“Not yet. And those youngsters weren’t much help. Perhaps the autopsy will tell us something. Can you take a picture of the clothes?”
“Of cuh-course, Comrade. I’m limited to ten photographs however, unless I have the general’s express approval. The film’s imported, you see.”
This came as no surprise to Korolev, especially if it came from abroad. What little foreign currency the State had was needed to achieve the aims of the latest Five Year Plan.
“How many have you taken so far?” Korolev asked, wondering if ten would be enough.
“Fuh-four. A cluh-close-up of the face. Three location shots of the body from he-here, here and here.” The photographer pointed to where he’d stood to take the photographs. “Now, I’ll do the clothes, the body parts-anything else you’d like? I normally save a fuh-few for the autopsy.”
Korolev looked carefully at the body and then around the room.
“I’d like the footprints,” he said, looking at the bloody floor. “Damn it. Listen, take all ten in here. I’ll get the general to authorize the autopsy pictures.”
“Okuh-kay. On your head be it.” Gueginov said as he moved the arc light. He nodded at the ear, eye and tongue as he turned to Korolev.
“A savage. But it’s strange, you know. The way the b-body is positioned. As though it might mean something, all the efuh-fort he went to. Look.”
The camera’s flash sent black shadows flying across the ceiling. Korolev looked down at the body and saw it was laid out as though crucified. He wrote a quick observation in his notebook. It might mean something, or it could just be a coincidence. It would probably turn out to be a madman, but the electrical burns made him wonder.
After Gueginov had finished in the sacristy, the body was carefully lifted, wrapped in a canvas body bag, and then put on a stretcher. Dr. Zinaida Petrovna Chestnova from the Medical Institute arrived in time to supervise the operation. She was nearly as broad as Larinin, but today her jolly round face looked unusually haggard. As the body was prepared for removal, she began decanting the severed body parts into a series of glass jars she had brought with her, labeling them as she went.
“I’m sorry to be late, Comrade. We’ve taken on some new responsibilities. I’ve been working all night, I’m afraid.”
Korolev knew better than to ask what new work a forensic pathology department might be given that would involve such long hours. The dead were normally a patient clientele.
“Not to worry; we only finished the pictures a moment before you arrived. So, what do you think of this? Your first impression?”
The doctor turned to look at him and her eyes seemed drained of color. The last time he’d seen her she’d been lively, despite being up to her elbows in a decapitation. Now she seemed ten years older and bone tired with it.
“Nothing surprises me these days,” she said, looking at the blood on the floor. “She didn’t die quickly, I can tell you that much. With the cold weather, it will be difficult to establish exactly when, but I suspect early this morning. Come to the Institute and we’ll examine her immediately. I’ll be able to tell you more then.”
“But you haven’t slept,” Korolev said, looking at the gray pallor of her skin.
“I mightn’t have slept tomorrow either, Comrade. Let’s seize the moment.”
She smiled and they followed the body out to the waiting ambulance, the stretcher swaying stiffly to the rhythm of the attendants’ walk. The same unkempt street children watched as the stretcher was loaded. One of the young vagabonds, a bony-faced redhead dressed in a padded jacket two sizes too big for him, ducked under the Militia rope and ran to the ambulance with his hand outstretched. Korolev reached out his hand and caught a lump of hair and the child came to a squealing halt. He’d meant to catch the jacket, but hair would do, he supposed, even if Dr. Chestnova was looking at him in horror. He dropped his hand to the nape of the boy’s neck and leaned down to him.
“Well, what are you up to?” Korolev asked. The eyes which looked back at him were totally fearless.
“Just wanted to see what she looked like, the lady. They said she was beautiful, like an angel.”
Korolev reached his hand back to cuff the youngster, but caught Chestnova’s glance from the corner of his eye and made do with a none-too-gentle push in the direction of his two friends, who watched with interest but not much emotion. Tough little lads, he thought to himself. So many parents shipped off to the Zone nowadays; there were kids like these on every corner. If they didn’t get rounded up and taken to an orphanage, he wouldn’t bet money on them seeing it through the winter. Not that the orphanages were much better, he thought, and found himself rummaging in his pocket for a few kopeks.
“Here, get yourself some cabbage soup, you rascals.”
The money was taken without thanks, but the redhead gave him an appraising look that made Korolev wonder what other men gave them money and why. He felt ashamed. What was he? Ten years old, perhaps? The same age as his own son, Yuri, yet his eyes were as knowing as someone ten times older.
CHAPTER FOUR
Once the ambulance started to move, Korolev and the photographer found themselves sitting on a bench across from the canvas-swaddled body as the wheels bumped along the cobbled stones of Razin Street. The ambulance had little or no suspension and the two of them were thrown around and against each other as it clattered round corners and rumbled over pot-holes. In the front, Chestnova shouted at the driver to avoid collisions and to pass slow-moving carts. Gueginov, on the other hand, spent most of the journey trying to make himself a cigarette and, what with his spasms and the roller-coaster ride, it was with a great deal of satisfaction that he put the finished product between his lips and lit it. Then he frowned and nodded toward the corpse.
“I huh-hope you ca-catch the fellow. It’s unpleasant, ha-having to phuh-photograph suh-such a thing.” He extended the cigarette in the direction of the corpse. “Before the Ruh-revolution, I took portraits of the living. Fuh-families, children, that kih-kind of thing. Suh-since the Revolution, I only photograph the duh-dead.”
It was difficult to make out the spirit in which the remark was made, as Gueginov’s normally quiet voice was competing with the engine and Chestnova, and Korolev looked at him to see if he was making a terrible and dangerous joke. Oblivious to Korolev’s scrutiny, Gueginov took another drag from his cigarette.
“The cuh-capitalists were a sight to see back then, you know,” he continued. “One of their women’s druh-dresses could feed a family for a year. Muh-maybe two. It was exploitation. I uh-uh-understand that, of course. It was bluh-blood beauty. Now, things are better. Fuh-fairer. I don’t miss those days. And whuh-what I do now is of benefit to suh-society.”
Korolev wondered what the dead woman would make of such a statement.
“Huh-here,” Gueginov said, reaching into his pocket to produce a stainless-steel hip flask, “ha-have a drink. My next-door neighbor works for a di-distillery. It’s the real stuff. I did him a phuh-photograph of his wife. It made a nice chuh-change. I’d have done it for fuh-free, if the truth be tuh-told, but he guh-gave me a couple of bottles and I duh-didn’t refuse.”
Korolev took the flask and the vodka warmed its way down his throat. The dead woman’s hand slipped from the canvas bag with the movement of the truck and brushed against his leg. He reached down to move it and was surprised by the softness of the ice-cold skin.
When they arrived at the Institute, Korolev stepped down from the back of the ambulance with foreboding. Some of his dislike for autopsies came from the sheer brutality of the procedure. He couldn’t help feeling victims of violence should be left in peace after what they’d been through, but instead they were chopped at, sliced, skinned and sampled. It was worse than butchering in some ways. The dead person, once entitled to all the respect properly due a Soviet citizen, was reduced to nothing more than a piece of meat for doctors and policemen to poke at. Surely the world owed them something more after what had befallen them? And then, of course, there was the fact that even after fourteen years in the Militia and seven years of war he still had to struggle to control his stomach.