Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

  Field’s eyes were drawn to an attractive blond-haired woman sitting in the tea lounge. She had an infectious laugh and reminded him of Lena Orlov. Then he noticed that her companion—the man she was laughing with—was Granger.

  “Can I help you, sir?” One of the bellboys smiled at him.

  “Er . . .” Field took two swift paces backward, so that he was out of view. “No. Just looking for someone, not here. Thanks.”

  He turned around.

  “Would you like to leave a message?”

  “No . . . no thanks.”

  Outside, Field crossed the road and walked in front of the Customs House.

  The girl must have been another of Granger’s women.

  Field needed cash, but had to wait in a long queue in the central hall of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank. The ceiling was made of elaborate colored glass.

  He looked at the Roman figures surrounding the dome at the entrance, representing Sapienta, Fides, and Prudentia, among others.

  To his left, small groups of men and women huddled together beneath two huge chalkboards. The one on the left listed the closing prices on Wall Street, headed by Reading and Baldwin Locomotive, a plus sign next to the final price showing that both had seen small rises on the day. The other listed Shanghai prices, and two men in long tunics stood in front of it, one of them reaching up to rub out and replace the figures as a colleague farther back shouted out instructions.

  Field looked at his watch, thinking that he would probably be early for the meeting he’d arranged with Caprisi and Chen at the central library. It would give him time to get started.

  He shuffled closer to the front of the line. A tiny Chinese, his head only just above the counter, was arguing with the teller. Field examined the boards behind the counter that listed currency rates in English and Chinese.

  When he was the next in line and confident of not losing his place, Field filled out a slip for a withdrawal of thirty Shanghai dollars. He looked up through the brass grille to try to calculate what his salary was worth in pounds this month.

  He finally stepped up to the counter and smiled at the young girl behind it as he pushed the form across. “An account balance also, please.”

  The girl checked the slip he had filled out, then got up and walked back to the huge filing cabinets that stretched all the way from one end of the room to the other. She checked the number and disappeared around the corner.

  She returned a few moments later with a buff-colored file and ran her finger down the page before taking a sheet of paper from the box in front of her, writing down an amount, and handing it to him. She began to count out the cash for the withdrawal he had requested. Field looked at it for a moment and frowned. He showed it to her. “Are you sure you have the right account?”

  She looked at the file. “Mr. Field, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded.

  Field frowned again. “Has there been a credit?”

  She checked it once more. “Credit today, two hundred; credit today, two hundred.”

  “Two credits?”

  “Yes.”

  “Both for two hundred?”

  “Yes.”

  “Four hundred in total?”

  “Yes.” She was looking at him now as if he were the stupidest man she’d ever met.

  “The first one for two hundred—my salary, the same source?”

  “Police force.”

  “Yes. What about the other? Who . . .”

  “Cash.”

  “Cash?”

  “Yes, pay in cash.”

  Field found it hard to control the excitement in his stomach as he walked out of the bank into the light drizzle and subdued bustle of the Bund. It seemed clear that the supplement Granger had talked of—which had to be the source of the extra money—was effectively doubling his salary, and, for the first time in his life, it would leave him with something to spare. It would mean a decent pair of shoes, nights out—he would be able to afford to drink at the Majestic. He could put some aside, send some home to his mother. This winter she’d be able to pay for coal.

  His first thought had been that the supplement was generous and even of questionable honesty, but his qualms faded quickly. The fact was his salary was poor, even mean, and if Granger wanted to make sure his men got extra from department funds to reflect the nature of their work, then that made sense.

  A few minutes later he sprinted up the wide stone steps of the public library on Nanking Road and entered a room that was almost as cavernous as the bank he’d just left.

  The bookcases were two or three times his height. One of the librarians was retrieving a book from the top shelf with the aid of a small stepladder. The reference counter was directly ahead. A sign in English and Chinese hung from the ceiling above it.

  Field took out his identification as a timid-looking Chinese girl approached him. “From the Special Branch.” She looked as if she might faint, so he smiled encouragingly. “I need the last six months of the following.” He smiled again. “Got a pen?” She scurried back to her desk to get a pen and a piece of paper. “The North China Daily News, the Shanghai Times, the Evening Post and Echo, the Evening Mercury, and the Journal de Shanghai.”

  Field took a seat at one of the long wooden tables and waited.

  It was about twenty minutes before she wheeled them in on a trolley with the help of a porter dressed in a dirty gray tunic. Field thanked her and looked over the leather-bound volumes, their titles etched in gold.

  He began with the most recent copies of the North China Daily News, which had not yet been bound and were kept loose in a box. He went back to a week before the Orlov murder.

