The Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

  “Field can arrange an audience with Charlie Lewis.” Macleod looked at him, then smiled for the first time. “Lighten up, man. I’m pulling your leg.”

  Caprisi sipped his tea. “We should talk to Lewis.”

  “We should find out where these women lived,” Field interjected.

  They stared at him, frowning at the truculence in his voice.

  “One step at a time, Field,” Caprisi said.

  “We could send some plainclothes officers down to do door-to-door.”

  “Avenue Joffre is at least three miles long. And you think the French won’t get wind of a door-to-door?” He shook his head. “One step at a time.”

  Chen went ahead to get the car. Field walked to the toilet and confronted his bloodshot eyes and tired face in the mirror while he washed his hands.

  Caprisi was waiting in the corridor outside, holding a large white box. He handed it to him. Field took off the top and pulled out the gray suit. He put the box down. The jacket was beautifully made and many times lighter than his current one. “My God.”

  “My Chinese tailor.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Put it on. You’ll feel better.” Caprisi bent down and took out two shirts wrapped in tissue paper. “Thought you might need these.”

  Field pulled back the wrapping and felt the quality of the cotton.

  Caprisi bent down once more. “And a decent silk tie.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t say anything.”

  “If we can go down to the bank, I can pay you straightaway. I’ve got money now and—”

  “It’s on me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Caprisi shook his head. “It’s my pleasure.”

  “I can’t allow—”

  “Fortunately, you don’t know how much it cost.”

  “But it’s too generous.”

  “I can’t watch you melting in this heat anymore, polar bear.”

  “But I have the money.”

  Caprisi was shaking his head and waving his hand.

  Field sighed. “Thanks, Caprisi.” He looked at him. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” The American smiled. “Isn’t that what you English say? Don’t mention it.”

  Field smiled and looked down again at the jacket in his hand.

  “Put it on, polar bear.”

  Field went back into the toilet to get changed, and emerged transformed.

  Caprisi whistled. “Wait till they see you down at the Majestic, kid.”

  They got into the lift together. Field had begun to worry that the American would have got the wrong impression about the money. He suddenly wondered if it had been appallingly naive to imagine that any supplement could be legitimate and straightforward. “Who would put cash into my account without my knowledge? Is it—could it be an official thing?”

  Caprisi shook his head. “Someone in the cabal.”

  “It couldn’t be a special supplement unique to a department?”

  Caprisi smiled. “Not that I’ve ever heard of.”

  “What should I do about it?”

  “Nothing until someone approaches you. Then it’s up to you. If you don’t want a part of it, then say so and offer to pay the money back if they ask for it, which they won’t.”

  “Who will approach me?”

  Caprisi shrugged. “Sorenson, Prokopieff, take your pick. It is hierarchical, as far as we can tell. Even if you joined, it would probably be years before anyone told you who was in charge, if they ever did.”

  The lift jolted suddenly to a halt. They stepped out as a group of uniformed officers got in.

  Inside the car, Field asked, “Who took the prints?”

  “Someone in the cabal. It doesn’t matter who.”

  “But Granger is the head?”

  “That’s a matter of speculation, Field.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve told you what we think.” He smiled. “You can draw your own conclusions.”

  Caprisi leaned toward the driver. “Rue Wagner, number 70.”

  Through the window, Field watched a young boy aggressively trying to sell newspapers to the passing crowd while a beggar lay sprawled by his feet, apparently unconscious.

  “Do you think Macleod will be the new commissioner?” he asked.

  Caprisi turned and was about to say something, then thought better of it and shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s a difficult time for him.”

  “He seemed distracted this morning.”

  “Lu is already our central suspect. We’re going to see him this morning. If we upset him, then he will bend the ear of those council members who are indebted to him in some way, which probably means most of them.” Caprisi looked at Field. “Macleod will be held responsible for our actions, and therefore he must be careful. But on the other hand, he says there are council members who feel Lu is out of control, so if he could check him, or better still, bring him down, then that might stand in his favor.” Caprisi smiled again. “He wants to find a way to bring Lu down, but if he messes it up now, then he’s finished.”

  Field had assumed they were going straight to see Lu, but had omitted to take into account the extent of interconcession bureaucracy. There were papers to be filled out, coffee to be drunk, and, since they were in the gendarmerie, croissants to be eaten.

  The headquarters in Rue Wagner was an old colonial villa with an extension on the back only a few hundred yards from Lu’s house. It had the same relaxed atmosphere as the station in Little Russia. The inspector sat behind his desk, long boots resting on a footstool. Above his head was a photograph of a café in Paris and another, alongside it, of a house that looked as if it was somewhere in Indochina.

  The inspector had a thin, hawkish face, but a disarmingly genial manner. He’d already explained to them that he had come to Shanghai only after ten years in French Indochina, first in Saigon and then Hanoi. There was something weary about him, Field decided, not so much cynical as plain tired, as if the heat had finally got to him.

  He couldn’t imagine the heat not getting to everyone, in the end. Not even his new lightweight suit was enough to prevent him from sweating.

  The inspector spoke English with a heavy French accent and moved his hand in slow circular motions as he talked, pausing as a Vietnamese officer came in to refresh their coffee.

