David Dickinson - Death on the Nevskii Prospekt

‘I am afraid, Constable,’ Powerscourt began, ‘that I find your position very unsatisfactory.’ He heard Mikhail’s translation coming out just behind his own. ‘I am here as a representative of the British Foreign Office and the British Prime Minister. I wish to speak to the police inspector named here,’ Mikhail waved the document at the policeman as he spoke, ‘who reported the death of a British diplomat to the British Ambassador some days ago. It is imperative that I speak to him.’

Mikhail translated, his emphases more vigorous in Russian than Powerscourt’s had been in English. Powerscourt wondered if the man knew where Great Britain was. Did he know where Kazakhstan was? Or Georgia?

There was another burst of Russian. ‘We have no knowledge of this inspector here,’ said Mikhail. ‘My superiors instruct me to tell you that this must be a mistake.’

‘No,’ said Powerscourt, ‘it is you who are mistaken. This inspector made a report to the British Embassy itself. We are not mistaken. I demand to see the senior policeman here.’

Powerscourt noticed that the gap between his words in English and Mikhail’s in Russian was getting shorter. Maybe when he’s back in practice he really will be simultaneous, he thought. Powerscourt regarded this as a truly wondrous feat, akin to those of people who could unlock the hidden theorems of mathematics.

Very reluctantly the fat policeman retired to the inner quarters in search of a senior officer. Mikhail was looking at the paper once more. ‘It couldn’t be clearer, Lord Powerscourt. The inspector is reporting the police discovery of the dead Martin at one thirty in the morning of Thursday December the 23rd. It’s as clear as a bell.’

Suddenly Powerscourt had a terrible thought. They hadn’t dumped Martin in the hall along with the drunks, had they? Left him there for hours until rigor mortis had set in? That was not a comforting thought to take back to London and the home of the widow Martin and the parents Martin. They might never sleep again.

There was a shout from the desk. The fat policeman had been replaced by an even fatter one with a red beard and a disagreeable air of menace about him.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Mikhail began translating. ‘How dare you come in here and waste police time. There is no officer here of that name. There never has been. Forging official documents is a serious offence in our country. The penalties can be up to ten years’ imprisonment. Now, I suggest you get out of here and don’t come back.’

With that he banged his fist on the table and pointed to the door. Powerscourt was not very impressed.

‘Thank you for your suggestions, Inspector. We have an appointment with the Interior Ministry. We shall certainly raise with them our treatment at your hands. We also have an appointment at the Foreign Ministry where the displeasure and dismay of my government will be conveyed in the strongest possible terms. All we wish at this juncture is the chance to speak with your inspector who wrote this report, complete with your very own stamp on it.’ With that, in a sudden burst of inspiration, Powerscourt picked up the stamp on the desk, moistened it in the pad beside it and made another mark on the other side of their document. It was identical to the mark already there.

‘See?’ Powerscourt went on. ‘This stamp is the same as the one already on the report. Surely even you can see that proves it is genuine.’

The signs were pretty bad. ‘May have to beat the retreat rather sharpish, Lord Powerscourt,’ Mikhail was whispering, pulling Powerscourt back from the desk. ‘This character is going to lose his temper, he’s going to go up like Krakatoa.’

Mikhail told Powerscourt afterwards that he thought the inspector was going to have a heart attack. The veins in his neck stood out. His face grew redder and redder. His breathing became very heavy.

‘Just get this into your heads,’ he shouted. ‘There is no policeman here of that name. There is no policeman in St Petersburg of that name. There was no body of an Englishman found on the Nevskii Prospekt. I do not know who has been feeding you with forgeries. I suggest you take them home. And now, get out of my police station before I lock you in the cells and throw away the key.’ With that he left his desk and began advancing towards them with his great fist raised.

‘It’s all right, Inspector, we were just leaving.’ Mikhail was translating as fast as he was walking backwards. ‘Don’t trouble yourself with us any more. Perhaps you need to sit down. Have a little rest. A glass of water might be helpful. Maybe you ought to see your doctor. You know you mustn’t overdo it.’

Mikhail shouted his version of the last two sentences through the door as they hurried into the street. ‘Well, Lord Powerscourt,’ he said, ‘here’s a pretty pickle and me on my first morning in the job. Before we had the details of a dead man but no body. Now we don’t even have the details of the corpse if we believe the red-faced policeman. What do you think we should do?’

‘I know precisely what we should do, ‘ said Powerscourt, patting the young man affectionately on the shoulder. ‘Take me to your morgues.’

The road was narrow, skirting a canal. On the far side a factory was pouring great streams of smoke into the air. Young men hurried past them carrying great bundles of wood in their arms. There was a faint smell of bread baking far away.

‘Do you have a lot of money on you, Lord Powerscourt?’ Mikhail Shaporov sounded faintly embarrassed at having to mention money.

‘I do, Mikhail,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Rupert de Chassiron gave me a great deal at the Embassy. I assume you are going to pay out one or two bribes.’

‘I am,’ the young man laughed. ‘Tell me, Lord Powerscourt, you are an experienced investigator and I am a mere novice translator, do you think we will find Mr Martin’s body?’

‘I would be very surprised if we do,’ said Powerscourt sadly. ‘We have to check these morgues, of course we do, but I should be amazed if we find him there. It’s interesting that we don’t know how he died. Shot? Stabbed? Strangled? Maybe the truth would be too compromising, so they conceal it from us. If Martin has been murdered his killers could cut a hole in the ice and drop him down it. He might never turn up anywhere at all, just be lost at sea. If the corpse did appear on the coast of Finland or down near Riga it would be unrecognizable by then. I think he, or somebody described as him, was brought into the police station and our form filled in. That was just to tell us he was dead. Now we are meant to have got the message and keep quiet. We can’t make much of a fuss after all if we don’t have a body.’

Mikhail Shaporov was bringing them through a side gate into the gardens of a large, rather ugly building with lines of people waiting outside. ‘This is the hospital, St Simon’s. The morgue is down there at the bottom of the garden. I’m going to bribe one of the porters to get the key. Do you want to come with me or will you wait here?’

‘I think I’ll wait here,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘A stranger from Europe might put the prices up.’ As he idled along the path another thought struck him about Martin, the note and the police station. Martin might never have been to the police station at all. Maybe the police inspector really didn’t exist. Maybe the note handed in to the Embassy actually was a forgery, the stamp stolen from the police station, or even put on the paper by one of the police who had been ordered to kill him. So the red-headed policeman could have been right after all.

Mikhail Shaporov was waving cheerfully at him with a large rusty key in his hand. ‘God knows what this is going to be like,’ he said. ‘My education up till now hasn’t run to morgues or mortuaries. I told the porters that an old college friend had gone missing after a drinking session and might have got killed or frozen to death.’