Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

  “Was Lena a friend?”

  Natasha hesitated. She came closer to him, glancing around to check that they were not overheard. “I cannot help you.”

  “He must have put a hand over her mouth, so that her screams were silent.”

  She did not look at him. A muscle twitched in her cheek. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Perhaps he was plunging the knife into her just a few feet from where you were sleeping.”

  “I was not there.”

  “We don’t know for sure when she was killed, so—”

  “I was not there.”

  Field took a pace toward her. “Lena is like a ghost. No one wants to talk about her. Don’t you think, after all that she went through, she deserves better?”

  Natasha stared at the floor, as if in another world.

  “Do you imagine Lena will be the last victim?”

  Natasha had raised her head, her face suddenly fearful, and Field turned to see a man whom he knew instantly to be Lu Huang reaching the top of the stairs. He was smaller than he’d appeared in the photographs, his hands hidden in front of him, in the folds of a long silk robe. His face was round, coarse, and ugly, his hair in a long pigtail. Even in this light, Field could see evidence of the poor skin that had earned him his nickname. He was accompanied by two Russian bodyguards, with closely cropped hair and black suits, who moved confidently, drawing the attention of the other customers but making no acknowledgment of their presence.

  Natasha had half turned toward him, as if drawn by some magnetic force. Her face, now coldly beautiful and brittle, seemed drained of all spirit. She followed him, not bothering to excuse or explain herself to Field, and as Lu sat down at a corner table that was obviously reserved for him, she took a chair a few feet away. They did not even glance at each other or exchange a word, and it was a few moments before Field understood what was happening.

  She was sitting straight and stiff, like a doll. She was there for Lu to look at, to be seen with. She was his trophy.

  People had turned discreetly to look in their direction. Lu now acknowledged one or two with a curt nod.

  Charles Lewis walked toward the table, a waiter scurrying forward to pull back a chair. Lu turned to face him, suddenly animated, his bullet head level with Lewis’s shoulder. They looked familiar with each other’s presence, as if from long acquaintance. They both ignored Natasha, who stared vacantly down at the dance floor.

  Field could not move, could not think clearly. His stomach turned over so fast that he felt like vomiting.

  Lewis was gesticulating with his right hand, as if emphasizing a point. Lu’s head was motionless as he listened, then he nodded, raising his head and looking around the room. Lewis lit up a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs.

  Lu stood and moved around the table. Natasha stood, too, her elegance somehow diminished as he came level with her. She allowed him to place a hand on her arm.

  He led her down the stairs to the dance floor and then they were locked together, Lu’s head only just above her breasts, so that, when they turned away from him, Field could not see the Chinese at all.

  Field searched Natasha’s face for some acknowledgment, but received none, her gaze and smile frozen. The other dancers had quietly made space for them, but were careful not to look too closely, and at the tables people had turned away and resumed their conversations.

  Lu and Natasha turned again and Field could see his chubby hand placed firmly against the base of her spine, pushing her hips toward him.

  Field watched in a daze until the music stopped and Lu Huang returned to his seat, without touching or acknowledging his dance partner. She sat down and stared again into the middle distance.

  Field turned, forcing his feet forward. He walked toward the two bodyguards, who had retreated to the door, and knocked into the one with blond hair. The man pushed him back, swearing in Russian.

  Field moved fast. The man ducked, but Field was too quick, his right hand catching the bottom of the man’s jaw and spinning him into the cigarette girl.

  Field turned and drew his revolver as the other bodyguard was still struggling for his gun. As he fumbled for his badge, Lewis appeared. “All right, boys . . .” He lowered Field’s weapon and turned to the Russians. “Police,” he said. “Let’s forget it, shall we?”

  Before they could answer, Lewis gripped Field hard on the arm and marched him toward the stairs, not letting go until they reached the street. Field noticed that both Lu and Natasha had affected not to notice the scuffle.

  Lewis exhaled, facing him in the shadowy gloom of a gas streetlamp still cradled by the fog. It was cool here, after the sweaty heat of the Majestic. “Jesus.”

  Field stared at him.

  “Wait here.”

  Lewis walked back into the nightclub and Field was about to leave when he returned. “You walk in, you apologize, you bow your head once, you wait until he speaks. If he does not, you leave.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You’ll do as you’re fucking told or you’ll be on the next boat home.”

  Field pulled his mouth back, furious at being treated like a child. “So we have to kowtow to a gangster.”

  “We don’t, Field. You do. You’re a junior detective and you’ve just insulted one of the most powerful businessmen in the city in one of its most public places. It is now a question of face.”

  “So he’s a businessman now.”

