M. Lee - Death In Shanghai

‘And your family?’

Danilov looked down at his hands tied to the arms of the chair. ‘They were caught up in it all. With two other families, they decided to leave the city and go south.’

‘They fled south.’ More scratching from the pen of the Chinese man. ‘And what did you do?’ the man in the mask asked softly, the hand coming up to scratch the outside of the mask where the nose should have been.

‘I followed them.’

‘No. What did you do before you followed them?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I think you do, Inspector. Didn’t you arrest the killer in Moscow first?’

‘Yes, but that was my job, to catch the killer. That was why I was there. And the news was so confused from Minsk. Nobody knew what was happening.’ Danilov paused to catch his breath. ‘I followed as soon as I could,’ he said quietly.

‘Wasn’t there a woman too?’

‘A woman?’

‘The sister of the man you were chasing.’

‘Her? Yes, she was in Moscow too.’

‘Didn’t you stay on in Moscow because of her?’

‘Yes…I mean no. It wasn’t like that.’

‘Like what?’

Danilov raised his voice. ‘You are insinuating that I stayed on in Moscow because of her.’

‘Well, didn’t you?’

‘She asked me to stay to catch her brother. She didn’t trust the police in Moscow.’

‘So you stayed.’

‘Yes.’

‘For five weeks.’

‘Yes.’

‘Whilst your family were forced to flee from a purge in Minsk.’

The answer when it came was soft, a whisper. ‘Yes.’

Danilov’s interrogator turned to the bald-headed Chinese man. ‘I think the case is proven, don’t you, Li Min?’

‘Haven’t you ever made a mistake? Haven’t you wished you could roll back time and change what you did? Acted differently, made different choices?’ Danilov shouted at the mask. Then he dropped his head onto his chest. ‘If I had my time back, I would have stayed with Maria and Ivan and Elina.’

The man’s voice was firm, almost strident. ‘The only mistake I made, Danilov, was not starting my work earlier. I thought the system would punish those who had committed crimes. But I was wrong. Even worse, I found it rewarded them.’

Danilov lifted his head again, aware of the change in the man’s voice. ‘So that’s when you started killing?’

‘I didn’t “start killing” as you say. I began to judge those who had done wrong, to bring them before the court. To punish them for the crimes that I knew they had committed, but that the courts of Shanghai refused to do anything about.’

Danilov waited for a while and then he said, ‘I know who you are. I’ve known for a while. You made too many mistakes.’

Strachan had rung the Inspector’s home from three different places. Each time, there had been no answer.

He tried to remember what Danilov had said to him. Something about ‘feeding the wolf’. He thought at the time it was another one of his Russian sayings. But he now wondered if it was a bit more obvious, more direct. Had Danilov gone to find the killer himself?

Strachan looked at the paper from the fingerprint lab again. The name couldn’t be right, could it? The thought was outlandish. A man who had risen so high was the killer?

He was close to the station now. He folded the paper from the fingerprint lab carefully and put it in his inside pocket.

What should he do? Danilov had vanished. Perhaps he should let Meaker know? But Meaker was hell-bent on arresting the boatman. He wouldn’t be interested.

How about Chief Inspector Boyle?

He imagined Boyle’s reaction. ‘You must be mistaken, Strachan. Check it again, boy. Who do you think you are? Making such outrageous accusations against a senior member of Shanghai society.’ His father had warned him all about the establishment and how it stuck together to protect its own.

He waved at Sergeant Wolfe as he walked through the foyer. Got to behave like nothing happened. Just another day on the job. He had to avoid Meaker though. He didn’t want to get involved with his arrest of the boatman.

He peered through the glass door of the detectives’ office to make sure neither Meaker nor Cartwright were hanging around.

Miss Cavendish would know how to get hold of Danilov. She knew everything in Central Police Station. She even knew his mother’s name. If there was one person who would know where Danilov had gone to, it would be her.

Unless, of course, he had gone to confront the killer. A shudder went down Strachan’s spine at the thought.

She was behind her desk as usual, sucking on the Parma Violets that she loved so much. Their floral scent surrounded her like a bouquet of flowers. As he approached her desk, she put her fingers to her lips and pointed to Boyle’s door. ‘They’re both in there,’ she whispered.

‘Who?’

‘Chief Inspector Boyle and Inspector Meaker. Planning the arrest of the boatman. Mum’s the word. I didn’t tell you.’

‘I’ve been trying to get hold of Inspector Danilov, do you know where he is?’

‘He rang me earlier today and asked me to give you this message. You are to go to 76, Nansoochow Road as soon as you can.’

‘Where’s that?’ He leant over and took the address from her.

‘It’s the Rowing Club, Detective Strachan. I had a wonderfully elegant evening there back in ’07, dancing in the open air in front of the creek. The lights were so beautiful and the music…’ Miss Cavendish trailed off, lost in her memories of young beaux and Strauss waltzes.

Strachan snatched his hat off her table. ‘Thank you, Miss Cavendish, you’ve been a great help.’

‘But it will be closed now, nobody uses it any more,’ said Miss Cavendish to the closing door.

It opened again a second later, and Strachan rushed back in. ‘Can you get the Mobile Unit to go to the address? I think we’ll need them.’

‘Of course, I’ll use Chief Inspector Boyle’s name. They’ll jump if they think the request is from him.’

But again, she was talking to empty space. Strachan had already gone.

***

‘So you think you know who I am, Danilov?’

‘How many people have you tried in your courts, Mr Allen?’ Danilov stared straight into the green eyes behind the mask.

The pen stopped scribbling across the page. In the cell, time stood still for a moment.

‘You were always too clever, Danilov, that was another of your failings. Cleverness is all right as long as it’s hidden. We British have been taught that in our public schools for years. The tall poppy gets its head chopped off. Better to hide away in the middle of everything, hiding behind a veneer of banality, of cigars and chums, of small talk and even smaller ideas.’

‘You were different?’

‘I’ve always been different. But I’ve always known how to play the game. To hide behind a mask.’ Allen reached up and slowly removed the face of Yama. ‘It’s always so hot in this bloody thing, but people do like a bit of theatre even when they’re facing death. How did you know it was me, Danilov?’

‘One of your victims told me.’

‘One of my victims? But they were all dead.’

‘Not all of them. Maria Stepanova was still alive when you put her in the barrel of pig’s blood.’

‘The scratches on the inside of the lid?’

Danilov nodded his head.

‘I should have arranged your trial earlier, Danilov. I underestimated you.’ Allen loosened his black jacket to reveal a green, white and red tattoo etched into his chest. The face of Judge Yama in all his glory.

Danilov stared at the tattoo. Allen had kept many things hidden beneath his veneer of civilisation. ‘At first I was confused, there were so many different things going on. Chinese characters, rope bindings, blue eyes. But it was the extremely personal nature of the killings that first struck me. The killer was always up close at the moment of death, enjoying the process of the extinction of life. These deaths meant something to him.’