A man in a checked suit and bowler hat, evidently some kind of foreman, shouted something incomprehensible into Virginsky’s face. Virginsky shouted back the name Ustyantsev. The foreman replied with further shouts. It was a moment before Virginsky realised he was being asked, in bad Russian, ‘Who are you?’
He shouted back, ‘Magistrate.’
He was led between two rows of clattering machinery, some parts of which were pent with such violent force that it seemed that they would fly apart at any moment; or that the whole suite of machines would break loose from the bolts that fixed them to the floor and spin like massive seed pods into the air, to disseminate their monstrous din.
The man he was led to was dressed in a loose white shirt, with a garishly patterned waistcoat open over it. He wore his hair long, swept back from a face that could have been aristocratic, for all the arrogance of his expression. He was slowly walking a moveable frame of spinning bobbins away from a squatting, thread-spewing bulk, with the patience of a man leading an animal. There was a yelled conference between the foreman and the spinner, the details of which were lost to Virginsky. The outcome was a dark, suspicious glance in his direction.
An upward nod from the foreman invited Virginsky to draw near.
‘Ustyantsev?’ shouted Virginsky.
The man walking the frame confirmed his identity with the most minimal of nods, his eyes darting all the time along the lines of thread stretched across the widening jaws of the machine.
‘Can you stop the machine?’ Virginsky pointed at his ears and gave a wince of distress. His request and the gesture went ignored. ‘I need to talk.’ He nodded energetically. ‘And hear!’
The spinner gave a shrug that indicated eloquently how little this concerned him.
‘Mitka,’ shouted Virginsky, stepping backwards to keep pace with the spinner’s progress. ‘You know Mitka?’
‘Mitka’s gone.’ The spinner’s reply was clear enough.
‘What happened?’
‘Let me down, the bastard.’
‘Let you down? How?’
‘Ran off.’
‘Where? Where’d he go?’
Ustyantsev shook his head, his mouth set in a non-committal down-turn. ‘Dunno.’
‘Any ideas?’
The moving frame clanked as it reached the outward extent of its track. There was a slight lull in the noise of the machine, or at least a modulation of its frequency which seemed to hold out the promise of a more sustained conversation. However, Virginsky was distracted by the appearance of a small boy who darted out from under the vast skein of threads. Ustyantsev launched himself at the boy and landed a heavy blow across the side of the head. His face as he returned to the frame was defiant and grim.
‘Why did you do that?’ demanded Virginsky.
‘Keeps them on their toes.’
‘Do you not consider that they might work with more enthusiasm and effectiveness if you treated them more kindly?’
Ustyantsev’s expression was one of brutish incomprehension.
‘You are a working man yourself. Does it not shame you to oppress your fellow labourers? Especially as they are children?’
‘How dare you call me a labourer? I am a spinner, I’ll have you know.’ Ustyantsev’s affront was genuine.
‘Can I speak to the boy?’
‘The boy?’
Virginsky looked around but the boy had disappeared.
‘Be my guest,’ said Ustyantsev with a malicious grin.
‘Will you call him out?’
‘No.’
‘You expect me to get in there?’
‘He’s not in there. He’s in this one now.’ Ustyantsev turned to the machine opposite. ‘Mark you, if you distract him from his work and a single thread wants tying, I shall beat him mercilessly. And you shall not stop me.’
‘I see. Very well. In that case, I shall wait till the end of his shift.’
‘You’ll have a long wait.’ Ustyantsev turned his back on Virginsky and began to open the machine up. The noise, once again, was deafening.
*
By the time the whistle blast heralded the end of the morning shift, Virginsky’s legs were aching. His throat and lungs were clogged with cotton dust. A film of sweat lay between his skin and his underclothes. He was worn out and he had done nothing but stand and wait. To be fair, he had not been entirely idle. He had been monitoring the abuses perpetrated by the spinner against the boys in his employ, entering the number and severity of assaults into a notebook. This had failed to inhibit Ustyantsev. Far from it: as soon as he noticed what Virginsky was about, he seemed to increase the frequency of his attacks, flaunting his brutality with a perverse pride. It even occurred to Virginsky that the spinner might be acting in the misguided belief that he would gain his approval by such displays.
Released by the whistle, the boys came out from under the machines as dazed and hesitant as uncaged rats. Habituated to hold themselves hunched, and to walk with a flinching gait, they readied themselves for further blows. None came. It seemed that Ustyantsev refrained from such exertions during his lunch break.
Virginsky beckoned to the boy he had spotted earlier. The boy shied away with an instinctive suspicion of authority, deferring instead to Ustyantsev. The spinner tilted his head in a minute gesture of permission. With a heavy shuffle, and head bowed, the boy presented himself to Virginsky.
‘What’s your name, son?’
‘Pasha.’
‘I am Pasha too! Pleased to meet you, Pasha.’ Virginsky shook hands with the boy. He flashed a glance towards Ustyantsev, who was watching them with a sullen glower. ‘He treats you pretty roughly, that fellow.’
‘Mr Ustyantsev’s a good boss.’
‘Good?’
‘There’s worse.’
‘I dare say, but …’
The boy looked up, his eyes wide with questions. Then a weight of disappointment settled on him, bowing his head back down. He had looked for something in Virginsky and not found it.
‘Do you know Mitka? The boy who used to work here?’
‘He’s gone.’
‘Yes, I know. Do you have any idea where he might be?’
The boy shrugged and shifted his feet unhappily. ‘Please, sir.’
‘Yes?’
‘I have to go now. I’ll miss my lunch.’
‘Can I come with you?’
Puzzlement rippled across the boy’s face.
‘I wouldn’t want you to miss your lunch.’
‘There won’t be none for you.’
‘That’s all right. I … don’t want to eat anything. I just want to talk to you, and perhaps some of the other children.’
‘I only have half an hour.’
‘We’d better go then.’
The boy’s eyes widened in alarm, as his confusion spiked into fear. He looked Virginsky up and down uneasily.
‘There’s no need to be afraid. I’m a magistrate. Do you know what a magistrate is?’
The boy shook his head forlornly.
‘It’s a gentleman who looks into things. At this present moment I am looking into why Mitka disappeared and where he might have gone. I need you to help me.’
‘I shall have to ask Granny Kvasova.’
‘Who is Granny Kvasova?’
‘She looks after us at the ’prentice house.’
‘Well, that’s very good of her. She sounds like an excellent woman. May I meet her?’
The boy nodded, the twist of a smile at last flickering onto his lips. ‘She gives us our lunch.’
‘Well, what are we waiting for? Lead the way, my friend.’
The boy’s shrug took Virginsky back to his childhood. He had seen precisely such a shrug animate the shoulders of his school friends when he was Pasha’s age, and had felt its jounce in his own. It was a shrug of fellowship and good humour, a shrug of acceptance and understanding. It was the way you met a world you little understood and were powerless to control, not so much a gesture of indifference or resignation, as a recognition of kinship. He smiled as he followed Pasha through the factory.