Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

  Granger moved around so that his back was to the others. He looked Field up and down. “You need some new clothes. A bit of a supplement might be in order.”

  Field opened his mouth to speak, but Granger cut him short. “Bright, ambitious chap like yourself . . . right social connections.” He looked at Field’s dinner jacket, then at the sober-suited taipans in the room. “Can’t have you trying to get by on a detective’s wage.”

  “A supplement?”

  Granger held up the lapel of his jacket. “Not bad, eh, for a poor boy from Cork?” He leaned closer, his eyes on the naked back of one of the Chinese waitresses who was offering food to a group beside them. “We don’t like to see bright officers disadvantaged in this city of wealth, if you understand my meaning.”

  Field didn’t respond, uncertain what Granger was driving at.

  “And, as a result, we have a discretionary fund. Check your wages. You might be pleasantly surprised.” He cleared his throat. Field saw that Geoffrey looked as if he was approaching. “Anyhow, you can come and help me out tomorrow with the ten o’clock briefing in Hongkew.”

  “That’s . . . I’m still working on this case with Caprisi.”

  Granger shook his head. “You don’t want to get too closely involved. Just keep in with Caprisi and keep me informed.”

  “You don’t want me to be involved?”

  “Informed but not involved. You’re in the Branch, Richard. We just need to keep an eye on what the opposition is up to . . . unless you’d rather be in Crime?” Granger was smiling at him.

  “I’m fine where I am, thank you, sir.”

  There was another awkward silence.

  Lewis stopped chatting to one of the waitresses and ambled over. “All right, old man,” he said quietly. “One of your men, Granger?”

  “New stock.”

  “Good stock. Had him out last night.” Lewis smiled at him. “Slightly blotted his copybook at Delancey’s, but picked himself up when I said I’d show him where this Russian girl worked.”

  Granger said, “Which Russian girl?”

  “The Orlov woman.”

  “The prostitute?”

  Lewis was smirking. “Not one of your tarts, was she, Granger?” Field found himself smiling, until he recalled the screams of the Chinese prostitute in the darkened corridor of the club.

  “You don’t want to dig too deep, old man,” Lewis told Field. “You never know what you might find.”

  Granger sighed. “He’s just keeping his eye on Macleod’s lot.”

  Lewis eyed him dispassionately. “I thought it must be something like that.”

  Sixteen

  The breeze had brought in bad weather from the East China Sea. A light drizzle cooled their cheeks as they stepped onto the Bund. There was a thin sheen of water on the sidewalk and Field’s feet were instantly damp from the unseen holes in the soles of his highly polished shoes.

  Geoffrey had a car and driver waiting for him. On the very short journey to Crane Road, Field wanted to ask him about what Granger had said tonight, but thought better of it.

  He had not understood whom Granger had meant by “we.” What was the discretionary fund?

  Field tried not to dwell on the idea of more money.

  If it was a legitimate payment—though perhaps even to consider that as a possibility might be naive—then he would be able to pay Caprisi for the new suit and even get a decent pair of shoes.

  The house in Crane Road was down a quiet cul-de-sac, a single bright light on the wall illuminating a long wooden veranda. At the sound of the car doors shutting, Penelope came first to the window and then the door. She stood at the top of the steps, beneath the bougainvillea, a hand on her hip. “Your dinner would be in the dog,” she said. “If we had a dog.”

  She wore a closely cut, yellow silk dress, with a low neck beneath a thick string of dark pearls. Geoffrey shuffled forward and she bent to kiss him.

  “He won’t let me have a dog,” she said to Field as she put her cheek to his, the smell of her scent as strong as it had been last night. The floor of the veranda was old and worn, and the planks creaked beneath their feet.

  “Good evening, Chang,” Geoffrey said as he handed the servant his jacket. Field took off his own, hesitating a moment before also removing his holster.

  “Straight to the table,” Penelope said. “I’m sure you boys have managed to find time for a drink.”

  The dining room was smaller than he’d imagined, the silverware on the square, polished table bright in the candlelight.

  “Richard, on the far side, beneath Christopher of York—one of our most distinguished ancestors.”

  Field glimpsed a large dark portrait of a man in full military uniform. He sat down, taking the linen napkin from the glass in front of him.

  “Red wine, Richard?” Geoffrey asked. “It’s—”

  “Lamb,” Penelope said.

  “Whatever is . . . Yes, please, red.”

  Geoffrey stood again and left the room.

  “You survived the Volunteers.” Penelope leaned forward as she took out her own napkin. The dress was just as revealing as the one she’d worn at the country club.

  “It was a good speech.”

