Boris Akunin - Special Assignments

They went into the forensic medical expert's office and sat down at the desk, since Zakharov himself was working on the body in the autopsy theatre.

'Well, all right then,' said Izhitsin, giving this man he outranked a superior glance. 'So let's put our thinking caps on. Who does our belly-slasher kill? Streetwalkers, vagrants, beggars - that is, women from the lower depths of the city, society's discarded garbage. So now, let's remember where the killings have taken place. Well, there's no way to tell where the nameless bodies in the ditches were brought from. We know well enough that in such cases our Moscow police don't take too much trouble over the paperwork. But on the other hand, we do know where the bodies we dug out of the named graves came from.'

Izhitsin opened an exercise book with an oilcloth cover.

'Aha, look! The beggar Marya Kosaya was killed on the eleventh of February on Maly Tryokhsvyatsky Lane, at Sychugin's dosshouse. Her throat was cut, her belly was slit open, her liver is missing. The prostitute Alexandra Zotova was found on the fifth of February in Svininsky Lane, lying in the road. Again with her throat cut and her womb missing. These two are obvious clients.'

The investigator walked across to the police map of the city that was hanging on the wall and began jabbing at it with a long, pointed finger: 'So, let's take a look. Tuesday's Andreichkina was found just here, on Seleznyovskaya Street. Today's little girl was found by the Novotikhvinsk level crossing, right here. From one crime scene to the other it's no more than a verst. And it's the same distance to the Vypolzovo Tatar suburb as well.'

'What has the Tatar suburb got to do with anything?' Tulipov asked.

'Later, later,' said Izhitsin, with another impatient gesture. 'Just hold your horses... Now the two old bodies. Maly Tryokhsvyatsky Lane - that's there. And there's Svininsky Lane. All in the same patch. Three hundred, maybe five hundred steps from the synagogue in Spasoglinishchevsky Lane.'

'But even closer to Khitrovka,' Anisii objected. 'Someone gets killed there every day of the week. That's no surprise: it ?s a hotbed of crime.'

'They get killed all right, but not like this! No, Tulipov, this smacks of something more than plain Christian villainy. I can sense a fanatical spirit at work in all these paunchings. An alien spirit. Orthodox folks get up to lots of beastly things, but nothing like this. And don't start with all that nonsense about the London Ripper being Russian and now he's come back for some fun and games in the land of his birth. That's rubbish! If a Russian can travel round cities like London, it means he comes from the cultured classes. And why would an educated man go rummaging in the stinking guts of some Manka Kosaya? Can you picture it?'

Anisii couldn't picture it and he shook his head honestly.

"Well then, you see. It's so obvious. You have to be a crackpot theoretician like your chief to abandon common sense for abstract intellectual postulates. But I, Tulipov, am a practical man.'

'But what about the knowledge of anatomy?' Anisii asked, dashing to his chief's defence. And the professional use of a surgical instrument? Only a doctor could have committed all these outrages!'

Izhitsin smiled triumphantly. 'That's where Fandorin is wrong! That hypothesis of his stuck in my throat from the very start. It doesn't hap-pen,' he said, hammering home every syllable. 'It simply doesn't happen, and that's all there is to it. If a man from respectable society is a pervert, then he'll think up something a bit more subtle than these abominations.' The investigator nodded in the direction of the autopsy room. 'Remember the Marquis de Sade. Or take that business last year with the notary Shiller - remember that? He got this bint blind drunk, stuck a stick of dynamite up her, you know where, and lit the fuse. An educated man - you can see that straight away; but a monster, of course. But only some low scum is capable of the loathsome abominations we're dealing with here. And as for the knowledge of anatomy and the surgical skill, you'll see that's all very easily explained, you know-alls.'

The investigator paused, raised one finger for dramatic effect and whispered: A butcher! There's someone who knows anatomy as well as any surgeon. Every day of the week he's separating out livers and stomachs and kidneys as neat and tidy as you like, every bit as precise as the late surgeon Pirogov. And a good butcher's knives are as sharp as any scalpel'

Tulipov said nothing. He was shaken. The obnoxious Izhitsin was right! How could they have forgotten about butchers?

Izhitsin was pleased by Anisii's reaction. And now, about my plan.' He went up to the map again. 'Seems we have two focal points. The first two bodies were found over here, the last two - over here. What reason the criminal had for changing his area of activity we don't know. Perhaps he decided it was more convenient to commit murder in the north of Moscow than in the central district: waste lots, shrubs and bushes, not so many houses. To be on the safe side, I'm regarding all the butchers who live in either of the regions that interest us as possible suspects. I already have a list.' The investigator took out a sheet of paper and put it on the desk in front of Anisii. 'Only seventeen names in all. Note the ones that are marked with a six-pointed star or a crescent moon. This is the Tatar suburb, here in Vypolzovo. The Tatars have their own butchers, and real bandits they are. Let me remind you that it's less than a verst from the suburb to the shed where Andreichkina was found. It's the same distance to the railway crossing where the little girl's body was found. And here' - the long finger shifted across the map - 'in the immediate proximity of Tryokhsvyatsky and Svininsky Lanes, is the synagogue. That's where the kosher meat-carvers are, the filthy Yid butchers who kill the cattle in that barbarous fashion of theirs. Have you ever seen how it's done? Very much like the work of our good friend. Now do you get a whiff of where the case is heading?'

To judge from the pompous investigator's flaring nostrils, it was heading for a sensational trial, serious honours and breath-takingly rapid promotion.

'You're a young man, Tulipov. Your future's in your own hands. You can cling to Fandorin and end up looking stupid. Or you can work for the good of the cause and then I won't forget you. You're a smart lad, an efficient worker. I need helpers like you.'

Anisii was about to open his mouth to put the insolent fellow in his place, but Izhitsin was already carrying on with what he was saying: 'Of the seven butchers who interest us, four are Tatars and three are Yids. They're at the top of the list of suspects. But to avoid any reproaches of prejudice, I'm arresting the lot. And I'll give them a thorough working over. I have the experience for it, thank God.' He smiled rapaciously and rubbed his hands together. 'So right then. First of all I'll start by feeding the heathen scum salt beef, because they don't observe the Orthodox fast. They won't eat pork, so I'll order them to be given beef: we respect other people's customs. I'll give the Orthodox butchers a bit of salted herring. I won't give them anything to drink. Or let them sleep either. After they've been in for a night, they'll start howling, and in the morning, to make sure they don't get too bored, I'll call them out by turn and my lads will teach them a lesson with their "sticks of salami". Do you know what a "stick of salami" is?'

Tulipov shook his head, speechless.

A most excellent little device: a stocking stuffed with wet sand. Leaves no marks, but it makes a great impression, especially applied to the kidneys and other sensitive spots.'

'But Mr Izhitsin, you're a university graduate!' Anisii gasped.

'Exactly and that's why I know when to stick to the rules and when the interests of society allow the rules to be ignored.'