by M J Lee
‘Still sore, sir, but the doctor said it would heal soon. It looks a bit of a fright though.’
‘The bandage is rather large. Sure you wouldn’t like a few days off?’
‘No thank you, sir. Too much to do at the moment.’
Danilov coughed. ‘Sir, the man we are holding in the cells is not the murderer. He’s just a small-time car thief.’
‘What? What’s that?’
‘He isn’t our killer, sir.’
Boyle scratched the top of his bald head. Flakes of white scalp fell like snow onto his shoulders. ‘But…but…you arrested them. They shot at you. They were driving the killer’s car.’
‘They stole it from the Bund. The keys had been left inside. Obviously, the killer wanted to get rid of it. The easiest way was to get somebody to steal it. We’ve charged the man we are holding with murder. He shot a waiter and a taxi dancer.’
‘But he’s not the murderer. Not the man who killed Richard Ayres’s fiancée?’
Danilov shook his head. ‘This man is just a two-bit hood from Hunan. Out to make a quick buck in the big city.’
‘What am I going to tell upstairs?’
‘I suggest you let them know that our investigations are ongoing, sir.’
‘Ongoing? Ongoing?’ The Chief Inspector’s voice rose an octave. ‘Not good enough, Danilov.’
‘We’re moving as quickly as we can. It’s a complex case…’
‘It seems to me you are spending more time on the French killings than you are on solving the murder of the fiancée of one of the leading members of Shanghai society.’
‘I think that’s unfair, sir.’
‘You do, do you? Have you caught the killer? Have you brought anybody in for questioning yet?’
Danilov slowly shook his head. ‘Not at the moment, sir, but…’
‘Don’t give me any buts, Danilov, I want this case solved. Is that clear? Off the books, out of…’
Before Boyle could finish his sentence there was a knock at the door. It opened and Miss Cavendish entered. ‘I do hope I’m not disturbing anything, Chief Inspector, but Mr Allen thought you should see this.’
She laid the latest copy of the Evening News on Boyle’s desk. Glaring headlines shouted from the front pages.
ANOTHER VICTIM FOR THE CHARACTER KILLER
Underneath in a slightly smaller typeface:
POLICE STUMPED
Boyle sighed and ran his fingers through the tuft of hair above his right ear. More dandruff fell on his jacket. ‘See what’s happening, Danilov? When I ring upstairs and tell them we haven’t caught the killer after all.’
‘You caught the killer?’ asked Miss Cavendish.
‘No,’ sneered Boyle, ‘Danilov caught a car thief. He thought it was the killer.’
Danilov ignored Boyle, scanning the article beneath the headline. ‘How did the reporters get this information? We’ve been keeping the details of this case under wraps.’
‘Never mind that. JUST. SOLVE. THE. CASE. Do I make myself clear?’ Boyle stared at Danilov.
Danilov stared at the flakes of white skin on top of the Chief Inspector’s blue pinstripe jacket. ‘Very clear, sir,’ he answered.
Boyle turned to Miss Cavendish. ‘Please thank Mr Allen for the information.’
‘He’s out at the moment, sir. I’ll call him when he gets back.’
Before Boyle could continue his lecture, Danilov stood up. ‘Come on, Stra-chan, we have work to do.’ He quickly opened the door with Strachan right behind him.
As they closed it, the phone rang on Boyle’s desk.
***
The preacher died as he was removing his right leg. What a shame. He would have preferred him to stay alive for a little longer. Perhaps he should have waited before taking it off, let him recover for a while.
It was a messy business. The preacher bled a lot, making the knife slippery to hold as the blood spurted onto the grip. And then there was the smell. He didn’t mind the pungent aroma of the blood, a metallic, almost rusty smell. But the preacher himself stank to high heaven, which is where he was aiming to go, of course.
