In the online catalogue, Eve’s mint-green shift dress was described as a “chic, summery office staple,” but catching sight of herself in a mirror in the lift, she senses that she’s striking the wrong note. The dress is sleeveless and she’s cut herself shaving—her armpit still stings quite badly—so somehow she has to conduct a vital meeting with a senior officer of the Chinese Ministry of State Security without ever raising her right arm.
Jin Qiang is alone in the suite. It’s vast, soft-lit and restfully luxurious. Sky-blue curtains frame a view of the river, and more distantly the skyscrapers of Pudong.
“Mrs. Polastri, Mr. Mortimer. This is a great pleasure.”
“Thank you for agreeing to see us,” says Eve, as she and Simon lower themselves into silk-upholstered armchairs.
“I have most affectionate memories of Richard Edwards. I trust he’s in good health?”
For some minutes, the niceties are observed on both sides. Jin is a quietly spoken figure in a dove-grey suit. He speaks English with a faint American accent. At intervals a look of refined melancholy touches his features, as if he’s saddened by the vagaries of human behaviour.
“The murder of Zhang Lei,” Eve begins.
“Yes, indeed.” He steeples his long, manicured fingers.
“We wish to convey our assurances that this action was not sponsored, executed or in any way enabled by agents of the British government,” Eve says. “We have had our differences with your ministry, particularly concerning the activities of the individuals calling themselves the White Dragon. A unit, we have reason to believe, of the Chinese military. But this is not the way we would choose to resolve those differences.”
Jin smiles. “Mrs. Polastri, you are mistaken in thinking that the White Dragon group is part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. They, and others like them, are just mischief-makers, acting without reference to anyone.”
Eve inclines her head diplomatically. This, she knows, is the official line on all cyber-attacks originating in China.
“We’re here in Shanghai to assist in any way we can,” says Simon. “Especially with reference to the killer of Lieutenant Colonel Zhang.”
“He was, I’m afraid, just plain Mr. Zhang.”
“Of course. My apologies. But we understand that Richard Edwards has communicated to you our suspicions concerning a female assassin?”
“He has. And I’m aware of the circumstances surrounding the death of Viktor Kedrin.”
Eve leans forward in her chair. “Let me cut to the chase. We believe that the woman who killed Kedrin also killed Zhang Lei. We believe she is not acting alone, but on behalf of an organisation of considerable reach and power.”
“That is indeed cutting to the chase, Mrs. Polastri. May I ask what Zhang Lei and Viktor Kedrin had in common, that they should both be… eliminated by this organisation?”
“At this stage it’s hard to say. But I would repeat that neither we nor our American colleagues had any hand in the death of Zhang Lei. Nor that of Viktor Kedrin.”
Jin folds his hands in his lap. “I must accept your assurances.”
Eve is suddenly conscious of the cut under her arm. For a ghastly moment she wonders if she has left a bloodstain on the silk upholstery of her chair. “May I be frank with you?” she asks.
“Please do.”
“Richard Edwards’s belief, which we share, is that a covert organisation—as yet unidentified—is committing these murders. We don’t know their purpose or agenda. We don’t know who they are, or how many. But we suspect that they have people placed in our own organisation and also in MI5, for whom I used to work. And almost certainly in other intelligence services.”
Jin frowns. “I’m not sure how I can help you.”
Eve feels the meeting slipping from her grasp. “Our only way forward, as things stand, is to follow the money. Is there anyone in the Western security services, Mr. Jin, whom you know or suspect to be in the pay of an organisation such as I have described?”
Silence swirls dizzyingly around her. She senses Simon’s shock at the impropriety of her question.
Jin’s features remain impassive. “Perhaps we might order some tea,” he suggests.
“Have you seen my black cardigan?” Villanelle asks. “The Annabel Lee one, with the pearl buttons?”
In answer, Alice Mao groans. She’s lying on her bed opposite a young man with chiselled features and a gym-toned body which gleams like oiled teak. Both of them are naked. Beneath the silk sheet, the man’s hand is moving rhythmically between Alice’s legs. It’s half past two in the afternoon.
