Free The Cleansing Flames by R. N. Morris

Virginsky.
    Porfiry handed the letter over to the younger magistrate. ‘It appears to be. The letter bears yesterday’s date. It was written and sent before the newspapers appeared. I think we may have found our mysterious onlooker.’
    ‘He is a journalist, or so he claims. Perhaps he learnt about the incident professionally?’
    ‘He mentions the number of sailors, which I do not believe was given in the information we released to the newspapers.’
    ‘That’s true,’ conceded Virginsky. ‘So you will go to meet him?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Alone?’
    ‘Is that not what he requests?’
    Virginsky frowned. ‘Do you have any idea who he is? He claims to know you.’
    ‘I hope I shall find out soon enough,’ said Porfiry.
    *
    He saw the padlocked chains from a distance. Both of the high, elaborate gates in the northern fence were secured. It should not have surprised him but it did. The Summer Garden was, of course, closed. It was that time in late April when visitors were kept from the park in order to allow the ground to recover from the thaw. Had his anonymous correspondent forgotten this? Possibly, though the letter had not explicitly said that they should meet inside the park, merely ‘near the northern entrance’.
    Porfiry approached the railing with a sinking heart. He had been looking forward to a stroll along the tree-lined avenues and had purposely arrived with a few moments to spare. The pink granite of the columns in which the gates were set seemed flushed by the glow of spring. The sun also sparkled in the golden embellishments to the wrought iron, almost compensating him for his exclusion. He peered through two vertical bars. The paths were indeed sodden, justifying the temporary closure. The grey wooden boards that protected the statues from the winter frost had already been removed, though the statues were still swathed in white sheets. There was something unmistakably eerie about the rows of enshrouded figures on podiums. They seemed to hold the potential for movement, as if they were simply waiting for the wrappings to be taken off, before springing to life. Porfiry must have been in a morbid frame of mind, for he added the thought: And wreaking havoc . It was not clear to him why the latent beings beneath the sheets should choose havoc-wreaking above any more harmless activity.
    Checking his fob-watch, he saw that he was early for his appointment. He did not wish to draw attention to himself by loitering, so he decided to walk a circuit of the perimeter, striking off in the direction of the Summer Palace. The proximity of that modest palace, little more than a large house in fact, reminded him that he was very close to the spot where, almost exactly six years ago, Dmitry Karakozov had made his attempt on the Tsar’s life.
    He wondered whether this momentous event had played a part in his correspondent’s choice of meeting place, consciously or otherwise.
    Porfiry thought back to the trial of Raskolnikov, without doubt the murderous student referred to in the anonymous letter. The courtroom had been crowded with the gentlemen of the press, scrutinising his every word and even gesture. That was to be expected: Raskolnikov’s crime, sensational enough in itself, had been interpreted as having a wider significance. It had been seen as a symptom of the nihilistic disease that was corrupting the younger generation at the time, and that had, if anything, become more virulent in the years since. Karakozov’s assassination attempt had been made the following year. How the state dealt with Raskolnikov was to be seen as a litmus test for how it would deal with all its malcontent young men. Too much leniency would provoke the reactionaries; excessive severity would incite the radicals.
    As always in Russia, a matter of justice had become a political battleground: Porfiry had found himself caught in the middle.
    He tried to picture the journalists’ faces. Had there been one among them whom he could