The drive to Danilov’s apartment was undertaken in silence, punctuated only by the noise of Strachan striking his horn to clear the rain-drenched rickshaw drivers out of the way.
They had waited at the building site for the arrival of the crime-scene team, and Danilov had stood over them making sure the wood was properly fingerprinted, bloodstains – or what was left of them – collected and the symbol photographed.
All the time, Strachan had been glancing at his watch, seeing the minutes and hours tick away. It had been six o’clock by the time they left.
In the car, the inspector smoked continuously, using the stimulus of tobacco to force his mind to consider the intricacies of the case. Who was the young boy and why had he been mutilated? If it was a simple murder, why desecrate the body? Why place it on a wood pile in the middle of a building site? The killer could have just dumped it beside the road. The fact that it was placed where it was, with an ex-soldier for a security guard, meant it would be found. Had the killer wanted it to be discovered? And what was the meaning of the symbol painted in blood beside the corpse?
Too many questions, not enough answers.
‘We’re nearly there, sir.’
‘Thank you, Strachan.’
They parked the car and rushed up the stairs to the second floor. The ceremony should have been held at Ivan’s graveside in Hung Chiao cemetery, but the drive was too long for Archpriest Simonov, so Maria, Danilov’s wife, had decided to hold it in their apartment.
When Danilov pushed open the door, the air inside was heavy with incense. The ceremony had already started and Archpriest Simonov was in the middle of his oration.
As the inspector entered, all ten people in the room, including the archpriest, stopped and stared at him. Each person was holding a lit candle, the flames gently wavering in the still air of the room. In the trembling yellow light, Danilov didn’t recognise most of the faces. Friends of his wife’s perhaps, from the church she prayed in every day.
‘Sorry, we were held up,’ he mumbled in Russian.
Maria looked away.
The furniture in the living room had been pushed back to the far wall, except for one table placed in the centre. On the table stood the family icon, purchased a year ago from the church. In front was a large bowl of kolyva, a traditional dish of boiled wheat, nuts and raisins cooked by his wife that morning. Next to the icon and the bowl, a picture of Ivan when he was only eight years old. The day of a picnic in the Governor’s Garden beside the lake. Ivan wearing a sailor’s outfit with a straw boater, his hand pressed to his head to keep the hat in place and a broad smile etched on his face.
So different from Danilov’s last memory of his son: in a hospital bed, unconscious, a tube leading from his nose to a bottle beside the bed, his body broken by the explosion. It had taken him six weeks to die. Six long weeks during which, every night, Danilov had passed the long hours till dawn dozing in an old chair whilst his wife tried to rest at home.
He had spent those hours with Ivan going over the past, thinking what he could have done differently; how he could have stopped the Character Killer from planting the bomb. How he could have saved his son’s life. Wondering time and time again why Ivan had opened the package rather than him
He never found the answers to his questions in those long hours sitting beside his son’s hospital bed.
He still didn’t have the answer.
A young boy, fourteen years old, paying for the sins of the father.
Archpriest Simonov coughed and continued his sermon in Russian. ‘St Makary of Alexandria states that after bowing down before God on the third day, the soul is directed to view the various pleasant abodes of the saints and the beauty of Paradise. The soul in wonder examines all of this for six days, and praises God, the Creator of all. Contemplating all of this, the soul changes, forgetting the sorrow it felt while in the body.’
Danilov edged forward through the mourners to stand beside his daughter. Elina handed him a candle without saying a word. Maria continued to stare straight ahead at the priest, her face lit from beneath by the flickering light.
To Danilov, she had never looked as beautiful as she did at that moment.
The priest continued. ‘Our dearly departed son Ivan has entered the place of eternal peace. A Christian’s date of death is his birthday into a new, better life. On this date, his second birth, into Heaven, we beg God’s mercy, that the Lord have mercy upon his soul, grant the homeland prepared for eternal enjoyment and make him a resident of Paradise.’
His assistant waved the censer and the room was flooded with the overpowering sweetness of the incense; a rich, heady scent, filling the body and the mind.
‘As love, according to the Apostle, never ceases, so death does not sever the union of love between us and our departed brothers and sisters. They live in spirit with us, who remain on earth; we keep our memory of them alive in our hearts. We especially rekindle that memory on the days of their death, anniversaries on which we hurry to prayer, faith and love, to the most efficacious means by which to satisfy the demands of a heart burning with love, and to bring joy and ease to the souls of those who have moved away from us and into the world upon high.’