“I’m sure I left it here somewhere,” Villanelle murmurs.
Exasperated, Alice rolls onto her stomach. “Please. Just come to bed?”
“I have to go shopping.”
“Now?”
Villanelle shrugs.
“Ken’s very much in demand, you know,” Alice says. “He’s doing us a huge favour, fitting us in like this.”
Villanelle knows Ken’s story, because Alice has told it to her. How he was a student at Hong Kong University, completing an MA dissertation on the late poetry of Sylvia Plath, when he was talent-spotted in a hotel steam room. How he became Ken Hung, the most famous porn star in China.
As if on cue, Ken throws back the sheets. “Ladies, we have wood!”
Alice gasps. “Oh my goodness, it’s just like in the films. Bigger, even. Sweetie, at least have a little stroke.”
“Sorry, but I really don’t want that thing anywhere near me. I just want my black cardigan.” Villanelle frowns. “You don’t happen to know somewhere I can buy nice kitchen stuff, do you?”
“You could try Putua Parlour on Changhua Lu,” says Ken, complacently regarding the most famous penis in China. “I get all my bakeware there. I’m a big Nigella fan.”
An hour later, Villanelle is strolling down one of the many aisles of Putua Parlour, noting the positioning of the CCTV cameras. It’s a warehouse store for the restaurant trade, offering every imaginable appliance and vessel. Shelf after shelf is piled high with pans, skillets, steamers, hotpots, baking dishes and gleaming tinware. There are elaborate cake stands, fantastical jelly-moulds, and an entire aisle of woks. Tiny woks for flash-frying individual prawns, jacuzzi-sized woks capacious enough for a whole ox.
The place has only a handful of customers. There’s a young couple quietly arguing about kebab-skewers, a harassed-looking man loading a trolley with bamboo dim-sum steamers, and an elderly woman muttering to herself as she picks through the melon-ballers.
In the last aisle, Villanelle finds what she’s looking for. Cleavers. Fine-bladed cleavers for slicing and dicing, heavy bone-choppers for hacking and dismembering. Her eye alights on a chukabocho, a locally made cleaver with a 25oz carbon-steel blade and a tiger-maple handle. It feels good in her hand. Two minutes later she checks out, paying for a dozen cocktail glasses and several sets of paper umbrellas. Somehow, unseen by the CCTV cameras, the chukabocho has made its way to the bottom of her shoulder bag.
“OK, I admit it,” says Eve. “I’m nervous.”
“You’ve been on dates before, haven’t you?”
“This is not a date. This is an appointment with the head of the Chinese Secret Service.”
“If you say so. I think he fancies you.”
“Simon, please. You’re not helping. I feel very uncomfortable in this dress. And these shoes. I can hardly walk.”
“You look adorable. When are you meeting him?”
“He’s picking me up downstairs in ten minutes. What are your plans?”
“I thought I might take a stroll down the Bund.” He shrugs. “Perhaps look in somewhere for a cocktail.”
“Well, be good. I’m going to wait downstairs.”
“Have fun.”
She throws him a sardonic glance, and teetering a little in her new Lilian Zhang cocktail dress and Mary Ching stilettos—the prospect of submitting the expenses claim makes her blood run cold—runs a last check in t
“You don’t think the make-up’s too much?”
“No! Now go.”
The invitation came as a surprise, to say the least. The meeting in the Peninsula suite had more or less stalled after Eve’s questioning of Jin Qiang. Spies, even among themselves, are highly disinclined to admit that they actively engage in spying. Following a further hour of discussion of the murder of Zhang Lei, in the course of which Eve handed over a prepared dossier about the investigation of the Kedrin murder, Jin brought the meeting to a halt and ushered her and Simon down to the lobby.
There, amid the art deco grandeur, the same cast of business types appeared to be engaged in the same muted conversations. As they shook hands beneath the pillared portico, Jin hesitated. “Mrs. Polastri, I’d very much like to show you something of Shanghai. Are you by any chance free this evening?”
“I am,” she said, surprised.
