by M J Lee
He didn’t know.
He took another piroshki and bit into it. The sweet pork and its juices ran down his chin and dripped on his jacket. He mopped them up with the napkin. As he did so, he remembered something his father had said one night as they sat in front of the fire. He had been telling them about arresting a man for stabbing his sister that day, when he stopped talking and just stared into the fire. ‘My job is to clean up the mess left by others, David. Whatever you do, try not to leave a mess for people like me.’
Strachan put down the glass of tea and rose from the table.
The Princess was beside him immediately. ‘Leaving, Detective? You haven’t finished your piroshki.’
‘I’m sorry, Princess Ostrepova, I have a mess I need to clean up.’
Chapter 32
The taxi was taking a long time. Danilov leant forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Could you go faster?’
‘Busy, today. Students.’ He pointed through the split windscreen.
Outside, crowds had gathered on the streets. At their head, a group of young people were assembling under a white banner with large characters pasted on to it. They were shouting slogans, their fists thrusting into the air at the end of every line.
Danilov sat back in the leather seats. Life goes on, despite everything. If this didn’t go well, he would miss Shanghai. Its life, its teeming streets, its sheer passion for getting on and doing. There were none of the obsessions or abstract reflection of his homeland here. Just keep moving on because nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.
He laughed to himself. That was exactly what he was doing. Moving forward towards a future which he didn’t know.
The taxi accelerated in between two rickshaws, just barely missing both.
The driver edged through the crowds that lined the streets. Some were there to watch the march, others simply to do their shopping. A few more to take advantage of both.
He smelt the fragrance of roasting sweet potatoes once more. The man gets around. Then Danilov laughed to himself. There must be more than one of them. Nobody could be that agile, could they?
Up above, the sky was a bright, bright blue. A colour that he had only ever seen on winter days in Shanghai when a breeze had come in from the sea to blow away the smoke that normally shrouded the city.
On a day like this, it was good to be alive. To smell the roasting sweet potatoes, to hear the chatter of the people, to see the colours of the sky. He almost reached forward to tap the driver on his shoulder and tell him to go back to Medhurst Apartments.
But he didn’t.
His course was set now. There was no going back.
The taxi stopped again. They were at a junction. People flowed in front of the car: tall ones, short ones, men dressed in Mandarin coats, women in their tight chi paos.
They didn’t know there was a man out there who wanted to kill them all.
The lights changed colour and the taxi accelerated forward again, only to stop after fifty yards. Up ahead a funeral procession had taken advantage of the gap in the traffic to come out from a side street.
The family of the deceased were dressed in white from head to toe, all looking like refugees from a Ku Klux Klan meeting in America’s Deep South. They walked behind the hearse, two drums beating a rhythmic tattoo in counterpoint to the squeals of a herd of trumpets. In front of the hearse, the paid mourners cried and tore their hair out, lamenting the departure of the deceased.
This must have been a rich man, thought Danilov, to have such a procession. Who would mourn him?
Nobody.
His family were missing, he was all alone in this world. Perhaps, in stopping the killer, his life would have some meaning, a final atonement for what he had done.
The driver spat out thorough the open window and said a soft ‘Ta ma de’ under his breath. He jerked the wheel to the right and accelerated past the grieving family, past the squealing trumpets, past the horse-drawn hearse, and past the wailing mourners.
The road was clear in front of them now, just a few pedestrians taking their life into their hands by darting across the road.
Danilov eased himself back into the leather seat. Don’t think any more. Don’t worry. The course has been set. The die cast.
It was time to feed the wolf.
***
‘Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.’ He had spoken out loud and Li Min had glanced up from his ropes. The view through the window had surprised him for a moment. Danilov was getting out from a taxi outside the Rowing Club.
How had he got so close?
He had underestimated Danilov it seemed. Well, he wouldn’t do that any more. He had intended to leave him to be punished until later but such an opportunity would not present itself again. The gods were helping him in their unique way.
Danilov was standing there alone. Such a tempting target. He must have decided to continue the investigation despite being suspended.
Fool.
Nobody in the Shanghai Police cared for justice. They just wanted an easy life with a fat pension and a comfortable retirement in Margate at the end of it.
Danilov was different. Now it was time for him to go. Perhaps they would begin to understand the necessity of his work after he got rid of the Inspector. Striking at the heart of the police force would make them all realise they couldn’t hide any more. If they had done wrong, they would be punished.
It was that simple. Whether you were a prostitute, or one of Shanghai’s elite, he would bring you down.
‘Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly,’ he said out loud again.
Well, here was the fly and it was time for the spider to act.
Danilov should have been later but no matter. His time had come. He had committed a crime and would be punished like all the rest.
‘Come, Li Min, we have work to do.’
***
The taxi driver pulled up beside the Shanghai Rowing Club. ‘You want me wait?’
‘No, thank you. I’ll look after myself.’
‘Taxis not many round here.’
‘I’m fine, thank you.’
‘Tree dollar fifty.’
