The Master of Rain

by Tom Bradby

  “Silence,” Chen said, his voice commanding. He slowly stood, straightening with difficulty. No one moved until the Chinese detective had recovered his composure. Once he had done so, he stared at his tormentor.

  “Do not come to this house again,” Lu said quietly. “I have tolerated your rudeness long enough.”

  Lu waved at his bodyguards to lower their weapons.

  The weather had changed while they were inside. The wind had got up, bringing with it a thick bank of cloud, which was advancing on the city like a foreign army. A distant crack of lightning was followed by a loud rumble of thunder. “Typhoon coming,” Chen said once they were back in the car and the first spots of rain were bursting on the windshield.

  Caprisi had tried to assist Chen on the steps but had been waved away. Either the blow had not been as painful as it looked, or it was a matter of face that Chen leave the house unassisted.

  Field looked out of the window at the clouds. He’d seen storms before, of course, but none that had looked quite as malevolent as they approached. It was the temperature, too, he thought, the heat that came with it, that made it feel different.

  “The Master of Rain chooses his moment,” Caprisi said.

  Field turned to face him, frowning.

  “According to legend,” Caprisi explained, “affairs in the other world are governed by gods—”

  “Officials,” Chen corrected, from the front of the car.

  “Officials, of whom the Master of Rain is probably the most powerful. He sits up there, controlling the city, its destiny.”

  Field nodded. “Have you ever had any dealings with Lu, Chen?”

  The Chinese detective did not turn around.

  “Chen grew up in Pudong,” Caprisi said quietly. “They grew up together. Lu hates him,” he added with a finality that did not invite further discussion.

  “Will that meeting create difficulties for Macleod?”

  Caprisi waited for Chen to turn around and answer. “Not yet,” the Chinese detective said. “But the girls are a problem.”

  “In what way?”

  “Now he is aware that we know more than one girl has been murdered. The stakes are raised. He will wait to see what we do, and then we must see how he reacts.”

  “Why is he guarded by Russians?”

  “He doesn’t trust Chinese. The Russians are stupid. They know nothing, but their loyalty is absolute. Any threat, they shoot. He remembers how he destroyed the Red Gang and does not trust Chinese.” Chen shook his head. “Lu is arrogant now. He has big head. He believes no one can touch him.”

  As they drove along the wide boulevards of the French Concession, Field watched the passersby hurrying to get out of the rain. The houses were all large here, most hidden behind ivy-clad walls. On the corner, as they turned right, a woman with a thin, pretty face held her raincoat around herself with one hand and a little boy in uniform with the other. As they passed, Field thought she looked forlorn and lost, her damp hair flattened across her forehead, her boy resting his head against her side as they waited to cross the road.

  Field thought of Natasha.

  And then he saw her. She was standing on the sidewalk, and he had to look up and down the street to ascertain that they were on the Nanking Road. The car had stopped and there was a crowd ahead, blocking the way, people shouting, some clapping, a firecracker going off in the air, dropped from the roof above. Field looked up to see a group leaning over the wall around the roof garden at the top of the Sun Sun store, dropping leaflets to the crowd below.

  Natasha was now alongside him, half hidden by a group of protestors, raincoat pulled tight, her hair whipped by the wind. She had a pile of leaflets and was giving them out to passers-by.

  “A protest,” Chen said, pushing open his door.

  The Chinese detective and Caprisi did not seem to have noticed Natasha, but as they got out and walked around to the front of the car, Field watched her.

  She was smiling as she gave away each leaflet, but she did not look happy. A couple of police sirens wailed in the distance. She raised her head sharply, trying to make out where the sound was coming from.

  The sirens closed in quickly. Field heard a whistle and saw a group of Sikh policemen charge past the car and begin to flail at the edge of the crowd with their batons. Protesters screamed as they were clubbed to the ground.

  Natasha had frozen. She was staring at them.

  Field pushed the door open, stepped onto the sidewalk and lunged for her, but her instinctive response was not submission but resistance. She pushed him away, punching him, then grabbing his hair as he tried to move her toward the car.

  “Chen!” he yelled, but the effort distracted him and she bit his hand hard. The pain made him rougher than he’d intended, kicking her legs out and bundling her headfirst toward the rear of the car as the Chinese detective came up to help him, moving easily, as if the assault at Lu’s house had had no discernible effect.

  Caprisi climbed in the other side. “Let’s go,” Field said. Natasha was no longer struggling. Her hair hung limply over her face. She still clutched the leaflets. Caprisi took them from her and glanced through them before looking up at her. “Big mistake,” he said. “Big mistake.”

  They reversed away from the crowd.

  It took only a few minutes to get to the Central Police Station, and Natasha did not raise her head on the journey. As they pulled up outside, Caprisi told Chen to take her down to the cells. Field resisted the temptation to look at her as she was taken away.

  Inside, Caprisi said, “I’m hungry. You want to get some lunch in the canteen?”

  Field tried to think clearly about what he ought to do.

  “If you want my advice,” Caprisi said, “I would leave her to think it over.”

