Читать книгу Dmitri and the Milk-Drinkers - Michael Pearce - Страница 7

The following morning, Anna Semeonova had still not been found.

‘It’s bad,’ said Peter Ivanovich. ‘First, because she’s a nice girl. I’ve known her since she was six. At that time she looked like a dumpling and everyone was afraid she was going to take after her father. Recently, though, she has thinned out and is becoming a beauty like her mother. Second, because her father blames us. Thirdly, because so does everyone else.’

Dmitri was always irritated by the Presiding Judge’s pedantic habit of enumerating his points.

‘She did, after all, disappear from the Court House,’ he pointed out.

‘I know; very inconsiderate of her,’ said Peter Ivanovich. ‘Why couldn’t she have disappeared from her home? We would still have been blamed, but we wouldn’t have looked quite as stupid. And now I’m afraid they will send someone down from St Petersburg.’

‘To take charge of the case?’

Dmitri wasn’t sure that he liked this. It was his case; and thus far in his career he had not been assigned so many that he could afford to be blasé. This was, actually, if you included the ridiculous affair of the old woman and the cow, only his second case. And were they now going to take even that from him?

‘We must resist,’ he said sternly.

Peter Ivanovich looked at him pityingly.

‘Tell me how you get on’, he said, ‘as Examining Magistrate in Siberia. Let me talk to you as a father, Dmitri Alexandrovich: obstruct, but do not resist. That is the first rule of bureaucracy. Besides,’ he said, ‘they won’t take over the case. They will leave you in charge. So that you can be blamed if things go wrong. That is the second rule of bureaucracy: make sure that responsibility always lies elsewhere.’

The advice of a master, thought Dmitri. Peter Ivanovich was wrong, however. The first rule of bureaucracy was surely to keep your mouth shut; which Dmitri was grimly trying to do.

‘The answer is, of course,’ continued Peter Ivanovich, ‘to solve the case yourself before they get here. How are you getting on, incidentally?’

He listened to Dmitri’s account of yesterday’s inquiries.

‘Interesting,’ he commented. ‘Who would have thought it? A girl like Anna Semeonova – getting herself mixed up with such people!’

‘I’m not sure how far she is mixed up with such people,’ said Dmitri. ‘That’s one of the things I wanted to ask Marfa Nikolaevna.’

‘Ask her, by all means,’ said Peter Ivanovich generously, ‘although I doubt if it will help you much.’

‘I would if I could,’ said Dmitri, frowning. ‘But there’s been a bit of a mix-up.’

‘Another one?’ said Peter Ivanovich. ‘Oh dear! These people! What is it this time?’

‘They can’t trace her.’

‘Come, come!’ said Peter Ivanovich. ‘She was in court the day before yesterday, wasn’t she? And surely she was not acquitted?’

‘Oh, no. She was sentenced, all right. It’s what happened afterwards that’s not clear.’

‘It’s as clear as daylight,’ said Peter Ivanovich. ‘She was a political prisoner, wasn’t she? Then she would have been sent back to prison to await transportation.’

‘So one would have thought. But the prison denies readmitting her. And there’s a complication. Some of the prisoners that day were sent directly to join the Siberian convoy.’

‘Well, perhaps that’s what happened to her, then,’ said Peter Ivanovich patiently.

‘They’ve checked the lists,’ said Dmitri, ‘and they can’t find her.’

‘They’ve made a mistake. It’s always happening. A clerical error. Either there or at the prison. Get them to check it again!’

‘I have. There’s no record in either place of a person of that name.’

‘There must be! She must be either in the one place or in the other. Either in prison or in the convoy. She can’t be still in the Court House, can she?’

‘Well, no.’

‘I mean, you’ve searched the place thoroughly, haven’t you? For that other girl?’

‘Novikov has searched the place,’ said Dmitri, learning fast. ‘Thoroughly, he says.’

‘Well, then!’

‘So she must be either in the prison or with the convoy. Unless …’

‘Yes?’

‘She’s disappeared. Like the other one,’ said Dmitri with emphasis.

‘Oh, my God!’ said Peter Ivanovich, clapping his hands to his head.

‘If this woman has indeed disappeared,’ said Peter Ivanovich coldly, ‘I hold you responsible.’

‘Me, Your Honour?’

The Chief of Police reeled back.

‘You’re responsible for security arrangements, aren’t you?’

‘Only in the Court House, Your Excellency! Only in the Court House!’

‘But that’s where she’s disappeared from.’

‘Ah, but did she, Your Honour?’ said Novikov, recovering quickly. ‘Did she? Perhaps she escaped as the carts were going back to the prison – ’

‘She’s not on the carts list,’ said Dmitri.

‘Or from the convoy – ’

‘She’s not on their list, either.’

‘She must be! She must be!’

‘What are these lists?’ asked Peter Ivanovich.

