Strachan nodded again, the brake lights of the car in front illuminating his face.
‘Because it was my job, Strachan. In a world filled with chaos, it is our job to bring a semblance of order.’
The car reached the barrier at the end of Garden Bridge, on the Bund side of Soochow Creek. Inspector Russell, one of the other detectives in their squad at Central Police Station, was wearing the uniform of a captain in the Shanghai Volunteers and directing traffic, both mechanised and human.
Strachan wound down the window. ‘How is it, Russell?’
The soldier took off his peaked cap. ‘Madness, Strachan, sheer madness. It’s like China has suddenly decided to come to the International Settlement.’
A stream of refugees flowed past either side of the Buick. Young and old, male and female, all intent on one goal: to cross over to the safety of the International Settlement.
‘Where are they going to sleep?’
Russell shrugged his shoulders as if it was the last of his concerns. The car behind them sounded its horn.
Russell lifted the temporary barrier and Strachan waved goodbye, threading the car across the bridge, weaving through the silent hordes of people.
Once across, he accelerated down Broadway East towards the Municipal School. As he drove further into the Japanese quarter, the streets cleared as if by magic: hardly any pedestrians and even fewer cars.
Danilov was again struck by the change in character of the city. It had gone from chaos and disorder to quiet and cleanliness in the space of one hundred yards.
Strachan turned left at Minghong Road and parked opposite the building site. Danilov opened the door and was immediately besieged by reporters.
‘Who was murdered, Inspector?’
‘We’ve heard it was a young Chinese boy. Any comment?’
‘What are the police doing?’
‘Did the Japanese murder him?’
Danilov forced his way through, flash bulbs illuminating his face as he pushed the reporters aside. The old security guard was standing at the entrance to the building site, a baseball bat in his hand.
‘Private Liang reporting. I kept ’em out, I did.’
‘Well done, Private.’ Danilov attempted a salute, which was returned smartly by the old guard. ‘Carry on as you are, Private.’
‘Will do, sir. They won’t get past me.’
Danilov and Strachan walked into the building site, leaving the baying mob of reporters kept at bay by Private Liang. Still the flash bulbs exploded, illuminating the scene.
In the far corner, next to the stack of planks where the body was dumped, a Chinese man sat smoking a cigarette. He was small and rotund, wearing a thick padded jacket that made him look like a Chinese version of the Michelin man.
Danilov walked over. ‘Mr Gu?’
The man nodded. ‘Bad joss. A body on here. Workers won’t come now. Have to pay fortune to temple.’ He shook his head and sucked on his cigarette. ‘Bad joss.’
Danilov showed him his warrant card. ‘I’m Inspector Danilov and this is Detective Sergeant Strachan. You are the owner of the building company?’
Mr Gu shook his head. ‘Manager. Company Japanese-owned.’ He looked up for the first time, and Danilov could see the worry etched into his forehead. ‘Great site. Would have made a lot of money. Big bonus. But now… ’ He sighed and took another long drag on his cigarette.
‘You were here yesterday?’
The man blew the smoke out towards the ground. ‘Short time. Showing buyers around.’
‘Buyers?’
‘Japanese. Big men. From Tokyo. Not interested anymore.’
‘What time were you here?’
‘Dunno. Around three. Didn’t stay long.’
‘How long?’
‘Thirty minutes.’
Danilov looked for the symbol painted on the wall. ‘Where is it?’
Gu looked up again slowly. ‘Cleaned it off. Too many reporters. Caught one taking pictures. Bad joss.’
‘This is a crime scene; you can’t destroy evidence.’
‘It’s a building site. Now have to pay priests to say prayers. Plenty money.’ He shook his head once again, staring down at his feet.
Danilov walked up to the place where the symbol had been painted. The faint traces of it could still be seen on the wood, but most had been removed by a particularly strong bleach.
He sighed, closed his eyes and took three deep breaths. How was he expected to deal with such idiocy? He spoke slowly, trying to restrain his anger. ‘By removing this symbol, you have obstructed the police in the observance of their duty. In Shanghai, such a crime carries with it a penalty of two years’ imprisonment.’