  “He can charm.” She sighed. “Which is, of course, why I married him.” She leaned forward again. “You have no idea how handsome and dashing he was in uniform.” She smiled, a gesture that was at once both weary and almost bashful. “Do you know, Richard, you’re a big man, and yet I don’t think there is an ounce of fat on you.”

  Field looked toward the door to hide his embarrassment.

  “You really must get yourself a girl. It’s a terrible waste.” She sighed, smiling at him. “You always look so hunched up and angry, like you’re about to hit someone.” She smiled again, imitating his posture. “You’re not about to hit someone, are you?”

  “I try not to, most of the time.”

  “See. You look lovely when you smile.”

  Field frowned.

  “And now you’re scowling again.”

  “So one can’t win, really.”

  “Of course not. That’s a woman’s prerogative.” She looked suddenly more serious. “What are you angry about?”

  “I wasn’t aware of being angry about anything.”

  “Everyone is angry about something.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “Do you ever talk about your father?”

  “No.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “Probably not,” Field said, irritated by this unwarranted intimacy.

  “Is that why you’re so angry?”

  Geoffrey reentered the room, carrying a decanter. Two servants followed, the old man and a shy young girl with a wide, flat face and hair pulled back from her forehead. “A Bordeaux, I thought. Do the trick?”

  Field realized his uncle was talking to him. “Yes, of course . . . I’m sorry, we don’t often have wine in the mess.”

  “Then we must get you into more civilized accommodation.”

  “He could come and live here,” Penelope said.

  Geoffrey filled their glasses. “Can you imagine being in a city as exhilarating as this and being stuck with your uncle and aunt?”

  “Speak for yourself, darling!”

  Geoffrey sat down, pulling his chair in, before reaching for the salt and grinding it over his plate. The window was open, the cicadas noisy. The candle flames flickered in the faint breeze that carried with it the damp, musty aroma of the street. Field ate a mouthful of lamb. It had been cooked with apple and was served with thickly cut, creamy potatoes. It was by far the best food he’d had since arriving in Shanghai.

  “This is very good,” he said.

  “I slaved all day over it,” Penelope said. “Didn’t I, dear?”

  Geoffrey smiled at Field. “You begin to see why we can never come back and live in England.”

  Field took a sip of his wine. He heard the low rumble of a foghorn on the river.
It seemed to be answered by others.

  “Who is Stirling Blackman?”

  Geoffrey replenished their wineglasses before answering. Field noticed Penelope’s was already empty.

  “Blackman is not . . . how should one say? Not always a friend of the city.” Geoffrey looked at Field. “The thing about the New York Times, Richard, is that it thinks it invented the notion of integrity. The difficulty is that it sometimes provokes a response from Washington, which in turn causes problems in London.”

  “How is the Russian girl?” Penelope asked.

  For a moment Field assumed she was asking about Natasha. “She’s like a ghost,” he said eventually. “Her friends are either too frightened or too disinterested to want to talk about her.” He put down his knife and fork and took another sip of wine. “Her fate does not seem to elicit much sympathy . . . not in the force, anyway. She did not keep good company. She began life in such gilded circumstances and her end was so squalid. It seems . . . tragic, in its own way.”

  “You’re a romantic, Richard,” Penelope said.

  “No—”

  “She was a whore, you know.” Penelope’s mouth had tightened and her eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t get yourself too worked up about it.”

  There was a momentary silence.

  Geoffrey cleared his throat again. “Richard is right, I fear. We cannot get into the business of ignoring cases on the basis of who the victim was, tempting as it may be at times.”

  “Our concern,” Field said, “is that it may be part of a pattern. That the perpetrator may strike again.”

  Penelope looked up with an emollient smile, as if regretting her earlier harshness. “Thank God for the boys in blue.”

  “The difficulty with the Russians,” Geoffrey went on, “is that none of us like to ponder their fate too closely. It won’t happen to us, of course, but we’ve all seen the photographs: the big houses, the servants, the military schools, and holidays in the Crimea. It’s uncomfortable, particularly for those lower down the European social order here, who’ve never had any of those things.”

  “They’re unreliable,” Penelope said.

  “Perhaps that’s no surprise,” Geoffrey said, “under the circumstances.”

  “It’s no surprise that it happened to them. If they’d been . . .” Penelope looked at her husband, her face harsh again. “Well, you know what they’re like. No wonder there was a revolution.”

  Geoffrey looked at Field. “Better to give them a wide berth. That much is certainly true.”

