A Vengeful Longing

12

‘What is this concerning?’

Porfiry looked at the man who had just spoken — a man of average height and nondescript appearance, possessing the kind of face, clean-shaven in the civil service style, that seemed instantly familiar and yet was difficult to remember, a kind of blankness — and knew he had his murderer. He noted the control with which the other held his face, and therefore his emotions, in check. He must be in turmoil beneath that blank mask, thought Porfiry. He watched the corner of the man’s mouth closely, waiting for it to pinch up in minuscule betrayal of what he must be feeling. But Collegiate Registrar Yefimov gave nothing away.

Behind Yefimov, the banks of copyists and clerks looked up, regarding Virginsky and Porfiry with evident trepidation. The jerry-built towers of files and papers had been reconstructed higher than ever. The men twitched protectively, bound to their stools by their duties, but desperate to throw themselves between the unwelcome visitors and their treasured documents. Only Yefimov seemed unconcerned at the magistrates’ return.

‘We wish to talk to you about Rostanev,’ said Porfiry.

‘Of course.’ Yefimov bowed.

‘His name came up in connection with a murder victim called Yemelyan Antonovich Ferfichkin.’ Porfiry paused to study Yefimov’s face at the mention of Ferfichkin’s name. He noticed the man’s eyes veer to the side and up, once, quickly. ‘It was over a debt to do with the sewing of a fur collar on to an overcoat. Rostanev could afford the collar but not the cost of having it attached. Ironic, is it not?’

‘A tragedy. It is such small, insignificant tragedies that make up the lives of men like Rostanev.’

‘How could he afford the collar, I wonder?’

‘I gave him an advance on his salary.’

‘How very generous of you.’

‘I know what it is like. I understand how important such a thing can be to a man.’

‘A man who has been humiliated and insulted all his life?’

‘To any man,’ said Yefimov. ‘But yes, particularly to the sort of man you describe, a man like Rostanev.’

‘And you?’

‘As I said, I understood what he was feeling. It was not just a question of a collar. The collar stood for something.’

‘What did the collar stand for, I wonder?’

‘Honour. Status.’

‘Really? It was not just a collar then? Not just a collar to keep the wind from his neck?’ Porfiry smiled. Yefimov did not. ‘So the money was advanced?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it ever repaid?’

‘I am sure Axenty Ivanovich intended to repay the debt.’

‘But didn’t the department require that the money be repaid?’

‘I advanced the money out of my own pocket.’

‘You are a veritable benefactor. Of course, this placed Axenty Ivanovich in your debt.’

‘It was not a question of that.’

Porfiry nodded absently, barely acknowledging Yefimov’s comment. ‘I wondered, the last time I met you, where we had met before. And now I remember. It was you, that time in the Haymarket District Police Bureau, it was you I encountered in the corridor. I asked you to stand aside and you would not. You demanded that I give way. I would not. There was nonsensical talk of honour then. Finally, you pretended to have an attack of vertigo and fell in a swoon against the wall. Do you remember what I said?’

‘I do not remember the incident at all.’

‘On the contrary, you remember every slight and insult that you have ever suffered. And you remember very well what I said, don’t you?’ As Porfiry said the words, he watched Yefimov’s lips twitch as he shadowed them: ‘They are always hypochondriacs. Do you remember?’

‘I do not.’

‘But you were at the bureau that day. You came to investigate the noxious smell from the Ditch. I wonder, would I have been the next on your list?’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Of course you don’t. However, humour me for a moment, if you would be so good. I have been trying to work out how you are connected to Ferfichkin, other than through Rostanev’s fur collar. I’m sure it was you, anyhow, who recommended Ferfichkin’s tailoring skills to your subordinate — was it not? You don’t have to answer that yet. It can wait. But something must have connected you directly to Ferfichkin. There had to be some reason why he was on your list. And then it came to me, the complaint Ferfichkin made against his former master. The nobleman who had his name expunged from the record. That was you, wasn’t it?’

‘This is ridiculous!’

