1882–1919
Danilov stared at the headstone. Strachan would have to find room on it for his mother’s name, spoiling the symmetry of the letters. A shame.
Uncle Chang beckoned him forward to the edge of the grave. He picked up a lump of the dark soil, dropping it on top of the coffin. One day, his daughter would be doing the same for him, mourning his death. The thought sent a shudder down his spine. It was too early to think like that; he still had so much to do.
As if reading his thoughts, Strachan asked him, ‘Was it worth it, sir? Both of them dying for nothing.’
Danilov thought for a moment before answering. ‘They didn’t die for nothing, Strachan. They both chose to protect those less fortunate than themselves, allowing them to live in peace.’
‘I wish I could believe that, sir.’
Danilov sighed. ‘Our job is to protect the weak from the wolves, Strachan, it’s what gives our lives meaning.’
‘And our deaths, sir?’
Before Danilov could answer, Uncle Chang signalled for them to move away to allow other mourners to say their last respects.
Danilov took Strachan’s arm. ‘We should go now.’
For a moment, the detective hesitated, then he nodded and they both moved away.
Danilov could hear the soft thuds of earth landing on wood, as his colleagues from the police force stepped forward to drop the soil of Shanghai on to the coffin. A soft echo of sound, burying the wooden box and the body within its tomb of earth.
Strachan stood in the correct position, waiting for the mourners to walk past, Uncle Chang on one side and Danilov on the other.
Chief Inspector Boyle was the first to clasp both his hands. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Detective Strachan.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Strachan obeyed the formalities.
‘I wish it could have happened under different circumstances.’
‘So do I, sir.’
‘But you mustn’t blame yourself. You weren’t to know’
Danilov looked across at Strachan. The detective’s shoulders were rounded as if he was carrying all the sins of the world on them. With the addition of one extra, just for him.
‘But I should have known, sir. It was my job to know.’
‘You’re being too harsh on yourself. Who could predict what a madman would do?’
Chief Inspector Boyle stood waiting for a response for a few moments, before nodding his head and turning to go.
‘Good luck, sir,’ Strachan finally blurted out.
‘Thank you, Detective Strachan. Retirement has come earlier than I thought it would.’ He looked all around him. ‘I’ll miss all this.’
‘Shanghai, sir?’
‘Shanghai. And its people.’ With those words, he nodded once more and moved on.
Danilov remained by Strachan’s side for the blur of handshakes and accompanying words from a long line of Strachan’s colleagues, some in the blue uniform of the Shanghai Police and others in the mufti of the detective force.
‘So sorry for your loss.’
‘Heartfelt commiserations.’
‘We’ll pray for her.’
Then, Inspector Cartwright was standing in front of Strachan, with Meaker by his side. Why had these two come here?
‘My condolences on your loss,’ said Cartwright. Meaker stepped forward and shook his hand, the alcohol on his breath fogging the air.
‘My condolences,’ Meaker echoed before licking his moustache.
After what had happened, these two were the last people Danilov expected to see at the funeral. Strachan mumbled a response, but they had both moved away, Meaker stumbling over a clod of earth.
The line seemed to go on for ever. More hands were stuck out, words mumbled, sorrows expressed.
Finally, everybody had moved away and only the inspector, his daughter and Uncle Chang remained with Strachan.
‘When are you coming back to work?’ Danilov asked.
Elina nudged her father, chastising him with her bright-green eyes.
‘Tomorrow, sir, if it’s okay with you?’
‘The sooner, the better.’
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to take more time off, David? Sort out your mother’s affairs?’ said Elina.
Danilov noticed she called him David. When had they become so close?
‘I would prefer to be working, Miss Danilova.’
She leant forward and whispered in Strachan’s ear, then she stepped back, took her father’s elbow and guided him away, walking towards the main road.
‘What did you say to him?’
‘I just said he shouldn’t blame himself.’
‘Who should he blame?’
Elina pulled her arm away from her father. ‘Sometimes, Father, you can be too cold.’
‘Sympathy doesn’t help at times like this, Elina.’
‘Is that how you managed to survive?’
Danilov thought of the years alone in Shanghai. Throwing himself into work had helped him forget the loss of his daughter, wife and son. And, in the evening, losing himself in the smoke-scented dreams of the opium pipe. Last year, he had found Elina; now all he had to do was reunite the rest of his family. It was that hope that kept him alive.
Hope.
Strachan and his uncle joined them before he could answer his daughter.
Uncle Chang stuck out his hand. ‘It has been a pleasure meeting you again, Inspector Danilov.’
‘I wish we could have met under better circumstances.’
‘If you need any help with your investigations, please don’t hesitate to call on me. My door is always open.’
The man walked off towards the main gate of the cemetery, where the houses of Shanghai crept up to the boundaries of the city of the dead, threatening to invade the land but kept at bay by superstition and fear.
Strachan took one last look back at his mother’s grave. The gravediggers were already shovelling the dark Shanghai soil on top of her coffin.
‘It’s time to go now, David,’ Elina said.
