by M J Lee
Danilov looked down at his shoes, his fingers playing with the rim of his hat.
‘I am extremely proud of what you both did. Removing the killer of a family, a newspaper seller, Mr Kao, and trapping the murderer of one of our own, Gordon Cowan.’
More shouts of ‘hear, hear’ rang out. Boyle raised his hands to quieten the detectives before continuing. ‘What gave me most pride, however, was that you never gave up. You kept on going and fighting for what was right in the best traditions of the force.’
He started a round of applause which gradually became a loud stomp of rhythmic beating and drumming on the floor and the tables.
Chief Inspector Boyle raised his arms and waited for silence once again. He paused before speaking, ‘Now get back to work, the lot of you. There’s still a whole bunch of bad men out there.’
As the detectives got down from the tables and resumed their duties, Boyle turned to Danilov. ‘Please come into my office, we need to talk.’
Chapter 92
‘It’s Turkish for you, isn’t it? Or would you prefer a cigar? Best Havanas, none of that trash they produce in Manila.’ Boyle offered the open box to Danilov.
He took one, rolled it between his fingers and smelt the rich earthiness of the leaves.
‘Hand-rolled each one of them.’ Boyle lit his and passed the lighter to Danilov.
The Inspector looked at the gold Dunhill. On it was an inscription: ‘For twenty years meritorious service.’
Boyle’s head was wreathed in plumes of smoke like the feathers of an ostrich, yet tangling and twisting, sparkling as they caught the light.
He lit his own cigar and immediately felt the smoke coat his teeth and tongue with a sweet bitterness.
‘How was the Chinese jail?’
‘Dirty, dank and decrepit. But they treated us well.’
‘Had to. You’d killed a murderer. They searched his home and found his diary. Apparently, he committed twenty-four other murders across the city, in the International Settlement, the French Concession and the Chinese sector. An assassin for hire.’
‘You arrested Lee’s wife?’
‘She’s in Ward Road, awaiting trial. Horrible woman. Imagine ordering her own family to be killed.’
‘Sometimes, the hatred in a family is so strong, it drives people to do their worst. Sometimes, the love is so strong, it forces them to be their best.’
‘Far too deep for me, I’m afraid.’ Boyle took another long drag on his cigar. ‘How did you know it was her?’
‘Ockham’s razor.’
‘Ockham’s what? Now you’re being cryptic, Danilov.’
‘It’s a simple problem-solving idea which states that when all other things are equal, simpler explanations are generally better than complex ones.’
‘But what’s that got to do with the murder of the Lees and Mr Kao and the killing of Gordon Cowan?’
‘It has everything to do with the murders, sir. You see I couldn’t find one pattern that fitted all three murders. Everything became too complex. But once I realised we were dealing with two crimes not one, then the answers became more obvious.’
‘Two crimes?’
‘The killing of the Lees and Mr Kao was one crime. The ransacking of the house and the killing of Inspector Cowan was another. The crimes were linked but they were committed by two different people for two different reasons.
‘You’ve lost me.’
‘The murder of the Lees was ordered by the first wife. The killing of Mr Kao was part of the cover-up, a fall guy, a patsy to protect the real killers.’
‘The postman and Cowan?’
‘Exactly, sir.’
‘So who killed Cowan?’
‘We have the man in custody, sir.’
‘No, we don’t. We handed him over to the Chinese authorities this morning.’ Boyle looked at his watch. ‘He’ll be dead by now. Executed.’
‘And the real boss, Du, escapes.’
‘We had no proof against Mr Du, Danilov.’
‘You still have the book?’
Boyle opened his desk drawer and threw the book on the table. ‘It’s in code. Haven’t a clue what it says.’
Danilov picked it up and leafed through the pages. ‘I was thinking about this in jail, sir. It’s a book code.’
‘What’s a book code when it’s at home?’
Danilov opened a page at random. ‘The anarchists in Russia used them. Each set of letters represents a page number, a page line, and a position in the sentence. So this one 164235…’
‘Is page 164, line 23, fifth word along.’
‘That’s correct, sir.
‘But we’d have to know which book, the edition, the printer, everything.’
‘We know, sir.’
‘Do we?’
‘Mr Lee was found with a copy of Gow’s Guide to Shanghai 1924 in his hand when he died. I wondered why he ran upstairs, away from his family. He was trying to get rid of the book.’
Boyle exhaled a large chimney of cigar smoke. ‘So if we match these numbers to that book…’
‘You should know the secrets that Mr Du and his gang have been trying to hide.’
‘Too damn clever for me, Danilov, but I’ll get people onto it right away.’
‘I think you will be too late, sir. I’m sure Du and his gang have already retired the opium dens in the book and opened new ones.’
Boyle crushed his cigar out in the ashtray. ‘Talking about retirement, Danilov, today is my last day. I’m going back to Blighty. Upstairs has decided it’s time for a change.’
