by M J Lee
She let herself be led out of the Black Cat Club, past the glitter of the Swarovski crystals, down the steps underneath the sky-blue canopy, onto the packed streets of Shanghai.
‘The car is just across the road, miss, outside the New World.’
She felt his hand touch the soft skin of her arm as he guided her across the busy road, ignoring all the cars racing down to Edward VII.
They drove back in silence. All round her the lights of Shanghai shone through the windscreen of the car, illuminating her face in blues, greens and reds. The colours of the night.
She just stared through the windscreen, seeing nothing. Ivan had betrayed her. Another man who had betrayed her. There would be no more.
Chapter 47
Concentrate Danilov.
The image of his daughter hiding behind the black pillar flashed into his mind.
Focus.
He shook his head. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his tobacco tin and rolled a cigarette. He wished his wife were here now. She would know what to do. She would know what to say.
Thomas had sat back down at his banquette without even looking at Danilov. He was leaning forward laughing and smiling, as if sharing a joke with the rest of his party.
Danilov’s daughter was the joke. Elina was the joke.
The manager approached, rubbing his hands in that peculiar way that all restaurant managers around the world seem to have perfected. A young Chinese woman with a thin body and cropped hair stood behind him. She was wearing the tightest chi pao that Danilov had ever seen with a slit at the side that ended at the top of her thigh.
It was time to lose himself in work. ‘Do you speak English?’
She nodded.
‘Is there anywhere we can talk?’
The band had just finished a song. Danilov found himself shouting in the silence before they began to play again.
The manager led them through a narrow door in the middle of a giant cat.
‘This my office. Quiet here.’
The office held a desk, a telephone and three chairs. They both sat down. She produced a packet of Craven A, placing one of the cigarettes in an ivory holder.
‘Your name is Amy?’
‘That’s right. Real name is Sally Chen. But we all have Wunu names.’
‘Wunu?’
She pointed outside to the club. ‘The dancers. The Wunu. We all have working names.’
‘You are from Shanghai?’
‘Canton. Came here three years ago to work.’
Danilov produced the photograph of Cowan from his pocket, ‘Do you know this man?’
She nodded. ‘He’s one of yours. Gordon is an inspector.’
‘Do you know where he is now?’
She placed the ivory holder between her red-painted lips and gripped it with her teeth.
‘Maybe,’ she finally answered.
‘We need to find him.’
‘What’s in it for me?’
‘The thanks and gratitude of the people of Shanghai.’
‘Don’t pay the bills.’
‘How about not spending tonight in the cells beneath Central Police Station for obstructing the police in the course of their inquiries?’
‘Gordon wouldn’t let you do that to me.’
‘Inspector Cowan would have no choice in the matter.’
For a moment, he thought she was going to remain silent. Then, as if a dam had burst, all the false bravado drained out of her and she became just another scared young woman. ‘You won’t tell him, will you?’
‘Tell who?’
‘Gordon. He’ll hurt me.’
‘I won’t tell him,’ answered Danilov, and then more softly, ‘where is he?’
‘At my place.’
‘The address?’
‘Chaou Fung Road, number 22, second floor.’
‘Close to here.’
‘The girls don’t like to walk home far after work. Not safe. Can I go back to work now? The German is waiting.’
He indicated the door. She stubbed out her cigarette and rose from her chair. ‘Please don’t tell him.’
‘I won’t.’
She turned to go back to the ballroom.
‘One last thing, Miss Amy or Sally.’
‘It’s Sally.’
‘Did you have an argument with Inspector Cowan on the street recently?’
She looked down at her dark pink dance shoes. ‘Outside Wing On Department Store. A newspaper seller had to save me from him. You don’t know how violent he can be.’
‘I think I do. Thank you, Sally, you can go.’
Chapter 48
Danilov stood outside the flat on Chaou Fung Road. Behind him, he could hear the babble of mahjong games in full flow in a club. The clatter of the tiles echoed down the street as the players began to mix them. The shouts of ‘Pong’ as a tile was picked up and then slammed down, the cries of ‘Ta ma de’ as yet another round was won.
The street was strangely deserted, as if everybody knew he was coming and had decided to avoid him.
The light in the apartment was off. Perhaps Cowan had gone out or wasn’t there. Or maybe he was just sleeping off yet another bender.
An image of his daughter forced its way into his mind. Her face, scarlet-lipped and cheek-rouged, her body sheathed in a tight midnight-blue dress. Where had she bought such a dress?
He shook his head. The memory of their meeting in the club was clinging to him, infesting his mind. Why had his daughter gone to such a club? Why? He had done his best to take care of her for the last six months. She had repaid him by becoming no better than all the other Russian girls who sold themselves for dances.
He shook his head once more. Concentrate, Danilov, now was the time to focus. He looked up at the dark window on the second floor. It was time to ask Inspector Cowan a few questions.
The entrance hall to the apartment was dark and dank. A pool of foetid water lay in the centre of the hall. He jumped over it and climbed up to the second floor on rickety wooden stairs. Each step squealed and groaned as he put his weight on it. Cowan would know he was coming, couldn’t be helped.