‘It is something we will be able to check. If Ferfichkin lived with you as your servant, he will have been listed at the same address as you at the Address Bureau. There is little point denying it, if it is true.’

‘Very well. But it means nothing.’

‘Oh, it means something. These things always mean something.’

‘Besides, the whole thing was a joke.’ A strange, high-pitched laugh came from Yefimov. His face for an instant distorted into the antithesis of the controlled mask it had presented until then: a leering gargoyle’s features took him over. ‘It was my idea. I commanded him to do it!’

‘Indeed? I find that hard to believe. Besides, if it was a joke, it was one that wasted police time, and could have got you into a lot of trouble.’

‘But the man was always tormenting me. You would never believe it! He was a torturer! He would never come when I called him. He behaved as though I was the servant and he the master. And when I happened to make a legitimate complaint about his behaviour, he became mortally offended. He accused me of slander, although there was only he and I there. How ridiculous, I think you’ll agree. I believe he didn’t really understand the law. So, as a joke, I made him go round to the police station and press charges against me. Of course, the police saw it was an absurd joke and sent him away with a flea in his ear.’ Yefimov began to laugh again.

His laughter had the effect on Porfiry of cutlery scraped on a plate. ‘Everything is a joke to you,’ he said, in a dead, flat tone.

Yefimov shrugged and struggled to resume his former control.

‘You have heard about Rostanev?’ asked Porfiry.

‘You arrested him. I have not heard a thing since then.’

‘We released him without charge.’

‘I see.’ Yefimov gave every impression of being surprised by this. ‘He has not presented himself at the department.’

‘He is dead.’ There was a stirring of the scribes behind Yefimov.

‘I know nothing about it.’ Yefimov was smiling as he said this.

‘He died through loss of blood, caused by an act of self-mutilation. ’

‘Poor mad fellow.’

‘Was he, do you know, an initiate of the skoptsy sect?’

‘You will have to ask some of the others, some of those who knew him better than I did. I really cannot say.’ Yefimov gestured towards the clerks, who had begun to put down their quills as the discussion held them.

‘Who conducted the public health inspection of the apartment building opposite the Novo-Alexandrovsky Market on the nineteenth of June? It’s on Izmailovsky Prospekt near Sadovaya Street.’

‘I will have to consult the department diary.’

‘Perhaps this will help to jog your memory. I am referring to Colonel Setochkin’s building. The sanitation inspection in question took place on the day that Colonel Setochkin was murdered.’

‘That really doesn’t help, as I have no idea who Colonel Setochkin is.’

Porfiry raised both his eyebrows. ‘I find that hard to believe. Of course, I can quite understand that Colonel Setochkin had little idea who you were — you are after all a truly insignificant individual. If ever he came across you, he would surely have failed to notice you. You are the kind of man one looks straight through. Your face, I find, is not one that imposes itself upon the memory. Have you not found this to be the case?’

Yefimov did not reply.

‘I take that as an affirmative. Yes, I look at you and I think: here is the eternally low-ranking civil servant, if not embittered by failure, then certainly inured to ineffectualness. A man no longer young, but who has not successfully passed beyond a certain moment in his youth, a moment before his dreams have soured, his ambitions become frustrated and his ideals smothered — the moment, in other words, when he can believe himself still the commander of his own destiny. To hold on to that moment, despite a lifetime of clearly evidenced disappointment, requires a level of egotism and vanity that is almost admirable. And yet, my friend, you have to admit it: yours is the kind of face that is forgotten the instant you turn from it. In the past, when you were a young man wanting to make an impression on the world, no doubt this was deeply irksome to you. But now, given your recent activities, I am sure you have found it distinctly to your advantage.’

‘I confess I have no idea to what you are referring.’

‘You would disappoint me if you said that you did. However, let us agree that someone from this department carried out the inspection at Setochkin’s building that day.’

‘I really cannot agree that without checking.’

