These thoughts were interrupted by the explosion of raps on the apartment door. The harshness of the noise startled him. It sounded as though some hard metallic implement was being employed, with the intention of breaking down the door.
No, this was not Olga.
His heart was pounding as he leapt to his feet, one arm still plunged into the boot. Hesitating only to take courage from a glance at the St George’s cross of the regimental banner, with its inscription ‘Awarded for conspicuous valour in the Battle of Kulm, 17th August, 1813’, he ventured into the corridor, holding his booted arm out in front of him, as both a shield and a weapon.
The violent rapping had ceased. Now the cry was raised for him to ‘Open up!’.
The face that he saw as the door sprung open took his breath away. It was hardly a face at all, more like an unfinished model executed by a poor craftsman. In places the skin was unnaturally smooth, and glistened with a lurid pink hue; in other places it was pitted and ridged. The mouth was a slit, the enlarged nostrils seemed almost to swallow up what there was of a nose. But the most unsettling feature was the eyes. As Afanasy stared into them, a shiver of revulsion passed through him. The lids were stretched taut and were without lashes. It seemed that it would have been impossible for them to blink, at least not without causing the possessor of this unfortunate face some discomfort. This gave the eyes a strange fixity of expression. In them burnt a constant fire of rage and resentment, as if those eyes held the world responsible for the disfigurement around them.
‘Where is Mizinchikov? We have a warrant for his arrest.’ The effort of barking these terse demands distorted the face into a sinewy, flushed knot.
‘He’s not here.’ It was only now that Afanasy took in the grey uniform and the kepi, beneath which sprouted strands of unruly red hair. He noticed too the silver-bossed walking stick in the police officer’s hand. Two other policemen crowded at his shoulder, together with a gentleman in a frock coat. The latter seemed notably ill at ease and shifted distractedly, as if he was in a hurry to be elsewhere. ‘What’s this about?’ asked Afanasy.
‘I’ll ask the questions.’ Then, as if to prove his point, the officer with the disfigured face said, ‘What do you mean by brandishing that boot at me?’
Afanasy looked down at the boot on his hand and shrugged. ‘I was just cleaning it.’
The officer raised his walking stick and placed the tip against Afanasy’s chest. He held it there for a moment before thrusting it sharply forwards, forcing Afanasy to take a step back. He then lurched past him into the apartment, opening every door he passed.
‘Search every room,’ he barked over his shoulder. The two policemen rushed in like a small swarm, disappearing together into the first of the rooms, Afanasy’s own.
‘You won’t find him in there!’ protested Afanasy. ‘You won’t find him anywhere. He’s not here, I tell you.’
The gentleman in the frock coat, who was hanging back diffidently on the landing, cleared his throat to signal his presence. ‘I say, Lieutenant Salytov, sir, if you’ll not be needing me any more …’
The disfigured officer withdrew a folded paper from his uniform and turned sharply back towards the man. He shook the paper open in one hand. ‘Sign here and you may go.’
The gentleman in the frock coat stared at the hand that gripped the paper. The skin on the back of the hand was hairless and utterly without texture, as smooth as molten wax. ‘I don’t have anything to write with,’ he said at last.
‘You!’ Lieutenant Salytov snapped at Afanasy. ‘Fetch pen and ink.’
‘There are writing implements in Captain Mizinchikov’s room. At his desk. I will gladly show the gentleman … and your honour, too.’
Salytov paused to consider the suggestion. The moment trembled with unpredictability. ‘Very well. Lead the way.’
Afanasy extricated his arm from the captain’s boot, which he placed upright on the floor.
Captain Mizinchikov’s room was behind the third door. In the light from the corridor, it appeared small and well-ordered, its Spartan furnishings no doubt facilitating tidiness. Afanasy retrieved a candle from a shelf and lit it, revealing a few faded prints of battle scenes on the walls, together with a monochrome portrait of the Tsar. There was an icon of St George in one corner. A small writing desk was crammed in beneath the black square of the window, its green leather surface cleared of papers. At the rear of the desk, three pens sprouted from an ivory pen stand decorated with the double-headed eagle of the Romanov crest.
Lieutenant Salytov pointed to an oil lamp hanging above the desk. ‘Light that too.’
In the spreading glow of the lamp, he took a moment to scan the room, stooping slightly to peer beneath both the desk and the bed. He then satisfied himself that Captain Mizinchikov was not hiding amongst the uniforms in the wardrobe. At last he laid the piece of paper on the desk and nodded abruptly at the man in the frock coat.
The gentleman put on a pair of dusty, smeared spectacles in wire frames and squinted at the document. ‘What exactly am I signing, may I ask?’ He smiled a tense, appeasing smile.
Lieutenant Salytov exhaled his impatience. ‘It is merely to indicate that you have witnessed a search of these premises — the apartment of Captain Mizinchikov, at the Officers’ House of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Kirochnaya, 35 — at the time and date specified …’
‘There is no time or date indicated. And no address given, either.’
‘Don’t worry about that. We will fill in those details later. The important thing is that you testify that force was not used. The police freely admitted. That any evidence offered in court as a result of this search was indeed found here. So on and so forth. It is all there in black and white. All you have to do is sign.’
‘You have completed the search then?’
‘That doesn’t matter. Just sign it now and we finish the search after you have gone.’
‘But what if you break something after I’ve gone.’
‘That won’t happen. The sooner you sign, the sooner you can go about your business. Whatever that may be,’ Salytov added with a distasteful sneer.
‘Perhaps I should make a note that I left before the search was completed?’
‘That will only get you into trouble.’
‘With all respect, Lieutenant Salytov, does this not rather make a mockery of the whole system? I mean to say, why go to the bother of bringing a civilian witness along if you are not going to require him to … witness?’
‘This is the way it is done. Let me assure you that you have discharged your duty as a citizen here tonight. There is no reason to detain you further. All that remains is for you to sign the statement and you may go.’
There was a crash from the next room.
‘Should we not …?’ began the civilian witness, pointing vaguely in the direction of the noise.
‘No.’ Lieutenant Salytov’s voice was chillingly calm. It was far more menacing than any amount of bluster.
‘In that case, it’s probably for the best if I leave you to it.’ The witness took up a pen. ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing.’ He stooped over the desk and signed with a flourish. He nodded once and was gone without a further word. His pounding footsteps could be heard as he threw himself down the stairs.
Lieutenant Salytov pocketed the document and pulled open a small drawer in the desk. A flash of colour caught his eye: crimson, glistening garishly. For one absurd and shocking moment he was convinced that the drawer was filled with blood. But as he pulled it to its full extent, he saw the brilliant red was contained within a narrow rectangle. He realised that it was some sort of cloth; the sheen suggested silk, which his touch confirmed. The silk glided under his fingers. He could feel that there was something wrapped inside it, something weighted and hard, that gave the silk around it shape. Salytov pulled back the loosely folded material, revealing a cut-throat razor, the blade closed inside a nacre handle.