  “He is as far as you’re concerned.”

  “I’m not going to go in there and crawl—”

  “Then you’re an arrogant fool.” Lewis shook his head contemptuously. “I’m only standing here because I’m fond of your uncle, so don’t insult your own intelligence and mine any longer.”

  Field stared at Lewis. He breathed in deeply and walked back into the Majestic. The band still played, but at the top of the stairs, a flustered Chinese man in a dark suit—the manager of the nightclub, Field assumed—guided him through a heavy red velvet curtain and into what appeared to be a private dining room. As he entered, a door was slammed shut behind him.

  Lu was flanked by his two glowering bodyguards. Natasha sat in the corner, head bowed. Lu had his hands tucked into the wide sleeves of his gown, and his eyes, too, radiated a cold fury. Field had never before been in the presence of someone who appeared to exist solely to damage and destroy.

  Field could not look at Natasha, but he was overwhelmed by her presence. His heart was thumping, his palms sweaty, his mind confused.

  “Your name?” the blond Russian asked.

  “Field.”

  “First name?”

  “Richard.”

  “You are a police officer.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which department?”

  “S.1.”

  “Special Branch.”

  “Yes.”

  “You believe my men are communists?” Lu spoke in a low monotone, his anger barely restrained.

  “No. Of course not. I apologize.”

  They were silent.

  “It was an accident,” Field said.

  “No, Mr. Field, it was a mistake?” Lu shook his head once, curtly, his anger not soothed by Field’s apology. “The good reputation of the police is important to Shanghai. You cannot afford mistakes.” He sighed. “You are a friend of Mr. Lewis?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Lu frowned.

  “Yes.”

  Lu suddenly pulled his hands from his sleeves, clenched his right into a fist, then opened it again, as if demonstrating the ease with which he could crush whatever came within his grasp. “You are a fortunate to have such friends.”

  “Yes.”

  Field tried not to meet Lu’s eye. He caught sight of his own reflection in a large gold-framed mirror that hung behind a small bar at the far end of the room.

  “These are troubled times,” Lu said.

  Field did not answer.

  “Mistakes . . .�
�� He tipped his head to one side. “Mistakes can be costly.” Perhaps it was Field’s imagination, but he thought Lu glanced at Natasha’s bowed head as he spoke. “You are foolish to have done this.”

  Field forced himself to say yes.

  “We should not meet again,” Lu said quietly. “No, we should definitely not meet again.” He dismissed Field curtly with his hand.

  As Field turned, he saw Natasha, her head bowed in supplication, her hair shielding her face.

  The blond bodyguard ushered him, none too gently, to the door.

  Lewis was waiting for him. He didn’t ask what had happened. “This is Shanghai, Richard, not Twickenham.”

  “So he can do as he wants?” Field asked, his anger returning.

  Lewis looked at him, still bemused. He took a silver cigarette case from his jacket pocket, lighting up himself, then offering one to Field. “Listen, old man, all good things come to those that wait, if you understand what I mean.”

  Field did not respond. A doorman emerged from the club and handed him his trilby, before quickly retreating.

  “Bright young man.” Lewis smiled. “You’ll be all right.” He laughed, the cigarette still in his mouth. “Perhaps, one day, you’ll even be able to afford old Natasha, if he’s got tired of her and she’s worth having by then.” Lewis was still smiling. “It’s a joke, old man.”

  “You seem to get on just fine with Lu.”

  Lewis’s face darkened. “I hope you’re not implying what you seem to be, Field. I want you to be in no doubt that I’d like it very much if Lu didn’t exist, but until we find a way to bring that about, needless friction would serve neither of us. You’d do well not to fight what you can’t change.”

  “That may be your philosophy, but it’s not mine.”

  “Then you’re going to find life here rather tough going, old man.”

  Field didn’t sleep. It was a cooler night, but in the tiny box that was his room in the Carter Road quarters, that made little difference. He lay still, staring at the ceiling, his whole body covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The mosquitoes had no respect for the nets or spray and he watched them gathering in the corners of the ceiling in the half-darkness.

  He turned on his side, trying once again to shut out the sounds from next door.

  They grew louder, something—Prokopieff’s head perhaps—banging against the wall. There was a low grunt, then a muffled scream, followed by the too-familiar sound of a beating, so that Field was on his feet, his fists clenched tight.

  He pressed his knuckles against his forehead, then tried to block his ears, but Prokopieff’s companion was crying loudly now and Prokopieff was hitting her harder.

  Field jumped onto the bed and thumped the wall with the flat of his hand. “Shut the fuck up!”

