by Tom Bradby
“Well . . .” Caprisi sighed, pulling up the band of his trousers. They still hadn’t moved anywhere. The driver waited patiently for directions. “If Lu is covering up for someone, then he must have a damned good reason.”
“Should we go and see him now?”
“We can’t. Macleod is talking to the French. There will be hell to pay if we go to Lu in the Concession without applying through the proper channels. Customs,” Caprisi said, tapping the back of the driver’s seat. He looked at Field. “I want to talk to this man Sergei as well.”
Field settled back, trying to suppress the nausea that had been threatening to overwhelm him all morning. He wound down the window to allow some air in, though it was fetid rather than fresh.
They turned onto the Bund and Field looked out at the sampans, junks, and steamers that plowed the choppy waters. As they rounded the last bend in the river, he recalled the thrill of his first sight of the Bund—its giant buildings rising above a sea of patchwork sails.
A liner coming in toward the shore hooted loudly, a thick plume of smoke from its central funnel twisting up into the clear sky.
“We ought to talk to Borodin,” Field said.
“Yes.”
The wharf in front of the Customs House was teeming with life, a sea of white straw and dark felt trilbies.
A ship had just arrived from Europe or America, its passengers standing in groups on the dock, fanning themselves against the heat and trying to prevent overenthusiastic coolies making off with their luggage. It was noisy and chaotic, and as they got out of the car, Field found himself smiling at the expectant, hurried stride of residents and the anxious faces of those they were coming to meet.
The floor beneath them was filthy with rotten fruit and vegetables. He bumped into an American woman as she rushed headlong into the arms of a man with a cry of “Anthony!”
Caprisi led the way through the gate and up a long iron staircase. A small Chinese stood at the top, his long queue hanging down over the back of a green silk jacket. He did not turn around as they passed.
The office they entered was a flimsy wooden structure, which looked as though it wouldn’t survive a light breeze, let alone the ferocity of a typhoon. Two more Chinese in long tunics were locked in a heated argument with a corpulent European who sat behind a desk. He waved his hand at them imperiously, concluding the argument, and after some hesitation, they turned and left, their faces impassive.
“CID,” Caprisi said. The man’s face softened. He picked up a white towel on the desk beside him and wiped his face. He had, Field noticed, very poor skin.
“Inspector Jenkins,” he said, offering them each a chubby hand. Standing, he ushered them through to an airless office at the back, where an electric desk fan was riffling a pile of papers held down by a glass weight.
Jenkins was wearing a dirty khaki uniform, with thin cotton shorts and a leather holster on his belt.
“A Russian girl has been murdered,” Caprisi said, taking out Lena’s notebook.
“A Russian girl,” Jenkins said in a manner that seemed to suggest that Russian girls being murdered was the natural order of things. He looked at the entries for a few moments, occasionally turning back a page, before looking up.
“This notebook was found hidden in the dead girl’s bookcase,” Caprisi said. “We don’t see the relevance of the entries.”
Jenkins looked back at the notes, then heaved himself from his chair and moved to a cupboard, reaching into his pocket for a key. Inside, there were four or five ledgers, and he took out the top one, placing it on a desk with a thump that raised a small cloud of dust.
He sat and looked through the notebook again, mulling over each entry, grunting as he did so.
It was a tedious process and Caprisi began to fidget, drumming his fingers against his knee and fanning himself with his notebook.
“They’re all . . .” Jenkins trailed off. “All the same. The Electrical Company.”
“What is the Electrical Company?” Caprisi asked.
“Subsidiary of Fraser’s. Makes electrical goods here, ships them back to Europe. All these . . .” He looked down again. “They’re consignments of sewing machines, mainly. There are some other goods as well, of course, from the same company, but sewing machines provide the bulk—I would say eighty percent—of these ships’ cargo.”
“Sewing machines?”
“Yes.”
Caprisi looked at Field, but he could think of no explanation and shook his head.
“Why would a Russian tea dancer want to make secret notes about shipments of sewing machines?”
Jenkins shrugged.
“Speculate.”
“I’ve no idea.”
Field could see he was as mystified as the pair of them. “What about the last entry?” he said. “The Saratoga on the twenty-sixth.”
Jenkins returned to his study of the ledger, running his finger down the pages until he found what he was looking for. “Ah, thought so. The Saratoga came in yesterday, from India. Empty.”
