by M J Lee
In his mind, he moved from looking at Strachan to the empty envelope lying on the desk. What had Strachan said? Delivered the morning of 6 November? The postmark was there on the cover. The same day as the killing. The letter had been delivered the same day as the murders. It wasn’t the message that was important at all.
‘Strachan, I’ve been so stupid. Again.’
The detective was looking into the empty PO box, checking if anything else was concealed in its shiny depths. ‘What do you mean, sir? The letter is still here. He hasn’t picked it up yet.’
‘He’s never going to pick it up. He already knows what it says.’ He began running out of the room and down the corridor. ‘The maid, she’s in danger,’ he shouted over his shoulder.
Strachan chased after him.
‘It’s the postman, Strachan. Our killer is the postman.’
Chapter 86
He threw his cigarette into the gutter. It was time to go to work.
He had already checked the rear of the old house. The alley was packed with wooden cases stored there by the chopstick makers across the road. People didn’t use it at all. There was just one entrance at the front. This led straight into the kitchen where he was sure the two women were making dinner for the young detective.
He resented having to kill these two. He wasn’t getting paid for this job and it was rather menial work. Not in his league at all. But it had to be done. Once the maid was out of the way, nobody could identify him as the killer of the family.
He could go back to the state he enjoyed most.
Anonymity.
He couldn’t go back to being a postman, though. Danilov had seen to that.
Shame. He had enjoyed walking the streets with his mail, chatting with people as he did his rounds. Of course, when he had to scout a job, nobody questioned a postman delivering mail to a house and checking if anybody was inside.
He even delivered mail to the police station. Picking it up from their box and the Post Office, walking through the front doors and being shown to the offices on each floor. Their security was so lax.
Mr Zhang hadn’t known that he read all his mail too. Knew all about the jobs and the secret meetings, even the names of his clients.
Mr Zhang was dead now.
Dead stupid.
Time to go to work. He adjusted his uniform and made sure his bag hung across his left shoulder, on the opposite side to the pocket with his revolver.
He took out a few letters from the bag and held them in his hand. They were addressed to a Mr Wong in Hongkew, but it didn’t matter.
It was the appearance of a postman that was important.
He knocked on the door and stood back, just in case the old women looked through the spy hole.
There was no answer so he stepped forward and knocked again, this time louder.
‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’
The door began to open.
Chapter 87
‘Quickly, Strachan.’
They both raced to the Buick parked on the street. Strachan’s hands fumbled with the keys as he tried to unlock the door.
‘Quickly, man.’
Finally, the key slid into its slot and the door opened. Strachan jumped in and reached across to unlock the passenger door for Danilov.
‘Your home. Quickly.’
The car started first time. Strachan floored the accelerator and swung the car round in a wide arc to go back across the Szechuan Road bridge.
A lorry loaded to the brim with coffins was heading straight towards them, its horn screaming.
Danilov covered his face with his hands. Strachan stamped on the accelerator. The car surged forward, away from the gleaming radiator and the yelling horn.
‘It would help if we arrived alive, Strachan.’
‘You did say quickly, sir.’
‘Quickly, but alive, Strachan.’
Strachan slowed down. ‘I didn’t understand what you said in the Post Office, sir.’
‘The killer. He’s the postman. That’s what the girl was saying to us. It wasn’t the letter that was important, it was the envelope. It had been delivered that morning.’
‘So she recognised the killer, sir?’
‘He was her postman, Strachan. Now I fear he’s going to kill the one person who can identify him. The maid.’
‘She’s at my mother’s, sir.’
Strachan stamped on the accelerator as he finally realised why the Inspector was urging him to hurry. The car surged forward.
As they approached the bridge, he swung out into the middle of the traffic, banging on the horn constantly. The other cars pulled to the side, letting him pass.
One old rickshaw driver, too old or too weary to care, continued running straight towards them. Strachan swerved back into his side of the road, throwing Danilov against the unforgiving metal of the door.
The rickshaw man padded on past them, oblivious to the danger. His passenger, however, was curled up in a foetal ball on the seat.
Strachan stamped down on the accelerator again, surging past a tractor, another lorry and two taxis on the inside. He mounted the pavement, forcing two pedestrians, out for a stroll, to press their bodies against the wall of a house to avoid the car rushing towards them.
He swung back into the road, narrowly missing a hawker and his cart. The hawker’s curses followed the vanishing Buick, trying desperately to catch it.
Danilov clung to the strap above the door, turning his head away from the road in front. Strachan beat the horn of the Buick like a war-crazed drummer.
The car shifted gears and swung across two lanes of traffic into Peking Road.
Two young girls were about to cross the road when they spotted the black Buick coming straight towards them, Strachan’s grim face framed in the windscreen.
They jumped back onto the pavement.
Strachan roared past them, the engine straining as it reached its maximum revs. Then he changed up. The car jumped forward as if pushed by a surge of wind.