‘There is no need to do that. Your eagerness to check the diary leads me to believe that there will be no record of the inspection. And yet there is the testimony of Setochkin’s butler. He spoke of the visit of a public health inspector. Is it usual in such inspections for there to be a certain amount of going in and out of the apartments? ’

‘It may be necessary.’

‘It must be inconvenient for the residents.’

‘One endeavours to demonstrate a degree of consideration.’

‘So you have carried out such inspections yourself?’

‘On occasion.’

‘You try to make yourself unobtrusive?’

‘At this time of the year many apartments are vacated, those belonging to the better class of person at least. The inconvenience is minimised.’

‘I can imagine. Most of the time, they do not know you are there. It would be possible for you to be admitted to an apartment and then forgotten about, especially if the tenant had become used to your comings and goings.’

Yefimov said nothing.

‘You might, let us imagine, enter one apartment, go out on to the balcony — this was a building with a certain number of balconies overlooking the courtyard — and attach to a bar of the balcony a rope ladder that you had concealed about your person. Yes? So far at least it is theoretically possible? And so, when you have assured yourself that the yard is empty, you descend to the balcony below. There you lie in wait until an opportunity presents itself. An opportunity to point the pistol that you had earlier purloined from this second apartment through a windowpane, also opened earlier, in order to fatally shoot the resident of that apartment. You then toss the pistol through the open pane, causing it to land on the floor of the study. At the same time, you are able to retrieve a letter that your victim must have just placed on a desk by the window. That was a stroke of luck that you exploited to cast doubt on Vakhramev’s story perhaps. To confuse the doltish police. Or simply you could not resist taking with you a small memento of your cleverness. Then it would be a simple matter for you to climb immediately back up the rope ladder, which you would pull up after you, and then go back into the first apartment. We will admit that it called for exceptional daring. Or perhaps, rather, it was simply that you were blinded to the danger by your arrogance — by your own incredible belief in your superior intellect, which is in itself a limitation, a failure of the imagination. Did it not occur to you that you might have been seen? At any rate, you were lucky. But as you have said, many apartments are vacant at this time of year.’

‘But why would I do it?’

‘We will come to that in a moment. You were the one who bumped into Dr Meyer outside Ballet’s, were you not? You substituted the chocolates he dropped with another box, which you had previously contaminated with poison. As an official of the Ministry of Public Health you would have access to aconite, as well as the medical understanding necessary. Were you trained as a doctor?’

‘I did embark upon the study of medicine, although I did not complete the course.’

‘A disappointment, no doubt, for you. One of many, I am sure. Are you aware that you killed Raisa Ivanovna’s son Grigory as well as Raisa Ivanovna, your intended victim?’

‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

‘You were the one at the brothel with Vakhramev, Golyadkin and Devushkin.’

‘Those names mean nothing to me.’

‘Come now, you were at school with Golyadkin, were you not? You will not deny that you attended the Chermak Private High School in Moscow? Your name is on the list of pupils, by the way. You were in Golyadkin’s class.’

‘I. .’ Yefimov did not deny it.

‘Tell me, what happened between you and Raisa Ivanovna all those years ago? What did she do that was so terrible that you harboured your resentment, your vengeful longing, we might call it, for so long? You went to the brothel — uninvited, what bitter pleasure it gave you to describe yourself in those terms. You saw yourself, no doubt, as better than the other men, with whom you had already quarrelled. You had an appreciation of beauty to which they were blind. You had a soul. Were you overcome by some romantic notion — a philosophical idea almost? You saw this girl, so young, so lost. You were young too, then. In a moment of romantic madness, you offered her a way out. Was that it? Or was it just a joke to you, all along? Anyhow, she came to you, to your apartment. We have the testimony of a former associate of hers that something like this happened, although the woman in question did not name you, of course. At any rate, Raisa Ivanovna saw you as you really are — with Ferfichkin, your servant. The terrible, humiliating relationship you had with Ferfichkin — the torturer. She saw how pathetic and squalid your life really was.’

