Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

  “Natalya Simonov, Lena Orlov, Irina Ignatiev—stabbed so many times, crying out in pain, screaming in agony and terror, but nobody heard them.” He looked at her. “And even now, nobody can hear them.”

  She lowered her head again, staring at the bed.

  “All Lu’s girls. Who is next, I wonder?”

  She did not answer.

  “Perhaps it’s you?” he said at length.

  She went on staring down.

  “Do you have any cigarettes?” he asked.

  Natasha straightened, fumbled in her raincoat pocket, and then threw the box toward him.

  “Do you want one?”

  She shook her head.

  Field lit one and inhaled heavily, enjoying the smoke and the way it brought momentary relief from the smell. He looked at Natasha and then stood once more. “I want to get you out of here.”

  Caprisi was at the door, his face against the grille. Field wondered how long he had been watching. “Macleod wants a word, polar bear.”

  Field stepped out of the cell and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Caprisi pulled him away from the door so that they could not be heard. “Macleod has heard she is in, and he wants her.”

  “What do you mean, wants her?” Field’s heart was thumping again.

  “He wants her to go down, as a warning to Lu. She’ll get fifteen years and there will be fuck-all Lu can do about it. It would be a demonstration of who’s in charge of the city.”

  “No.”

  “Steady, polar bear.”

  Field trailed the American, his mind whirring as he climbed the stairs.

  Macleod was on the phone, standing by the window, but he put the receiver down as Field and Caprisi came in, and moved behind his desk so that he was no longer blocking the light. “Well done, Field . . . Take a seat.”

  “We can do better from this girl.”

  “I’m sure you can, but this is a decision—”

  “Nobody informed me of any decision.”

  Macleod frowned. Field saw that Caprisi was imploring him to moderate his tone. “No one has to inform you of anything, Field.” He sat down. “It’s excellent work, though, very quick thinking. The commissioner is pleased.”

  “We can do better.”

  “If you want to take it up with Granger,” Macleod said, his lips tight now, “then do so.”

  Field breathed in deeply, trying to calm himself. He sat down. “It’s not my position to say, I know,” he said, trying to buy himself time. “But this wouldn’t hurt Lu, really, would it?”

  “Depends how he feels about the girl. Depends how good a fuck she is.”

  Field breathed in heavily again to settle the pounding urgency of his blood. Macleod was fiddling with a stone paperweight on his desk. Field could see that his brusque and decisive manner hid a deep nervousness.

  “Lu Huang remains our prime suspect.” Field looked at Caprisi, who was standing between them, his back to the wall. “Shouldn’t we still play for the main goal? This girl may be able to help us.”

  Macleod’s face had softened a fraction.

  “And if we cannot, in the end, prove that Lu murdered Lena Orlov, then perhaps we could find another way to bring him to court.”

  Macleod looked doubtful.

  Field sighed, glancing at Caprisi once more. “Lu Huang keeps a ledger,” he said in desperation, catapulting forward a plan that had barely started to form in the recesses of his mind.

  Macleod looked at him as if he had gone mad.

  “There’s a clue in Lena Orlov’s notes. She said the payments were in the second ledger. Lu is a businessman. Every single transaction must be recorded in a ledger.”

  “I’m sure you will begin to make sense at some point,” Macleod said.

  “Every single transaction,” Field went on. “Legitimate and otherwise. What are the shipments referred to in Lena Orlov’s notes? If they are not legitimate, as we strongly suspect, then who is being paid, how, and where? A Fraser’s company is doing the shipping.”

  Macleod was alert now. “How do you know about this ledger? There’s a file upstairs?”

  Field hesitated. “Yes,” he lied.

  “Granger has opened a file? Have you got it?”

  “No.”

  “Can you get it?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It seems to have vanished.”

  “But you’ve seen it?”

  “Yes.”

  “It talks about criminal transactions being recorded?”

  “All transactions.” Field considered the logic of what he was saying for a moment. “I’m sure they are not noted as criminal transactions, but we might be able to prove a link between a crime and the payoffs associated with it.”

  Macleod walked back to the window. He leaned against the dark wooden frame, fingering his chain.

  “It would provide concrete evidence of—”

  “I’m not stupid, Field.” Macleod turned, staring out of the window at a thick cloud of black smoke that was drifting over the rooftops. “Would he really note down criminal transactions in black and white?”

