The Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

  The room was at the top of the building, down a long corridor, and it was less seedy than he’d imagined: a brass bed like the one he’d found Lena Orlov on this afternoon, covered in a white sheet. Before he’d had time to change his mind, she’d let her dress fall, revealing small dark nipples and slim hips.

  She sank to her knees in front of him, skillfully unzipping his trousers as he tried to prevent her, and taking him into her mouth.

  Overcome with shame and revulsion, he tried to reject her, but she held his balls in one hand and gripped both them and his buttocks when he tried to pull away.

  She took her mouth from him and pulled him hard onto the bed. Field closed his eyes as he felt the roughness of her hair against his groin and the wetness inside her.

  He pulled away, standing, head pounding, face red, fighting for breath. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry, no.”

  He stumbled out into the corridor, shoving himself back into his trousers as the girl shouted something at him in Chinese. She was standing naked in the door to the room.

  There was a scream from somewhere close, the cry of a woman in pain, and Field instinctively moved toward the source of the noise before checking himself. His girl shouted abuse again.

  There was another scream, high-pitched and piercing. It died down to a quiet sob. Field finished doing up his trousers, hating himself, and walked slowly along the corridor, listening to the sound of the girl crying.

  It had come from a room close to the stairs, and the door was ajar, the two bodies inside illuminated by a candle flickering high on a shelf.

  The girl’s arms were tied to the top of the bed, her legs visible on either side of Lewis’s back.

  For a moment Field stood still. He saw Lewis move, then turn around. Their eyes met.

  Field moved quickly down the stairs. He retrieved his jacket and pistol from the chair and walked to the door.

  Outside, without saying anything, the doorman offered him a cigarette. Field took it in the hope that it would relax his nerves, but it had the opposite effect.

  He closed his eyes. Christ, he was drunk.

  He waited, pacing one way and then another, wondering what he should do. He couldn’t see any rickshaws and they seemed to be down some kind of back alley.

  The door opened and Lewis was standing there, his hat on, unruffled and cool. “What was that all about?”

  Field stared at him. “I don’t fuck prostitutes.”

  “Suit yourself.” Lewis shrugged. “They’re pretty top-end, you know. Good-time girls.”

  Field didn’t respond, taking another deep drag on his cigarette.

  “They’re only Chinese girls.” Lewis saw the look on Field’s face and frowned. “All right, we’ll take it down a step.” Somehow the Buick had appeared from nowhere and Lewis bent over to speak to his driver once more. “Majestic Café.” He turned to Field. “Come on, Russian girls. They sometimes do it for free.”

  Field shook his head. “No. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  Lewis was laughing at him again. “Come on.”

  “No, I’ve an early start.”

  “Haven’t we all.”

  Field shrugged. “Maybe I just haven’t adjusted yet.”

  “Don’t you want to see where Lena Orlov worked?”

  Through the haze of his drunkenness, Field tried to identify what kind of look had crossed Lewis’s face, but he couldn’t be sure. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, don’t you want to see where Lena Orlov worked?”

  “You knew her?”

  “Hardly. Of her. She danced at the Majestic. We took a turn once, but she was too tarty for me.”

  Field found himself thinking not of Lena but Natasha. “All right,” he said.

  On the way to the club, Field had barely registered where they were going, but he saw now that they’d been in the Outside Roads Area, a part of Shanghai that was not quite under either international or Chinese jurisdiction—the road belonged to the international community, but the houses off it were a gray area—and it took a few minutes to return to the better-lit streets of the Settlement. They didn’t talk on the way.

  The Majestic Café was on the first floor, and Field recognized her voice as they walked up the newly carpeted staircase. “Best Russian girls in town,” Lewis said, but Field ignored him.

  Her voice was low, husky, languid, as if the song could go on all night. As he came to the top of the stairs and saw her, she was almost caressing the microphone, her hips swaying gently from side to side with the mesmeric rhythm of a metronome, her unfashionably long brown hair tumbling down the front of a close-cut, regally elegant white dress.