‘This has really gone on quite long enough. You have no right to come here and make these unfounded and quite obscene allegations. ’

‘She was just an inconvenience to you, then, wasn’t she? A terrible mistake, an embarrassment — and you had to be rid of her. What could be easier? She was a prostitute. So you offered her money — and what? She threw it in your face? You could never forgive her for that. And you could never forgive Ferfichkin either, for witnessing the scene.’

Yefimov said nothing for a long time, but simply looked at Porfiry with an expression of studied disdain. However, Porfiry was not inclined to speak either. He had a sense that everything hung on the words that would come next from Yefimov; that the question of his guilt or innocence would be resolved in them. It was as he thought. ‘But you have no proof,’ said Yefimov at last. The guilty always insist on proof, thought Porfiry.

‘The greatest and most compelling proof is your character.’ Porfiry returned Yefimov’s gaze steadily.

‘You think you know my character!’ Yefimov could not control his outrage.

‘I believe so. You are a common enough type. Educated to a superfluous level, cynical to the point that you are capable of any cruelty, without feeling it to be such. Alienated, I might say, from yourself and your fellow men. At first sight you seem simply to be a minor official, a petty tsar, but there is more to it than that. You have nourished your resentments. They have festered underground over the years until they have burst forth as crimes. It is entirely in keeping with your personality, for instance, that you would adopt the name Nikolai Nobody, given to you contemptuously by your childhood enemies, from whom you could not tear yourself away.

You wallow in that which you hate, and that which hates you. It is small wonder that you imagine yourself suffering from vertigo. Your hypochondria is the most clinching proof of all. You may deny it all, but it is all easy to prove. I have only to ask Vakhramev to look at you. And Dr Meyer will be able to confirm that you were the man who bumped into him outside Ballet’s. You were also seen at the funeral of Gorshkov’s child.’

Yefimov shook his head in mute denial.

‘It is also in keeping with your character that you chose each method of murder carefully, matching it to the victim, and, I imagine, the insult that provoked each murder. Poison for Raisa, whose charms were tainted by her past as a prostitute. She had refused your gift of money, but you made her swallow the gift of death. And a needle for the tailor Ferfichkin, whose very existence tortured you for so long, like a thorn in your side. As for Setochkin, the military man, you chose the weapon of honour, the pistol. Did he perhaps dishonour you in some way?’

‘Please be so good as to tell me,’ said Yefimov. ‘You are, after all, the man with all the answers.’

‘I will tell you this. You arranged for two rooms to be rented in Rostanev’s name. Did you pay the rent on both of them, I wonder? Or merely on the second room, the one which you kept vacant? You came and went, visiting your underling. Of course, you knew him from your schooldays too. He was the one creature in that dreadful place more miserable and misbegotten than you. The only one left for you to abuse. Is that what bound the two of you together? And is that why you found him a job at the department? Rostanev was no doubt flattered by the attention of a superior — and one to whom he was in debt. At night, you would go into the empty room and speak down the rubber hose, which would transmit your voice to Rostanev’s bed, where it would resonate, and he would hear it as the voices in his head, telling him what to do. It was in this vacant apartment that you created the bomb which was only today thrown at Lieutenant Salytov. By you, of course. Your position here at the department allows you to come and go more or less freely. The purpose of this attack was to throw suspicion away from you by incriminating the boy from Ballet’s, whose case you had heard about by talking to the manager. And, of course, it was you who gave Tolya the radical pamphlets. All this was a secondary precaution in case your attempts to incriminate Rostanev failed. Rostanev, in whose name you bought the chocolates and whose death you engineered, as the final proof of his criminal madness.’

Yefimov smirked, involuntarily. It seemed to Porfiry that this part of the plan must have given him particular pleasure and satisfaction.