  Most of the front page of the first edition he looked at was covered in advertisements for everything from flytraps to shaving balm. Never mind the swarms of mosquitoes in your neighbourhood, one said. They will not pester you when you are protected by XEX. For sale; $4 per bottle at leading dispensaries. Only for the rich, he thought.

  Field’s eyes were drawn to a private notice beneath the advertisements on the left-hand side. Cool and comfortable, well-furnished, detached three bed house to let for three months. Garden, tennis, garage, centrally located in French Concession, near French Club.

  He sat back. It did not give a price, but how much could something like that be? If the monthly supplement went up a bit, he’d be able to afford it comfortably and still send money home to his mother. There would be funds for a car, a driver, and a couple of servants.

  Field shook his head, trying to suppress the pleasure that knowledge of the money sitting in his bank account was giving him.

  He turned to the headlines: “War in Hunan” and “Comrades Bickering Up North.” His eyes were drawn to an article below: “Kuomintang and Communism.” Canton, June 17. General Chiang Kai-shek has announced he is not in sympathy with the “reds.” The strongest of all the Kuomintang leaders has openly and vigorously announced that he is not in sympathy with the communists.

  The paper did not yet seem to have picked up on Borodin’s return.

  He began to scan the pages methodically, but there were so many small items that it took time. His hands were covered in black ink almost immediately, so that he smudged each new page that he touched.

  He found an item headed “Russian Suicides Drop.” The Central Coroner has reported a drop in the number of Russian suicides in the Settlement in the first half of this year from 12 to 9. The French Concession has reported a similar drop, from 25 to 22.

  Field looked at the item for a long time.

  He worked backward methodically, soon lost in what he was doing. He was looking at a picture of the Duchess of York’s new baby girl, Elizabeth, born in April, when Caprisi came and sat in the chair opposite him, Chen beside him. “Progress?”

  “I’m guessing they might simply have been passed off as suicides.”

  Caprisi shook his head confidently. “If there is a pattern, then the other girls will probably have been stabbed. Ev
en the French police wouldn’t try to pass that off as suicide.”

  “Why not?”

  “What’s the point? You might get an angry relative causing trouble. Simpler to let an investigation run into the sand.” He cleared his throat. “It will be down as a murder, but the details will have been obscured or changed. Have you got the Chinese papers?”

  Field shook his head and Caprisi nodded at Chen.

  “Do you speak French?” Field asked Caprisi.

  “Italian.”

  Field got up and lifted over one of the piles, a cloud of dust rising as he dropped them in the middle of the big oak table. “Take the Mercury.”

  They read on in silence. Field found another piece about Lu Huang. There was a picture of him directly above one of the new Shah of Iran with his son, but while the one from Iran was of reasonable quality, Lu’s was dark and shadowy. The feature covered “the Shanghai society figure’s largest donation to charity yet.”

  Field felt his anger rising as he read it. The donation had been to the Sisters of Mercy Orphanage and had been made because he “loved children” and wanted young orphans to be given the kind of care he had never received. The lady interviewer had obviously been overawed by Lu’s wealth and power. Field was about to stop reading when his eyes were drawn to a comment at the conclusion. “I am a Chinese!” he had said. “Always keep good records. Always records of everything. Guarded at safest place—home. Always know who owes money! Who already paid!”

  Field looked up at Caprisi, then went back to scanning the pages, the thoughts he’d been about to voice not yet clearly formed in his mind.

  Nineteen

  They worked patiently and in silence, the hours ticking by. Each time Field looked up, more time had passed than he’d imagined. He’d expected Caprisi, in particular, to have grown bored and gone off to do something else, but the American continued to scan the articles methodically, pencil in hand. Chen sat next to him, head bent, doing the same with the Chinese newspapers.

  In the end, Field was left with the Journal de Shanghai and Caprisi with the Shanghai Times. Field did not trust his schoolboy French, but he had no option but to try. He opened the first volume.

  “Cigarette?” Caprisi asked, and Field nodded.

  The three of them smoked in silence on the steps of the library.

  “There would have to be a record of it, wouldn’t there?” Field asked. “The level of crime cannot have reached the stage where the murder of a woman goes completely unrecorded?”

  Caprisi took a long drag of his cigarette. “There will be a record, if there was a murder.”

  “You’re indulging me.”

  Caprisi shook his head. “No, it was a good idea.”

  The American looked at Chen, who shrugged to indicate that nothing was lost by trying.

  “If you were a criminal,” Field said, “would you keep a record of everything?”

  Both Caprisi and Chen looked puzzled.