Luckily, he had prepared for every eventuality. He remembered the 6Ps from the army: Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. It was the motto of the staff of the division. Shame it wasn’t practised in reality. The staff work throughout the war was piss poor despite his attempts to make it better. They just wouldn’t listen to him. Idiots. Generals. Field Marshals. Idiots all of them. They should have been the ones to march across no man’s land, holding a rifle above their heads as they stumbled through the muck and shit. But no. They were at HQ safely tucking into a chateaubriand and a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Criminals. He would have to judge one of them after he’d finished with Shanghai.
He made the final cut through the thigh bone using the cleaver. The knife scraped the bone pleasingly and made a sharp crunch as it chopped through the last spur and embedded itself in the wooden slab.
The body of the preacher lay in front of him in five neat pieces: a torso still with genitals attached. He didn’t want to remove those this time, just the two arms and two legs. Not a bad job, even if he did say so himself.
The preacher wouldn’t be playing with any more young boys, not any more.
It was interesting what people told him when they knew they were going to die. Henry Sellars couldn’t stop babbling about the preacher when he was being cut. He described how he had to take off his shirt and pants and put on a girl’s yellow dress. Then he was led to a bare wooden table with just a single cross on it. There, he had to lie on his stomach and face the cross, shouting out his sins to Jesus. The preacher pushing into him. Punishing him nearly every day by bending him over the table with the single cross. He had prayed for it to end, but it never did.
Now it had ended, for both of them. Neither Henry nor the preacher would commit any more crimes. They had both been judged, sentenced and executed. For him, there was no mitigation, no excuse. No feeble justifications for crime. No spurious reasons. Just the crime itself and its judgement. And they had both paid the price.
There were so many criminals to judge and so little time to judge them all.
But his work must continue, day by day.
Chapter 23
‘Hello, is anybody there?’ Cartwright was shouting into the mouthpiece of the telephone. He always believed if the voice at the other end of the phone wasn’t loud, then he should shout to be heard. The louder one shouted, the more likely it was the other person would be able to understand.
‘I can hear you quite clearly,’ came an educated voice from the other end of the line. Cartwright thought he detected a slight West Country twang in the word ‘clearly’. He prided himself on his ability to spot the differing British accents. He could hear the difference between Londoners from above and below the river, Brummies from Aston, Solihull and Edgbaston. Mancunians were easy to spot with the nasal twang that annoyed him so much. And Liverpudlians, well, their drawl was as distinct as a pork pie from a ham sandwich.
Unfortunately, his knowledge of British accents had not been much use to him in his police work in Shanghai. Except at the club’s Christmas dinner where his recitation of Kipling’s If – in the regional accents of Britain – was always well received.
‘Hello, is anyone there?’ came the educated voice with the slight West Country burr.
‘Hello,’ he shouted back, ‘this is Cartwright. Inspector Cartwright of the Shanghai Municipal Police. Is that Willis?’
‘Yes, this is Mr Willis.’
The voice sounded slightly annoyed. Cartwright decided to come straight to the point. ‘Sorry for calling so late, I am acting for Inspector Danilov, he’s busy at the moment. You sent him a telegram?’
‘I did. I noticed his advertisement in the North China Daily News regarding his missing family. I believe I have some information about his daughter.’
So Danilov was looking for his family. The bastard kept that quiet. Cartwright wai
ted for Willis to carry on speaking. It was always best to stay silent in interviews like these. Let people tell you everything they know without revealing how little you knew.
‘I believe his daughter passed through my mission two weeks ago. I should explain. I run the Welfare Home for Young Women in Tsingtao. We are part of the outreach programme of the London Missionary Society.’
‘I’ve heard of your good work, Mr Willis,’ Cartwright lied.
‘You have? That’s most gratifying to hear, Inspector. Sometimes, I feel most isolated here. The last time I heard from the bishop was almost seven months ago, even though I report to him on our missionary activities every week. We have eleven converts now.’
‘That’s very exciting news, Mr Willis. However, we were discussing Inspector Danilov’s daughter.’