The door of the apartment was open. He stepped inside the dark room. ‘Hello? Inspector Cowan?’
There was no answer.
‘This is Danilov, Inspector Danilov.’
Still no answer.
He took another step forward and his foot hit something soft. He bent down and picked up a cushion from the floor. He walked cautiously over to the window and pulled open the curtains. A thin haze of moonlight fought its way into the room.
The place looked like an army of Cossacks had been staying there. Clothes lay strewn across the floor. The bed was upturned, its mattress leaning crazily against a wall. A table was knocked over, an empty bottle of whisky lying on the floor, the glass smashed beside it.
He checked the bathroom and the kitchen. The same mess greeted him.
But there was no sign of Cowan anywhere in the apartment. Had he wrecked the place himself? Danilov didn’t think one person was capable of doing that amount of damage.
He picked up a desk lamp from the floor and switched it on. Surprisingly, the room was flooded with light.
For the first time, Danilov noticed a smear of blood on the carpet near the overturned table. He knelt down and touched it with his fingers. Still damp.
He was sure Cowan had been here, but somebody had got to him first.
Chapter 49
Danilov reached for his tobacco pouch and rolled another cigarette.
10.30 pm. Too early to go home and face the condemning silence of his daughter. After the scene in the nightclub, she wouldn’t be speaking to him. He thought again of his wife. She would be able to speak to their daughter and find out what was happening. Talk to her in a way that he couldn’t.
He lit the cigarette and sat down on the edge of Cowan’s overturned bed. His daughter never came out and said it, of course, but he felt the condemnation in every look. How could you lea
ve us? Why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you find us afterwards? Why can’t you find my mother and brother today?
One day, he would discover what she wasn’t telling him: how she had survived in Harbin.
But not yet. He didn’t want to hear it yet.
He took a long drag on the cigarette and blew the smoke up to the ceiling where it hung like a cloud over his head. He knew he wasn’t a good father. He was too distracted and absorbed in his work.
It had been the same in Russia, but there his wife had been waiting for him. Ready with her soft words and smiling eyes to drag him from the land of the dead to the world of the living.
He felt sorry for his daughter having a father like him. ‘What an awful fate,’ he said out loud to the destroyed room.
Only the ticking of a clock on the wall answered. Strange how it had managed to survive the destruction of the room.
He missed his wife so much. It was like an ache in the middle of his chest that wouldn’t go away. Always there and always reminding him of its presence. And absence.
He looked at the clock. It was getting late. He would go back to the station and get them to re-double their efforts to find Cowan.
And then, for the first time that day, from out of nowhere, he thought of opium. The memory of the taste of it swimming into his mouth with a promise of sweet, comforting dreams.
After the station, perhaps he would pay the place a visit. The opium was well prepared, it was clean and the owner would remember him from last night. He looked at the clock once more. Two hours would be enough. He would make sure the owner woke him at two o’clock if he fell asleep. His daughter wouldn’t wait up for him anyway.
He stood up, took one last look at the room. Where was Cowan and who had taken him? A shiver ran down his spine. Time to get the uniforms looking for him.
A picture of his daughter came into his mind. Not as she was now: a 17-year-old girl on the cusp of becoming a woman, but as she was when they were all together back in Minsk. She was hugging her mother, smiling back at him with one of her front teeth missing. Such a simple memory but it filled him with joy.
He stumbled down the stairs and through the puddle at the bottom. The mahjong players were still playing their game, slamming their tiles down onto the table.
He walked down the street and turned left onto the main road at the end. From one of the restaurants, a woman’s voice mournfully sang a sad song. People bustled past him intent on finding food, finding their loved ones or simply finding someone to spend the night with. The wind whistled through the leaves of the plane trees lining the street, whispering the secrets of the city.
The case had fallen apart. His one hope, finding Cowan, had disappeared into the vast maw of the city of shadows. And he had lost his daughter too, corrupted by the same city.
Danilov stood in the middle of the crowded street and never felt more alone.
Chapter 50
She had recognised him as soon as he entered, leading him directly to his divan without saying a word.
She didn’t speak even when she was preparing his pipe, her face frowning as she concentrated on warming the black ball of opium before placing it in the bowl.
She only spoke when she handed it to him. ‘Best opium in Shanghai.’
He took the pipe, smelling the sweet scent of the candy of his youth. He placed the end in his mouth and took in the first few clouds of dense sweetness.
The smoke flowed through his body and he felt all the worries, all the tenseness ebb away to form a small black dog at his feet. A dog that just lay there staring up at him, waiting to be called back.
Then his eyes closed and his wife appeared. She held him tight, whispering something to him in Russian. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he loved the sound of her voice. So soft, like a woollen blanket. He drowned himself in the sound of her words, letting them flow over him.
Peace. At last.
Danilov didn’t notice the man enter the room.
He didn’t see the woman point to him, lying in the bed.
He didn’t react to the flash of light as the man took his picture, the opium pipe still resting in his hand.
All he saw, all he felt, was the warm embrace of his wife. And once again, he tasted the soft dew of her neck.