  “The majority of his transactions are criminal. Every business needs to keep a record of—”

  “It’s a hostage to fortune.”

  “He’s safe in the French Concession and the house is a fortress.”

  “The woman should still go to jail.” Macleod turned back. “Medvedev, whatever her name is. That would be a signal, not just to Lu but to his associates, that when we catch people, they go to prison and he cannot protect them.”

  “Natasha has access to his house. She is summoned down there.”

  Macleod thought about this. “Where is this ledger kept?”

  “In his bedroom, we think.”

  “The murder inquiry is too important. If Lu remains the primary suspect, then—”

  “It remains the focus of our efforts.” Caprisi turned to his boss. “Field is saying that these ledgers serve a dual purpose. They could help us with the inquiry, by not only giving us an indication of what exactly these shipments are, and who else is in on the deal, but also providing a whole new avenue for prosecuting Lu.” Caprisi paused. “If the girl is frightened enough of prison, and is willing to work for us, then she could prove useful in a number of ways.”

  Macleod snorted. “She’s one of his women. She’s not going to work for us.”

  “Field thinks she will.” Caprisi looked at him.

  Macleod tapped his fingers against the paperweight and then began to drum them on his desk, before getting up and looking out of the window again, sucking in his stomach and hitching up the waistband of his trousers. “All right,” he said, “but make sure she understands. She should be in bloody prison.”

  Field stood, trying to hide his relief. He walked out ahead of Caprisi, but Macleod called him back. “I hope you don’t think I’m being harsh,” he said, closing the door behind the American. “I appreciate the work you’re putting in.”

  Field nodded.

  “I know it’s difficult, this not being your department, but we do appreciate your efforts.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Things are a bit difficult at the moment, but it will be worth it in the end. You understand?”

  Field nodded.

  “You’re not offended?”

  Field smiled. “No.”

  “Good. Good man.” Macleod pulled the door open with one hand and rested the other briefly on Field’s shoulder.

  Twenty-seven

  The process took longer than Field had thought. The Chinese sergeant refused to let Natasha go without someone from C.1 signing her out and wouldn’t budge even when Field got angry. Caprisi was nowhere to be found, and in the end Field had to summon Macleod to the phone, to tell the desk officer to do as he was asked.

  He didn’t want to bother with arranging a car, so they got a rickshaw outside and crammed in together. He was conscious of the fact that their legs we
re touching. She made no attempt to move away.

  Natasha let him into her flat. She slipped off her raincoat and stood in the middle of the room. She wore a simple, dark blue dress, cut close. Its hem rose above her knee as she ran her fingers through her hair.

  “Do you want something to drink?” Her voice was an octave lower.

  “No thanks.”

  “Tea?”

  “No.”

  “You want something to eat?”

  “No, I had lunch . . . of sorts.”

  “You don’t think I can cook? Most Russian girls can’t. Lena couldn’t boil an egg when she came here. But my mother died when I was a little girl, and sometimes I used to cook for my father.”

  “Perhaps sometime . . . you could cook me something.”

  She smiled for the first time today and it lifted his spirits. “I’d like that.”

  “Perhaps tonight.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Field did not know if that was a yes or a no. “But you must be hungry. Please don’t let me stop you.”

  “I can wait.”

  Natasha sat down, indicating that he should do the same, but the atmosphere had changed now.

  “I hope you’re not thinking that your freedom comes without cost.”

  She looked at her shoes. When she raised her head, Field saw that she was smiling.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You are funny. I’m watching you wrestle with yourself.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Do you want me, Mr. Field, or will you reject me? Which of you will win?”

  “I’m doing my job.”

  “Of course you are.” She stood, walked to the mantelpiece, and took down a packet of cigarettes. She lit one and then sat back down, her dress riding up her thigh.

  Field’s throat felt dry.

  “Is it because you think I belong to him? Does that disgust you?”

  “You do have to help me.” Field no longer trusted his voice, which sounded as if it belonged to someone else.

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  He stared at her. “Have you ever seen the inside of a Shanghai prison?”

  “No.”

  “I doubt you’d survive a month.”

  “Perhaps you’d be doing me a favor.”

  “If that’s what you think, I might as well take you back right now.”

  “You cannot hide behind your badge.”

  “You don’t believe we can protect you from Lu?”

  “Half of you work for him.”

