Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

  She took a sip of her whiskey and looked at him, a hint of amusement at the corners of her mouth. “Lust?” she asked quietly.

  Field didn’t answer, but she drained her glass and exhorted him to follow with her hand. “One more,” she said when he hesitated. He drank.

  “I’ve never met a woman who drank whiskey.”

  “How sheltered your life has been.”

  “In some ways.”

  “In what ways has it not been sheltered?”

  Field smiled. “What about you?” he asked.

  “Have I been sheltered?”

  He shook his head. “Which of the sins do you fall prey to?”

  “All of them, probably. Most people seem to think I’m wicked.”

  “Greed?”

  She sighed. “For happiness, yes.”

  “That doesn’t count as greed.”

  “Some people think it does.”

  “Penelope . . .” A man stood at her shoulder. He wore thick glasses and had wavy hair and a neatly trimmed beard, both shot through with gray.

  “Stirling,” she said, her voice starting to sound slurred. “Stirling Blackman, may I introduce Dickie Field, my . . . cousin, or . . .”

  “Nephew,” Field corrected.

  Blackman offered his hand and they shook. “Richard,” Field said.

  “Stirling.”

  “You two should talk. Stirling is a reporter for the New York Times. We were talking about you, Stirling, only last night, or was it the night before? I can’t remember.”

  “Not taking my name in vain, I hope.”

  “Oh, Geoffrey was, but you know how hard he finds it when people won’t see the big picture. Dickie is in the Special Branch.”

  Blackman tilted his head to one side. “Always interested to—”

  “You should talk, but not now. I need to go home. Come on, Dickie.”

  “I’m not sure . . .”

  “Please. Be a gentleman.”

  Field nodded at the reporter and followed Penelope. “Perhaps we could have lunch,” Blackman said.

  Field wanted to tell the reporter to back off, but Penelope had already gone through the doors into the ballroom and was weaving her way through the crowd inside.

  He followed her, skirting the edge of the dance floor. A drunken woman lost her balance and crashed into him. Field picked her up and took her arms from around his neck. He lifted his head and froze.

  They were standing at the top of the staircase.

  Lu had the same bodyguards in tow. Charlie Lewis and Hayek were part of the group that surrounded them. So was Natasha, though she managed to remain remote, staring into the middle distance.

  Field took a pace toward them as she turned. Her eyes locked on his for a split second. Her face was frightened and hostile and her eyes flashed a warning. Charlie Lewis raised his head and gazed idly in Field’s direction. Field thought he was laughing at him, and had been all along.

  Lu gesticulated slowly with his hand. Hayek listened intently. Lewis straightened, put his hands in his pockets, and turned to talk to Natasha, almost obscuring Field’s view of her.

  Field knew he had to move. The Chinese had not acknowledged him, but Field sensed that was deliberate.

  Lu edged forward, and the group moved with him. Natasha was now directly in front of Field. She wore a long silver dress, and as he watched, she raised her arm and pulled her hair back from her neck, gathering it to one side and letting it fall again. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then back again. Her shoes were thin and elegant, a single strap above the ankle.

  Lu shook his head curtly, as if dismissing something that Hayek had said, and broke away. Natasha stayed by his side. Field watched as Lu raised his arm to allow her to place her own within it. She was so much taller than him that the effect was both ridiculous and grotesque.

  Field fought back a wave of revulsion. He wiped his forehead and forced himself to walk slowly down the stairs.

  Penelope waited at the bottom, fumbling in her purse for some cigarettes. She took one out and offered him the lighter. “You want one?” she asked as he lit it for her.

  “No thanks.”

  She was drunk now, but so was he. Drunk and disoriented and angry.

  A car pulled up and she led the way out to it. As he climbed in after her, Field could not help looking up toward the Happy Times block. There was still a light on in Natasha’s apartment. Would Lu go up there later?

  Penelope placed a hand on his leg. “Be a dear and open your window.”

  Field sat up straighter, trying to prompt her to take away her hand, before leaning forward to do as she had asked.

  She slipped off her shoes, swept her feet around and placed them on his lap. She smiled at him. “Be a love. They get so sore dancing.”

  Field found himself taking two of her toes between his fingers and massaging them gently before moving down to the base of her foot. The skin was soft, her nails neatly painted. She leaned back and groaned. “Dancing in those shoes is bloody agony.”

  Penelope’s head was on the armrest beneath the window, her eyes shut, as she slid her other foot against his groin. Field tried to push himself farther back into the seat.