  Ahead of them, couples twirled slowly on an enormous dance floor, but on both sides, those still seated watched the stage, held by the power of her voice.

  “I think you’d better shut your mouth, old boy, in case you catch a fly,” Lewis said, smirking at him. “Jacket on,” he whispered.

  Lewis walked forward to the iron balcony overlooking the dance floor, and for a moment Field thought that Natasha was looking at him, but her eyes returned slowly to the middle of the room, her hips still swaying as she threw her head back and smiled.

  The song came to an end and she put the microphone down. For a moment there was a hushed silence, as if they wanted to be sure she had finished, and then the room was filled with thunderous applause, some of the men close to the stage on their feet and shouting, “Encore! Encore!”

  She waved them away, almost contemptuously, before climbing down the small wooden steps at the end of the stage. As a large man stood and walked up to take her place, she tried to make her way down the side of the dance floor, past well-wishers and admirers who impeded her progress. She bent her head to kiss an elderly, balding man who was seated in front of her, and he held her arm, whispering in her ear. Field noticed how low her dress was cut. She had a string of pearls around her neck that reached almost to the floor when she was bending down, and her hair obscured her face.

  She laughed and the man stood, taking her hand and leading her through to the dance floor, smiling smugly, Field thought, as they took their place among the twirling couples.

  He forced himself to turn away, only to find Lewis still smiling at him. “In love, eh?” He shook his head. “Beyond your price range, old man.”

  “She was a friend of Lena Orlov’s.”

  “She was, but then, I think you’ll find Natasha has quite a few friends, if you know what I mean.”

  Field turned to face the dance floor again, to avoid saying something he would regret. His eyes were drawn back to her even though he tried to focus on almost anyone else.

  She towered over the old man, but he was clutching her—pawing her—his hand on her buttocks.

  Was that what she did? She danced and fucked men like that for money?

  Field looked up across her head, to the tables beyond. This room had formed the backdrop for the photograph he’d seen of Natasha and Lena together.

  “Does she work here?” he asked Lewis.

  “Who?”

  “Natasha . . . Miss Medvedev.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “She used to?”

  “Not so very long ago, she was the star attraction, but she only takes a turn now if she wants to. She sings when the mood takes her. Great voice.”

  “What has caused the change in her position?”

  Lewis shrugged. He was playing the indolent, ignorant playboy, but Field had already judged him a man of shrewd intelligence, much sharper than he liked to make out.

  Field was suddenly certain that Lewis had slept with Natasha.

  The band temporarily halted, the white man at this end of the stage lowering his trombone and wiping the sweat from his brow with a cloth. Lewis turned around, descended the steps to the dance floor, and walked to the other side. He followed Natasha as she glided elegantly to her place on the plinth above and waited as the elderly man she had danced with kissed her hand.

 
Natasha smiled as she saw Charles Lewis, and Field watched him kiss her on the cheek and lead her back to the floor as the band started up again.

  Field found it impossible to take his eyes off them.

  They were a handsome couple, the same height, his face square and handsome, save for a broken nose, hers so perfectly formed it was uncomfortable to look at.

  Field tore himself away and turned around.

  He needed to have a piss, so he walked to the set of swinging doors beside him and pushed his way through to the corridor beyond, smacking the doors loudly into the walls.

  He washed his hands, looking at his face in the mirror and seeing his anger reflected back at him. He breathed in deeply and bent his head.

  Back in the lobby, he bought a packet of cigarettes from the attendant. He smoked one, looking out through a small window at the end at the rooftops behind the Bund. It was time to go home now. Lewis would probably not even notice he’d gone.

  He was leaning against the wall, thinking he was smoking too much, when Natasha Medvedev came through. Her smile faded as she saw him. He straightened, holding the cigarette down by his side.

  “I’m not one of your schoolmasters,” she said.

  Field tried to laugh, but wasn’t certain he even got as far as a smile. Self-consciously, he took another drag.

