A Razor Wrapped in Silk

26 At the banya

‘Slava! Slava! Where is that man?’

It was Porfiry’s turn to pace the room. His steps were short and agitated. His eyes flickered with wild excitement.

He went to the door that led to his private apartment. As he opened it, his eye was caught by the tail end of a movement. It could have been a trick of the light, a shifting shadow created by the opening of the door. Or it could have been another door closing, carefully, noiselessly. A moment later, the door in question — the one to Slava’s room — opened and Slava came out, his face blandly expectant.

‘You called?’

‘Yes. Please fetch the samovar.’

‘I am to serve you in your chambers?’

‘Yes. Bring glasses for myself and Pavel Pavlovich. With lemon. And sugar.’

Slava nodded sharply, then turned towards the kitchen door.

Porfiry waited till he was out of sight before closing the door.

Virginsky was still studying the note, as if it were crammed with words, instead of bearing just a single line of text.

‘It changes everything,’ said Porfiry breathlessly. ‘You have to admit it, Pavel Pavlovich.’

‘If it is genuine,’ said Virginsky, turning the sheet over as if he expected to find evidence of trickery on the reverse.

‘Of course it’s genuine! The thread! Who knew about the thread? Other than you and I — and the murderer?’

Virginsky wrinkled his face sceptically. ‘It could be a coincidence.’

‘Are you mad?’ Porfiry began pacing again, impelled by indignation. ‘One does not encounter coincidences such as this! A red thread found on a murder victim — a red thread sent by someone claiming responsibility for that very murder!’

‘Very well. I accept it is not a coincidence. However, it is possible that this has been sent to us by the murderer in order to mislead. To lend the crime a political aspect which it does not in truth possess. Mizinchikov-’

‘Mizinchikov did not write this.’

‘But if he did, it would be a way of deflecting suspicion from himself.’

‘No, no, no — you have it all wrong, Pavel Pavlovich. Let us say, for the moment, that Captain Mizinchikov did kill Yelena Filippovna. You will concede, I think, because you have said as much yourself, that his crime was … well, if not a crime of passion, then something very akin to it. Either he killed her out of jealousy, as we first believed, or out of horror, as your most recent theory speculates.’ Porfiry broke off pacing and narrowed his eyes in concentration. He unconsciously tapped his breast pocket for his cigarette case. Once the ritual of taking out and lighting a cigarette had been completed, he seemed calmer, more reflective. ‘And not simply horror, perhaps. Compassion, too. For her, and for her future victims. But as we have already had occasion to note, those who are driven to such crimes do not normally engage in such evasive strategies as this.’ His eyes darted towards the note that Virginsky was holding.

‘And so you are minded to accept this note at face value?’

‘I am certainly inclined to take it very seriously indeed. I intend to consider its implications as fully as possible.’ Porfiry cocked an ear towards the door to his private apartment, behind which the approaching rattle of the samovar could be heard. ‘Not here, however.’

Porfiry sprang to open the door, blowing smoke back over his shoulder, courteously away from Slava’s face. ‘Ah, there you are. I am afraid that Pavel Pavlovich and I have been urgently called away. You may drink the tea for us, if you wish.’

Suspicion compressed Slava’s face. ‘But you have only just asked for it.’

‘Such is the nature of our work, I’m afraid. Now be a good fellow and take it back to the kitchen, where you may drink it at your leisure.’

‘Where will you be?’ To soften the peremptoriness of his demand, Slava added: ‘Should anyone ask, that is.’

‘No one will ask,’ said Porfiry flatly. ‘And if they should, you are at liberty to say you do not know.’

Slava hesitated, apparently reluctant to go back into Porfiry’s apartment as he had been instructed. He seemed to fear it would place him at a disadvantage.

Porfiry made a shooing gesture with both hands.

Slava closed one eye, sighting Porfiry with the other. At last, he began to back away, though without turning his back on the magistrate, all the time viewing him through a single eye.

‘Good man,’ said Porfiry cheerfully, as he closed the door on him. He then hurried back to his desk and swept the note, the thread and the photographs into a green case file. ‘I think perhaps we should put this beyond the reach of prying eyes.’ He placed the folder in a drawer in his desk, which he locked, pocketing the key. Next he replaced Yelena’s ring in its box, which he held out to Virginsky. ‘Now, Pavel Pavlovich, if you would be so good as to return this ring to the police evidence room, I shall meet you back here in five minutes. There is something I must retrieve from my room before we go.’