‘At the end of the sessions the Clerk of the Court prepares a list of all those sentenced,’ said Dmitri. ‘From it, an assistant clerk compiles two separate lists, one for the officer in charge of the prison carts, one for the officer in charge of the convoy. The prisoners are assembled in the yard and assigned to one set of carts or the other on the basis of the consolidated list. As they get to the carts their names are checked against those on the separate lists. Marfa Nikolaevna’s name appears on the consolidated list, but not, so far as I can tell, and I’ve asked both the Prison Administration and the Convoy Administration, on either of the separate lists.’

‘They must have made a mistake,’ said Novikov.

‘Exactly what I said!’ said Peter Ivanovich.

‘I got them to check,’ said Dmitri.

‘Ah, yes, Your Honour, but it will be different if I ask them. Saving Your Honour’s presence, but they won’t have bothered much for someone new like yourself. Let me have a word with them, Your Excellency,’ said Novikov, turning to Peter Ivanovich, ‘and I’ll soon sort this out.’

‘Do so; and don’t take too long about it, either. One can’t have people disappearing from the Court House. Really, one begins to feel quite nervous!’

Novikov returned, beaming, before the lawyers had finished their lunch.

‘There you are, sir, what did I tell you? Sorted it out in no time! A simple mistake, sir, as you supposed.’

He put a piece of paper on the table before Peter Ivanovich and smoothed it flat.

‘There you are, Your Excellency!’ He pointed with a stubby forefinger. ‘That’s what you want!’

Peter Ivanovich adjusted his pince-nez.

‘Is it?’

‘I know, sir. You’re having difficulty. And not just you alone, sir. Everyone else. That’s how the misunderstanding arose. No one’s fault, sir, except for that fat clerk who’ll be feeling the toe of my boot up his fundament if he doesn’t take more pains next time.’

Peter Ivanovich looked again.

‘I suppose you’re right,’ he said doubtfully.

‘Not convinced, Your Excellency?’ Novikov chuckled. ‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me. In fact, it’s what I told myself. An old fox like His Excellency will want something more than that, I said. And quite right, too! So I did a bit of nosing around and, as luck would have it, who should I come upon but young Stenka. Come in, lad!’ he called out into the corridor.

A fresh-faced young soldier appeared hesitantly in the doorway.

‘Come in, lad. His Excellency won’t bite you. Now, you come in and tell His Excellency what you told me.’

The young soldier cleared his throat nervously.

‘I was on the carts,’ he began.

‘That very afternoon,’ interjected Novikov.

‘Yes, right, that afternoon. The women’s cart, as it fell out. Well, I don’t mind that, I mean, you never know what you might see, and you’re not going to have any trouble, are you? I mean, not any real trouble. They say things, of course, you’ve got to put up with that, but I know how to handle that. I just say: “You bloody shut up or you’ll taste the butt of my gun!”’

‘The cart, lad, the cart,’ put in Novikov hastily.

‘Yes, right, the cart. Well, there weren’t many of them that afternoon, not women, I mean. Only a few for us. So I’ve got a bit of time, and I see this girl. A real Russian beauty, she is. Oh ho, I think, I’ll bet you’ve got a nice pair of apples, and I give her a pinch as she goes by. Well, she jumps about half a verst. “What’s your name my beauty?” I say. She doesn’t answer, so I go to the sergeant and I say: “See that one there? What’s her name?” “What do you want to know for?” he says. “A taste comes before a feast,” I say. “Well,” he says, “there’s not going to be much of a feast for you, my lad, because she’s going straight on to the main convoy and you’re going to be stopping here.” “Never mind that,” I say. “What’s her name?” He looks at his list. “Shumin,” he says. “Marfa Nikolaevna Shumin.”’

‘Shumin?’ said Peter Ivanovich. ‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Pretty sure, sir. But I’m dead sure about the “Marfa”. My own sister’s named Marfa, it’s a bit of a family name. “That’s a good omen,” I said to myself. “She’s almost one of the family, like.”’

Novikov looked at Peter Ivanovich.

‘Satisfied, sir?’

‘There seems no doubt about it,’ Peter Ivanovich conceded.

‘That’s what I thought, sir, once I’d talked to Stenka. The name by itself, I said, won’t be enough to convince Peter Ivanovich. But a witness, an honest witness – well, that’s a different matter!’

‘Happy, now?’ said Peter Ivanovich, looking at Dmitri.

‘Not very.’ Something was troubling him. In what the guard had said. He dismissed it for the moment. ‘This was the convoy, was it?’ he said to Stenka. The soldier nodded. ‘That means she’s halfway to Siberia by now. How am I going to question her?’

‘Not very easily,’ said Peter Ivanovich. ‘Unless you care to go after her.’

Novikov gave a great guffaw.

‘That’s a good one!’ he said, nudging Stenka. The soldier, not entirely understanding, but dutiful, joined in.

Peter Ivanovich allowed himself a slight smile.

‘I’m afraid our young colleague is one for the psychological,’ he said.