“Excellent. I’ll call for you at your hotel at eight o’clock.”
She opened her mouth to thank him, but he was already gliding soundlessly away.
He arrives at 8 p.m. precisely. He’s on a scooter, wearing a sharp black suit and open-necked white shirt, and looks a very different man from the cautious intelligence officer Eve met just hours earlier.
“Mrs. Polastri, you look… spectacular.” With a courtly smile he hands her a tiny bouquet of fresh violets, tied with a silk ribbon.
Eve is enchanted, and thinking of Niko teaching GCSE maths to a class of bored teenagers half a world away, she feels a stab of guilt. Thanking Jin, she wraps the dewy violets in a tissue and places them in her bag.
“Ready?” he asks, passing her a helmet.
“Ready.” She arranges herself side-saddle, as she’s seen Shanghainese women do.
They swing out into the traffic, and onto East Nanjing Road. The thoroughfare, one of Shanghai’s busiest, is gridlocked and exhaust-choked. Jin weaves the scooter deftly between the crawling vehicles and comes to a halt at a red light.
As Eve sits there, the scooter burbling beneath her, she catches sight of a striking figure walking up the pavement towards her. A young woman, poised and slender, in jeans and a black, pearl-buttoned cardigan. Dark blonde hair slicked back from fine, sharp-cut features. A subtle, sensual twist to the mouth.
Eve watches her for a moment. Has she seen that face before, or is it just déjà vu? As if sensing her stare, the woman glances back. She’s beautiful, in the way that a bird of prey is beautiful, but never has Eve encountered a gaze of such inhuman blankness. When the lights change, and the scooter lurches forward, the temperature seems to have dropped a degree or two.
Five minutes later they draw up at an intersection, outside a grand art deco building topped by a cascading neon spire. Coloured lights course up and down its antique facade. Above the portico, the word Paramount blazes into the twilight.
“You like dancing?”
“I… yes,” Eve replies. “I do, actually.”
“The Paramount is a famous landmark from the nineteen-thirties. This is where everyone came to dance. Gangsters, high society, beautiful women…”
She smiles. “You sound as if you’d like those days to return.”
He locks the scooter. “They were interesting times. But then so are these. Come.”
She accompanies him into a foyer hung with sepia photographs, and from there into a small lift that conveys them unhurriedly to the fourth floor. The dance hall is like a music box in gilt and red plush. On the stage, a middle-aged singer in a floor-length evening dress is delivering a smoky-voiced version of “Bye Bye Blackbird,” as a dozen or so couples gravely quickstep around the cantilevered dance floor.
Jin leads Eve to a side table in a booth, and orders Coca-Cola for both of them.
“Business first?” he asks.
“Business first,” she agrees, sipping the sugary drink. A couple glides wordlessly past them.
“What I tell you, you never repeat, OK?”
She shakes her head. “This conversation never took place. We talked about dancing. About nightlife in Old Shanghai.”
He moves closer to her on the banquette, and inclines his head towards hers. “Our late friend, as you know, was killed in an establishment in the Old City. He was a surgery fetishist. A masochist. We knew about this. He visited the place every six weeks or so, and paid a professional sex worker to simulate… various medical procedures. He was discreet about these visits; his colleagues knew nothing about them.”
“But not discreet enough to escape your department’s notice, evidently.”
“Evidently.”
Eve notes that Jin is, in effect, admitting that Zhang Lei was working for the state.
“So we are either looking at an organisation able to mount an extensive and long-term surveillance operation…” She hesitates. “Or one with access to information acquired by your department.”
Jin frowns. “Certainly the former. Just conceivably the latter.”
Eve nods slowly. “Either way, a sophisticated organisation with a long reach.”
“Yes. And I don’t believe it was the British, or the Americans. The economic consequences of discovery would be…”
“Catastrophic?” Eve suggests.
“Yes. That’s right.”
“So do you have any other ideas for who might be responsible?”
