by Tom Bradby
“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 minu
tes 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 corner, 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.”
Natasha put her hands to her temples, as if trying to prevent this information from sinking in. She stared ahead, without answering, and then slowly crumpled. She rested her head against the wall, closed her eyes, and cried with a pain that Field had never seen in anyone before.
“Who was Lena seeing?”
She wiped her eyes again. “I don’t know.”
“Did Lu murder her, or one of his associates?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Natalya Simonov?”
There was terror in her eyes.
“Did you know Natalya Simonov?”
She shook her head violently.
“Did you know Irina Ignatiev?”
“No, I . . .”
Natasha rested her head on her knees again.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” Field said, his voice tight with frustration. “Did you know Natalya Simonov?”
“No.”
“Did you know Irina Ignatiev?”
She shook her head.
“For Christ’s sake!” He was on his feet. “You’re all from Kazan. Do you think I’m an idiot?” He took a step closer. “Aren’t you frightened, Natasha?”
She began crying again. This time Field moved instinctively to her. He put his arms around her and she moved against him, without resistance, placing her head on his chest.
He tightened his arms, hugging her.
He eased the pressure, lifted his right hand, and touched her head, smoothing the hair back from her forehead, calming her until the crying had lessened and then ceased, all the time keeping his eyes on the iron grille in the door.
“It’s all right,” he said.
She was quiet and still, but he did not let go. She pressed her head deeper into his chest and reached around to grip the sleeve of his shirt with her hand, as if clinging to a life raft.
“It’s going to be all right,” he said.
“No,” she said. “It can never be all right.”
He released her gently and stood. She was leaning forward now, still wiping her eyes periodically with the back of her hand. She looked frail, almost childlike in her vulnerability, a world away from the cynical sophisticate of his first acquaintance.
“What will you do with me?”
“I spoke to someone who knows you well,” he said quietly. “And she said that, of all the Russian girls here, your circumstances were the most impaired.”
“Mrs. Orlov, from the Majestic.”
“What did she mean?”
Natasha lowered her eyes. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t help me, I cannot help you.”
She looked up, the hurt deep. “No one can help me, Richard.”
“You’re wrong.”
“No I’m not.”
“In what way are your circumstances impaired?”
She shook her head. “Do what you want with me, but please don’t ask me any more questions about it.”
Field felt his mouth tightening. “How did you become one of Lu’s girls?”
“I cannot talk about him.” There was another long silence as Natasha wrestled with herself. “Lena . . .” She stopped.
“Go on.”
“I . . . There was someone new. You asked if there was someone else, and it was true, there was. He . . . Lena did not talk about it, about him.”
“For how long before her death?”
“About two months. She seemed happier, as if something good had finally happened to her.”
“Lu asked her to see someone else?”
Natasha nodded.
“Do you have any idea who it might have been? Did she give you any clues? His nationality, for example, or the type of work he did? Or why Lu would be wishing her to do this?”
Natasha shook her head.
“Does he often ask his women to see other men?”
“He has many women, and many uses for them.”
Field wanted to know, more than he had ever wanted to know anything in his life, whether Natasha had slept with Lu, whether she was forced to lie down and degrade herself beneath that sallow, scarred face, and before he could stop it, he was assaulted by an image of the two of them together, naked, Lu’s portly manicured fingers on her dark smooth skin.
He stood up, stepped over to the d
oor, and looked out of the grille before coming back and resuming his seat. She was sitting demurely, her arms wrapped around her legs, looking at him.
