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Someone was banging on a door upstairs, shouting once again in a loud voice. The sound of a door being kicked, once, twice, flying open, knocking against the wall.
A shout from her father. She knew it was her father’s voice. Then a bang, muffled, less sharp than before.
Heavy footsteps stomping across her ceiling. She followed them until they reached the window upstairs, right above her bed.
Another bang.
Something falling heavily, hitting the ceiling with a loud thud.
She wanted to scream, to shout out for someone to save her. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She tried again, but all she heard was a gagging noise in her throat.
Her body was rigid beneath the covers. Should she try to get away? She lifted her head above the sheets. Her wheelchair and crutches were still propped against the far wall. Why had the maid put them over there?
Steps on the staircase, coming down, getting closer, getting louder.
The handle of her door turned again.
The door opened a crack, throwing a sharp shaft of light onto the wall, illuminating her crutches.
Please don’t come back. You don’t belong here.
The shadow of a man was thrown into the room. He was standing in the doorway. She could see no features on his face, just a darkness and the sharp outline of a pointed chin. But she knew it was him, the man she had seen before.
She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. It was as if her voice was now as paralysed as her body.
The shadow moved into the room.
She closed her eyes tight.
The footsteps on the carpet were getting closer to her bed.
Keep your eyes closed. Pretend you’re asleep. Perhaps he will go away and leave you alone.
She opened her eyes.
The round end of a piece of metal was staring straight at her. Wisps of blue smoke escaped from it, sinuous strands rising into the air. The smell was sweet and heavy, like the morning after Chinese New Year when the stench of the firecrackers hung over Shanghai.
A hand with dirty nails was holding the metal, pointing it straight at her, coming closer with every second.
The other man in the doorway silhouetted against the light from the hallway. More words in the language she didn’t understand. The small man turned and said something.
They were talking about her. She knew they were talking about her.
Her eyes darted left and right. How could she let them know who he was?
Then she saw the letter lying on the table, next to her bed. She grabbed it while the men were talking and crushed it tightly into a small square in her palm.
She closed her eyes again. She prayed like she had been taught by the nuns at her school before the illness, mumbling the words over and over again.
Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.
Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.
Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.
The men finished speaking. Through her mumbled words, she heard his breathing. Short, sharp bursts of breath, as if he had been running.
She couldn’t help herself, her eyes opened again. The metal cylinder began to come closer, lowering, pointing directly at her now. The metal eye getting larger with every step.
‘Sleep well, child,’ he said in Chinese.
They were the last sounds she ever heard.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_668f2392-4b77-5471-8a8c-a1aeb4ccf9ff)
Detective Sergeant Strachan strode up the steps of Central Police Station and pushed through the double doors.
As soon as he entered, he was hit by a wall of sound. Two half-naked rickshaw drivers were arguing with each other in a dialect he didn’t understand. A woman was wailing in the corner, bemoaning the loss of her little boy. A group of hawkers were pushing and shoving each other, and, in turn, being hustled by a Sikh guard into the corner with shouts of I mi te, I mi te in Indian-accented Shanghainese.
At the centre of the mayhem, as calm as the eye of a storm, was Sergeant Wolfe, perched behind his desk, above it all.
Strachan elbowed his way through the crush to the Sikh sergeant who guarded the entrance to the interior. It was one of the times he loved most. The sense that he knew what was going on behind these closed doors whilst the rest of Shanghai remained ignorant.
His father had brought him here before he was killed. Proudly showing him where he worked and what he did. Strachan had sat on the knee of the desk sergeant, played with the beards of the Sikhs, listening to the arguments in all the languages of China; Mandarin, Shanghainese, Chiuchow, Hakka, even the sing-song tones of the excitable Cantonese. He remembered some of the words even to this day. Being able to say, ‘Good morning’ in eight different dialects amused him.
His father loved being a policeman, walking the beat, sorting out the problems on his patch. Strachan had listened to all his stories when he came home in the evening, sitting by the fire. The tales of cheating merchants, kidnappers, burglars, con-men, pickpockets, street fighters, and card sharps were his bedtime stories. It was inevitable that one day he would join the police, even though his mother, in her Chinese way, had tried to persuade him against the idea.
‘It’s not the profession of a good boy. Become an accountant or a lawyer instead.’
‘I don’t want to be an accountant or a lawyer.’
‘Get an education first and then decide.’
He had done as she wished. Went to St John’s University, got his degree and then decided.
She wasn’t happy but knew he had made his mind up. ‘You’re just like your father. Stubborn as a Yangtse boatman.’
He took that as a compliment.
The Sikh sergeant closed the door behind Strachan, and he experienced the familiar surge of excitement. He was here, where it was all happening, where death and glory, life and sadness, truth and lies stalked the corridors. Even after five years in the force, he still enjoyed the same thrill every time he stepped through that door. The divide that separated the world of normal people and his world; the underworld.
He pushed through the gate and walked down a short green-walled corridor. The only light came from a single dim bulb hiding behind a frosted-glass sconce. A door on the right was stencilled with the words Detective Office in thick block letters. He opened it. Immediately the group of detectives in the corner fell quiet and stared at him.
‘He’s here, lads. Danilov’s little chum.’
The voice came from a ginger-haired detective seated at a desk on one side of the group. . Strachan ignored him.
‘And where’s the great detective today? Solving another devilish plot?’ The group of detectives sniggered.
