HOW SENKA CRIED

He made his way to Khokhlovsky Lane through the yards and back alleys – from Pokrovka Street, by way of Kolpachny Lane. It was a good night for it, with no moon, a fine drizzle and a light mist in the air. You could see damn all just five steps in front of your face. And to make himself less obvious, Senka had put on a black shirt under his short black jacket, and even smeared soot on his face. When he darted out of a gateway on to an alley right at the spot where two Khitrovkans were warming themselves up with wine beside a little bonfire, they gasped and crossed themselves at the sight of the black man. They didn’t shout or scream, though –they were too far gone already. Or maybe they just thought they were seeing things.

Senka swung his noggin (his head, that is) left and right as he reconnoitred. He didn’t spot anything suspicious. There was a dim glow in the windows of the buildings, someone singing, and he could hear loud swearing in the Hard Labour. Just another night in Khitrovka, then. He even felt ashamed for being so lily livered or –in cultured terms – so faint of heart.

He threw caution to the wind and turned straight into the courtyard where Tashka’s door was. He had a bundle of presents for her under his arm: a brand new grammar school uniform for her new career, a tennis ball for the puppy Pomposhka and a bottle of ‘Double Strength’ for her mother (she could drink herself to death, die happy and set her daughter free).

There were flowers in the only window and there was no light on. That was a good sign. If Tashka had a client, the paraffin lamp with the red shade would have been lit on the locker by the bed, and that would have turned the curtain red too. That meant keep your nose out, girl at work. But it was dark, so she must have finished working and gone to bed.

Senka tapped on the window with his finger and called to her: ‘Tashka, it’s me, Speedy.’

Not a sound.

He called again, but not at the top of his voice – he was still afraid in case anyone else heard him.

They must be out cold. Not even the poodle made a sound, he hadn’t scented a visitor. They’d probably had a hard day of it.

Senka scratched his head. What could he do? He didn’t want to switch the transmission into reverse at this stage . . .

Suddenly he noticed the door was slightly ajar.

He was so delighted, he didn’t even wonder why Tashka’s latch wasn’t closed in the middle of the night, as if she lived somewhere else, not in Khitrovka.

He darted inside, locked the door and called to her:

‘Tash, wake up! It’s me!’

Still not a sound.

Had they gone out then? But where could they go at this time?

Then it struck him, like a lightning bolt.

They’d moved out! Something had happened to Tashka, and they’d left the apertiment. (Senka knew now that the right word was ‘apartment’, only that was for proper lodgings, with proper curtains and furniture, but Tashka’s place was an apertiment all right, no doubt about that.)

Only she couldn’t have just moved out without leaving any message for her mate.

Senka felt for the lamp in the darkness, then reached into his pocket, got his matches and lit it.

Tashka hadn’t gone anywhere.

She was lying there, tied to the bed. Half her face was covered with a patch of sticking plaster. Her eyes were absolutely still, glaring angrily up at the ceiling, and her shirt was all torn and covered in brown blotches.

He shuddered and started untying her quickly, but Tashka was stiff and cold. Like a veal carcass in a butcher’s cellar.

He sat down on the floor, pressed his forehead against Tashka’s stiff side and burst into tears. It wasn’t grief or even the fright, he just started crying because that was what his heart told him to do. His mind was blank. He sobbed, wiping his snot on his sleeve, whimpering now and then.

He cried until he couldn’t cry any more – it went on for a long time. But that wasn’t the worst of it – it was when all his tears were all cried out that Senka started feeling really bad.

He lifted his head and saw Tashka’s hand there, really close, tied to the frame of the bed. The fingers on the hand were sticking out in all directions, like the twigs on an old broom, not like they did on living people, and that was more than Senka could bear. He started backing away from those twisted fingers, but his heel hit something soft and he turned round.

Tashka’s mum was lying by the wall on her thin mattress. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was open, and there was dried blood on her chin.

He had the odd thought that he’d never seen her anywhere else but on that tattered mattress. Of course, she’d always been drunk before, and now she was dead. She lived on rags, and she’d died on rags.

But it wasn’t really Senka who thought that, someone else seemed to think it for him. This someone had appeared before, and he didn’t want to cry. He whispered: ‘It will be a sin against God if the beast who did this to Tashka is left alive. Just wait, you bloody snake, Erast Petrovich will see you get justice for this.’

That was what the second Senka said after the first Senka had finished crying. And he was right.

As he was leaving, Senka noticed a small ball of white wool right beside the door. When he leaned down, he saw it was the dead puppy Pomponius, and then it turned out that the first Senka hadn’t cried all his tears out yet, not by a long way. He still had enough to last all the way back to the Spassky Barracks.

The same s-scene as with the Siniukhins and the Samshitovs,’ Mr Nameless said sombrely as he covered Tashka’s face with a white handkerchief. ‘Masa, your opinion c-concerning the sequence of events?’

The sensei pointed to the door.

‘He smash in door with a singur brow. Walk in. When dog jump at him, he kirr it with his foot, rike this.’ Masa stamped, as if he was driving his heel into the floor. ‘Then he jump over here.’ The Japanese took two long strides across to Tashka’s motionless mum. ‘She was sreeping. He hi’ her on tempur. Kirred her outrigh’. Then he grab the girr, tie her to bed and torture her.’

‘He did what?’ Senka asked, wincing in pain.

