‘Does anyone? Ever?’
‘Please don’t take refuge in philosophical generalisations. It is only a reluctance to share your thoughts that leads you into obfuscation.’
Porfiry smiled and felt the tension of the smile in his facial muscles. He really did not have the energy for Virginsky’s challenging banter. He sighed morosely and fixed his attention on picking the bones out of a piece of sturgeon. ‘But I may be wrong, you see. And to voice my suspicions when I am wrong will be very damaging.’
‘For whom?’
‘For the one I accuse, of course. Surely you of all people should be mindful of that.’
‘You are not thinking of your reputation?’
‘It’s too late to concern myself with my reputation. My career is almost at an end, Pavel Pavlovich. No, there is no
almost
about it. I feel this may well be my last major investigation. It is not simply a case of physical energy, which is sadly all too lacking. I feel that my mental powers are waning too.’
Porfiry lit a cigarette to smoke as he ate.
‘But you acted with such confidence this afternoon!’
‘In truth, I do not know how I succeeded in summoning it. It was founded on nothing. The exercise has left me empty and exhausted. Prince Sergei was right. It was a pantomime that
proved nothing. I was trying to force the issue, to bring about some decisive revelation. To shock Aglaia Filippovna into bearing witness. Instead, I merely made a fool of myself. Please, do not attempt to contradict me. There have been too many factors beyond my control in this case. You spoke of my reputation. I suspect I have the reputation of being an arch manipulator. People believe I am able to play the human soul like a pipe organ, pulling and pushing the stops to get the sound I want. But all along I have felt myself manipulated by outside forces and agencies. It has been very trying. I fear it may have forced me into making an elementary mistake. I have come to regard everything as part of one all-encompassing conspiracy. But what if it is not? What if there are merely a number of random events – or rather, events connected only by their awfulness? And what if this is an awfulness I can do nothing about? I know that Innokenty’s killer is beyond my reach, beyond justice, untouchable. He is protected by powerful parties, and I am too old, too fat, too weak, too scared to take them on. You were right, Pavel Pavlovich. I
am
Oblomov.’
‘No.’
‘I should just take my dressing gown and retire to the country. Perhaps I should buy an estate and preside over its ruin. That is the Russian way, is it not?’
‘It doesn’t have to be.’
‘I find all I want to do is drink champagne and play billiards. Will you play billiards with me, Pavel Pavlovich?’
‘Of course. But I warn you I am very good.’
‘A wager then!’
‘I do not play for money.’
‘Then why play at all?’
‘Very well, we will play for dinner. Will that satisfy you?’
‘But you are here as my guest. It was always my intention to pick up the bill. Money, Pavel Pavlovich – I want to smell your money and roll it in my fingers.’
‘Why are you so determined to force me into gambling?’
‘Because I never will trust a man who does not gamble.’
‘In that case … ten roubles!’
‘Paper roubles?’
‘Do you have any objection?’
Porfiry shrugged. ‘I just wish to make sure that everything is clear. We don’t want any arguments later.’
‘When I take your money off you, you mean?’
‘When I take
your
money off
you
, I rather think!’
‘Nevskaya rules?’
‘Come, shake on it,’ said Porfiry. ‘And we will prevail upon one of the waiters to pull our hands apart.’
*
Virginsky won the lag for break, his ball settling less than an inch from the baulk cushion. Porfiry, who was by now well into the second bottle of Veuve Clicquot, had sent his careening wildly from end to end.
‘Have you played billiards before, Porfiry Petrovich?’
‘It is all part of my tactics.’
‘Before you concern yourself with tactics,’ said Virginsky sententiously, as he racked the pyramid of ivory-white balls, ‘it would be as well to master the basic technique. I fear you are applying too much force to your cue action.’
‘Nonsense!’
Virginsky broke tightly without pocketing, although the single red ball ricocheted between the jaws of the top right pocket, leaving Porfiry with an easy pot. However, he chose to
ignore this, instead going for a reckless long shot that he executed with heavy-handed ineptitude, opening up the pyramid to let Virginsky in.
Porfiry watched forlornly as Virginsky played a series of skilful in-offs, repeatedly sinking the red. Porfiry was left to apply the same diligence and determination to draining the champagne bottle as Virginsky did to making shots.
