LITMIR.BIZ

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his mouth and spat it out on the floor. From the doorway he could see that more people had arrived. The fun was continuing. A girl was slumped against the panelling and crying. He stood there, supporting himself in the doorway and watching her. She was thin, blonde, and her hair had been cut short and frizzy. Her eyes were puffy and streaked where the kohl had run. She looked terribly alone in the middle of it all, absently beating the wall with her silk scarf in one hand, and holding the other to her mouth to stop the sobbing. She looked up at him and then started crying all over again.

      They met in the centre of the corridor. Others were walking around them. It was like being an island in a river of drunks. She pressed her face into his jacket, sobbing, then looked up at him. The only beautiful woman he had seen all night long, he thought. The only honest thing in the city. She pressed her lips to his mouth and pulled him to her, strong for such a thin girl. He felt himself growing hard and she reached for him and they had each other there on the edge of the sofa, against the wall, everything happening at once, a quick little hurricane of lust and hands slipping over fabric and flesh, the bones of her back, her legs trying to reach around him, her face pressed into his neck, and his into the spikes of her hair. The smell of flowers.

      It was over as quickly as it had started and they clung to each other while everything was ebbing away. She said something that he couldn’t hear because of the noise of the lift just down the hall opening and closing spasmodically as each new drunken troupe tried to line it up with the floor.

      Then suddenly she pulled away and was gone, not even a look back, and he was there, still in the river, fumbling with his clothing and not feeling better, not feeling any better at all.

      He would leave, he thought. He would just walk to Vladivostok if that’s what it took. No one would miss him in this chaos. Zezulin would assume he’d been killed, probably wouldn’t waste the effort to take revenge on Vera. The world had already gone to hell. All that remained was the burning.

      He staggered towards the stairs, and met the man who’d been in the room with him. There were words, Ryzhkov couldn’t hear them or understand. It might have been a different language. He punched the man hard in the chest and he stepped back and slid down the wall, groaning. Everyone around them laughed. At the landing he saw Giustiniani coming up.

      ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said. ‘This is Judge Nametkin, he’s in charge of our investigation.’ Beside Giustiniani was a portly man, deep into his forties, a bald head that someone had written upon with lipstick.

      ‘Hello,’ the man said. Large grey eyes looked up and smiled at him lazily.

      ‘This is Ryzhkov, our new detective,’ Giustiniani prompted and Nametkin extended his hand. ‘We’re going over there right away. Might as well get started, eh?’

      ‘Where?’ said Ryzhkov, and realized that he’d only made a noise, not a word, so he repeated again, ‘Where-are-we-going?’

      ‘Don’t worry, you’ll find out,’ Nametkin said, forming his words with equal precision. ‘Should we walk? What do you think?’ he asked Giustiniani, bracing himself against the wall.

      ‘Mmm…a cab, I think. The government is paying after all,’ and they both laughed. As they went down the stairs, a man approached Nametkin and blocked their descent. His face was dirty, rat-like.

      ‘You want to see Anastasia, comrade? I’ll take you to her, but there are necessary fees –’ Giustiniani batted him away and he collapsed on the stairs and began to cry. ‘I have them, I have them all! On good authority!’ he shrieked behind them as they escaped to the foyer.

      ‘Loyalty,’ Nametkin was saying to Giustiniani as they got into the cab. ‘Loyalty is a porous, negotiable thing. This is the White world. You can believe in the virtues all you want, but where are you going to put your money?’

      ‘Exactly. Money,’ said Giustiniani. Ryzhkov took the seat in the back, feeling sick all over again.

      ‘It’s the worst of the worst. Who do you think is going to win? That’s the basis, the entire basis…’

      ‘Exactly. Basis.’ As they rolled through the city Nametkin began to snore. Giustiniani leaned forward, said something to the driver, and they turned back.

      ‘It’s no use. We’re all in. We’ll do it tomorrow,’ he explained to Ryzhkov, who had no idea, no idea at all what they were doing, where they were going, or why.

      As the cab drew closer to the barracks he saw the girl he’d had in the hallway. She was walking along in the same direction, still trailing her scarf in her hand. When they passed her he looked back and saw that her face was washed clean, her chin high, and that she looked over to them for a moment, then looked away.

      Straight ahead up the street, not caring about the men in the carriage, what they thought about the world situation, or anything they might claim to understand.

       9

      Propas, the chauffeur, roused him out of bed. It took some work. Ryzhkov was hung over, sick, and his head was pounding so that he could hear it. Another man was waiting while Ryzhkov, making certain of his hand-holds, climbed into the back seat. The man watched with a disgusted expression, waited for him to swing his legs inside, slammed the door and got in the front. The car was huge and painted field grey and, in places, a paler colour that might have been brown; brushstrokes done quickly, and the doors labelled in odd stencilled writing that Ryzhkov thought looked Chinese.

      The man in the front seat turned out to be Ilya Strilchuk, the only remaining detective inspector who had been a veteran of the Tsarist Yekaterinburg police. When the Bolsheviks took over Strilchuk had escaped execution by hiding in the woods, but his wife and children had been murdered instead. He didn’t turn around to look at Ryzhkov when he made his introduction, and he didn’t elaborate on any of the details.

      After Strilchuk’s sad story, they fell silent. They were driving up a gentle slope, climbing away from the embankment and the historic centre of the city, the road curving to where it opened out upon a church and a wide square, which abruptly ended in a tall wooden palisade. The fence had been built of rough wood and newly cut logs, and a quartet of guardhouses were spaced along the opposite side of the street. Peeking out above the tall fence he recognized it as the house he’d been shown on the way into town.

      ‘This is the place,’ Strilchuk said, and the chauffeur set the brake. Strilchuk got out to help him, but Ryzhkov was conscious of his own dignity to the point where he made the effort to get out unaided. Giustiniani was at the front of the building, evidently waiting for them. The magistrate Nametkin was with him. They both looked just fine. The gate was opened by a boy in a cut-down artilleryman’s uniform. He snapped to present-arms as they went through. Nametkin thought the boy was funny and kept nudging Giustiniani.

      ‘Do you let just anybody in here?’ Giustiniani said to the boy. ‘There may have been murder done in this house, you know that, don’t you?’

      The boy shrugged spasmodically.

      ‘This house is the subject of a military investigation. Everyone that comes is required to sign a register. Where is it?’

      ‘A book, do you mean, Excellency?’

      ‘Yes, yes, of course. A book. Can you produce it?’ The boy turned and headed for the front door to search for it.

      ‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ Nametkin said. ‘We need you to translate for our witness. How are you today, Ryzhkov? Hale and hearty?’

      ‘I’ll last the morning at least,’ he said. ‘What’s this about a witness?’

      ‘Just inside,’ Nametkin said. They stepped into the foyer. The place was a mess. In the front room there was live ammunition piled on top of the piano. The floor was littered with leaves that had either been blown in or tramped in on the soldiers’ boots and not swept away. Nametkin headed for the staircase. ‘This first floor

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