Gu’s mouth opened wide. ‘But I—’
‘Strachan, charge and arrest this man.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The manager threw his cigarette away. ‘I didn’t mean to. I only… ’
Strachan held out his hands, palm upwards. ‘Perhaps we should give him another chance, sir, if he tells us everything.’
‘I will, I will. Look, I found this here yesterday.’ From his pocket, Gu produced a small paintbrush, handing it over to Strachan.
‘Where did you find this?’
‘Beside the fence, underneath where the symbol was painted.’
Strachan handed it over to Danilov, who took it using his handkerchief. The brush was covered in black lacquer, with Japanese characters painted down the side in gold. The hairs were stiff and hard. Danilov brought the end up to his nose and sniffed. There was the faint metallic odour of blood.
‘Have it tested by the lab, Strachan, and find out what the characters mean.’
Gu spoke quickly. ‘It’s the name of a famous Japanese brush company, Hakegawa.’
‘Why did you take it?’
‘I… I didn’t want any trouble from the Japanese. I have enough problems working for a Japanese company,’ he blustered.
‘Shall I still arrest him, sir?’
Danilov waved his arm. ‘No point, Strachan, let him go.’
The man leapt up and took the inspector’s hand. ‘Thank you, thank you, it won’t happen again… ’
Danilov ignored him, looking over at the mob of reporters still being kept at bay by Private Liang. ‘Let’s get out of here, Strachan.’
‘Through that lot, sir?’
The reporters were shouting more loudly now, beginning to push the old man back, despite being prodded by his baseball bat.
‘Back way out, over there, behind Japanese Club.’ Gu pointed to the far side of the site.
‘You go and help your guard.’ Danilov sent him back to the entrance to the site. ‘Strachan, come with me.’
They strode towards where the man had pointed. The fence looked solid; there was no door or opening.
‘There’s nothing here, sir.’
Danilov looked back towards the site manager. He had turned around and was gesturing for them to move to their left. Three planks swinging from a crudely made wooden hinge covered an opening in the fence. Strachan pulled the planks aside and stepped through.
The inspector followed him, then stopped. He bent down and stared at a smear of something dark and reddish brown on one side of the planks.
‘Blood, sir?’
‘I think so. Probably our victim’s.’
He stood up and stepped though the makeshift arch, checking for more blood on the other side.
They were behind the club, in a narrow alley hidden from view by a high stone wall. Danilov looked down at the ground. On a piece of discarded brick there was another brown smear. He pulled out a handkerchief and picked the brick up. ‘We’ll have the lab test it. Match it with that on the brush. I’m sure it’s the boy’s blood.’
‘I’ll send it in, sir.’
Danilov stood up, stretching his back. ‘And now, we’re going to do something we should have done yesterday.’
‘What, sir?’
He pointed up at the dark brick walls of the J
apanese Club looming over them.
‘It’s time to step into the lion’s den.’
17
Danilov and Strachan climbed the stairs leading to the Japanese Club. It was an impressive five-storey building, fashioned in the English Renaissance style, with arched red and white brick porticos and a grand covered entrance.
As the two detectives neared the double doors, they swung open. Two girls in flower-patterned kimonos bowed, their hands resting on their knees. ‘Irasshaimase.’ They sang the Japanese welcome in unison. A dapper man in a frock coat and extravagant goatee rushed to greet them in Chinese.
‘This is the manager,’ Strachan translated. ‘He says he is happy to welcome the Western gentlemen, but this club is reserved for Japanese members. Entrance is by invitation only.’
Danilov reached into his pocket and pulled out his warrant card. ‘Here’s our invitation.’ He pushed it into the manager’s face.
‘I’m afraid that is a waste of time, gentlemen. Mr Mitsui is not au fait with the English language. It would be like asking the manager of an English hostelry to read Japanese.’
