From the front seat of the car, the house looked as it had always looked, but darker, somehow more menacing. For the first time he could ever remember, there was no light above the porch door. His mother had always left the light on for him until he returned. He’d often told her it was a waste of money, but she had insisted; ‘to help him find his way’, as she said.
He stepped out of the car and walked up the path. It took him a while to find the right key; it was as if his fingers were links of a sausage. Eventually, he managed to insert it into the lock and turn.
The door swung open. The only thing that greeted him was darkness. There was no scent of sweet soup. No aroma of dumplings steaming on the table in the kitchen. No call from his mother: ‘Is that you, David?’
He fumbled for the light switch. It flickered as if deciding whether to work or not. For a moment, in the half-light of the blinking bulb, he saw her grey hair, the black dress she always wore, and the smile playing on her lips as she welcomed him home
Then, the small entrance hall was flooded with light, and she vanished. He hurried into the kitchen. The table was bare, unmade. The stove cold and unlit. His mother’s pots hung from hooks above the fire. It was the first time he had seen so many hanging there. Normally they were being used.
He walked back towards the living room, went in and sat in front of the unlit fire. For a moment, he stared at the mantlepiece. He couldn’t see his father’s face in the dark but he knew the picture was staring at him. Blaming him for his mother’s death. Admonishing him for a lack of good sense in the broad Glaswegian accent his father had never lost despite living for over twenty years in Shanghai.
‘Have ye nae idea, David. To leave your mother alone? Schuct, ye oughtta be ashamed.’
Strachan buried his face in his hands, trying to cover his ears. But the voice carried on. ‘It was yere faut. All yere faut.’
For a moment, Strachan managed to keep himself in check, summoning up years of practice at concealing his thoughts and emotions. It wasn’t easy being a half-caste in a world where both sides, white and Chinese, looked down on you. It had helped him build a carapace over his feelings, to block out the world and its desperate cruelty and get on with the job, get on with doing what he had to do..
He felt a shuddering begin in his stomach and rise through his chest to his mouth. His head went back and he screamed out, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
And then the tears came, waterfalls of tears, accompanied by a moaning from the depths of his soul. He began to rock back and forth, his hands clasped in front of him in supplication.
He stayed like that all night.
30
The room was definitely getting colder. His moustache was frozen solid against his lips and his ears were numb, no longer tingling as they had been before.
Next to him, Rossana groaned. It was the first sound he had heard from her in a long time. She mumbled something to him through frozen lips. He lowered his head to her ear, touching the fur of the coat as he did.
She was speaking Russian. Mumbling the same phrase over and over again, in words he didn’t understand. Against his chin, her hair was solid now, frozen in long matted coils like rope. He had loved running his fingers through her hair after they made love. Soft, warm, comforting hair.
She stopped mumbling and the icebox was quiet again save for the distant throb of the generator. He nudged Rossana with his elbow. ‘We… must… stay… awake,’ he mumbled through chapped lips.
There was no answer.
He nudged her again.
No response.
The fur of the coat over her shoulders was still touching his arm. Soft, warm, comforting fur. Fur that would keep him warm against the icy blasts in the room.
He nudged Rossana again.
No response.
Perhaps she was already dead. After all, she wore no shoes and no stockings; her feet must be frozen solid by now. Nobody could withstand the cold of that floor. Even his own feet felt like cubes of ice encased in the leather of his police boots.
One of them had to survive. One of them had to escape from here and find out who had done this to them. He nudged Rossana one more time.
Still no response.
He would avenge Rossana. He would find this man and kill him. It didn’t matter where he had to go or how far he had to travel. He would track him to the ends of the earth.
He lifted his arms up slowly, closing them around the coat. With his body, he nudged Rossana away from him. She sat up almost straight, as if waking from a dream, and then toppled over on to her side.
His hands held the coat.
Slowly, he manoeuvred it around his shoulders, pushing his arms into the sleeves and burying his face into the fur collar.
That was better, much better.
The chill of the room no longer seemed to affect him. He felt warm and snug as the coat began to trap what remained of his body heat.
Rossana groaned once more next to him.
Poor Rossana, he had loved her once, but one of them had to survive, one of them had to get out of here. He pulled his legs up to the shelter of the warm coat and snuggled his face into the fur of the collar.
He would survive. Whatever happened, he would survive.
The light above the door went on, a stabbing, blinding light. He shut his eyes against the glare.
And then the voice. ‘Well done, Lieutenant Deschamps, you have made your choice.’
A mocking voice. A smug voice.
‘I’m sure you feel so much better now. Miss Gurdieva, on the other hand, does not. What a pity. Such is life. Or death.’
Deschamps tried to scream at the disembodied voice but only a startled croak escaped his ice-locked lips.
The voice continued as if nothing had happened. ‘Now you’ve made your choice, I have a surprise for you.’
Deschamps’s heart leapt. He’s going to let me go, he thought. I’m free. I just had to choose, that’s all he wanted. A choice.
