An Autumn Hunting

Chapter 5

I’ve read a few suicide notes in my time, most of them written by men, to justify their final irrevocable departure. I guess most women lead such a barren, dismal existence they don’t need to spell out the life-ending reasons obvious to everyone. As with most things in life, women just get on with it.

In the same way that suicide is the most personal act one can ever take, so each note is different, in tone, in style, in length. Bleak despairing accounts of a life that’s finally run out of hope. Page upon page of hastily scrawled accusations. Explanations of the conscious decision to end the pain of terminal illness. Acts of sorrow, of revenge, carried out in moments of anger, drunkenness, heartbreak. But I’d never read a poem written by a suicide before. The handwriting was elegant, calm, not the desperate end-of-life scribble I’d seen so many times before. All the desperation was locked into the words.

‘What do you think? A suicide note?’ Usupov asked, behind his imperturbable manner as bewildered by this unexpected poem as I was.

‘Well, I’m no critic, but she’s not the next Anna Akhmatova,’ I said, trying to collect my thoughts and wondering quite what a ‘reckless might-have-been’ was. ‘Maybe she got one rejection slip too many.’

I read the poem again; it made as little sense the second time. When my wife Chinara was alive, she devoured book after book of poetry: Blok, Esenin, Pasternak, even Yevtushenko. She would have decoded the dead woman’s poem, stripped it of its hidden meanings in seconds, the way I could field-strip my Yarygin in the dark. But Chinara was in a hilltop grave overlooking a valley and the mountains beyond that defend us from China, and I was alone, left with my memories of kisses still sweet but fading, fading.

‘Maybe our victim didn’t write this. We’ll look very stupid if it turns out to be a famous poem in all the anthologies.’

‘You think that’s likely?’

I considered, shook my head. Perhaps because the poem was handwritten, but I sensed it had some significance for the dead woman lying in pieces in front of me, that it provided a clue to her life and death. Sometimes you let your instincts guide you in the absence of any evidence.

I was about to fold the paper and put it away in my wallet, decided to photograph it first. The poem might have been why the woman ended up with her skin being kissed by Usupov’s scalpel. And if that was the case, perhaps there would be others for whom the poem was more of a threat than a memorial. My wallet would be the first place a heavy with fists like smoked hams would look; what were the odds he’d also check my phone?

‘I’ll send you my report,’ Usupov said.

I shook my head, gave a lopsided grin.

‘Hadn’t you heard? The grapevine must be getting slow in its old age. I’ve been taken off the case, suspended, and in all likelihood about to go on trial.’

Usupov stared at me: we’d worked together a lot over the years. Though he knew I would sometimes cut corners when it suited me or the case I was working, he knew I was relatively straight. I gave a rueful nod, headed towards the door and the clean air outside. I planned on polluting it with a couple of cigarettes while I worked out exactly what I was going to do next.

‘Someone from Unexplained Deaths will be in touch. Murder Squad aren’t going to touch this, not without more evidence.’

I pushed the door, the metal cold in my hand.

‘One more thing, Kenesh – the heartfelt verse? No need to put it in the report, eh? We don’t want to start a wave of copycat lyric suicidal poems, do we?’

With that, I left the stink of blood, bowels and brains behind me, along with the tatters and scraps of a once-pretty girl who’d slipped away from life sixty years too soon.