“Empty?” Caprisi asked.
“I thought ships generally took goods both ways,” Field added.
“Generally. Not always. Maybe she took cargo from Europe to India, had a contract out of here. Didn’t want to wait for something out of Bombay.”
“Must be a lucrative contract here to make it worth the rush,” Caprisi said.
“Fraser’s is a big company. The lure of regular work, I should think.”
“If the Saratoga is in,” Field said, “can we inspect her?”
“Of course.” Jenkins stood and opened his drawer, pulling out a Smith & Wesson revolver and putting it in his holster before leading the way down the staircase and through the throng that was still emerging from the exit.
It was less busy on the wharf inside, though there were small groups of passengers waiting in the shade of the customs inspection area as coolies hauled their baggage onto carts, or, in some cases, their backs.
Jenkins walked briskly out into the sunshine. Field squinted until they reached the shadow of an iron-framed shelter. There were fewer people here: some coolies squatting, a small group loading sacks onto a river steamer. The farther they went, the larger the ships became. The Saratoga was moored about halfway along the wharf.
It was a white ship with two yellow funnels. A dirty blue lifeboat hung above a gangplank with a rickety handrail covered in white canvas. Jenkins led the way.
They stepped onto the wooden deck and looked about, sheltered by an awning. There were two circular portholes ahead of them on either side of a wooden door. Jenkins walked down to a big cargo deck in front of the accommodation area, below the bridge. As they rounded the corner, a young Indian, who had been lying out in the sun, leaped to his feet and eyed them warily. His shorts were scruffy and his vest stained.
“Where’s the captain?” Jenkins demanded imperiously, but the man shook his head.
Jenkins led them back through the wooden door and up some steep iron steps to the bridge. The inside of the ship smelled of ingrained grease and the corridors were dark, like the lower decks of the vessel in which Field had set out from London earlier in the year.
There was no one on the bridge, which was small. “Only just got in,” Jenkins said. “I suppose they’ll be down Blood Alley.”
“What about searching belowdeck, in the bow?” Field asked.
Jenkins grunted and retraced his steps once more. He pulled open a wooden hatch in the middle of the deck, watched nervously by the Indian, who made no attempt to help or intervene, and descended into the darkness below.
The three of them looked around the cavernous hold, but there was little to see. They were standing on an iron floor, ropes and winches and disused tools strewn around them, along with the other detritus of a working ship. It smelled of grease and salt.
“It would be a good cover for smuggling, wouldn’t it?” Caprisi said.
“What would?” Jenkins asked.
Capri
si took a step forward. “What could be more harmless than a batch of sewing machines shipped by a subsidiary of Fraser’s?”
“I’m not following you,” Jenkins said irritably.
“If you wanted to smuggle something into Europe, you’d choose a shipment of goods that customs officials were unlikely to be in a hurry to check thoroughly. You could hardly find anything more harmless than a bunch of sewing machines.”
Jenkins frowned. It occurred to Field, as it had perhaps to Caprisi, that any operation of the kind they were talking about would be unlikely to leave the activities of customs officials to chance.
“I think we’d better find the captain,” Jenkins said. “Come back to my office and give me a number—I’ll contact you when he turns up.”
Field was the last to come down the gangplank and he hesitated for a moment at the bottom. The sky was still a clear, bright blue. A huge Union Jack above the dome of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank was slack in the still air. A flock of seagulls circled “Big Ching,” the clock tower of the Customs House, before breaking out across the river, as if something had startled them.
Field looked back. The deckhand was still watching him.
Thirteen
Sergei lived above the Siberian Fur Shop in the heart of Little Russia, in a tiny apartment with paint peeling from its walls.
He was the image of a radical student intellectual, with long, unwashed hair, a narrow face coated with stubble, and small, round glasses.
“Have you got a minute?” Field asked.
“Who are you?”
Field reached into his pocket and flicked open his wallet.
“Which branch?”
“It’s on there.”
“It doesn’t say.”
“S.1.”
“Special Branch.”
“Correct. My colleague here is from Crime. Can we come in?”
Sergei’s eyes darted between them, but Field could not tell whether it was because he had something to hide or because he was nervous of visitors. He stepped back and allowed them to enter.
