Read A Vengeful Longing Online
Authors: R. N. Morris
A Vengeful Longing (27 page)
He stood unmoving in the centre of the room, listening. At last, he began to hear the small sounds that possessed the dacha in the absence of humanity: the scratching of mice, the scuttling of insects, the clicks and creaks of the timbers adjusting to the sun’s transit through the day. The wooden cottage acted like a sounding box, picking up and amplifying these sounds until he, in the centre of it, shook with their reverberations.
The convulsion released him from his fearful immobility. He walked the length of the room, each footfall a hammerblow on the past, irreversible. His steps took him only to the piano, the lid still lifted, the album of folk songs open on the music rest. The keyboard seemed to possess a strange resilience; he had the feeling that the keys would not yield to his touch were he to lay his fingers on them. But a kind of horror prevented him from trying. The instrument had always been hers, and so much represented her that it had taken on the significance of her remains. To press a key would have felt like a desecration. He did not have the right, no one had, he least of all. Besides, he couldn’t play, had no feeling for music at all.
He stood over the keyboard, looking down at it, willing it to sound of its own accord. Then, unexpectedly, his hand reached out and he pressed a key in the centre of the keyboard. His touch was gentle. The note it produced, faltering and awed. He pressed again, more firmly, on the same key. The inhuman brightness of the note this time appalled him. A terrible pressure welled inside him, an expanding force in his chest. Then the tears came. They fell on to the piano keys. It was almost as if he expected them to depress the keys and cause the hammers to strike, with such a heavy, laden force did he imagine his tears falling. But, of course, this remained a sentimental fantasy. The tiny puddles spread, weightless, noiseless, on the ivory.
With the clock’s ticking suspended, it seemed that he existed outside time. There was a strange sense too of squaring up to the future. How long it was before he turned his back on the piano, he could not say. Nor how long it took him to cross the room and enter his study. It seemed that he was moving through a more viscous element than he was used to, one charged with hostility.
He could tell immediately that the room had been interfered with. They had been there, riffling through his papers. The lid of the escritoire was open, the drawer pulled out. He pulled it further and it fell out of his hands on to the floor with a hooligan clatter. Meyer’s hands shot up to cover his ears. His body writhed in an evasive flinch. But there was nothing to evade, except the noise and its aftermath. When that had finally died, he sank to a crouch to sort the debris. With the new slowness that characterised all his movements now, the infinite patience of a man without purpose, he put the scattered papers back into the drawer. The realisation came upon him gradually: they had taken all the photographs. The blank that was his marriage, his family, his life, was complete. They had even, he discovered, taken the one recourse left to him, the small bottle that would allow him to cover one blankness, agonising and self-aware, with another, blissful and oblivious.
They had left him with nothing.
‘Yes, come in, Pavel Pavlovich,’ said Porfiry, looking up from behind his desk. He winced a perfunctory smile. ‘I have a task for you.’ He shook a thick sheaf of papers for Virginsky to take. ‘These have just come in from Moscow. They are the lists of relevant pupils from all the private boarding schools in Moscow.’
Virginsky took the sheets almost reluctantly. There was something self-conscious about his movements as he scanned them. He said nothing.
‘I wish you to look for the name Golyadkin on the lists,’ continued Porfiry. ‘And to draw up a secondary list of all the boys who were ever in the same class as him. It should not be so difficult. There will be a certain amount of re-duplication as the pupils move up the years.’
‘Of course.’
‘An investigation may progress in a number of ways. There will always be times when our work is more laborious than otherwise. A crime is often solved when a connection is made between the victim and the perpetrator. Very rarely do these connections leap out at us. We must go looking for them.’
Virginsky nodded but seemed reluctant to move away and begin the task. ‘Porfiry Petrovich,’ he said at last, tentatively.
‘Yes? What is it?’
‘My father knew Setochkin.’
‘I see.’ Porfiry Petrovich sat up sharply. ‘Why did you not tell me this before?’
Virginsky could not answer, except by colouring deeply.
‘Or let me put it another way, why are you telling me now?’
‘I felt sure there was nothing in it. I wished to protect my father from unnecessary inconvenience.’
‘How very thoughtful of you. However, something has changed your mind?’
‘There is another connection you should be aware of. One that may make the first seem less coincidental.’
