Page 76 of The Unseen
Valentina shook her head in annoyance. She had to focus, not speculate about Dmitri’s secret life. The laudanum was at work, but Dmitri was a big man, and the dose, diluted by the cognac, might begin to wear off sooner rather than later. It was time to act.
Dmitri’s legs were stretched out, crossed at the ankles, his elegant feet rising above the water, since the tub wasn’t long enough to accommodate him. Most people would have bent their legs at the knees, but he hadn’t. Perhaps this would make it easier for her to do what had to be done. Valentina grabbed Dmitri by the ankles and pulled upward as hard as she could. His upper body jerked as he began to slide beneath the water. It took only a few seconds for his head to dip below the surface. Dmitri’s hair floated around his head, moving gently like seaweed in the ocean. It was an unsettling sight.
Valentina let out a frightened squeak and nearly let go of his ankles when Dmitri’s eyes flew open. They appeared larger than normal, magnified by the water, and his brown stare was blank with confusion and then dawning panic. He began to struggle, trying to grab the sides of the tub, but his hands were wet and couldn’t get a firm hold on the smooth porcelain. Valentina’s arms trembled with effort as Dmitri thrashed, but his senses were dulled by the laudanum and his reflexes too slow. Air bubbles rushed to the surface in furious succession as Dmitri’s mouth opened in a silent scream. He fought to get his head above the water, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t break the surface to gulp a lifesaving breath of air. He almost managed to yank his slippery ankles from Valentina’s grasp, but she held on for dear life, knowing that if he survived, all was lost.
Dmitri flapped like a landed fish deprived of oxygen, his eyes growing huge with terror as soapy water filled his lungs. Water splashed over the sides of the tub and pooled on the tiled floor, but thankfully, the spot where Valentina stood remained dry, allowing her to put all her weight on her feet without losingpurchase as she continued to grasp Dmitri’s ankles. It felt like an hour had elapsed since she’d entered the bathroom, but it had probably been no more than ten minutes.
Eventually, Dmitri stopped struggling and went quiet and still. His eyes were still open, but they stared straight up at the white-painted ceiling, and his arms dropped to his sides, the hands relaxing once they stopped clawing at the tub.
Valentina held on for another few minutes, terrified that Dmitri would somehow rally and rise from the tub like some otherworldly leviathan, very much alive and intent on punishing her for what she’d tried to do. At last, she let go of his ankles and rested her hands on the rim of the tub, desperate for support. She was trembling and the muscles in her arms and legs ached and throbbed, unaccustomed to such strain. She gulped in mouthfuls of air until her heart rate began to slow down and the queasiness that made her stomach feel as if it had been turned inside out finally passed.
Valentina eventually relinquished her grip on the tub and inched toward Dmitri’s torso. He looked like some mythical merman as his hair continued to float around his head. Valentina gingerly reached into the tub and grabbed hold of his wrist. There was no pulse, no sign of life. He was gone, really and truly gone.
She sank to the floor and leaned her forehead against the cold porcelain of the tub. Her skirt and stockings soaked up the water that had spilled to the floor, but she hardly noticed. Now that the deed was done, she felt as if every ounce of energy had seeped from her body. A crushing heaviness settled on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She wished she could have some cognac to fortify her but remembered that it was laced with laudanum. A glass of water would have been nice, but fetching one would require getting to her feet and she simply couldn’t find the strength to rise.
She’d thought once Dmitri was dead she’d feel a sense of euphoria. She’d be free of him at last, but the only thing Valentina felt was an overwhelming dread that seeped into her bones alongwith the damp from the cooling water. Initially, she’d planned to tell the authorities that Dmitri’s death was an accident. Surely a person could drown in the bath if they were intoxicated, but in order to report the death to the police she’d have to erase any trace of laudanum and signs of struggle. She wasn’t well versed in British law, but she knew that in cases of suspicious death, an inquest was held, and sometimes there was a postmortem. Dmitri had read to them from the paper when there was an interesting case a few months back. Ground glass had been discovered in the stomach of the victim, who’d bled to death internally, compliments of his long-suffering wife. The woman was hanged.
If a postmortem were performed, would traces of laudanum be discovered? How long did it remain in the body? No one in their right mind would take laudanum before a bath, especially a person who didn’t use it on a regular basis. Dmitri had been in good health, anyone would attest to that, especially his doctor, who’d prescribed the laudanum for Elena’s nerves and would know exactly where it’d come from. Perhaps the authorities would even uncover signs of a struggle. To Valentina, the only thing out of place was the spilled bathwater, but an experienced policeman might notice something that wasn’t obvious to her. What could she do to hide her crime?
She looked around wildly. Her body had been nearly inert a few moments ago but now once again thrummed with tension. There was no way she could dispose of Dmitri’s body. He was too heavy, and even if she managed to get him out of the house, which was a very big if, what then? She could hardly bury him in the back garden. The motorcar was parked in front of the house, but she didn’t know how to drive, and dragging a grown man’s body from the house to the car would surely attract attention, even in the middle of the night. Besides, where would she take him if she could figure out how to drive? Dump him in the Thames and watch him get carried away by the current?Corpses float, she thought grimly. His body would be discovered and an inquest would still be held. She’d be implicated one way or another, having been the last person to see him alive. No, the body had to remain in the house, at least for now.
