City of Ghosts by Ben Creed (most important books of all time txt) 📕

has cupolas but they could mean anything – faith, or atheism, time in the camps, number of people he has killed, anything. You can only tell from the other tattoos. Is he a killer, a burglar, a rapist, what? He has no cross, and every thief has a cross. Everyone’s ink tells a story. Except his.’

‘So what?’ said Grachev. ‘He could have been a political.’

Pugachev sneered.

‘A political with ink? The thieves would have scoured it off his skin with a fucking cheesegrater. No, your man has got almost the full suit, front and back, and yet he’s not a thief. And that makes him a real mystery.’

Rossel leaned forward and pointed to the red reaper.

‘What about that one? Can you give me any idea what the rest of that tattoo might look like?’

Pugachev stared down at the photograph.

Then back up at Rossel.

He shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But I think I know someone who may do. If you’re willing to take the risk of meeting him?’

10

Wednesday October 17

The thin glass tube Dr Volkova had extracted from the throat of the corpse they had christened the Snow Queen was glowing. Rossel pushed the head of the desk lamp a little closer. The tube lay in a metal tray on a small table inside the pathologist’s lair. It was about 22 centimetres long, 3 centimetres wide at the base, tapering to a point but fluted, so it gradually tapered upwards to become a few centimetres wider at the other end. The end that had been sticking into the Tsarevna’s larynx was jagged and tainted with blood.

‘Do you think our maniac might be a chemist, Doctor? Or some other kind of scientist?’

Dr Volkova shrugged.

‘There is no manufacturer’s mark. Besides, although I am clearly not a research scientist, I did study both chemistry and human biology before I specialised in forensic pathology and I have never come across a pipette, burette or graduated cylinder shaped exactly like this one.’

‘Burette?’

‘Used by analytical chemists to dispense variable amounts of chemical solutions.’

Rossel gestured towards the tube.

‘May I?’

Dr Volkova nodded.

He whipped off his leather gloves and picked up a pair of white latex ones that were lying on the table. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the pathologist looking at him as he struggled to get them on; in the end he had to tug at them with his teeth to pull the flaccid tips over his crooked, clumsy fingers. Turning back, he lifted up the tube and examined it more closely.

‘Perhaps used to administer a drug?’ he asked.

‘It would be an unusual vessel. Besides, apart from blood and traces of sputum from the larynx, the tube does not contain any other substances. To me, it looks like it was made by a master craftsman at the Gusevskoi Crystal Factory, not churned out by a laboratory products machine. But your theory about a drug, at least, may have some substance. Our tattooed priest has a series of puncture marks around his left ankle. The same goes for the blue-top.’

Rossel rested the tube back on the metal tray. Then he removed the gloves.

‘You have been carrying out autopsies without informing me?’

Dr Volkova shook her head. ‘No. It is too soon. I was once present at an autopsy on a frozen body that had not been left to thaw for long enough. It was still solid in the middle. The pathologist persisted out of stubbornness but soon found it was like scraping out the icebox in a refrigerator.’

This was said with relish.

‘However, this case is unique so I have been taking a look every so often. There are pressure sores over the shoulder blades, buttocks and heels. Also, over some parts of the spine, and in some cases on one ankle.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Rossel.

‘Sores develop when a subject is kept immobile for long periods. The irregular pattern suggests confinement in an enclosed space, not necessarily on a flat surface such as a bed or stretcher. That, in turn, could imply sedation.’

‘They were drugged?’ Rossel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What with?’

‘I cannot be sure. An obvious candidate from a medical point of view would be phenobarbital, a barbiturate. But an opiate would also do the job.’

‘Can they both cause death?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anything else?’ asked Rossel.

‘As I say, until I have done a . . .’

‘A proper examination, I know. Time is against us, Doctor. I need answers,’ snapped Rossel.

Volkova looked hurt.

‘Obviously, they all look thin. So, muscle wastage is certain and I expect to see loss of fat layers when I get down to business.’

‘Sedation and starvation. That would imply long, slow deaths. With the killer keeping a close eye on the gradual degradation of the victims.’

Dr Volkova flicked a switch and the desk lamp went out. The morgue felt instantly colder in the semi-darkness.

‘A murderer who first starves his victims, drugs them, then kills and mutilates them,’ she murmured. ‘An unusual modus operandi, don’t you think, Lieutenant? Abnormal, even for a maniac.’

She moved closer in the gloom.

‘We live in a city where only eight years ago they lifted a siege that killed close to a million people,’ Rossel said. ‘Where the cats had to wolf down the rats if they wanted to finish their breakfast before the citizens wolfed down both the cats, the rats and anything else still able to scurry through the bomb craters. Where some husbands ate their wives and some mothers dined on their own children. In those dark years, many people went well beyond normality. It would be no surprise to me if some of them never made it back.’

Dr Volkova turned away from him and stared down at the tube on the tray. She reached out and switched the lamp back on again. And then pointed to the thin curved glass lip at the pipe’s larger end.

‘My grandfather played in the Admiralty Navy band. Above his mantelpiece at home, next to his navy cap and a chest full of service medals, was a cornet. This looks like that.’

‘A cornet? You think