Inside, it was even smaller than Field had first guessed, and filthy. An unmade bed alongside the far wall jutted out into a sea of discarded clothes and dirty plates, glasses, and coffee cups. There was an abstract oil painting above the bed of St. Basil’s Cathedral just south of Red Square. On a small table an overflowing ashtray rested against the base of a shabby lamp. The flat stank. A violin and trumpet were propped up in the far corner.
Sergei sat down on the bed. Field and Caprisi declined his invitation to take the ragged sofa opposite. Caprisi walked over to the window and, without asking, opened it. He turned back to see if there was any reaction, but Sergei was examining his long, manicured nails.
Sergei looked at Caprisi, then back at Field. “You’re from the Settlement.”
“This is a murder investigation, Sergei,” Field said.
“I don’t want to get into trouble with the French authorities.”
After appraising it distastefully, Caprisi sat down on the sofa. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Sergei flexed his fingers.
“When did you last see Lena Orlov?” Caprisi asked.
Sergei thought for a moment. “The night before . . .” He shrugged. “You know.”
“The night before she was murdered?”
“Yes.” He nodded for emphasis.
“Where?”
“At the Majestic. I play—”
“You play there, we know.” Caprisi leaned forward. “I’d like you to take this opportunity to tell us anything that you know about Lena that might be relevant.”
Sergei shrugged.
“You were her—”
“No.” He shook his head. “No.”
“What, then?”
“Friends.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“At the Majestic.” He nodded again.
“How long ago?”
“Two months, three, four. I don’t know.”
“Which?”
“Four, maybe.”
“So you didn’t know her in Russia?”
“No.” He shook his head. “No.”
“You met her at the Majestic?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t know her before then?”
“No.”
“You’d never seen her before?”
He hesitated. “I don’t think so, no.”
“You don’t think so, or no for sure?”
“No.”
“So you came here . . . how many years ago?”
“Four.”
“Four years ago. Nineteen twenty-two. You’ve lived here in Little Russia all that time?”
“Yes.” Sergei looked uncertain. “Not always in this apartment.”
“Where else?”
“Farther down, with some others.”
“Also musicians?”
“Yes.”
“So why did you move here?”
“I had more money since the Majestic.”
“Where did you play before?”
“The Excelsior.” He shrugged again. “Other places.”
“So when did you join the band at the Majestic?”
“Four months ago.”
“And you’d not met Lena or seen her before then?”
Sergei shook his head. Field was certain he was lying.
“Did you know she was working for Lu Huang and living in one of his flats?”
Sergei sensed danger. “You must understand, we did not talk about her . . . work. We didn’t talk about anything like that. The ground was always kept neutral.”
“Did you go to her apartment?”
“No.”
“So what was your interest in her?”
He shrugged. “She was not a bad-looking girl . . . You know, from Kazan. I mean . . .”
“Did you fuck her?” Caprisi asked.
Sergei smiled, a tight weasel grin, revealing a mouthful of decaying teeth. “Sometimes, you know . . .”
“No, I don’t know.”
“She liked a bit of Russian meat.” He smiled again. “Liked a man to speak Russian to her.”
“So she never talked about Lu Huang?”
He shook his head.
“She never talked about any other boyfriends or other men that she slept with?”
“No.”
“You knew she was a prostitute?”
He grinned again. “I fuck her sometimes. She likes a Russian who doesn’t pay, then she doesn’t feel like a whore.”
“So you weren’t friends?”
“Sometimes she comes here and cries and I let her, then I fuck her some more.”
Caprisi stood, sensing Field’s anger. “Easy, man,” he whispered, “we’re out of bounds.”
Field breathed out, unclenched his fists, and tried to force himself to relax.
“So,” Caprisi went on, “when you slept together, it was here, in this apartment.”
“Yes.”
“You never went down to Foochow Road?”
The Russian shook his head.
“But you knew that was where she lived?”
Sergei hesitated again. “She may have mentioned it.”
“She may have, or she did?”
“She did.”
“But you never went there?”
“She didn’t want me to.”
“Was she in love with you?”
Sergei smirked again but didn’t answer. “Cigarette?” he asked, offering the packet. They both declined.
Sergei was not wearing socks or shoes, and Field noticed his feet were as long and bony as his hands. Like his forearms, his legs appeared to be hairless.
“Did you know she slept with Lu?”
He shrugged.
“She moved into one of his apartments a few months ago. You knew where she lived, but she never mentioned that she was his woman?”
“I said we never talked about it.”