Porfiry inclined his head, waiting, his expression severe.
‘My father went to school in Moscow. He was a pupil at a private boarding school, the Chermak Private High School. His age is such that his name will be on these lists.’
‘I see.’ Porfiry nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you should start with this Chermak School. You will then set your mind at rest straightaway.’
‘And what if I find the name Golyadkin there? In the same class as my father, even?’
‘That would be interesting. At any rate, I would very much like to meet your father, if you do not think it would inconvenience him too much.’
‘Porfiry Petrovich, I am very much aware that in attempting to fulfil my duties as a son, I may well have neglected those of my office. I have done wrong. I would prefer to receive your reprimand than your sarcasm.’
‘Pavel Pavlovich, I do not blame you. After all, there are some coincidences that are simply coincidences. I suspect this is one of them. There are so many connections now in the cases before us that I fear we have created a veritable net of them. If we are not careful, it will entrap us.’ Porfiry looked around him, with a vaguely menacing air.
‘Is it not supposed to entrap the murderer?’
‘That is the intention.’ Porfiry’s smile was conciliatory. His tone softened. ‘Work on the lists. As for your father, it would be best if I met him informally. We really have no grounds for issuing a summons. Perhaps you could invite him here to see your place of work. I am sure he would welcome the opportunity to discuss your prospects with your superior.’
‘My father is not as interested in my career as you might suppose. I am not sure that he would respond to any invitation from me. We parted on bad terms. He did not appreciate my efforts on his behalf. I was trying to ascertain for myself the nature of his involvement with Colonel Setochkin. As it turned out, it was a business transaction, the sale of some land. My father chose to consider himself under suspicion and took umbrage.’
‘I command you to be reconciled with him.’
It seemed that Virginsky was not attuned to the nuances of Porfiry’s irony.
‘I understand. It is for the good of the investigation.’
‘Foolish boy, I was not thinking of the investigation, but of your own good.’
Virginsky looked down, abashed. ‘I shall work through these lists,’ he said.
Porfiry studied the list of names Virginsky had drawn up:
BOTKIN, P. P.
DOLGORUKY, F. D.
KALGONOV, P. P.
KARAMAZOV, P. P.
KIRILLOV, Z. R.
KRAFT, M. M.
KRASOTKIN, B. P.
LEBEZYANTIKOV, I. A.
MAKAROV, M. S.
MAXIMOV, N. F.
MUSOV, O. A.
MUSSYALOVICH, Y. S.
NELYADOV, L.T.
NIKIFOROV, N. N.
OSTAFYN, S. S.
PERKHOTIN, G. O.
POTAPYCH, M. M.
PRALINSKY, R. D.
PSEDONIMOV, I. I.
RAKITIN, S. A.
ROGOZHIN, K. R.
SAMSONOV, M. Y.
SHATOV, K. L.
SHIPULENKO, O. O.
SMERDYAKOV, P. P.
SNEGINYOV , A. A.
STAVROGIN, M. T.
SVIDRIGAILOV, V. V.
TERENTEV, B. K.
TIKHON, E. D.
TOTSKY, T. E.
VALKOVSKY, D. I.
VARVINSKY, G. S.
VERKHOVERSKY, A. A.
VERKHOVTSEV, T. G.
VRUBLEVSKY, F. M.
YEFIMOV, M. I.
DOLGORUKY, F. D.
KALGONOV, P. P.
KARAMAZOV, P. P.
KIRILLOV, Z. R.
KRAFT, M. M.
KRASOTKIN, B. P.
LEBEZYANTIKOV, I. A.
MAKAROV, M. S.
MAXIMOV, N. F.
MUSOV, O. A.
MUSSYALOVICH, Y. S.
NELYADOV, L.T.
NIKIFOROV, N. N.
OSTAFYN, S. S.
PERKHOTIN, G. O.
POTAPYCH, M. M.
PRALINSKY, R. D.
PSEDONIMOV, I. I.
RAKITIN, S. A.
ROGOZHIN, K. R.
SAMSONOV, M. Y.
SHATOV, K. L.
SHIPULENKO, O. O.
SMERDYAKOV, P. P.
SNEGINYOV , A. A.
STAVROGIN, M. T.
SVIDRIGAILOV, V. V.