‘Yes, you saw to that, putting the idea of self-mutilation into his head through the speaking tube. You merely took his ideas — If your hand offends you, cut it off! — and gave them back to him, twisted and exaggerated beyond recognition.’ There was a murmur of disquiet from the clerks behind Yefimov. One or two of them rose from their stools. Porfiry continued: ‘And you made Rostanev send the letters. In fact, you made him send more than you needed him to, even putting yourself forward as a target for his malice. All this was merely a smokescreen for the ones that were truly necessary, by which I mean the ones to Meyer, Vakhramev and Gorshkov. You think that you have been wonderfully clever, but in fact you have been rather stupid, blinded by your overestimation of your intellect and abilities, which are really quite limited. Similarly, you underestimated your adversaries, the officers of the law who would pursue you. Your stupidity has manifested itself in a way that is typical of men of your sort. That is to say, in overelaboration. You constructed layers of incrimination, by which you hoped to confuse the hapless and, in your view, oafish police. And yet all you have succeeded in doing is revealing the patterns of your peculiarly Byzantine imagination. You hoped to conceal, but in fact you have revealed yourself, more patently than if you had carried a placard proclaiming your guilt.’

‘But what of Setochkin?’ shrieked Yefimov. ‘Why did I kill Setochkin?’

‘Do you wish to tell me?’ answered Porfiry. ‘Perhaps if you tell me, I will understand you better. I will appreciate your cleverness, after all. I have a feeling that your reason for killing Setochkin is sublime. It may even be exquisite, the evidence — at last — of a refined and superior sensibility. The proof, even, of your genius. A masterstroke. I will only fully understand you when I understand that. And isn’t it important to you that I should understand you? That everyone should understand you? After all, you’re not a madman, not like Rostanev, who could be manipulated by your superior will to do whatever you wanted him to.’ Porfiry noticed more of the clerks get to their feet. They began to drift over, forming a wide arc behind Yefimov. Sullen, discontented glances passed along the line.

‘I do not admit to any of this,’ said Yefimov suddenly, his voice startled.

‘You played him like a pipe organ. You pulled out his stops and he responded. But then again you believe that the great mass of humanity consists of such automatons, do you not? Only the select few, the super-beings, the men like you, are capable of original acts and thought, of true self-determination.’

‘I am not the only one to hold such philosophical ideas. To think is not against the law, as far as I am aware.’

‘Give me evidence of your superhumanity. Make me believe — as I want to believe — in you as more than an ordinary man, as a hero. Tell me why you killed Colonel Setochkin.’

‘Colonel Setochkin! How diligent you are in giving the man his rank. Tell me, if you were walking down the street, Nevsky Prospekt, for example, and such a man, such a colonel, were coming in the opposite direction — would you step aside? Or would you stand your ground, and insist that you were as much a man as he and every bit as entitled to walk on the pavement? Would you, in short, demand that he got out of your way? But what if he took no notice of you, what if he looked straight through you, what if he did not acknowledge your polite request — not even your existence? In short, what if he brushed you aside as if you were no more than a fly? What if he shouldered you into the road, so that your clothes were mired with the splatter from a passing cart? And what if the worst of it was that he hadn’t even realised he had done it! So insignificant were you in his eyes that he failed to see you as a man, or as an obstacle, as anything. What then? What would you do then?’

‘Good God! Is that what this is about? A man has died because he would not get out of your way on the Nevsky Prospekt!’

‘It is a question of honour. He failed to show me the respect that was due to me.’

‘You will come with us now.’

‘But I have confessed to nothing. And even if I had, I would get off. No jury would convict me. To have been so possessed by vengeance over such a trifle proves my insanity. Thank God and the Tsar for the new juries!’

Yefimov began to laugh. There was a strangled cry behind him. One of the clerks broke away from his companions, moving with great difficulty, as though running through soft sand. He held one hand out stiffly in front, clenched around a flicker of steel. This hand jerked forwards, at the soft flank of Yefimov’s lower back, and came away empty. Yefimov’s face lurched upwards, spasms of pain distorting it. Blood darkened the bottle-green frock coat of his civil service uniform around the projecting handle of a penknife. His fingers flexed in time with the draining pulse of his blood. He strained his head back to fix his imploring eyes on Porfiry. A plea for help shaped his lips but did not sound. Porfiry did not move.