*

This object turned out to be a curious conical hat made from beige felt, decorated with applique flowers. It was now the only item of clothing that Porfiry was wearing, apart from a pair of hemp sandals and a simple wooden crucifix around his neck.

He made the sign of the cross with the clump of leafy birch twigs in his right hand and stepped into the steam room. He felt his skin liquefy immediately. The wall of heat was almost impenetrable. He had to push himself into it, his whole body rebelling against the madness of that intention. The kick of his heart quickened alarmingly; each pounding thump another moment of his life ticked off. He looked down at his body forlornly. His chest sagged and the skin of his belly strained under the pressure of his paunch. Sweat clung to the translucent down of his body, made visible against the vibrant pink glow of his skin. He turned his head towards Virginsky. Nudity revealed the younger man’s latent athleticism. He was taller, leaner, physically stronger than Porfiry had ever been.

The steam room was quiet but not empty. Porfiry indicated a corner as far away as possible from any others.

They laid their hired towels out on the tiled bench that ran around the wall and sat down at right angles to one another.

‘Why are we here, Porfiry Petrovich?’ Virginsky posed the question with wry indulgence.

‘To sweat.’ Porfiry blinked rapidly. The sweat was flooding his eyes. The hot steam, too, made it difficult to see. ‘The salutary properties of the banya are well-known. I myself particularly value the steam vapour’s efficacy in clearing excess catarrh from my chest and nasal passages. At this time of year, I am prone to pneumonia. Only the banya can keep it at bay. In addition, the heat is cleansing spiritually as well as bodily. I feel the pores of my soul opening up.’ Porfiry closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through both nostrils. ‘Ideas and influences flow more freely through me. And, of course, there is the fact that one is naked. As a newborn babe.’

‘In a pointed hat.’

‘Ha! Naked, one is more aware of one’s humanity.’ With a grunt of exertion, Porfiry cracked the birch whisk down across his distended belly. The pain of the blow melted into the pain of the heat. He felt the boundary of his body open up even more, in an almost transcendent sense of physical dissolution. His wince relaxed into a blissful smile. ‘One feels the dirt and detritus of everyday life slip away. The mind is freed. The body restored. On top of all this, I find it has a palliative effect on my haemorrhoids.’

Virginsky gave a sly smile. ‘So … it was not to get away from Slava?’

Porfiry’s lips puckered out to kiss the steam. He licked the sweat dripping from his upper lip. ‘I can think here,’ was all he conceded. He laid his head back against the wall, eyes closed as he flicked his shoulders lazily with the whisk.

‘Do you not think, Porfiry Petrovich, that the arrival of the note obliges us to involve the Third Section? It does, after all, give the case a political aspect.’

Porfiry’s eyes flashed open. He shook the birch twigs towards Virginsky, striking him lightly on the chest.

‘Well?’ insisted Virginsky, evidently not satisfied with Porfiry’s response.

‘In my experience, the Third Section needs no invitation to involve itself in cases. We will be hearing from them soon enough. If Slava is indeed a spy, he will already have alerted his superiors to all that he knows — and possibly more. He suspects that I am excluding him now from our deliberations. This will provoke a change of strategy from them. I expect an overt intervention. We have come here to buy ourselves a little time.’

‘Do you not ever ask yourself whom are we fighting, Porfiry Petrovich?’

‘I am not fighting anyone,’ said Porfiry. There was a note of wounded innocence in the assertion. ‘There is a lot to consider here, Pavel Pavlovich. Are we really prepared to accuse Yelena Filippovna of murdering three children to whom she has the most tangential of connections, on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence?’

‘You saw the marks. You saw the ring. It is not fanciful. That bruise is a precise imprint of the emblem on her ring — which she wore twisted round in such a way as to inflict just such a bruise.’

‘But the woman is dead. She cannot defend herself against the charge. And as yet, we have no motive.’

‘We must … speak to Maria Petrovna.’ Virginsky’s eyes darted uneasily, as if even he shrank from what he was suggesting.

Porfiry sighed. ‘Even to voice such allegations to someone who was a friend of the deceased is brutal.’

‘Frankly I am surprised at your fastidiousness, Porfiry Petrovich. You have never baulked at brutality before.’

Porfiry met this accusation with a look of mild rebuke. ‘But she is dead, Pavel Pavlovich!’ he insisted.

