The Cleansing Flames Part 12

Paying respects.

That afternoon, Porfiry took a drozhki to the Koshmarov Apartment Building in Bolshaya Morskaya Street. He was accompanied by Virginsky, who could not help but notice the unusually sombre and taciturn mood of his superior.

'What do you hope to find, Porfiry Petrovich?'

Porfiry stirred from his morose self-absorption only to shrug his shoulders. In the tight confines of the rocking drozhki, Virginsky felt himself squeezed upwards by the gesture.

'Do you not think that the gendarmes of the Third Section will have removed any evidence from the scene?' pressed Virginsky. 'That is if there was any meaningful evidence left after the fire.'

Porfiry's eyelids descended in synchrony with a slow, grave nod of agreement.

'Then why go?'

Porfiry opened his eyes and turned the ice-grey irises to Virginsky. 'I wish to pay my respects to the dead.'

'I thought tomorrow was the day for that?'

'Tomorrow, today. It makes little difference.'

Virginsky raised an eyebrow. 'To the dead, it makes no difference.'

'Perhaps we do not do it for them. We do it for ourselves.'

'You betray yourself, Porfiry Petrovich. That suggests that you do not believe in the survival of the soul after death. It is the kind of thing an atheist would say. Or at the very least, a rationalist.'

'This week is Thomas Week. St Thomas doubted, before he came to believe.'

'And you doubt?'

'Sometimes. When five innocents perish in a fire that may have been started deliberately . . . One struggles to see G.o.d's purpose in that.'

'And Kozodavlev? Was he not innocent?'

'Very well, six innocents.'

Virginsky paused a moment before resuming: 'Do we have . . . how may I put this? Do we have jurisdiction to enter the scene? We are not, after all, a.s.signed to the case of Kozodavlev.'

'Kozodavlev was a witness in the case we are investigating.'

'With all respect, Porfiry Petrovich, we do not know that for certain yet, and will not do so until we have confirmation back from Helsingfors that Kozodavlev was the man watching the sailors. And even then . . .' Virginsky broke off. It seemed that Porfiry felt every word he uttered as a personal wound.

'There will be no jurisdictional aspect to our visit. As I said, we are simply paying our respects.'

Virginsky's mouth twisted up on one side, into a bemused smile. 'And if the Third Section find out? I cannot believe they will not have someone watching.'

'We have nothing to hide from the Third Section,' said Porfiry. After a moment, he added, 'Yet.' For the first time on the drozhki ride, something like his old liveliness came back into Porfiry Petrovich's eye. His eyelids oscillated frantically in celebration.

They had to step over the remnants of the door, which had been smashed through and lay scattered on the floor.

The pungent smell of charred wood and plasterwork mingled with a cloying dampness. The result was a peculiarly chill and despondent atmosphere. Black streaks marked where the flames had touched the walls and ceiling. The bedroom was so fire-blacked that it looked as though it had been painted that funereal colour, along with every strange, distorted object in it. The walls were gutted, deep black scars where the combusted laths had burnt through the plaster. Only the metal frame of the bed remained intact, though the mattress on it had almost completely disappeared; clumps of black matter hung together around the edges of the bed. The skeleton of a burnt-out armchair lay exposed beside a heat-contorted metal bookcase, its contents vanished. They were puzzling stumps of furniture, barely holding their form, weakened beyond all possibility of function.

Porfiry paced the empty apartment breathing the fumes of the extinguished flames. He quickly realised that he had to tread with caution. In places, where the fire had really taken hold, the boards had been burnt away, and elsewhere, those that remained were too fragile to support his weight.

A middle-aged man, all grizzled beard and velveteen coat, poked his head suspiciously through the empty door frame as they were making their survey. 'And who might you be?' he asked unceremoniously, pointing the stem of his smoking pipe at Porfiry, as if it were a rifle he was intending to discharge.

'Friends of the deceased,' said Porfiry. 'Come to pay our respects.'

'Strange I never saw your face when he was alive.'

'Do you see every visitor who comes to every one of the residents in this building?'

'I like to keep my eyes open.' His eyes, in fact, narrowed warily.

'You are the yardkeeper?'

'That's right.' The yardkeeper shifted impatiently. 'You'll have to go. This place is unsafe.'

'I should inform you that we are magistrates. We are here also in an official capacity.'

'Make your mind up. Magistrates or friends. Which is it to be?'

'Cannot we be both?'

'Demyan Antonovich was not the sort to make friends with magistrates.'

'Are you suggesting he engaged in illegal activities?'

'Just that he did not much care for the authorities.'

'Did you see the man who visited him shortly before the outbreak of the fire?'

'Yes.'

'Who was he?'

'He did not show me his pa.s.sport.'

'Was he the sort of person you are wont to admit to the building? A respectable gentleman?'

'If I admitted only respectable folk, the place'd be empty.'

'Had you seen him around here before?'

'Mebbe. Mebbe not. Hard to say.'

'Did you hear their argument?'

'I did not eavesdrop if that's what you're suggesting.'

'Of course not. It's just that I a.s.sume you keep your ears as well as your eyes open.'

The yardkeeper thought for a moment. 'I couldn't tell you what it was about.' His expression became closed off. 'You'll have to go now.'

'Who is your contact at the Third Section?' asked Porfiry, abruptly.

'What's this?'

'Ours is Major Verkhotsev. You will have heard of Major Verkhotsev, of course?'

'No one told me any magistrates were coming.'

'Forgive me for saying so, but it is not felt necessary to inform you of everything.'

