was curious. Krotova had seemed perfectly suited to the title after her name.
“Oh, she does,” Timofeyev said dismissively. “Maybe she bought it somewhere, or maybe she just plonked her ass down in the library until she learned everything by heart. Psychology isn’t an exact science, if you know what I mean. But, honestly”—he moved his long face even closer to Andrey’s—“she’s just tickled pink that Belov is gone. He was the only person in this whole nuthouse who actually knew anything, hadn’t just memorized some Carl Jung. The only one who actually cared about his patients. Too much, sometimes.” The sexologist snickered.
“What do you mean?” Andrey hurried to ask.
“What else could I mean? It was clear as day. He’s a doctor, a king, and a god, and she’s a patient tortured by her own psyche. And a pretty one, too. It’s risky business, sure, and medical ethics forbids it. But more important, she had a husband. A cop. The kind who, if you gave him a leather jacket and shaved his head, he’d be the perfect thug. That sometimes happens with your kind, sorry to say. And his eyes—well, they weren’t kind, to put it gently. That kind of guy, he’s as likely to stab you as a Young Pioneer is to help an old lady across the street.”
Andrey couldn’t believe his luck. “You happen to know this lady patient’s name?” he asked quietly, afraid of jinxing himself by showing too much eagerness.
“Nope,” said Timofeyev, tossing away his cigarette butt. “But I can look in the files. It was probably two years ago. I saw her getting into his car after a session, and they drove off. Then she canceled the rest of her appointments.”
“Is that why you figure they were having an affair?” asked Andrey, faking disbelief, as Timofeyev opened the door to the clinic.
“Oh man.” The sexologist lifted one long crooked finger into the air. “If you had seen the way he looked at her? And her, too. Believe me, it was obvious.”
The patient’s last name turned out to be Kuznetsova, and Andrey got her address, too, and her phone number, which he called right from Timofeyev’s office. A toneless female voice said hello.
“Anna Kuznetsova? Good afternoon. My name is Yakovlev, and I’m a police detective. I’d like to have a chat with you about Yury Belov. Could we meet? Right now?”
“Certainly,” Anna answered quietly. “Please come. You have my address? The door code is 769.”
“On my way,” Andrey said, and hung up before she could change her mind. By the time he pulled out of the parking lot, he realized why the short conversation had felt so weird. Anna Kuznetsova had seemed neither surprised nor frightened. Very odd for a person receiving an urgent call from a detective.
INNOKENTY
Innokenty hung up the phone and sank down heavily onto the dark-green leather ottoman in the hallway. That had been Masha’s denim detective, Yakovlev, again. He was driving, and apparently in a serious rush. Yakovlev had told Innokenty that Masha’s stepfather was dead. He had given no details, but Innokenty knew enough to understand that Belov must have been murdered in some hideous medieval manner. And Innokenty knew just as well as Yakovlev did that the death of Masha’s stepfather was no coincidence. The Sin Collector was breathing down Masha’s neck now. The fact that she was still alive might be just an oversight, though that was hard to believe. More likely, it was a vital part of his devious game, part of his obsessive control over events. He was saying that he could take Masha’s life, purely by his own will, any time he chose.
Yakovlev had asked Innokenty to pick up Masha and her mother and bring them to Kenty’s place. “Just for a while,” he specified. Innokenty could hear the fear and exhaustion in his voice. There was a new tone, too, a note of pleading.
“Of course. I’ll go get them right now,” Kenty had agreed. Then he added, “Don’t worry. My apartment is like a bank vault. They’ll be relatively safe here.”
“Relatively, right,” Yakovlev had answered, but he also thanked him sincerely.
“Not a problem,” Innokenty had said automatically, but something nagged at him. Who the hell did the denim detective think he was, thanking Kenty for taking care of Masha Karavay? He had taken care of her for the past fifteen years, without anybody ever asking him to! But he quickly made himself see reason. Masha’s gloomy-looking boss was turning out to be a good guy, and it was natural that he was worried about her. Innokenty ran downstairs to his car and headed for Masha’s house, without even bothering to call first.
When Masha opened the door, Kenty gave a start. She looked thin and unhealthy, her collarbones standing out at the neck of her bathrobe, her elbows too sharp, and her face . . . Masha’s face was drawn and pinched, with dark circles under her eyes and sunken cheeks. Her hair hung in long, disheveled strands, and even her eyes looked pale, as if all the light had gone out of them. She moved quietly to one side to let Kenty in and led him, her feet dragging, to the kitchen, where she sat down facing the light. She smiled, unhappily.
“Mama’s in the hospital,” she said. “Her heart was giving her trouble. I guess you already know what happened?”
Innokenty nodded and tried to take her hand in his, but she pulled away, then looked down to concentrate on picking at a hangnail. She succeeded, and tore a considerable swath of skin away with it. Masha didn’t even wince. She licked the blood off her finger and grimaced at him again with that same empty smile.
“Masha,” he began, “you shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous. Even if you were able to convince yourself that your friend’s death was a coincidence—”
“Her name was Katya,” Masha said.
“Yes,” Innokenty conceded. “But we know that Katya’s death was no accident, and your stepfather was targeted for a reason, too.”
“Right,” Masha agreed. “This is about me, and it’s all my fault.”
“That’s ridiculous! Why
would you—”
“No, Kenty! Stop. It’s obvious!” Masha said, her words rushed now as she frantically pulled at another hangnail. “Even Mama said so!”
Innokenty grabbed her hand, but he felt her palm quiver and her fingers wriggle like insects as she tried to break free.
“Your mother said what?”
“Yes, Mama, too! If I hadn’t gotten involved in this Jerusalem thing, nobody would ever have figured it out! Maybe he even would have stopped killing, maybe he would have gotten bored with it. But now he has an audience, he has somebody to play with, you know? I mean, who would go and hide in the woods like an idiot, all alone? But if there are reasonably intelligent people looking for you, it’s different, and I’m closer than anyone else. It’s fun for him to play with me. And there are so many sinners around me. That’s what he’s trying to tell me. He’s saying I’ve been blind! I’m following his trail, but I can’t see what’s right in front of my face!”
“Masha!” Innokenty squeezed her hand harder. “We need to get you packed. Pick out what you need for a couple of days.”
“What’s the point, Kenty? Do you think he won’t find me?”
“My place is safer,” Innokenty insisted. He stood up, went to her bedroom, and opened the closet. Masha stood in the doorway and smiled at him strangely.
“You don’t get it, Kenty,” she said softly. “I’m not the one who needs to be protected. You are. You, my mom, everyone around me. You’re all in danger.”
Kenty did not turn his head. He found some jeans and sweaters and her favorite black T-shirts and put them in a bag. Masha sighed. With a hint of her old sense of humor, she added, “What, are you going to pack my underwear, too?”
“Well, where do you keep it?” asked Kenty, turning to her and smiling. And, thank God, she smiled back. For real, this time.
The Sin Collector (Masha Karavai Detective Series) Page 23