  “And you think—”

  “No. That’s why I’m talking to you.” She shook her head in irritation. “Please. Do what you want with me, but don’t talk about this anymore.” She took a deep breath. “You ask me if I know who Lena was seeing, but I don’t. She was secretive those last few months.”

  “She told you nothing about him?”

  Natasha shook her head.

  “And yet you lived next door.”

  Natasha shrugged. “It was always a desire to be private.”

  “So you never saw a man entering her apartment, never heard a voice, never saw a car parked outside?”

  “No.”

  “It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? The two of you friends, knowing each other back in Kazan. You end up living next door to each other, and yet you know nothing whatsoever about her life?”

  “Believe what you want.”

  “What about the notes she left on these shipments—the SS Saratoga, due to depart with a load of Fraser’s Electrical Company sewing machines?”

  She was still shaking her head.

  “I would say the notes were left for someone who would be able to decipher them and would know what they meant. Were they left for you?”

  Natasha stared at him without answering.

  Field stood and crossed to the window. He looked down toward the racetrack and saw, to his surprise, that the large clock read almost five o’clock.

  He turned around. “Do you ever go to Lu’s house?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What do you do there?”

  She dropped her head an inch, looking at her hands, and Field felt his face reddening again.

  “Of course, you go into his bedroom.”

  “Of course.”

  The emotion was like a drug. His mind raced, his heart thumping in his chest.

  “What do you . . .”

  “Can we not talk about this now?”

  “We don’t have a choice.”

  “No.” She was avoiding his eyes. “Of course, but I’m tired.” She looked up. “Please, just not now.”

  He could see the pain in her eyes. “I have to go, anyway,” he said. “We have to investigate this Fraser’s factory.”

  He stopped at the door.

  She had followed him over. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Tonight, then?”

  “Yes, perhaps.”

  And then the door was closing, she was smiling, and reality, once again, was spinning away from him.

  Caprisi was standing by his desk, his holster on. “I’ve been waiting,” he said. “The manager finishes at six.” He pointed upstairs. “Granger was looking for you.”

  “I’d better go and check in.”

  “Come on, Field.”

  “I’ll be quick.” He sprinted upstairs to his own office.

  Yang was packing up to go and she eyed him without comment. Prokopieff was bent over a pile of newspapers, his jacket on the back of his chair, his thick suspenders off his shoulders. “Lucky bastard with that Medvedev woman,” he said. “You get all the luck.”

  Field knocked on Granger’s door and pushed it open.

  Granger was on the phone, his feet on the desk. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Yes, sir.” He put down the receiver and raised his eyebrows as he turned toward Field. “Department is using too many paper clips; the commissioner’s very worried.” He lifted his hand and lowered his feet. “It’s a joke, Field. You look anxious.”

  “No, just in a hurry.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  Field hesitated. “We’re just going down to this factory.”

  “Which factory?”

  “One of Fraser’s . . . an electrical company.”

  “Where?”

  Field hesitated again. “Yuen-Ming Road, I think.”

  Granger frowned.

  “It’s to do with this Orlov girl. She made some secret notes about a shipment—sewing machines. We don’t know why it’s significant.”

  “Well, be gone, man. Give me a shout later, tell me what you’re up to.”

  Once they were in the car, Caprisi asked him what had happened.

  Field explained, as far as he could. “She’s frightened of Lu,” he said.

  And then, as if responding to the flick of a switch, there was the roar of thunder and the heavens opened again, the rain falling with such force that the driver had to slow to walking speed. Field watched people scurrying for cover.

  It took them about thirty minutes to find the factory in Yuen-Ming Road, the driver frequently stopping and placing his face up against the windshield in an attempt to get his bearings.

  There was a sign and then a blue iron gate, open just enough to allow a car through. The front wheels dipped into a large puddle as the car turned off the road.

  “Stop,” Chen said, and the driver did so instantly. The Chinese detective was suddenly agitated. “There’s no security at the gate, why isn’t anyone here?” He raised the machine gun and placed the tip of it against the window. Both Field and Caprisi pulled out their revolvers. Field’s heart was pumping fast.

  “Go on,” Chen told the driver. The man looked around. He was much younger than Field had realized, and he was frightened.

  They edged forward slowly.

  “Come on,” Chen said, his voice tense. The driver revved up and they shot through the gate. The entrance to the factory loomed ahead of them, its doors pulled back wide.