‘What difference does that make?’

‘She cannot be saved. We can only pray for her soul.’

‘With all respect, it is not our job to concern ourselves with saving people, Porfiry Petrovich. We must only uncover the truth and set in motion whatever judicial process arises from that truth. We are not concerned with souls.’

‘Perhaps you are right.’ Porfiry felt suddenly light-headed. ‘But what if she is innocent!’ He made the cry plaintively. ‘The note does not accuse her directly.’

‘Now it is you who are making a specious assumption, Porfiry Petrovich. You are assuming that whoever wrote the note knows who killed the children. But we cannot even be certain that they are referring to the same dead children. The note speaks only of children killed by the oppressive machine. That could just as easily refer to children dying of malnutrition, unnecessary disease, or factory accidents.’

‘If whoever wrote the note fulfils his promise, we are facing a bloodbath — in which all the victims will be highborn.’

‘A revolution, in other words.’

Porfiry stirred the vaporous air in front of his face with the birch whisk, as if to see more clearly.

‘If Yelena Filippovna did not kill these children then someone else did. Someone wearing a Romanov ring. Possibly — it is not beyond the bounds of possibility — a member of the Imperial Family. Perhaps you now regret allowing the Tsarevich the opportunity to make his escape to the Crimea?’

‘No!’ cried Porfiry. ‘Will you go from accusing a dead woman to making unspeakable allegations against the Tsarevich?’

Dim shapes stirred in the hot mist. The murmurs of outrage and excitement were audible.

‘Our first loyalty is to the truth, Porfiry Petrovich. Now, thanks to the Tsar’s own reforms, no one is above the law.’

‘But it always comes back to this question of why. Why would the Tsarevich murder these children?’

‘I do not insist that it is he. It could be any member of the family.’

‘You will exclude the Tsar, I trust!’

Virginsky rippled his brows. ‘To come back to your question — why would anyone? Perhaps there are some crimes concerning which the question of motive is irrelevant.’

‘Not satisfactory, I’m afraid, Pavel Pavlovich. There is always a motive, however twisted, petty, or tenuous. The motive never justifies the crime, never fully explains it. And we may divine something else at work within the criminal’s mind, whether it be sickness or …’ Porfiry looked away from Virginsky. ‘Some other influence,’ he added reticently, almost sheepishly. Virginsky narrowed his eyes, noting the evasion. ‘But the criminal himself will always provide a motive, in which he believes, categorically.’

‘Is it not sometimes the case that a criminal will provide more than one motive, and that often they are contradictory?’

‘Sometimes the criminal is the last person to understand his own motivation. However, that does not mean that we, as investigators, must forego the attempt to understand. If we give up insisting on a motive, then …’ Porfiry stared into the steam. He had the fleeting sense that it swirled in an infinite abyss, that there was nothing behind it, and therefore nothing behind anything.

‘Then what?’

Porfiry’s expression as he sought Virginsky’s eyes was despairing. ‘Then we have opened the door to moral chaos.’

‘That door is already open,’ answered Virginsky glibly. ‘You know as well as anybody that man is an irrational creature.’ When Porfiry made no reply but stared in mute indignation, Virginsky added: ‘And evil. You were going to say the word yourself, were you not? You drew back at the last moment because you understood that it undermined your argument.’

‘What do I care about arguments!’

‘In that case, you were afraid.’

‘No!’

‘Well then, it was to maintain your position. You do have your position, Porfiry Petrovich: that man, even the vilest criminal, is capable of salvation. You cannot allow that there may exist a man who is irredeemably evil. A man, for example, who would kill children just for the sport of it.’

‘On the contrary. I know such men exist. I have met them and talked to them. And listened to their motives.’

‘Did you manage to save any of them?’ Virginsky could not keep the sarcasm out of his question.

Porfiry closed his eyes and shook his head minutely.

‘No,’ confirmed Virginsky, relentlessly. ‘If you accept that such men exist, then logic insists that they may be found within any social class. Within any family. You can hardly believe that the propensity to evil may be contained by social boundaries.’

‘Enough!’ Porfiry began to thrash himself energetically with the birch whisk.

‘What do you intend to do?’

Porfiry Petrovich lifted the conical hat from his head and looked inside it, as if he expected to find the answer to Virginsky’s question there. ‘We must do our job. That is to say, we must slowly and methodically gather evidence.’ He restored the hat to its former position and met Virginsky’s challenging look blankly. ‘As far as the deaths of the children are concerned, we have hardly begun to scratch the surface. It is certainly too early to jump to conclusions.’