  “The girl,” he said. “A prostitute.”

  Caprisi edged himself forward in his seat, cradling his cup. “Not Blood Alley.”

  “Classy.”

  “Well . . .”

  “A Russian.” The inspector waved his hand again, as if this were sufficient explanation. “I know.” He put his feet down and looked at the paper on his desk, then returned to his previous position. “Lu . . .” He shrugged. “It’s not his style, no?”

  “The girl lived in his flat.”

  “She was his? He has so many.”

  “Yes. She was one of his women.”

  “He is greedy. Like a Chinese.” He cleared his throat and looked briefly at Chen. “So you think that he . . . you know? She was stabbed. Many times . . . In the vagina you say?” He grimaced.

  “Yes.”

  “And it was Lu, you think?”

  “We certainly believe he knows who it was.”

  Caprisi had not touched his croissant, so Field pulled over his plate and began eating. He was suddenly ravenously hungry.

  “There are no other cases . . . there has been nothing similar here?” Caprisi asked.

  “Here?” The inspector shrugged, as if to say such things could not possibly happen on French territory. “No.” He thought about it some more, head tilted to one side, before shaking his head. “No.”

  Twenty-five

  They pulled up outside a three-story house with an open balcony on the first floor, hidden behind ornate balustrades: number 3, Rue Wagner. Caprisi leaned forward and looked up at it. His expression reflected the nervousness Field felt. �
��Know how many men Lu has at his beck and call?” the American asked.

  “Twenty thousand.”

  “Right. An army. A fucking army. What do you think, Chen? Leave our guns in the car?”

  The Chinese detective turned around, his mouth tight. “Let them disarm us.”

  There was no one on the veranda, but as they climbed the stone steps to the entrance, one of the big wooden doors swung back to allow them to pass into a gloomy hallway with a black-and-white-checkered stone floor. At first, Field could not see who had opened the door, but as one man in a dark suit stepped forward, he saw another in the background, leaning against a glass-fronted gun cabinet that was well enough stocked for the outbreak of a war.

  Both men were Russian, and the one closest, who was bald, indicated with his hand that he wished them to give up their weapons. Caprisi reached reluctantly into his pocket and handed over his revolver. Field followed suit. Chen hesitated, but once he, too, had obliged, they were ushered toward the stairs and left to climb them on their own.

  Field wanted to look back but resisted the temptation. The staircase was wide, the floor above gloomy, too. The place felt like a funeral parlor.

  They walked slowly toward a pair of doors that opened into a large room with shutters closed and thick, dark red curtains half-drawn, the only light coming from a dull lamp in one corner. Lu sat facing them, his legs resting on a footstool while a Chinese girl in a silk dressing gown massaged his feet. He dismissed her and beckoned them toward him, indicating that they should sit on the two chairs that appeared to have been placed opposite him specifically for their visit. He showed no sign of recognizing Field from the altercation in the Majestic.

  Chen was left to stand.

  Lu sat in a low leather armchair, between a Chinese cabinet and a grand piano bedecked with framed photographs. It was a moment or two before Field realized that they were pictures of girls—his girls, Lena and Natasha Medvedev ostentatiously to the fore. They were studio photographs, similar to those one saw of film actresses like Bebe Daniels and Lillian Gish.

  Field stared at them.

  Lu opened and closed his right hand slowly, as if stretching his fingers.

  “Tea?”

  “Yes,” Caprisi said.

  Lu hit a bell and within a second a houseboy appeared.

  Lu coughed once. His lungs sounded heavy, and his complexion, as Field had noticed the other night, was sickly, his cheeks scarred. His expression was sour, his mouth turned down. His eyes were small but piercing, and, if his body appeared weak, his eyes revealed a quick mind and a soul consumed, Field thought again, by burning anger and barely suppressed aggression.

  “You wish to speak to me?” he asked once the houseboy had gone. He raised his hands and placed them together, two sets of portly, manicured fingers resting against each other beneath his chin. He spoke English well but quietly, with an accent that clipped the ends of some words, but not others, so that “wish” was perfectly enunciated, but “speak” half-lost. His voice was cold.

  “About Lena Orlov,” Caprisi said.

  “Lena, yes.” He nodded.

  “We’re obviously sorry to trouble you about it.”

  Lu nodded again. “I spoke to your colleagues in the French police.”

  “But we’re conducting the investigation. Excellent as our colleagues are, you would expect us to wish to speak to those involved.”

  “How am I involved?”

  The houseboy came in with a tray and placed it on a table next to Lu’s chair. Caprisi waited until he had withdrawn. “ ‘Involved’ is perhaps the wrong word. Connected.”

  “How am I connected?”

  Caprisi shifted uneasily in his seat. “Lena Orlov was living in a flat which we have been led to believe belonged to you.”

  Lu frowned, tapping the bottom of his chin with his fingers. “Happy Times block?” he asked himself, as if trying to recall it. “Yes, I believe it is owned by one of my companies. That is all.”

  Field could see that, for the Chinese, this was a game. Recalling the hostility in evidence at the Majestic, he wondered how long it would last.

