Odd. The apartment was usually so tidy when he came home.
He walked into the bedroom. The curtains were drawn and it was dark. But he could see the shape of a body lying on the bed. ‘Rossana, why didn’t you answer when I called?’
Silence.
‘Rossana, are you ill?’
He stepped into the dark room and walked over to the bed. Rossana was lying on top of it, fully clothed, her eyes closed. He reached out to touch her shoulder, to gently wake her up.
No response.
He moved his arm along the shoulder to touch her face.
Still no response.
‘Rossana won’t be providing her usual favours this evening, Lieutenant.’
Before Deschamps could turn around, he felt the sharp jab of a needle in his neck between the ear and the top of his uniform collar. He tried to grab the arm that held it, but either he moved too slowly or it was too quick.
His vision was blurring already. He wanted to turn his body to confront the voice behind him but he couldn’t. He tried to move his legs but they remained rooted to the spot like plane trees. His throat was suddenly parched. Why was he so thirsty?
Before he could answer his own question, he felt himself falling forward into the unloving arms of his mistress. The last thing he felt before he lost consciousness was the smoothness of her skin against his cheek.
As smooth as death, he thought as he closed his eyes.
22
The capture of the lieutenant had been easier than he expected. The man was in the full flush of love, bearing flowers for his mistress.
What a disappointment.
He had expected a struggle at least. Something to test his new-found skills, but it was not to be.
He put them both together in the box. Deschamps would wake up soon and discover the inert body of his mistress lying next to him. She wasn’t dead, of course. Only injected with a neurotoxin to give the appearance of death. Something he had picked up from the Japanese when he had gone there for the surgery to his face.
The surgeon had spent a long time explaining the dangers of the extract from the liver of the fugu fish.
A small vial could kill sixty people, while a fraction of that could give one person the appearance of death.
That would be the first pleasure he would enjoy today. The look on Deschamps’s face as his mistress began to stir and come back life.
Priceless.
And afterwards, there would be a second.
A choice. He was preparing the choice Deschamps would face. He liked to give them a choice, it was only fair. After all, didn’t we make choices every day of our lives?
Choices to be good or evil.
To love or hate.
To help or hinder.
To kill or save.
The choices of life. And of death.
Deschamps had made a choice two years ago. A choice that had led to the death of a family, killed in the collapse of a new building he had approved for habitation. The developer had paid him well for his signature.
Deschamps would have to make another choice later today. But whatever choice he made, he would die.
That’s the problem with choices; sometimes they both ended up in the same place, whichever way one chose.
23
‘Sit down, Strachan, you’re making me nervous with all your pacing about.’
The detective’s office was empty by this time of night, most of the duty detectives either out on the streets dealing with fights between soldiers, or eating at one of the many hawker stalls surrounding the station.
Strachan reluctantly sat down behind his desk. Danilov was already sitting behind his, rolling a cigarette, the tobacco freshly bought from Rostov’s that morning. A roll-cut Waverley mixture from Lambert and Butler, still with the fresh, moist texture of wet heather when he rubbed it between his finger and thumb. He knew even before he had lit the first cigarette this was going to be a good smoke.
And he needed it. This murder needed the clarity only good tobacco gave him. The clarity to perceive what was happening through the fog of unknowns.
He licked the paper and sealed the simple white tube, lighting it from a box of matches positioned on the right edge of the ashtray, three inches away from the desk light.
He inhaled. The tobacco was as smooth as he imagined with just a hint of burnt toast at the back of his throat.
Strachan waited as Danilov went through his ritual of cigarette smoking, itching to ask the question that had consumed him since the Shanghai Country Club.
‘Is it a copycat, sir?’
‘I don’t know.’ Danilov inhaled again, blowing out three concentric circles as he exhaled smoke from deep in his lungs. ‘There are similarities to Allen’s modus operandi…’
Strachan looked at him, puzzled.
‘Way of working, Strachan. Most criminals have a preferred way of working. Burglars will use the same method to get into a house every time. Con men play the same cons over and over again. The world is always full of those who believe they can get rich by doing nothing.’
‘And killers?’
‘The same is true of killers. This murder bears some similarity to the death of Elsie Everett.’
‘The victim had exactly the same cuts.’
Danilov rapped his desk with his knuckles and glared at his detective sergeant. ‘Don’t jump to conclusions, Strachan.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘It appears this victim was killed in the same manner as Elsie Everett, but we will let the good doctor tell us more when we see him tomorrow morning.’
‘Another visit to the morgue, sir?’
‘Yes, Strachan. Your favourite place, I know.’
‘It’s not the bodies that give me the jitters, sir, it’s Dr Fang.’
‘Strachan, where have you picked up this disgusting modern slang? The “jitters”…’
‘The radio, sir. American detective stories.’
‘Well, listen to something else. We are real detectives hunting for a real killer, not some made-up voices of actors on the radio.’
‘Yes, sir. What about the victim in the hospital, sir? It appears she was attacked in the same way.’
Danilov blew another long stream of smoke up to the already kippered ceiling of the office. ‘Correct, Strachan. Anything back on her?’