Strachan faced them. They all stopped laughing. ‘It’s his day off. He deserves one day to himself.’
‘He deserves one day to himself,’ mimicked the ginger detective. ‘Shame he missed the murders last night, wasn’t it?’
Chapter 3 (#ulink_a0d69fbf-6533-51e0-8636-2f15519d70ea)
Inspector Danilov’s daughter placed the plate of syrniki in front of him. The food was slightly charred at the edges and gave off a strange orange glow.
She had decided that he needed to eat more regularly, and part of this new healthy regime was a home-cooked breakfast, just like his wife used to make back in Minsk.
Except she didn’t cook like her mother. She cooked like a poet with a vivid imagination; everything was overdone and overwrought.
‘Thank you, Lenchik. It looks delicious.’
There was no answer. Since coming home she had gradually lapsed into an uncommunicative silence, but he would keep trying. ‘Is it a new recipe?’
Again, no answer. She turned back to the stove and took her own plate.
She sat down opposite him. Inspector Danilov saw the puzzled look on her face and that slight tilt of her head to the left. A movement she had made even when she was three years old, explaining to him why her doll had made such a mess on the floor.
Was she pretty? He couldn’t judge. A father can never judge his own daughter.
He stared at the syrniki. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. He tucked into the food with gusto. The strange texture fought with the leftover taste of the opium he had smoked the night before, creating a bitter mixture in his mouth.
He fought the urge to gag and closed his eyes, imagining he was eating a dish from the Princess Ostrapova’s cafe.
‘It’s not that bad,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of starch.
‘It’s not that good, either.’ She pushed the food away from her across the table.
Danilov continued to eat his. ‘What are you going to do today?’
‘Same as I do every day.’
‘Which is?’
‘You know, Papa, you don’t need to ask.’
At least she was talking. He struggled to find a way to keep the conversation going. He had lived on his own for so long before she had come to Shanghai; he had lost the knack of making small talk. And in his job, he didn’t need to. ‘I’m curious about what you do when I’m not here,’ he finally said.
‘I read or go to the movies or eat or sleep. In the mornings, I study Shanghainese and Mandarin. Sometimes I go out for long walks. My day in a nutshell.’ She picked at a thread that had come loose from her housecoat.
‘Why don’t you go back to school? I could arrange for you to attend one.’
‘We’ve been through this before. Not yet, maybe soon.’
‘You’re seventeen now…’
‘Too old for school. Too much to catch up.’
‘It’s not too much.’
She sighed as if explaining something to a six-year-old who kept asking the question ‘why?’. ‘Last time I was at school was when I was twelve. I can’t imagine sitting in some classroom surrounded by giggling schoolgirls. I’ve seen too much since then.’
Danilov pushed his plate away from him. He had eaten half of it. He hoped she wouldn’t notice how much remained. ‘You haven’t told me what happened.’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Not really.’
‘Papa, we’ve been through this so many times.’ She brushed her fingers through her hair and began speaking in a fast monotone as if reciting a story simply because a teacher had demanded it. The voice was flat without emphasis or excitement. ‘After you went to Moscow, the problems started. The local security committee began asking Mama so many questions. Neighbours were called in. A couple made accusations…’
‘About?’
‘About you. Working for the Tsar’s police. Arresting revolutionaries.’
‘They knew all about that. I investigated some anarchists who had planted bombs. The party investigator cleared me in 1922.’
‘It didn’t matter. Mama was under so much pressure. Then one night she woke us, we dressed and ran down to the train station.’
‘A friend had warned her?’
‘See, you know the story better than I do. It doesn’t change, Papa.’
Danilov wanted to roll a cigarette but stopped himself. ‘I just want to know what happened. Maybe it will help me find your mother and brother.’
‘You know what happened next.’
Danilov spoke. ‘I came back and found a note from your mother. She wrote you would meet me in Kiev. But when I got there, I found another note at the station saying you had all gone on to Tsaritsyn.’
‘We never got to that city. Bandits stopped the train. We were forced off near Donetsk. All our clothes, everything, was stolen.’ She picked up the plates and took them to the sink. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’ve told you so many times.’ She washed the dishes, making a loud clattering noise to silence his questions.
He persisted. ‘I just feel there are some details you haven’t told me. Small secrets that could help me find Mama.’
She turned on him, her eyes like light blue ice beneath her shock of brown hair. ‘Secrets? All families have secrets, Father. You above all should know that. I’m not one of your suspects to be interrogated for their crimes.’
‘It’s not that, Lenchik, I just want…’
‘You just want to find Mama. I know. You’ve told me a thousand times.’ She sneered. ‘The great detective who can’t even find his own wife. How that must stick in your throat.’
His heart sank and his head followed. Did she resent him that much? Or was it a stronger emotion, a more Russian emotion, contempt and hate?
He planned to spend the rest of the day with her. They would play a little chess, the only time they could sit opposite each other without her silence coming between them. It was as if the logic of chess was a shared moment, full of the possibility of more shared moments.
And maybe, just maybe, he would be able to ask her a few more questions.
The phone began to ring in the living room. A long, insistent ring that begged to be answered.
Danilov ignored it.‘Lenchik, I just want to bring our family together again. Like the old days in Minsk.’ He recognised the desperation in his own voice. He hadn’t seen his wife or son for four years now. The only clue to their whereabouts was his daughter, and she was telling him nothing. Why?
