‘Why does that not surprise me? A bird is always shown by its flight.’
Strachan shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ll ask them to get a move on, sir.’
‘Do that, Strachan.’
Danilov sat down at his desk, adjusting the light so it was at a forty-five-degree angle, and rolled his fifth cigarette of the day. He took the case file out of his drawer and began reading one more time, looking for anything he might have missed. One thing stood out above everything else: how little they knew.
The victim’s name?
Unknown.
Why he was killed?
Unknown.
Where he was killed?
Unknown.
Who killed him?
Unknown.
It was early days, but most crimes were solved in the first forty-eight hours. If they didn’t find a suspect soon, Danilov was certain this killer would strike again. All his experience told him it wasn’t a single event. If it were a kidnapping, the perpetrator would be unable to resist the urge for easy money once more. And if it were a murder, the ritual nature of the crime suggested it wasn’t a singular event.
A shiver shimmied down his spine.
He moved the files to the left-hand side of his desk, adjusting their position so they lay exactly parallel with his blotter. He took a long drag of smoke and exhaled it up towards the ceiling. It hung there like Pernod in water, misting the green government-issue light shade and the frosted bulb hidden inside.
Then a thought struck him. ‘Anything on the symbol?’
‘Nothing, sir. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I could send it to my uncle.’
Strachan’s uncle, Chang Hong Lin, had helped their investigations before. He was the only member of his family to stay in touch with Strachan’s mother when her father had banished her from the family. Her crime? To marry Strachan’s father, a lowly policeman from the backwoods of Scotland.
‘That would be useful. If anybody knows where it comes from, it will be Mr Chang.’
‘Passing the imperial examinations has some advantages.’
‘Not many, Strachan, but knowledge is most definitely one of them. Send him your copy.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Strachan coughed. Danilov knew this was usually a precursor to a discussion about his daughter. In his career as a detective, he had noticed that most people had a tell; a nervous tic or gesture that gave them away. Usually it was when someone was lying. Brushing the end of the nose, a quick tug of an ear lobe, a nervous stutter in the knees. One man, an anarchist from Riga, even went so far as to wink after every lie. It took Danilov some time to work out whether he was joking or lying.
Strachan, however, was much simpler; he coughed.
‘Sir (cough), I had a chat with Elina last night (cough), and we were wondering if (cough)… ’
At that moment, Miss Cartwright bustled into the room. ‘There’s been a kidnapping, Inspector. At a school. The girl is eleven years old.’
14
‘Are you sure you can talk, Miss Turner?’
The young woman nodded. She sat in the teachers’ common room at the school. Around her shoulders a threadbare shawl made a vain attempt to keep her warm, while a hot cup of milky, sugary tea was gripped by both hands and held in front of her face, obscuring her mouth.
The headmistress, a Miss Rawson, hovered behind her, nervously wringing her hands. ‘My school, why has this happened to my school?’
The rest of the children had already been sent home, collected by a series of black limousines guarded by a formidable array of burly men with distinctive bulges beneath their jackets.
Miss Turner sipped at the tea. A few drops slipped out of the side of her mouth. On her left jawline, where she had been punched by the kidnapper, a large bruise was already turning a vivid purply brown.
Strachan took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and gently wiped away the tea. Miss Turner looked up at him and nodded her thanks.
The headmistress loomed over them. ‘My school will never recover from this. What will the parents think?’
Danilov ignored her. ‘You’ve been extremely brave, Miss Turner. Can you tell us what happened?’
‘It was all so quick. They marched across the playground.’
‘They? Who were they?’
‘Three Chinese men.’
‘Are you sure they were Chinese? Did you hear them speak?’
‘No, but what else could they be? We’re in Shanghai.’
Danilov let the supposition go. It was the problem with questioning witnesses to any event. They often brought their own prejudices to their statements. His job was to separate the assumptions from the facts. ‘Three Asian men marched across the playground… then what happened?’
‘The leader grabbed one of the twins. I don’t know which one, I can never tell them apart.’
‘Was that before or after he hit you?’
‘After. That’s right, I remember stepping in front of him, saying something.’ She shook her head and sipped more tea. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember what I said.’
Danilov touched the back of her hand. ‘It doesn’t matter. What happened next?’
‘He hit me.’
‘Did he use his right hand or his left hand?’
The headmistress interrupted. ‘Inspector, I can’t see why it matters which hand it was.’
‘You can’t, Miss Rawson, but I can. And I’ll thank you not to interrupt me again.’ He focused on the young woman in front of him. ‘I want you to close your eyes and imagine what happened again.’
She did as she was instructed.
‘What was the man wearing?’
‘A d-d-dark suit and hat. The hat was shiny, almost new.’
‘And as he approached you, did you notice anything else?’
‘There was no hair beneath his hat. Normally men have hair at the sides, above the ears. I always notice how a man keeps his hair.’
‘Anything else?’
‘He was smiling when he hit me. Something in his mouth… ’
‘There was something in there?’
‘The glint of gold. I think he had a gold tooth.’
‘Which tooth?’
She lifted one of her hands from the cup of tea and touched her front incisor. ‘This one on the left, I think.’
