by Tom Bradby
“Save me having to look at it.”
Field took a deep breath. “Suspected Bolshevik sympathizer. Attended meetings at the New Shanghai Life. Lived here. But we don’t have much more than that.”
Caprisi had been eyeing the white photograph frame beside the bed. He picked it up, took a closer look, then threw it across to Field. Field noticed how he gritted his teeth when he was angry, making the muscles in his cheeks twitch. He could see the American suspected that Special Branch had a separate agenda.
The picture was of a family, seated formally on a lawn in front of a large country house. The mother was a thin, elegant woman; the father sat stiffly in military uniform. There were five children, three boys in white sailor suits, and two blonde girls in pretty white dresses, leaning against their mother’s knee. Lena had been the elder of the two girls. Field, suddenly somber, put the picture facedown on the bed. The body in front of him had been transformed suddenly by this glimpse of a past.
“Her father was a tsarist officer in Mother Russia, and you think she’s a Bolshevik.” Caprisi shook his head. “You guys should do your research.”
The Chinese detective was still on his knees, brushing the bedside table. Caprisi put a hand on his shoulder. “How are we doing?”
“The cuffs are clean. Everywhere else is heavy.”
“The cuffs could be evidence.”
There was one window in the room, high and small. Caprisi stood on the bedside table to open it and stuck his head out. “Shares a balcony with the woman next door; the girl who found her. Go and talk to her, will you, Field? And everyone else in the building.”
Two
Field didn’t need any encouragement to get out of the bedroom, and he breathed a little more easily in the hallway. He tugged at his collar again and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. He wished he could afford a lightweight suit like the one Caprisi wore. He had been grateful to his father for the gift of his Sunday best, but it was warm enough to be comfortable in a Yorkshire winter and highly unsuitable for the stifling summer heat of the Far East.
Field knocked once on the door opposite and waited. In the few minutes they’d been inside, the bulb in the hallway light had blown.
He heard movement, but no one came, so he knocked again.
A shadow moved along the crack at the bottom of the door and it was suddenly pulled open.
The woman was standing with her weight on one leg, light from a window behind her caressing her thighs through the thin white cotton of her dressing gown. Field could not see her face clearly and took a step back.
She was frowning at him.
“I’m from the Shanghai police.”
“You don’t say.”
She was tall—not quite as tall as he was, but still close to six feet. Luxuriant dark hair spilled over her shoulders and hung down to her breasts. Her gown was pulled tight, showing off the supple curves of her body.
Her nose was small, her cheeks curved in a manner that made her seem warm, even if her dark eyebrows were knotted together in a frown. But what struck Field most was her skin. Even in this light—and she had half turned now—he could see it was brown and smooth, making his own appear as white as alabaster.
“Can I come in?”
“Why?”
Field cleared his throat. He tried to smile, but wasn’t sure if he’d managed it. “It would be easier than standing in the corridor.”
“Easier for you or for me?” She spoke English well, her Russian accent faint.
“It will only take a few minutes of your time.”
“I’m not dressed, Inspector.”
“I won’t look,” he said, but she didn’t smile and he quickly regretted it. “And I’m not an inspector.”
A glimmer of amusement seemed to stir at the corners of her lips. “I can see that.” She stepped back to allow him in.
The apartment was the same size as the one next door. The wooden floorboards had a rug over them, and, instead of a sofa, two old, threadbare chairs faced each other in front of a low Chinese table. There were pictures on the wall—crudely painted Russian landscapes in thick oil—a mirror, and, as in Lena Orlov’s main room, a bookcase, although this one had at least twice the number of books and photographs.
Field stepped through the open doors to the balcony and looked down over the racecourse. A line of horses was being led along the track in the distance. A tram rattled noisily past as the clock on the tower above the clubhouse struck two, audible despite the wail of a police siren somewhere close.
He turned back. “Very nice,” he said.
She was standing in the middle of the room, still appraising him frankly, although, he thought, with less hostility now. Or perhaps that was his imagination. He saw that she was a strong woman, the veins and muscles standing out in her forearms as she clasped her shoulders. For reasons that were not entirely clear to him, the plight of this woman, how she’d got here and how she could afford to live like this, was, for Field, suddenly and confusingly a cause for concern. Everyone always talked of the White Russians and the circumstances into which they were forced, but their predicament had not, until now, seemed real.
He was standing next to the bookcase and could see a collection of Russian books behind a photograph that was similar to the one in Lena Orlov’s apartment. The father, also in military uniform, sat this time in front of a less grand house, without a wife and with only two children, almost identical girls in white dresses with long dark hair, smiling shyly at the camera. They all held each other, displaying an easy warmth. The elder of the two girls had draped an arm protectively around the younger. Field thought again of the contrast between Lena Orlov’s squalid demise and the evidence of her own happy past. He felt like a voyeur. He coughed. “You read a lot?” he asked, gesturing at the books, which were all in Cyrillic script.
The girl did not smile.