“Right now, not really, although one can never discount a Russian connection, especially if, as you suggest, the same organisation is responsible for the death of Viktor Kedrin. So we’re trying very hard to find out more about the woman they sent. We know that she entered by the back stairway, overpowered the sex worker who calls herself Nurse Wu, who remembers nothing beyond the fact that her attacker was a woman, and then eliminated our friend by means of carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“You’re sure that was the cause of death? It couldn’t have been an accident on the part of this nurse person? After all, she wasn’t qualified to administer surgical gas or anything of the sort, surely.”
“The only gas she ever gave her ‘patients’ was pure oxygen. We tested all the tanks there. And as it happens, as well as being a part-time sex worker she was also a trained nurse, who worked in a private medical facility in Pudong. So she knew what she was doing. And the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are unmistakable.”
“Cherry-red lips and skin?”
“Exactly. The pathologist was in no doubt.”
“But no sign of a CO tank, or canister?”
“No, the killer took it away with her.”
“And what makes this Wu person so sure that her attacker was a woman?”
“She remembers the feel of a woman’s breasts against her back when she was grabbed. And the hand that went over her mouth was strong, she said, but not a man’s hand.”
“She’s sure about this?”
“Very sure. And there’s a man who has a food stall on Dangfeng Road opposite the backstairs exit. He knows what the building is, and that only men come out of that door. So when he saw a woman, he remembered her.”
“Does he remember what she looked like?”
“No, he said all Westerners look the same to him. Baseball cap is all he remembers. New York Yankees.”
“Our killer’s very good at being invisible. Has the material on the Kedrin murder been any use?”
“Very much so. My service is very grateful, Mrs. Polastri. We showed the images of the woman in the hotel to people who work on Dangfeng Road, and several said they might have seen her that day.”
“But no one was sure?”
“No. Unfortunately.”
“They’re very poor quality images. And you can’t see her face. So I’m not surprised.”
“We are grateful, nevertheless. And of course we’re checking against visas, and watching all border points. We’re talking to people in all the hotels, clubs, and restaurants that a foreigner might visit.”
“I’m sure you’re doing everything that could be done.”
“We are.” Jin smiles. “And now, would you like to dance?”
Dragon-fruit Martini in hand, Simon makes his way towards one of the Star Bar’s few unoccupied seats, which appears to be upholstered in zebra-skin. “Boss Ass Bitch” by Nicki Minaj is pumping from concealed speakers, and the place is filling fast. Simon is wearing Diesel jeans and a cotton jacket, and the Lonely Planet guide from which he chose the bar (“a watering-hole popular with the cashed-up expat crowd”) is weighing down his right-hand pocket.
He would never admit it to Eve, and obviously she’s his head of section and it’s Jin Qiang’s turf, but he’s not exactly happy that she’s swanned off without him for a night on the town with Jin. It’s not as if she’s not going to tell him everything that’s discussed when she gets back, but it would have been nice if she’d, at the very least, suggested that he come along. He’s very fond of Eve in an exasperated, semi-protective sort of way (her fashion sense, oh my God) and he certainly isn’t one of those sad haters who can’t deal with a female boss, but she can be pretty insensitive at times, despite her undoubtedly high-wattage intellect.
Lowering himself into the zebra-skin chair with an insouciance he doesn’t feel, Simon takes a deep hit of his drink. The Star Bar’s decor is preposterous, even for Shanghai. The emerald-green stingray-skin walls are hung with sub-pornographic paintings, the fireplace is black marble, a vast Fortuny-style chandelier glows overhead. The overall effect is absurd, alluring, vaguely satanic.
The Martini is volcanically strong, caressing Simon’s taste buds with sugary top notes before drenching his cerebellum in iced Berry Bros. No 3 gin. Half-closing his eyes, he feels himself wreathed in flavour. Juniper, a hint of grapefruit, and that sexy, suggestive dragon-fruit sweetness. Fuck me, he murmurs, his brain clouding with pleasure. That hits the spot. Around him drift expensively dressed revellers. Friends, office colleagues, lovers… Why is it always, always like this? Everyone else at ease, having the time of their overpaid lives, while he’s on the outside, face pressed to the glass, invisible.
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