A Vengeful Longing by R. N. Morris

broke off his pacing once more. He stood with his back to Meyer.’Who is Bezmygin?’ Porfiry angled his head as he awaited Meyer’s answer.
     
    ‘A musician.’
     
    ‘And what does Bezmygin the musician have to do with all this?’
     
    ‘Why it’s obvious, isn’t it?’
     
    Porfiry turned and transmitted a blank look to Meyer.
     
    ‘He put the man up to it.’
     
    ‘You will have to help me here. I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why would he do that?’
     
    ‘He was in love with Raisa. They played duets together. He even came to visit her sometimes when I was not there. I caught them together once. They denied any impropriety, of course. They were rehearsing for a concert. Ha! But why would he be at the house of a married woman when her husband was absent if not for immoral purposes? I made her break with him completely. In point of fact, she was happy enough to do so. She did not love him. It was all on his side. My wife . . . well, my wife is easily influenced. She is weak. He is a flashy gewgaw of a man. She was a woman. It was only natural that there would be some degree of infatuation. But love? No. Never. But this man, this Bezmygin, he is a vain, arrogant man. You have no idea. He didn’t take it well. I believe he has done all this to get even with her, with me. To destroy us. Do you not see?’
     
    ‘We will naturally want to talk to this Bezmygin,’ said Porfiry, beginning to pace once more. ‘Do you know where we might find him?’
     
    ‘He plays in the private orchestra of Count Akhmatov. I believe he is at the count’s dacha near Petergof. He is little more than a serf. A performing lackey!’
     
    ‘But why would he wish to kill your son?’
     
    ‘He hated Grigory. To him, Grigory was always in the way. He could never be alone with my wife, you see.’
     
    Porfiry stopped pacing to light a cigarette while he considered what Meyer had said. The doctor looked from Porfiry to Virginsky with desperate expectancy, trying to gauge on which of these two magistrates to focus his appeal. Virginsky’s expression held more promise of sympathy, but he too watched Porfiry in some expectation. Everything, clearly, hung on what the older magistrate decided. For the moment, however, Porfiry seemed interested only in absorbing and enjoying the smoke from his cigarette. His face gave nothing away. At last he nodded, decisively, and said, ‘We will look into it.’ Finally, he took the seat next to Virginsky. ‘At the dacha we found a number of sheets of paper covered in close, neat handwriting, apparently passages copied from the newspapers. All of them seem to be sensationalised accounts of murders or suicides. Rather singular, I think you will agree. Extraordinary, one might almost say. Dr Meyer, do you have any idea who made these copies?’
     
    ‘Grigory. It was something he did.’
     
    ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, it seems rather a strange hobby for a boy to have.’
     
    ‘It was not a hobby. It was a compulsion. Grigory . . . was not ... he faced particular difficulties.’
     
    ‘How would you characterise these difficulties, speaking as a doctor?’
     
    ‘As a doctor?’ Meyer seemed surprised by this acknowledgement of his profession. ‘As a doctor, I would characterise them as imbecilic.’
     
    ‘And as a father?’
     
    Meyer said nothing. Anguish writhed on his face.
     
    ‘He must have been a disappointment to you,’ pressed Porfiry softly, grinding his cigarette out into the tin ashtray on the table.
     
    Meyer flashed the briefest, and rawest, of looks at him. ‘He was my son.’
     
    ‘And yet . . . not the son you had hoped for.’ Porfiry put this as a statement. ‘No one would blame you for feeling this way.’
     
    ‘I tried to help him, to break these habits. If only we could have ruptured the pattern of compulsion, we might have made progress.’
     
    ‘But it was hopeless? He did not respond to your treatment.’
     
    ‘Raisa Ivanovna would not