But the policemen squared his shoulders, becoming even taller and towering over Lapin like a mountain, he shoved him off the stairs, giving him no option but to leave.
The house was as crowded as the police station. The fat sergeant was clicking the remote in the living room. Two plainclothes officers were smoking in the kitchen and men's voices could be heard from his daughter's room. A cop took off Savage's mud-spattered coat and supported him while he took off his shoes.
«What's all this then, Savely? Trying to pull a fast one?» The cop frowned, helping him into bed. «We've put a wanted call out.»
«S-s-sorry,» Savage mumbled as he pulled the blanket up to his chin. «I'm sorry.»
«We're going to keep you under guard until the trial. Just until you adapt, get back to your old life…»
«How long will that take?»
«Not long,» the officer assured him. «In the meantime, get some rest. Your wife will give you sedative injections. Your nerves are shot to pieces. Well, it's understandable,» he said, not letting Savage speak. «Now get some rest.»
Skulking in the doorway, Mrs Savage listened in, biting her lip. She dialled Saam's number and whispered, her hand over the receiver:
«He's back.»
The sergeant had stretched out in the big room and his presence was like something in your eye. Mrs Savage wrung out a wet rag and cleaned the well-walked floor. Then she ran a bath and sat in it into the night, crying without knowing why.
As he counted the days like beads, Savage couldn't find the one when he'd turned into a killer. His three months of wandering around the taiga were fading from his memory, their only reminder his scratched hands and a nervous tick that made the right half of his face twitch and tighten like cloth caught in a zip. When the ghosts whispered like mice in the mornings or the stench of the burning tip filled his nose, Savage would repeat the witness statements he had learnt off by heart, as if praying for salvation.
Once, he gave in and asked to go to church. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders and called the patrol car. It took Savage to the tiny, grey-brick church, its domes painted the blue used in the entrance halls of flats.
A service was under way. A young-looking priest was leading the prayers and the congregation's discordant voices chorused the responses. The candles in their hands melted and appeared to bow low before the icons. Savage stood off to one side, head bowed. When the policeman came in he slammed the door so that everyone turned round and shushed him. Unsure what to do with his hands, he stood to attention as he would for his senior officers and looked apologetically upwards where God was usually sought.
The service was soon over and a queue formed for the priest to hear confessions. Awkwardly shifting his feet, Savage stood at the back of the queue breathing down the shaved nape of a broad-shouldered lad in a leather jacket. Some made their confessions in whispers. Others declared their sins aloud as if listing their achievements while a pale girl in a grey headscarf faltered at the last minute and backed away from the altar.
It was the shaven-headed lad's turn. He had been constantly looking around and the priest, seeing the slashes on his face, smiled to himself as he noticed that the scars made a cross like a crucifix.
«The sixth commandment of Our Lord is ‘Thou shalt not kill',» Savage heard and he moved forward.
«That's the job, Father,» the gangster said by way of explanation. «You either kill or get…»
The priest quickly crossed himself and rolled his eyes.
«The Lord gave us life. He alone may take it away.»
«So what? You can't nick purses either?» The gangster smirked but immediately lowered his head guiltily. «Everyone's trying to grab a piece of the pie for himself.»
«Do you really repent? Are you tormented? Do you pray for those you kill?»
«I am in torment, Father, I am, honestly! I pray. I repent. I give money to the church so that God will forgive me for everything.»
The priest held out the cross and the Gospel and, bending down awkwardly, the gangster kissed them apologetically the way he used to kiss his mother when he came back from prison.
«Bless me, Father, to fight my sins,» he rapped out words he knew by heart.
When the priest turned to Savage, he was already heading for the door, turning away from the faces of the saints, dark in their gilded covers.
«Evil is hidden behind good like darkness behind an icon,» he thought as he went down the church steps. «You set out towards God but it's the Devil you encounter…»
Recalling the heavy smell of the incense, the priest's ruddy face and the shaven folds of the gangster's scalp, Savage tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep. «Confession's just the same as sterilizing a needle before a lethal injection,» he whispered when the grey and twisted face of dawn hung outside his window like a suicide.
When he heard that Savage had shown up, Karimov paced his cell like a caged wolf. He called for the lawyer he'd previously refused and began to retract his earlier statements. As he prepared for their confrontation, he trimmed his nails, changed his shirt and noticed in the mirror that his curls had got thinner.
Savage was clean-shaven but out of habit he fiddled with his beardless chin that stood out in his sun-burnt face. His clothes hung on him as if they were someone else's and his sleepless nights showed black beneath his eyes. He sat hunched on his chair legs crossed, and shuddered when Karimov sat down on the other side of the table.
Clapping Savage on the shoulder, the investigator put an ashtray between them and Savely, unable to stop his hands shaking, took a cigarette from the packet with his teeth.
«See, I've taken up smoking,» he grinned sheepishly. «Do you mind?»
Karimov pulled a face and took a crumpled cigarette from behind his ear. He leant over the table towards Savage and lit up from his match. It quivered like a baby bird in its nest of fingers.
«Can you tell us what happened on the veranda the evening Coffin was killed?» the investigator suggested.
«I wasn't in the square that evening,» snapped Karimov, breathing smoke from his nostrils.
Lighting one cigarette from another, Savage repeated the confession he had by heart, staring at Karimov's right ear as if the text only he could see was written on it. He appeared calm and scarcely stammered. Only his trembling fingers, nervously squashing the cigarette filter gave away his agitation.
«I d-d-didn't see him fire. I just saw Coffin go down with a shot to the head and the gun he threw on the floor.» Unable to bring himself to use Karimov's name, Savage stumbled over «he» and lowered his gaze.
Karimov couldn't help it. He snorted loudly but the investigator slammed his fist on the table.
«Shut it! You've had your say!»
Savage related how Karimov's bodyguards had threatened him to make him take the blame and how he hid in the forest too scared to seek police protection. Karimov took his head in his hands. His shoulders shook noiselessly and it was impossible to tell whether he was laughing or crying.
Turning round in the doorway, he pierced Savage with a glance and Savely couldn't hold his gaze.
«The court will rise.»
The court rose with a scrape of chairs. There was scarcely enough room in the little court building for everyone who wanted to attend. There were chairs in the aisles and security men kept tripping over the spider's web of wires that reporters had laid around the courtroom. Separated by bars, Karimov was rocking on his chair and muttering to himself: «Nobody needs anybody…» The court officials picked up the refrain like a rash and used it in conversation where appropriate and where not appropriate. They also picked up his melancholy, which had turned the corners of his mouth down and his temples grey.