  By the time Field stepped back out into Crane Road it was past midnight and a thick blanket of fog had descended. The smell of damp streets—from the dirt and dust that settled in dry weather—swelling drains, and the pollution caught in his nose and mouth. He was tempted to put a handkerchief to his face and breathe through it as he had seen others do. Instead, he put on the dark felt trilby that his uncle had pressed upon him and lit a cigarette. At least it tasted better than the air around him.

  Field began walking, his footsteps noisy, his feet again quickly damp. Another foghorn sounded on the river and he heard the rattle of a tram on the Nanking Road ahead, a Chinese banner on the corner highlighted through the gloom by a gas streetlamp—as in so many areas of the city, they had not got around to installing electric lights.

  Field crossed the main road and carried on, pacing out the silence, his metal-capped heels creating a steady staccato. He passed somebody hidden beneath a blanket, then realized that it was an entire family as they receded into the fog once more.

  He felt driven.

  Perhaps, he thought, it might have been wiser to have stayed with his uncle.

  He turned left into Nanking Road. Chinese men and women appeared suddenly through the fog and disappeared back into it just as quickly.

  Field thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He saw the sign for the Majestic ahead, and his pace quickened.

  He handed the doorman his hat and climbed the shabby red and gray staircase, emerging into the refurbished splendor of the ballroom on the first floor as she began singing. It was as if she had been waiting for him.

  Natasha stood in front of the microphone, and for a moment he lost himself in the sight and sound of her, his eyes locked on her long legs and narrow hips as they swayed with the rhythm of the music. Her voice drifted lazily around the hall. She had her eyes shut, and as she opened them, it seemed to him that she was smiling at him.

  He stepped forward a couple of paces, then saw Charles Lewis sitting close to the edge of the iron-framed balcony, staring at her.

  Field moved quickly down the staircase and around the back of the dance floor. He climbed up to the balcony opposite where he thought he would be able to stand unseen in the darkness.

  Even up here, away from the stage, few people talked among themselves. It wasn’t difficult to be captivated by the power of her voice.

  Natasha wore a black dress. A short, thick string of white pearls, held in the center by a gold clasp, hung down to her breasts. Her hair was glossy and unkempt.

  She had opened her eyes, and, however absurdly, Field still could not shake the notion that she was singing to him.

  As she finished and acknowledged the applause, Field realized he was attracting a few curious glances, mostly from the women at the large table next to him. Looking around him, he could see that, while the groups close to the balcony were small, intimate, back here it was ten or twelve to the table. Everyone was sumptuously dressed, the men with gold watch chains to match their companions’ jewelry.

  He turned back to the scene below him and his heart missed a beat. Charlie Lewis turned her slowly around the center of the dance floor, his cheek close to her own, his hand resting just above her hips, in the small of her back. She looked as though she was pressing herself against him, and he was smiling, whispering in her ear. Field saw that she was laughing. He stepped back, imagined the two of them naked together, on the bed, the candle flickering above them, her hands tied to the bedstead, her legs raised . . .

  Field breathed out heavily and forced himself to move toward the door. He did not look at the dance floor as he passed it and walked slowly up the stairs opposite. A girl in a silver dress was selling cigarettes by one of the tables, and he killed a few moments by buying a packet of Capstan and wondering what it would feel like to be rich. He could not imagine being like Lewis and never having to think about the price of anything.

  “You’re back.”

  He spun around. She was two or three feet away from him, her brown eyes resting steadily upon his face.

  “Yes.”

  Although the band was loud, this corner seemed quiet.

  “A professional or social visit?”

  “Just a visit.”

  “You were watching me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that part of the job?”

  Field swallowed. “Not unless I want it to be.”

  “And do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know?”

  Field offered her a cigarette and when she declined, put them in his jacket pocket without taking one. “May I buy you a drink?”

  “I doubt you could afford it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She shook her head, her face still expressionless. “It’s not an accusation.” She looked him up and down. “Most policemen could afford . . . but I think you are the one who cannot.”

  “I’ve never been ashamed to be poor.”

  She stared at him, shaking her head. “Oh, I don’t think that is true.”

  He felt his face reddening. “Do you always mean to provoke?”

  Natasha did not answer. Field looked down at the floor below. Lewis was bending over a table on the balcony, in animated conversation. Field heard himself say, “Do you want to dance?”

  She laughed, then looked around her. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No.”

  “Am I that funny?”

  She
smiled again, but this time it was not at his expense. “You have an honest face.” She looked up at him. “Do you think I have an honest face?”

  Field almost said, “I don’t know,” but something in her eyes made him hesitate. “Yes,” he said eventually.

  This time her smile was one of resignation. “Perhaps I will see you again.”