R. Morris - A Razor Wrapped in Silk

‘I went to the baths.’

Verkhotsev rolled his moustache thoughtfully. ‘I see.’

‘That is to say, I removed myself from my chambers to discuss the case with Pavel Pavlovich free from Slava’s intrusive presence.’

‘That in itself may not be fatal. Your work requires you to absent yourself from your chambers from time to time, I dare say. He may have thought nothing of it. Or it may have made him wary without forcing his hand. Certainly he has made no move as yet.’

‘As yet. No.’

‘And we can do nothing until he does.’

‘You almost sound as if you want him to strike.’

‘I would not have him strike until we are ready for him. However, we will reach a point at which it will become necessary to provoke an attack if one has not already occurred.’

‘I see. So I am to play the part of a sitting duck?’

‘In all probability, there is nothing to fear.’ Verkhotsev gave a less than reassuring smile. ‘We may be wrong in our suppositions. This fellow Slava may simply be what he appears to be … a bad servant. However, to proceed on the basis that he represents a threat to your person enables us to take certain precautions. It is unlikely that he will attack you in your chambers. To do so would be to expose himself to unnecessary risk. After all, he shares your apartment, does he not? Therefore, he has access to you when you are at your most vulnerable, and when it would be easiest for him to effect his escape. That is to say, at night, when you are asleep. If he is going to strike, that is when he will do it.’

‘And how am I to protect myself against nocturnal attack from this enemy within?’

‘Don’t worry, I shall think of something. However, it will be difficult without positioning a guard in your bedroom, which I fear would only discourage Slava from making an attempt.’

‘Heaven forbid that he should be discouraged.’

‘Of course, if he is associated with the group that sent you the communique, it is possible that you are intended to be their next victim. In which case, it is reasonable to suppose that an attempt would definitely be made on your life should another child be found murdered. There is a certain logic to this. You are a gentleman. A magistrate. You could be said to be — what was it? — “a member of the enslaver class”. Furthermore, you are known to be investigating Yelena Filippovna’s murder. Indeed, my daughter tells me that you were most zealous in pursuing that investigation whilst neglecting the investigation into the deaths of the missing children. That could count against you in their eyes.’

‘At the time we had no bodies. We had nothing to go on. No evidence of any crime!’

‘My dear friend, you do not need to explain yourself to me. And I fear that it will be useless to attempt to do so with them. To go back to Yelena Filippovna’s murder, it may be that a similar strategy was used there. One of their number — if not the very same individual, this Slava — may have infiltrated the Naryskin Palace as a servant in order to be in place on the night of the gala to commit the murder.’

‘A witness who saw Captain Mizinchikov flee the scene also mentioned seeing a number of servants about.’

‘Of course. It is the perfect cover, allowing access to every part of the palace without arousing suspicion. Furthermore, his incompetence as a servant would be less noticeable in a larger household.’

Porfiry Petrovich placed a hand to his neck and rubbed distractedly, as if to soothe a wound that had not yet been inflicted. ‘I pray to God that we do not find any more dead children.’

‘Of course,’ said Verkhotsev. ‘Although that would rather clear Yelena Filippovna’s name, would it not?’

A sky of beaten metal pressed down on the sprawl of the Baird plant. Inside Shed 3, tiny figures scaled the tiers of gantry stairs lining the walls: insects, or so they seemed to Fedya Mikhailovich Shatov as he approached the shed along the embankment. In a matter of minutes he would be one of them. But for now he paused to watch them teem over the giant shell at the centre of the workshop. He was late already; ten kopeks docked from his pay for sure, a few minutes more would make no difference. He was certainly in no hurry to enter that deafening hell, despite the shelter that it offered from the cold.

From this distance, the scale of the ship was monstrous. He could feel it weighing down on him, like the formless mass that oppressed him in his brief, exhausted dreams and kept him pinned to his bed every morning. At 57, Fedya was finding it increasingly difficult to rouse himself from the narrow board he slept on. The mornings were getting darker, perhaps that had something to do with it. It was as if night were spreading into day, and more and more he wanted to cast in his lot with night and let the day go to the devil. At those moments, he didn’t care what happened to him, just so long as he could be allowed to keep his head down for another five minutes. His mates had given up trying to rouse him with pinches and slaps. They knew he would get up in his own good time, and if he did not, it was his look-out.

Deep down, Fedya knew that it was something other than the morning gloom that kept him in his bunk longer than his fellows. The darkness around him was mirrored by a deeper darkness inside him. He knew his body. He knew his bones. Something had taken root there. Something that pulled at his lungs with hooks and turned the screws on a bench clamp fixed to his spine. His days in the workshop were numbered, he knew. And, much as he hated it, if he had no place there, he had no place anywhere.

He was worn out. He was dying.

Loose bundles of mist rolled and disintegrated over the black river, the Bolshaya Neva as it was called at this point. Fedya hawked and spat into the water before continuing his reluctant slouch towards the shed.

At first sight, it looked like a bundle of rags had been discarded in the lee of the shed. But no, he knew that it was not that, even as he willed his perception towards such an interpretation. Straightaway, the sickening lurch of his heart informed him: it was a body. The body of a child, judging by its size. A child discarded as carelessly as a bundle of rags. The head was towards him, the face hidden by a piece of sacking, but Fedya could see the child’s hands, the fingers curled into tight blue fists. He lurched towards it, his own hand trailing along the wall for support. He slumped down and lifted the sacking. His heart pounded wildly at the first shock of what was revealed. The eyes stared horrifically, the pale blue irises surrounded not by white, but by an intense blood-filled red. It seemed like a devil was staring out at him from inside that dead boy. Unable to look into those eyes any longer, Fedya closed the lids with his fingertips. And in the cold touch of death, he felt his own future. With his eyes closed, the boy’s humanity was restored to him. He was no longer a devil, just a child, a fellow worker, judging by his clothes, a brother. Fedya saw that the boy was about the same age that he had been when he had first been put to work in the Carr and Macpherson plant on Vasilevsky Island.

Perhaps the boy was better off dead; he had been spared a life of misery and toil, that much was certain. Things were supposed to be better now; the Tsar had made them all free men. But such freedom meant little when you were enslaved by poverty.

And yet something within Fedya rebelled against these thoughts. He looked again into the face, and again touched the cold flesh, laying his hand against the boy’s cheek.

‘Poor bastard.’ He wheezed the eulogy hoarsely and shook his head.

*

‘Do you see the marks, Pavel Pavlovich?’ Porfiry was squatting on his haunches over the dead boy. As he leant back to allow Virginsky a clear sight of the neck, his body trembled violently, apparently with the strain of maintaining his balance in an awkward position.