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First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Collins Crime
Copyright © Michael Pearce 1997
Michael Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008259358
Ebook Edition © MARCH 2013 ISBN: 9780007483082
Version: 2017-09-12
Contents
Dmitri Kameron, Examining Magistrate, was walking along the corridor of the Court House when a woman came out of a door ahead of him.
‘Help me, please!’ she said.
Dmitri, a sympathetic young man fresh from law school and therefore lacking the consciousness of his dignity seen in the provinces as proper to his post, paused politely.
The girl was fair and well spoken; a bit above the run of women usually seen in Kursk, never mind the Court House, and Dmitri was impressed.
Later, he came to think he had been intended to be.
‘Could you take me to the yard, please? I need some air.’
‘Of course!’
He offered her his arm. Things, thought Dmitri, were improving.
‘I felt faint,’ she said.
‘Oh, it’s stifling in the Courtroom. They haven’t caught up with the fact that it’s spring yet. The heating’s still going full blast. And then, of course, there are so many people.’
‘I felt faint,’ she said again.
‘A breath of fresh air will put you right!’
But would she find it in the yard? There would be horse-shit everywhere, prisoners coming and going who, after long confinement, smelled worse than the horse-shit, the rank tobacco of the guards, and the dubious smell that came from the open drains. He had been meaning to speak about that to someone ever since he came, but the rooms used by the lawyers were at the front of the building and it was easy to forget what went on at the rear.
He stopped abruptly.
‘I wonder – might it not be better if we went out by the front door? The air would be fresher. We could go for a walk in the park.’
And sod the case he was working on! They’d called the interval hadn’t they? Well, they’d just have to wait.
‘No, no, please! The yard!’
‘Are you sure? I could – ’
‘Quite sure.’
She walked determinedly on.
In the yard it was as bad as he had feared. The carts had come for another convoy and their heavy wooden wheels had churned the usual mud of the yard to a deep bog into which the horses sank up to their fetlocks. The drivers were finding it impossible to turn the carts and everywhere men were shouting and swearing and there was a continuous spray of mud.
‘Honestly – ’ Dmitri began.
‘I’ll be all right. Really!’
He looked around for somewhere she could stand.
‘This will be all right. Truly! But could you fetch me some water, please?’
He left her standing in the doorway while he went to find the water. There was a well in the yard, but he certainly was not going to wade across to that. He tried some of the rooms nearby and did indeed find a pail of water which might have been intended for drinking. But he couldn’t find a cup and had doubts about the water anyway, so went on further. In the end he had to go all the way back to the lawyers’ chambers at the front of the building before he could find a respectable cup and some trustable water.
When he came back he found her gone. It had taken him some time