Clyde nodded. “What are you going to do?”
Rowland checked his wristwatch. “Thanks to Mr. Wing, we have Alexandra’s address. She lived with her brother, I believe. I’ll call on him this afternoon and offer my condolences.”
Clyde and Milton exchanged a glance. “We’ll come with you, comrade,” the poet declared. “Clyde and I met her too.”
“We’ll all go,” Edna added determinedly. “Perhaps there’s something we can do.”
Alexandra Romanova had lived in one of the less fashionable districts of Shanghai. The European architecture gave way to humbler Chinese-style dwellings and rundown tenements. There were few cars here, the roads ruled by rickshaws.
“Russians live here predominantly, and the Chinese,” Singh informed them as they waited for a rickshaw to give way. “A very poor area. A lot of crime.” He pulled his taxi up beside a butchery. “This is the address. I think she must have lived above the shop.” He pointed to the rusted iron stairs around the side. “Shall I wait for you all here, sir?”
“I’m not sure how long we’ll be,” Rowland said apologetically.
“Not at all, sir. I’ll do my meditation while I wait. It will be time well spent.”
Though Milton was curious to witness Singh meditating in the taxi, they left him to it and climbed the creaking iron stairs to a small landing outside a weathered door. They could hear music from within, a melancholy violin. Rowland knocked. At first it seemed the knock was unheard against the music, but when Rowland pounded more loudly, the violin stopped. A few moments later, the door was thrown open by an enormous young man. Sergei Romanov was at least as tall as Rowland and about twice as wide. His hair was the same silvery blond as his sister’s had been, swept back from a broad, bearded face. The violin seemed small and toy-like in his large hands. He reeked of sorrow and alcohol, and swayed a little as he stood.
“Sergei Romanov?”
“Who asks?”
“I’m Rowland Sinclair. We’ve come to—”
Perhaps Rowland’s eyes were lowered as he prepared to offer condolences, for what came next caught him completely by surprise. He reeled as Romanov broke the violin against the side of his head. Divested of their burden, the Russian’s hands closed around Rowland’s throat. Clyde and Milton jumped in, trying to pull the man off, but lack of space aided the white-hot fury of Romanov, who was trying to throw Rowland off the landing. Clyde managed to pry one of the Russian’s hands away from Rowland’s neck. Undeterred, Romanov used it to punch Rowland in the jaw instead, elbowing Milton in the face at the same time.
“Murderer!” he hissed. “Ubiytsa!”
Rowland fended off another blow and wrenched himself, gagging, from Romanova’s grip. The Russian turned on Milton. Clyde scrabbled to prevent the poet falling backwards down the steps. Flattened against the doorway, Edna cried a warning as Romanov lowered his head and charged. “Rowly!”
Rowland lunged out of the way. The landing shuddered.
Edna screamed as the corroded railing gave way under Romanov’s momentum. Rowland grabbed the Russian’s shirt as he fell, and Clyde, his arm. For a few panicked moments Romanov flailed. Then Milton managed to grasp his other arm, and slowly the Australians heaved him back onto the landing. Milton sat on him, lest he see fit to attack again, and they stayed there, all trying to catch their breaths.
A few people had gathered to watch the commotion, but only a few, and they soon dispersed. A scuffle between Europeans was apparently not, in this part of Shanghai, sufficiently interesting to distract people from the necessities of their day. From the landing, they could see the taxi, but Singh’s meditations had obviously rendered him insensible to the fracas above.
“Mr. Romanov,” Rowland said, touching the side of his head gingerly. His fingers came away covered in blood. He winced. “I didn’t kill your sister, sir. I only came because I was told you were looking for me.”
From his position pinned to the landing floor, Romanov glared at him and cursed.
Edna intervened. “We came to offer our condolences, Mr. Romanov. Couldn’t we talk inside?”
“You want me to invite my sister’s murderer into my home?” His words were slow and slurred.