The speaker was a tall, stiff-backed man wearing a dark uniform and smoking a cigarette in a short ivory holder. Turkish from the smell, thought Danilov, a pungent aroma. His mind travelled immediately to the tin of tobacco in his pocket.
‘And you are?’ he asked.
The heels of the man’s highly polished boots came together, his body angled slightly from the waist at a thirty-degree angle, his head just dropping a shade more as he spoke. ‘Ihanaga, Colonel, Imperial Japanese Navy, Marine Division.’ The head came up and smiled, as if this had been a tiny performance for the ignorant Westerner. ‘To whom do I have the honour of speaking?’
Danilov wasn’t going to play his game. He stepped past the manager, looking around him at the picture of the emperor, Hirohito, in its specially created alcove. ‘My name is Danilov, with the Shanghai Municipal Police. This is Detective Sergeant Strachan.’
Strachan waved his hand. It happened to have his trilby in it.
‘There has been a murder in the building site behind the club. I’d like to question the members of staff.’
Colonel Ihanaga smiled. ‘That would be extremely difficult, since none of the staff speak any English. But I would be happy to help you in any way I can. Please, come this way.’
He extended his arm to the left and led them into an elegant lounge off the main lobby. The room was decorated in a soft plum colour, with pastel prints of flowers on the walls. The colonel sat in a leather armchair and gestured for Danilov and Strachan to take the chesterfield opposite. The manager closed the door behind them and stood to one side with his arms clasped behind his back.
‘Would you like tea, gentlemen?’ Ihanaga asked. ‘I often take tea at this time in the late afternoon. I somehow acquired a taste for black tea with milk in the English style when I was the military attaché in London. An unfortunate habit, but I find it does refresh one after a long day. You, of course, will have tea with lemon, Danilov. And my guess is you would prefer green tea, Detective Sergeant Strachan.’
Without waiting for their answer, he snapped his fingers and a kimono-clad woman shuffled out from nowhere. He spoke quickly in Japanese.
After he had finished, he crossed his legs, making sure the creases in his uniform trousers remained as straight as a battleship’s bow. ‘Now, where we?’
‘You were going to help us question the staff.’
The colonel raised an eyebrow slightly at Danilov’s bluntness, but carried on speaking in his refined British accent. ‘I was going to help, wasn’t I? When did this incident occur?’
‘Two days ago, between five and six o’clock. And it wasn’t an incident.’
The colonel sucked in breath through his teeth. ‘Two days ago, Inspector. You should have come earlier.’
Danilov glanced over at Strachan, then continued speaking, ignoring the colonel’s comment. ‘The mutilated body of a young boy was dumped on the building site next door to the Japanese Club. I noticed that at least one of the windows of the club on the east side overlooks the site. Did any of the members of the club or the staff see anything during that time?’
The colonel placed a fresh cigarette in his ivory holder. ‘The east side? I doubt if any of the members observed anything. The only window overlooking the site is on a servants’ staircase. No members would ever go there.’ He pulled out a gold Dunhill lighter from his pocket, lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply.
‘This afternoon, we noticed a trail of blood leading to the alley behind your club.’
‘The members definitely don’t go behind the club, Inspector.’ Ihanaga laughed to himself.
‘That may or may not be true, but we need to investigate.’
The colonel snapped his fingers once again. The dapper manager rushed to his side, bowing deeply while he received his instructions.
‘I have asked Mr Mitsui to question the staff. Shall we have our tea while we wait for his response?’
The waitress knelt down, placing teacups and teapots in front of all three of them, pouring the three different types of tea, completing the ceremony by placing a small jug of fresh milk in front of the colonel.
‘Bottoms up, chaps.’
‘You speak excellent English, Colonel.’
‘Learnt it from the best. The Prince of Wales was one of my tutors, as was a Miss Dolly Trent of Finchley. Miss Trent taught me a few words – and deeds – useful for a sailor not found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Whilst the prince taught me how to enjoy myself.’ He took a long drag of the cigarette, expelling the aromatic smoke in a thin white tail towards the ceiling. ‘Your own English is not at all bad, Danilov; for a Russian, I mean.’
