by M J Lee
‘It’s not the profession of a good boy. Become an accountant or a lawyer instead.’
‘I don’t want to be an accountant or a lawyer.’
‘Get an education first and then decide.’
He had done as she wished. Went to St John’s University, got his degree and then decided.
She wasn’t happy but knew he had made his mind up. ‘You’re just like your father. Stubborn as a Yangtse boatman.’
He took that as a compliment.
The Sikh sergeant closed the door behind Strachan, and he experienced the familiar surge of excitement. He was here, where it was all happening, where death and glory, life and sadness, truth and lies stalked the corridors. Even after five years in the force, he still enjoyed the same thrill every time he stepped through that door. The divide that separated the world of normal people and his world; the underworld.
He pushed through the gate and walked down a short green-walled corridor. The only light came from a single dim bulb hiding behind a frosted-glass sconce. A door on the right was stencilled with the words Detective Office in thick block letters. He opened it. Immediately the group of detectives in the corner fell quiet and stared at him.
‘He’s here, lads. Danilov’s little chum.’
The voice came from a ginger-haired detective seated at a desk on one side of the group. . Strachan ignored him.
‘And where’s the great detective today? Solving another devilish plot?’ The group of detectives sniggered.
Strachan faced them. They all stopped laughing. ‘It’s his day off. He deserves one day to himself.’
‘He deserves one day to himself,’ mimicked the ginger detective. ‘Shame he missed the murders last night, wasn’t it?’
Chapter 3
Inspector Danilov’s daughter placed the plate of syrniki in front of him. The food was slightly charred at the edges and gave off a strange orange glow.
She had decided that he needed to eat more regularly, and part of this new healthy regime was a home-cooked breakfast, just like his wife used to make back in Minsk.
Except she didn’t cook like her mother. She cooked like a poet with a vivid imagination; everything was overdone and overwrought.
‘Thank you, Lenchik. It looks delicious.’
There was no answer. Since coming home she had gradually lapsed into an uncommunicative silence, but he would keep trying. ‘Is it a new recipe?’
Again, no answer. She turned back to the stove and took her own plate.
She sat down opposite him. Inspector Danilov saw the puzzled look on her face and that slight tilt of her head to the left. A movement she had made even when she was three years old, explaining to him why her doll had made such a mess on the floor.
Was she pretty? He couldn’t judge. A father can never judge his own daughter.
He stared at the syrniki. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. He tucked into the food with gusto. The strange texture fought with the leftover taste of the opium he had smoked the night before, creating a bitter mixture in his mouth.
He fought the urge to gag and closed his eyes, imagining he was eating a dish from the Princess Ostrapova’s cafe.
‘It’s not that bad,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of starch.
‘It’s not that good, either.’ She pushed the food away from her across the table.
Danilov continued to eat his. ‘What are you going to do today?’
‘Same as I do every day.’
‘Which is?’
‘You know, Papa, you don’t need to ask.’
At least she was talking. He struggled to find a way to keep the conversation going. He had lived on his own for so long before she had come to Shanghai; he had lost the knack of making small talk. And in his job, he didn’t need to. ‘I’m curious about what you do when I’m not here,’ he finally said.
‘I read or go to the movies or eat or sleep. In the mornings, I study Shanghainese and Mandarin. Sometimes I go out for long walks. My day in a nutshell.’ She picked at a thread that had come loose from her housecoat.
‘Why don’t you go back to school? I could arrange for you to attend one.’
‘We’ve been through this before. Not yet, maybe soon.’
‘You’re seventeen now…’
‘Too old for school. Too much to catch up.’
‘It’s not too much.’
She sighed as if explaining something to a six-year-old who kept asking the question ‘why?’. ‘Last time I was at school was when I was twelve. I can’t imagine sitting in some classroom surrounded by giggling schoolgirls. I’ve seen too much since then.’
Danilov pushed his plate away from him. He had eaten half of it. He hoped she wouldn’t notice how much remained. ‘You haven’t told me what happened.’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Not really.’
‘Papa, we’ve been through this so many times.’ She brushed her fingers through her hair and began speaking in a fast monotone as if reciting a story simply because a teacher had demanded it. The voice was flat without emphasis or excitement. ‘After you went to Moscow, the problems started. The local security committee began asking Mama so many questions. Neighbours were called in. A couple made accusations…’
‘About?’
‘About you. Working for the Tsar’s police. Arresting revolutionaries.’
‘They knew all about that. I investigated some anarchists who had planted bombs. The party investigator cleared me in 1922.’
‘It didn’t matter. Mama was under so much pressure. Then one night she woke us, we dressed and ran down to the train station.’
‘A friend had warned her?’
‘See, you know the story better than I do. It doesn’t change, Papa.’
Danilov wanted to roll a cigarette but stopped himself. ‘I just want to know what happened. Maybe it will help me find your mother and brother.’
‘You know what happened next.’
Danilov spoke. ‘I came back and found a note from your mother. She wrote you would meet me in Kiev. But when I got there, I found another note at the station saying you had all gone on to Tsaritsyn.’