  “Are you going to offer me one?”

  He dug the packet from his pocket and chucked it at her. She caught it and took one, waiting until he leaned forward to light it.

  “You’re not much of a gentleman, are you, Officer?”

  “And you’re not much of a lady.”

  She inhaled, blowing the smoke out of the side of her mouth, before moving over to the wall opposite him and leaning back against it.

  Field threw his cigarette, which he wasn’t enjoying, out of the window and put his hands in his pockets.

  “I saw you arriving with Charlie Lewis. You’re a friend of his?”

  “I hardly know him.”

  “Well, you should get to—”

  “You danced here with Lena Orlov.” Field had taken his hands from his pockets again and spoken with unexpected ferocity. “You were friends.”

  “So?”

  “Everything you told me this afternoon was a pack of lies.”

  “And you’re hurt?”

  “That’s an offense, do you know that?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “You can laugh at us all you want, but you’re vulnerable here, Miss Medvedev, no matter how much you sleep with the likes of Charlie Lewis or Lu.”

  She was staring at him. “Is that what you think I am? You think I’m a prostitute?”

  From a standing start, he’d insulted and perhaps—this couldn’t be true, but somehow seemed to be—hurt her. He wished he were less drunk. The conversation had developed a momentum that their brief acquaintance hardly merited.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. The ways of the city are strange.”

  She was still looking at him, her hostility not assuaged. “They are strange, and perhaps it is you who should be careful.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a warning.”

  “You were good friends with Lena Orlov.”

  “Yes I was.” Now she threw her own cigarette through the window.

  “Then why did you lie to me?”

  “Because I didn’t want to answer a lot of questions.”

  “Why did you go around to her apartment?”

  She sighed. “To get some milk.”

  “But—”

  “I went in because it was unusual for her door to be unlocked. That was the only lie.” She sighed. “Lena was a Russian girl, Detective.”

  “Like you.”

  “Yes, like me.”

  “So it doesn’t matter.”

  She looked at him, then came forward and took the lapel of his jacket, flicking it with one long, thin finger. “You need a new suit, or you’ll boil to death. The summer has only just begun.”

  Charles Lewis walked in through the doors and stopped. “Conspiracy,” he said. “He’s not rich enough for you.” He took Natasha Medvedev’s hand. “Come on, I want one more dance.”

  Field left and took a rickshaw back to his dingy room in the Carter Road quarters. The steward was asleep in his chair when he got to the top floor and the corridor quiet. Prokopieff’s door was, thankfully, shut.

  Field closed his own door carefully, lest Prokopieff hear, and took off his jacket, switching on the fan on the wall beside him.

  The room was tiny. Yellow paint peeled in large strips off the walls and ceiling on account of the damp. There was a small window, but Field had learned never to open it in the summer because of the mosquitoes.

  He sat down at his desk, put his holster on the starched white sheet beside him, and opened the leather-bound diary. He returned to his jacket to remove his father’s fountain pen.

  Underneath the date and still feeling drunk, he wrote: Met a girl—a woman—and can’t stop thinking about whether or not she is compromised and . . . honest. Don’t know why it matters, but it does.

  He stared at the page for a few moments more—this was the first thing he’d written for weeks—then slipped off his shoes, trousers, and shirt and slumped down onto the bed. He leaned forward again to flick the light switch and clumsily knocked the copy of The Great Gatsby he had bought last week onto the floor. He didn’t bother to pick it up.

  There were no curtains, so the streetlamps created dappled pools of light and shadow on the walls and ceiling.

  Field closed his eyes. His head and heart pounded as he imagined Natasha doing what the Chinese girl had done, his hands entwined in her long hair. His whole body was covered in sweat.

  Eight

  We have made the assumption,” Caprisi said, looking around the C.1 office, “that the doorman was killed because he could definitively identify the murderer. Chen has been through the building and the surrounding area, and everyone insists they saw no one arrive or leave. But the murderer must have come in sometime during the evening.”