TERENTEV, B. K.
TIKHON, E. D.
TOTSKY, T. E.
VALKOVSKY, D. I.
VARVINSKY, G. S.
VERKHOVERSKY, A. A.
VERKHOVTSEV, T. G.
VRUBLEVSKY, F. M.
YEFIMOV, M. I.
‘I found the name Golyadkin,’ explained Virginsky. ‘B. B. Golyadkin attended the Chermak High School from eighteen thirty-four to forty. These are the names of all the boys who were ever in the same class as him.’
Porfiry laid the list down on his desk and smiled reassuringly. ‘I do not see the name Virginsky here.’
‘My father was in the year above Golyadkin.’
‘I wonder if he remembers him.’ Porfiry made the comment casually, almost as if it had no importance.
‘You know, Porfiry Petrovich,’ began Virginsky hesitantly, ‘with respect, it may be that the Uninvited One, though a schoolfriend of Golyadkin’s, was not in fact in his class.’
‘You speak as if you almost wish to discover your father to be the murderer.’
‘Not at all. However, it is simply that I fear we may do better to cast our net a little wider. Why limit the list to those who were in Golyadkin’s class?’
‘Because we have to start somewhere.’ Porfiry pushed across his desk a leather-bound ledger book. ‘This is the order book from Ballet’s. Your next task is to look here for occurrences of the names you have picked out. If you find any, good. We will investigate them. If not, then we shall, as you say, cast our net wider, and look for names from the other classes in Golyadkin’s year, and then from the years on either side of him, and so on. To narrow the search initially, is simply a practical measure.’
Virginsky picked up the book. ‘But could not these correspondences, if there are any, lead us away from the murderer just as easily as towards him? If they are simply coincidences, I mean. Besides, there may be many men with the same surnames and initials. It does not necessarily indicate the same individual. You will notice the name Maximov, N. F. Do you suppose that may be our esteemed Chief Superindendent Nikodim Fomich Maximov?’
‘That would indeed be a remarkable coincidence,’ said Porfiry, smiling to himself.
Virginsky flicked through the pages of the book. ‘I see it only goes back to April this year.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Porfiry. ‘I have ten others for you to look at when you have finished with that.’
He couldn’t say how long he had been looking at the maps. It was something he always used to do: look at the maps and wander in his mind along the avenues, across the squares, through the courtyards of St Petersburg. When the morphine took hold of him there was nowhere he couldn’t go. Even the rooftops were his; he would swoop over them like the all-possessing gaze of an angel on St Isaac’s Cathedral. But without the operation of that balm, in which time and space unfolded like the petals of a complex and beautiful flower, the maps remained simply maps, ink imprinted on paper. He could hardly make sense of them. He pored over them, knowing that they held some meaning, but not quite grasping what it was. Yet somehow they held him, until his hunger began to twist.
Flies of all sizes possessed the pantry, buzzing greedily around the last mould-infested crust of bread, the collapsed fruit and seething meat.
Meyer fled the dacha, and the rotten remnants of a life that it contained.
Music from somewhere - a pleasure boat? - came at him in a cloud of gnats. He swatted at it uselessly and lurched away from the dacha with blundering step, tripped by the weight of a sudden exhaustion.
The music put an idea into his head: Bezmygin. He would confront the hated Bezmygin. He could hear the man’s pernicious influence, the grating bow-scrape over strings, in the strains that reached him.
Meyer walked blindly, not even following the music, or not consciously so. His hunger pangs returned, almost to console him, reminding him of his humanity. From somewhere came the thought:
One should not contemplate such things on an empty stomach.
And yet he would not articulate what he was contemplating, indeed had not realised he was until that moment.
One should not contemplate such things on an empty stomach.
And yet he would not articulate what he was contemplating, indeed had not realised he was until that moment.
He came to the river, a brooding expanse that seemed to absorb the dusky light without giving anything back. Flecks of movement bobbed briefly on its surface before sinking into the darkness beneath. Pools of light and laughter from the lantern-decked boats hovered above it. They poured out music, and other sounds of enjoyment. In the need to keep the music coming, he saw a fatal desperation. If the music stopped, all that would be left would be the dark abyss of the river and the blank sky above. The boats and the people on them would be absorbed.
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