‘We never got to that city. Bandits stopped the train. We were forced off near Donetsk. All our clothes, everything, was stolen.’ She picked up the plates and took them to the sink. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’ve told you so many times.’ She washed the dishes, making a loud clattering noise to silence his questions.
He persisted. ‘I just feel there are some details you haven’t told me. Small secrets that could help me find Mama.’
She turned on him, her eyes like light blue ice beneath her shock of brown hair. ‘Secrets? All families have secrets, Father. You above all should know that. I’m not one of your suspects to be interrogated for their crimes.’
‘It’s not that, Lenchik, I just want…’
‘You just want to find Mama. I know. You’ve told me a thousand times.’ She sneered. ‘The great detective who can’t even find his own wife. How that must stick in your throat.’
His heart sank and his head followed. Did she resent him that much? Or was it a stronger emotion, a more Russian emotion, contempt and hate?
He planned to spend the rest of the day with her. They would play a little chess, the only time they could sit opposite each other without her silence coming between them. It was as if the logic of chess was a shared moment, full of the possibility of more shared moments.
And maybe, just maybe, he would be able to ask her a few more questions.
The phone began to ring in the living room. A long, insistent ring that begged to be answered.
Danilov ignored it.‘Lenchik, I just want to bring our family together again. Like the old days in Minsk.’ He recognised the desperation in his own voice. He hadn’t seen his wife or son for four years now. The only clue to their whereabouts was his daughter, and she was telling him nothing. Why?
She turned her back on him and continued to clean the stov
e. ‘You’d better answer the telephone.’
‘The only people who ring me are from the office.’
The phone rang again and again.
‘You’d better answer it,’ she said, slightly more softly this time.
Another ring, this time longer and more insistent.
Danilov got up and walked into the living room. He picked up the ear piece and spoke into the receiver. ‘Danilov.’
‘It’s Strachan here, sir. Sorry to bother you on your day off, but I thought you’d better know…’
‘Know what, Strachan? Come to the point, man,’ Danilov snapped.
‘There was a murder last night, sir. Actually, four murders in a lane off Hankow Road.’
‘That’s my beat. Why wasn’t I informed?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I’m at the station now, and I’ve just found out. Inspector Cowan took the case.’
Danilov sighed and thought of his daughter and their chess game. ‘I’ll be at the station in half an hour. Make sure Cowan doesn’t do anything stupid before I get there.’
‘I don’t know about that, sir, but he’s already made an arrest.’
‘Cowan doesn’t usually move that sharply. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’
‘I’ll wait for you, sir.’
The telephone went dead in Danilov’s hand. He replaced the receiver back on its cradle. The long upright telephone reminded him of a chalice in one of the churches of his youth in Russia, except it was made from black Bakelite, not gold.
He walked across the sitting room and put on his old brown brogues, an even older macintosh and his battered hat with its oil-stained lining, mahogany with wear.
In the kitchen, his daughter was still hunched over the dishes, her arms covered in soap and suds.
‘I have to go to the station. Perhaps, we can play chess when I come back this evening?’
For a moment, she stopped washing dishes, and her head lifted slightly.
He wanted to go across to her and wrap her in his arms as he had done when she was a child. A hug that said it doesn’t matter, nothing matters, just you and me and now.
But he didn’t. He just stood there.
She went back to the dishes, scrubbing the cream pottery as if her life depended on it.
He looked across at the chess board, lying on the table, its pieces untouched, unmoved. ‘Good bye, Elina,’ he called as he opened the front door.
There was still no answer.
Chapter 4
Strachan was waiting for Danilov outside the station, eating a jian bing he had just bought from the hawker’s stall on the street, an infamous trap for hungry policemen.
‘No breakfast, Strachan?’
‘Had it this morning, sir, this is just a snack to keep me going till lunchtime.’
Danilov watched as Strachan took another bite, bending forward to prevent any of the chili sauce from dripping on his suit. Despite all the food he consumed, his half-Chinese detective sergeant was as lean as a Borzoi.
‘Had yours, sir?’
‘Had my what?’
‘Breakfast. Got to have breakfast in the morning. Gets the day off to a great start, my mother always says. Wouldn’t let me leave home without it.’
Danilov thought about the burnt syrniki prepared by Elina. ‘You might call it breakfast, Strachan. On the other hand, you might call it something else.’
He walked up the steps to the double doors that guarded the police headquarters. ‘You didn’t call me in to talk about breakfast, Detective Sergeant,’ he said over his shoulder.
‘No, sir,’ said Strachan, wiping the crumbs from his face with the back of his hand, dropping the remains of his snack on the floor and running after his inspector. ‘Four murders last night in a lane off Hankow Road. A family, name of Lee.’
‘Why wasn’t I called?’
‘I don’t know, sir. Inspector Cowan told me he was handling the case.’
‘Cowan couldn’t handle a knish.’
‘A what, sir?’