‘But, sir, you…’
Boyle held up his hand. ‘It’s the right time, Danilov. The world, Shanghai, has changed since I came in ’07. It needs a different kind of policing now. It’s not for me, not any more. I don’t know if the wife will be pleased to see me after all these years, but I guess she will have to get used to it. Might help her in the garden but I can’t see myself baking for the Women’s Institute, can you?’
‘Not unless the cake has a file in it, sir. Who will replace you?’
‘Haven’t been told, Danilov, but they want to shake the place up, bring in new blood, I expect.’
Danilov put out his hand. ‘I’ve enjoyed working with you, sir.’
‘You’re a good copper, Danilov. I wish we could have worked together more.’
Boyle grasped the hand and shook it firmly.
‘Now there is one last thing I can do before I leave.’ He took out a sheet of paper, uncapped his fountain pen and signed his signature across the bottom. ‘This is for you.’
Danilov took the paper and began reading. ‘But I can’t do this, sir. Too much work to finish. I…’ He tried to give the paper back to the Chief Inspector.
Boyle held up his hand again. ‘Take the month off, Danilov, you deserve it. Find your wife, man. Use your talents for yourself, for once.’
Chapter 93
‘Papa, I’m so proud of you.’
They were back at Medhurst Apartments, in the kitchen, enjoying the tea that the Princess had sent. Danilov had finished telling his daughter what had happened.
‘I’m exhausted, Lenchik, I didn’t sleep for two nights in the Chinese jail. It wasn’t a place for sleep. But we should go and see Strachan, tonight is not the time to be alone.’
‘I’ll get my coat, Papa. Before we go, I have one piece of good news for you.’
Danilov lifted his weary head from the glass of tea. His eyes were dry and sore, with his eyelids feeling like they were propped open with matchsticks.
‘Remember Ivan? I mean Mr Thomas?’
‘That scum? What does he want now?’ Danilov asked warily.
‘Well, he sent me a telegram yesterday. I think he’s feeling guilty.’
She pulled a thin slip of paper from her pocket. It had obviously been handled and folded many times. She passed it over the table to Danilov.
He opened it.
MAY HAVE LEAD ON YOUR MOTHER STOP WILL FOLLOW UP SOON
>
The telegram began to blur for Danilov as his eyes filled with tears. He hadn’t cried for a long time. Too long.
‘It’s good news, isn’t it, Papa?’
Danilov wiped his eyes with his sleeve, and nodded, fighting back even more tears.
His daughter came round the table and enfolded her father in her arms.
‘We will find her, Papa, won’t we?’
‘I promise, Elina, I promise. For now, you should get your coat, we should go and see Strachan, he will need us tonight.’
Chapter 94
The man stood in the shadows looking up at the window where the solitary light shone. Danilov was up there with his daughter, he knew it.
He had waited so long for this moment. Hours lying on that old boat with its stench of fish, patiently biding his time as the wounds on his chest healed. The scars from Danilov’s bullets still red and vivid on the skin. Afterwards, the slow recovery, followed by the intense pain of surgery to change his face. He liked his new look, the rakish moustache giving him a touch of Douglas Fairbanks’s swagger and charm. Danilov’s daughter had been surprised when he had touched her arm in the cinema. But she never realised he had been following her for days.
He had a new job now. He couldn’t go back to his old profession in the Shanghai Council. Mr Allen was dead and out of his corpse a new man had been created. The new post was beneath him of course, barely using a tenth of his talents. But it did allow him all the time off that he needed to put his plan into action. He had laid the foundations, built the trap, created the snare. He knew Danilov, knew his weaknesses, where and what to exploit. There would be no mistakes this time. The gods were with him.
The light went off in the apartment on the fourth floor. They can’t be going to sleep at this hour?
No. There was Danilov coming out of his apartment block, his daughter hanging off his arm looking more like a lover than a child.
He stepped back further into the shadows. Danilov and his daughter turned left and walked down towards Nanking Road. Should he follow them?
No, not tonight.
He had already set the first trap for Danilov. The noose was beginning to close. He would take it slowly, enjoying every moment as Danilov twisted and turned, hanging in the breeze.
There would be no mistakes this time. No errors for Danilov to exploit. Everything had been planned down to the last detail, ending with the painful death of the man he hated most. Inspector Danilov of the Shanghai Police.
What’s more, Danilov’s death had a certain symmetry, a terrible beauty in the way it would happen.
He would take his own life, and be happy to do so.
The man realised he was getting ahead of himself. Stay in the now, he cautioned himself. Concentrate on what must be done at this moment.
Danilov’s death would occur exactly seven days from today. Time to savour that delicious moment when it happened. For now, he must look to the details.
He would not fail this time.
Mr Allen may be dead but his killer was still alive.
Not for long.
Not for long.
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ISBN: 978-1-474-04655-8
City of Shadows
© 2016 M J Lee
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