‘It is nothing.’
‘But it must mean something.’
Professor Bubnov closed the ledger. ‘I had the heads from this morning’s class placed in compartment seven. The head of four three six one should be with them.’ He turned sharply away from the desk, consigning the ledger and its contents to the past.
Porfiry treated Virginsky to a significant blink. ‘My dear Professor Bubnov,’ he began smoothly. ‘It really would be most helpful for us to know the meaning of those letters. Perhaps you are embarrassed because you do not know.’ This time, his facial contraction was without doubt a wink. Professor Bubnov’s eyes darted slyly, as he calculated his position. ‘Yes, that must be it,’ continued Porfiry. ‘I cannot believe that you would deliberately withhold information from the judicial authorities.’ The professor looked down in embarrassment. ‘In that case, if you need to consult with the person who entered these letters in order to learn from them directly what they signify, and then pass on that information to us later, that would of course be acceptable. Do you not agree, Pavel Pavlovich?’
‘It will be acceptable,’ said Virginsky.
‘And now, professor, if Maria Petrovna is read y …’
Maria Petrovna bowed her head in heavy assent. Her face was ashen. Her lips were compressed and colourless.
Professor Bubnov rattled open the stepladder and positioned it alongside compartment seven, the first from the left on the third row. He climbed to the second step of the ladder and reached out to turn the brass handle. As the door swung open, Virginsky saw that the back of it was lined with a dull grey metal. A wooden panel came half way up the aperture of the door: the front of a deep drawer. A brass handhold had been inlaid into it. Again Virginsky marvelled at the care that had gone into creating these holding bays for dead matter. Above the drawer front, an impenetrable blackness squatted. It seemed to be an entity released by the opening of the door. But it did not burst out with boundless energy; rather, it began a slow, seeping infiltration of the room.
The professor took hold of the brass handle and pulled. An enormous drawer came out smoothly and easily on a well-oiled sliding mechanism. The black entity shrank back with a grumbling murmur.
The tray of the drawer extended more or less the length of a grown man into the room, supported on iron rods along its bottom edges. The professor lifted the long side nearest him, which turned over and dropped, giving him easier access to the contents: six wooden crates, which could easily have contained the lovingly packed-up possessions of a family removing to their dacha for the summer. The boxes possessed the insolent neutrality of inanimate objects. For it seemed a provocation that anything in the universe could remain unmoved by what Virginsky knew those crates in fact contained.
‘Four three six one, here we are,’ said Professor Bubnov, taking hold of the second crate. ‘May I pass this down to one of you gentlemen?’
Virginsky stepped forward to receive the crate. His heart raced as he took it. He felt also the hot blush of shame. What on earth had impelled him to put himself forward with such unthinking alacrity? Whatever else he might argue, he knew that he had wanted to feel the weight of the crate in his hands. He knew also that this was something he couldn’t blame on Porfiry Petrovich.
The box was heavier than he had expected, so much so that it almost slipped through his fingers as the professor released his hold. How heavy could a boy’s head be? flashed through his mind.
‘Be careful with it,’ warned Professor Bubnov. He scuttled down the steps to share the load, or rather to hover his hands in a precautionary manner close to the box as Virginsky carried it. ‘On the table, please.’
Virginsky slid it into the centre of the table. It gave a protesting screech. Professor Bubnov lifted the lid, which was only loosely in place. Virginsky peered in. To his disappointment, all he could see was tightly packed crushed ice. He felt a tap on his arm. Porfiry signalled for him to move back, inclining his head at the same time towards Maria Petrovna. Virginsky remembered himself with a grimace; his head hung as he backed off.
Professor Bubnov laid the lid upside down on the table, revealing that it too was backed with lead. He began to transfer ice from the crate to the lid. Virginsky wanted to look inside to see what was being uncovered, but it was not his place to do so. At last, the professor nodded to Maria Petrovna. She stepped forward and stooped over the open crate, as if somehow she was readying herself to dive into it. Indeed, at one point, she seemed about to fall forward. She was forced to take hold of the sides of the crate to steady herself, giving the impression that she was drinking up whatever was contained in that bland cube.
Now, now was the time to look into her face. He might tell himself that it was his official duty to look there, simply for confirmation of the boy’s identity. But he knew that he was looking there because he was guilty of every charge he had laid against Porfiry Petrovich — of a kind of emotional sadism, in fact.
Even so, that self-realisation did not prevent him from looking.
Maria Petrovna closed her eyes, squeezing them tight over the terrible sight within the box. A sob broke from her. Her head nodded forwards once. This movement set in train a spasm of nodding. ‘Yes, yes,’ she gasped. ‘It’s Mitka.’
It was Porfiry who took hold of her, gently, with infinite delicacy, and guided her by the elbows away from the table.
Virginsky stepped into her place.
The boy was looking up at him, his head surrounded by a halo of ice fragments. His face was tinged with blue, eyes almost the same blue, wide open, in boyish wonder and excitement. His lips were parted, in a lung-bursting gasp.
‘Shall I put it back?’ asked Professor Bubnov.
‘No, thank you,’ said Porfiry. ‘Please leave it on the table. I will need to examine it more closely in due course. You may replace the lid, however — for now, that is.’ Porfiry turned his attention to Maria: ‘How are you, my dear? Do you wish to sit down? Pavel Pavlovich, that chair, please.’
Virginsky fetched the chair from the desk. Maria sank into it gratefully. She covered her face with one hand, fingers spread as if to catch her pain and squeeze it into nothing.
‘There are other children missing.’ Porfiry’s voice was low, a husky whisper, awed at its own temerity.
Maria nodded.
‘They may be here.’
A wince as though of acute physical pain contorted Maria’s face.
‘Would you be willing to look at the other children here, to try to identify them too?’
‘Porfiry Petrovich!’ cried Virginsky.
Porfiry was ready for his protest. ‘Surely it is better to face it now, once and for all, and never to have to return to this room?’
‘Porfiry … Petrovich …’ Her voice, though faltering, compelled their attention. ‘ … is right.’
Porfiry nodded decisively to Professor Bubnov, who mounted the steps again.
Five more crates were handed down, with Virginsky and Porfiry taking it in turns to receive them. They placed them side by side on the table. Then Professor Bubnov climbed down the steps to remove the lids. Still wearing the black rubber gloves, he began to scoop ice out of the first of the crates. His hands plunging into the ice made a brittle hawking sound.
There was something hypnotic about his execution of the task. His slow methodical movements seemed to create a haven in time, which would serve to postpone indefinitely the dreadful spectacle to come.
He moved along the row of crates, clearing ice. Each time he worked with the same unhurried persistence.
Eventually, he came to the end of the last crate. He straightened himself above it and turned to Porfiry with a grim dip of his head. Porfiry reached out a hand to Maria Petrovna. Her face was stricken, nauseous. She was shivering, her teeth clattering violently.