A Vengeful Longing pp-2

by R. N. Morris

‘I sincerely hope not.’ Porfiry at last took his seat.

  ‘Me too. I’ll be very clever and escape your detection.’ Tatyana Ruslanovna gave a glassy little laugh.

  ‘I rather think a better course of action would be to avoid murdering anyone in the first place.’

  ‘Well, of course, I will try. But I am only human.’

  Porfiry flickered his eyelids in an attempt to gather his thoughts. ‘What did you mean when you said that your mother had deluded herself about your father?’

  ‘There are things that I am not supposed to know. For example, Daddy has a bookcase in his library. It is kept locked. But I know where the key is. And I have read the books that he keeps in there.’

  ‘Novels?’

  ‘I think there is another word for the type of books they are.’

  ‘I understand. I know the kind of books you are referring to.’

  ‘I expect you do. I expect you like to read them too.’

  ‘I have encountered them in a professional capacity.’

  Her brittle laughter rang out again. There was something broken and cynical to the sound which, given her youthfulness, disturbed Porfiry. ‘You men can never own up to your natures, can you? Well at least Alyosha was honest in that respect. He knew what he wanted and was not ashamed to ask for it.’ She looked at Virginsky, who was standing by the window. Her smile was a fragment of the same laughter. He was not able to return her look.

  ‘Were you aware that your father received an anonymous letter concerning your relations with Colonel Setochkin?’ asked Porfiry.

  ‘Oh yes! He was furious about it.’

  ‘Did he show you the letter?’

  ‘Of course. He thought it would shame me into mending my ways, or some such nonsense.’

  ‘I see. I take it that it did not have the effect he desired?’

  ‘I will not be lectured to by a hypocrite. All his sanctimonious bowing down before the icons, and he was no better than me.’ Once more she tilted her head upwards, a gesture of contempt.

  Porfiry flexed his brows thoughtfully. A small, almost pained, smile flickered briefly. ‘Strange. Those were almost the same words he used to me.’

  ‘My mother has fallen for his act, but not I. She hasn’t seen what I have seen.’

  ‘You are referring to the books in the locked bookcase?’

  ‘Yes, the books. And the diaries. He keeps dirty little diaries, you know, of all his dirty little antics.’

  ‘Diaries? You mean there’s more than one?’ said Porfiry.

  ‘Oh yes. Five or six.’

  ‘And you have read them?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘That must have been hard for you.’

  ‘Oh yes. He has a terrible style.’

  Porfiry’s head trembled towards a bow. ‘And does your father know that you have read them?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Tatyana Ruslanovna smiled her self-satisfaction.

  ‘These diaries are in the locked bookcase in your father’s library?’

  Tatyana Ruslanovna nodded.

  ‘Where is the key to the bookcase?’

  Tatyana Ruslanovna laughed, the same broken laugh as before. ‘You’d like to read them, would you?’

  ‘They may have some bearing on the case.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Tatyana Ruslanovna. Porfiry was beginning to find her knowing irony tiresome.

  ‘Young lady. A man is dead. This man, I believe, was once someone close to you. Although your father is necessarily a suspect, I am not absolutely convinced that he is the perpetrator. What happened yesterday in Setochkin’s study remains a mystery. It could be argued that you yourself have a motive for killing Setochkin. Therefore, you are a suspect too. I urge you to take this seriously. You may very well find yourself in one of my cells sooner than you thought.’

  Tatyana Ruslanovna clicked her tongue and turned her face away from him in a dismissive shrug. ‘The key is at the back of one of the drawers in his desk. The right-hand drawer.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘However, that drawer is locked.’

  ‘I see,’ said Porfiry rather stiffly. ‘And where is the key for that drawer?’

  ‘That is in the left-hand drawer of the desk.’

  ‘And is that drawer locked?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘And the key?’

  Tatyana Ruslanovna turned on him a face brimming with mischief and excitement. ‘Where do you think? You’re a detective, aren’t you? Where would you look for it?’