Edna picked up the remains of the violin. Her eyes softened as she looked at the grieving musician. “Rowly didn’t kill Alexandra. He just happened to find her body.” She told Milton to let Romanov up. “We’ll go if you want us to, Mr. Romanov, but you should know that we are just trying to find out what happened to your sister.”
Romanov said nothing for a moment, clambering unsteadily to his feet. The Australian men stood tense and ready should he explode again.
Instead, the Russian’s great shoulders collapsed. He shook his head and walked into the apartment. “Come.”
Inside, the dwelling above the butchery was sparse and dim—essentially a large single room. A primus stove on an upturned crate beside a sink served as a kitchen. There was a bed in the corner, unmade and piled with blankets. A couple of dresses on hangers hung ad hoc on the picture rail. Rowland recognised the red gown Alexandra had been wearing the night he’d met her. An old couch and another wooden crate topped with a cushion were positioned by the dirty window; a shelf fashioned out of bricks and a plank of wood held a few old books and a small porcelain ballerina. Three empty vodka bottles sat beside the ballerina.
Romanov slumped onto the upturned crate and dropped his face into his hands and sobbed.
“We are dreadfully sorry for your loss,” Rowland said quietly after a while. “If there’s anything we can do for you—”
“You can tell me what happened. Why Sasha was in your room?” Romanov was more despairing than angry now. “Were you her lover?”
“No.”
“Why is she dead?” The question was childlike, grief and loneliness wrapped in bewilderment.
“I really don’t know. I wish I did.” Rowland sat opposite Romanov and told the man everything he could about that night.
“She did not keep your appointment for tea and cakes?”
“No. I waited for about an hour and then I went up.”
“Sasha loved cakes…the pretty fancy cakes. And you found her in your bedroom…dead?”
“Yes, but it was not a bedroom,” Rowland said firmly. “She was in the drawing room of our suite.”
“Of course, of course. A suite.” He looked about the meagre room and shame coated his misery. “We didn’t always live like this you know.”
Rowland nodded. “Is there anything at all we can do for you?”
“Nyet, nyet…I will endure. My heart is broken and that is all. I have had a sister since I was five years old. A pretty little sister who danced like a butterfly…”
“At least let me replace your violin.” Rowland was desperate to help in some way.
Romanov looked at the splintered pieces of wood Edna had retrieved. “Ah yes, you broke it with your head.” He threw his arms in the air. “No matter…I do not want to play anymore.”
Edna beckoned the Australians aside. “Clyde, why don’t you and Milt see if you can get him decent food?” she said, glancing back at the makeshift kitchen. “I don’t think he’s had anything but vodka in a while. Rowly and I will stay with the poor man.”
“What if he—?”
“We’ll be fine.” Rowland handed Clyde his pocketbook. “Make sure you get him some coffee.”
“Are you sure?” Clyde looked pointedly at Rowland’s bloody brow. “He’s just attacked you.”
“He was drunk.”
“It’ll be a while before he’s sober,” Milton observed.
“Let Mr. Singh know we might be longer than we thought,” Edna said impatiently. “I don’t think the poor man has any fight left in him.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Clyde murmured, but he followed Milton out.
Cha
pter Seventeen
Chinese Revolution
UPRISINGS ALL OVER MANCHURIA
Fresh Successes of Anti-Japanese Struggle
SHANGHAI, Nov. 17.—The Chinese Press continues to be full of reports on the movements of the insurgents in Manchuria. Especially sharp conflicts have taken place near Tunchua, in the East of Manchuria. In October alone the insurgents made 158 attacks in this district, in the course of which 337 Japanese were killed.
The summer operations of the Japanese troops against the insurgents, writes the China Weekly Review, ended in victories for the partisans. In actual fact, there is not a single town, not a single railway line in Manchuria safe from the attacks of the insurgents. The most important centres, as Mukden, Harbin, and Chanshun, were attacked during this time. The impossibility of suppressing the armed struggle against the present regime in Manchuria is due, according to this newspaper, to the armed resistance of a considerable section of the population, especially the peasantry.