Danilov ignored the question and approached a tall Sikh in a blue turban who guarded the gate that led to the interior of the station. ‘Quiet today, Sergeant Singh,’ he said looking back at the crowd in the foyer.
‘Wait till this afternoon, Inspector.’
He walked down the corridor and entered the detectives’ office. The group of detectives standing together in the corner fell silent.
A tall ginger-haired who had spoken to Strachan earlier, broke off from his story and said, ‘Good morning, Danilov. Thought it was your day off?’
A couple of the detectives smirked.
‘Could I speak with you, Inspector Cowan, in private?’
Cowan looked around him. ‘I’m sure the lads wouldn’t mind hearing what you have to say, would you, lads? Tinkler? Davies?’
There were a few mutters in response from the group.
Danilov hung his hat and coat on the stand that was next to the door. ‘There was an incident last night near Hankow Road.’
‘Yes.’ Cowan folded his arms across his chest. The rest of the detectives were looking from one to the other like spectators at a tennis match.
‘Four murders. A family.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why wasn’t I informed? It’s my area.’
Cowan came to stand in front of him. ‘I don’t report to you, Danilov. You’re not my boss.’
‘You should have telephoned me.’
‘Didn’t know your number.’
Danilov pointed to the notice board. A list of detectives, with their addresses and telephone numbers clearly marked, was pinned up on the green baize.
‘I never look at that, too much trouble. And anyway, I was duty officer last night.’
Danilov advanced towards Cowan. ‘But it’s my area. Regulations state clearly that officers should be informed when incidents take place in their area.’
‘An incident took place in your area.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve just informed you. Regulations satisfied.’
‘That’s right, I heard you, Gordon,’ said Tinkler.
‘I should have been informed the moment the incident was known to you.’
Cowan’s arms went down and he took a step towards Danilov. ‘Listen, Danilov, you’re not the only bloody detective in this office, understand? Just ’cos you’ve made a few arrests doesn’t make you God bleedin’ almighty.’
‘I should have been informed immediately.’
The tall man towered over Danilov. The angrier he became, the more pronounced was his Scottish accent.
‘Listen, Danilov, I don’t like ye or your kind, understand? Ye may have got rid of poor Meaker and had Cartwright sent to the Badlands, but ye dinnae scare me.’ A large finger poked Danilov in the chest.
Danilov noticed that the knuckles of Cowan’s right hand were red and bleeding. In three places, the skin had been removed completely, revealing the pink, red flesh beneath.
‘And besides…’ A smile appeared on Cowan’s face. He looked over his shoulder at the other detectives before turning back to face Danilov. ‘…I’ve already arrested the murderer.’
Danilov stood at the centre of the detectives’ room. He pulled at the flap of skin that lay between his eyebrows. ‘You have somebody in custody?’
‘You’re damn bloody right, I have somebody in the nick. Already coughed to it too, hasn’t he?’
‘He’s confessed?’
‘To all four murders. Did it for the money. A robbery gone wrong, that’s all it was. Don’t have to be a great detective to work that out.’ He turned and walked away back to the other detectives who congratulated him, patting him on the back.
‘I want to see him.’
Cowan swung around. Another smile slowly spread across his face. ‘See who you like. I’ve got him. He’s confessed. End of story. He’s my collar.’ Again the arms folded across the chest.
Chapter 5
Danilov stood on tiptoes to
peer into the cell. Yellow light crept through the grill. Inside a figure huddled in the corner, his face hidden in the shadows.
‘Open the door, please, Sergeant.’
‘I don’t know if I can, sir, it…’
Danilov stared at the duty sergeant. He had come straight down to the cells after leaving Cowan and the other detectives in the office. Their laughter as he went out the door still echoed in his head. He had told Strachan to stay upstairs. No point in involving him in this unpleasantness too. ‘Open the door, Sergeant,’ he said quietly.
The sergeant began to protest again, looked at Danilov’s eyes and posture, then pulled a large bunch of keys from his belt. They rattled as he selected the right one for cell three, inserted it into the lock, turning it twice.
He stepped back without opening the door. Danilov looked through the key hole once more before entering. A long time ago in a similar cell beneath a small police station in Minsk, he had entered a cell without checking where the prisoner was. He still had the scar on the top of his head as a reminder. An old Russian idiom popped into his head: the scabby sheep scares the whole flock. How true, how true.
The loud creak of unoiled hinges sang in the dark cell. The prisoner tried to bury his head further into the brick walls, hiding from whoever had entered.
‘My name is Inspector Danilov.’
There were a few mumbled words of reply that Danilov couldn’t understand and the same movement into the wall.
‘You can leave us, Sergeant.’ Danilov said, without taking his eyes from the bundle of clothes huddled in the corner.
‘But sir, I’m not…’
‘Leave us.’
Reluctantly the sergeant left the cell. Danilov heard his footsteps receding down the corridor. No doubt, he would be going to report Danilov to his superior. So be it. A small price to pay for speaking to this man alone.