‘Yes, yes. A woman arrived at our mission on February 2nd and signed in under that name. She was in a pretty bad state, and it must have been difficult for her during Chinese New Year. She stayed three days. As you know, we don’t allow people to stay longer unless they convert. We can’t be a hotel for all the world’s waifs and strays, can we?’
‘No, just the Christian ones,’ Cartwright said under his voice.
‘What was that? You were faint for a moment.’
‘I said of course, you can’t, Mr Willis. She stayed at your mission?’
‘We run a home for women in trouble. A place where they can enjoy a Christian welcome and Christian education for three days.’
‘Women in trouble? Was his daughter pregnant?’ he asked.
‘Not that sort of trouble, Inspector. Women who are down on their luck, have been thrown out of their homes by their families or their husbands. Those sorts of women. We would never deal with the pregnant ones. I mean, how could we give help to a woman who had got pregnant outside of marriage? The thought is unthinkable and unchristian, Inspector…?’
‘Thomson. Inspector Thomson,’ lied Cartwright.
‘I thought you said your name was Cart something?’
‘That’s the other Inspector, who is helping Inspector Danilov. So Inspector Danilov’s daughter came to your mission?’
‘We have been getting many Russians recently. They’re still leaving Vladivostok in vast numbers, fleeing the godless communist hordes. As I said, on February 2nd, a young woman signed into our home as Elina Danilova. She said she was going to Shanghai to meet her father who she believed was waiting for her there. Well, as soon as I saw the Inspector’s advertisement, I put two and two together. I knew I just had to contact him.’
The phone went silent for a moment, and Cartwright thought the connection had failed, then he heard a soft, ‘There was mention of a reward in the advertisement.’
Bloody Danilov, thought Cartwright, giving money away as if he had a bank in his pocket. Obviously, paid far too much that one. ‘I’ll make sure Inspector Danilov calls you regarding the reward. I feel sure he would want to thank you personally himself. What happened to his daughter?’
‘Well, when we asked her to leave after three days, she said she was going to try to catch a ship south to Shanghai. Good luck, I told her. If you don’t have any money, none of the shipping lines will take you. But she was adamant she was going that way.’
‘So you don’t know where she is now?’
‘We don’t follow every girl who stays at our mission, Inspector.’
‘No, that would be too much to ask.’
‘I don’t think I care for your tone, Inspector Thomson.’
‘Thank you for the information, Mr Willis. I’ll get Inspector Danilov to call you back regarding the reward. I’m sure he will want to thank you himself for the kind service you gave to his daughter.’
‘I’ll wait for his call.’
‘You do that, me old cock,’ said Cartwright as he put the earpiece of the telephone back on the hook. He leant back on the wall of the telephone booth of the Palace Hotel. ‘You’ll never hear from either of us again, Mr High-and-Mighty Willis.’
And for the second time that day, a broad smile appeared beneath the bushy moustache of Inspector Cartwright. He might even treat himself to another snifter, and work out what he was going to do with this information. Charlie Meaker would be dying to know all about it. Could even be a nice little earner.
Chapter 24
Danilov and Strachan returned to the detectives’ room. It was empty. Strachan slumped down at his desk and covered his face with his hands. Danilov opened his cigarette tin and began to roll a cigarette.
‘We’ve got no suspects. Nobody we’re watching. We’ve got no idea who the killer is or why he’s killing.’
Danilov placed the rolled up cigarette between his lips and lit it. The smoke rushed down his throat, filling his lungs.
‘And Chief Inspector Boyle looks like he’s about to burst a bloody vessel. My first case and it’s all going wrong.’
Danilov brushed a few loose strands of tobacco off the table, closed the tin and placed it at exactly 90 degrees to the desk blotter.
‘What do we do, sir?’
Danilov blew out a long stream of smoke up towards the ceiling where it gathered like a cloud around the light bulb. ‘Did I ever tell you about my family, Stra-chan?’ he said softly.
Strachan raised his head from the desk. ‘No, sir. You asked me not to mention them.’