She had to stop panicking and think. What she did in the next few minutes could mean the difference between life and death for her. Valentina used all her resolve to pull herself up off the floor and began to wipe the wet floor with the towels so the moisture wouldn’t seep between the tiles and stain the ceiling of the room below.
At least she didn’t have to worry about Mrs. Stern, who would have discovered Dmitri’s corpse as soon as she arrived in the morning and came up to bring him his cup of tea. The new housekeeper wasn’t due to start for two days, so no one would enter Dmitri’s room until then.
Valentina finished cleaning the floor, hung up the towels on hooks, and let herself out of the bathroom, locking the bedroom door with Mrs. Stern’s keys. She retreated to her bedroom, stripped off her wet garments and hung them up on the back of a chair. They’d be dry by morning. She then changed into her nightgown, sat on her bed, and wrapped her arms about her legs, resting her chin on her knees. She was exhausted but wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. She had to come up with a plan.
Tomorrow morning, her mother and Tanya would assume that Dmitri had left for his trip just as he’d said he would. But what would happen when he didn’t show up at the factory? Would someone ring to inquire about his absence? Would they involve the police? They’d find him in a matter of minutes if they came to the house, and then Valentina’s life would be forfeit. She’d hang. She began to tremble violently, her teeth chattering with fear. She didn’t want to die. She wasn’t a cold-blooded murderess; she was a young woman who’d been pushed past the point of endurance.
Prisons are full of people who’ve been pushed past the point of endurance, her mind replied.They are called murderers. And even if by some miracle the authorities believed Dmitri’s death had been an accident, what then? How would her family live? How would they support themselves in the days to come? They had no claim on his fortune, no claim to the house. They’d have to leave, move to the cheapest lodgings they could find, pull Kolya out of school, and find work. In the end, she might end uphaving to sell her body just to survive. Now that the men had returned from the front, they wanted their jobs back. The demand for female labor had dropped, and the only type of work women could find was laundering, cleaning, sewing, or minding children. No respectable English family would hire her to mind their children. People were wary of foreigners, especially ones without references of past employment. Why hire an immigrant with nothing to recommend her when they could find a good, respectable Englishwoman?
And what would happen to Dmitri’s estate? Whom would it go to? He’d mentioned making Kolya his heir, but she had no idea if he’d ever made out a will or changed an existing one. As far as Valentina knew, Dmitri had no living family except for the Kalinins, but that didn’t mean his property would automatically revert to them. Dmitri kept a tidy sum in the safe, along with Valentina’s jewels, but she didn’t know the combination, so they would be starting out with nothing, not even the items that lawfully belonged to her.
Valentina angrily wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. What was the use in crying? She should have thought this through. She should have asked herself all these questions ahead of time. She’d acted on impulse, terrified she’d be too late to save Tanya, and possibly herself. She could still find her way back to some sort of respectability, given the chance, but a few more years of prostitution and she’d be nothing more than an empty husk, used up and broken, her self-respect and self-worth permanently eradicated. She’d been drowning and grabbed onto the first bit of flotsam she could see, not realizing that this chunk of wood might carry her further out to sea.
The clock in the corridor struck midnight. In approximately six hours, the sun would rise on a new day, and it’d be too late to do anything. She had to decide what to do. She could either summon the authorities in the morning and claim the drowning had been an accident, or come up with a plan that would ensure her freedom and some sort of financial restitution for what Dmitri had done. He owed her that much. Valentina pushed her palms into hereyes. She was so tired. She wished she could go to sleep and never wake up. It’d be easier for everyone. Well, not her mother, sister, and brother. They’d be lost without her. Elena was useless at making any sort of decisions or earning a living, Tanya was young and unskilled, and Kolya was just a child.
Valentina’s gaze fell on her bedside table.The Woman in Whitewas there, a bookmark sticking out of one of the last chapters of the book. She’d almost finished it. It had been an amazing story, a fantastical one, but what an imagination the author had. She had the utmost respect for him. This wasn’t a tale of a woman throwing herself under a train; this was a story of good triumphing over evil, of determination and faith righting a wrong.
“Dear God,” Valentina breathed. “That’s it.” The answer was right there in front of her. One of the characters in the book, Sir Percival Glyde, had tampered with the parish register to record a marriage that had never taken place, therefore erasing his bastard status and legitimizing his claim to the baronetcy and his father’s estate. He’d managed to get away with it too, for many years, until his secret was discovered by someone driven by love and a desire for justice.
Valentina sat up and bit her lip as she considered this idea. How difficult would it be to add a line to the church register? Would anyone notice? Father Mikhail was new to the Church of St. Sophia, having replaced Father Khariton, who’d died of pneumonia six weeks ago. He’d just assume the marriage had been performed by the old priest and have no reason to suspect foul play unless someone specifically questioned it. But would they, and how difficult would it be to tamper with the register? In a bigger church, the register would most likely be kept locked in the vestry, but St. Sophia was small, having until 1917 served a much smaller community, and the register was displayed in full view of the congregation.