Danilov touched Strachan lightly on the arm. The rain still swept down, the smell of fresh earth filled the air, and behind them the rattle of the car engine echoed among the headstones as it waited at the main road.
Reluctantly, he turned away.
Danilov watched him walk slowly out of the main gates. The image of an old man carrying a heavy samovar on his back flashed though his mind. Was it an old folk tale? Or a song? Or something his father had told him years ago?
He couldn’t remember, but it came back to him now as Strachan walked away.
It wasn’t a happy memory.
5
‘Sally, I’m happy to see you’re awake.’
The voice came from above her and to the left. Beneath her the ground was soft and clammy. She scraped the earth with her fingers. Immediately, the smell of decay assaulted her nostrils; a scent of death with the tang of fish.
She lifted her head off the ground, instantly letting it fall back again, an earthen pillow to cradle her tired head.
How had she got here? Was she drunk last night?
She shook her head, trying to free it from the shackles of dullness. Dancing to ‘Snake Hips’. A hand on her backside. Sailors falling out of a bar. A dead cat, teeth pulled back in a scream of agony. Running through the alleys. Ah Sing, his hands cold. Home. Safe. A light calling her forward.
The cold touch of the rag on her mouth.
The smell filling her nostrils.
Dark.
The blackness of night.
‘Hello, Sally.’
The voice again, above her.
She lifted her head again. Above her, a light shone directly down, trapping her in its glare. Around it, she could just see the dark outline of a circular edge.
How had she got there? What happened?
She grabbed a handful of the dark soil, letting it dribble through her fingers. Again, the stench of death and fish and sweat and damp enveloped her.
> Her underclothes and body were covered with the stuff, clogging her hair, fingers and feet.
Where was she? What was she doing here?
She opened her mouth to scream.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Sally.’
She turned her head to where she thought the voice came from. As she did, a stab of pain shot through her neck. She touched the skin below her ear. It was wet and sticky and she felt the raised edges of a cut.
Another stab of pain shot through her as she brushed her fingers across the open wound, red clots of blood coating her fingers.
Her blood.
‘What have you done to me? Why am I here?’ Her voice came out as little more than a choked squawk. She tried again, ‘What am…?’ But only the first few words escaped from her mouth before she collapsed in a fit of coughing.
‘You shouldn’t have screamed so much last night, Sally.’ The voice again. A slow, educated voice with each syllable pronounced carefully and correctly like a child reading a textbook. ‘Nobody can hear you screaming. Not here, not now.’
She peered up into the light but couldn’t see the top. Walls of dark earth glistened beneath the bright, unblinking eye. The voice came from somewhere behind the light, hidden behind its intense whiteness.
She grabbed a handful of earth and flung it upwards.
‘Such a waste of effort, Sally. Save your strength. I have something for you to do, a little test, for which you will need every twitch of your elegant muscles.’
‘Let me out of here,’ she croaked once again, collapsing in a long spasm of coughing.
‘Tut, tut, I am disappointed in you. For such a mature woman, you do behave like a young girl.’
Sally sat up and peered into the light again, imagining it to be her own spotlight, the one whose rays she drowned in on the dance floor. She paused and smiled in the winsome way she used with the men who bought her dance tickets. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘That’s better,’ the voice from above said enthusiastically. ‘I knew you would come round. You have a choice, Sally. Everybody in life has a choice. Yours, though, is a little different.’
She was listening to the voice, trying to understand the meaning behind the words. ‘What do you mean, a choice?’
‘You can either stay in the pit and die slowly from starvation…’
‘Or…?’
‘Or, you can climb out. If you are able to get out, you go free. It’s that simple.’
Out of the light, a length of rope uncoiled beside her.
‘Pull it. I’ve tied it securely up here to a support.’
There was silence from above. All she could hear was the sound of muffled breathing, like the bellows of a broken pump.
‘You are probably wondering why I am doing this.’
‘I don’t want to know,’ she croaked.
‘Well, you’re going to hear anyway. You’ve been a bad girl, Sally, who’s lied about everything.’
‘I didn’t lie…’
‘Ah, but you did. Your lies cost Gordon Cowan his life. How else did the thugs find him before Danilov?’
‘How do you know about that? Nobody knows.’
‘But I know. I know everything. How much did they pay you? Five dollars? Not much for a man’s life.’
Sally hugged her legs tighter. How did he know? How could he know?
Up above, the voice changed. ‘You have been judged and sentenced, Sally Chen. But you have a chance to redeem yourself. Everybody has a chance at redemption. All you have to do is climb out. If you can make it, you go free.’
‘And if I don’t.’
‘You die here, slowly. Starve to death, actually. Unless, of course, the rats get you first.’
‘You bastard, you fucking bastard.’
‘Now, now, Sally, no need for abuse. I’ll leave you alone. I’ll also leave the light on. I know you don’t like to be in the dark. It’s your choice. You can take your chance at redemption or you can die slowly and extremely painfully.’
The soft slide of shoes on an earthen floor, walking away from the light, a door opening and closing. She stopped breathing, listening for any other sounds.