  The beating stopped, the girl’s crying dropping to a strangled whimper. “Shut the fuck up, Prokopieff,” Field repeated, breathing heavily before slumping back onto the bed and once again staring at the ceiling.

  Prokopieff began talking to the woman roughly in Russian, and after a few minutes Field heard her getting dressed. Prokopieff, he knew, was paying her.

  She walked away, her heels clicking loudly in the corridor.

  “Get fucked, English boy,” Prokopieff said, but Field didn’t answer.

  He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but his heart was thumping.

  He thought of the fear in Natasha’s eyes tonight and recalled what Maretsky had told him about Lena not being the first victim, nor, probably, the last. Why hadn’t he told Caprisi about that already? They should have been working with a much greater sense of urgency.

  Field wanted the new day to begin immediately.

  Seventeen

  Field was waiting next to Caprisi’s desk when the American arrived for work. Caprisi put down his leather case and hung his raincoat from the hatstand in the corner. “All right,” he said, “I get in early, but this is . . . How long have you been waiting?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “No shit?” The American shook his head. “And you couldn’t shave, either?”

  “I forgot.”

  Caprisi sucked his teeth. “You’re anxious to get to work?”

  “I was just thinking . . .”

  “Hold your horses.” Caprisi lifted a finger. “Let me stop you. In the spirit of the overworked and underpaid Criminal Investigation Division, unlike your own department, Chen and I now have to deal with this armed robbery yesterday and—”

  “That can wait.”

  “Says who?” Caprisi shook his head. “We’ll get back to the Orlov case, but—”

  “No, we can’t do that.”

  “We can’t?” Caprisi cleared his throat before turning to pour himself a glass of water from the purified jug in the corner.

  Field took his hands out of his pockets. “Lena wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Maretsky doesn’t believe this was the first case, and he is sure the perpetrator will now have a taste for it.”

  “A taste for roughing up Russian girls narrows it down.”

  “You sound like Sorenson and Prokopieff.”

  Caprisi’s mouth tightened. “Be careful, polar bear. We’ve a heavy workload and this can wait.”

  “It can’t.”

  “Now . . .”

  “I saw your face in Lena Orlov’s flat and down in the Chinese city. Why was Chen restraining you?”

  “Back off, polar bear.”

  “What happened to Slugger?”

  “I said back off.”

  “Was he a homosexual?”

  Field held Caprisi’s stare. The American suddenly took a pace closer. “Slugger was twice the man you’ll ever be.”

  “And Lu had something to do with his death?”

  “Slugger liked men, Field, you’re right.” He shook his head. “You want to know, I’ll tell you. Slugger liked men. I didn’t know, his wife didn’t know, his kids didn’t know, but Lu found out. As I said, we were closing down a lot of opium dens on the Foochow Road, angering Lu and upsetting the cabal, and Slugger wouldn’t be bought, so they set him up. There were pictures, just for fun. Slugger wouldn’t bend to the blackmail and decided to leave. He told us what had happened, put his wife and family on the boat to England, and some men in raincoats met them as they came down the gangplank in Hong Kong and handed his teenage son a photograph of Slugger fucking another man. So Slugger walked up to the top of the Peak and blew the back of his head off.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No you’re not. You didn’t know him.”

  “That doesn’t stop me being sorry.”

  Caprisi turned back to refill his glass, and it was a few moments before Field noticed that Chen had come into the room and was leaning against one of the cubicles. “Field wants to concentrate on the Orlov case,” Caprisi said.

  Chen shrugged.

  “Maretsky says he doesn’t think there are any cases here, but what about in the French Concession?” Field asked.

  “He’s asked them,” Caprisi said.

  “Yes, but if they’re as corrupt as everyone says, then they will probably have lied to him, or lied about the details.”

  Caprisi frowned.

  “A death would still have been reported in the newspaper. The gendarmerie might not have given all the details, but they would have to provide some.”

  Caprisi looked far from convinced.

  “If we could find any deaths that seemed even vaguely similar, then a little investigation might show a connection. It’s a long shot, I know, but if we could establish that there was even a single other case, then a pattern might emerge.”

  Caprisi took out his pad and the short stub of pencil and made a note of this underneath one saying “fingerprints.” He looked up. “What about the factory that was referenced in Lena’s notes, and the shipments of sewing machines?”

  Field looked at Chen. “Is that a red herring? Are we sure
there is a connection between that notebook and the girl’s death?”

  “Why did she want to keep it secret?” Caprisi asked.

  Chen moved closer. “Lena was Lu’s girl. The factory has some kind of criminal activity associated with him. When I went down yesterday, they were nervous . . . the manager was not there.”