‘He t-tortured her,’ said Erast Petrovich. ‘The same way he t-tortured Siniukhin and Samshitov. Look at her fingers. The m-murderer broke them one at a time. And notice the hair!’

‘What about her hair?’ Senka asked dull-wittedly.

The engineer moved the handkerchief aside. Erast Petrovich’s voice sounded cold and indifferent, as if had been chilled by frost.

‘There is b-blood here, on the side of the head. And here. And here. And there are t-tufts of hair on the floor. Some with scraps of skin. He t-tore her hair out.’

‘What for? What had she done to him?’

It wasn’t right, it was shameful for them to be talking so stiff, as if she was a stranger, but looking at Mr Nameless, Senka could see he was working; only his brain was engaged now, feelings were for later. And anyway, Senka didn’t have any more strength for crying, all his feelings had drained out of him with his tears.

‘She could have picked up a client who was a lunatic,’ he said, replacing the handkerchief so he wouldn’t turn all weepy again. ‘That happens sometimes in Khitrovka. A mamselle brings back someone who looks normal, but he’s a real monster.’

The engineer nodded, as if he was approving Senka’s efforts at deduction.

‘The sadistic client theory c-could have been taken as the primary one, if not for the s-similarities between this crime and the two that preceded it. The extermination of every l-living thing. That is one. The use of torture. That is t-two. The same district. That is three. And in addition ...’ He pulled the shirt up off Tashka’s bare legs and took a magnifying glass out of his pocket. Senka turned away quickly and started coughing to get rid of the lump in his throat. ‘Mmm, yes. No s-signs of rape or sexual violence. The killer’s interest in his v-victim was not sensual in nature. Let us t-take a look at the lips . . .’

Masa walked over, but Senka didn’t look.

There was a quiet rasping sound – that must have been Erast Petrovich tearing the plaster off Tashka’s mouth.

‘Yes, just as I thought. The plaster was pulled off and stuck back on several times. The torturer kept asking about something over and over again, but the girl didn’t answer.’

Senka didn’t think it was very likely that Tashka didn’t answer a fiend like this. She would have answered him all right, loud and shrill, with her choicest words. But here on Khokhlovsky Lane, no matter how loud you yelled and what filthy words you used, no one would come, no one would rescue you.

‘Now this is interesting. Masa, l-look at her teeth.’

‘Goo’ for her,’ the sensei said, with an approving click of his tongue. ‘She bi’ his finger.’

‘Ah, what a shame we d-don’t have a laboratory.’ The engineer sighed. ‘We could take a particle of the criminal’s b-blood for analysis. The Moscow police have p-probably never heard of the Landsteiner method . . . But even so, we have to d-draw the investigator’s attention to this l-little detail somehow ...’

Masa and Mr Nameless leaned down over Tashka, and Senka started striding round the room, just to give himself something to do. There were three white daffodils in the window. Did that mean ‘I love you’ in the language of flowers? Or maybe it was ‘you can all go to hell, you bastards’? No one would translate it for him now ...

‘Ah,’ said Senka, reproaching himself out loud. ‘I should have come earlier, before dark. I was being too careful, so I got here too late.’

Erast Petrovich glanced round briefly. ‘Before dark? The murder was committed at least two days ago, most probably three. So you were a lot later than you think, Senya.’

That was true enough. The daffodils in the window were all wilted.

But this was Khitrovka, so no one had noticed anything. If anyone died, they just lay there till the neighbours caught the smell of rotting flesh.

‘If it’s not a loony, what did he want from Tashka?’ Senka asked, looking at the dead flowers. ‘What could he get from her?’

‘No “what”, b-but “who”,’ the engineer replied, as if he was surprised at the question. ‘You, Senya. This stubborn gentleman wants you very b-badly. And you know why.’

‘That’s a disaster!’ Senka exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. ‘I told Tashka about you and Mr Masa. And I told her you live on Asheulov Lane too. If this killer’s so stubborn, he’ll find out where we moved to, for sure. He’ll find the cabbies who moved the things and intelligate them! We’ve got clear out!’

‘Not “intelligate”, b-but “interrogate”,’ the engineer said strictly, pulling on a pair of thin rubber gloves. ‘And we’re n-not going to run anywhere. For two reasons. We are not afraid of this f-friend of yours, let him come – it will m-make things easier for us. That is one. And then, your low opinion of Mademoiselle T-Tashka is an insult to her. She did not give you away, she d-did not tell her killer a thing. That is t-two.’

‘How do you know she didn’t give me away?’

‘Do not f-forget that I had the honour of being acquainted with this exceptional individual. She was a true c-comrade to you, a “good mate”. And apart from that, if she had t-told him, the plaster would have been removed from her m-mouth. It was not, which means that she remained s-silent to the very end.’

And that must have been when the time for deduction came to an end, because Mr Nameless’s intent, matter-of-fact expression disappeared, and his face was suddenly immensely sad.

‘I feel s-sorry for the girl,’ Erast Petrovich said, and put his hand on Senka’s shoulder.

The shoulder instantly started trembling, all on its own, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Masa picked the puppy up off the floor and set it down carefully on the windowsill, near the daffodils.

‘I feer sorry for brave puppy too. In next rife he wirr be born samurai.’

But the unsentimental engineer told him to put Pomponius back on the floor ‘in order not to confuse the already rather muddled picture of the crime for the investigator’.