by M J Lee
‘I think he means now, Inspector.’
Chapter 23
‘He’s in a foul mood. Upstairs are giving him hell. Pardon my French.’
‘Thank you for the warning, Miss Cavendish.’
He knocked on the Chief Inspector’s door. There was a loud ‘Enter’ from within. Boyle was hunched over a journal scribbling furiously. He looked up and blinked. ‘Come in, Danilov. Don’t sit down, this won’t take long. How is the investigation going?’
‘Slowly, sir. We’ve interviewed all the reporters and photographers. Nobody saw anything of course. I’ve also met with Mr Kao’s wife. She has repeated he was innocent, saying he was with her the whole time of the Lee murders.’
‘Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she? She’s his wife. Have you seen this?’
‘Miss Cavendish showed it to me, sir.’ He picked it up and read the article again. This time, he looked carefully at the grey pictures that lay blurred beneath the words.
The first was a photograph of Kao leaving the station escorted on either side by Cowan and Moore. The second, a more blurred picture of Kao doubling up as he was shot for the first time. The hand and gun of the killer were just visible on the top left of the picture. The third, at an angle, of Kao as he lay on the steps, arms open wide like a sleeping Jesus, the bullet hole in his forehead clearly visible.
‘How did these get out? I thought all the reporters and photographers were detained and their film confiscated?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’
For a moment, Boyle looked confused and then red blotches exploded on his skin. ‘We need to solve this killing and solve it quickly, do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir. But to do that I’m going to have to investigate the murder of the Lee family and find out more about Mr Kao. I’m sure the two cases are linked.’
‘I don’t care what you do. Just get the shooter.’
Chief Inspector Boyle returned to his journal, scribbling furiously on the pages. The interview was over, no cigarettes or cigars this time.
Danilov walked to the door. ‘One more thing, sir,’ he said as he opened it. ‘Inspector Cowan is still missing.’
Boyle looked up from his frantic scribbling. He blinked once. ‘Then you had best find him, hadn’t you? Before the papers get hold of more “revealing” information that they’re not supposed to have.’
Chapter 24
Elina stood in front of the Grand Theatre on Park Road. It was the newest cinema in Shanghai and it had almost become a second home to her.
She checked out the programme again, Street Angel starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. She didn’t know why she bothered, she was going to watch the film whatever it was.
She preferred the comedies, especially those of Chaplin and Buster Keaton. For a few hours, she could sit in the dark womb of the theatre and forget about her life and her father, her mother and her brother, losing herself in the joy of laughter.
She bought a ticket from the booth and walked up to the sweet counter. A wrinkled old man was making cones for his sweets out of yesterday’s newspapers. She chose nuts and raisins, which he scooped up and shovelled into one of the cones. She paid him five cents and he gave her a small candied quince on a stick.
‘For the beautiful girl,’ he said smiling at her, showing just one battered tooth in his cave-like mouth.
She smiled back at him, wondering why he had done that. She wasn’t beautiful, exactly the opposite. Her nose and mouth were slightly too big and she had her father’s chin, solid and square. A sign of stubbornness, her mother said.
She also had her mother’s eyes, a vivid ice blue that sparkled when the light hit them. She found the Chinese often stared at her eyes, fascinated by the colour which was so different from their solid brown.
‘Ya ya.’ She thanked the old man in Shanghainese and walked away to enter the auditorium.
She noticed a tall man in a white linen suit was looking at her, staring at her. He smiled.
Despite herself, she smiled back. He raised his white hat to her almost ironically. She looked away and pushed through the swing doors.
As soon as she entered the theatre, she felt at home. The place was dark, with clouds of smoke whirling above her head, caught for a moment in the brilliant rays of the projector.
On the screen, the Pathé Newsreel showed events that had happened in the summer; Amelia Earhart crossing the Atlantic, the assassination of Obregon, the President of Mexico, and Mr Smith accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party, a beaming smile plastered on his face.
She found her seat at the end of a row. A final report was tagged on at the end of the newsreel. It featured Chiang Kai-shek and his new bride relaxing at home, playing with their dogs. She supposed it was another piece of propaganda from the Nanking Government, showing the leader of the country as an ordinary family man.
She watched the couple on the screen. They didn’t touch each other or even look at each other. Not like my parents, she thought. When they were together, there was always laughter and gaiety, constantly reaching out to touch as if seeking reassurance that the other person was still there.
Now, she looked at her father and didn’t recognise him. On the surface, he was the same. The eyes, nose, ears and chin all appeared exactly as they had always looked, yet something was missing. He never smiled or laughed any more, like a part of him had been stolen and never returned.
She knew that the same thing had happened to her when he left them in Minsk. Part of her had been removed: the young girl that looked up to her father and believed everything he said, that was gone, vanished like a fairy tale. She supposed this discovery happened to all daughters. One day they woke up and their father wasn’t a hero from the movies any more. Just another man, with all the failings, errors and distrust that inhabited all men. But for her, the discovery had been a short sharp shock. How could she ever trust him again? He had abandoned them. What father abandons their children?