The buzz from the loudspeaker vanished. The light was switched off and he was plunged into darkness once again. His mind was racing. What was the surprise? When would he let him go?
Deschamps became conscious of a new noise. A higher-pitched whine than before. The generator? Was it the generator?
The whine became louder and higher. A monotonous rattle began to come from high up, close to the ceiling. An icy breeze began to flow across his frozen face.
Deschamps shrank away from the new blast of cold air. It was as if he had been plunged into a river of ice. The coat no longer protected him. He buried his face deeper into the fur, burrowing like a rabbit escaping a hunting dog.
But the cold chased after him.
So cold. So very cold.
He struggled to his knees. A powerful urge to piss washed over him. Why did he want to piss?
He let the moment pass. Stay calm, just think. If he could only get to the door, perhaps he could force the lever open.
You can crawl there, it’s so close, you can do it.
He pulled himself across the floor, but still the door seemed so far away. He rested his head against the white frost riming the floor. He would stay here for a moment, gather his strength.
When he lifted his head again, he was already outside. A rank of soldiers were lined up to greet him, standing stiffly to attention. Next to them a brass band played La Marseillaise.
Why was he wearing a coat in the middle of summer? They had to see his uniform. Had to know he was one of them. He stood up and took off his heavy coat, throwing it into the corner.
Then, the soldiers and the music vanished.
He opened his frost-rimed eyes and saw he was standing in the middle of a white metal box, the loud hum of a generator rattling in his ears.
And he realised he was cold, so very cold.
Day Three
31
Number Two Prison was dark and forbidding from the outside. Inside it was even worse.
Danilov and Strachan
were shown into a small room lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. A small wooden table and three chairs were the only furniture. After five minutes waiting, the iron door creaked open and Li Min stood in the doorway, flanked by two stern guards.
One of the guards barked a command and Li Min shuffled into the room, his legs weighed down with heavy shackles.
‘Prisoner 37685,’ the other guard shouted.
‘Tell them those are not necessary, Strachan.’
The young detective spoke to the first guard and was answered roughly. ‘He says it’s the prison rule, sir. All prisoners outside their cells must wear shackles.’
Danilov shrugged his shoulders, pointing to the seat in front of him. Li Min sat down slowly, pulling up the trousers of his grey prison uniform as if he were wearing a Savile Row suit and placing both hands on the table in front of him.
The man had aged and grown thinner since Danilov had last seen him, the bones of his wrists stark against the paper-thin skin. No patch covered the eye Danilov had stabbed; instead, a black, empty hole stared back at him.
Looking into the empty eye socket, Danilov was taken back to the dungeon and his fight with Li Min. The leather straps going round his head, the rope burns on his wrist, reaching for the fountain pen and stabbing backwards. Li Min’s screams of pain as he staggered away, the pen sticking out of his eye.
Danilov shook his head. ‘Please translate for me, Strachan.’
‘That will not be necessary. I speak English.’ The voice was patrician and educated, in complete contrast to his surroundings. ‘I’m surprised to see you again, Inspector.’
‘I’ve come here for a purpose, Li Min.’
The guard barked another order.
‘He says the prisoner must be addressed by his number. 37685,’ said Strachan.
‘It seems everybody speaks English these days.’
‘Education and moral guidance are the pillars on which the modern Chinese prison is built.’ The first guard addressed Danilov directly.
‘And those shackles?’
‘They do not get in the way of a prisoner’s moral education.’
Danilov decided it wasn’t worth arguing with the man. He turned back to Li Min. ‘As I was saying, I’ve come here with a purpose.’
‘You have come to ask me if I know anything about the murders – of the young dancer and the one at the Shanghai Club.’
‘How do you…?’ interjected Strachan.
Li Min held up his hand. ‘The young should remain quiet when their elders are speaking.’
Danilov placed his hand on Strachan’s arm. ‘How do you know about the murders?’
‘One hears lots of whispers on the wind.’ Li Min smiled, revealing decaying teeth. ‘A prison is just a gaol for the body, not the mind.’
Danilov persisted. ‘What did you hear?’
‘Just whispers.’
‘What kind of whispers?’
‘The kind that judge people.’
‘The victims were being judged?’
Li Min raised his arms and gestured around him. ‘We’re all being judged, even here.’
Danilov thought for a moment, pausing before asking his next question. ‘What happened to Thomas Allen?’
A smug smile appeared on Li Min’s face. ‘You know what happened to him, don’t you? Didn’t you shoot him?’
The guard stepped forward. ‘This interview is finished. Time is up.’
Li Min stood up immediately and began to shuffle towards the door, turning back just before he stepped back into the main prison. ‘Has the Master returned? You need to ask yourself, Danilov? Or has another taken his place? Ask your soul, you will find the answer there.’
The guard pushed him through the door.
‘Ask your soul, Danilov.’
They heard his laughter echo down the dank stone corridors as he shuffled away, the rattle of the shackles a sombre counterpoint.
‘What did he mean, sir?’
‘I wish I knew, Strachan.’ The inspector tapped the tabletop with his fingers. ‘But I think he knows more than he’s telling us. Arrange another meeting with the Chinese authorities and check with them if he has had any other visitors recently.’