  Porfiry gave it only a moment’s thought. ‘Knowing your father as I do, knowing the tensions that his soul is subject to, the very real conflicts that torment him, and for which I pity him, as a man. .’ He looked steadily at Tatyana Ruslanovna. ‘I would not be surprised if you found the key hidden in the pages of his Bible. In the New Testament. If I were to offer a more precise opinion, I would say somewhere among the verses of the Book of Revelation, perhaps in proximity to chapter two, where Jezebel is mentioned, or, more likely, chapter seventeen, which as you know refers to the Whore of Babylon.’

  Tatyana’s mouth dropped open, and her sense of her own cleverness seemed to fall out of it.

  At that point, however, the interview was interrupted by another commotion outside, in which the voice of Nastasya Petrovna once again dominated. A moment later, the door to Porfiry’s chambers opened and a tall, severely impeccable man wearing the buttons of a high-ranking civil servant entered. In addition, he was decorated with the medal of the order of St Stanislav.

  Nastasya Petrovna’s bustling form was visible behind him, protruding on either side. ‘He is here! Our saviour!’ Nastasya Petrovna peered around the man’s elbow, her mouth now pinched with vindication. She glared at her daughter. ‘You said he would not come but he has. You were wrong. Cruel and wrong.’ To Porfiry, she added, ‘You must not believe a word she says. She speaks only out of spite. What did we do to deserve such an ungrateful child?’ Nastasya Petrovna threw up her hands.

  Porfiry rose from his seat. ‘Yaroslav Nikolayevich, good-day to you.’

  ‘Porfiry Petrovich.’ His name sounded like a summoning to account.

  ‘You are in trouble now, little man,’ cried Nastasya Petrovna triumphantly. ‘It is not for the likes of you to lock Ruslan Vladimirovich Vakhramev in a cell.’

  The prokuror turned stiffly to Nastasya Petrovna. ‘Madam, kindly wait outside.’ It looked for the moment as if further protest would erupt from her, but she remembered herself in time and instead smiled simperingly. ‘And take your daughter with you.’

  ‘Tatyana!’

  The girl rose slowly with a final tilt of her head and sauntered after her mother’s sweeping bulk. Virginsky’s magnetised gaze tracked her.

  ‘Thank God she is gone,’ said Prokuror Liputin as the door was closed behind them. The usual impervious dignity of his expression for the moment gave way to an almost hounded, certainly human, vulnerability. ‘She is the most annoying woman I know,’ continued Liputin, ‘but she is a friend of my wife’s.’ A spasm of regret tensed the muscles of his face. He then noticed Virginsky and his expression became guarded. He turned quizzically to Porfiry.

  ‘Allow me to introduce Pavel Pavlovich. A new recruit to our department. His appointment was approved by your office, naturally. ’

  ‘Ah yes, I think I remember the letter now. But were you not once. .?’

  ‘Pavel Pavlovich recently graduated from the university with great honours,’ said Porfiry quickly.

  ‘Your face looks somehow familiar.’ Liputin frowned at Virginsky, then shook his head slowly. ‘Now, what is this all about, Porfiry Petrovich? I was about to leave for Pavlovsk today. I do not appreciate this delay.’

  ‘I am sorry that it has inconvenienced you, Yaroslav Nikolayevich. That was not my intention. It is not a straightforward case, however. A man, a former officer of the Izmailovsky regiment, one Colonel Setochkin, has been shot dead. That lady’s husband, Ruslan Vladimirovich Vakhramev, was discovere
d minutes after with the gun in his hand. The prima facie evidence is incriminating, I am afraid. No one else was seen to go into the room — or out of it, for that matter. There is no question of suicide. ’

  Yaroslav Nikolayevich murmured distractedly. ‘If I were to act as guarantor for Vakhramev, if I were to take him with me to Pavlovsk. .? Believe me, Porfiry Petrovich, this is not something I undertake lightly. For one thing, I will have to endure that woman’s company for the duration of the train journey.’

  ‘Pavlovsk? That would not be very convenient if we need to speak to him again, as I feel sure we will.’

  ‘No, no, you are quite right. Here, I have a better solution. I will remain in St Petersburg and Vakhramev can stay with me; we will pack the woman and her daughter off to Pavlovsk to be with my wife. How would that suit you?’