‘Like you, I spent some time in London. At Scotland Yard. My teachers were William Shakespeare and a certain Chief Inspector Albert Boot. He didn’t teach me how to enjoy myself.’
‘Ah, Mr Shakespeare.’ The colonel paused as if trying to remember an exact phrase. ‘“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.” A very Japanese sentiment if ever I heard one.’
‘From Richard II, I believe.’
‘Correct, Inspector. We Japanese have a strong love for Shakespeare; he appeals to our sense of the dramatic.’
‘I much prefer something from Hamlet.’ Danilov sipped his tea, enjoying the aroma and the tartness of the lemon. ‘“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”’
‘Is that how you catch your criminals, Danilov, by making them fear a guilty conscience? How Russian you are. Dostoevsky would be proud of you. However, in the same play, Shakespeare contradicts himself: “I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”’
Danilov sipped his tea again. Strachan looked on, his green tea going cold in the white porcelain cup.
‘We all live our contradictions, Colonel Ihanaga. It’s what makes us human.’
‘“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”’
‘Alexander Pope?’ Strachan spoke for the first time. Neither Danilov nor Ihanaga acknowledged his words.
‘It is difficult for a policeman to forgive. It’s not in our nature.’
‘So you believe in punishment, Danilov, for every crime. Again, Dostoevsky would be proud of you.’
‘Not punishment, Colonel, but justice. My job is not to punish criminals; merely to catch them so that ordinary people, the common man and his family, can see justice being done. The courts administer the punishment.’
The clock above the fireplace chimed five o’clock. Danilov caught a worried glance from Strachan.
There was a light tap on the door.
‘Enter,’ called Colonel Ihanaga.
The door opened quietly before the clock had finished chiming the hours. A younger officer stood in the entrance.
‘This is Captain Tanaka, my aide-de-camp.’
The captain brought his heels together and bowed in the direction of the two detectives before striding over t
o the colonel and speaking quietly in his ear.
‘Tanaka tells me the manager has completed his interviews with the staff. None of them saw anything.’ Ihanaga stood up. ‘I’m afraid I have to leave you now, gentlemen. I have an appointment with an admiral. It’s going to be a frightful bore, but needs must.’
Danilov and Strachan rose to their feet. ‘Thank you for your time, Colonel Ihanaga.’ Danilov looked at the other Japanese officer. ‘And for your help.’
‘It was my pleasure, Inspector,’ answered Tanaka, in perfect English.
‘Do not look so surprised, Danilov. Tanaka was my aide-de-camp in London too. I’m afraid he was less than enamoured of the English, though. Thought they were effete, didn’t you, Tanaka?’
The officer said nothing.
Colonel Ihanaga pulled on his white gloves. ‘You’re welcome to stay in the club as my guests, gentlemen. The sushi is sublime and they have an excellent sake cellar, probably the best in Shanghai.’
Danilov placed his hat back on his head. ‘Thank you for your offer, Colonel, but we should leave now. I also have an appointment.’
‘Tanaka will show you out.’
As they left the club, the same two kimono-clad girls bowed once more, followed by the manager, who had appeared by their side. All three sang, ‘Maido arigato gozaimasu’ as the doors were closed behind the two detectives.
‘That didn’t get us far, sir.’
‘No, the scythe ran into a stone.’
‘An idiom from the Caucasus, sir?’
‘No, from the Ukraine actually. Come on, Strachan, I have a hunch we need to follow up.’
18
As soon as he returned to the office, Danilov was called into Chief Inspector Rock’s office. He didn’t even have time to hang up his coat.
‘He’s not a happy man, Inspector,’ warned Miss Cavendish. ‘But then again, these days he rarely is. Good luck.’
He knocked on the glass and entered. He expected to see the chief inspector on his own, writing at his desk as usual. Instead, he was sitting in a chair facing another man, drinking tea.
‘Of course, you know Inspector Nakamoto, my counterpart in the Japanese section,’ Rock said.
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