‘You noticed the glint of gold as he smiled?’
Her forehead wrinkled. ‘He was smiling when he hit me, as if he were enjoying it.’
Again Danilov touched the back of her hand. ‘It’s OK, Miss—’
She carried on speaking. ‘I didn’t see his hand until it was close to my face. I tried to get out of the way. But it came straight towards me. A big fist, hard, heading towards my head; a ring… ’
‘A ring?’
‘I think so. Something in the middle of his fist.’
Danilov touched Miss Turner’s chin and moved her head gently to the left. In the centre of the livid bruise was a white circle, the purples, yellows and browns radiating from it.
‘What about the other men?’
‘One was short, unnaturally short, almost a dwarf. The other… ’
‘Go on,’ encouraged the inspector.
‘The other had a red scar beneath his eye, just here.’ She pointed to her own face.
‘Anything else?’
‘He was Chinese.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘He swore at me in Chinese.’
‘What did he say?’
She glanced across at the headmistress. ‘He called me a fucking bitch.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Listen, Inspector, one of the first things anybody does in a new culture is learn the swear words. That’s what he said.’
The inspector sat back in his chair. ‘Interesting. Is there anything else—’
His question was interrupted by a knock at the door. Miss Turner’s eyes opened. A young woman, Chinese this time, entered the room.
‘The parent
s of the twins have arrived. They are with their daughter now.’
‘Thank you, Miss Kao,’ said the headmistress, wringing her hands again. ‘I must go to them. What am I going to say?’
‘Go with her, Strachan, make sure the parents stay at the school until we have questioned them.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Miss Turner, after the man punched you, what happened then?’ Danilov asked the question, but he knew from her eyes that he had lost the witness.
Miss Turner was staring into mid-air. ‘The poor parents. What are we going to tell them?’
‘Please concentrate, Miss Turner. What happened next?’
She shook her head. She wasn’t going to live through it all again. Her stomach clenched as she thought of the man kicking her. She gagged; wanted to be sick but couldn’t.
The inspector stood up. His voice was soft, almost gentle, when he spoke. ‘Don’t worry, we’ve finished now. Thank you for being an excellent witness, Miss Turner.’
‘I fell to the floor,’ she blurted out. ‘They grabbed the twin, Annie, I think it was, and took her.’ She started to sob. ‘I tried to stop them, I tried… ’
15
‘I must protest, Inspector. Your man has stopped us from leaving.’ The speaker was a short, pugnacious man, wearing the latest Western-style suit. He pointed at Strachan. ‘My daughter has been through a horrific experience; we need to get her to the safety of her own home.’
He stood with his legs planted in the middle of the room, facing Strachan. His younger wife sat on a chair near the door, her elegant legs folded beneath her, her finger picking at an errant piece of lipstick clumped at the side of her mouth. The child, the other twin, was folded in the arms of a white-coated amah, who was whispering words of comfort in her ear. Miss Rawson was hovering in the background, wringing her hands and looking anxious.
Danilov ignored the man. ‘Thank you, Strachan.’
‘The Shanghai Municipal Council will hear about this, don’t you worry. A family being detained against their will, it’s an outrage. I own a cotton mill and I have friends on the council. Let me assure you, Inspector—’
‘Please sit down, Mr… ?’
‘It’s Mr Chen Teng Feng, sir,’ said Strachan.
‘Please sit down, Mr Chen.’
The man remained standing.
‘Well, you won’t mind if I take a seat.’ Danilov pulled out a chair and sat down facing the irate man.
Mr Chen looked around, embarrassed for a moment, and then sat next to his wife.
Danilov brought his fingers up to his mouth and gripped his bottom lip. He could do with a cigarette now. A half-smoked dimp lay in his jacket pocket, but he decided not to light it. ‘I have the onerous duty to tell you I believe your daughter has been kidnapped.’
The young girl buried herself deeper into her amah’s arms. The wife stopped picking at her lips for a moment. The man answered quietly. ‘Not true, Inspector.’
Danilov continued. ‘This morning, just before eight o’clock, three men seized your daughter and forced her to leave the school.’
‘You are mistaken, Inspector.’ Mr Chen’s eyes flickered upwards and he licked his lips. ‘I asked those men to come for my daughter. Her life was in danger. She’s been taken somewhere safe.’
Danilov shook his head. ‘I don’t understand, Mr Chen. Are you saying you ordered them to take her?’
‘I did, Inspector.’ The man smiled. ‘Now, if you have finished, we would like to go home.’ He stood up to leave, pulling his wife up at the same time.
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible. You see, those men, if they were your men, struck a teacher in the school, causing her grievous bodily harm. You need to tell me where they are so I can arrest them.’
‘You don’t understand, Inspector. This is a Chinese matter; we will handle it in our own way. Explain it to him, will you?’ He spoke the last sentence to Strachan.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s you who doesn’t understand, Mr Chen. These men have broken the law. They need to be apprehended.’
‘Please explain it to him,’ the man begged Strachan.
The detective sergeant stood there immobile, no expression on his face.