Danilov gave him five dollars. The taxi driver pretended to search for change. But Danilov was already out of the taxi, staring up at the mock-Tudor facade of the building. He barely noticed the taxi pulling away in a cloud of blue exhaust.
The streets were quiet despite being in the centre of the busiest city on Earth. Not a person, not a policeman, could be seen. They must all be at the demonstration, he thought.
No matter.
He walked to the entrance of the club. It was locked. He leant forward to look through the dirt-encrusted windows. His own reflection stared back in the glass. Was that really him?
He shielded his eyes and stared into the club. It seemed deserted.
He stepped back and examined the upper storeys. There were no signs of life. Should he wait or go in? He checked his watch. Can’t stay here not doing anything. He had to move, had to get it over with.
On the left was a rusty half-door set into a wall. He pushed it and was surprised when it opened without a noise.
The courtyard of the Shanghai Rowing Club stood in front of him. He walked through the door and past a large potted plant, guarding the entrance. He was dimly aware of a movement on his left, just out of the periphery of his vision. A blur of blue, a sweep of an arm coming towards him. His instinctive reaction was to duck and avoid the arm, but the man was too quick for him.
A hand grabbed him around the back of the neck, and a wet cloth covered his mouth and nose. He smelt the pungent aroma of chloroform on the rag. The hand clamped tighter around his mouth, and he tried not to breathe. He kicked backwards with the heel of his shoe and it connected with the hard peak of a knee. For a second, the grip relaxed and he heard a grunt from behind him. Then, other arms encircled his and the rag was clamped tighter to his mouth and nose.
He threw his head backwards a
nd felt it connect with the bridge of a nose. This time the rag came free from his mouth. He started to shout and struggled against the other arms holding him. For a second, the grip on him relaxed, then it tightened again, and the rag clamped over his nose once more.
He breathed in.
His legs lost all their strength, and his body collapsed, as he went as limp as a sock full of borscht.
The arm released him, and he fell. A strange slow-motion fall where he could see everything that was happening to him, but was unable to prevent any of it.
The ground came up to meet him. His head bounced once, twice, three times, then settled into the earth, blending into the soft ground. He was aware of a beetle, a twig between its jaws, making its way home in front of his eyes.
Above him, a bald Chinese man slowly came into focus and then disappeared from view after shaking the Inspector’s shoulders.
‘He’s out like a bowl of noodles,’ said the man with a voice like a grind of gears.
Behind him, a tall European man stood adjusting the sleeves of his jacket.
Then blackness.
Chapter 33
Strachan knocked on the door of the Fingerprint Lab. There was a long silence before somebody inside shouted, ‘Go away.’
Strachan knocked again, this time harder and longer.
The voice inside shouted back, louder and longer. ‘It’s lunchtime, we’re closed. Come back after two.’
Strachan knocked on the door with his fist now. ‘I need to see you now. Urgent.’
A loud ‘Ta ma de’ came from inside the room. The door opened and a fat man with glasses, dressed in a white overcoat, stood in the entrance. He was eating a white bao. ‘Can’t you see? We’re closed. Lunchtime.’
He tried to shut the door but Strachan inserted his foot between it and the jamb. He put his shoulder against the door and it gave way. ‘Now, I’m going to say this once and once only. Are you listening?’
The fat man nodded his head. A chunk of bao fell from his open mouth.
‘You got a fingerprint yesterday from a body in the morgue. I need to know the results. Now.’
The fat man swallowed his food. ‘Yesterday, we won’t have done it yet.’
‘It was a rush job. Urgent. For Inspector Danilov.’
A look of recognition passed across the podgy face and the eyes became small slits behind the glasses. ‘Oh, that one. Danilov promised us ten dollars if we did it for him quickly.’ He stuck out a pudgy hand.
Strachan dug deep in his pockets. He counted the coins. ‘I’ve got eight. Danilov will give you the rest when he sees you.’
The fat man took the money from Strachan’s hand and placed his half-eaten bao down on the desk. Strachan noticed it was Char Shao, his favourite.
The technician went behind the counter. ‘We had to work a lot on this one. Danilov asked us to compare it with all the criminals in our files as well as the fingerprints of police officers and government officials. Do you know how many sets of prints that is?’
Strachan shook his head.
‘A lot. A bloody lot, let me tell you.’ He began to search through the stack of papers, files, used chopsticks, used soup bowls and uneaten bao on the counter. ‘I know I put it here somewhere. Where is it?’ He moved a bamboo container, left over from yesterday’s lunch. ‘Here it is.’ He held up a piece of paper with two matching pictures of a fingerprint on it. Red lines radiated from the pictures in the same places.
Strachan reached for it, but the technician snatched it back. ‘Danilov also said he would treat us to a meal at Romanov’s. I’ve never eaten Russian food.’
Strachan reached for the paper again. ‘If Inspector Danilov said so, I’m sure he’ll keep his promise.’
The technician handed over the paper and Strachan saw the name written at the top. His face went white. He looked at it again. ‘Are you sure this is the man whose fingerprint matched the one we found on the corpse?’