“My father once said every man should read Anna Karenina,” Field said.
“How wise.”
He cleared his throat again. It seemed drier than ever. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You found the body?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean how?”
“I mean you . . . went around to see Miss Orlov?”
She shook her head irritably. “I went to ask for some milk, but there was no answer.”
“So how did you get in?”
“The door was open.”
Field looked at her. “Did she usually leave her door open?”
“I have no idea.”
“You didn’t know her well, then?”
“Not really.”
“What does ‘not really’ mean?”
“It means no.”
“You weren’t friends?”
She was staring at him, her hands still clutching her shoulders. She straightened, shifting her weight. “We nodded at each other on the landing, that was all.”
Field glanced at the books and photographs. “It seems odd,” he said, “the two of you living next door to each other, similar backgrounds, strange city, but not knowing each other.”
“If it seems odd to you, Officer,” she said, “then how little you understand.”
Field tried to hide his embarrassment by turning again to the family photograph. Of course, two women living here from similar, proud backgrounds might have had every reason to avoid each other.
He opened his notebook and took the old fountain pen his father had given him from the top pocket of his jacket. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry for what?”
She’d sat down, her head bent, hands now clasped around her body.
“I don’t wish to take up too much of your time. Could I just take your name?”
She looked up. “What’s yours?”
The faint smile was back, her fragility evaporating.
“My name is Field.”
“That’s not much of a name.” Her voic
e was husky, like a singer who has spent too much time performing in smoke-filled nightclubs.
“Richard. But most people call me ‘Field.’ ”
“How unromantic.”
Field gestured with his pen. “Can I take your name?”
“Medvedev.”
He waited. “And your first name?”
“I don’t think we’re on first-name terms, do you?”
Field wasn’t certain how to respond to her teasing, and couldn’t tell whether it was gentle or barbed.
“Natasha,” she said. “Natasha Medvedev. But most people call me Natasha.”
“You found the body about an hour ago?”
“Yes.” She removed her arms from her shoulders, and for a moment her dressing gown parted sufficiently to reveal the curve of her breasts. His face reddened as he realized she saw the direction of his gaze.
“You went around for milk?”
“I’d run out.”
“So you knocked, but there was no answer?”
“That’s right, Officer.”
“There was no answer, so you went in?”
“We’ve just been through this.”
Field looked at her. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I’m being stupid. You went around to get milk, you knocked, there was no response, so . . . then what?”
She didn’t answer.
“It’s just, if you hardly knew the woman, it would seem more logical to turn around and come back to your own flat.”
Natasha was looking at him as if he were the stupidest man she’d ever met. “The door was open.”
“So you went in to see if you could borrow some milk?”
She didn’t bother to answer.
“Then what?”
“Then I found the body.”
Field stopped writing. “How did you do that?”
“Inspector, I think this conversation has gone as far as—”
“I’m not an inspector.”
She sighed. “No, well . . .”
“Was it the smell?”
She screwed up her face in disgust.
“It’s just,” Field said slowly, “that I don’t see how you got to the bedroom when the kitchen is the other side of the living room.” He pointed. “The same layout as here.”
Natasha Medvedev stared at him, and he held her gaze. He had no idea what he saw there. Contempt, perhaps. What he didn’t understand was that it would have been very easy to make up a convincing lie, and she wasn’t bothering to do so.
Field was still standing close to the photographs, and he took a step toward the bookshelf as one at the back caught his eye. Natasha was standing on what looked like the dance floor of a nightclub. She wore a figure-hugging dress with a plunging neckline, her unfashionably long hair tumbling over her shoulder just as it did now, her face impassive. By contrast, the woman next to her—not in the same league as her friend and with too much makeup, but an open, friendly face—was smiling.
Field held it up, pointing to the second woman. “Lena Orlov.”
Natasha Medvedev shook her head. “No, another friend.” As she said it, she was transformed again, clutching herself once more, dropping her head, so that her hair fell forward.
“Oh God,” she muttered under her breath.
Field did not know what to do. He took a pace toward her, then another. He shut his notebook and slipped it back into the pocket of his jacket.
“I’m sorry, Miss Medvedev.”
She did not respond.
“Is there anything I can get you?”
She shook her head, gathering her hair at the back of her neck with her hand.
“There’s nothing I can do for you?”
She looked up. “You can go away.”
Field hesitated again, wishing that her eyes betrayed something other than bored hostility.
“Of course. Thank you for your time.”
“It’s been my pleasure.”
“I doubt that.”
She shrugged.
Field stepped out into the corridor, pulling the door quietly shut. He breathed in deeply, allowing himself a moment’s peace before returning to the savagery of the apartment next door.
He put his hands in his pockets.
Was it just that he couldn’t fault her, that she was physically perfect? Is that all it was?
Caprisi was standing by the French windows in the living room, looking out toward the racecourse. He turned as Field came in. “Chen’s already been downstairs,” he said. “There are two couples below, both away in New York. We’ll have a talk with the doorman in a minute. Chen says the flats on this floor belong to Lu Huang. Pockmark Huang.”