The North China Daily News reports from Harbin that a group of partisans, 10,000 strong, has been formed on the banks of Ussuri and has proclaimed an independent republic. Cannon and reserves of ammunition have enabled this group to repulse all attacks by the regular troops. The partisan troops have amalgamated all the units which have been fighting in Manchuria for the last three years and have been arousing the rebellions in the army of Manchukuo.
—Workers’ Weekly, 4 January 1935
* * *
By the time Clyde and Milton returned with supplies of eggs and bacon, tinned beans, mooncakes, bread, sugar, and coffee, both Rowland and Romanov had cleaned themselves up a little. Romanov had stopped weeping, expressing his grief instead with music. As he had destroyed his violin attacking Rowland, he sang instead—hymns and Russian folk songs rendered in a resonant baritone. In the confines of the apartment, it was a little startling but not unpleasant.
As there was just the single primus, it was decided that coffee was the most urgent need. They let Romanov sing until it was brewed, and then stopped him mid-chorus to drink. Clyde found a frypan and set about cooking the man a meal.
Sobriety seemed reluctant to return to the large Russian, but he did at least have food and coffee to dilute the vodka in his stomach. He became tearfully grateful.
“Only Sasha looked after me so well,” he said. “She would laugh at me, call me useless bear locked out of forest, but she would look after me. She was the in…int…the clever one.”
“Do you have any ideas as to who might have wanted to harm her, Sergei?” Edna asked. “Did she have any enemies?”
“Bolseheviks, only the Bolsheviks.” He lapsed into a string of vehement Russian, which Rowland chose not to translate. Even so, it was apparent to Clyde and Milton that their own Communist affiliations were best left unmentioned.
“Anyone else?” Edna pressed. “Was there anyone with whom she’d fallen out?”
“Fallen? She did not fall.”
“Was there anyone with whom she’d argued?”
“Nyet, everyone loved Sasha!”
“Did Alexandra have a suitor?”
Romanov looked at Rowland. “Him! He suited her. Her rich foreigner with blue eyes!”
“She met Rowly only a few days ago. Was there anyone before him?”
Romanov shrugged despondently. “There were many men in love with Sasha. She was beautiful.” He looked at Rowland. “No?”
Rowland nodded. “She was lovely.”
Romanov sighed. “If she had a lover, she might not have told me… She would not have wanted me to frighten him away. A bear, she called me.”
“What did Inspector Randolph tell you?” Clyde put another pot of coffee on to brew. “When he interviewed you yesterday?”
Romanov swiped his hand in Rowland’s direction. “He wanted to know about him. It was as if Sasha was of no importance apart from what she was to him…”
“What specifically did he ask you about Rowly?”
“Was he Sasha’s lover, he say. Rowland Sinclair killed her, he say… Rowland Sinclair is a Communist, he say!” Romanov began to anger again. So too did Milton.
“What the hell is Randolph playing at? He can’t run around telling people Rowly’s a murderer—that’s flaming slander!”
“Inspector Randolph is wrong,” Rowland said calmly. He looked Romanov in the eye. “I found your sister. I tried to help her, but it was too late. I had no reason to kill her. I didn’t kill her.”
“But she is dead even so,” Romanov said miserably. “And I tell you this, my friends, no one cares about a poor Russian girl in Shanghai… Once the tsar himself would have demanded justice for Alexandra Romanova!”
Edna reached over impulsively and pressed his hand. “We’ll demand justice for her! We won’t let them forget about her.”
Romanov’s eyes welled again. He tried to speak, and when the words would not come, he reached over and seized the sculptress in a mighty hug. The move was so sudden that Rowland instinctively stood and Clyde armed himself with the frying pan. But Edna returned the embrace, and her friends held back, though they remained wary lest the Russian crush the sculptress in his inebriated enthusiasm.
“You are kind,” he said when he finally let her go. “Like Sasha. You must be careful.”
“Careful? What do you mean?”
The Russian closed his eyes. He did not answer. Edna did not press him but spoke instead to Rowland. “We should let the poor man get some rest. He’s exhausted.”
