Dmitri and the Milk-Drinkers. Michael Pearce

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СКАЧАТЬ lady of respectable family … how could there be? You must be right.’

      ‘Turned round the moment she took a look at it, I would have thought. Walked straight back along the corridor.’

      ‘You think so? But then – ’

      ‘There will be some simple explanation.’

      ‘I hope you’re right. I’m sure you’re right.’ The judge looked at his watch. Still time to get to Avdotia Vassilevna’s for the main course. Even the fish, perhaps. He snapped it shut.

      ‘I’ll leave it to you, then.’

      ‘Leave it?’

      ‘As Examining Magistrate. Do keep me informed.’

      ‘But I thought … You said …’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘That I was party to the case. And therefore it would be improper for me to act as Examining Magistrate.’

      ‘But you denied that you were party to the case. Didn’t you? I’m merely accepting your word. For the time being.’

      One way or another, thought Dmitri, the bastards always got you.

      ‘Well, I’ll leave you to get on with it. While the scent is hot.’

      Dmitri made a last effort to retrieve his evening.

      ‘Aren’t we being premature, sir? I mean, is there a case? Surely it’s just a matter of continuing with the search? The police – ?’

      ‘Useless. That fool Novikov. No, I’d prefer you to be involved right from the start. Someone bright, with a bit of energy, someone – ’

      ‘Responsible?’

      ‘Yes. Responsible. That’s the word.’

      Sitting alone in the little room the lawyers used as a workroom, Dmitri nursed his wrath. There was plenty of it to nurse; first, wrath against the judge, not just for landing Dmitri in it but also for the general things he stood for and Dmitri stood against: age, seniority, authority, power, privilege, the System; next, wrath against Kursk, which was such a hell of a place that no wonder everything went wrong in it; and, finally, against this silly girl who had got herself lost and mucked up Dmitri’s evening.

      By this time on a normal day the Court House would have been empty. Lawyers, witnesses, defendants would have long departed. The caretakers would have retreated on to their ovens. Only at the back, perhaps, the last wagon would be squelching through the mud, trying to reach the firm crunch of the hard-packed snow outside.

      Tonight there were lamps in all the rooms and people scurrying about everywhere. Novikov was searching the building for the fifth or perhaps sixth time. The dilemma before Dmitri was this: should he assume that Novikov was incapable of doing anything properly, and therefore make a search of the building himself? Or should he take for granted that the girl had left the building long before and was now happily chatting in some comfortable parlour with her girlfriends or, more likely, otherwise preoccupied in some comfortable bed with her boyfriend? The second was obviously the case. The trouble was that if by any unlikely chance it was the first, and the girl was lying stuffed in some corner somewhere, and was later discovered, then it would look bad. It would look bad for the Court House and, more to the point, since the judge had nailed him firmly with responsibility for the investigation, it would look bad for him, Dmitri.

      Search, himself, it would have to be, and, no doubt, while doing it he could find himself a glass of tea in the caretakers’ room.

      Novikov had had the idea before him. He looked up, glass in hand, as Dmitri entered.

      ‘I’m making a personal search,’ he said, warming his backside against the fire. ‘You’ve got to do it yourself. You can’t trust these buggers to do it properly.’

      ‘How far have you got?’ asked Dmitri. ‘Just here?’

      Novikov looked pained.

      ‘The whole of the ground floor,’ he said. ‘Every nook, every cranny, every cupboard, behind every pipe, down every sewer. You need a wash-up after you’ve done that, I can tell you! Ever searched a sewer, Dmitri Alexandrovich?’

      ‘Suits some people more than others,’ Dmitri said coldly. He wasn’t going to be put down by the Chief of Police of a place like Kursk.

      Novikov shrugged and put down his glass.

      ‘The top floor now! Would you care to accompany me? At least there won’t be any sewers.’

      Dmitri was forced to admit, after half an hour had passed, that Novikov knew his job, or this part of it at least. It wasn’t intelligence, Dmitri decided; it was cunning. Perhaps experience, too. Experience enough to know when a thing mattered and when it did not, cunning to be able to read the mind of the brutalized peasants who provided the bulk of the criminals in Kursk. Dmitri had no such cunning, he knew. He had never met a peasant until he came to Kursk, although they formed two-thirds of the population of Russia. Dmitri was a city-dweller through and through. And that, if he could manage it, was how he meant to stay. The important thing was not to get trapped in the provinces. That was where experience came in, both the judge’s kind of experience and Novikov’s. The experience to know that this was a thing that people higher up would be interested in and take notice of, experience at covering your back. Dmitri was beginning to feel that he could have done with more experience of the latter sort.

      ‘A glass of tea, Dmitri Alexandrovich?’ suggested Novikov, when they had finished the floor.

      Dmitri concurred silently. He had already made up his mind that he would not now search the ground floor himself. Such things, especially the sewers, were best left to the Novikovs.

      ‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked.

      Novikov looked at his watch.

      ‘Nine o’clock,’ he said. ‘Nothing more tonight. It’s too dark. Tomorrow we’ll search the grounds. Then the park. First thing, though, as soon as it’s light, we’ll have people go through the building again, before the courts open. We may have missed something, you never know. And you wouldn’t want people to come in and find …’

      ‘Indeed not.’

      ‘But,’ Novikov went on, ‘I won’t do it myself.’

      ‘No?’

      ‘I’ll be in the back yard. I want to have a good look in the mud. Before the wagons start coming. Care to join me, Dmitri Alexandrovich?’ he asked maliciously.

      Not at first light but at a decent hour, Dmitri called on the Semeonovs and was shown into the drawing room. A few moments later the Semeonovs joined him.

      ‘Dmitri Alexandrovich Kameron,’ he said bowing. ‘Examining Magistrate. At your service.’

      ‘He looks very young!’ said Olga Feodorovna, inspecting him critically.

      ‘Yes, he does,’ said her husband. ‘I don’t call that good enough! Is that the best they can do?’ he demanded, looking at Dmitri. ‘A man like me deserves СКАЧАТЬ