Strachan’s hand still beat the horn as he swung the car left into Shangse Road, accelerating past the shoppers out buying the latest clothes, past the street stalls with their bowls of noodles, past the markets and their goods from all over China.
The Buick raced past them all as he kicked the accelerator harder.
Up ahead, the lights were on red at the junction of Ningpo Road. The cars were beginning to slow and stop. Strachan swung the car into the opposite lane, his hand pressing hard on the horn.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. A rhythmic tattoo of warning.
He slowed slightly at the junction and then accelerated through the red light, in between two cars, swerving back into his own lane.
Danilov was a puddle of sweat on the front seat, his hand locked from gripping the strap above the door.
‘My house is up ahead on the right, sir.’
They cut across the traffic and accelerated to a stop outside the house.
It was quiet. The door was shut, the curtains half-drawn just as his mother preferred them.
A shot pierced the quietness of the street.
And another.
Chapter 88
Strachan drew his Smith & Wesson and jumped out of the Buick. He launched himself at the gate to the small terrace in front of his house. It slammed open, banging against the wall that separated it from the neighbour’s house.
An arm touched his shoulder. ‘Be careful.’
Strachan nodded. He bent low and ran against the front door, throwing his shoulder against the lock.
It burst open, hanging crazily from one hinge.
Strachan stood in the hallway. A hallway he had known all his life and yet today, it was different, alien, as if it had never existed for him before.
A soft whimpering was coming from the kitchen on his left. His mother spent her life there, labouring away over the stove.
He dropped down and pushed the door open with his foot. The maid was alive. She sat in the corner
behind one of the chairs. Her body was shaking, and she was mumbling a prayer. Her top lip trembled as she said the words, forming a frightened arch over her mouth.
The bitter smell of cordite was everywhere. Sinuous tendrils of smoke drifted up towards the ceiling.
Strachan stuck his head around the door.
Nothing.
Danilov was behind him. The Inspector signalled for Strachan to go low while he stayed upright.
Strachan nodded.
They both counted to three silently and burst in. Strachan on the floor, his revolver pointed towards the back wall.
Still nothing.
The smell of cordite was stronger now.
Too strong.
Strachan got to his feet, brushing down his trousers. Danilov was already over in the corner, helping the maid. A pot of soup was boiling on the stove. His mother must have been making it for him.
Strachan saw a bundle of black rags in the corner. Strange, his mother never left clothes on the floor. She always washed everything by hand, wanting to save money rather than use the laundry. She always said, ‘And they destroy the collars of your shirts. Nobody takes care of shirts any more.’
He took one step close to the rags. They began to form a shape.
The shape of a person.
He moved closer. He could see hair now. Grey hair. And beneath it white skin with a few brown spots that arched over an eye.
His mother’s eye.
He stood still. The world dissolved around him. The kitchen with its black range and hanging pots vanished. The revolver fell from his hand and clattered to the floor. But he wasn’t aware of its loss.
All he could see was his mother’s body lying on the floor beneath the window. Her shoelace was undone. Why was her shoelace undone? She might trip over and hurt herself. When you are as old as she is, a fall can be dangerous.
He took one more step forward. He could see blood now, oozing from a wound close to his mother’s mouth. The same mouth that had kissed him goodbye that morning.
A scream came from behind him. The maid had stood up and seen his mother’s body lying beneath the window.
Danilov was beside him now. He was saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear anything. He could see the Inspector’s mouth moving, but he could hear no sounds of any words.
How strange.
He shook his head, trying to clear his ears.
Danilov spoke again. ‘Stay here.’
The words came out clear and forceful this time.
An order.
The maid had collapsed back on the floor, her face pressing into the painted plaster.
Danilov leant down beside his mother. Gently, he moved her grey hair and placed his hand against the side of her neck. Strachan watched as the fingers pressed into the wrinkled brown skin of her throat. Nobody had touched his mother like that since his father had died.
Then, Danilov moved his hand away and turned back towards Strachan. He shook his head.
Strachan’s right hand flexed and formed a fist, his throat tightened and, for a moment, the world around him became still.
He looked towards the picture of his father above the mantlepiece, standing proudly on the streets of Shanghai, his uniform dark against the hazy sky.
Danilov was standing beside him now. How had he got there? An arm went around his shoulders. ‘She’s gone. You can’t do anything for her.’
A door banged in the back yard. For a second, a figure appeared on top of the boxes in the alley behind the house, then dropped out of view.
A man in a green uniform.
Strachan looked down at his mother’s body lying on the tiled floor. Her shoelace was still undone. Why was her shoelace undone?
He charged out of the back door and climbed the rear gate.
A man was running across the road, his green uniform standing out against a sea of the black cars and grey street. Halfway across, he glanced over his shoulder at Strachan standing on top of the gate.
The moment seemed to go on forever for Strachan. The cold stare in the man’s eyes. The sharpness of the mouse-like features. The way the mouth curled away from the lip in a snarl. All the details of his mother’s killer were etched, burnt into his mind, in the second the man looked back.