The assistant sprinkled water from a pointed silver vessel over Maria, the drops forming on her cheeks like tears. He then walked around the room dispensing the water over the rest of the mourners, and finally on Danilov, before returning to the side of the archpriest.
Inspector Danilov was far too much of a humanist to be a believer any more, but he recognised that his wife found great comfort in the Church. In the time after Ivan’s death, she had offered their son’s name to be commemorated in the liturgy and at the panikhida. She had ordered the performance of the sorokoust as soon as the death had occurred and followed it up by paying for the psalter to be read for the first forty days.
Danilov had gone along with this to help her with her grief, and even to help himself. But two years later, she was still grieving and he had never felt more alone. Their son’s death was commemorated during the second Saturday of the Great Fast, the third Saturday of the Great Fast, the fourth Saturday of the Great Fast, Radonitsa, the week before Pentecost Sunday, and the week before the commemoration of St Dimitri.
There was never a time when his death wasn’t being celebrated. It was as if he were still alive, a presence inserted between them because one was responsible for his absence.
The archpriest blessed the small congregation to end the ceremony. Each person then blew out the light to symbolise the transience of life. The room was dark and silent for a second before somebody opened the curtains and the grey light of a Shanghai winter crept in.
His daughter leant over to him and whispered, ‘You were late.’
‘I know: work, a murder.’
‘It’s Shanghai. There’s always work, there’s always murder.’
She moved away from him to rejoin her mother, who was talking to the priest and giving him alms for his trouble. Danilov eyed a second envelope being handed over. The priest was refusing it with elaborate courtesy.
‘No, I insist, Father, to help finish St Nicholas. We must have our own church in Shanghai.’
Finally the priest accepted the extra envelope, slipping it into a pocket stitched into the lining of his golden surplice.
Danilov’s wife still hadn’t spoken to him. He reached over to touch her shoulder. She moved away, into the kitchen, a few moments later bringing out some loaves of flat bread.
The priest raised his arms in blessing. ‘St Phanourios bread. We don’t see this often any more. Mrs Danilova, you are going to give it to the poor?’
‘Of course, Father.’
‘You know the story?’ Without waiting for her answer, he began speaking. ‘She was a harlot and a great sinner, but St Phanourios’s love for his mother caused him to pray for her incessantly. At the time of his martyr’s death by stoning, he could not forget his mother, and with the boldness peculiar to saints he cried: “For the sake of these my sufferings, Lord, help all those who will pray to Thee for the salvation of Phanourios’s sinful mother.”’
Danilov watched his wife’s face as she heard these words. Her head dropped and she closed her eyes.
The priest carried on regardless. ‘He was a true saint, was Phanourios, thinking of his mother even as he lay dying. Come, let us distribute the bread to the poor.’
Danilov’s wife lifted her head and drew back her shoulders. ‘Help me carry it, please. There are twelve loaves.’
‘One for each of the Apostles: how thoughtful, Mrs Danilova. Hurry along, help the lady, Dimitri, Mrs Danilova can’t carry the loaves on her own.’
The priest’s assistant and a few of the mourners helped her carry the loaves from the apartment. She didn’t look back at Danilov standing all alone beside the table staring at the picture of his son.
He felt a light tap on his shoulder. ‘We’re going out to eat. Do you want to join us?’ It was Elina, with Strachan standing beside her.
He shook his head. ‘I’ll stay and tidy up.’
‘Leave it, I can do it when I come back.’
He smiled. ‘You go off and feed the monster otherwise known as Strachan’s stomach. I don’t think he has eaten for at least five minutes.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure. And Strachan, please contact the owner of the building site. Tell him I want to meet him tomorrow morning.’
‘Mr Gu? After I’ve eaten, I’ll go back to the station and make the arrangements.’
‘We need to finish checking those missing persons files.’
‘Just two left, sir.’
‘By “we”, you mean David,’ said Elina.
‘No. By “we”, I meant Detective Sergeant Strachan. A young boy has been murdered and I’m afraid he won’t be the last.’
‘And what will you be doing, Father?’
Danilov looked at the picture of his son again.
‘What I do best. Thinking.’