  Twenty-six

  Downstairs, there was a long line for lunch, and Field might have given up if his stomach had not been loudly protesting its hunger. He chose meat that he was assured was beef, potatoes, beans, and overboiled carrots. It was like being back at school.

  On the way to their table, a big gray-haired Scotsman, who’d played lock forward against him two days before, slapped Field on the back. “Well played.” He laughed. “Teach that fucking Yank a lesson.”

  Field smiled at Caprisi as they sat down. “Friend of yours?”

  “Brits.” He shook his head.

  Field poured himself a glass of water and covered his food in salt and pepper in an attempt to instill some taste into it.

  “Will you ever go back to America?” he asked, trying to focus his mind on something other than the woman in the basement.

  Caprisi didn’t react. His elbows rested on the table, his fork pointing down toward his plate as he chewed.

  “It’s hot in Chicago at this time of year?”

  “It’s hot.”

  “But not as hot as here?”

  “Nowhere is as hot as here.”

  “The Gobi desert, possibly.”

  He gave Field a thin smile. “It doesn’t rain in the Gobi.”

  “Did you meet Capone?”

  “No.”

  “Did you like Chicago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you ever answer questions with more than one syllable?”

  He smiled again. “No.”

  Field put a potato into his mouth and spoke as he chewed. “Okay, let’s have a competition—see who can come up with a topic of conversation that will take us further than three sentences in a row.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Uh-uh. No. If your past is off-limits, then so is mine. I’m from Yorkshire, you’re from Chicago—that means we’re quits.”

  Caprisi leaned back. He pushed away his plate, exchanging it for a bowl of custard and some kind of cake pudding. “You went to one of those smart schools, I know that.”

  “Not that smart. Where did you go to school?”

  Caprisi shook his head, in the midst of another mouthful. “Your uncle’s one of the elite.�
��

  “He is, yes.”

  “And your aunt.”

  Field pushed his own plate away and started on his pudding. “You know, I could lose my sense of humor in a minute.”

  “Who’d notice?”

  They were smiling at each other now. Field looked down at his food and sighed. “God, this is disgusting.”

  “Leave it,” Caprisi said. “I’d hate to see you poison yourself. I’m looking out for you, remember.”

  “You’re just like my mother.”

  “She’s got hairs on her chest?”

  “That same look of anguished concern, as though I’m not capable of looking after myself.”

  “Maybe it’s not you she’s thinking about.”

  Field frowned. “What do you mean?”

  The American looked up from his food. “She’s looking at your face thinking that she’s devoted her whole life to you and now you’re gone. So the anguish is for her, not for you.”

  “How do you know that?” Field said quietly.

  Caprisi shook his head. “I’ve already said enough.”

  “You can’t say one minute that we’re friends and then leave us knowing nothing about each other.”

  “What I like about you, Field, is that you’re the best of British—solid and uncomplicated—so don’t—”

  “You think I am, but you don’t know. Solid maybe, I’d like to think so. Uncomplicated? I’m not so sure.”

  There was a long silence. Caprisi stared at his food as though it were suddenly the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. When he looked up, Field saw something in his eyes that spoke of a loss that was beyond words. Field knew that look.

  “My wife’s name was Jane and we were childhood sweethearts. My father owned a hardware store and Jane’s family lived in the house opposite, just across the street. As kids, we used to wave at each other at night.” Caprisi looked down again. “We started dating.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We got married and it always felt right. In a way nothing has since. We had a boy . . .” He seemed about to say the name but was unable to manage it. “He was a good kid.” Caprisi looked up, shaking his head slightly, his lips tight and his eyes narrowed as he fought to contain his emotions. “He was a great kid. Affectionate . . . Jane wanted a big family, but we couldn’t . . . you know, we only had our one boy. It was okay, we had each other, we’d always said that, you know, even before we got married, we said if we couldn’t have kids, that would be all right, because we were in it for each other.” Caprisi shook his head again. “It’s too cute. I should come up with a better story.”

  Field did not know what to say.

  “Have you ever been in love, Field?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then you never have been.” Caprisi sighed. “We had what both our parents had, and it was all we wanted and the boy was a blessing. He was a God-given extra. Do you believe in God, Field?”

  “No.”

  “There’s nothing out there, just darkness?”

  “I don’t know what’s out there, but I don’t think it’s God.”

  “Jane would have tried to convince you. She was a believer. The little boy was so loving, it made everything all right, you know? It was okay that there would be no more. We’d come to accept it, that he would be enough, that that was it. We were a family.”

  Caprisi was gazing at a point over Field’s shoulder. The silence stretched between them.

  “We went to a party. A christening. It was bootlegged, of course, and I always went for the whiskey. Jane hated that, but I guess it helped me. I guess it helped me not to think too much about work, about what was going on in the city . . . It wasn’t until I got here that I realized Chicago wasn’t the only place justice and truth are in pretty short supply . . .” His voice trailed off. “She didn’t want me to drive, but I insisted. We argued; she gave in. She didn’t want to fight about it, she said. Not worth fighting about.” He looked at Field, his face a mask of pain. “I got out without a scratch.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Everyone’s sorry.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “You’re satisfied now?”

