Page 43 of Last Violent Call
“Ben, someone might need help—”
“Well, does ithaveto be you—”
“Ben!”
“All right, all right—”
Then Benedikt surged forward, back the way they had come, pushing past the door and returning to the soft-class carriage.
“Hey!” Marshall called after him. He remained still for a moment, thrown off by the switch in roles, before hurrying through the door too. Why was Benedikt like this? “I didn’t mean you should gowithoutme—”
As soon as his shoes skidded against the carpet of the carriage,Marshall almost slammed right into his husband. He reached out quickly, grabbing Benedikt’s shoulders to steady himself. Before he could ask why Benedikt had stopped, he saw the provodnitsa outside Danila Andreyevich Popov’s room. She was heaving to fill her lungs. It didn’t take much to conclude that she had been the one screaming, since her face was as pale as a sheet of ice. Marshall wanted to believe that she had simply seen something unsavory—perhaps the room was too messy, perhaps there was a rodent that had chewed its way into the compartments. But the knees of her trousers were covered in blood, as was one of her hands, coated up to the wrist.
“He’s dead!” she cried. “There’s a murderer on board!”
3
Without missing a beat, Benedikt lunged past the provodnitsa and barged into the room. He hardly considered that he wasn’t supposed to be present at the scene, nor did he care much if in a minute or so there would be someone coming around to yell at him. The provodnitsa had seen him approach. It was evident that he had newly shown up and had nothing to do with the crime. There was no problem, surely, with him taking a look.
“Oh dear.”
Marshall had followed him in, his voice sounding over Benedikt’s shoulder. The man was prone on the floor. It was rather hard to tell that he was surrounded by blood because of the dark carpet, which explained why the provodnitsa’s knees had been bloodied. She must have knelt to check on him before realizing what had happened.
The puddle, Benedikt realized upon scanning the carpet closely, was rather large too. Where was the wound? A gunshot to the chest? A blow to the head?
He crept forward a fraction. Although the dead body was facedown with its stomach pressed to the floor, the head was tilted ever so slightly toward the window at the other side of the room. As if something was preventing it from following the direction of the rest of the body.
Benedikt hovered over the dead man, trying to see onto his far side.He caught sight of an object lodged in his throat.Ah.That explained the amount of blood.
“Whatisthat?” Marshall asked.
“It looks like a fountain pen,” Benedikt answered. He signaled for the provodnitsa, who was trembling in the passageway. “Did you find him like this?”
The provodnitsa nodded. She swallowed hard, having gotten all the screaming out of her system. “I… I wanted to check up on him.” With the back of her arm, to avoid dirtying her face with the blood on her hands, she pushed a strand of disheveled gray hair out of her eyes. “I knocked briefly a few minutes ago, but there was no answer. When I finished making my rounds in the rest of the carriage, I simply let myself in. It is customary, in case the passenger is too busy to open their door.”
“Make way! Make way!”
There was a sudden whistle in the passageway, then a uniformed man bustling into the compartment and scrunching his nose at the sight. Other curious passengers had shuffled close, and the train officer gestured quickly for everyone to vacate. He could barely be heard past all the horrified whispers; suddenly half the train’s soft-class passengers were clustered in the passageway to gawk at the body, rising onto the tips of their toes and getting close to the provodnitsa.
“Please step out and make some space!” the officer bellowed. He waved vigorously at the two attendants hovering in the passageway at the back of the crowd. “Someone get Mrs. Kuzmina a towel so she doesn’t have to stand here covered with blood.”
The attendants hurried to the front of the crowd. As Benedikt followed Marshall out of the compartment, shooed from the scene, he kept his attention on what was unfolding. While the other passengers started to shift away, grimacing at the thought of watching the body get carried out past them, he grabbed Marshall’s elbow and promptedhim to hold still, listening to the rest of the conversation.
“What can we do, Mr. Vodin?” one of the attendants said nervously. “Shouldn’t… shouldn’t we leave it in place until the police can come?”
Vodin, the officer, had propped his hands on his hips. He was a large, burly man, with a thick mustache curling at his upper lip.
“Hmm,” he said. “I suppose you are correct. Leave the body in place. Clear the crowd outside and escort these onlookers away. We will halt the train at the next stop.”
“They can’t,” Marshall hissed suddenly, his words meant only for Benedikt. “A delay like that will throw us off schedule.”
“Yes, but someone just got murdered,” Benedikt replied. He grimaced. “What are they going to do,notsummon the police?”
“Ben.” Marshall’s grip tightened on his elbow. “Roma was very clear. We have someone’slifedepending on us.”
“But what canwedo?Becomethe police?”
Marshall’s expression brightened. As soon as he released Benedikt’s elbow and hurried back into the room, Benedikt cursed under his breath, because he knew Marshall had probably just gotten a terrible idea.