‘Nothing, sir. She’s still unconscious. I talked to the duty doctor earlier. It’s not looking good. She’s lost a lot of blood and her wounds are infected.’
‘We should go there later this evening, check it out, as your American radio serials have a habit of saying.’
Danilov stubbed out his cigarette and thought about rolling another. There was something marvellous about the way the act of rolling a slim white tube concentrated the mind. He leant forward to take a leaf of paper from the packet. ‘Did you contact the Chinese authorities?’
‘About Mr Allen’s accomplice, Li Min?’
Danilov nodded as he concentrated on getting the thin strands of tobacco evenly distributed over the pristine white paper.
‘He was sentenced to be executed the day after he was handed over to the Chinese courts.’
Chinese nationals, even though they had committed crimes in the International Settlement, had to be handed over to the Chinese authorities in Chapei for trial and punishment.
‘That was quick.’
‘Apparently, the trial was over in fifteen minutes, sir. However, my friend in the Chinese police confirms the sentence was never carried out. It was commuted to life imprisonment.’
Danilov stopped rolling his cigarette. ‘Why?’
Strachan rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together in the universal sign for money.
‘Find out where he’s held, Strachan. We may have to pay him a visit.’
‘Already done, sir. The interview with him is at seven tomorrow morning in Chapei. Sorry it’s so early, sir, but the Chinese authorities won’t allow any other time.
‘Perfect, t
he sooner the better.’ Danilov tamped the newly rolled cigarette against the wood of his desk. A few orange strands fell on to the table. He collected these, carefully placing them back into his tobacco pouch.
‘Do you think he’s behind these attacks, sir? Carrying on Allen’s work?’
Danilov looked over his shoulder. ‘You ask me and I ask who, Strachan? We need to check out every line of enquiry.’
Danilov lit the cigarette and inhaled the warm, smooth tobacco. ‘We cannot rule anybody out of our enquiries.’ Danilov spoke the words through a cloud of smoke from the cigarette. It hung like a shroud above his head before slowly dissipating into the walls of the detective room. ‘And our Mr Johnstone from the Sinza Refuge?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
Danilov sat forward. ‘Nothing?’
‘He was appointed superintendent of the refuge eighteen months ago. Apparently, he arrived in the city from Harbin where he was the head of a similar organisation. Nothing before that, sir.’
‘Keep going, Strachan, I want to know all about Mr Johnstone. His face is familiar, but I can’t put my finger on where I’ve seen him before.’
‘Yes, sir. One thing has been puzzling me. You said there were other similarities with Elsie Everett, sir.’
‘Did I?’
‘You did, sir.’
‘Other than the presumed method of her death by a thousand cuts?’
Strachan nodded.
Danilov held up his right hand and began counting off the fingers. ‘The position and placement of the body, sitting on a bench facing the onlooker. The wrists showed signs of having been bound by thin ropes. The body wasn’t naked but dressed in a thin cotton garment, just like Elsie. And finally…’
Strachan smiled. ‘The hair was died blond too. The same shade of platinum blond.’
‘Well remembered, Detective Sergeant.’
‘Who could forget, sir.’
Danilov took another drag on his cigarette. ‘It’s the differences that are more significant, I think.’
‘The face was covered, unlike Elsie’s.’
‘Correct, Strachan. Why cover the face in something like plaster of Paris? It’s the work of a few minutes to remove it.’
‘Perhaps the killer didn’t want us to know who the person was, sir?’
‘Not right away, no, but eventually we will find out. That also presumes the killer knows my methods; I wouldn’t remove the cast covering the face but wait for Dr Fang to do it.’
‘The killing was on our patch, sir.’
‘But it’s almost as if the killer wanted us to be the investigators…’ Danilov’s voice trailed off as he considered the idea. He took another deep tug on his cigarette, seeking inspiration from the tobacco.
‘There was one other major difference too, sir.’
‘No characters carved into the body.’
‘I didn’t see any either, sir.’
‘Our killer’s trademark. But the body could have been marked beneath the cotton shift. We will know after the autopsy.’
‘But that means the killer would have had to undress the victim after the death, carve the skin and then redress it again. It seems like an awful lot of trouble, sir, when he could have simply marked the arms or the face.’
‘This man, whoever he is, has a plan neither of us can see at the moment, Strachan. We will know more after…’
‘…the autopsy.’
‘You’re beginning to understand, Strachan.’ Danilov stubbed the last quarter inch of the cigarette into the ashtray and stood up. ‘Let’s pay another visit to Mr Johnstone. Time to shake his tree and see what falls out. There’s something about him that feels wrong, but I can’t put my finger on it. After that, we’ll go to Shanghai General. Perhaps our victim has recovered consciousness. If not, at least we can question the doctors.’
Strachan stood up and reached for his hat and coat. ‘Right you are, sir, I’ll get the car.’
Danilov took hold of his arm, ‘You don’t have to do this, you know, Strachan. I could work with another sergeant on this case.’
Strachan’s head went down. ‘I prefer to be working, sir. Home is not where I want to be at the moment.’
