Death In Shanghai

by M J Lee

  ‘Was it saved? Or filtered to see if anything was trapped in it?’

  Lieutenant Masset shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not. The first constables on the scene thought she was still alive. They poured it away and tried to revive her.’

  ‘But your pathologist said she had been dead for at least two days.’

  ‘We can’t fault them for enthusiasm. And anyway, the coroner may have been wrong. He wasn’t certain of the exact time of death. The warmth of the pig’s blood had affected the onset of rigor mortis.’

  Danilov grunted. He walked over and examined the barrel. In the thin light of the bulb hanging from a flex in the ceiling, he could just make out the red stains down one side of the barrel. ‘Did the pathologist notice anything else?’

  ‘As I told you, he thought she was alive when she was put in there. The top of the barrel had been sealed with pitch. A small air pocket above the blood may have allowed her to breath for a short while. Not long. Gradually, she would have used up the air and…’

  ‘Drowned.’ Strachan was writing in his notebook. He stopped and lifted his head. Both men were staring at the barrel.

  ‘Not a pleasant death,’ whispered Lieutenant Masset.

  Danilov ached for a cigarette. Anything to get him out of this cellar and away from the tomb of his fellow Russian. ‘I think we’ve seen enough.’ He turned to go and stopped. ‘Lieutenant Masset, do you still have the lid of the barrel?’

  ‘It’s somewhere around here, I think.’ He scanned the ground at his feet. The lid was propped up against the lion’s head. Masset picked it up and handed it to Danilov.

  It looked like a normal lid, around twenty inches across. At the edges a thick layer of pitch or tar had created a black ring that stuck to the top and side.

  ‘The pitch would have made the seal airtight. She must have used up all the air that remained in the barrel before gradually sinking into the pig’s blood,’ said Masset. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to eat boudin noir again.’

  Danilov turned the lid of the barrel over to look at the underside. He could see traces of red staining the wood where the blood had lapped against the lid. He walked over to the centre of the room, avoiding the evidence from the countless other cases strewn on the floor. He examined the underneath of the lid, tilting it left and right under the harsh light.

  There was something, Scratches, faint marks against the grain of the wood. ‘Stra-chan, come here. Your eyes are better than mine. Look at that.’

  Strachan rushed over and took the lid, holding it up to the light. ‘There seems to be something scratched on the lid, sir. Two words, I think.’ He tilted the lid so that the light shot obliquely across it. ‘The first letter is an “H”, sir. Then, there’s an “A”.’ He brought the lid closer and then moved it away, squinting with his eyes as he did so. ‘Then there seems to be a “T” and an “E”. Spells HATE.’

  ‘Thank you, Stra-chan, even I can work that one out.’

  ‘The next line is not so clear. An “A”, I think. Then an “L” and maybe another “L”. But the last letter is very faint, sir. It’s hard to see down here, sir.’

  ‘“HATE ALL” That is interesting,’ said Danilov.

  ‘A message from the killer, sir?’

  ‘It looks like it, doesn’t it, Stra-chan? Lieutenant Masset, you didn’t notice these scratches?’

  The Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders once more. ‘We thought they were marks from the makers. Not important.’

  ‘I think you were wrong.’ Danilov put his hat back on his head. ‘Let’s get out of here. I need the fresh air of a smoke.’

  Chapter 7

  ‘Come, Stra-chan, we’re close to Moscow cafe.’

  They walked down the crowded streets of the French Concession. Despite the cold, both sides of the road were a hive of activity. Hawkers sang the praises of their wares. Gamblers, wrapped up in jackets and mufflers, surrounded the mahjong tables on the pavement, watching and understanding every nuance of the play. Shoppers dawdled at shop windows, admiring the latest trinkets imported from France. Chauffeurs chatted, sharing a smoke as their idling cars pumped exhaust into the street.

  ‘We need to examine the lid of the barrel more closely, Stra-chan.’

  ‘Lieutenant Masset said he would send it over just as soon as he had cleared it with Major Renard.’

  Danilov threw his cigarette into the gutter. ‘Bureaucrats. They have nothing better to do than to give themselves permission to do nothing. Why can’t they just leave me to get on with the investigation?’