Chen Teng Feng closed his eyes. His shoulders sagged and his body looked like all the bones had been removed from it. He flopped back down onto the chair. His wife, saying nothing, sat down next to him, smoothing her dress over her knees.
‘What is the name of the child?’ asked the inspector.
The man mumbled something in response.
‘What was that?’
‘Her name is Annie.’ The other twin spoke.
Danilov smiled at her. ‘What’s your name?’
‘My name is Annabelle. Nobody can tell us apart, but we know. We always know.’
‘What happened this morning, Annabelle?’
‘Don’t say anything,’ her father ordered.
The girl ignored him. ‘A man took Annie away. She didn’t want to go but he took her anyway. He said her name before he grabbed her.’
‘He said her name?’
‘BE QUIET!’ her father shouted. He turned back to Danilov. ‘We will sort this out in the Chinese way, Inspector. No police involved. Do you understand?’
‘A crime has been committed… ’
‘Please, Inspector, we will do it ourselves.’
‘I understand perfectly, Mr Chen, but I think this is not a normal kidnapping. Your daughter is in great danger.’
16
After interviewing every available witness and discovering exactly nothing new, Strachan reminded Danilov of his appointment at the building site.
There were both sitting in the Buick, Danilov hanging onto the strap above his head.
‘I don’t think they’ll let us know when the ransom demand is delivered, sir.’ Strachan banged on the horn twice, swerving the car around a rickshaw driver who had suddenly seen the possibility of a fare on the opposite side of the road.
‘The Chinese way?’
‘Yes, sir. A demand is made. The ransom is negotiated down through the help of an intermediary. The money is paid and the kidnapped person returned unharmed. It’s a lucrative business that’s been going on for centuries.’
‘And what happens if there is no ransom demand? What happens if this is not a normal kidnapping?’
‘I don’t know what you mean, sir.’
‘Neither do I, Strachan. Neither do I.’ Danilov rolled down the window. The smells of Shanghai immediately forced their way into the car. He laid out a paper on his right leg and began to roll a cigarette. He noticed with dismay that his tobacco tin was nearly empty. He would have to pay another visit to Loewenstein’s to replenish his supply. The thought of being without something to smoke filled him with fear. How would he work? How would he think without the stimulation of cigarettes?
Strachan turned left off Edward VII onto the Bund. On the right, a long row of warships was tethered in the centre of the Whangpoo, bunting streaming from their funnels, and a parade of bumboats ferried out from the wharves to feed the crew and their soldiers.
‘Another four warships arrived in the river last night, sir.’
‘More, Strachan?’
‘Two from Japan, one from America and the other from the Royal Navy.’
Danilov finished rolling his cigarette. He placed it in his mouth and lit it, taking in a long stream of fresh tobacco smoke. ‘Where there are soldiers, there is always war,’ he said, expelling the smoke out of the window to join the rest of Shanghai’s air.
‘A Russian idiom, sir?’
‘No, Strachan, that was my father. Not the most sensitive of men, but somebody who understood the role of the army.’
Strachan accelerated past the new Cathay Hotel, its green pyramid roof hidden amidst the smog of a January day.
‘It’s not looking good, sir. The papers are reporting that more reinforcements have been sent from Japan. On the Chinese side, the Nineteenth Route Army ha
s begun building trenches and laying barbed wire in Chapei. General Ting says they will resist Japanese aggression with every last man and every last round.’
The car began to slow as the traffic came to a stop.
‘Generals usually make such pronouncements from far behind the front line. It’s not their bodies that will do the resisting. Or the dying. Why have we stopped, Strachan?’
The detective sergeant popped his head out of the window. ‘It looks like traffic is slow going over Garden Bridge, sir. Troops checking the cars.’
The Buick edged forward. A stream of people carrying suitcases, bundles of clothes wrapped up in old sheets, steamer trunks and a thousand other ways of transporting a lifetime of possessions flowed towards them. One man even carried his ageing grandmother on his back, her gap-toothed head peering over his shoulder.
‘It looks like people are voting with their feet, sir.’
‘What do they know that we don’t, Strachan?’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘Why are they fleeing? There is no fighting at the moment. As we know, both sides are rattling their sabres, but isn’t that normal in Shanghai?’
‘It’s China, sir.’
Danilov was about to ask his detective sergeant to explain, but then stopped. Strachan was right. It was China. Two thousand years of experience told these people it was time to flee.
‘Perhaps they know something the generals and the politicians haven’t worked out yet.’
‘What’s that?’
‘War is hell, Strachan. There is no glory. Just death and refugees.’
‘You didn’t fight, sir?’
‘In the Great War?’
Strachan nodded, still staring at the car in front, inching the Buick forward.
‘No, the police in Minsk were exempt. We were needed to maintain order at home. But after the tsar’s government collapsed in 1917, there was chaos.’
‘You carried on working?’
Danilov blew a long stream of smoke out of the window. ‘It doesn’t matter which government is in charge; there will always be murderers, thieves, rapists and thugs.’
‘But thousands were being killed at the front?’
‘So why worry about a solitary murderer or thief on the streets of Minsk, is that what you’re asking?’
The Killing Time Page 6