Liza Alexandrova-Zorina - The Little Man

«We know you were intimidated and had to leave town,» the chief said, putting his newspaper aside quite matter-of-factly, «but murder will out, as they say… Anyway, the killer has been apprehended and, please, don't worry, we'll give you all the help you need. See a doctor, get well…»

He threw open the windows to air the office that reeked of Savage.

«Has the killer confessed?» Savely asked cautiously, running his hand through his hair.

«Of course!» said the chief of police. «He's confessed to everything and repented!»

Savage looked up at Trebenko and thought he saw the colonel narrow his pupils.

«He was a fine man!» the chief said, intercepting his gaze. «Honest, incorruptible! Let's drink to him!»

Pouring out another glass, he drank it down in one gulp, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. Hunger and the brandy made Savage feel sick and he took out the bundle of food the Saami woman had given him and stuffed a piece of fish greedily into his mouth. Breaking off a piece of flatbread, Savage offered it to the policeman who waved it away with a forced smile.

«No, thanks. I've just eaten.»

Savage was taken to a tiny, cramped and smoky room, where a sleepy officer gave him some papers to sign. Savage didn't even look at them before writing his name.

«We've written this in your name to make things easy for you. These are just formalities. Just in case though, go through it at home, before the trial…» the officer handed Savage copies of the signed witness statements.

Once outside the office, Savage fiddled with the rolled up papers and couldn't work out where to go. His legs wouldn't obey him and a wave of terror suddenly grasped him by the throat like a murderer and stopped him breathing. Sinking into a chair against the wall, he collapsed and fell into drunken oblivion until the cleaner woke him up by slapping him across the face with a wet rag.

«Get out of here!» she told Savage, wiping down the chair he'd sat in. «Go on, get out!» she cried, waving the wet cloth. Savage fled.

Wandering along the various floors, he squatted down in a corner, his head in his hands, but the drink scattered his thoughts and they crept away like blind kittens. Savage took out his bundle of food and fell on the fragrant bread that the old Saami woman had made with rain water. He sobbed at the thought of the herders' kind faces.

«Where's that stink coming from?!» said a girl carrying a batch of documents as she put her head round the corner, holding her nose. «What are you doing there?» she yelled at Savage, folding her arms.

Savely offered her the papers he'd been given by the police officer but couldn't get his cotton-wool tongue to work and just mumbled something helplessly by way of a reply.

The woman knocked at one of the offices for help.

«Look who you've got sitting here!» she said, nodding to the two fat men who peeped out.

«Come on, you, out,» said one, giving Savage a kick. «Up you get. There's the exit!»

«Bloody tramp! It'll stink for the rest of the week,» said the woman, unappeased. She fanned herself with her clutch of papers.

The second fat man pulled a face and took Savage by the collar:

«Get lost or we'll lock you up for a month!»

«That's just what he wants. To be fed and tucked up in bed!» said the furious woman. «I wouldn't let them anywhere near the place. They can live in the forest if they can't cope around other people!»

Savage staggered back towards the stairs and the fat man gave him such a kick that he lost his balance and fell down the stairs.

Savage's ears were ringing and he couldn't see straight. He didn't know where he was going. He hung onto the wall to avoid falling down and, missing the door, he tumbled right into an office.

Cigarette smoke almost concealed the table and the officers who were sitting at it, engaged in a lively squabble over a bottle of wine.

«Look at this!» said a lanky young man, arms open wide, when he saw Savage. «Over here, darling, come on!» he said, looking kindly at Savage and closing the door behind him to general laughter.

The duty officer who had once driven Savage out of the station and persuaded him to leave town didn't recognize him in the filthy vagrant smelling of spirits. He shoved him into a cell where a trio of drunken tramps greeted their fellow with catcalls and laughter. Shoving the papers into his shirt, Savage stretched out on the floor and suddenly recognized them as down-and-outs who'd lived at the tip.

Collaring one of them, Savage pulled him closer: «The red-haired woman? What about her?»

The tramp pushed Savage away and crashed down beside him. The other two rushed over to help.

«The woman with red hair?» Savely asked, grabbing the tramps' legs. They lost their balance and fell down on top of him so that when the duty officer looked through the hatch he saw a heap of bodies on the floor.

«Break it up!» he said, entering the cell and giving each of them a kick. «Break it up, I said!» Once he'd got them all in different corners, he slammed the door shut.

«The red-head?» yelled Savage but the tramps mumbled and turned away from him as ruffled as sparrows.

Blood trickled from his split lip. Savage spat out a rotten tooth, curled himself into a ball and fell asleep. A crowd of memories assailed him in his deep, drunken sleep, slapped his cheeks, spat in his face and pulled him in different directions, tearing his clothes. «Shoot me or I'll shoot you!» said Coffin over and over again, staring at him with eyes as prickly as burrs. «Run where? You don't need to run anywhere,» said Trebenko, pouring out the drinks and hiding his battered head under his cap while Salmon, her shroud pulled up to her chin like a blanket, sobbed like a child.

Savage was woken by shouts from the corridor. The face of the chief of police appeared at the barred window. It was a tight fit.

«Idiots!» he yelled at his subordinates. «He's here!»

The lock grated and policemen burst into the cell, taking Savage by the arms and legs and dragging him along like a sack.

«I was starting to think he'd run off again,» sighed the chief, wiping the sweat from his brow, while the duty office tutted and stared wide-eyed at Savage, unable to see in him the frightened and bewildered man who had come to the station to hand himself in three months ago.

«I'm Savely Savage who shot Coffin!» The words rang in the duty officer's ears but, stealthily crossing himself, he drove away these bad thoughts and put them down to a vivid imagination.

The hospital reception area was cold and the doctor, wrapped in a soft shawl, was warming her hands on a mug of tea. The radio wheezed and spluttered as if it had a cold and the music was drowned out by the static. A jaundiced attendant made the sign of the cross over his mouth as he yawned and put his ear to the speaker.

«Can't hear a damn thing!» he said, tapping the radio and pulling the flex out of its socket.

Savage sat on a couch, dangling his feet and listening to the silence. A clock ticked sonorously. The patients thronging the corridor groaned and the doctor tapped her feet in time to a tune only she could hear. They removed the bundle hidden under Savage's shirt, took his temperature, gave him an injection that made his chest burn and dumped him on a stretcher.

«Get him out of here!» the doctor ordered and the attendants carried him out feet first.

«He is still alive, you know!» said an indignant police officer. «At least, carry him properly!»

Banging Savage against the doorframe, they turned the stretcher round and took him out head first.

«Where are you taking him? We haven't got any beds!» shouted a nurse, blocking their path. She stood in the door to the ward her hands on her hips. «I'm sick of these wretched tramps! Take him to the morgue!»