‘You think that is what I have done?’

Porfiry held out the birch whisk, as if it were an olive branch. ‘I think you are in need of this.’ When Virginsky did not take it, Porfiry shrugged and settled back into the heat.

*

After losing himself in the melting heat of the banya, the subsequent plunge into an icy pool restored the edges of his being with the vicious shock of a thousand slaps landing simultaneously. Once again his heart hammered out alarm. There was something reckless, almost self-destructive, about the rate of its pummelling. Porfiry felt the stab and twist of new pains. He tasted his own mortality. More than that, he sensed his heart at the edge of capacity. And yet, strangely, it seemed to gain strength from this forcible reminder of its own frailty.

Drying himself briskly with the threadbare towel, Porfiry acknowledged a new energy in his muscles, a lightness to his bones, and a mental clarity that he had not experienced for a long time. He felt almost sorry for Virginsky at the sight of the younger man’s sullen, graceless movements. His limbs seemed to be weighed down with unhappiness.

‘Who are you fighting, Pavel Pavlovich?’

Virginsky gave Porfiry a guarded look as he held his towel in front of himself defensively.

‘Did you not ask me that question earlier?’ explained Porfiry. ‘I am intrigued to know how you would answer it.’

‘The criminals, of course,’ said Virginsky.

Porfiry laughed appreciatively. ‘Correct answer! Well done!’

Porfiry continued to pat himself dry. ‘There is much work still to do. Difficult work. This is a murky business. And it is set to become even murkier. Other agencies and interests are sure to get involved, if they are not already. We need to know who our friends are, for it will be far from easy to discern our enemies.’ Porfiry sensed Virginsky shrink back under the force of his scrutiny. ‘I need to know that I can count on you, Pavel Pavlovich.’

Virginsky’s mouth tightened pensively. Neither man said a word as they dressed.

*

Back in his clothes, Porfiry’s skin felt not just cleansed but renewed.

They took a carriage north along Liteyny Prospekt. There was a moist chill to the air, which was heavy with the threat of snow. But their naked exposure to the extremes of the bath house had fortified them for whatever shocks the climate held. Both men fixed their gaze on the District Courthouse as they rattled past it. The solid square building, with its high arched windows, like wide-open eyes searching out the truth, seemed to be the physical embodiment of an ideal.

Porfiry caught the challenge brimming in Virginsky’s look. ‘We must place our faith in it, Pavel Pavlovich,’ he said gently.

Virginsky blinked and shook his head as if he had been roused from a deep reverie. His brow contracted into a questioning frown.

‘Progress,’ continued Porfiry, ‘the progress of Russia, is taking place in there, through the exercise of legality. The judicial process, Pavel Pavlovich, the open examination of evidence, the presenting and arguing of cases, without prejudice or fear … progress. Adversarial dispute … progress. Cases heard before a jury … progress. And we — you and I — we are the agents of progress. Simply by doing our job, by investigating crimes, gathering evidence, pursuing leads, interviewing suspects — in so many ways are we taking Russia forward. We do not need a revolution, Pavel Pavlovich. The change you desire will come about simply by virtue of us doing our job.’

‘That is what you believe.’ Virginsky’s emphasis sought to distance him from Porfiry’s optimism.

‘Yes.’

‘But the tsar who gave this licence may just as easily take it away.’

‘He cannot. Besides, he does not want to.’

‘Perhaps not now, not today, not this tsar.’

‘Is that what lies behind your suspicions of the Tsarevich? Fear of a reactionary backlash?’

‘Do you consider me so naive?’

‘It is not naivety, Pavel Pavlovich. On the contrary, it shows a sophisticated understanding of the power with which our office is invested. However, to bring a charge against an individual for political reasons would be an abuse of that power.Anyone who did so would be guilty of perpetrating an injustice. I trust you would agree with that?’

Virginsky grunted his reluctant assent.

‘You cannot bring about a just society through injustice. In the same way that you cannot reach the truth through lying — though many are seeking to do exactly that.’

The carriage drew up outside the Surgical-Medical Academy just as the first fine particles of snow began to swirl in the grey.

‘By doing our job, Pavel Pavlovich. Carefully, meticulously, patiently.’ With that Porfiry forced himself out of the carriage, like a cork popping from a bottle.