Michael Pearce - Dmitri and the Milk-Drinkers

He had met some of the women once, although the course itself had been closed by the time he got there. Very determined, the women had seemed. In fact, that was the trouble. Too determined. They seemed to go through life with clenched teeth.

From what he’d heard, Vera Samsonova was a bit like that. Spiky. No soft edges. All the same, he had been mildly intrigued at the prospect of meeting her.

And now, just as he was putting on his hat and coat, this bloody fool of a judge wanted to see him!

‘There are things’, said the senior judge severely, ‘that a young lady of good family should not see. And the Court House yard is one of them!’

‘She wanted to see it!’ protested Dmitri. ‘She was going there anyway.’

‘Could you not have diverted her?’

‘I tried, but she insisted.’

‘You should have tried harder.’

‘She wanted a breath of air!’

‘But why go to the back yard for it? Why couldn’t you take her out the front? The park … the flowers …’

‘There aren’t any flowers yet. They’ve only just cleared the snow away.’

‘The air is wholesome at least,’ said the judge, irritated, ‘and you couldn’t say that was true of the yard.’

‘She wanted to go there!’

‘I find that hard to believe. Would any respectable young woman want to go there, knowing what she might see? No,’ said the judge warmly, ‘what she wanted was just a place where she could get some fresh air. You chose to take her to the back yard and therefore it is in considerable measure your fault.’

‘Fault! She asked me to show her the way and I showed her!’

‘She placed herself under your protection.’

‘Nonsense! All she did was ask – ’

‘A young woman?’ said the judge incredulously. ‘Distressed? Sees what she takes to be a respectable young man? An official of the Court, no less? Asks – quite properly – for assistance? If that is not placing herself under your protection, I’d like to know what is!’

Dmitri counted to five before replying and then, as that did not seem to be working, to ten.

‘I could quite reasonably have restricted myself to pointing out the way,’ he said at last. ‘In fact, I chose – ’

‘Ah!’ said the judge triumphantly. ‘Chose!’

‘To walk along the corridor with her. No question of legal responsibility arises.’

‘Her father,’ said the judge grimly, ‘is a friend of the Governor. He moves in high circles in St Petersburg. An intimate of Prince Dolgorukov. Through him he has access to the Tsar. And you think no question of responsibility will arise?’

Oh ho, thought Dmitri. So that’s the way the wind’s blowing!

‘I refuse to admit any personal responsibility in the matter,’ he said quickly.

‘Much good that will do you!’ said the judge cuttingly. ‘Much good,’ he added gloomily, ‘it will do any of us.’

‘Oh, come sir!’ said Dmitri. ‘Things are not as bad as all that! There is probably some quite simple explanation for the girl’s disappearance. Met a friend, perhaps, and gone off for a walk – ’

‘In the dark?’ asked the judge, looking out of the window. ‘She’d have been back by now. No,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘we’ve tried all that. Checked on her friends, the shops, her hairdresser – ’

‘A friend she wishes to keep secret, perhaps?’

‘A male friend, you mean?’

‘Well – ’

‘No question of that. Her parents are adamant.’

‘They would be,’ said Dmitri.

The judge looked at him.

‘You think it’s a possibility?’

‘A far likelier possibility than that it’s anything to do with the back yard.’

‘You think so?’

‘Sure of it. How could there be?’

‘Well, of course you’re right. A young lady of respectable family … how could there be? You must be right.’

‘Turned round the moment she took a look at it, I would have thought. Walked straight back along the corridor.’

‘You think so? But then – ’

‘There will be some simple explanation.’

‘I hope you’re right. I’m sure you’re right.’ The judge looked at his watch. Still time to get to Avdotia Vassilevna’s for the main course. Even the fish, perhaps. He snapped it shut.

‘I’ll leave it to you, then.’

‘Leave it?’

‘As Examining Magistrate. Do keep me informed.’

‘But I thought … You said …’

‘Yes?’

‘That I was party to the case. And therefore it would be improper for me to act as Examining Magistrate.’

‘But you denied that you were party to the case. Didn’t you? I’m merely accepting your word. For the time being.’

One way or another, thought Dmitri, the bastards always got you.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to get on with it. While the scent is hot.’

Dmitri made a last effort to retrieve his evening.

‘Aren’t we being premature, sir? I mean, is there a case? Surely it’s just a matter of continuing with the search? The police – ?’

‘Useless. That fool Novikov. No, I’d prefer you to be involved right from the start. Someone bright, with a bit of energy, someone – ’

‘Responsible?’

‘Yes. Responsible. That’s the word.’

Sitting alone in the little room the lawyers used as a workroom, Dmitri nursed his wrath. There was plenty of it to nurse; first, wrath against the judge, not just for landing Dmitri in it but also for the general things he stood for and Dmitri stood against: age, seniority, authority, power, privilege, the System; next, wrath against Kursk, which was such a hell of a place that no wonder everything went wrong in it; and, finally, against this silly girl who had got herself lost and mucked up Dmitri’s evening.

By this time on a normal day the Court House would have been empty. Lawyers, witnesses, defendants would have long departed. The caretakers would have retreated on to their ovens. Only at the back, perhaps, the last wagon would be squelching through the mud, trying to reach the firm crunch of the hard-packed snow outside.

Tonight there were lamps in all the rooms and people scurrying about everywhere. Novikov was searching the building for the fifth or perhaps sixth time. The dilemma before Dmitri was this: should he assume that Novikov was incapable of doing anything properly, and therefore make a search of the building himself? Or should he take for granted that the girl had left the building long before and was now happily chatting in some comfortable parlour with her girlfriends or, more likely, otherwise preoccupied in some comfortable bed with her boyfriend? The second was obviously the case. The trouble was that if by any unlikely chance it was the first, and the girl was lying stuffed in some corner somewhere, and was later discovered, then it would look bad. It would look bad for the Court House and, more to the point, since the judge had nailed him firmly with responsibility for the investigation, it would look bad for him, Dmitri.

Search, himself, it would have to be, and, no doubt, while doing it he could find himself a glass of tea in the caretakers’ room.

Novikov had had the idea before him. He looked up, glass in hand, as Dmitri entered.

‘I’m making a personal search,’ he said, warming his backside against the fire. ‘You’ve got to do it yourself. You can’t trust these buggers to do it properly.’

‘How far have you got?’ asked Dmitri. ‘Just here?’

Novikov looked pained.

‘The whole of the ground floor,’ he said. ‘Every nook, every cranny, every cupboard, behind every pipe, down every sewer. You need a wash-up after you’ve done that, I can tell you! Ever searched a sewer, Dmitri Alexandrovich?’

‘Suits some people more than others,’ Dmitri said coldly. He wasn’t going to be put down by the Chief of Police of a place like Kursk.