‘Oh my dear, how terrible for you. May God give you strength.’
Virginsky felt impelled to speak up. ‘Of course, there may be a way to spare Maria Petrovna from this ordeal. If either of you gentlemen would be willing to make the identification in her place? That is to say, if the children were known to you.’
‘They were my pupils,’ insisted Maria. A desolate calmness had entered her voice. Her eyes were fixed on a distant point.
‘It’s the boy, isn’t it?’ began Perkhotin hesitantly. ‘Mitka? I know him. I could identify him, I believe.’
‘There are other children missing too, whom I do not think you know.’
‘I would know their faces, Maria Petrovna.’
‘No!’ The force of her objection shocked them all. ‘I mean to say, yes, you would know their faces, I’m sure. But I cannot ask you to do this. No one knows these children as I do. No one else can do this for me.’
‘But there is something you should be aware of,’ said Virginsky, with a desperate look to Porfiry.
Porfiry shook his head warningly.
‘What? What is it?’ Her words came constricted by fear.
Virginsky fixed his gaze on Porfiry. ‘We told you that the bodies were received by the Medical-Surgical Academy, for the purposes of teaching. The students have been at work on them.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The heads have been removed.’
The sound was something more than a groan. It was the throbbing churn of her living flesh.
‘I’m sorry,’ continued Virginsky. ‘There was nothing we could do about it. It was part of their studies. It is important, however, that you are prepared for what is to come. To expose you to this without warning would be cruel.’ He cast a significant glance towards Porfiry Petrovich.
‘I will not permit you to subject yourself to this,’ said Perkhotin grimly. Then, as if he sensed her inevitable intransigence, he added: ‘Or at least allow me to accompany you.’
‘No.’ This time, she uttered the word of rejection softly, and Virginsky marvelled at how quickly she had regained her composure. ‘Though I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your offer. You must stay here for the children. And for me. I need you to take my class.’
‘Then I will come with you,’ said Father Anfim, drawing himself up to his full height.
Maria Petrovna rewarded this quixotic offer with a smile of unbounded gratitude. ‘It will not be necessary, dear, kind Father Anfim. I will have these gentlemen with me. As well as being magistrates, they are also my friends, or so I consider them. I hope I am not wrong to do so.’
Absurdly, Virginsky felt himself blush, though whether it was out of pleasure at the favour shown him, or resentment at being grouped together with Porfiry Petrovich, he could not say.
23 A basement room
‘It is as well your colleague came when he did. I was about to set the students the task of removing the facial epidermises.’
The professor, whose name, it turned out, was Bubnov, led the way by candlelight through the dark corridors of the basement, which like every basement in St Petersburg was permeated with the cloying smell of damp rot. His remark, intended for Porfiry Petrovich, was made a little too volubly. It drew a gasp from the darkness behind Virginsky. He turned and waited. Maria Petrovna’s face appeared, wraithlike. She seemed hardly there, the flickering intimation of a presence in the shifting darkness. Virginsky reached out a hand to console her, but lost faith in the gesture before it was completed.
Virginsky ran two steps to catch up with Porfiry. ‘Porfiry Petrovich,’ he hissed through clenched teeth. ‘We cannot, in all conscience, subject her to this.’
‘It’s all right, Pavel Pavlovich.’ Maria’s voice came deep and firm, as if something of the darkness had entered it and given it strength. He thought of her singing in the schoolroom. ‘I must do it.’
‘But you don’t know what it will cost you. You will never be the same after this. What you are about to see, it will enter you and take hold of you, and never let you go.’
‘You wish to spare me. I understand. But I do not wish to be spared.’
‘Pavel Pavlovich.’ Porfiry’s voice was stern as he cut in. ‘You must not presume that everyone will be affected in the same way that you were. Now, please calm yourself. This discussion is not helpful to Maria Petrovna.’
Maria’s presence faded momentarily as she reeled back from their attention. It was as if she could not bear even the feeble glow of the candlelight on her. The force of their dispute, and that she was the subject of it, seemed also to weigh heavily on her.
‘I just want to … get this over with.’ Two bright points glittered in the darkness, then flickered uncertainly before disappearing.
‘Take my arm, Maria Petrovna.’
The glittering points came back, their gleam directed at Porfiry Petrovich. He held out his forearm receptively. Her hand, like a timid creature venturing from its hiding place, bobbed tentatively towards it.
Virginsky felt the pivotal roll of defeat inside him.
*
As they entered the room, the smell of damp intensified, or rather it was overlaid with another smell in a similar register, but sweeter and somehow more insinuating. Professor Bubnov touched a taper to the candle flame and lit an oil lamp suspended from the centre of the ceiling. Its spread of yellow light seemed to take them all by surprise.
There was a glacial chill in the room. The floor was of trodden earth, the walls exposed brick, apart from one wall which was taken up with rows of small, square doors of varnished wood. These doors were numbered from one to twenty four, and had been constructed, Virginsky noted, with evident care and craftsmanship, to precise specifications. The polished brass hinges and fastenings gleamed. A folded stepladder was leaning against this wall.
‘This is where we keep the body parts,’ said Professor Bubnov, placing his candle on a long table in the centre of the room. Virginsky noticed that the surface of the table was stained with blood. ‘Complete cadavers are kept elsewhere. As you may have noticed, the temperature here is several degrees lower than in the corridor, on account of the ice, in which the parts are packed.’
Porfiry addressed himself to Professor Bubnov. ‘We are looking for a boy of about ten years of age. He would not have come to you before, say, the thirteenth of September.’
‘We do keep a record of when we take possession of our cadavers.’ Professor Bubnov took up the candle again and crossed to a desk against one of the brick walls. There was a lamp on this too. He removed the cylindrical glass and lit the wick with unhurried methodical care. Replacing the glass seemed to take an age. At last the professor sat down at the desk, then opened a drawer and took out a ledger book. With the same slow meticulousness, he turned the pages, running his fingers along rows of numbered entries.
Virginsky craned his neck to peer over Professor Bubnov’s shoulder. ‘Does it tell you from whom the bodies were acquired?’
‘As I informed you this morning, we receive them from the police. There is no need to go into any greater detail than that, as all the bodies come from the same source.’
‘Of course,’ granted Virginsky, frowning enquiringly at Porfiry Petrovich. Porfiry smiled and nodded approval.
‘We did receive such a body, number four three six one, a boy, estimated to be around that age. Received, let me see, on the twenty-third of September.’
‘And these letters here,’ said Virginsky, pointing to a column in the entry Professor Bubnov had his finger on. ‘I. P. S.? What do they signify?’
‘Do you wish me to show you the head of this boy?’ There was a note of aggression in the offer. ‘You will be interested to know that it was one of the heads the students were to have worked on this morning.’
‘I see each entry has a set of similar letters in the same place,’ persisted Virginsky. ‘I. I. D., P. P. Ch., S. D. L. They look like initials to me. Some of them occur more than once. This I. P. S., for example, occurs here, here and here.’