R. Morris - A Vengeful Longing

Lara Olsufevna Mikheyeva inhaled the air in Porfiry’s chambers with her head angled back sharply. She regarded Porfiry down the bridge of a long straight nose, upon which a pince-nez was precariously imposed. It seemed she suspected him of being responsible for the smell that pervaded the room. Lara Olsufevna was self-evidently a respectable woman, somewhere in her fifties. The set of her mouth inclined Porfiry to believe her a spinster. She kept her eyes narrowed, in an expression of permanent distrust.

The thunder grumbled morosely now, the storm’s ferocity spent. The rain lashed the windows with an erratic beat, falling hard and sharp like cast gravel. The day’s light had not yet fully returned. But something else, a kind of cold glow, had taken its place.

Porfiry scanned Salytov’s transcript of her statement. ‘So, Lara Olsufevna. . You became aware of your tenant’s disappearance this morning.’

‘That’s right.’

‘We do not normally open a missing person file so soon after a disappearance is first reported.’

‘Ferfichkin is not missing. He is murdered.’

‘By Gorshkov?’ said Porfiry, checking the statement.

‘Yes.’

‘And why do you suspect Gorshkov of this crime?’

‘He said that he would kill him.’

‘I see.’

‘Gorshkov is not a bad man.’ Lara Olsufevna’s posture was as self-contained as her pronouncements. She lowered her head to look at Porfiry more carefully, but other than that she held herself quite immobile. She seemed uncannily at one with her stiff, charcoal dress. There was something of the schoolmistress about her, Porfiry decided. ‘He has that fatal weakness for drink that so many of our Russian menfolk share. But we have to allow that he has suffered terribly. Ferfichkin’s behaviour was the last straw. You can push a man only so far. Then, like the proverbial camel’s back, he will snap.’

‘How has Gorshkov suffered?’

‘He has buried six children, all girls. The last, a babe of three months, not long ago.’

‘And what has Ferfichkin to do with Gorshkov?’

‘Ferfichkin said the Psalms at his last daughter’s funeral. Like so many of the poor folk of this district, Gorshkov could not afford a proper priest.’

‘I don’t understand. Why would this lead Gorshkov to murder Ferfichkin?’

Lara Olsufevna treated Porfiry to a disappointed stare. ‘He could no more afford the services of a self-appointed Psalm reader than he could an Orthodox priest. Ferfichkin was pressing him mercilessly for the settlement of his debt. He began to make his demands on the very day of the funeral. At the graveside, no less. The tiny coffin had not long been laid in the ground. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. Ferfichkin’s behaviour was shameful. He pricked and needled the poor grieving father, pushed him to breaking point. Gorshkov’s neighbours had to hold him back. If not, I think he would have killed him there and then, and ripped the cold heart from his breast. I remember saying to a gentleman who was there, “This will end badly”.’

‘What gentleman was this? We will need to take a statement from him, if possible.’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t recognise him. He was not one of the family, or one of the Gorshkovs’ friends or neighbours. I believe he had just been passing and had stopped to watch out of compassion.Certainly he was very interested in the family. He asked many questions and was most sympathetic to their plight.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘Isn’t that strange? I find his face has gone completely from my memory. I dare say I would know him if I saw him again. I am usually very good at faces.’

‘I imagine you are,’ said Porfiry with a smile. ‘Please, you were telling me about Ferfichkin’s prosecution of Gorshkov’s debt.’

‘With every day that passed he added interest. Really, he was a monster. If Gorshkov hadn’t killed him, there would have been others who would have done the deed, I’m sure. He has a history of such usury. One would have thought him a Jew, were it not for his religion.’

‘You sound almost as if you have sympathy for Gorshkov.’

‘Who would not have sympathy for the sufferings of a fellow human? And his poor wife, to have borne so many, only to bury them, one after the other. She herself was too ill to come to her baby’s funeral.’

‘And yet you have come here to report him,’ observed Porfiry.

Lara Olsufevna’s brows shot up. ‘However much sympathy one may have, the law must be obeyed. I would expect you, as a magistrate, to understand that. He has taken the life of another. We cannot have people doing such things, not in a civilised society. Besides, I am afraid for Gorshkov. The balance of his mind is disturbed. There is no saying what he might do next. He may take his own life. Or that of his wife. I would not be surprised if he were to go on a destructive rampage. When I last saw him, there was a wildness in his eyes that frightened me.’ Lara Olsufevna paused. Her breathing became short and laboured. It was some time before she was able to speak again. ‘I hope to prevent such a thing happening. ’

Porfiry said nothing for a moment. ‘You are aware that the body of a man has been found?’

‘Yes. The truculent one told me.’

‘I’m afraid I am going to ask you to undertake an unpleasant duty.’

‘You want me to look at it.’ Lara Olsufevna pinched her mouth minimally.

Porfiry bowed solemnly.

Lara Olsufevna was already on her feet.

Outside, the day flickered with electricity, and a final, vast reverberation shook the sky.

The dark capsule of the police brougham hurtled through the rain, the horses’ necks slanting against the onslaught, their hooves kicking through the hissing spray. The weather snuffed the driver’s whip, as if brooking no rivals to its own immense voice. Huddled in oilskins, the driver raged equally at his team and the heavy drops that hit his face. A muted glow was concentrated in the buildings, the colours of which were strangely intensified.

Inside the carriage, the rain rapped like a thousand fingers on the roof. Lara Olsufevna was seated on her own facing the direction of travel. She looked out of the misted window with a mixture of apprehension and excitement. No doubt she was thinking of the task that lay ahead of her. Porfiry and Virginsky sat opposite, riding the buffetings of the carriage’s suspension, watching her with mild curiosity.

‘Tell me more about Ferfichkin,’ said Porfiry to Lara Olsufevna. ‘You say that he has many enemies.’

‘Oh yes.’ Lara Olsufevna’s impatience suggested this was something any fool knew. ‘It’s true. He had .’ The last word was given pointed emphasis.

‘We don’t know that he is dead yet,’ said Porfiry. ‘I suggest that until that is confirmed we refer to him in the present tense, as one still extant.’

Lara Olsufevna’s shrug was amplified by the jouncing seat.

‘So he lives with you as a tenant? How do you get on with him?’

‘We get along well enough by having nothing whatsoever to do with one another, other than that which cannot be avoided.’

‘But your dealings with him are rather different to most other people’s, are they not?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, he is regularly in your debt rather than the other way round.’

‘He has always paid his rent on time. I have had no complaints on that front.’

‘It’s just as well for you, perhaps, that he is so meticulous in recovering the debts owing to him.’

‘I do not believe it is quite necessary for him to do so with such unfeeling brutality.’

Porfiry nodded. ‘I cannot imagine he makes much of a living reading the psalter at paupers’ funerals.’