Special Assignments Read online

  Special Assignments

  Series: Fandorin [5]

  Published: 2008

  Tags: Action, Adventure

  Actionttt Adventurettt

  * * *

  SUMMARY:

  InSpecial Assignments, Erast Fandorin, nineteenth-century Russia's suavest sleuth, faces two formidable new foes: One steals outrageous sums of money, the other takes lives. "The Jack of Spades" is a civilized swindler who has conned thousands of rubles from Moscow's residentsincluding Fandorin's own boss, Prince Dolgorukoi. To catch him, Fandorin and his new assistant, timid young policeman Anisii Tulipov, must don almost as many disguises as the grifter does himself. "The Decorator" is a different case altogether: A savage serial killer who believes he "cleans" the women he mutilates and takes his orders from on high, he must be given Fandorin's most serious attentions. Peopled by a rich cast of eccentric characters, and with plots that are as surprising as they are inventive,Special Assignmentswill delight Akunin's many fans, while challenging the gentleman sleuth's brilliant powers of detection. Praise from England: "Boris Akunin's wit and invention are a source of constant wonder." Evening Standard "[Fandorin is] a debonair combo of Sherlock Holmes, D'Artagnan and most of the soulful heroes of Russian literature. . . . This pair of perfectly balanced stories permit the character of Fandorin to grow." The Sunday Telegraph "Agatha Christie meets James Bond: [Akunin's] plots are intricate and tantalizing. . . . [These stories] are unputdownable and great fun." Sunday Express "The beguiling, super-brainy, sexy, unpredictable Fandorin is a creation like no other in crime fiction." The Times

  Praise for Boris Akunin

  'Whether in skittish or sombre mood, Akunin is immensely readable (and excellently translated by Andrew Bromfield); the beguiling, super-brainy, sexy, unpredictable Fandorin is a creation like no other in crime fiction' The Times

  'Fandorin [is] a debonair combo of Sherlock Holmes, D'Artagnan and most of the soulful heroes of Russian literature . . . Andrew Bromfield's translation is key to maintaining the entertaining period pastiche . . . Fandorin is very much a figure from the time of his creation: an all-knowing yet taciturn functionary with a past in espionage and a love of Japanese martial arts working in a Russia beset by internal division' Sunday Telegraph

  'This . . . demonstrates Akunin's underlying seriousness of purpose in writing the Fandorin novels, whose clever devices and mischievous tricks disguise a determination to strip bare the extremes of human behaviour' Sunday Times

  'Intricate, incredible, pleasurable' Literary Review

  'A double treat for fans' Time Out

  An excellent read' Guardian

  'The perfect Sunday afternoon read'

  Scotland on Sunday

  Boris Akunin is the pseudonym of Grigory Chkhartishvili. He has been compared to Gogol, Tolstoy and Arthur Conan Doyle, and his Erast Fandorin books have sold over eighteen million copies in Russia alone. He lives in Moscow.

  By Boris Akunin

  FEATURING ERAST FANDORIN

  Special Assignments

  The Death of Achilles

  Turkish Gambit

  Murder on the Leviathan

  The Winter Queen

  FEATURING SISTER PELAGIA

  Pelagia and the Black Monk

  Pelagia and the White Bulldog

  SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS

  The Further Adventures of Erast Fandorin

  BORIS AKUNIN

  Translated by Andrew Bromfield

  A PHOENIX PAPERBACK

  First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson This paperback edition published in 2007 by Phoenix, an imprint of Orion Books Ltd, Orion House, 5 Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9EA An Hachette Livre UK company

  First published in Russian as Osobye Porucheniya: Pikoviy Valet, Dekorator by Zakharov Publishers, Moscow, Russia and Edizioni Frassinelli, Milan, Italy. All rights reserved.

  Published by arrangement with Linda Michaels Limited, International Literary Agents.

  13579 10 8642

  Copyright © Boris Akunin 1999 Translation © Andrew Bromfield 2006

  The right of Boris Akunin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The right of Andrew Bromfield to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-0-7538-2348-4

  Typeset by Input Data Services Ltd, Frome

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  The Orion Publishing Group's policy is to use papers that

  are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  www.orionbooks.co.uk

  THE JACK OF SPADES

  CHAPTER I

  The Jack of Spades Oversteps the Mark

  No one in the whole wide world was more miserable than Anisii Tulipov. Well, perhaps someone somewhere in darkest Africa or Patagonia, but certainly not anywhere nearer than that.

  Judge for yourself. In the first place, that forename - Anisii. Have you ever heard of a nobleman, a gentleman of the bedchamber, say, or at the very least, the head of some official department, being called Anisii? It simply reeks of icon-lamps and priests' offspring with their hair slicked with nettle oil.