Field nodded. “I see.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You understand?”
“Yes. So . . . both these women belong to Lu also.” Field tried to dispel a sense of discomfort at the combination of this news and the recollection of Natasha Medvedev in her white dressing gown. Why wasn’t she dressed when it was past lunchtime?
“There is no sign of the murder weapon,” Caprisi said. “The handcuffs have been wiped clean, so . . .” He turned to Field, staring right through him. “Somebody has been cleaning up. Somebody has been in here after the murder and cleaned up.” The American looked up. “What did the woman say?” he asked, but his demeanor suggested he already knew the answer.
“She was not helpful,” Field said quietly.
Caprisi turned to the window and looked out toward the clock tower, wrestling with himself. “Fuck it.”
Maretsky emerged from the bedroom, blinking through his small thick glasses. His hair was even longer and scruffier than it had been when he’d come down to lecture the new recruits. Once a professor of philosophy at St. Petersburg University, Maretsky had found a niche here as an expert in the methods of Shanghai’s criminals. His official title was head of Modus Operandi and from his desk in the main police library and records office, he assisted both the Crime Branch and the Special Branch. He brought his philosophical and psychological training to his work and had somehow managed to command wide respect in an intensely macho force. His insightful lectures had been, Field thought, the highlight of the official police training.
Maretsky took a couple of paces toward the window. “She’s in sexually appealing underwear.” His Russian accent was as faint as Natasha Medvedev’s. “She’s handcuffed to the bed, so that she cannot move. There’s no sign of a struggle, but nor is there any indication of assault, or even of consensual intercourse. As you say, no semen on her panties or on the bed.” He shrugged. “Of course, there’s a lot of blood.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Is it what she liked?” Maretsky asked, glancing at the photographs on the bookshelf. “The handcuffs, I mean. And the underwear. Or is it a man’s sexual fantasy? A man whom she is in love with, or serves in some way.”
“They had an argument, lovers’ quarrel?” Caprisi asked. “He ties her up, then they have a fight?”
“No.” Maretsky shook his head emphatically. “This must be about a much deeper, more virulent rage. Look at the body. We are probably seeing rage against women in general, not Lena Orlov in particular.”
Field thought of the woman lying on the bed and the disconcerting appearance of pleasure that death had left playing on her lips. He found himself imagining the terror on her face as the knife was plunged into her, again and again.
“Chen says,” Caprisi went on, “that this flat and the one next door belong to Pockmark Lu. And therefore, presumably, the women in it.”
Maretsky said, “She was obviously a . . . you know, high-class.”
“She was his woman?”
“I’m sure he would have had her, but she may have had other uses.”
“Hiring her out?”
Maretsky shrugged. “A gift, perhaps.”
Field was struggling, and failing, to accept the idea of Natasha Medvedev submitting herself to a man against her will.
&
nbsp; “It’s certainly vicious,” Maretsky said, almost to himself.
No one answered.
Maretsky was carrying a small leather briefcase—almost like a lady’s handbag—and he tucked it under his arm and moved toward the door. “We’ll talk later,” he said.
“Has there been anything similar?” Caprisi asked.
Maretsky shook his head. “Nothing that springs to mind. I’ll check with the French police.”
For a few moments after Maretsky’s departure, they stood in silence, Field reflecting on how quiet it was here—a far cry from his own quarters with the endless grunting and bellowing that went on at all times of the day and night.
He could not imagine what kind of man could have done this.
“Check this room,” Caprisi said. “I’ll do the others.”
“Looking for anything in particular?”
“Use your head.”
Caprisi went through to the kitchen and Field heard him opening and shutting the cupboards. He looked about before moving the Gramophone and opening the Chinese chest beneath. It was empty. He stared out of the window, running his finger through the condensation that had gathered on the glass since their arrival. The panes were small, the narrow metal bars between them painted white. The building must have been completed recently, because the humidity and heat of the summer frayed the paintwork of most buildings very quickly.
He turned to the bookcase and pulled out a tall, thin, dark leather photograph album.
The pictures were similar to the ones in the frames—a testament not just to a lost era but to a vanquished world. This was the chronicle of Lena Orlov’s life before the revolution had forced her from Russia, and Field could see immediately, much more vividly than from a thousand books or newspaper articles, how painful the loss of this past had been.
The photographs seemed to recall a pastoral idyll: a large country house, a lake, a summerhouse, a magnificent wooden yacht, a father who looked severe and a mother who smiled in every picture. Field had read that most of the Russian aristocrats with money had fled to Europe, but the Orlovs, too, had clearly been wealthy.
There was a photograph of a little girl whom Field assumed to be Lena, with a dog and a woman he thought must have been her nanny. It was the last picture in the book, taken by a sledge in the snow, in front of the house, a number of suitcases visible on the shaded, iron-framed veranda in the background. Had this been the end, the departure?