‘It won’t be easy, sir.’
‘Use your boyish charm, Strachan. We need to know exactly what prisoner 37685 has been doing.’ He checked the new watch Elina had given to him. ‘Now, lets go back to the Country Club. We can take another look at the crime scene before our autopsy with Dr Fang.’
He stood up and strode out of the dank room with Strachan following at his heels. ‘You think Li Min is involved in these murders, sir?’
‘I don’t know, Strachan, but we need to find out. And quickly, before our killer strikes again.’
32
It was a shame the woman had died so quickly. They were not as strong as they used to be.
His mother could take far more pain without a sound issuing from her lips.
He remembered watching her one day as she patiently removed her fingernails one at a time with a knife. The point digging into the flesh beneath the nail and then levering up with a quick twist of the wrist, laying the translucent squares with their rounded edges in a neat line on a piece of embroidery.
She beckoned him forward, handing the knife to him. He was only seven at the time, but she smiled and told him it didn’t hurt. He took hold of her hand, blood dripping into his palm. He slid the point of the knife beneath the nail of smallest finger.
She sucked in a sharp intake of breath, a look of intense delight clouding her face.
He twisted the knife. Her body arched.
He took the bloody nail, wiped it on his sleeve and placed it in the neat line.
Ten nails all in a row, his mother’s hands bloody.
But he knew she loved him that day. And continued to love him until the day she killed herself.
Women were stronger then than they were now. But it didn’t matter. Sally Chen had served her purpose.
She was the first move in his game. The man in the Country Club was the second. Mustn’t make it too easy for Danilov. All the pieces were not in play yet.
And, of course, there were a few red herrings to confuse him, keep him guessing.
But it was all planned out. Yama had told him exactly what to do.
And this time, the Judge of Souls would make the final judgement.
Not long to wait now.
Danilov was a fly trapped in a web. The more he wriggled, the quicker his end would be.
He was the spider waiting to pounce.
33
The gardener was sweeping the lawn of any leaves that had fallen on to its snooker-table smoothness.
Danilov and Strachan were standing in front of the bench. They had walked straight in without being challenged by any guard.
‘Maybe security isn’t as good as it should be, sir.’
‘An understatement, Strachan. ‘Where something is thin, that’s where it tears.’
‘I’m sure that’s right, sir.’
‘I always like to return to the scene of a crime after all the commotion has finished. It allows me to see the location as the killer saw it.’
‘To see it through his eyes, sir?’
‘Exactly.’ Inspector Danilov twisted his head to one side. ‘Our killer could have walked in here any time to examine the back lawn and plan the placement of the body. I wonder…’
He walked around behind the lacebark pine shading the bench from the summer sun. In the middle of November, it was merely protecting it from the grey skies of the coming winter. At the base of the tree, on the side away from the bench, the grass had been disturbed.
‘Strachan, look at this.’
The young detective ran over to join him.
‘Careful.’ The inspector held up his arm to prevent Strachan getting closer. ‘See, the grass has been flattened by something. By the shape, it was about five feet long.’
‘The shape of a body, sir?�
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‘Possibly.’
‘Could Dr Fang’s people have made the shape when they came for it?’
‘They know better than to disturb a crime scene.’
‘Meaker and Cartwright were here yesterday, sir…’
‘Even they wouldn’t be that stupid. Go and ask the gardener if he noticed anything here yesterday morning.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Strachan stood looking at the trampled ground.
‘What are you waiting for? Hurry, man.’
Strachan ran off to find the gardener. Danilov was left kneeling over the ground. He looked closely at the plants. He could see drops of something dark on the leaves and on the grass surrounding them. Were they blood splatters?
Above his head, a bird trilled its song. He looked up into the branches but could see nothing. The bird was silhouetted against the leering sky, hidden behind the dark branches. Hiding in plain sight, he thought. We can hear him but we don’t know where he is.
He stood up and stared into the tree, trying to spot where the bird was perched. He moved two steps to the left and saw it. Not the bird, but a sliver of white stone in the shape of an arrowhead with its point buried in the wood of the tree.
He took a clean handkerchief out of his pocket. What would he do without Elina? He reached up and levered the white stone out of the wood. No markings on it anywhere. A piece of pristine white stone. Marble perhaps, from the look of it. He would ask the lab boys to confirm it for him later.
Why would the killer bury a piece of marble in the tree above the body?
Perhaps, this had nothing to do with the death at all. Perhaps, some child had climbed the tree and left it there in the summer. But it looked new, fresh, without any moss or lichen on it. As if it had been put there recently.
He heard Strachan running across the gravel of the path.
‘They didn’t work here yesterday, sir. They were planting in another part of the gardens.’
‘Ask him if he has ever seen either of these things.’ He passed the marble shard and the stone from yesterday, still wrapped in its handkerchief, to Strachan. ‘Careful, don’t touch them. I want them both checked by the lab and the fingerprint boys.’
The Murder Game Page 9