Page 64 of Last Violent Call
“I’m staring out into the great unknown to ponder.”
“What have you been pondering?”
Marshall pivoted quickly on his heel. It seemed he was ready to share his revelations. “Come look.”
He flopped onto the bed, flipping open 1932’s issue to the pharmaceuticals section, where they had found Popov’s business listed. Then, slowing slightly, Marshall turned a few more pages into another section of listings, for chemists.
“My eye caught on this earlier by complete accident. Call it divine intervention. Or maybe merely my mind operating on a subconscious level, snagging on what it already finds familiar.”
Benedikt leaned closer. He had no idea what Marshall was talking about at first. It looked like any old page, a scramble of words and phone numbers and addresses. Then he caught sight of the listing in the corner, giving an address in Moscow and an alternate address in Vladivostok for inquiries regarding the second location, and recognized what he was looking at.
“This is… our final destination,” he said slowly. Uncomprehendingly. “This is Lourens’s address. The one that Roma gave us.”
“And yet it is listed as the private practice of someone named Egor Gleb,” Marshall said, tapping the information. “Which, might I add, is the falsest name I have ever heard. Now hold on, it gets more bizarre.”
Marshall set aside the 1932 directory. He picked up 1931, keeping the previous book open to the same page. “I figured I might do some cross-referencing. It’s a bit hard to go looking for the sameaddressin the other books because the pages change around. But since directories are listed byname, I went looking for Egor Gleb in every section. He’s a chemist in 1931. And in 1930. Same information in 1929.” One after the other, Marshall flipped each book open, finding the entries on different pages. “But 1928…” Marshall opened the final book. “I didn’t find an Egor Gleb registered under chemists. I flipped over to the previous section, wanting to see if Popov’s Pharmacy was gone that year too.”
Benedikt peered at the page that Marshall had stopped on. “Was it?”
“Yes.” Marshall pointed at one of the entries. “But Egorishere. Under pharmaceuticals instead as a private practice. And his Moscow address is the same as the other years, but”—he thumped the newest directory over its edition from five years ago, putting the pages side by side—“if Egor Gleb is the Lourens Van Dijk we know, then in 1928 his Vladivostok address was Popov’s present-day place of work.”
None of this made any sense. In investigating the other passengers on board, they had been trying to find some sort of connection between a suspect and the deceased. Instead, it turned out the ones with some sort of connection to the deceased… were Benedikt and Marshall.
“Do we tell Vodin about this?” Benedikt scratched his wrist. Then his arms, every inch of skin prickling with an unnerving sensation.
“What would we say?” Marshall asked. “?‘Surprise, officer. If you find any evidence that Lourens has been in contact with us this past year, we’re the ones most likely to be the killer’?”
Marshall was right. There was no comprehensible way that this discovery slotted into their investigation. It only sent everything into a bizarre tailspin.
“Then let’s forget it,” Benedikt decided firmly. He closed all the directories, one after the other. “Pack your bag. We want to move fast once we stop in Irkutsk. We could still find Lourens in time.”
Marshall nodded in agreement. While he turned to gather up his clothes and tidy the various items he had flung around the compartment, Benedikt decided to take the directories back into the dining carriage. They were too heavy to carry more than three at a time, so after he put the first three away, he came back for a second trip.
Just as he was holding the remaining two in his arms and pushing out from the compartment again, he rammed into someone in the passageway, making a flurry of motions before narrowly regaining his balance.
The two directories scattered to the floor. As did Benedikt’s wristwatch. The poor combatant whom he had struck wasn’t as fortunate as he was to remain upright and had sprawled onto the carpet.
“My deepest apologies,” Benedikt managed, hurrying forward to give Yeva Mikhailovna a hand up. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Oh, no, no,” Yeva hurried to assure him. She nudged a lock of blond hair out of her eyes. Unlike all the other times he had seen her around the train, her hair was curly today, falling down her back. The sight sent a vague feeling of recognition through Benedikt, though he couldn’t place why. It reminded him of someone, but when he tried to identify whom or make sense of where the similarity was coming from, his mind tried to correct him with the usual image of Yeva with her straight hair brushed back.
“I have a habit of ducking my head when I walk,” Yeva went on. She looked as if she had just woken up, her necklace dangling over a collar that was nearly fraying into loose threads. “It’s a direct contributor to how often I slam into people.”
“Nevertheless”—Benedikt got her to her feet—“do accept my apologies.”
“Accepted and forgiven. Let me help you with that.”
Just as Benedikt was bending down to retrieve the two directories, Yeva picked up his wristwatch. He didn’t realize that she was holding it until he had the directories settled in his arms and straightened up again, but by then his hands were too full to do anything except let Yeva turn his watch over curiously.
Benedikt’s heart dropped to his stomach. She was staring at the engraving carved into the back of the watch face.
????????
“?‘Montagov,’?” she read aloud. Immediate confusion crossed into her expression. Before Benedikt could hope that she didn’t recognize the name, she was already asking, “Like the ones in Shanghai?”
“I have never heard of them,” Benedikt lied immediately. He hoped his face wasn’t twitching. “I got that watch from a street vendor. In Moscow.”
Yeva was quiet for a moment, still staring at the engraving. There was no reason to suspect otherwise, right? Nothing that would give away the truth and reveal the watch as an old heirloom in actuality.