‘Psychological, Your Excellency?’

‘It’s the latest fashion in the Law Schools. These days, Grigori Romanovich, we mustn’t just look at the facts, we must look at the motives behind the facts.’

‘It’s getting a bit deep for me, sir.’

‘Me, too. If a dog bites a man, why ask for its motive?’

‘Why, indeed, Your Excellency?’ said Novikov, guffawing again.

‘Not only motives,’ said Dmitri, ‘but circumstances.’

It was coming to him now. Not just in what Stenka had said, but in what the women at the tannery had said.

‘Ah, circumstances!’ said Peter Ivanovich.

‘What circumstances are there, then, Dmitri Alexandrovich?’ said Novikov, mock innocently. ‘Finding out how it is that someone can’t read someone else’s writing?’

He gave Peter Ivanovich a wink. The Presiding Judge responded with a thin little smile.

‘Finding out who was actually put on the convoy,’ said Dmitri. He turned to Stenka. ‘A real Russian beauty, you said?’

‘That’s right, Your Honour.’

‘Fair?’

‘As straw in summer.’

‘A Tatar?’

‘Tatar?’

‘Marfa Nikolaevna was Tatar.’

‘This girl was no Tatar,’ said Stenka uneasily.

‘What are you saying?’ said Peter Ivanovich sharply.

‘Not saying; wondering,’ said Dmitri. ‘Whether the right woman was put on the cart.’

Whereas the woman put on the cart had been fair, almost silvery blonde in the characteristically North Russian way, Marfa Nikolaevna, they eventually established, was dark. It took them some time because although she had been tried in the Court House, she had not been tried in a regular court. As a political prisoner, she had appeared before a Special Tribunal of the Ministry of the Interior. The Ministry held its Tribunals in the same building as the ordinary Law Courts, but this was purely for convenience and the two administrations were quite separate. Peter Ivanovich could not, then, go directly to the Clerk of the Courts as he would otherwise have done, nor could he have an informal word with the lawyers involved since, despite the reforms of the eighties, out in the provinces political prisoners were not legally represented. Peter Ivanovich certainly knew the officer who had presided over the Tribunal that day – they met socially – but as a matter of protocol they never discussed each other’s affairs. Judges in Russia, following the assassination of Tsar Alexander, had learned discretion.

It was with a certain diffidence, therefore, that Peter Ivanovich inquired about Marfa Nikolaevna.

‘All I need to know about is her looks,’ he said to Porfiri Porfirovich, the officer who had chaired the Tribunal on the day that Marfa Nikolaevna had been sentenced.

‘Her looks?’ said Porfiri Porfirovich incredulously.

‘Yes. Whether, for instance, she is fair or dark?’

‘Dark,’ said Porfiri. ‘But – ’

‘A real Russian beauty?’

‘Hardly. A Tatar.’

‘I was afraid so,’ said Peter Ivanovich, sighing heavily.

‘What is this?’ said Porfiri.

‘A possible case of…’ Peter Ivanovich didn’t know what it was a possible case of. ‘Mistaken identity,’ he tried.

Porfiri Porfirovich’s eyebrows shot up.

‘On our part,’ said Peter Ivanovich hastily. ‘Or, at least, not on our part; possibly on the part of the Convoy Administration.’

But the Convoy Administration, too, came under the Ministry of the Interior and Porfiri Porfirovich’s eyebrows stayed raised.

‘Or, most likely of all,’ said Peter Ivanovich, adapting with the speed born of long years in the Russian judicial system, ‘it simply fell between stools.’

‘What fell between stools?’

‘This – this confusion.’

‘I can see that you are confused, Peter Ivanovich,’ said Porfiri sharply; ‘but over what?’

Peter Ivanovich was forced to tell him all.

‘The trouble is,’ he concluded, ‘the Marfa Nikolaevna who was sentenced was dark, while the Marfa Nikolaevna who got on to the cart was fair. And definitely not a Tatar.’

‘Simple,’ said Porfiri Porfirovich. ‘The sergeant gave him the wrong name.’

‘Yes,’ said Peter Ivanovich unhappily, ‘that’s what we thought. At first. But then we checked. There were only five women that day in the political cart and the soldier, Stenka, remembers them all. None of them were Tatar. Three of them were in their fifties, whereas this Shumin woman was – ’

‘In her thirties.’

‘Exactly. And of the other two, one was nursing a baby and the other was, well, blonde in the Russian style. So where is the real Marfa Nikolaevna?’

‘In the prison. She must have been put in the wrong cart.’

‘We have been to the prison. We have checked all the prisoners who were readmitted that day. None of them’, said Peter Ivanovich, ‘is Marfa Nikolaevna.’

Porfiri Porfirovich frowned.

‘Are you sure? Quite sure? Who did the checking? You can’t rely on the prison officers.’

‘Novikov,’ said Peter Ivanovich. ‘He went over there and checked them personally.’