  Porfiry could not conceal his surprise at the prokuror’s conspiratorial familiarity. ‘He would be, in a manner of speaking, under house arrest with you?’

  ‘If you wish to put it like that.’

  Porfiry thought for a moment. ‘Very well. There will have to be police officers in attendance. We will need Nikodim Fomich’s consent. ’

  ‘You may leave Nikodim Fomich to me,’ said Yaroslav Nikolayevich, drawing himself up with a sigh.

  A mirroring movement from Virginsky drew the attention of the two other men. Liputin considered him sternly. ‘If I remember rightly, Porfiry Petrovich, there was a moment when it seemed very probable that this young man was a murderer.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, Yaroslav Nikolayevich.’

  ‘Let us hope that we have a similar outcome to look forward to in the case of Vakhramev.’ Liputin’s look to Porfiry as he said this was one of command rather than hope.

  Porfiry smiled and nodded automatically as the prokuror left to meet the importuning cries of Nastasya Petrovna.

  6

  Among the whores

  Salytov looked up at the glowing sky, away from the voices and the snatches of raucous music thrown out from basement taverns. In this nocturnal softening of the sun, some strange wildness was unbound, a spirit of recklessness and licence. The flowing waterways, the Moika, Fontanka, all the branches of the Neva, even the stinking Yekaterininsky Canal, shimmered. Everything was stirred and intoxicated. Salytov felt it too. Who could sleep at night in the summer in St Petersburg, without first exhausting themselves on the streets, wandering the embankments, pacing squares as wide as the days, in search of the promise of a passing scent or danger?

  And it was now that they came out, in all their shameless glee. The Haymarket crawled with whores. Some of them, almost certainly the illegal ones, backed off at the sight of his uniform, though among this group were those too diseased or drunk to care. The yellow ticket carriers were undeterred by his appearance. They either ignored him and carried on their business or, seeing through the uniform to the man, approached him with brazen, beckoning eyes and coaxing words. Even a policeman has to fuck, was evidently their reasoning, as well as their experience.

  He wanted to let them know that they disgusted him; that he saw through their daubs of face paint and tawdry dresses, even through their soft flesh to the soulless bones beneath. Without doubt, he wanted to punish them, even the legals, for the humiliation that their glances and their words inflicted. For is it not humiliating to be reminded of the things that are beyond our power, the forces that control us? At the very least, he wanted to inconveniencethem, to take them in, shake them up, scare them, if necessary hurt them. Then perhaps, when he had made his position and his power clear, he would consent to their proposals.

  But tonight, as he consciously had to remind himself, he was on official business. ‘Do not antagonise them,’ Porfiry Petrovich had said to him, as he handed over the photograph of Raisa Ivanovna Meyer. ‘You need to win them over.’ As always it galled him to receive advice from — to be patronised by — the investigating magistrate, especially when his own suggestions as to the management of the case were so flagrantly ignored. They had let the boy from the confectioner’s go! Unbelievable! It was not even clear that Porfiry Petrovich had informed the Third Section of the pamphlets found at the boy’s lodgings.

  No. Salytov’s views had not been appreciated. And instead of following a genuine lead, he was sent to chase loathsome chimeras around the Haymarket.

  The first girl that approached him was too young to remember Raisa Ivanovna in her working days, even allowing for the young ages at which most of them began their careers. He declined her mocking proposition with a shake of the head.

  He made for a group of older women, who seemed to have given up any real expectation of trade, certainly at this early stage of the night, while there were still younger, prettier girls about. Instead, they were absorbed by their own hilarity, passing a vodka bottle around and cackling. At his approach, they began to preen and pout. Salytov felt a flinch of tension quiver in his face as he suppressed his disgust and allowed them their advances. God only knew with what diseases they were riddled. Their vile and filthy fingers came out towards him. Even in the soft whiteness of the night, the sores and pockmarks of their faces were discernible beneath the layers of make-up. Porfiry Petrovich’s words came back to him: ‘You need to win them over.’ But at what cost?

  ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Some of you are old enough to be grandmothers.’ He could not help himself. It was the only way he knew.

