Boris Akunin - Special Assignments

'Come now,' said the defender with a wave of his hand, 'she is as much a victim as the others. Even more so than the others, since the cashbox of the so-called lottery was arrested and all those who presented a ticket were given their money back. Do not ruin the life of this young creature, gentlemen of the jury; do not condemn her to a life among criminals.'

The lawyer sneezed again and pulled a heap of papers out of his briefcase.

'That's pretty feeble,' Anisii's bearded neighbour commented with cool, professional confidence. 'They'll find the girl guilty. How would you like a wager?' And he winked from behind his spectacles.

A fine sense of humour! Anisii moved away angrily, preparing for the worst.

But the defender had not finished yet. He pinched at his goatee beard in the manner of Lord Beaconsfield and genially pressed one hand to a shirt that was none too fresh.

'That is approximately the speech that I would have made to you, gentlemen of the jury, if there were anything to discuss here. But there is nothing to discuss, because I have here' - he shook the papers in the air - 'statements from all the plaintiffs. They are withdrawing their suits. Close the proceedings, Mr Judge. There is no case to be tried.' The barrister approached the judge and slapped the statements down on the table in front of him.

'But that's smart,' Anisii's neighbour whispered, growing excited. 'What will the prosecutor have to say to that?'

The prosecutor sprang to his feet and began shouting in a voice breaking under the weight of righteous indignation: 'This is plain bribery! And I shall prove it! The proceedings cannot be stopped! This is a case of public importance!'

The defender turned to the shouting man and began taunting him: '"Plain bribery"? What new Cato do we have here? It would have been cheaper to bribe you, Mr Prosecutor. Everybody knows that your rate is not very high. As it happens, by the way, I have one of your receipts here. Where is it now? Ah, here!' He pulled some other piece of paper out of his briefcase and thrust it under the judge's nose. 'For a mere one and a half thousand our prosecutor cancelled the bigamist Brutyan's sentence, and Brutyan fled.'

The prosecutor clutched at his heart and slumped down on to his chair. A hubbub broke out in the hall and the correspondents, who had so far been feeling bored, came to life and started scribbling in their notepads.

The judge rang his bell and gazed in confusion at the compromising receipt, as the disagreeable attorney turned awkwardly, and several photographic prints fell out of his inexhaustible briefcase, scattering on to the table.

Anisii could not see what was in those photographs, but the judge suddenly turned as white as chalk and gaped at them, his eyes wide in horror.

'I do apologise,' said the defender, and yet he appeared in no hurry to gather up the photographs from the table. 'They have absolutely nothing to do with our case here today. They are from another case, concerning the corruption of young boys.'

It seemed to Anisii that the barrister emphasised the words 'today' and 'another' in a somewhat strange manner, but then he did speak with a rather distinctive intonation, and Anisii could have imagined it.

'Well now, shall we close the case?' the advocate asked, looking the judge straight in the eye as he gathered up the photographs. 'On the basis that no crime has been committed, eh?'

A minute later the proceedings were declared concluded.

Anisii stood on the porch in a state of terrible agitation, waiting for the miraculous advocate to lead out his acquitted client.

And there they were: Mimochka was smiling to the left and the right, not looking miserable and pitiful any more. The stooping advocate was leading her along, arm in arm, and waving away the reporters with his other hand, which held the briefcase.

Ah, I'm fed up with you all!' he exclaimed angrily as he helped his companion into the phaeton.

Anisii wanted to go up to Mimochka, but his neighbour from the courtroom, that interested commentator on the legal proceedings, stepped forward first.

'You'll go a long way, colleague,' he said to Mimochka's hooknosed saviour, slapped him patronisingly on the shoulder, and strode away, tapping his cane heavily.

'Who was that?' Anisii asked an usher.

'Him, sir,' the usher replied in a voice filled with unbounded admiration, 'why that was Fedor Nikiforich Plevako himself, the most brilliant lawyer in Russia. Gets people off without speaking more than a single sentence.'

At that moment, as Mimi plumped down on to the springy seat of the phaeton, she suddenly swung round and blew Anisii a kiss. The barrister also swung round. He looked sternly at the young lop-eared functionary in the white uniform jacket and suddenly did a very queer thing: he screwed up his face and stuck out a broad, bright-red tongue.

The carriage picked up speed, rumbling merrily over the cobblestones of the road.

'Stop! Stop!' Anisii shouted and went darting after it, but how could he possibly overtake it?

And what point was there, anyway?

Erast Petrovich Fandorin, the Governor-General of Moscow's Deputy for Special Assignments and a state official of the sixth rank, a knight of many Russian and foreign orders, was being violently sick.

The finely moulded but now pale and bluish-tinged features of the Collegiate Counsellor's face were contorted in suffering. One hand, in a white kid glove with silver press-studs, was pressed against his chest, while the other clawed convulsively at the air in an unconvincing attempt by Erast Petrovich to reassure his assistant, as if to say, 'Never mind, it's nothing; I shall be fine in a moment.' However, judging from the intensity with which his distress continued, it was anything but nothing.

Fandorin's assistant, Provincial Secretary Anisii Pitirimovich Tulipov, a skinny, unprepossessing young man of twenty-three, had never before had occasion to see his chief in such a pitiful state. Tulipov himself was in fact a little greenish round the gills, but he had resisted the temptation to vomit and was now secretly feeling proud of it. However, this ignoble feeling was merely fleeting, and therefore unworthy of our attention, but the unexpected sensitivity of his adored chief, always so cool-headed and not disposed to excessive displays of feeling, had alarmed Anisii quite seriously.

'G-Go ...' said Erast Petrovich, squeezing out the word as he wiped his purple lips with one glove. His constant slight stutter, a reminder of a concussion suffered long ago, had been become noticeably stronger as a result of his nervous discomfiture. 'G-Go in ... T-Take ... d-detailed ... notes. Photographs from all angles. And make sure they don't t-t-trample the evidence

He doubled over again, but this time the extended hand did not tremble - the finger pointed steadfastly at the crooked door of the little planking shed from which only a few moments earlier the Collegiate Counsellor had emerged as pale as a ghost with his legs buckling under him.

Anisii did not wish to go back into that grey semi-darkness, into that sticky smell of blood and offal. But duty was duty.

He filled his chest right up to the top with the damp April air (he didn't want his own stomach to start churning too), crossed himself and took the plunge.

The little hut was used for storing firewood, but there was hardly any left, because the cold season was already coming to an end. Quite a number of people had gathered inside: an investigator from the Public Prosecutor's Office, detectives from the Criminal Investigation Department, the district superintendent of police, the local police inspector, a forensic medical expert, a photographer, local police constables, and also the yard-keeper Klimuk, first to discover the scene of the monstrous atrocity - that morning he had looked in to get some wood for the stove, seen it there, had a good long yell and gone running for the police.