There likely wouldn’t be any empty spaces between entries, but at the bottom of a page there was bound to be room. The trick was not to add the false marriage to the current page, so as not to draw attention to it. All she’d need was a few minutes alone in thechurch, which shouldn’t be too difficult to orchestrate given that the female parishioners of St. Sophia loved to gossip. It was practically a Russian national pastime, and no one escaped their notice. Valentina rarely paid attention and chose to exchange a few words with Stanislav after the service, but she knew the goings on at the church through Elena, who liked to keep abreast of everything that went on in their small community.
Unlike Father Khariton, who’d been elderly and kept the church open only during certain hours, Father Mikhail was in attendance from eight in the morning till eight at night, locking the doors only when he left for the day to protect the priceless icons and solid gold cross that graced the altar. He made himself available to his parishioners, whether they simply wanted to come in and pray, ask for guidance, or unburden themselves. The only time Father Mikhail left the church was when he went out to visit the sick or to perform a graveside funeral service. The church grounds weren’t very extensive, so the parishioners who died were buried in a small Orthodox cemetery on the outskirts of London.
On the occasions when Father Mikhail left the church, an elderly caretaker called Kirill looked after the building, but he rarely remained inside. He tended the patch of garden around the church, swept the walkway, or enjoyed a cup of tea while sitting on a bench outside. Kirill’s wife cleaned the church every Saturday morning. All Valentina had to do was wait for the next funeral, which would be held in three days’ time, on Wednesday. At the Sunday service, Father Mikhail had prayed for the soul of Agraphena Petrovna, who had died just that morning. He’d recited the firstPanikhida, which he’d also said over the body of the deceased at her bedside. The body would be laid out on the dining table, covered in a shroud with its head positioned beneath the icon corner for three days, until the funeral. Valentina wouldn’t go to the house to pay her respects, but no one would think it strange if she attended the church service.
Valentina sighed loudly and propped up her chin with her hand, deep in thought. She still had to decide what to do about Dmitri’s body. Leaving things as they were was too dangerous,even for one day. Someone might call from the factory when Dmitri failed to arrive, or even initiate a missing person’s report with the police, which could bring someone to their door as soon as tomorrow. And the new housekeeper would be starting in a few days. She would ask for the household keys and go into every room, including Dmitri’s bedroom. Valentina couldn’t take the chance of her walking into the bathroom and coming face-to-face with a bloated corpse.
Valentina jumped off the bed and tiptoed outside. She had to ensure the body would never be found, and there was only one way to do that. She had to make sure no one ever set foot in Dmitri’s private bathroom. The only people who’d ever gone into Dmitri’s bedroom were Mrs. Stern and Rachel, but they were long gone. The new housekeeper had yet to familiarize herself with the house, so if she never learned of the bathroom, she’d never think to ask about it. There was another, larger bath just down the corridor from Valentina’s room, and the housekeeper would simply assume that Dmitri had used that bathroom.
The only real problem would be the smell, and Valentina had a notion of how to deal with that. Alexei had been mad for military history and often shared what he’d learned with her, going on and on in his excitement and failing to notice her eyes glaze over with terminal boredom. She’d hated hearing about famous battles and military strategy but tried to feign interest for Alexei’s sake. After all, he’d often listened to her prattle on about the ballet. Valentina thought it magical, while Alexei simply couldn’t comprehend the point of telling a story without the use of words. Spending several hours sitting still while men in tights performed unnatural jumps and women in tutus flapped their arms and grimaced to convey emotion had been the stuff of nightmares for poor Alexei. He’d said that even the opera was better, since someone usually died at the end, if after a very long aria, and there were better costumes.
Valentina must have absorbed something of what Alexei talked about because she recalled that lye was often used in mass graves to accelerate decomposition and prevent the spread ofinfection. There was lye in the kitchen. Mrs. Stern had used it to make soap, dissolve grease, and even in certain recipes, but only in miniscule quantities. Valentina wasn’t sure how much lye was required, but she’d use all of it.
She fetched the tub of lye from the kitchen, along with an oilcloth and a ball of string, and took them upstairs to Dmitri’s bedroom. It took all her resolve to unlock the door and face what she’d done, but it was too late to be squeamish or suffer pangs of remorse. She set the tub of lye on the floor and, hands on hips, stared at Dmitri’s remains. Mrs. Stern had mixed the lye with water, but it would probably be more effective in concentrated form. Valentina pulled the plug and allowed the water to drain out of the tub. She then folded Dmitri’s legs, grateful that they weren’t yet stiff with rigor mortis, and pushed them into the tub. She opened the container of lye and liberally spread the contents over the body, making sure to douse every part. She then used the oilcloth to cover the tub completely and wound a length of string around, securing it down firmly, so that no odors would escape. If any liquids oozed out of the body during decomposition, they’d simply drain away.
