‘I don’t understand. To whom else but you?’
‘Who else indeed!’
‘Are you suggesting that I serve two masters?’
Porfiry raised his hands in a pantomime of shock that was overdone even by his own standards. And then he winked at Slava.
‘Do you wish to terminate my employment?’ asked Slava tersely.
‘Do you?’
‘There is the question of my honour.’
‘Is there really? Could you explain that to me?’
‘You have impugned my honesty …?’ But Slava did not seem at all certain that this was in fact what Porfiry had done.
‘In that case, you must do whatever you deem necessary.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Slava’s face was furrowed in confusion.
‘Apology accepted. Let us say no more about it. I am so glad we have had the opportunity to clear this up. Now, if you would be so kind as to deposit the tray on the table, you may then go about your other duties.’ At this, Porfiry winked heavily several times.
Slava regarded him warily, as if he were an unpredictable dog given to biting for no reason. He kept as much distance as possible between himself and Porfiry as he placed the tray down. He backed out of the room, flashing uneasy glances as he went.
Porfiry smiled to himself. But the smile drained from his lips when he looked down at the breakfast tray. His familiar silver-plated coffee pot stood as if it were turning its back on him. Four curly sausages huddled together conspiratorially on their plate, their curved shoulders excluding him. The thought occurred to Porfiry that if he could not trust the man who had brought him this food, how could he trust the food?
He told himself he was being ridiculous. The Third Section wanted to keep an eye on him, they did not want him dead. But what if Slava was not an agent of the Third Section, but represented far darker and more dangerous forces?
His dream came back to him. Perhaps he had been wrong in his interpretation. He had not wished to punish or humiliate his cousin. It was more complex than that. He now saw the dream as an expression of regret. He longed to replace his intimate reliance on this stranger, who had suddenly appeared in his life like a cuckoo chick, with the simple but lost love of his family, as represented by Dmitri Prokofich.
He remembered too that Maria Petrovna had figured in the dream, but as an absence not a presence. He sensed that there was something significant in this, but did not care to grasp it.
*
Porfiry lit a cigarette and turned his attention to the pile of correspondence on the desk before him. He chose to open first an envelope which bore the official stamp of the Obukhovsky Hospital. It was written confirmation from Dr Pervoyedov of the results of the blood analysis from the mirror, ring and tunic. Porfiry put it to one side. Next he opened a bulkier package, which turned out to contain the latest edition of a journal to which he subscribed. He began to browse the pages, but in a distracted manner, looking up eagerly at a knock on the door.
Virginsky came in, holding up a small cardboard box, which Porfiry recognised as the sort used to hold evidence. In his other hand, he held a police folder.
‘What have you there, Pavel Pavlovich?’
Virginsky crossed to Porfiry’s desk, where he lifted the lid of the box and tipped out its contents, a silver ring. ‘I took the liberty of retrieving this. It is the ring that we found on Yelena Filippovna’s thumb.’
Porfiry made no move to pick the ring up, as if he believed that to do so would take them one step closer to the unthinkable.
‘You will remember,’ said Virginsky, picking up the ring himself and almost thrusting it in Porfiry’s face, ‘the emblem of the house of Romanov — the imperial symbol of the double-headed eagle — embossed on the face of the ring.’
‘Yes,’ said Porfiry. ‘I remember it well.’
‘It is the same size, is it not, and approximately the same shape, as the strange bruise we found repeated on each of the children’s necks?’
‘I would need to take precise measurements to be certain.’
‘I have already done so.’
Porfiry met this statement with a sceptical start.
‘The Romanov symbol on this ring is one fifth of a vershok in height, by one tenth in width. Almost precisely the measurements taken by you yourself from the necks of the dead children. Furthermore, the similarity between this motif and the mark is striking.’ Virginsky opened the folder and shook. It was almost as if the contents were reluctant to come out into the light of day. Porfiry saw that the folder contained photographs. They stuck together, hiding one behind the other, shy, awkward, out of place. Ruthlessly, Virginsky prised them out and laid them side by side on Porfiry’s desk.
Porfiry knew the subjects of these photographs well. He had spent hours studying the luridly coloured three-dimensional objects now represented in flat monochrome. And yet the images still shocked him. He might have expected the mediation of photography to soften the horror, rendering the blood and bruising of the neck stumps in various depths of grey. To some extent that was true. But this neutralising effect paradoxically also added to the power of the images. The shock was one of intense pathos, rather than pure horror. For a brief moment, he could almost believe he was looking at studio portraits; that he saw in the eyes of the three subjects the earnest innocence of children looking forward to their lives, trusting, hopeful, and slightly overawed. But eventually his own eye tracked down to the abrupt line and the inky void at the end of the truncated neck.
Porfiry sighed out a cloud of smoke.
Neither man spoke. Porfiry went back to opening his mail as if Virginsky had said nothing remotely of interest to him. Virginsky returned the ring to its box and replaced the lid, though he left the photographs on Porfiry’s desk. He then took out from the inside pocket of his frock coat a folded sheet of paper. ‘I have written my report, based on these findings.’
Porfiry nodded.
‘The burden of my report,’ continued Virginsky, ‘is that circumstantial evidence strongly suggests the possibility that Yelena Filippovna Polenova murdered Dmitri Krasotkin, Artur Smurov and Svetlana Chisova.’
‘For what motive?’
‘I do not speculate as to her motive. That must remain closed off from our enquiry. She is after all dead. And you know the saying, the soul of another is like a dark cellar. However, I would suggest that the deaths of these three children are not unconnected to her own death, and in fact provided her murderer with his motive.’
‘Which is?’
‘To prevent any further killing.’
‘You are suggesting that Yelena Filippovna was subject to uncontrollable murderous impulses and that the only way to curtail her homicidal activities was to kill her?’
‘You may put it like that, if you wish. Mizinchikov loved her but somehow he found out about her crimes. Perhaps she told him herself, to taunt him. Or perhaps this is what lies behind the fact alluded to in Prince Sergei’s testimony, that Yelena Filippovna sought her own death. Guilt, and a horror at her own actions, prompted her to make that grotesque demand. And consider what effect this revelation would have had on Captain Mizinchikov’s mind. To be confronted with such horror, to discover that the woman he loved was a monster. Rage, perhaps, played a part in it. Fear, too. And love. He would not have wanted this horrific truth to get out. Killing her was one way to keep her secret safe. She would never be in a position to reveal it herself, at least.’
‘But why would she kill the children? That is the point past which I cannot get,’ protested Porfiry.
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Virginsky. ‘But I fear that it may have something to do with Maria Petrovna. She is the connection between Yelena Filippovna and the dead children. Did not Prince Sergei say that Maria Petrovna’s school was a cause close to Yelena Filippovna’s heart? Perhaps it held a special place there, but not in the way that Prince Sergei imagined.’