  They were in a small group outside Macleod’s office. It was not yet nine and Field was glad he’d come in early, though his awakening several hours ago was the result of a night’s drunken, dehydrated sleep and Prokopieff berating the steward on their landing for bringing him tea rather than coffee.

  “Where does Lu come into it?” Macleod asked.

  “Lu owned the flats,” Caprisi said. “We believe his men were responsible for the abduction of the doorman.”

  “Says who?”

  “Chen.”

  They all looked at the Chinese detective, who smiled.

  “All right,” Macleod went on, “his men were cleaning up, so he might have killed the girl, but why?”

  “His flat,” Caprisi said, “his girl. His pleasure.”

  “Wouldn’t he take the precaution of getting her over to the French Concession first?”

  “Perhaps he lost his temper, although”—Caprisi looked at Field—“Maretsky says it is more premeditated than that.” He shrugged. “Maybe Lu is arrogant enough now to think he can get away with anything, anywhere.”

  Macleod nodded.

  “We should apply to the French authorities for permission to interview him formally.”

  “Yes.” Macleod’s voice was hard and confident, but he fiddled with the chain around his neck as he talked. He looked at Field—which all of them kept on doing, he noticed, as if eyeing an enemy in their midst. It was clear that none of them trusted him or felt comfortable with his presence. “So you think it could have been Lu himself?” Macleod went on.

  “It could have been,” Caprisi said. “But if it isn’t, then he knows who it is and is protecting him. That’s why they disposed of the doorman. There was certainly a cleanup operation. There was no murder weapon, no prints on the cuffs.”

  Macleod was staring at the floor, still fiddling with the chain. In som
e ways, he reminded Field of his father; he seemed to have the same sense of moral and practical certainty.

  Caprisi had a notebook open in his hand. “So we talk to Lu when permission comes through from the French. We try the apartment block again and talk to Natasha, the unhelpful neighbor.”

  “Natasha and Lena were close friends,” Field said. “They danced together at the Majestic Café.”

  All three detectives looked at him in silence for a moment. “Okay,” Caprisi said, “since we are short of direct evidence, we should work on tracing through Orlov’s life. Was she a prostitute? Did she have a regular man? Did she exclusively belong to Lu, and did he lend her to anyone else? And there’s this.” Caprisi produced the leather volume with the hole cut in it and handed it, open, to Macleod, who took out the notebook and glanced through it.

  “Names of ships, departure dates, and destinations,” Caprisi explained.

  “I can see that.”

  “We don’t know its relevance, but if Lena was one of Lu’s girls, it may have something to do with him, or with the man who killed her.”

  Macleod shut the book and handed it back to Caprisi. “Right. Keep me briefed. The municipal authorities wish to be kept closely informed on this investigation, and the commissioner wants regular updates.”

  They all frowned, including Field.

  Caprisi turned away. Field followed Chen toward the American detective’s desk.

  “Field,” Macleod said. Field stopped and turned. “You playing rugby tomorrow?”

  “Yes, I believe so, sir.”

  “Granger has been telling everyone you’re a find.”

  “He’s never seen me play.”

  “You’re fit?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re sure?” Macleod was smiling.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Caprisi, make sure you break this boy’s leg.” Macleod took a step toward Field and stretched his arms above his head. “He’s good, you know, for a Yank.”

  “So everyone says.”

  Field sensed the tension as soon as he entered the ten o’clock briefing. It was held in a large, gloomy room behind the duty sergeant’s counter on the first floor. Field took a seat at the back behind Caprisi, at a desk almost identical to the ones they’d had at school, even down to the graffiti. Someone had carved in big letters: Smith for fucking Pope. There was graffiti etched into the dark wooden panels beside him, too, paint on the walls above peeling off in large chunks. There were no pictures or adornments of any kind and the two fans hanging down on long metal poles from the ceiling stood idle. Field had never seen them work. Whatever the police budget was being spent on, it wasn’t building maintenance. The whole building had an aura of decay about it.