She knew her presence always reminded him of the person she wasn’t. A daily reminder that the great detective had not been able to find his own wife.
The audience clapped as the newsreel ended and the film began. A love story. Why couldn’t it have been a comedy?
She sat through the whole film. The leading actress was pretty but bland. The male actor was more interested in showing off his handsome face than paying court to his leading lady. It was the usual Hollywood story: a fallen woman about to be rescued by the love of a good man.
But there were no happy endings in the real world. The woman would never find the love of her life. Never be able to escape from her past. Never stop fearing that, one day, she would be discovered and denounced.
In the warmth and the fug of the auditorium, her eyes closed and she drifted off into her own private cinema. Working in the fields, her back aching, her mother beside her, pain etched into every line of her face. A kulak leering over both of them, enjoying his moment of revenge on the soft bodies of these townsfolk. Devouring scraps of leftover food, cold and tasteless. Never-ending train journeys with nothing but snow and the white sticks of the birches. The beat of music, fast syncopated music. Aching legs, aching calves. And always the stench of alcohol, a man’s prickly beard pressing down onto her face.
She awoke. Where was she? The sour smell of stale vodka still in her nostrils.
On the screen in front of her, the credits were rolling and the cinema had erupted in light. Around her, people began to stand up, accompanied by the sound of the slamming of seats against chair backs.
Others remained seated, deciding to sit through the whole movie again. She considered doing the same. Her father was sure to be working late and she didn’t want to go home to be surrounded by the cold white walls of Medhurst Apartments.
Reluctantly, she got to her feet. She couldn’t face two more hours of that film. A man brushed against her as she walked past him up the aisle. She felt his hand touch the side of her dress. Had that been deliberate
or an accident? She wasn’t sure.
Then she turned round and saw his lips with their thin smile and his eyes staring at her, following the contours of her body. The tip of his tongue licked the moustache above his lip. His hand reached out and touched the top of her arm, the fingers squeezing tighter. She knocked the hand away, and fled, elbowing people out of her way.
She pushed through the swing doors, ran through the foyer and out onto the street, colliding with a tall man dressed in a white linen suit.
‘There’s no need to throw yourself at me.’
‘I’m sorry, I was just…’ She looked over her shoulder. The man with the moustache had vanished.
‘There has to be an easier way of introducing yourself.’ The man bent down and rubbed his leg. ‘Next time, could you kick a little less hard?’
‘I’m sorry, I…’
‘You’re Russian?’ he said speaking to her in her own language.
She nodded.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Minsk.’ Without thinking, she answered his questions. It was almost as if he was used to asking questions and expecting answers.
He put out his hand. ‘I’m Ivan, from Moscow.’
He was tall with a shock of black hair that curled backwards off his forehead. Not a Russian-looking man at all.
‘Hello, Ivan from Moscow. I’m Elina from Minsk.’ They shook hands. ‘It’s strange two Russians meeting on the streets of Shanghai.’
‘It’s the way of the world.’ He looked back at the cinema. ‘Who were you running from?’
‘A man in the cinema. He looked at me.’
‘The cat may look at the Queen,’ he said in English.
‘You sound like my father.’
He took off his hat, brushing away a long dark lock of hair that had fallen over his eyes. ‘Your English is good.’
‘Yours is better.’
‘I’ve been working here a long time. It’s an easy language to learn, but it lacks the beauty of the words of our homeland. It’s a language for being rather than loving.’
‘The English would disagree.’
‘Listen, would you like to go for a glass of tea or coffee? There’s a German cafe over there.’
‘It’s called Loewenstein’s, and it’s Austrian. I thought you said you’d lived here for a long time?’
‘We can have some Sachertorte too.’
‘I don’t know,’ she frowned, ‘I should be getting home.’
‘We won’t stay long. Just until your secret admirer has gone.’
She looked back towards the cinema. The man with the moustache had come out of the cinema and was standing on the street, staring at her.
‘You can tell me all about your life in Shanghai. It’ll be good to hear Russian again. I’m rather tired of speaking English.’
She thought for a moment of the cold white walls waiting for her at Medhurst Apartments and the man who had touched her in the cinema, his tongue licking his moustache. He was still standing there, lighting a cigarette, staring at her over the flame of the match. A shiver went down her spine.
‘You’re cold. A coffee would warm you up.’
She couldn’t risk walking home alone. What if the man followed her?
Ivan held his arms up in mock surrender. ‘It’s time we listened to Marie Antoinette.’
‘Marie Antoinette?’
‘She said “Let them eat cake.” I’m sure she was talking about us.’
She liked his warm, open smile. It would be good to speak Russian again, to wallow in its sentences and taste the beauty of the words on her tongue. Her father wouldn’t be back for a long while, not when he was on a case. And it had been so long since she had chatted with another human being. Somebody who wasn’t obsessed with crime and punishment and murder. Somebody who wasn’t her father.
‘But I’ve just met you…’
‘We know each other’s names, where we were born, and even share the same views on language. Most wives don’t know that much about their husbands.’
She laughed.
He clasped his hands together as if praying. ‘Please come for just one coffee. And we must have cake. Coffee and cake, a marriage made in heaven.’
