“No,” Chesney insisted.
“Then why should you cooperate?” Sasha asked.
“There were considerations,” Chesney admitted.
“Considerations?” said Elena.
“I was compensated for my assistance and given the assurance that no word of my relationship to Amira would reach my family in England or those for whom I work.”
“Where is she? What did you tell them?” asked Elena.
“She is working at a café in Zagorsk,” he said softly. “I am sure they have found her by now.”
“Anything else, comrade?” asked Elena.
“You do not intend to take me in, do you?” pleaded Chesney. “I’ve really suffered quite enough, as you can see.”
“And, apparently, you have been compensated for it. You have enjoyed the company of a very young girl,” said Sasha.
“You don’t know Amira,” said Chesney flatly.
“You had one more thing to tell us,” Elena reminded him.
“The Syrian said a man had been following me. They said they would take care of him. I saw them put him into a black car.”
“And what did he look like?” asked Sasha.
“Big. Leather jacket. Rather homely.”
Elena and Sasha exchanged a hurried glance. “We will file a report,” said Sasha. “We suggest you ask your company to grant you a transfer to another country. Claim possible impending illness.”
“You are threatening me?”
“It would seem so,” Sasha agreed.
“I will take it under advisement,” said Chesney.
FOURTEEN
The walk down the street was not an easy one for Porfiry Petrovich, but he made the time go quickly by asking Emil Karpo a series of questions. “How is your headache?”
“I shall endure,” said Karpo, who had been found by Gonsk in the church where the funeral service for Sister Nina was being held. And now, after conferring in the meeting hall, they were heading back toward the four towers of the church. The sound of chanting drifted toward them. “Does the pain impair your power to reason?”
“I do not think so, but I do not know.”
“Let’s test it. Where is Peotor Merhum?”
“He has run away or is hiding,” said Karpo, “because he was guilty.”
“Are there other reasons he might be missing?”
“Many,” agreed Karpo. “He could be dead, a suicide. He could be murdered because he himself is not the murderer but has discovered who the killer is. He might even be drunk and asleep somewhere, but we have the evidence of the nun’s journal.”
“Are you developing a sense of humor, Emil Karpo?”
“I am not trying to be humorous
“The nun’s journal,” Rostnikov went on. “It is a strange piece of work, a very curious document. Did you notice that?”
They were walking slowly, ignoring the glances of the clusters of people who watched the odd duo.
“In what way curious?”
“How does the journal refer to the son of Father Merhum?”
“As ‘the son,’” said Karpo.
“Yes, never by name. Why never by name? Why not Peotor?”
“I do not know.”
“The entry on May second, 1959, refers to the coming of a son,” Rostnikov continued. “If the son is Peotor, that would make him thirty-three years old. But Peotor Merhum is thirty. We have his records. I have your notes. He refers to the coming of his son three years before Peotor is born.”
“Then there is another son,” said Karpo.
“Another son,” agreed Rostnikov.
“And he bears a scar on his chest from a trip to the monastery at Pochaev.”
They had reached the edge of town. The house where Sister Nina was murdered and Father Merhum had crawled to die was through the woods to their right. The church stood in front of them. A huge crow flew out of the woods and over their heads. Rostnikov paused to watch it. Emil Karpo paid no attention.
“I will bet the Ed McBain novel in my coat that Peotor Merhum has no scar on his chest,” said Rostnikov.
“I would have no use for your Ed McBain novel, Comrade Inspector. I do not read English nor do I enjoy fiction.”
“Then,” said Rostnikov, “let us not bet. Is there a man in the village who bears such a scar on his chest?”
“We can check the birth records for that day and the months before,” Karpo suggested. “But …”
“Ah, you have an idea?”
“The poem, the poem from the Bible. Perhaps the son was not born on May second, 1959. Perhaps he came to Arkush around that date. He was not born to Father Merhum on that date, but appeared in Arkush on that date.”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “And now we seek someone with a scar on his chest who came to this town around that date thirty-two years ago.”
“Back to the records?” asked Karpo.
“Back to the records, Emil.”
Two men and a woman were coming down the steps of the church. One man was carrying a camera of some kind on his shoulder. The other man had a metal box strapped over his shoulder and a microphone in his hand. The woman, eyes eager and determined, bounded toward them with notes in hand.
“The television,” said Rostnikov. “Before the reforms we did not suffer the benefits of openness. Go, Emil Karpo. I will weave them a tale and send them seeking shadows.”
Emil Karpo hurried away and the trio approached Rostnikov.
“You are Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov,” said the woman.
Rostnikov had turned and was heading back toward the center of Arkush. “I am aware of that,” he said. “But I assume you must ask such questions for your viewers.”
The woman, who had on far too much makeup, seemed perplexed but determined. “Do you have any ideas about who killed Father Merhum and Sister Nina?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And?” she prodded.
“I can see no good to be served by my sharing such information with you,” said Rostnikov. “The curiosity of your viewers would not be well served by my speculations.”
“The old days have passed, Inspector,” the woman said, sensing that she might have nothing to salvage, so she might as well provoke. “Russian citizens have a right to know what you are thinking.”
“I am thinking about the house in which I lived as a child,” said Rostnikov. “I’ve been trying to remember where each item of furniture was and what it looked like. It is like a nagging refrain from a song.”
The woman put up her hand and muttered something under her breath. “Turn it off, Kolya,” she then said.
Rostnikov limped slowly away.
Through the small window in the tower of the church Peotor Merhum looked down at the policeman who