'I should have been told.'

'I hope I shall not be obliged to report to Major Verkhotsev that you obstructed us in our enquiries?'

'Your Excellencies will understand that I have to be careful. I cannot let just anybody wander in and out. That would not do.'

'Of course.'

'You will report that I was diligent?'

'We will tell him you were an exemplary spy.'

The yardkeeper nodded uneasily and backed out of the room, his pipe now clamped securely between his teeth.

'We will have to be quick,' said Porfiry. 'I suspect he will be back.'

'Quick?' wondered Virginsky, casting a disparaging gaze about. 'I see nothing to detain us further.'

'The gendarmes have undoubtedly picked the room clean. Even so, they may have missed something.'

Virginsky gave Porfiry a sceptical look.

Porfiry began in the bedroom, peering into the glistening black remains of the mattress, his nostrils twitching all the time. 'The worst of the fire damage is concentrated in this room.' He glanced up at the ceiling. 'In fact, the intensity of charring here is such that it would not be unreasonable to suspect the employment of an accelerant.'

'The earthenware flagon,' remarked Virginsky.

Porfiry nodded. 'By the time the accelerant had burnt out, the fire would have taken hold enough to spread to the adjoining room, but with less intensity.'

'It would be interesting to see the medical examiner's report on the body found in the bed,' said Virginsky.

'Indeed it would, Pavel Pavlovich.' Porfiry acknowledged Virginsky's train of thought with a smile. 'And what question would you most like the medical examination to answer?'

'Whether he died from the effects of the fire, or whether . . .' Virginsky looked down at the remains of the mattress.

'Go on.'

'Or whether he was dead before the fire started.'

'An interesting question. Though I must say it is an exceedingly difficult issue for a pathologist to settle. So perhaps we should not be too disappointed that we will never see the report.' Porfiry cast his gaze upwards again, and kept it focused on the ceiling.

'Heat rises, does it not, Pavel Pavlovich?'

'Of course.'

'And with it, specks of soot and other by-products of combustion?'

Virginsky gave his mouth a non-committal tightening.

'Please, help me move the bed into this corner. The damage here is less . . .' Porfiry broke off, squinting into an area of the ceiling that seemed to have been furthest from the heart of the fire. Virginsky tried to see what had caught the other man's eye. Porfiry began to push the bed, but it snagged on the damaged boards. 'If you please, Pavel Pavlovich.'

The two men together manoeuvred the bed to Porfiry's satisfaction. He kept looking up to compare its position to some point on the ceiling.

'Your hand please.' Porfiry held out an arm, and with Virginsky's a.s.sistance climbed onto the metal frame. His quivering legs set off a deafening rattle. The bed seemed to be trying to jump out from beneath him. His torso swayed from side to side wildly. Virginsky pushed manfully against the latent force of Porfiry's inevitable descent. Porfiry's free hand flashed up towards the very corner of the room, his fingers s.n.a.t.c.hing desperately. The rash movement hastened the end. Gravity prevailed. The short, plump magistrate toppled onto the taller, thinner one. The two men somehow found themselves sprawled uncomfortably across exposed beams, opposite one another.

'Got it!' cried Porfiry triumphantly.

'What?'

Porfiry opened his palm to reveal a tiny fragment of blackness, smaller than the nail of his little finger, a ragged semicircle, although with one precisely straight side. 'I don't know.' He smiled foolishly at Virginsky. 'I saw something standing slightly proud on the ceiling. That straight edge seemed peculiar and worthy of investigation.' Porfiry turned his find over. 'It appears to be a sc.r.a.p of paper. Completely charred on one side. But it appears that something is printed on this side. Can you make it out, Pavel Pavlovich? My eyes are not up to it.'

Virginsky hauled himself over and peered into his superior's hand. 'It's just letters.'

'Yes, but what letters?' demanded Porfiry roughly.

Virginsky reached out and turned the fragment.

'Be careful! It's very fragile,' warned Porfiry.

The paper was indeed flimsy to the touch. 'It is this way up, I think,' said Virginsky. 'Four rows of letters. G-o. O-f, s.p.a.ce m. S-t-i-t. N-o. Go, Of m, St.i.t, No. It's obviously a remnant from a larger sheet.'

'The rest of which was no doubt destroyed in the conflagration.' Porfiry looked up to the ceiling again. 'Or recovered by the gendarmes. Which amounts to the same thing, as far as we are concerned.' With a strenuous grunt, Porfiry heaved himself to his feet. He squinted into his palm, as if he were intent on reading his own fortune. 'This tiny sc.r.a.p alone drifted up to adhere to the ceiling.'

'Surely there's not enough there to const.i.tute a meaningful clue?' objected Virginsky. And yet even as he dismissed it, he felt that the wisp of paper might contain the significance Porfiry wished to impart to it. Perhaps it was something to do with the miraculous way Porfiry had plucked it out of the ravages of the fire. Or perhaps it was because the letters that he could make out were so tantalisingly close to meaning something that he could not accept their essential randomness. There had to be a message contained there. It was simply a question of decoding it. And if there was a message, it had to have a bearing on the case. He knew of course that this final piece of reasoning was flawed. Even so, it was hard to resist. Something about those few letters resonated deep within him.

'But it may be all we have, Pavel Pavlovich. And besides, I am sure that you will be able to make some sense of it.'

'I?'

Porfiry's smile made it clear that no thanks were necessary for the generous gift he considered himself to have bestowed.

'Now we must pay our respects next door,' said Porfiry quietly, as they stepped back out onto the landing.