  As they pulled up outside the house in Crane Road, Penelope picked up her shoes. “Come on.”

  “I’m bushed. I think I’ll—”

  “Don’t be silly. Geoffrey will be very disappointed not to see you.”

  Field hesitated for a second before stepping out after her. The number one boy opened the door as they climbed the steps of the veranda.

  “Let me take your jacket,” she said.

  “No, I’m . . .”

  “Come on, Richard. You’ve been boiling all night.”

  Field handed it to Penelope, who gave it to the servant. “Is the master in?” she asked, but he shook his head.

  Penelope was already walking through to the sitting room, but Field hesitated again, looking first at the front door, which had been shut, and then at his jacket, which was being taken through to the cloakroom.

  “Penelope.”

  She didn’t answer. He followed her obediently through to the living room. He stood between a grandfather clock and an antique teak desk, beneath thick oil paintings of the English countryside, not dissimilar to those at the country club.

  She had poured him a drink.

  “You know, I don’t want to be a bore . . .”

  “You are being a bore.”

  “I have a very early start.”

  “But you’re young and fit and Geoffrey will be furious with me if you are not here when he gets back.”

  Field looked down at his glass. She drank, but he couldn’t face any more whiskey. Through the haze of his own inebriation, he had the feeling that she was nervous.

  “Come.” She took his glass and placed it with her own on a low Chinese table before grabbing his hand and leading him toward the door to the hallway. “You’ve got to see our greatest treasure.” He resisted at first, then once again found himself following her, this time out into the hall and up the stairs. “It’s a giant gold Buddha,” she said, and as soon as he entered the room, he saw it beside the bed.

  She turned to him. “What do you think?”

  “It’s magnificent,” he said without enthusiasm.

  “Would you hold on a minute?”

  She stepped into the bathroom, slipped her dress from her shoulders, and stepped out of it as it fell to the floor.

  She was wearing a white garter belt and stockings, but no underwear, the patch of dark hair at the base of her belly smaller and neater than he’d imagined, her breasts rounder and more upright than they’d seemed when she’d leaned toward him at the club.

  She reached behind the door for a long silk dressing gown. She wrapped it around herself and looked up, catching his eye. He realized she had known he was watching.

  “Richard . . .”

  “I’m going to go now.”

  “Of co
urse.”

  “Thank you for a pleasant evening.”

  “Richard, you can kiss me good night.”

  He didn’t move.

  “I’m not that unappealing, am I?”

  She walked over to him, flicking his lapel with one long finger, as Natasha had done two nights before. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Are you in love, Richard?”

  He didn’t answer, his face burning.

  “I sense a man in love, Richard. Isn’t that so?”

  He stepped back. “I don’t know,” he said, turning to go.

  “Richard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do I disgust you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then your haste does you a disservice.”

  “You are my uncle’s wife.”

  “And you’re ashamed of me?”

  Field sighed deeply.

  “Your uncle hasn’t fucked me for years. Did you know that?”

  Field turned away again and walked down the stairs.

  “Good night, Richard.”

  Twenty-two

  The car pulled up in front of the station in Little Russia. Field watched through the window for a moment as three priests, with long black beards and metal crucifixes, crossed Avenue Joffre and walked slowly in the direction of the Russian church. They passed a small group of Chinese children begging, without a glance.

  He asked the driver to wait and got out of the car. He stretched, every muscle in his body aching after his exertions on the rugby pitch the previous afternoon.

  The police station stood between, but twenty yards back from, two rows of shops. On one side was a tailor’s, on the other another fur shop. Sergei’s apartment was not more than a hundred yards away.

  Inside, the station felt almost like a gentleman’s club. A wide hallway was filled with tropical plants, their leaves swaying gently under the ceiling fans. A Vietnamese constable in a clean, freshly pressed uniform stood behind the front desk. Field introduced himself, produced his identification, and waited while the constable went to find the officer in charge.

  He tried to control his impatience.

  The lieutenant was like a caricature of the colonial Frenchman. He was almost as tall as Field and wore jodhpurs, riding boots, and an open-necked, loose-fitting white cotton shirt, which emphasized the depth of his suntan. His hair was dark, his nose big and broken. His posture and easy manner reminded Field of Lewis. “I am Givreaux,” he said, his handshake firm.

  “Field, S.1.”

  “How can I help you, Mr. Field?”

  “I’m trying to trace the whereabouts of an Igor Mentov, whom we believe used to live on Avenue Joffre.”

  Givreaux shrugged. “I don’t know him.” He spoke with only a slight accent, but “him” was still clipped.