  Field didn’t answer and Caprisi sighed. “That was unfair. I’m the one who should be sorry.” He leaned forward. “It seems to me that everyone I’ve trusted in has been taken away.”

  “You don’t have to protect me, Caprisi.”

  The American looked at him for a long time and then smiled gently. “Yes I do.” His expression hardened. “You need to be tough on her, Field.”

  Field didn’t answer.

  “I’m sure you will be.” He pushed his tray away. “She’s not a child and I should think she’s experienced at manipulating people. She was caught doing something that could see her in prison for a long time. If she has information, make sure you get it out of her.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?”

  Field stared at his hands. “It’s not wrong to be searching for something better, is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Field looked up again. “I’ve never had what you had. I’m sorry you lost it—truly sorry—but I’ve never had anything like that. In all my childhood, I have to really struggle to remember one happy day or moment. Everything was so . . . pressurized. We existed under this cloud that was my father’s anger, and the first moment I ever felt free of it—happy—was the day the liner that brought me here docked on the Bund. I got off, breathed that polluted air, saw the grand buildings of the waterfront, and, more than anything, I wanted to put everything I had ever known behind me and start again.”

  “It’s all right to want something better, just don’t look for it in the wrong place. Be patient. It will come.”

  Field stood.

  “And you need to find out why she’s Lu’s girl. Don’t take no for an answer.”

  The cells were like everything that was wrong with the worst parts of Shanghai. The smell of the sewers, damp, and decay, undiminished by any kind of flow of air, created a cocktail that assaulted his nostrils the moment Field opened the big steel door and began to walk down the stone steps.

  Caprisi’s remorse and guilt came with him. Field had wanted to talk about love, and about what he felt now, but he knew what he had to say would appear ludicrous to anyone but himself.

  He hesitated. What would her reaction be, here?

  “Natasha Medvedev,” he told the duty sergeant. “Came in about forty minutes ago.”

  The Chinese officer took out his pen and looked up expectantly.

  “Field. S.1.”

  “She was signed in as C.1. Chen.” He pointed at Chen’s name, detective number, and signature alongside Natasha’s name.

  “Correct. We arrested her together, but this is now an S.1 matter.”

  The man looked doubtful. Field thought how absurd it was that the mistrust between the two elite departments of the force had grown to the point at which ordinary uniformed officers were wary when there was any point of contention.

  “It’s a joint Crime and Special Branch investigation,” Field said. “I’m working with Caprisi.”

  He signed in. He put the pen down and straightened his jacket as the door ahead of him was opened and he was handed the key to her cell. He stepped into the gloom, hesitating as the iron door was slammed shut behind him. It was a couple of degrees cooler down here, but he slipped his jacket off and loosened his tie.

  A man in the cell to his right began to cough and didn’t stop, his lungs racked by convulsions, before giving way to wheezy, uneven breathing.

  Field’s footsteps were noisy on the stone floor.

  Natasha’s cell was at the end of the corridor. She was sitting on her bed, with her feet pulled up and her head on her knees, face down. Field watched for a second through the grille and, when she didn’t look up, put the key in the lock, opened the door, and stepped in.

  He waited, hands in his pockets. There was an open drain in the c
orner, next to the tin bucket that was supposed to be used as a toilet. The smell here was much worse than outside.

  She lifted her head, spinning her hair back and away from her face. Field saw fear, not defiance, in her eyes. He pulled over a chair. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

  “I think you will do what you want.”

  Field put his jacket over the edge of the mattress. His polished shoes looked out of place.

  Natasha was still wearing her raincoat, but she’d taken her shoes off and he found himself staring at her feet. Her toes were unusually long, their nails painted dark brown, or perhaps green.

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  “I don’t know. What were you doing there?”

  “You saw what I was doing.”

  “Why were you doing it?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Your father was a tsarist officer. A proud man, from the way he looked in the photograph I saw. How can it be that you’re—”

  She had begun to cry, her eyes closed and mouth screwed up tight.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  She wrapped an arm around each shoulder, as she had on the day he’d first seen her, until her body stopped shaking. She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “You English . . . so damned polite.”

  Field waited. “You’re going to have to help us.”

  “Help you? How can I help you?” She was staring at him in disbelief. “Don’t you know anything?”

  “Then you’ll go to prison.”

  He saw the anger in her face. “You think you can send me to prison?”

  “You’ve committed a crime.”

  “And you think you’ll find witnesses prepared to—”

  “I am a witness. So are my colleagues. We’re not impressed by Lu’s intimidation.”

  As quickly as it had come, her defiance evaporated and she dropped her head.

  “You will face a trial in the mixed courts, you’ll be found guilty of spreading Bolshevik propaganda, and—I would guess you’re looking at fifteen to twenty-five years. We can ensure that you serve it in one of our prisons here so that Lu cannot bribe the guards and get you out.”