  Strachan kept silent. They crossed the street opposite a Russian Orthodox church, its golden dome glistening in the haze of the morning sunshine. Danilov turned down one of the lanes off the main road and entered a narrow lilong on the right, past a watchman in front of his grate, snoring loudly. He pushed through a glass door and stepped into the warm fug of a cafe.

  The room was small, no more than six tables. On their left, two chess players lifted their heads, annoyed at the interruption. Ahead of them, a large copper samovar hissed a jet of steam and hot water.

  A small, elf-like woman approached them. She had fine, almost porcelain features and moved with the elegance of a dancer from the Kirov. ‘Good morning, Pyotr Alexandrevich, what a pleasant surprise.’

  ‘Good morning to you, Elena Ivanova.’ Inspector Danilov stepped aside to reveal Strachan standing behind him. ‘May I present to you Detective Constable Stra-chan. This is Princess Elena Ivanova Ostrepova.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Detective.’

  The Princess held out her hand. Danilov expected Strachan to kiss the hand or at least shake it heartily. Instead, he leaned forward and just touched the tips of the elegant fingers.

  She turned to Danilov. ‘This detective has such good manners, not like the last one you were with.’

  ‘Inspector Meaker was a little…clumsy, Princess.’

  ‘Clumsy? The man was a bear, a boor and a bore.’ She lifted her old-fashioned pince-nez to her eyes and examined Strachan. ‘But this one I approve. Most charming.’ She turned back again to Danilov. ‘So, is this visit business or pleasure?’ She pointed to an empty chess board at a nearby table.

  ‘Business, I’m afraid.’

  ‘How tiresome. Never mind, at least we will have some tea and snacks together, yes?’

  ‘That would be most welcome.’

  She led them to a large wooden table covered in glass and topped with an intricate lace cloth. She clapped her hands and immediately a waitress began to set the table with fine china plates and glass tea cups.

  ‘Please sit. If it’s about your family, Inspector, I’m afraid I have heard nothing more since our last chat. My “little ears” have heard not a pin drop.’

  Danilov coughed, hoping that Strachan hadn’t heard. ‘Stra-chan, the Princess has the finest network of “little ears” in Shanghai. There is nothing that goes on in the French Concession she does not know about.’

  ‘You flatter me, Pyotr Alexandrevich. You must be after something very important.’

  They both laughed. ‘As usual, Princess, you see through me as clearly as a drop of melted snow.’

  The food and snacks began to arrive. Danilov paused while the waitress served them, pouring the tea into glasses. He inhaled the aroma, picked up the glass cup by its metal holder and took a little sip of the scalding brew. ‘As perfect as ever. Just like Minsk, only better.’

  ‘It’s good enough. The water isn’t the same, you know. In St Petersburg, there, we used to drink tea.’

  Danilov saw a momentary ‘oh’ of happiness cross the face of the Princess. He imagined her younger self flirting with dashing officers, dancing the night away, laughing like there was no tomorrow. The look vanished to be followed by one of sadness and regret.

  ‘You said you had business with me, Inspector?’

  ‘I did, Princess.’ He took another sip of the tea. ‘Recently there have been two murders in the Concession.’

&n
bsp; ‘A terrible business.’

  ‘Terrible indeed. The first was a French magistrate, Monsieur Flamini. Found on the steps of the courthouse…frozen.’

  The last word was spoken after a long pause. The Princess stared back at him. ‘And what do you want from me, Inspector?’

  ‘Have your “little ears” heard anything?’

  ‘A few whispers here and there. But whispers are very hard to hear, they get caught in the breeze and vanish into the air.’ She snapped her fingers softly.

  Danilov looked straight at the Princess. The elegant old lady with her rather old-fashioned Edwardian dress and beautiful, porcelain skin had been replaced by something much harder, like a sleeping cat that had just revealed its claws.

  He smiled. ‘You are quite right, Princess. Whispers are such fleeting things. Here one moment and gone the next. Only the bad rumours fly on wings. I heard one such rumour recently.’

  ‘Did you, Inspector?’