  Their responses to his reproach were good-natured, or perhaps their renewed laughter was simply a reflex. ‘Whores are like fine wines, dearie, they get better with age,’ came from one of them. Her wink seemed not to be for Salytov, but for her companions. She clung to the necks of two of them. There was a round of appreciative laughter.

  ‘So you admit to being whores? But what use is there in denying the obvious. I hope your yellow tickets are all in order?’

  ‘If it’s our yellow tickets you want to see, you know where to look for them!’ The voluble one unhooked her arms from her friends and spun around to present Salytov with a view of her backside, which she stuck out and wiggled.

  ‘Enough of that. Show more respect, woman. Here now. You must all look at this picture. That’s right, pass it around. Do any of you recognise her? She worked as a whore many years ago at a brothel run by one Madam Josephine. Our records show that this brothel no longer exists, or at any rate is no longer legally licensed. It is believed that Madam Josephine is dead. God knows how it is that any of you are still alive. The name of the woman in the picture is Raisa. She may have worked under a different name, however. Cast your minds back, if you have anything left of your minds. Come now, do any of you recognise her?’

  There were murmurs of distrust now, heads were shaken, and the women began to back away. Some of them tried unsuccessfully to recapture their former mood, which this intrusion of the past, a reminder of the youth they no longer possessed, had muted. In particular, Salytov’s mention of Madam Josephine seemed to have had a sobering effect. And it was almost as if the picture of Raisa acted with a repulsive force on them.

  The woman who had done most of the talking was the first to go, making a beeline for a solitary man whose drunken swerve marked him out as easy pickings. She paused only to cross herself as she passed the Church of the Assumption.

  Soon only one of them remained. She was left holding the photograph of Raisa, her head bowed over it.

  ‘I remember her,’ she said. When at last she lifted her face, Salytov saw that her eyes were moist with tears.

  ‘Raisa. That was her name. She came from a good family, didn’t she? Yes, she was a nice girl, a good girl, really she was. I can see the way you’re looking at me, but believe me, it’s true. It happens, you know. Girls fall on hard times. Their families forsake them. What else are they to do?’

  ‘Nonsense. They have many options. They could enter service. If she was from a good family, and educated, why could she not have become a governess? Are you telling me that because she was too proud to find wo
rk as a seamstress, she became a whore instead? Only the lazy and the wicked go down your path.’

  ‘But there are many small steps on to it. Sometimes a girl finds herself friendless, that’s somehow worse than penniless and homeless. You have to imagine the depths of despair.’

  ‘Depravity!’

  ‘No. Despair. Then, at last, she finds a friend, or so it seems. She is taken in by a kindly soul who understands everything. She is given a bed, food, warmth, and nothing is asked of her in return. At least not at first. More and more she finds herself in the debt of this kindly soul, whose name may be Madam Josephine, or Fräulein Keller, or some such. She is reassured daily not to give the mounting debt another thought. Perhaps there are practical measures, not to mention expenses, that the girl needs help with. There is a way of getting into trouble that only girls have. These kindly souls know all the remedies. Then the day comes when the poor lost girl no longer feels herself poor or lost. She feels herself strong and ready to go out into the world again. But now she is reminded of the debt. Her ingratitude is thrown back at her. “But what can I do?” she asks. “I have no way to repay you. I have no money.” “There is a way,” says the kindly soul. And so begins her education. There will be tears, no doubt. But no one will hear them. In the meantime, the debt increases. It always increases, no matter how hard the girl works. And she begins to see herself as a spoiled, worthless creature with no way out, no life of her own, and more alone than she has ever been.

  ‘That was Raisa’s story, but not the whole of it. It did not end for her as it did for so many others. As it will for me. She got out. She met a man. A gentleman. He came to Madam Josephine’s and saw something in her eyes that moved him. He got her to tell him her story and was moved by that too. He slept with her, of course. He was not such a saint as to forgo that privilege. He promised her money to buy off Madam Josephine. It was not such a large sum as all that, though any sum is large when you have nothing. He gave her more. His address and the promise of another life. She left to find him. And the day she left was the last time I ever saw her. Tell me, is she happy now, do you know?’