  “Would you record bribes, drug shipments, whatever it is that you are into?”

  “Record what?” Caprisi asked.

  “Transactions. Such and such a payment to someone in the French police, this amount of drugs arriving from India or from inland China on this day, distributed in these quantities to these locations.”

  They were still frowning at him.

  “Crime is a business like any other.”

  “Sure,” Caprisi said.

  “You would still want to keep accounts. I mean especially here, where they’re so meticulous.”

  Chen nodded. Caprisi shrugged. “You thinking of becoming an accountant?”

  Field looked down the street. “I used to be, in a way.”

  “In what way?”

  “I used to do my father’s books.”

  Caprisi snorted. “You want to bust Lu for not paying his taxes?”

  Field smiled. “Lena’s notes suggest that payments were recorded in ‘ledger two.’ ”

  “Correct.”

  “I’ve just read an interview with Lu. He boasts about what good records he keeps of all those who owe him money.”

  Caprisi nodded. “Getting to the point . . .”

  “He obviously has to record all details of shipments and so on. He must also keep track of whom he bribes and for how much. Lena must have seen those records. The interview says that he keeps these records at home. He wouldn’t need to lock them in a safe all day; entries are being made all the time, and no one is going to steal them. The French are no threat and the house is like a fortress. It’s better guarded than a bank. The only people who have access are his women.”

  They didn’t answer him.

  “If most of his actions are criminal, then most of those records will provide proof of criminal action.”

  “As you know, Field, he lives in the Concession.”

  “Yes, but supposing we could get hold of them? Supposing there was the political will to mount a prosecution? It shouldn’t take much for the Municipal Council to decide he’s got too big for his boots.”

  “Who says there is the political will?”

  Field decided to drop it, but he could see he’d got Caprisi thinking.

  “You should talk to Macleod,” the American said. “But you answered your own question. How would we ever get a look at them in the first place?”

  They finished their cigarettes. “Is Macleod as dour as he sometimes appears?” Field asked.

  “He’s Scottish.”

  Field smiled. “I know, but that’s not necessarily—”

  “He wants to clean up Shanghai, then go home and be a minister of the Kirk.”

  “Do you think he’ll succeed?”

  “I’m sure the church will have him.”

  “No, I mean—”

  “I know what you meant, Field.” Caprisi smiled. “What do you think?”

  Field didn’t answer immediately. “Nothing is impossible.”

  “Quite right,” Caprisi said, mocking him. “This is almost part of the empire, after all.”

  Field grinned. “Fuck off, Caprisi.”

  They worked for another twenty minutes before Field found what he was looking for. It was a brief paragraph on page two of the Journal of May 2. He kept his finger on it as he tried to translate. “The body of an . . . entraîneuse . . . entertainer was discovered last night by gendarmes in Little Russia. She is believed to have been stabbed to death at home.” Field looked up.

  Caprisi pulled the newspaper across the table. He pinched his nose between his fingers as he glanced at the print, leaving a smear of black ink.

  “They don’t even give her name,” Field said.

  “Make a note of the date,” Caprisi said. “There’s a station in Little Russia which would have received the first call. You should go down there tomorrow. Forget the French CID, they’ll tell us nothing. See if you can find out more details—how many times she was stabbed, was she handcuffed?” Caprisi looked at him. “I don’t need to tell you what to ask. Better that you go alone. Think up some excuse to have a quick look through the report cards for that period.”

  Caprisi’s driver pulled up opposite the Soviet consulate, and they crossed the road, light drizzle drifting into their faces as they walked alongside the tall wire fence. The building looked deserted.

  Beyond the perimeter were two Chinese shops, one selling spices, the other hardware, a narrow staircase in between providing access to the cramped, damp offices of the New Shanghai Life.

  A corridor, with piles of the magazine stacked all along one wall, led into a small room with five or six desks. Two typists sat in one corner, hammering away.

  Everyone turned to look at them. Two men cut short an animated discussion behind a wood and glass partition. Field recognized Borodin immediately. He was a tall, lean, well-built man with a hawkish face and closely cut dark hair.

  “Can I help you?” he asked from the doorway, his English spoken with a faint American accent.

  Field, who was closest, led
the way down between the desks. He produced his identification. “Richard Field, S.1. My colleagues, Detectives Caprisi and Chen, are from the Crime Branch.”

  Borodin was as tall as Field but leaner. He reminded Field a little of Granger, with his well-cut three-piece suit and polished shoes, but he was an aggressively angular man, his face hostile and suspicious. “No crime has been committed here. This is a legitimate magazine to try to counter the propaganda your newspapers put out about the new Soviet regime.”