  ‘About a club on Chu Pao Street. A Russian club it appears. Our friends in the Shanghai Police may raid it soon. Illegal activity apparently, girls and opium. The usual vices.’

  ‘Such vices are everywhere in the city. Mankind loves its vices more than it loves its virtues.’

  ‘Unfortunately that is true, Princess.’

  ‘But without mankind’s addiction to its vices, you wouldn’t have employment, Inspector, would you?’

  ‘That is unfortunately also true. It is the great paradox of my profession. We are dependent for our existence on the continuation of the vices we are employed to eradicate. If we are ever successful, we have no job.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ever worry about your employment, Inspector. Not in Shanghai anyway.’

  Danilov was enjoying the game. Like chess between two evenly matched players, the opening moves had been made and now the players were exchanging pawns.

  ‘Do try the pirogi, Inspector. The chef used to work in the Winter Palace. Before the Reds arrived though.’

  He picked up the round meat-filled dumpling. The skin was as translucent as fine paper. He bit into it and immediately the warm comfort of a long-forgotten memory from the past filled his mouth. ‘Beautiful, Princess, a taste of home. Or rather a taste of what home should taste like. The home of one’s dreams.’

  ‘Thank you, Inspector, they are quite pleasant, aren’t they?’ The Princess took a long sip of tea. ‘The French magistrate you spoke of, found in a rather Siberian manner, was, of course, an upstanding member of the community. But recently, it seems he had been making demands of certain property developers.’

  ‘Demands?’

  ‘The usual. Extra surcharges for signatures, more charges for the dismissal of cases, even more charges for the approval of developments. He had become a little too demanding recently. A young mistress is, apparently, an expensive proposition.’

  ‘You think this had something to do with his death?’

  She raised her hands in a courtly gesture. ‘My “little ears” do not know. Nor have they heard anything concerning the identity of the people involved. Give them time and they may be able to find out more.’

  Danilov took another sip of tea. ‘And the second murder?’

  ‘Much closer to home, as you can imagine. Her name was Maria Tatiana Stepanova. From Moscow, originally. Came to Shanghai in 1926. I’m afraid the usual story. No money. No skills. Nothing to sell except that which women have always sold.’

  ‘She was not one of your “little ears”?’

  The voice became hard again. ‘No, Inspector, she would not have met such a fate if she were.’

  ‘I’m sorry for offending you, Princess, please accept my apologies.’

  The Princess glared at Danilov over the rim of her tea glass. ‘She was an independent, working from home, protected by a thug, Victorov, I believe his name is.’

  ‘Not much of a protector.’

  ‘Not much of a man. I believe he fled Shanghai after the murder, nobody knows where. The Garde Municipale are looking for him, but they won’t find him. That sort knows how to hide.’ The Princess swore in Russian. Then her face softened. She leant closer to the Inspector. ‘Danilov, whatever she was, whatever she had become, she did not deserve to die like that. Like an animal in a slaughterhouse.’

  ‘Princess, we will find the man who did it, I promise you.’

  ‘If I hear anything, I will inform you in the usual way. For now, I see my customers need me.’ She stood up and smoothed down her long green skirt.

  Again, Danilov could see the steel shrouded in the wool.

  Chapter 8

  Sergeant Wolfe, the duty officer, sat up behind a high desk looking down at all the arrivals in Central Police Station. He was surrounded by two Chinese constables and three young interpreters, each of which spoke the local Shanghainese dialect, Mandarin, the national language, and one of the myriad other versions of Chinese originating in Chekiang, Shantung, Anhui, Canton or Fukien.

  So many interpreters were necessary because each region specialised in a particular form of thievery. The Cantonese were pickpockets and shoplifters. The Teochews from Fukien were opium smugglers, dominating the now illegal trade through their numerous guilds. The Shantungese were big men, the armed robbers and street thugs for hire. When there was a fight, they were never far from the action.

  Finally, there were the Shanghainese themselves, the organisers of all the mayhem that the Shanghai Municipal Police, like the Dutch boy and his dike, just about kept under control. For Shanghai was the big city. The magnet that attracted all the riff raff, scoundrels, bad eggs, ne’er-do-wells and thugs from all over China, drawn like moths to an illegal flame for its vice and its money.