In no time at all, Virginsky had potted five balls. Things were looking bad for Porfiry.
As Virginsky was cueing his sixth potential pot, Porfiry called out ‘Foul!’, causing his opponent to mis-cue and botch his shot.
‘What foul?’
‘You’re supposed to keep one foot on the floor at all times.’
‘What are you talking about?
Both
my feet were on the ground.’
‘Both your feet? That’s acceptable, is it?’
‘Of course. The foul was yours in trying to put me off. I should be granted a free shot.’
‘An honest mistake on my part. You cannot pelanise me for that.’
‘Penalise,’ corrected Virginsky.
‘My shot is it?’ said Porfiry nonchalantly. He placed his champagne glass on the side of the table and retrieved his cue from the wall rack. He then decided that that cue was unsatisfactory, and so replaced it with another. After considerable deliberation, moving round the table to line up a series of potential shots, he finally settled on one. He bent down to cue, miming a series of dummy shots before standing up to reassess his choice. He decided he was satisfied with the shot after all, hunched back over his cue and made a hurried jab.
The line was not far out, but the ball failed to sink, rattling in the jaws of a pocket. Whether it was the ball Porfiry had intended to sink, in the pocket he had selected, was unclear. He remained bent over his cue, blinking querulously at the recalcitrant billiard ball. ‘These pockets, are they smaller than those on the other tables?’
‘All the pockets are the same size, Porfiry Petrovich.’
‘But I swear the diameter of the ball is greater than the aperture of the pocket.’ Porfiry blinked each eye alternately to test this theory.
‘I have successfully managed to pocket five balls. And now, if you will kindly stand away from the table, I will pocket the three outstanding balls I need to win.’
‘You think you will win?’
‘I am sure of it.’
‘Don’t be too sure, my young friend. I have one or two tricks still up my sleeve.’
‘Tricks? Exactly! Your only hope is to resort to trickery.’
‘In my day, I was a champion of Nevskaya Pyramid Billiards. I beat all-comers. There was no challenger who could take me on. It is some time since I played, I confess. I had to retire from the game to give others a chance. I was something of a phenomenon.’
‘In your day?’
‘In my day.’
‘May I suggest that today is not your day?’ Virginsky potted the next ball with ruthless efficiency. ‘Two more to win, Porfiry Petrovich.’
But Porfiry was moving away from the table, as though he had lost interest in the game. He gravitated towards a loud and very drunk cavalry officer who was berating his own opponent
with a stream of obscenities. Virginsky paused in his play to watch the developing scene nervously.
‘Sir, moderate your language!’
‘Moderate my language? Are there ladies present?’
‘Not in this room perhaps. But in the restaurant. Without question, your appalling outbursts can be heard in there.’
‘No one can hear me over that infernal gypsy racket.’
‘I can hear you.’
‘Are you a lady? You’re the ugliest damn lady I’ve ever seen, and believe me I’ve seen some ugly ones.’
‘On behalf of the ladies of your acquaintance, I consider that to be an insulting remark.’
‘Funny little man!’
‘Boor!’
‘What did you call me?’
‘Boor. You are a boorish fellow. A lout.’
‘A lout now, is it? I will not be insulted by you, funny little man.’
‘I am not little. I have the girth of a bear. Whereas you have the mouth of a swine.’
This was too much for the drunken officer, who swung back the cue he was holding in preparation to bringing it down on Porfiry’s head. Fortunately, Porfiry was pulled out of the way by Virginsky, who took the full vicious brunt of the blow on his left hand.
Virginsky gave a sharp cry.
‘That’s unlucky,’ observed Porfiry. ‘Your cueing hand.’
The drunk fell over, unbalanced by the momentum of his attack.
‘I suggest we make a swift exit, Porfiry Petrovich. That
fellow has many friends here and the mood appears to be waxing ugly.’
‘But the wager, Pavel Pavlovich! We will be forced to abandon the wager!’
‘I cannot believe you provoked a beating in order to get out of paying me ten roubles.’
‘His language was insufferable.’
‘I hadn’t noticed.
I
was concentrating on the game.’
