Daughter from the Dark - Sergey Page 0,18

out at that very moment. For a second Aspirin thought it was a dead body. A moment later he saw a jaundiced, blood-covered face. “The dead body,” he moaned and swore under his breath.

“Is your apartment number fifty-four?” an officer asked him. He nodded numbly. “This way, please.”

The door to his place was ajar; Alyona stood at the threshold, and she did not seem frightened in the least. On the contrary, she smiled as soon as she saw Aspirin. “You cannot imagine what happened here!”

The rug in front of the door was covered with some kind of wood chips or shavings. Did they drill around the lock?

The door opened fully. A round-cheeked policeman peeked out. “Are you the owner?”

“I am. What happened?”

“Come in.”

Aspirin stepped inside and nearly passed out. The hallway was covered in blood. Not in that there was a lot of blood (which there was), but blood was everywhere—the mirror, the floor, the walls, the furniture. His apartment had been turned into an abattoir.

Alyona stood nearby, seemingly unphased.

“You should take the child out of here,” the cop said. “It is a crime scene after all.”

“Go sit outside,” Aspirin managed through rubbery lips.

“I sat outside all day,” Alyona snapped. “And what’s so bad in here? So there is some blood, big deal.”

Aspirin caught the cop’s eyes. “Children these days,” he croaked. “Movies, games . . . blood everywhere.”

“Your identification,” the cop demanded coldly.

Aspirin dug up his driver’s license. The cop studied the document thoroughly and skeptically, as if not quite believing its authenticity.

“The child’s identification?”

Aspirin barely contained a howl. Glancing at Alyona (she was smiling), he found the laminated birth certificate in his bag. The cop studied Alyona’s identification just as thoroughly.

“Proof of residency?”

“What happened here?” Aspirin said, tired of the questions already, his voice slightly higher and thinner than he wanted. “What happened to my apartment?”

Men in light blue scrubs came out of the living room carrying another stretcher. The stretcher was turned sideways, pushing Aspirin into the blood-splattered wall. He saw a young face with marks of degradation; the man on the stretcher was unconscious. Three deep scratches crossed his cheek and one ear dangled on a thin strip of skin.

“We’re off, all right?” one of the men in scrubs said, holding the door with his foot.

“Go ahead,” the cop allowed.

The door closed behind them.

Aspirin wished he could have gone with them, and never returned.

“Could they have been mentally disturbed?” Aspirin asked hopefully, taking in the scene, and not seeing how anything else might be possible. Or, at least—as Alyona stood next to him—not wanting to imagine anything else.

The senior police officer screwed up his face with distaste. The junior officer asked, “What about the weapon?”

Aspirin took yet another look around the apartment. Shelves where he kept his CDs had been turned over as if someone had clutched them trying to get up. There was blood on the sofa, and brown spots covered the rug. Everything else seemed undisturbed—his books, paintings, a souvenir candlestick from Venice. Nothing was broken or moved from its place.

“Don’t touch anything until the forensic examination is completed,” the junior police officer said for the umpteenth time.

“Of course I’m not going to touch anything,” he said in disgust. “But how am I supposed to sleep in here?”

“Sleep in the bedroom. It’s clean.”

“Thanks a lot,” Aspirin sighed.

Obviously, he wasn’t going to make it to Kuklabuck tonight. Aspirin called Kostya Foma, his colleague cum adversary, and begged him to take his place, come up with an alternative plan, and figure something out. He described the events of the day in such vivid colors that even Foma seemed to have believed him. At least he promised to help.

“Just think about it,” the officer said after Aspirin hung up. “We arrive, the locks are broken, the apartment is knee-deep in blood, and these two people are screaming, blood-curdling screams—‘Help us!’ ‘Let us out!’—that sort of thing. Your door is nice, solid oak—heavy lock and all that. And when we finally managed to open it . . . well, it was shocking. Each man had multiple wounds made with sharp objects—like someone was trying to shred them.”

“Who?”

“Exactly—who?”

“Well, it wasn’t me! I was on the air,” Aspirin said quickly.

The cop looked at him in surprise.

“I’m on the radio. DJ Aspirin.”

The cop now gazed at him with a look of puzzlement. Trying to smooth over the awkward moment, Aspirin asked, “So what does this all mean? What do you think happened?”

The officer shrugged. “One is still unconscious. The other one