  Above all, for its money.

  ‘Looks like we’ve got a right one, here.’ Sergeant Wolfe pointed to the shuffling giant of a man before him, dressed in rags that had been repaired a thousand times with cloth that had come from half as many sources.

  ‘What do you want?’ the sergeant asked him in Shanghainese.

  The Giant just smiled back and shifted his woollen hat from hand to hand as he shuffled his feet.

  ‘What do you want?’ the interpreter asked in Mandarin. The Giant smiled again and launched into a long speech, punctuated by actions and pointing.

  ‘Don’t know this dialect. It’s not Shantungese or Teochew. Or even Hakka.’ The interpreter leant over the desk and inspected the Giant from head to toe. ‘He’s a big one though. Wouldn’t like to meet him on dark night in a narrow alley.’

  The interpreters covered most of the dialects that entered through the doors of the station, but occasionally even they were baffled by a minority language. That rare eventuality was covered by Sergeant Wolfe’s little black book, with its list of interpreters and their various specialisations. Only once had he been stumped. It was by an old lady from one of the mountain provinces in the south who only spoke a special women’s language. She had been arrested for selling some exotic herbs in the street the night before. Wolfe let her off with a caution. He used English. It was just as unintelligible to her as any other language.

  ‘From his clothes, he could be off one of the boats. See the feet.’

  The sergeant looked down at the bare feet, shuffling on the floor of the police station. They were large, black with dirt, and had a slight webbing between the toes.

  ‘Could be from one of the boats on Lake Tai or in the rivers. Haven’t a clue about their dialect. Looks like he doesn’t speak anything else.’

  Sergeant Wolfe sighed. Another bloody nuisance. Why couldn’t they just speak one language instead of hundreds of bloody dialects? At least the written language was the same. ‘See if he can read?’

  The interpreter quickly wrote the characters for ‘What do you want?’

  The Giant smiled, grabbed hold of the pen and wrote three shaky characters.

  The interpreter picked up the paper. ‘It’s his name. Probably the only thing he knows how to write.’

  Sergeant Wolfe sig
hed again. It was going to be one of those days. Picking up his little black book, he leafed through it, looking for somebody, anybody, who might speak the dialect from Lake Tai. He found a Mr Huang Shu Ren, who might fit the bill. He picked up the phone, but there was no dial tone. ‘Somebody plug the bloody phone back in.’

  It was going to be one of those days.

  ***

  ‘Chief Inspector Boyle would like to see you, Inspector.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Cavendish, I’ll see him presently.’

  ‘I think he meant as soon as you returned to the station.’

  Danilov took off his hat and coat and hung them on the hat stand next to her desk.

  ‘The fingerprint report has come back. There is a positive match to a Mr Henry Sellars.’ She handed the report over to Danilov. ‘I thought the body in the creek was a woman.’

  ‘So did we all, Miss Cavendish.’

  He glanced at the report. Positive match to Henry Sellars, aged 20. Three previous convictions, two for theft and one for importuning in a public place. He would check the files later. Meanwhile, Boyle was waiting.

  He knocked on the door.

  This time, the word ‘Enter’ came quickly, as if Boyle had been waiting just behind the door for him. He stepped in and was greeted by a fog of cigar smoke. Havanas by the smell, and expensive.

  ‘Ah, there you are, Danilov, we’ve been waiting for you. I think you know Allen, don’t you?’

  ‘Good to see you again, Danilov,’ said Allen, from his position lounging in the couch in the corner. Danilov could just make him out through the haze of smoke. ‘I do enjoy our games of chess. One day, I may even beat you. By the way, my next move is KxR. You’ve lost your rook now, Danilov.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Mr Allen.’ He bowed slightly from the waist. ‘A pleasure to see you too. Even if you are a rather blurred figure through all this smoke. I will respond to your courageous move with Q-QB3. I think you will find it’s mate in three moves.’

  ‘Really? I must go back and check the board. I don’t think you can win that easily.’

  ‘Join us in our smoke, Danilov,’ said Boyle. He held up the maple box covered in intricate marquetry. ‘Or would you prefer Turkish? I seem to remember coffin nails are your preference.’