Strachan jumped from the gate onto one of the packing cases that blocked the rear of the house. His mother had always complained about the factory putting them there. He had meant to have a quiet word with the owner but hadn’t got around to doing it. One of the many things he hadn’t done for his mother.
He judged the distance to the next one and jumped across the gap. But his foot slipped on the edge and he crashed forward, landing on his chest against the rim of the wood. The breath rushed from his mouth as if were punched in the stomach.
Can’t let him escape.
He hauled himself up to the top of the case. The killer was going around the corner of Tientsin Road. A woman in a white silk chi pao leapt out his way as she spotted the gun in his hand.
He was trying to get in a taxi, waving the gun in the driver’s face. The taxi accelerated away knocking the man off his feet, leaving him sprawling in the road.
Strachan knew this was his chance. He leapt across the two remaining cases and jumped down onto the cobbles of the alley. A cat screeched as he landed next to it, hissing in his face.
He got up and ran across the road.
Not far now.
He reached into his holster, looking for his Smith & Wesson. It wasn’t there. He remembered his mother lying on the floor, her shoelaces undone. A gun dropping from his hand onto the tiles.
He ran around the corner.
Nobody was lying in the road.
He’s gone. I’ve let him escape.
He stopped, looking to the left and right.
Nothing.
A rickshaw driver was pointing with a crooked finger down the road. A car was accelerating away, two black figures sitting in the front seat. Strachan could see the dark outline of a gun pointing at the head of the driver.
He jumped in front of a taxi waving his arms. The taxi swerved around him, the driver’s screaming ‘Ta ma de’ in his face as he drove past.
The car was further away now, joining all the other cars in a rapidly vanishing parade.
Run. Run. Run.
Strachan charged down the middle of the street. He could hear the honks of cars behind him.
His legs carried him over the tarmacked road. His jacket streamed behind him. The wind kissed his face. For a moment, he was free. From death. And duty. And the police. And everything else that sat on his shoulders like a gargoyle.
A cart laden with wicker chairs was crossing in front. Strachan ran faster and harder. The cart, pushed by an old woman, grazed the back of his hip, but he was past it.
He looked ahead. The car was further away now, accelerating around the bend and turning right onto Kiangse Road.
He was getting away. Have to stop him.
He ran harder. The face of Danilov came into his mind. A smoking Danilov, the old, stained hat pulled down over his green eyes. ‘Be careful,’ Danilov’s mouth said.
He wasn’t going to listen. What was the point of being careful? His mother had been careful all her life and what had it got her? A bullet in the mouth from a man who didn’t care.
The car went straight across the junction with Nanking Road, ignoring the shouts of the pedestrians, the screaming of brakes and the honking of protesting cars. A tram screeched to a halt, throwing its passengers forward through the open window. The car slipped in front of it and crossed to the other side.
Strachan chased after it, leaping over the bonnet of a parked Chevrolet and past the stationary tram. The passengers were spilling out from the open doors. He could see one lady, her right leg bent backwards towards her hip being carried off, her face grimacing with pain.
His chest was heaving now. Each breath becoming shorter and shorter. A stitch stabbed the left side of his stomach. He put his h
and against it and pressed.
Got to keep going. Can’t let him get away.
Strachan took off his jacket, throwing it to the side of the road. His arms were free now. Free to pump him forward.
He ran past the Cathedral on his right. Worshippers were streaming out of the doors, and congregating on the pavement after the service, chatting to each other about the races or the shocking price of tea.
Strachan dodged between them, narrowly avoiding an ice cream seller, feeding the hot throats of the churchgoers.
He bumped into an old woman who fell backwards onto her haunches. An old man wearing a white Panama hat shouted, ‘Be careful, you wretch.’
Strachan ran on, shouting his apologies over his shoulder.
He couldn’t see the car any more. It had vanished into the traffic that streamed towards the French Concession. Soon they would cross Edward VII and then Strachan would be able to do nothing.
He wouldn’t stop, though. Not now. Not when he was so close.
The cars began to slow in front of him. A traffic jam was forming, with cars waiting to cross the main junction.
He could get him now.
He was in amongst the cars, dodging between the Packards and the Chevrolets and the Bakers and the Buicks. They were all lined up at the junction, stopped by a tall Sikh policeman standing on a raised podium in the centre, directing the traffic.
Where was the killer?
He searched the cars around him frantically. They all looked the same. All black. All shiny. All square.
The Sikh was changing position now and waving the cars forward. Engines revved. Gears clunked. A smog of exhaust flowed around him.
The cars nearest to Strachan began to slowly pull away. Over to the right, the grind of a grrr grrr as a driver missed a gear.
A nervous driver.
A frightened driver.
Strachan ran towards the sound. The killer was there, his gun still pointed at the head of the driver. They were crossing the junction in front of him.