Matvei Orlik

Matvei Orlik is 41 and presents himself as a fertilizer salesman on a sightseeing trip. He was born in an industrial town in Eastern Europe, the son of a tractor factory worker and a mathematics teacher, and grew up among gray apartment blocks and long winters. He speaks textbook English, with every word in a dictionary's place, and pronounces place names with exaggerated caution. He smiles like a tourist who has gotten lost and doesn't mind.

By his own account, he lives in a two-bedroom apartment on the sixth floor of a block on the outskirts of his hometown, with a glass-enclosed balcony where he keeps boxes of seeds and a pair of always-clean hiking boots. The kitchen has a samovar inherited from his grandmother and a wall calendar with mountain landscapes. His wife works in a pharmacy, and they have no children. He travels a lot, always for work, and almost never talks about work at home.

He has fair skin, a square, clean-shaven face, very short brown hair and the reddened, dry hands of someone who works with soil and chemicals. He wears a dark wool cap, a gray quilted jacket zipped to the chin and a small black backpack on his shoulder. He has a calm, trained gaze that fixes on whoever he is talking to and never wavers, even when the conversation tightens, and he speaks softly, slowly, with a patience that seems studied.

About the two days he spent in the city, his account is that of an economy tourist: he came to see the cathedral, the tallest spire in England, one hundred twenty-three meters, and bought a round-trip ticket from London because hotels there are expensive and trains run all the time. He arrived the day before, but the snow scared him off within two hours, and that is why he went back. When asked who he works for, he answers a fertilizer firm and offers a card.

Matvei knows that a foreigner too calm, with a round-trip ticket two days running, is the kind of visitor the police take note of. When the detective presses him, he smiles with the same kindness, folds his hands in his lap and repeats the answer in the same words. It may be the calm of a man with nothing to hide. It may be someone who rehearsed the smile more than the trip. The detective will have to decide which.