Danilov thought of the time when he had been alone. When the only thing that had kept him from madness was dreaming of his opium pipe. Even now, he could still taste the bitter sweetness of the smoke in his mouth.
‘I understand,’ he eventually answered, ‘but mourning is a silent attacker. It can creep up on you when you least expect it and strangle you with its sadness.’
‘You sound like you’ve been through it all yourself, sir.’
Danilov didn’t answer.
24
The same Chinese woman as before opened the door to the Sinza Refuge. ‘Thank God you’re here. I was just about to telephone the police.’
She was obviously flustered, nervously pushing a lock of stray hair behind her ear. In the background, Danilov could hear a hubbub of female voices, all talking at the same time.
‘Calm yourself, madam. Can we come in?’
The woman opened the door wide. The narrow entrance to the refuge was crammed with women. As the detectives entered, the noise subsided to silence.
‘What’s going on? What happened?’ asked Strachan.
A multitude of voices answered him in English, Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin and a host of other dialects.
Danilov held his hands up and the noise slowly subsided once more. His voice softened. ‘I didn’t catch your name, Mrs…?’
‘Miss Wong.’
‘Take your time and tell me slowly, Miss Wong, what has happened?’
The old Chinese woman took a deep breath. ‘There’s been a robbery.’
‘Where?’
‘In the refuge, tonight. It’s the first time anything like this has ever happened. We’ve never had any trouble since 1910, and now this. What are we to do?’
The chatter of voices rose again. Danilov was tempted to ask what had happened in 1910, but he saved his curiosity. ‘A robbery here. When did it happen?’
Miss Wong took another deep breath. ‘We don’t know. I was taking Mr Johnstone his evening tray. He likes a chicken sandwich around seven o’clock. Good for the digestion with his whisky, he says. I don’t drink myself, of course, it’s not a habit I…’
‘Yes, Miss Wong, you were taking Mr Johnstone his evening snack?’
She stopped and gathered herself again. ‘I walked into his room and the safe was wide open. I dropped the tray on the floor; I hope Mr Johnstone doesn’t mind – it did stain his carpet. I tried to clean it but…’
‘The safe was open, you say?’
‘Yes, I looked inside and it was empty. All the money was gone.’
‘Money? Gone?’ Strachan repeated the two words.
‘All of it. We’d just received our collections from the missions up country and I’d placed everything in the safe before going to the bank tomorrow.’
‘How much was missing?’
‘All of it.’
‘How much is all of it, Miss Wong?’
‘Two thousand three hundred and twenty-one dollars and thirty cents, Inspector.’
Strachan whistled. ‘You collect so much money?’
‘The inland missions are very generous in their support for our work. They understand the importance of rescuing these women from the depredations of the streets.’ Miss Wong pointed to the crowd of women standing in the corridor.
‘I’m sure your work is very valuable, Miss Wong. I have just one question. Where is Mr Johnstone?’
‘That’s the strangest thing, Inspector. He never misses his evening snack, says it’s the best part of the day after breakfast.’
‘And?’
‘I can’t find Mr Johnstone anywhere. Has he been kidnapped?’
‘Strachan, put out an APB for Reginald Johnstone and alert the port authorities. Also get on to the local station and ask them to come down here. It should be their case. Make sur
e they bring the fingerprint team; we need to dust the safe.’
‘I hope nothing has happened to Mr Johnstone, Inspector. Do you think he’s been taken by the robbers?’
‘I don’t think so, Miss Wong. I rather think he is the robber.’
‘Oh, that can’t be right, Inspector. Mr Johnstone is such a nice man.’
25
They spent another hour at the refuge, going over the case with Inspector Rennison before leaving for the hospital. It was his patch, so they left him in charge.
‘A good man, Rennison; not terribly quick but he gets there in the end. Any response to the APB yet, Strachan?’
‘Nothing so far, sir, but all the stations have a description of Johnstone.’
‘Did you send it to the port authorities and the railways too?’
‘Of course, sir.’
As they walked down the corridor of the fourth floor of Shanghai General, the constable guarding the room was standing at the door looking inside.
Doctor McLeod was next to him, shaking his head. ‘If you’ve come to interview the patient, I’m afraid you’re too late. She suffered a massive myocardial infarction. There was nothing we could do.’
Strachan looked bewildered. ‘But she, you said she…’
‘She had a heart attack; the stress of her injuries was too much for her body.’
‘Did she say anything before she died, Doctor?’
‘She kept mumbling the same words over and over again in English. ‘Let the game begin.’ Makes me wonder if she hadn’t been reading Ben Hur or something like that.’
Danilov peered inside the room. The curtains were drawn and it was lit by a single bedside light. A nurse had pulled the covers over the woman’s head. All Danilov could see was the outline of the shape of a body beneath the white cotton sheet, like a child playing at being a ghost. ‘Anything else, Doctor?’
The man shook his head.
‘Make sure Dr Fang is informed. She needs to be autopsied by him as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘This case has taken a turn for the worse, Strachan. We’ve just lost our best witness, the only one who could have told us what happened to her.’
The Murder Game Page 7