Page 52 of The Half Life of Valery K

‘I didn’t know she was running a village in the forest for human data, for God’s sake, and my job is to know things.’

‘She must have another lab somewhere. It would explain why she’s never around ours. Is there somewhere on-site that could be … ?’

‘Not that I know, but I’m not feeling very confident about what I know any more,’ Shenkov said.

It must have been the awkwardness of using a scalpel left-handed on the body, or stooping too much, because something in his shoulder made a horrible sound and though it didn’t hurt exactly, Valery couldn’t move it again. He shut his eyes. Of all the most annoying places to be stuck, half-dressed in the morgue shower was surely high on the list.

He agonised, realised he had no choice, and unlocked the door. On the other side, the air was cold. ‘I need some help.’

Shenkov nodded.

‘Look, before you … I have prison tattoos.’

‘I wasn’t born yesterday,’ Shenkov said, starting to smile. ‘I’ve seen Vor tattoos before.’

There was no point saying he probably hadn’t seen any like these. Valery handed over his shirt. He had only been holding it, but without anything in his hands, he felt exposed. Without meaning to, he shied backwards when Shenkov stepped in. Separately to his brain, his body had decided it did not want to be standing half-naked in front of any more security officers thank you very much. He bumped into the wall. It was involuntary. He wanted to say so and couldn’t. His voice had locked down.

Shenkov caught his shoulders. He did it lightly, but firmly enough to hold Valery still even when his whole skeleton twitched again. ‘You’re safe,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s all right.’

‘I know. I’m okay,’ Valery said, irritated. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just – you know, reflex—’

‘Right, and you have that for a reason. Just give yourself a second. I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘Yes, I know—’

‘No, you don’t. I broke your arm.’ Very gently, Shenkov drew his hands up, which naturally made Valery straighten, then down again to his shoulders, which felt like a cue to breathe out. He hadn’t realised he was breathing too quickly. ‘You can know something in your head but not everywhere else. I know spiders are harmless but I still nearly jump out the window whenever I see one.’

Valery smiled a little. He had an anaemic sense that Shenkov was still talking to him, but his mind didn’t pick it up as words, just a sort of warmth. It was hard to relax, though, because just like it had been by the pool where they had found the body, it nearly hurt to have someone else’s hands on him. There was something astonishing and wonderful about coming up close enough to find that Shenkov was a solid human being who could touch him.

There was a desperate grasping need to memorise it and hoard the feeling close, for later, when that aloneness-pressure leaned on him at night; and a terrible shame on top of that, because that sort of desperation was unclean.

‘I’m fine,’ he said again, needing it to stop.

Shenkov patted his good arm. ‘Good,’ he said, and stepped behind him to help him into the shirt at last.

The worst thing was that Valery knew exactly what was coming then.

‘Christ,’ Shenkov said.

Valery could only nod, even though he knew that nodding only drew more attention to the tattoo on his neck, the knife through the top of his spine.

‘This says you’ve killed fifty-three people,’ Shenkov said at last, after a pause in which he must have been counting.

‘Yes.’ Fifty-three crosses. Usually, the Vory didn’t ink on crosses for murders – it was other images, more complicated, women or cards, but it would have taken the poor tattooist too long.

Another pause. ‘Did you?’

‘Yes.’

Shenkov was quiet for a while. ‘The knife in the neck means you’re for hire.’

‘To teach other people how to do – what I did. Not to do it again.’ He wrenched some words into some order. ‘It was a bomb.’

Shenkov didn’t say anything. Finally, he took Valery’s wrist and guided his arm through the shirtsleeve. Valery nearly bit through his lip wishing he was somewhere else, with anyone else. He would have cared less what someone else thought. Even though he had turned off the shower only a few minutes before, he felt dirty again. After what felt like a long time, and six buttons, Shenkov said, ‘Did they hurt you? The people in the bomb.’

‘Men.’

‘What?’