She looked across at the man smoking his cigarette, still staring at her.
‘If it will make you feel better, I’ll let you pay. I’ve always wanted to be treated by a woman from Minsk.’
‘Just one coffee and cake?’
‘Maybe two pieces of cake. I think we can risk a slice more, don’t you?’
Gently, he took her arm and they walked off together towards the cafe.
Chapter 25
When Danilov returned to the detectives’ office, Strachan was still reading the newspaper.
‘Well, tell us what they’ve written. After all, the rest of Shanghai knows, we might as well know too.’
Strachan read the article out loud.
‘Luckily, that has added nothing to our knowledge.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Danilov rolled another cigarette. He had lost count of how many he had smoked. It had been one of those days. He looked at his watch. It was past ten already. ‘Go home, Strachan, there’s not much more we can do today. I’m sure your mother will have cooked something nice for you.’
‘Pork rib soup, sir. One of my favourites.’
‘Tomorrow morning, I’m going to visit Dr Fang in the morgue.’
Instinctively, Strachan fingered the scar on his throat. ‘But Dr Fang won’t have finished the autopsy yet, sir. His office hasn’t rung me.’
‘But he will have finished his examination of the Lee family.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand, sir.’
‘We have two problems to solve, Strachan.’
‘Just two, sir?’
‘Just two at the moment. Who shot Mr Kao and wounded Detective Constable Moore?’
‘And the other, sir?’
‘Who killed the Lee family.’
‘I thought that was Inspector Cowan’s case, sir?’
‘We can’t solve one without solving the other. The murder of the Lee family is at the heart of all of this. Solve that and we solve everything else.’
‘Chief Inspector Boyle told us the case was closed, sir. He gave orders not to investigate.’
‘Chief Inspector Boyle has re-evaluated his position. And what he doesn’t know, won’t hurt him.’ The last wisps of smoke from Danilov’s cigarette drifted up between them. Danilov stubbed his cigarette firmly in the overflowing ashtray. ‘Look, Strachan, I’m going to have to break a few rules and might get into trouble for doing it. I don’t expect you to follow me blindly, but I’m going to get to the bottom of these murders even if I have to lose my job to do it. I owe it to Mr Kao.’
Strachan thought for a moment. ’What time do you want me to meet you at the morgue, sir?’
‘I don’t. Tomorrow morning, I want you to canvas the neighbours of the Lee family. Somebody must have seen something.’
‘I’ll start questioning them tomorrow, sir.’
‘Love and eggs are best when they are fresh.’
‘I remember that one. It’s from the Crimea, isn’t it?’
‘There’s hope for you yet, Strachan.’
Chapter 26
Strachan sat at the table in the kitchen. His mother was bustling around, putting the finishing touches to his pork rib soup. A dash of soy sauce, a sprinkle of white pepper and just a touch of sesame oil for fragrance. He loved the smell of sesame; a hint of nuts with just a murmur of sweetness.
She ladled the soup into a large bowl, choosing the best bits of pork rib and white carrot, and carried it carefully over to him. He inhaled the warmth of the broth and she sat down next to him.
He knew his mother loved these times when he told her about his day and what had happened at the station. She especially liked hearing about Inspector Danilov and his strange ways. Strachan embellished them a little for her amusement but not too much, after al
l the Inspector was still his boss.
From its place on the mantlepiece, his father’s portrait looked down on both of them, dressed in his dark blue police uniform and with a brush of a moustache stalking his upper lip.
As a child, Strachan had never tired of hearing his father talk in his deep Scottish accent of the con-men, hustlers, pimps, hawkers, burglars, thieves, beggars and card-sharpers who lived on the streets of Shanghai.
‘Ye have to ken, I’m nae there tae arrest them all. Ma job is tae keep a lid on it so that the stramashes and thieving dinnae get outta hand. Nae man’ll ever clear those streets of ne’er do wells, but we can let common, decent folk live their lives in peace.’
He realised now, after his training course in the Police, that his father wasn’t expounding the official line. He was just telling the young man what years on the beat had taught him.
But all those years of experience hadn’t saved his father’s life. He had walked into a robbery and been shot dead. Didn’t even have time to draw his revolver. That had been twelve years ago, and still Strachan missed his father every hour of every day.
His mother’s relatives didn’t even turn up at the funeral. Well, one did, Uncle Chang, but he was the only one. The rest had stayed away, keeping alive the bitter snub the grandfather had imposed when she had married a poor, foreign policeman. Chinese girls from good families simply didn’t do that. From the date of her wedding, she had ceased to exist for her family.
Strachan took the first mouthfuls of soup. The warmth and sweetness of the broth filled his body with ease and contentment.
Forget them, he thought. No use dwelling on the anger of the past. His mother’s family were long dead and buried in his mind, except for Uncle Chang, who he still met occasionally.
Since he had become a policeman, his mother had performed her nightly ritual of feeding him. It didn’t matter what time he arrived home, she was always waiting.
She was sitting next to him now. He stopped spooning the broth into his mouth and began telling her about his day.