  “We think he was here for only a short period, but our understanding is that he was arrested for an offense, possibly a minor one, at this station on or around May 1.”

  Givreaux shook his head and exhaled noisily. “More than a month ago . . . I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Would it be possible to look through the incident reports for that day?”

  “It is necessary for you to liaise with our intelligence section. They will fill out the papers, come down with you.”

  “My secretary has prepared the paperwork. I understand it will be on its way today, but our intelligence is that this man is going to board the train for Harbin tonight. Time is running out for us.”

  Givreaux looked less sure. “How will it help to look at an old—”

  “It’s about being sure of who he is and what he’s been up to before we close in. He is part of a conspiracy.”

  Givreaux pursed his lips. “I will have to call them.”

  “Of course.”

  “Please have a seat.”

  Field sat in the rattan chair beneath one of the fans, enjoying the flow of cool air. He crossed his legs and lit a cigarette, glad to be out of the office. The question of the fingerprint file gnawed away at him. He heard Granger’s voice in his head: “It’s a time for knowing who your friends are.”

  Givreaux came back into the room, his leather boots echoing on the old wooden floorboards. “All the officers are out,” he said. “I should make you wait, but . . .” He seemed to make a decision. “It is not such a big deal,” he said, mostly to himself. “The constable will go down with you. Put your head around the door when you are finished.”

  The constable was a young man with an open, friendly face. He led Field down a corridor behind the counter to a big airy room at the end of the building. Every available inch of wall space was filled with wooden box files.

  “What date?” the constable asked.

  “Let’s start with May 1.”

  The man fetched a stepladder from the far end of the room and placed it in the middle of the section directly ahead of them. He climbed up and removed one of the file boxes, which he placed on a low wooden desk.

  Field sat down. For a few moments the man stood uneasily beside him, then he walked quietly away to the window. Field began to leaf through the cards. He found May 1 and worked quickly through it, but the incident reports were restricted to assault, robbery, and lesser offenses. There was no reference to the murder he had read about in the newspaper.

  Field went back and looked through the cards again. Most of the reports had been filled out by a Detective Constable Ngoc and countersigned by a Detective Sergeant Pudowski. There had been two armed robberies on May 1, one in the morning at a fur shop on Avenue Joffre, another at a jeweler’s on Rue des Colonies, both by two masked men carrying machine guns. There was an assault on a Vietnamese driver in the French Park and an incident in which a woman’s handbag had been snatched. Field counted the cards. There were fourteen in all. Not one even hinted at what he was looking for.

  He began to work backward. There were only five incidents on April 30, all written up by Ngoc, none of them serious.

  “Would you like some tea, sir?” The constable was smiling at him. He did not appear suspicious.

  “Yes, please. Lemon, no sugar.” Field listened to his retreating footsteps. “Constable . . .” He waited until the man had turned. “If an incident occurred within this area, there would always be a report?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Even if it were, for the sake of argument, a serious crime, say a murder, and the call had gone first to headquarters on Rue Wagner, you would file a report, because it occurred in your area.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In all circumstances?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Field smiled and turned back to the box, suddenly less confident that this process was going to lead anywhere. If the headquarters staff wanted something hushed up, he thought it likely they would instruct Givreaux’s men not to attend the scene of the crime, in which case it would be well nigh impossible to file a report, even if they had wished to.

  He worked back all the way to April 4, which was where the box started. Most days, there were only a few incidents. May 1 turned out to have been exceptionally busy.

  The constable brought him tea and he sipped it slowly and ate the biscuits that had come with it.

  There didn’t seem much else that he could usefully do.

  He leaned forward to look through the cards for May 1 one more time, going extremely slowly, so as to pick up anything he might have missed. After flicking through five or six, he noticed that there was one missing.

  Each card was coded, the serial number written in black ink at the top left-hand corner. Here the cards jumped from F6714 to F6716.

  He looked carefully through the whole box to be sure that it had not been filed wrongly, somewhere else.

  “Constable . . .” Field leaned back and put his hands in his pockets. “In the Settlement, all incidents have to be first noted in the incident book, usually by the duty sergeant, before an incident report is written up and filed.”

&nbs
p; “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s the same here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you mind showing me the incident book for May 1?”

  The constable nodded and left the room, walking briskly down the corridor. He was gone for perhaps ten minutes and Field began to think he might have consulted Givreaux about this new request, but when he returned, he apologized for the delay and explained that one of the detectives had been noting down the details of a domestic dispute he’d attended.