‘My family were the centre of my life when I was living in Minsk. I had a beautiful wife, a loving daughter, and a son who was as bright as a samovar in winter. He beat me at chess.’ He took another drag on the cigarette. A stray strand of tobacco stuck on his lips and he removed it with the tips of his fingers. ‘But, being the man I am, I didn’t really appreciate how lucky I was.’
‘We never do, sir.’
Danilov didn’t hear him. ‘Minsk was descending into chaos but there was a case in Moscow I had to solve. I left my family behind. The train lines were cut and I couldn’t get back to them. The day I left Minsk was 12th November, 1924. I haven’t seen my wife, or Elina, my daughter, or Ivan, my son, since then.’
‘You must miss them, sir.’
‘I miss them every second of every hour of every day. But there is something I know, Stra-chan.’
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘I know, one day, we will be together again. They are there, out there, somewhere, waiting to be found. It’s that belief that keeps me alive. Keeps me going.’ He looked across at Strachan. ‘We must never give up. If we do, he wins. Don’t you see that? This killer has made mistakes, and will make more. We have the clues. We just can’t see the patterns yet. But we will get him. He won’t stop until we do. We must get him. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We will nail this killer if it’s the last thing we do on this Earth. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry about your family, sir. I don’t think anybody knows in the…’
‘Nobody must know, Stra-chan. It’s our secret.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Danilov stubbed out his cigarette into the ashtray. He stood up. ‘It’s time to get working. Get on to the newspapers. Find out where they got their information. They probably won’t tell you but it doesn’t hurt to try. Once you’ve finished, interview the young man who was seen at the Astor when Elsie Everett was killed. He’s the only one we haven’t talked to yet. You have his address?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘When you’re finished, come back here. I’m going to check up on Richard Ayres and his friends.’
‘You don’t think he did it, do you? He spent a day looking for her.’
‘Everybody is a suspect until nobody is.’
‘I don’t understand, sir.’
‘Everybody is a suspect until we catch the killer.’
‘I get it, sir. But that means the whole of Shanghai is a suspect, including you and me and the rest of the police force.’
‘Correct, Stra-chan.’
There was a sharp knock on the glass door of the detective
s’ room. It opened quickly and the duty sergeant stood in the doorway.
‘What is it, Sergeant?’ asked Danilov.
‘You’d better come quickly, sir, there’s been another murder.’
So quickly, thought Danilov. So soon after the others?
‘It’s out by the race course, Inspector.’
‘Get the car, Stra-chan.’ He picked up his coat and hat from the stand near the door. ‘I think this is going to be a long night.’
On his way out of the station, Danilov bumped into a large man dressed in a patchwork of clothes who was blocking the doorway.
He said sorry.
The Giant grunted in return.
Chapter 25
The naked body was propped up against the entrance of the main clubhouse of the Shanghai Racing Club. Even from a distance, Danilov could see something wasn’t right. He pointed to Strachan’s shoes, warning him to watch his step. ‘The murder scene, it’s staged like a diorama.’
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘I mean we are supposed to see it from here. The body is facing us, confronting us. See how it is perfectly aligned with the centre of the door? Sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Who found the body?’
‘One of the grooms, sir. He was walking past here on his way from the stables and he noticed something was wrong.’
‘Did he touch anything?’
‘Apparently not, sir. Ran to get a trainer. Thought he’d seen a ghost.’
‘What time was this?’
‘About 9.30 pm. The clubhouse is locked up at 9 pm. There was no body there then.’
‘Good, very good. We know the exact time the body was placed here.’ Danilov took three steps forward.
The strangeness of the naked body was even more apparent now. Through the gloom of the night, its white nakedness stood out against the dark wood of the door. It appeared to be correct: a torso, two arms and two legs, posed like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man in the doorway. But there was a gap between the shoulders and the arms. Not much of one, but Danilov could see the dark, weather-stained wood through the void where the arm should have been.