Chapter 51
Elina lay in bed, the blanket covering her face. Why had her father come to that club on that night? What was he doing there? When he told her he was working, was he going to clubs every night with Strachan?
Her father with those girls. The idea disgusted her.
And Ivan, another man who had betrayed her. She had trusted him, the first man she had trusted in a long time and he had turned out to be just like all the rest.
She.
Would.
Not.
Be.
Used.
By no man. Not now. Not ever.
She heard a noise out in the hallway. The door had opened and then closed. She heard him take off his coat and put it on the hatstand.
The door to her room opened and a shaft of light crept across her room. She didn’t move at all, pretending she was asleep.
The door closed and footsteps padded into the living room. He would try to ask her questions tomorrow, but she wouldn’t answer.
It was time for her to leave.
Chapter 52
Tang Ah Nan pumped up the oil lamp on the prow of his sampan. It dimmed for a second and then suddenly erupted into a blaze of light. He turned away, his eyes momentarily blinded. He adjusted the wick of the flame, to lower the intensity of the light. No point in burning expensive oil, he thought, it doesn’t fall from heaven like the rain.
He walked easily from the prow back to the reed shelter that covered the last third of his boat, his bare feet gliding over the rough wood.
He had been born on a vessel like this and would die on one. The lakes, the rivers, these were his home, his livelihood and his life. His boat was old, but it didn’t leak too much. His nets were well-kept and without holes. He could feed himself well catching the lei lan that inhabited the river and its tributaries. And there was nothing to stop him sailing up to the lakes to catch the freshwater crab that the land people loved.
He loved the money they paid him for them even more. Money he could use for the little luxuries he enjoyed; a twist of tobacco in the evening, a spoonful of sugar for his sauce, oil for his lamp and above all, a cake of dragon well tea from the hills of the West Lake in Hangchow. God, how he loved that tea. Its warm, aromatic smell greeted him in the morning and nursed him through the long, hot summer days. It kept him awake through the long hours after midnight when he fished for the lei man. Its gentle embrace succoured him in the wildest storms and the coldest days. He couldn’t live without it.
He reached into the rear of his boat and pulled out the fine net he had repaired that morning. Gathering it in the gnarled fingers of his good arm, he flung it far from the boat, letting the weights open the net wide, watching its white reflection shimmer in the light from the lamp. It spread out on the surface of the river, sinking quickly beneath the gentle swell.
It was a beautiful night to fish. The moon was nearly full and the river was quieter than usual. Not as many boats were moored along the wharves. The land people must be taking a rest from their constant scurrying and arguing and fighting.
He pulled in his net, using his withered arm to support the strong one. The net was a healthy weight as he landed it on the boat. A shoal of small fish fluttered at his feet, gasping for air. Careful not to lose any, he poured them into the rattan basket. When he filled three of these baskets, he would go home and rest before going round the restaurants on Foochow Road early in the morning. He looked down at the basket. A third full of wriggling, silver bodies already. If he continued like this, he would be back well before dawn.
He threw his net out again into the dark, outside the gaze of the lamp. He started to pull it in, but it was heavy. He leant back, using his wiry fr
ame to help his strong arm, gripping the planks at the bottom of the boat with his hard-soled feet.
The net began to swim toward him, slowly at first, but gathering momentum as he pulled it in. It was close to him now, just coming into the light from the lamp. The net was wrapped around a long, grey tarpaulin. Must have dropped from one of the ships. Maybe it contained something valuable he could sell to the land people? Sometimes he found things that they wanted. Things that were of no use to him or anybody else with any sense.
He knelt down and reached over the gunwale of his boat. The grey tarpaulin was bumping against the side, slapping against it with every new wave. He grabbed it with his withered hand and lifted the top half, where the knot was, into the boat, before heaving the rest of it in. It lay on the deck like one of his fish, except it didn’t move and it wasn’t silver.
No matter.
He untied the knot at the top with his strong hand. It was tied tightly, but no knot could ever stop him. Soon, he had worked it free with his fingers. He pulled back the tarpaulin. A grey face stared back at him.
A dead face.
He jerked away from it. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. A river ghost, he thought, sent by the spirits to punish him for not going to the temple and lighting incense. He promised the gods he would go tomorrow if they forgave him.
He touched it with his naked foot. It felt hard and wet, the solid fabric of the tarpaulin rubbing against the horny sole. It wasn’t a ghost but something real, from this world.
He inched toward it, crawling on his hands and feet as if stalking prey. He looked down into the face again. The eyes were open, or at least one of them was open. The other was a hole where an eye should have been.
The hair dripped water and was a strange colour, like a tangerine at New Year. He must have been one of those foreign land people. He had seen them on the streets of Shanghai when he went ashore to sell his fish. But he always avoided them. You never knew where they had been with their strange eyes and even stranger hair.
Perhaps the foreigners would give him a reward if he brought one of their own kind back to them. Or he could throw it overboard and let it flow with the current down to the sea. Then he could get on with his fishing and make his money for the night. But the possibility of a reward nagged at his brain. Perhaps they would give him enough money to last a month. Like last year, when Da Liu told the police what he had seen on the river and they gave him ten dollars cash. In his hand.