  “You didn’t allow Lena Orlov to live there for free?”

  “Why would I wish to do that?”

  “So she was paying rent?”

  “I do not know. Perhaps she had a relationship with one of my men.” He shrugged, to emphasize the extent of his disinterest. “I do not know. I have many companies, many men. I cannot know what is happening with them all.”

  “So you did not know her personally?” Caprisi asked, his eyes conspicuously drawn to the photograph of Lena on the grand piano.

  “I know many people, Officer.”

  “So you knew Lena?”

  “This city has many beautiful women to admire.”

  There was something in the way he said this—the grotesque satisfaction of a man of humble peasant origins who has risen far enough to buy the right to abuse women he could once never have dreamed of even meeting—that so outraged Field that he had to restrain himself from getting to his feet. He looked at Caprisi and saw a muscle twitching rapidly in the American’s cheek. For the first time he felt naked without his revolver.

  His aggression dissipated as he sensed the power of this Chinese man. Field could see how often and with what little consideration death was dispensed with a curt wave of one of those hands.

  “So you did know Lena?” Caprisi asked.

  “I knew the girl. I know many.”

  Caprisi was sweating now and he wiped his forehead and took out his notebook. “Do you mind if I take notes?”

  Lu looked unsettled for the first time, waving his hand at them and frowning deeply. “Better not.”

  “We are detectives, Mr. Huang.”

  “You are police.”

  Caprisi left his notebook on his lap but didn’t open it. “Lena Orlov was not, then . . . You knew her, but she did not . . . You had no arrangement with her?”

  “Arrangement?”

  “She was not a concubine?”

  He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the idea of having such a formal relationship with a Russian woman.

  “There was no relationship?”

  “What do you mean relationship?”

  Caprisi sighed, leaning forward in his chair. “Mr. Huang, we have no wish to be difficult, but you will appreciate that Lena Orlov was murdered with extraordinary brutality, even by the standards of Shanghai.”

  “You don’t like Shanghai?”

  Caprisi bent his head.

  “We both find it an exciting city,” Field said.

  Lu shifted his eyes slowly, looking at Field for the first time. “Exciting, yes.”

  “Perhaps the greatest city on earth.”

  “Greater than London? Paris? New York?”

  “Their equal. An example of harnessing the benefits and strengths of two cultures.”

  “Or their faults.” Lu’s face was impassive.

  “And their faults.”

  “Lena was one of your girls,” Caprisi said more bluntly.

  “My girls?” Lu had raised his hand, an ivory bracelet on his wrist trailing down half the length of his forearm. “We spoke a couple of times. I did not know she was living in a flat we owned.”

  “You had no idea she lived in the Happy Times block?”

  “Why should I know? I cannot know everything.” He smiled at Field, as if now considering him an ally.

  “Lena was paying rent?”

  He shrugged again, as if this was becoming absurd. “How can I know?”

  “But you had met her?”

  “Met her? Yes, I’m sure.” He gestured at the photographs. “There are many beautiful women in Shanghai, Officer. I meet many.”

  “It is not possible that you—or one of your men—owned her and gave her to someone else? Lent her.”

  Lu was still frowning. “My men . . .” He shrugged.

  Field could see this was pointless. He edged forward in his seat
and looked across at Caprisi, but the American didn’t move, his face fixed on Lu’s. Field wondered if Caprisi would produce the notes Lena had made but now considered that to do so would be a mistake.

  “The doorman of that building . . . the block owned by your company. He was removed, taken to the Chinese city, and then beheaded.”

  “I had not heard it.”

  “It does not concern you?”

  “Concern me, perhaps. He was a communist?”

  “No.”

  “Some are too enthusiastic. Many are accused. These are dangerous times.”

  “But you had not heard that a doorman of your building was taken away and summarily—”

  “I have explained, Officer.” Lu sat up straighter, his tone and manner more menacing. “There are many interests. I believe you will find a company on Bubbling Well Road . . . the owner of this Happy Times block. I will instruct my men there to cooperate with you.”

  Caprisi hesitated, sipping his tea. Field sensed a new, stubborn determination in his colleague.

  “So you barely knew Lena?” Caprisi asked.

  “I have said. I will instruct my men to help you.”

  “I wasn’t asking about your men.”

  Field cleared his throat. “Did you know Irina Ignatiev?”

  Lu turned to him, his head tilted to one side, as if turning the name over in his mind. He shook his head, once.

  “She was murdered two months ago. She was also one of your girls.”

  There was silence for a second, then Lu hit the bell twice and there was the sound of footsteps as his bodyguards arrived, two from downstairs, one through the door at the end, all with machine guns.

  Field had stood, as had Caprisi. Lu pushed himself to his feet. The game was over. “You challenge me?” He took a pace toward them, his head pushed forward. “You come to my house and challenge me?” He was looking at Chen. His right hand was suspended in midair, and as he cut down with one swift motion, the bald-headed bodyguard stepped forward and swung his machine gun into Chen’s stomach.

  “Jesus.” Caprisi stepped toward his colleague.

  “Stay.” It was Chen. He was bent double, kneeling, the instruction barked out through the pain.

  “For Christ’s sake.”