Rowland retrieved the notebook from the inside pocket of his jacket. He flicked through in search of a clean page, pausing just briefly when he came to a sketch he’d made of Alexandra a couple of days before. He continued until he found an unused page. On it he wrote the telephone number at the Kiangse Road house and tore it out of the book before leaving it on the improvised shelf under the porcelain ballerina. “You can contact us on that telephone number or through the Cathay.”
Romanov had by then stretched out on the worn couch.
Edna pulled a blanket off the bed and threw it gently it over him. She tucked him in like a child.
“Spasiba, Sasha,” Romanov murmured half asleep. “You are a good girl. Izvinee, Sasha, Da svidahnia mladshaya syestra…”
Ranjit Singh delivered them home to a house fragrant with the spices of the dinner his sister had prepared. She fussed at the sight of them, bringing all the men into the kitchen to attend to their injuries with warm water and iodine while she reported on her day. Romanov’s violin had left Rowland’s temple and brow grazed and bruised, and Clyde and Milton, between them, sported a split lip and a black eye.
“This was all inflicted by the one man?” Harjeet asked, almost admiringly as she checked the abrasion on Rowland’s face for splinters.
“He got the jump on us,” Milton admitted.
“It is a pity.” Harjeet wiped the dirt off the shoulder of Rowland’s suit with a damp cloth. “The boy had just collected your other suits for cleaning and pressing. I have arranged for him to come once a week. I will of course launder your shirts and Miss Higgins’s frocks myself. Mr. Wing constructed a very nice drying line for me at the back of the house… Goodness knows how the previous residents dried their clothes.”
Rowland thanked her. He hadn’t actually thought of laundering, but then he rarely had call to do so.
“No trouble, Mr. Sinclair. You did not want luncheon, so I have had plenty of time to organise the house and do the marketing. I’ve been very careful not to use too much spice today as I expect you are not at all used to it, and tomorrow I will make a Western meal.” She smiled proudly. “I can cook anything.”
“A loaf of bread, the Walrus said, is what we chiefly need,” Milton replied.
“Who is this Walrus?” Harjeet asked, confused.
“An evocation of absurdity, dear lady,” the poet said bl
ithely. “The magnificent aromas of your cooking have moved me to verse.”
“Lewis’s verse,” Rowland noted.
Milton continued nevertheless. “If what you’ve prepared tastes half as good as it smells, I shall be compelled to compose ballads in its honour and yours.”
Harjeet giggled, clearly pleased. “What nonsense! If you are hungry, I shall serve.”
Over a dinner of curries and rice, served with rotis and sambals, they talked of the day’s events. Ranjit joined them at the table though he refused to eat, declaring that his wife would be angry if he was not hungry. Instead he took it on himself to explain the meal Harjeet had placed on the table, advising on how it was best eaten and detailing the differences between the way his sister and wife prepared each dish.
Wing Zau arrived just as the taxi driver was explaining how coconut was scraped to make a sambal.
Milton caught sight of him first. “What happened to you?”
Wing’s face sported a rather spectacular black eye, though the stain of iodine revealed that he had entered through the kitchen and encountered Harjeet.
Rowland’s eyes darkened. Had Du Yuesheng reneged on their deal?
Taking the seat they’d left for him, Wing tried to explain. “Please do not be concerned, Mr. Sinclair. My dishevelment is nothing to do with the difficulties through which you have already helped me.”
“Then what happened?” Singh asked sharply. He eyed Wing Zau suspiciously.
Wing ignored the driver and addressed his reply to Rowland. “I was trying to help.”
“Help whom, Mr. Wing?”
“You, sir.” Wing grimaced. “I thought I would try and find out about this black man who has been seen with Miss Romanov from time to time.”
Singh snorted derisively.
“I see.” Rowland vaguely noted the growing animosity between the two men in his employ.
“I attempted to question the men in the band that plays at the Jazz Club.” Wing glowered at Singh. “The Americans.”
Shanghai Secrets Page 14