With a dry mouth, he mounted the worn steps of the Institute and was struck, not for the first time, by the melancholy atmosphere of the place. Before the Revolution it had been a nobleman’s mansion, a building built for pleasure. The ceilings still retained frescoes of naked cherubim perched on tufts of cloud, eating grapes and laughing across a cerulean sky, in stark contrast to the whitewash and plain floorboards beneath them. He wondered why they hadn’t been painted over-perhaps there were no ladders available that day. At least they cheered the building up a little; otherwise it seemed reduced to despair by the use it was being put to. The feeling was at its most intense in the pathology department. The glossy white walls, the harsh glare of the electric lighting, the polished concrete floors-they all combined to distort sound, space and even time in some strange way. Whenever he entered the place he had the urge to sit down, cradle the impossible weight of his head in his hands and savor the stink of dead dreams and ruined hopes that permeated the place. He stumbled, nausea rising in him, and looked around for a chair, but the doctor marched on regardless, sweeping him along in her wake, down the corridor and into the main morgue, two walls of which were made up of steel squares, behind each of which lay cold corpses on smooth-running shelves. Formaldehyde, disinfectant and the sweet scent of dead flesh filled Korolev’s nostrils. Somewhere a tap dripped.
“They’re two to a shelf in there,” Chestnova said, pointing to the steel boxes, “We’ve even got them piled up in Autopsy Room One.”
She pointed through a glass window. A two-high line of corpses lay on the floor, each wrapped in a sheet with a number tied to a bloodless toe. Chests of ice had been laid around them like waiting coffins.
“Too many bodies, not enough pathologists, and now we don’t even have enough autopsy rooms. Citizens should travel to another city if they feel they have to kill themselves. The problem isn’t so bad in Leningrad, you know. Maybe the Party could organize special tours there.”
She sighed and entered the second, smaller, autopsy room, leaning against the polished steel table and closing her eyes. Korolev wanted to do the same, but he reminded himself that if he leaned against anything in this place he’d lose consciousness in moments. Even standing, he felt sleep licking his neck and his eyelids drooping down. He clenched his hand into a fist and punched back at the wall behind him, hoping the pain would wake him up. The punch sounded like a pistol shot against the steel. Chestnova’s eyes flew open and she looked at him in terror. She was still looking at him uncertainly when the attendants arrived with the stretcher that carried the dead body.
Korolev spoke to cover his embarrassment.
“I’d no idea there were so many of them-the suicides. Perhaps it’s the coming of the winter. Is that what brings it on?”
“It could be anything with these people,” Chestnova said, color returning to her cheeks. “All I know is it’s un-Soviet to take your own life at a time of national threat. If you’re unhappy, you should find solace in useful work. These people,” Chestnova said, waving her hand toward the mortuary and the other autopsy room, “were selfish. Individualists. They all put themselves before the State.”
“That’s right, Comrade Doctor,” one of the attendants said, as they removed the body from the blankets and laid it out. “They make work for us when they should be helping. And most of them Party members, what’s more-they should be ashamed.”
The attendants barely looked at the corpse as they worked, but their movements were efficient and quick. The girl was still caked with blood and excrement, but they showed no squeamishness.
“Shall I ask Comrade Esimov to assist, Doctor?” the second attendant asked.
“No, let him sleep. The captain here can take the notes. Is that all right, Comrade?”
“Of course,” Korolev said, thinking that at least he’d be able to read them for a change.
“Let’s begin. Preliminary examination of unidentified female homicide victim commencing at three forty-five p.m., second of November, nineteen thirty-six. Am I going too fast?”
Korolev shook his head and the doctor began to clean the woman’s body with a small hose, gently removing the thicker patches of dried body fluids with a brush. She called out details of the surface injuries to him as she uncovered them and then, when the body was clean, she stood back and reached for a large surgeon’s knife. She smiled apologetically to the two men before making a deep and precise Y cut in the chest. Then, with practiced efficiency, she peeled back the skin to reveal the girl’s ribcage and internal organs. Korolev met the photographer’s eyes for a moment before they both glanced away-it just wasn’t right for a person to look like something you’d see on a meat-shop slab, ribs sticking out of their bruised white skin.
As always, the autopsy was slow going; the doctor, despite her tiredness, was thorough. After half an hour, Gueginov, who’d been taking pictures when instructed, suggested they take a break and a nip of vodka to fortify themselves for the rest of the examination.
“Have we guh-glasses?” he said, putting his flask down beside the girl’s head.
“Sample jars. They’ll do well enough,” Chestnova said, “There are some in the drawer.” She pointed with her elbow as she scrubbed at her hands in the sink.
“Huh-here we go,” Gueginov said, splitting the remaining contents of his flask equally between the glass containers. Chestnova dried herself with the towel that hung beside the sink and then turned, stopping for a moment to look down at the girl. Korolev was surprised to see her eyes were filled with tears.
“The poor girl,” Chestnova said. “A virgin, maybe twenty. No more than twenty-two. She saved herself, I suppose, and then this. Poor little one.” Her voice broke, and she looked up at them with a weak smile. “Excuse me, Comrades, I haven’t slept for too long. I’m ashamed of myself.”
Gueginov reached out an arm and put it round her shoulder. The large woman leaned against her frail protector for a moment. Then she straightened herself and wiped the eyes that avoided theirs. She held her glass up to the corpse.
“I hope you were happy, for a moment or two at least, Citizeness. In your life. I hope so.”
The others raised their glasses in turn and then drank the vodka in a single gulp. Gueginov’s eyes seemed moist as well and Korolev felt the sapping atmosphere of the mortuary dragging at him once more. He dug his nails into the palm of his hand.
“So how long did she suffer for, do you think?” he asked, his desperation to get back to the business at hand making his voice unnaturally loud. Chestnova and Gueginov looked up in surprise.
“Well,” Chestnova said, considering the question, “I can’t tell for sure-but the mutilation probably took place after death, just because of the relative lack of blood. As for the electrical burns, my guess would be they happened before death-he used a thin, lengthy object. Like a torturer might have used a red-hot poker in the past. She was restrained with rope and gagged-see the bruising and tearing round the mouth and the marks on her wrists and ankles? I’d say she struggled a great deal. And I think it was done by one man. Probably right-handed. See these bruises here?”
Korolev nodded and looked at the purple-gray marks on the girl’s otherwise alabaster arm. The doctor explained how the bruises showed indications of being made by a right hand and that they probably indicated the hand the killer showed a preference for.
“And the mutilation? Do you have an idea why he cut her up?”
“No-I’m afraid not. That is something you’ll have to ask the killer when you find him.”
Korolev nodded, more in hope than conviction, and turned to Gueginov.