‘So was I, my friend,’ said Porfiry with a wink, as he allowed himself to be dragged from the billiard room.
*
The swirl and dash of Domenika’s were still with Porfiry as he lay on his bed. Sweat pooled at his neck. His skin there chafed but it was a discomfort he was prepared to tolerate.
The throb of the gypsy music pulsed and echoed in his ears. The oil lamp by his bedside swayed and shimmered in time with the beat.
After their flight from the billiard room, they had stumbled into a drinking den in one of those alleys off the Haymarket. He remembered that Virginsky had been eager to get him home, but he had insisted on a nightcap. It was not the kind of place that Porfiry was in the habit of entering, a dark cellar with a sticky floor and tables, frequented by low-ranking clerks and tradesmen. Its novelty inspired a strange giddiness in him, which Virginsky was at pains to quell. There was no champagne to be had and Porfiry remembered making a scene with the proprietor over this inconvenience. He winced at the recollection. Had he really demanded that the fellow scour the streets of St Petersburg, urged him to spare no expense, and forbade him from returning without the Widow? In the event,
vodka had been brought, the landlord probably calculating, quite reasonably as it turned out, that a drunk would happily drink whatever was put in front of him.
Porfiry closed his eyes and lay very still, as if his own immobility could influence the objects around him. He swallowed back a liquid reflux. It felt as though the sturgeon had come back to life and was swimming around in his stomach.
He was not entirely sure how he had arrived back at the apartment, that part of the evening being somewhat of a blank. But the empirical evidence was conclusive – here he was in his bed, after all! – and perhaps it was fruitless to enquire beyond that.
Porfiry thought instead of Princess Yevgenia Andreevna Naryskina. He felt now that he understood her strange inertia. It was a form of sympathetic magic; she sought to control through utter passivity. He thought also of Aglaia Filippovna, equally immobile. Was she held by her coma, or did she use it to exercise a hold over others? It was certainly true that it had effectively stalled his investigation.
He opened his eyes. The room was still spinning. He came to the conclusion that lying motionless achieved nothing. But now it seemed he was incapable of doing anything else.
He was about to lean over to extinguish the light, or at least to attempt that manoeuvre, when he became aware of the sounds of movement in the apartment. Footsteps. Slava. He even thought that he could hear a stifled whisper.
Now he remembered coming in. He had stopped outside Slava’s room, swaying as he strained to listen. There had been silence then, though he had the sense that it was a false silence, a suspension of frenzied activity prompted by his arrival. He had an image of Slava holding his breath, waiting for his
employer to move on before resuming whatever he had been doing.
The unnatural silence had struck him as ominous. He had never known Slava to hold himself so still. It came close to unnerving him.
Now, beyond any doubt, he heard footsteps outside his door. He was not afraid. He was ready for whatever might happen. Better than that, he was drunk. He twisted his torso to dim the lamp. He wanted to give the impression that he was asleep when the intruder entered.
He closed his eyes. A wave of serenity relaxed his whole being. Within a few seconds – in less time than that, in the space between seconds – pretending to be asleep had passed over into actual sleep.
His eyes shot open in panic. A shadowy form stood over him. A limb of the shadow broke out and swept down towards his throat. A glint of steel flashed in the dimmed lamp light. Porfiry’s hands seemed to be made of lead. He was powerless to lift them. The flashing metal met no resistance until it struck his neck. A scream of fury and hatred and surprise and then it was all over.
The scream told him everything. It also sobered him up completely.
It was a woman’s scream.
Porfiry propelled himself upwards at the shadow. He met little resistance. She – for it was without doubt a woman – was slight of build and entirely lacking in strength. Her weapon had fallen uselessly from her hand as soon as she had landed the blow. His hands gripped skin and bone, slippery with warm liquid. A spasm of animal tension passed from her into him and then he felt her body collapse and he found that he was having to hold her up. He pulled her to him, letting his body take her weight as he wrapped one arm around her shoulder as if in an embrace.
The door burst open and Slava came in holding aloft a candle. The woman’s face was hidden against the chest of the man she had just attacked, but her hair was revealed to be an intensely black and unruly mass. Porfiry felt her frail body shake in convulsive sobs.