Nothing except a faint buzz from the light. ‘Is anybody there?’ she whispered.
There was no answer.
She looked up towards the light, following the trail of the rope. If she squinted her eyes, she could see an area darker than the rest, a faint line where the edge of the pit met the clear air. She guessed it was about fifteen feet away. She pulled at the rope hanging from above. It stretched slightly in her hands. She tugged, harder this time, leaning back with her whole body, pulling as hard as she could.
The rope didn’t give at all.
A searing pain shot through her neck once more. Take it easy, Sally. Fresh drops of blood dribbled from the wounds and ran down on to her shoulders. She reached up with her right hand to block out the light, trying to shield her face, ignoring the pain in her neck.
She reached up as high as she could on the rope. Getting a firm hold with her hands, she pulled herself up, gripping the bottom of the rope with her legs. It was just like school, with the mad gym teacher who loved to show how strong he was by performing the flag at the top of the pole. Silly old fool. She had shown him, though, climbing the rope faster than he could. But she had been eleven then and young and thin and fit. Now she was twenty-seven, and her arms and legs weren’t nearly as strong.
Once again, she grasped the rope as high as she could, pulling herself up and gripping it between her thighs and ankles. She hung there and the rope began to sway with the weight of her body.
She gripped with her legs and pulled up with her arms. The rope was swaying more violently now, swinging like a pendulum from side to side.
Her body crashed into the wall of the pit. A sharp pain sliced through her. Her head swam with pain.
She looked down. Her arms and legs were covered in long red lines. The lines thickened and formed red drops, dripping on to the earthen floor. Her underclothes had long slashing marks across them as if a deranged seamstress had attacked the material with scissors.
The pain seared through her body but still she hung on to the rope.
She stared at the wall. Tiny points of light glinted against the darkness. The rope was swinging again. She tried to twist away but only succeeded in turning her left side to the wall.
Again, she felt the slicing pain sear through her body. She pulled up on the rope with her arms, desperately trying to escape from the pit, but her arms gave way, and she fell to the floor, landing heavily on her back.
‘Oh, I forgot to tell you. The walls of your pit are covered in razor blades. It’s a hill of knives, don’t you know?’
He was there. He’d never left. He had been watching her all the time, struggling on the end of the rope. Another wave of pain surged through her arms and legs.
‘You’ll have to avoid the blades if you want to get out. Nobody said it was going to be easy.’
Sally looked into the light. For the first time, she could see somebody standing at the edge of the pit, silhouetted against the light. At the top of the body was a dark mass where the head should have been. A black mass with no features on it at all.
She screamed again.
It was the last thing she did before her world went dark.
6
Strachan returned home after a painful two hours at the police club where he had to suffer more condolences, commiserations and heartfelt sorrows. He was glad when he could finally leave the tea, cakes and potted beef sandwiches and escape into the fresh, coal-smoked air of Shanghai.
He had walked around on his own for a while, not knowing where he was going. The streets were full of people going about their business; rickshaw drivers sat smoking cheroots as they waited for their passengers, workmen hammered iron rods into shape to form the bars on windows, beggars crouched in the middle of a forest of rags, their hands held out in supplication, elegant women in tight qip
aos and the latest high heels tottered past them, ignoring the detritus at their feet, hawkers extolled the excellence of their noodles, trams rattled by filled with faces.
The streets of Shanghai, always full of life and people. So many people. Going about their business as if nothing had happened.
And nothing had happened. His mother had died but these people didn’t know her and they cared even less. He was the only one who cared. The only one who would miss her.
At one point a man had bumped into him on the street. Without thinking, Strachan lashed out, pushing him backwards into a wall, his right hand gripping the man’s throat. He squeezed tighter and tighter and tighter. The man struggled for breath, fighting to stay alive, kicking feebly with his legs, trying to grab the detective’s arm.
Seeing the fear in the man’s eyes, Strachan’s anger ebbed away, and he let him drop to the pavement, gasping for breath like a stranded fish.
He walked away and carried on walking, roaming the city like a ghost looking for a home.
Somehow, he found himself in front of his own house. It was as if his feet had arrived home without any conscious involvement from him.
He hesitated in front of the door. Should he go in? Or would it be better to walk away and never come back. Find somewhere else to live, far away from here.
Shaking his head, he inserted the key in the lock and pushed the door open. He half expected to hear her voice call to him from the kitchen. ‘You’re back, David. I’ve made some soup for you.’
But there was no welcoming voice, not any more.
The aroma of her cooking still suffused the hallway. The warm, earthy smell of a pig’s ear soup, sitting on the stove for hours, gradually building and developing a wonderfully gelatinous flavour.
A few steps into the kitchen. There was no pot bubbling on the stove, only the black range staring back at him, its cast iron polished to an ebony shine by years of his mother’s sweat.
A tap dripped off to his left. He would have to get it fixed, something he had been promising his mother he would do for a long time.
Another promise he had broken.
In the far corner, there were no more bloodstains on the wall. Somebody had cleaned them up. Nobody would know his mother had been shot and killed here.
The Murder Game Page 2