  And that surname, from the word 'tulip'! It was simply a joke. He had inherited the ill-starred family title from his great-grandfather. When Anisii's forebear had been studying in the seminary, the father rector had had the bright idea of replacing the inharmonious surnames of the future servants of the Church with names more pleasing to God. For the sake of simplicity and convenience, one year he had named all the seminarians after Church holidays, another year after fruits, and great-grandfather had found himself in the year of the flowers: someone had become Hyacinthov, someone Balzamov and someone else Buttercupov. Great-grandfather never did graduate from the seminary, but he had passed the idiotic surname on to his progeny. Well, at least he had been named after a tulip and not a dandelion.

  But never mind about the name! What about Anisii's appearance! First of all, his ears, jutting out on both sides like the handles of a chamber pot. Tuck them in under your cap and they just turned rebellious, springing back so that they could stick out like some kind of prop for your hat. They were just too rubbery and gristly.

  There had been a time when Anisii used to linger in front of the mirror, turning this way and that way, combing the long hair that he had grown specially at both sides in an attempt to conceal his lop ears - and it did seem to look a bit better, at least for a while. But when the pimples had erupted all over his physiognomy - and that was more than two years ago now - Tulipov had put the mirror away in the attic, because he simply couldn't bear to look at his own repulsive features any more.

  Anisii got up for work before it was even light - in winter time you could say it was still night. He had a long way to go. The little house he had inherited from his father, a deacon, stood in the vegetable garden of the Pokrovsky Monastery, right beside the Spassky Gates. The route along Pustaya Street, across Taganskaya Square, past the ominous Khitrovka district, to his job in the Department of Gendarmes took Anisii a whole hour at a fast walk. And if, like today, there was
a bit of a frost and the road was covered with black ice, it was a real ordeal - your tattered shoes and worn-out overcoat weren't much help to you then. It fair set your teeth clattering, reminding you of better times, your carefree boyhood, and your dear mother, God rest her soul.

  A year earlier, when Anisii had become a police agent, things had been much better: a salary of eighteen roubles, plus extra pay for overtime and for night work, and occasionally they might even throw in some travel expenses. Sometimes it all mounted up to as much as thirty-five roubles a month. But the unfortunate Tulipov hadn't been able to hold on to his fine, lucrative job. Lieutenant-Colonel Sverchinsky himself had characterised him as a hopeless agent and in general a ditherer. First he'd been caught leaving his observation post (he'd had to: how could he not slip back home for a moment when his sister Sonya hadn't been fed since the morning?). And then something even worse had happened: Anisii had let a dangerous female revolutionary escape. During the operation to seize a conspirators' apartment he'd been standing in the back yard, beside the rear entrance. Because Tulipov was so young, just to be on the safe side they hadn't let him take part in the actual arrest. But then, didn't the arresting officers, those experienced bloodhounds, let a female student get away from them? Anisii saw a young lady in spectacles running towards him, with a frightened, desperate look on her face. He shouted 'Stop!' but he couldn't bring himself to grab her - the young lady's hands looked so terribly frail. He just stood there like a stuffed dummy, watching her run away. He didn't even blow his whistle.

  For that outrageous dereliction of duty they had wanted to throw Tulipov out of the department altogether, but his superiors had taken pity on the orphan and demoted him to courier. Anisii's job now was a lowly, even shameful one for an educated man with five classes of secondary school. And worst of all, it had absolutely no prospects. Now he would spend his entire life rushing about like an errand boy, without ever earning a state tide.

  To give up on yourself at the age of twenty is no easy thing for anyone, but it wasn't even a matter of ambition. Just you try living on twelve and a half roubles. He didn't really need much for himself, but there was no way to explain to Sonya that her younger brother's career was a failure. She wanted butter, and cream cheese, and she had to be treated to a sweet every now and then. And wood to heat the stove - that cost a rouble a yard now. Sonya might be an idiot, but she still moaned and cried when she was cold.

  Before he slipped out of the house, Anisii had managed to change his sister's wet bed. She had opened her piggy little eyes and babbled, 'Nisii, Nisii.'

  'You be good now; don't get up to any mischief,' Anisii told her with feigned severity as he rolled over her heavy body, still hot from sleep. He put a coin on the table, the ten kopecks he had promised to leave for their neighbour Sychikha, who kept an eye on the cripple. He chewed hastily on a stale bread-bun, following it with a gulp of cold milk, and then it was time to head out into the darkness and the blizzard.

  As he trudged across the snow-covered vacant lot towards Taganskaya Square, with his feet constantly slipping, Tulipov felt very sorry for himself. It was bad enough that he was poor, ugly and untalented, but his sister Sonya was a burden for the rest of his life. He was a doomed man; he would never have a wife, or children, or a comfortable home.

  As he ran past the Church of Consolation of All the Afflicted, he crossed himself as usual, facing towards the icon of the Mother of God, lit up by its little lamp. Anisii had loved that icon since he was a child: it didn't hang inside where it was warm and dry but out there on the wall, exposed to the elements, only protected from the rain and the snow by a small canopy, with a wooden cross above it. The little flame was burning, unquenchable in its glass cover; you could see it from a long way away. And that was good, especially when you were looking at it from out of the cold darkness and howling wind.

  What was that white shape, up on top of the cross?

