The Sin Collector

MASHA

Masha leaned against the wall outside Anyutin’s office. It wasn’t hard to imagine what was going on inside. Anyutin was spelling out for the disagreeable dude in cheap Turkish jeans that she was payback for some unofficial deal (as if the guy hadn’t already figured that out) and that he would have to let the payback pretend to help him.

Worst of all, she really was part of a deal, a pawn in someone else’s game. But without that deal she would never have gotten this internship at Petrovka, and she simply had to be here. After having her forced on him like this, Masha thought gloomily, the guy with the jeans was sure to hate her and gossip with all the other male detectives about her, and Masha would be the dumb kid nobody would deign to trust with anything important. Everyone would look at her with that knowing chill in their eyes, and wait impatiently until she finally relieved them of the burden of her presence.

She wondered if she really should have taken a court internship like everyone else, making copies and coffee. That dark train of thought was interrupted by the door swinging open. Yakovlev flew out, his expression even surlier than she’d expected.

“Follow me,” he snapped, then led her down several long corridors to the door of a different office. She took in a windowsill sporting a long-dead cactus, a couple of desks piled with overstuffed folders, and about ten people who paid Masha no attention whatsoever.

Masha felt a glimmer of hope. Having outside parties around made it remotely possible that the detective’s anger would dissipate a bit and that Masha would have a chance to join the team, who, she desperately hoped, would treat her a little better than this clod.

The captain, meanwhile, shoved some files to one side and pointed to the newly cleared patch of tabletop.

“This is your workplace,” he told her drily, putting invisible quotation marks around “work” to make it clear that working was the last thing he expected her to do.

People who got to Petrovka due to their connections were only supposed to sit there and wear out the seat of their pants.