R. Morris - A Vengeful Longing

Porfiry looked up and nodded a signal to Virginsky, who was standing on the other side of the crowded police bureau. Virginsky opened a door and Lieutenant Salytov pushed in Rostanev, still plucking and tightening the points of his beard. Salytov propelled him roughly forward. Rostanev smirked and began to walk directly towards Porfiry.

Meyer, Vakhramev and Lara Olsufevna followed the investigator’s gaze.

‘If any of you now see the man in question, please do not hesitate to point him out to me.’

They watched Rostanev approach but no one said a word. A final push from Salytov sent the little civil servant buffeting into Dr Meyer. Meyer looked down at him in bemusement and then peered over his head, to continue his search for the suspect.

‘No no no! It was not him,’ said Lara Olsufevna scowling in disapproval at Rostanev. ‘The personage I spoke to was taller than this individual — and a gentleman, of course.’

‘Can you be sure it is not the same man?’ asked Porfiry.

‘I think I would have remembered meeting such an ill-favoured brute as this.’

‘Ruslan Vladimirovich?’ Profiry turned to Vakhramev.

‘It was a long time ago,’ said Vakhramev quietly. ‘But this face, once seen, would never be forgotten. And I have to confess that I have never seen it before in my life.’

‘He is not the one,’ confirmed Dr Meyer.

‘Thank you all so very much,’ said Porfiry calmly. ‘You have been a great help. You may go now.’

With an air of bewilderment, the group of three witnesses broke up. Vakhramev glanced at Liputin uncertainly, but reassured by the other man’s nod moved hesitantly away. Liputin encouraged him further with a dismissive sweep of his hand. The prokuror himself did not move. Lara Olsufevna drew herself up stiffly, conveying a sense of insulted dignity. This provoked an even deeper bow from Porfiry.

‘Gorshkov,’ she said. ‘Gorshkov killed Ferfichkin.’

With that, she turned and swept from the bureau, as if summoning an invisible retinue behind her.

Meyer seemed reluctant to leave. His gaze latched on to Porfiry. ‘If I may help in any other way. .’

‘I will let you know.’

Meyer nodded as if he had expected this answer. After a moment, he began, ‘That other man. .’

‘Ruslan Vladimirovich?’

‘Yes.’ Meyer shot Porfiry an exposed and suffering look. ‘He knew Raisa before. In the days when. .’ Meyer broke off and rubbed the joint of a forefinger against his cheekbone.

Porfiry gave a wincing smile and nodded.

‘Did he sleep with her, do you know?’

‘I do not believe so.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Someone like him did. Many men like him, in all probability. Let him stand for them all. At any rate, he is a respectable gentleman now. No doubt he has put all that behind him.’

‘It would seem so.’

‘He has a wife and family?’

‘Yes. A daughter.’

‘A daughter?’ Meyer nodded as he considered this. ‘I hope he loves his daughter. I hope he loves her enough to forgive her whatever she may do or become. Let him not cast her out.’

The doctor bowed slightly. He gave Porfiry a final imploring look before walking with diffident step towards the door.

‘You too, Axenty Ivanovich,’ said Porfiry to Rostanev. ‘And let this be a lesson to you. No more letters.’

Rostanev’s chuckle warbled brassily in his throat.

‘Don’t forget to pick up your things from Alexander Grigorevich on the way out. Though I think we will hold on to the knife.’

Rostanev’s leer twitched into place. He dipped his head but did-n’t move, until a shove and an ‘Away!’ from Salytov sent him over to Zamyotov’s counter.

‘So, Porfiry Petrovich,’ said Prokuror Liputin. ‘Once again you have let everyone go and are left with nothing. Will you ever bring these cases to a conclusion, I wonder?’

‘I hope so,’ said Porfiry.

‘I would expect a more definite reply at this stage of the investigation, ’ answered Liputin.

‘I can’t believe you let that madman go,’ cut in Salytov. ‘Surely there was something we could have charged him with? The letters, for instance. He admitted to the letters.’

‘Of course, we could have put together a charge based on the malicious letters. However, in the meantime I have a murderer to catch.’ Porfiry lit a cigarette and blew out smoke as Virginsky came over to join them. ‘You know, I never really believed it was Rostanev.’

‘You arrested him, didn’t you?’ said Virginsky.

‘True, Pavel Pavlovich. But did it not strike you that there was something rather too convenient about the way we were led to him? All those coincidences? I mean to say, if Rostanev really did poison the chocolates, would he have been so foolish as to have his name entered in one of Ballet’s order books?’

‘I believe that is what I said at the time and you overruled my objection.’

‘Of course. I wanted you to look through the books. It was good training for you in the more routine aspects of an investigator’s job. Besides, you might have found something interesting.’

Virginsky was indignant. ‘I found what you were looking for.’

‘Exactly! And I am always suspicious when one finds what one is looking for.’

‘And that is it?’ said Salytov, equally as indignant as Virginsky.

‘No, Ilya Petrovich, that most definitely is not it. Rostanev may not be the murderer, but I have a strong suspicion that he will lead us to him.’ They watched Rostanev load his pockets with quills. ‘And, incidentally, that is why I preferred not to charge him in connection with the letters.’ Porfiry considered his cigarette. ‘I have already arranged to have him watched, of course.’

Porfiry nodded to two men who were loitering near the entrance to the bureau, one grubby-faced in a tattered coat and top hat, the other dandyishly turned out in a light-coloured suit and with a moustache so large it made him seem top-heavy. As Rostanev left the bureau, the ragged man sauntered after him. A minute or two later, the smarter one followed.

Prokuror Liputin looked down at Porfiry with a half-sceptical, half-admiring gaze. ‘Porfiry Petrovich, I am glad to hear that you have planned it out so thoroughly. If one did not know you so well, one could be forgiven for thinking that your approach was decidedly more haphazard — improvisational even. I can see that it will not be long before you have your man.’

Porfiry held his smile as Liputin took his leave.

The following day, a sticky heat returned to St Petersburg. The humidity of the air mingled with the dust to create a cloying atmosphere; it sapped the energy just to breathe it.

Porfiry and Virginsky were walking north on the sunny side of Gorokhovaya Street. Momentarily blinded by the sunlight in the countless windows, Porfiry had a sense of the sky as an oppressive weight above his head. The sun’s hostility seemed personal. The high, deep apartment buildings on both sides of the street seemed to lean over him, dark masses crowding in impatiently, each one containing a village-worth of souls and all their unknowable secrets.

They stopped outside a barber’s, level with number 97 on the other side of the street.

‘Ah,’ said Porfiry. ‘This would be a good place from which. .’ He squinted into the shop. ‘I thought so!’ The dandyish man from the bureau was sitting in the seat nearest the window. The barber bobbed and floated around him, his hands flicking out to snip at and comb reverently the seated man’s plump moustache. It seemed that the barber’s deference was directed wholly towards this magisterial and self-possessed specimen of facial hair, rather than its wearer. The man in the seat gave no indication of recognising Porfiry, except that his eye enlarged forbiddingly, as if this was an important business in which he could not be disturbed.