— I was worried I was being sent to some rural health clinic. But 379 has become the envy of the region. If anything it’s a little too successful. Many of the mill-workers prefer a night in our clean beds with inside toilets and running water to their own homes. We got wise to the fact that not everyone was as ill as they claimed. Some of them went as far as cutting off part of a finger in order to guarantee a week in here. The only solution was to have MGB officers police the wards. It wasn’t that we didn’t sympathize with the mill-workers. We’ve all seen their homes. But if overall productivity fell due to illness then we’d be accused of neglect. Keeping people healthy has become a matter of life and death not just for the patients but for us doctors as well.
— I understand.
— Were you a member of the Moscow militia?
Should Leo admit to being a member of the MGB or lie and pretend he was merely a member of the militia? A lie would be easier. He didn’t want to ruin the doctor’s talkative mood.
— Yes, I was.
The morgue was in the basement, built deep into ground that was frozen throughout the long winter. As a result the corridors were naturally cold. Tyapkin led Leo to a large room with a tiled floor and a low ceiling. On one side there was a rectangular vat, shaped like a small swimming pool. On the far side of the room there was a steel door which led through to the morgue itself.
— Unless relatives can make arrangements we incinerate bodies within twelve hours. The TB victims are incinerated within an hour. We don’t have much need for storage. Wait here, I’ll be back.
The doctor unlocked the steel door and entered the morgue. Waiting, Leo approached the vat, peering over the edge. It was filled with a dark, gelatinous liquid. He was unable to see anything except his own reflection. The surface was still, black, although from the stains on the concrete sides he could see it was in fact dark orange. On the side there was a hook, a long metal pole with a barbed prong on the end. He picked it up, tentatively prodding the surface. Like syrup, it broke and then re-formed, becoming smooth once again. Leo sunk the hook deeper, this time feeling something move — something heavy. He pushed down harder. A naked body rose to the surface, slowly rotating one hundred and eighty degrees, before sinking again. Tyapkin emerged from the morgue pushing a gurney.
— Those bodies are going to be packed in ice and shipped to Sverdlovsk for dissection. They have a medical college there. I’ve found your girl.
Larisa Petrova lay on her back. Her skin was pale, criss-crossed with blue veins as thin as spider’s web. Her hair was blonde. A large part of the fringe had been unevenly cut off: the part Varlam had taken. Her mouth was no longer stuffed with soil — that had been removed — but her jaw was still open, locked in the same position. Her teeth and tongue were dirty, stained brown with the remnants of earth that had been forced in.
— There was soil in her mouth.
— Was there? I’m sorry, this is the first time I’ve seen her body.
— Her mouth was stuffed with soil.
— Perhaps the doctor washed it out in order to examine her throat.
— It hasn’t been kept?
— I would think it very unlikely.
The girl’s eyes were open. They were blue. Perhaps her mother had been transferred from a town near the Finnish border, from one of the Baltic regions. Recalling the superstition that the face of a murderer was captured on the surface of a victim’s eye Leo leaned closer, studying the pale blue eyes. Suddenly embarrassed, he stood up straight. Tyapkin smiled.
— We all check — doctors and detectives alike. It doesn’t matter if our brains tell us that there’ll be nothing there, we all want to make sure. Of course it would make your job a whole lot easier if it was true.
— If it was true then murderers would always cut out their victims’ eyes.
Having never studied a dead body before, at least with any forensic interest, Leo was unsure how to proceed. To his mind the mutilation was so frenzied it could only be the work of someone insane. Her torso had been ripped apart. He’d seen enough. Varlam Babinich fitted the bill. He must have brought the soil for his own incomprehensible reasons.
Leo was ready to leave but Tyapkin, having come all the way down to the basement, seemed to be in no hurry. He leaned closer, staring at what appeared to be nothing more than a savaged mess of flesh and tissue. Using the tip of his pen he probed into the mangled midriff, examining the wounds.
— Can you tell me what the report said?
Leo took out his notes and read them aloud. Tyapkin continued his examination.
— That fails to mention her stomach is missing. It’s been cut out, severed from the oesophagus.
— How precise, I mean in terms of…
— You mean did a doctor do this?
The doctor smiled, remarking:
— Possibly but the cuts are ragged, not surgical. Not skilled. Although I would be surprised if this was the first time they’d handled a knife, at least to cut flesh. The cuts aren’t skilful but they are confident. They’re targeted, not random.
— This might not be the first child that he’s killed?
— I’d be surprised.
Leo touched his forehead and found that despite the cold he was sweating. How could the two deaths — Fyodor’s little boy and this girl — have anything to do with each other?
— How large would her stomach have been?
Above the girl’s torso Tyapkin indicated a rough outline of a stomach’s shape with his pen tip. He asked:
— Was it not found nearby?
— No.
It was either missed in the search which seemed unlikely or it had been taken away by the killer.
Leo remained silent for a moment then asked:
— Was she raped?
Tyapkin examined the girl’s vagina.
— She wasn’t a virgin.
— But that doesn’t mean she was raped.
— She’d had previous sexual encounters?
— That’s what I’m told.
— There’s no trauma to her genitals. No bruising, no incisions. Also notice that the injuries weren’t targeted at her sexual organs. There are no cuts to the breasts or to her face. The man who did this was interested in a narrow band below her ribcage and above her vagina, her guts — her digestive organs. It looks savage but actually it’s quite controlled.
Leo had rushed to the conclusion that this was a frenzied attack. The blood and mutilation represented chaos to his mind. But it was no such thing. It was ordered, precise, planned.
— Do you label the bodies when you bring them in — for identification purposes?
— Not that I’m aware.
— What is that?
Around the girl’s ankle was a loop of string. It had been tied in a tight noose and a small length drooped down off the gurney. It looked like a pauper’s anklet. There were burn marks where the string had rubbed against the skin.
Tyapkin saw him first. General Nesterov was standing at the door. It was impossible to say how long he’d been there, watching them. Leo stepped away from the body.