  A white dove. Sitting there preening its little wings with its beak, and it couldn't care a straw for the blizzard. It was a sure sign - his dear departed mother had been a great authority on signs - a white dove on a cross meant good fortune and unexpected happiness. But where could good fortune come from to him?

  The low wind swirled the snow across the ground. Oh, but it was cold.

  Today, however, Anisii's working day could hardly have got off to a better start. You could say that Tulipov had a real stroke of luck. Egor Semenich, the collegiate registrar in charge of deliveries, cast a dubious glance at Anisii's unconvincing overcoat, shook his grey head and gave him a nice warm job, one that wouldn't have him running all over the place across the boundless, wind-swept city: all he had to do was deliver a folder of reports and documents to His Honour Mr Erast Petrovich Fandorin, the Deputy for Special Assignments to His Excellency the Governor-General. Deliver it and wait to see if there would be any return correspondence from Court Counsellor Fandorin.

  That was all right - Anisii could cope with that. His spirits rose. He'd have the folder delivered quick as a flash before he even had time to start feeling chilled. Mr Fandorin's apartments were close by, right there on Malaya Nikitskaya Street, in an outbuilding on Baron von Evert-Kolokoltsev's estate.

  Anisii adored Mr Fandorin - from a distance, with timid reverence, without any hope that the great man would ever notice Tulipov even existed. The Court Counsellor had a special reputation in the Department of Gendarmes, even though he served in a different department. His Excellency Efim Efimovich Baranov himself, Moscow's chief of police and a lieutenant-general, considered it no disgrace to request confidential advice or even solicit patronage from the Deputy for Special Assignments.

  And that was only natural - anyone who knew anything at all about high Moscow politics knew that the father of Russia's old capital, Prince Vladimir Andreevich Dolgorukoi, favoured the Court Counsellor and paid attention to his opinions. All sorts of things were said about Mr Fandorin: for instance, he was supposed to have a special gift for seeing right through anybody and spotting even his very darkest secret in an instant.

  The Court Counsellor's duties made him the Governor-General's eyes and ears in all secret Moscow business that came under the aegis of the gendarmes and the police. That was why the information that Erast Petrovich required was delivered to him every day from General Baranov and the Department of Gendarmes, usually to the Governor's house on Tverskaya Street, but sometimes to his home, because the Court Counsellor's work routine was free, and he had no need to go to the office if he did not wish.

  That was the kind of important person Mr Fandorin was, but even so he had a simple manner with people and he didn't put on airs. Twice Anisii had delivered packages to him at Tverskaya Street and been completely overwhelmed by the courteous manners of such an influential individual: he would never humiliate the little man, he always spoke respectfully, always offered you a seat.

  And it was very interesting to get a close look at an individual about whom the most fantastic rumours circulated in Moscow. You could see straight away that he was a special man: that handsome, smooth, young face, that raven-black hair touched with grey at the temples; that calm, quiet way of speaking, with the slight stammer, but every word to the point, and he obviously wasn't used to having to say the same thing twice. An impressive kind of gentleman, no two ways about it.

  Tulipov had not been to the Court Counsellor's home before and so, as he walked in through the openwork cast-iron gates with a crown on the top and approached the stylish single-storey outhouse, his heart was fluttering slightly. Such an exceptional man was bound to live in a special kind of place.

  He pressed the button of the electric bell. He had prepared his first phrase earlier: 'Courier Tulipov from the Department of Gendarmes with documents for His Honour.' Then he remembered and tucked his obstinate right ear in under his cap.

  The carved-oak door swung open. Standing there in the doorway was a short stocky oriental - with narrow little eyes, fat cheeks and coarse, spiky black hair. T
he oriental was dressed in green livery with gold braiding and, rather oddly, straw sandals.

  The servant gazed in annoyance at the visitor and asked: 'Wha' you wan'?'

  From somewhere inside the house a rich woman's voice said: 'Masa! How many times do I have to tell you! Not "What you want?" but "What can I do for you"!'

  The oriental cast an angry glance back into the house and muttered unwillingly to Anisii: 'Wha' can do f'you?'

  'Courier Tulipov from the Department of Gendarmes with documents for His Honour.'

  All righ', come,' the servant invited him, and moved aside to let him through.

  Tulipov found himself in a spacious hallway. He looked around curiously and for a moment was disappointed: there was no stuffed bear with a silver tray for calling cards, and how could a gentleman's apartment not have a stuffed bear? Or did no one come calling on the Deputy for Special Assignments?

  But even though there was no bear to be seen, the hallway was furnished very nicely indeed, and there was a glass cupboard in the corner with some peculiar kind of armour, all made out of little metal plates, with a complicated monogram on the chest and a helmet with horns like a beetle's.

  An exceptionally beautiful woman glanced out through the door leading to the inner rooms - into which, of course, a courier could not be admitted. She was wearing a red dressing gown that reached right down to the floor. The beauty's thick, dark hair was arranged in a complicated style, leaving her slim neck exposed; her hands were crossed over her full breasts and her fingers were covered with rings.