R. Morris - A Vengeful Longing

‘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 discovered 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.

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.