Yefimov staggered towards him, at the last throwing himself upon the magistrate. Porfiry caught him and held his full weight in a tight embrace. Over Yefimov’s shoulder he saw the clerk back away, awed by his own action. The phalanx of scribes closed around him. In a moment, he was lost to sight.

‘Who was that man?’ cried Porfiry, still clinging on to Yefimov. The fingers of one hand felt the dampness of the other man’s blood. ‘Surrender him now.’

The clerks stared back at him, blank-faced and silent. Before long, the memory of the assassin’s face mingled with those of his colleagues.

‘Which one of them was it, Pavel Pavlovich? Can you say?’ The strain of his burden gave Porfiry’s voice a desperate edge.

Virginsky shook his head, his face wide open with wonder. ‘What about him?’ He held a shaking finger towards Yefimov. Porfiry felt the civil servant writhe in his arms; his cheek brushed Yefimov’s grimace.

‘I’ll stay with him. You go and raise the alarm.’

Virginsky watched as Yefimov’s groping hand closed its fingers around the handle of the penknife and pulled. The awkward yanking motion failed to bring the blade out cleanly. It pivoted the knife on its axis and churned the blade through the ruptured kidney. When the knife did come away, falling with a mocking clatter to the floor, the unstoppered blood chased through the fabric of his coat.

‘Quickly, Pavel Pavlovich! If there is to be any hope of saving him, you must go now!’ It had not seemed possible, but the body in Porfiry’s arms grew suddenly heavier.

But all Virginsky could do was cast a hesitating glance towards the knot of clerks. Something in their enlivened defiance held him.

They stood on the steps of the ministry, looking across Chernyshov Square, their thoughts clogged in the faltering traffic. A restive dray horse stamped and snorted between the shafts of an ambulance carriage, unable to proceed. It seemed to sense the urgency of the moment, perhaps scenting blood in the air. Its eye stood out with animal panic.

Porfiry looked down at his right hand and saw it stained with Yefimov’s blood. He could not bring himself to light the cigarette between his lips.

‘I am not cut out for this.’

Porfiry looked up sharply. ‘Nonsense.’

‘He may die because of me.’ There seemed to be no great conviction to Virginsky’s words.

Porfiry shrugged. ‘You did not plunge the knife in.’

‘I couldn’t move!’ It was as if Virginsky was pleading to be blamed.

‘You’re not the only one, it seems,’ said Porfiry, frowning at the stationary ambulance. He added, more gently: ‘Next time, you will move. You will be prepared.’

‘There won’t be a next time.’

‘So, what would you do instead? Go back to Riga with your father?’ The sarcasm in Porfiry’s voice was harsher than he intended.

Virginsky’s response was quick with affront: ‘There is work for me on the estate. I have ideas about more efficient methods of agricultural management. My father would be amenable, I’m sure.’

‘You think you will escape the memory of what you have seen? Rostanev in his bed? It will go with you. It will haunt you and there will be nothing you can do about it. Something has been awoken in you, Pavel Pavlovich. You cannot leave it now. It will not leave you.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Porfiry sighed heavily. He found he was clutching his cigarette case, which he offered to Virginsky. Virginsky declined. At last Porfiry lit his own cigarette. He gave Virginsky a long, assessing look. ‘The appetite. There is only one way to appease it. And that is to give in to it. You will work in the department, not because it is a way for you to serve the Russian people, not because it will make you happy, or bring you honour, nor, indeed, for any reason that you can admit to. You will work with us because you need to. We have spoilt you for anything else.’

‘I cannot get the sight of that man out of my head.’

‘Rostanev? You will see other things. Some may even be worse than that. I cannot promise you otherwise.’ Porfiry emptied his lungs of smoke.

A slight smile played on his lips as he held Virginsky with his gaze. His nod released them.

They turned their backs guiltily on the ambulance, as its driver shouted at the three coaches blocking his way. They walked away from the frantic whinnying of his horse.