The technician frowned. ‘Look, whoever you are. I know my job. That patent print matched in 22 different areas. We only need twelve matches for it to stand up in a court of law. It has very distinctive whorls and arches. Plus there’s a bridge that I haven’t seen often at all. It’s a good match, even…’
But Strachan was already out of the door.
He had to tell Danilov whose name was written at the top of the paper.
***
The ropes bit into Danilov’s wrists. He tensed his arms and tried to loosen the bindings, but the more he fought against them, the tighter they seemed to get.
He shouted as loud as he could. A shout of rage and defiance. He listened for a response but nothing came back. He knew he was in a cell and, for some strange reason, he thought he was underground. He wasn’t sure why he sensed this, perhaps it was the way the sounds were absorbed and swallowed up. A dead sound with no echoes, as if everything was solid around him.
He kicked out with his feet but the ropes were just as strong around his legs. He shouted again. His voice sounded hoarse to his ears and, once again, the walls absorbed everything.
He wasn’t sitting in the dark though. There was a small light behind him that gave a brown glow through the cell. It was like the light of early dawn in Minsk when the sun is still below the horizon but its rays are reaching out to the world.
The room was empty. There was nothing there but him, the chair he was tied to, and the black walls.
He shouted once again, louder this time.
A crack of light appeared vertically in the wall opposite him and began to get wider. A black shadow stood in the doorway, its height dominating the entrance.
Then it spoke. ‘Shouting will only make your voice hoarse, Inspector Danilov. Nobody can hear you down here.’
So he was underground. The voice was cultured, elegant and vaguely familiar.
The black shadow stepped into the cell, closing the door behind him. The only light now was coming from behind Danilov. He stared into the gloom at the thing in front of him. For a few moments, it appeared to have no face, just darkness where eyes and ears and nose should be. Like the shadow of a man with the shadow of a face.
Then it spoke again.
‘It’s your time, Danilov. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long while but I didn’t think it would come so soon.’
Danilov could see a little more clearly now. The man was dressed from head to toe in black. On his head he wore a mask, but one without definition, just a dull matt-black skin that covered his face and absorbed the light. He saw the man’s eyes. Green. Emerald green.
‘I can see you like my mask, Inspector, you do recognise it, of course?’
Danilov let his head drop to his chest. ‘It’s Yama, I presume. The god of the underworld.’ Every time the man spoke, he caught a whiff of something. Warm, earthy, but with a hint of sweetness in it. Just as the boatman had said.
‘You are probably wondering why you are here?’
Danilov lifted his head and stared straight into the eyes of the black mask. He shook his head.
‘An eye for an eye.’
‘Another saying?’
‘This one from the bible, I think. A terribly judgemental book.’
‘What’s that to do with me?’
‘Everything, Inspector. Today, you are to be judged.’
‘By you?’
‘Today, I’m your judge, your jury, your prosecutor and your executioner.’
‘So, you’ve already decided I’m guilty?’
The man took a step to the side. ‘I didn’t decide, Inspector, you did, long ago.’ The man’s body was close to him now. The sweet smell was even stronger. He tried to lash out, struggling against the ropes that bound his wrists.
‘That won’t help you, Inspector. The others found that out too.’
The door opened behind the man and another shape was silhouetted in the doorway.
‘Do come in, Li Min. My colleague will be the clerk of the court. As you see, we always try to follow th
e correct procedures for a trial. Shall we begin?’
Li Min moved into the room. For a second, before he closed the door, a shaft of light caught the top of his head and the livid red scar that arched over it.
‘Please read out the charges.’
The Chinese man produced a sheet of thick manuscript paper. ‘Pyotr Alexandrevich Danilov, you are charged that on the 12th November, 1924, you deserted your family, leaving them to face the depredations of the revolutionary authorities alone.’
‘Danilov, you realise in the eighth court of hell, desertion of your family is a very serious offence, to be punished by the gouging out of your eyes, if you are found guilty.’
‘How does the prisoner plead?’ said Li Min, his pen poised over the manuscript waiting for the answer.
Danilov remained quiet, slowly working his wrists against the ropes that bound him.
‘I think you can write down the prisoner pleads guilty, Li Min. After all, the evidence is rather damning.’
‘I didn’t desert my family, I had a job to do.’
‘Please change the plea, Li Min, the prisoner has changed his mind.’
‘Not guilty now, sir?’
The mask turned towards Danilov. He could see the green eyes staring at him from the blackness. ‘That’s right, Li Min, the Inspector pleads not guilty.’
‘When will the trial be, sir?’
‘I think now is as good a time as any, don’t you agree, Li Min?’
The Chinese man nodded.
‘Does the Inspector need time to think about his defence?’
Danilov remained quiet.
‘No, well, let the trial begin.’
‘Before we do,’ Danilov raised his voice, ‘I would like you to remove your mask. I have the right to see my accuser.’
‘You have no rights in my court, only responsibilities and punishments. I’m not on trial here, Inspector Danilov, you are. Request denied.’
The scratching of pen against parchment cut through the silence.
The ropes bit against Danilov’s wrists as he strained against them. He would endure the pain. He had to endure the pain.