M. Lee - Death In Shanghai

Danilov grabbed the tie and shirt and ripped them open. Dr Fang handed him a pen. ‘Take the barrel. Just the barrel and wash it in hot water.’

Danilov nodded. He ran to the sink and ran the water. Over his shoulder, he could see Dr Fang lean over Strachan with the scalpel. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he plunged the knife into Strachan’s throat.

‘The barrel, I need the barrel now.’

He ran back to the mortuary table. Dr Fang snatched the barrel of the pen from Danilov’s hand.

Blood was oozing from the cut in Strachan’s Adam’s apple. Dr Fang inserted the end of the barrel into the young detective’s throat. He bent down and placed his lips around the barrel and began to blow.

He stopped, stood up and examined the chest. ‘Place your hands here. Tell me when you feel it inflate.’ He pointed to the centre of Strachan’s chest.

He bent over once again, blowing into the barrel that stuck out from Strachan’s throat.

Danilov looked down at the chest.

Nothing happened.

Dr Fang blew again, this time slightly harder.

Again nothing.

‘Press down on the chest with your hands, just above the sternum.’

‘What?’

‘Press down with your hands on the chest just here.’ He pointed where Strachan’s heart was.

Danilov began to press down.

‘Harder, man, use your strength.’

Danilov used his body weight and leant into Strachan’s body, pressing, once, twice, three times.

‘Stop,’ shouted Dr Fang. He bent over the barrel and blew into it three times, each time stepping back to look at the chest. ‘Again. This time, press harder.’

Danilov put his hands over Strachan’s heart and pressed down.

‘Sit down, Inspector Danilov.’ Boyle reached for his box and offered a cigarette. Danilov lifted his bandaged right arm.

The Chief Inspector scratched his nose. ‘Oh, I suppose not, given the circumstances.’

Danilov stared at the wall behind the Chief Inspector’s head. The old print of a Chinese street scene had been replaced by a new one. It was of a horse race, the lead horse a white charger, beating two other horses by a short head. The horse’s neck was lengthened unnaturally, its whole body straining for the line. Danilov could read the caption beneath: ‘Faisalabad winning the Gold Cup in 1870’.

Boyle coughed. ‘Look here, Danilov, I just wanted to congratulate you on solving the case. The Director of Criminal Investigation is over the moon, to use a rather quaint modern phrase.’

Danilov’s arm still hurt, throbbing like the engine of a car. He would have to smoke another pipe in the afternoon to help with the pain. He craved the opium even more now. It dulled the pain in his arm and the pain in his heart at the same time. ‘Thank you.’

‘A couple of things have been troubling me though.’ He scratched his bald head. This time, Danilov couldn’t see any flakes of scalp drifting down onto the suit. ‘The most important is how did you know it was Allen?’

‘He made mistakes. All criminals do. Two major ones in his case.’

Boyle leaned forward. ‘Which were?’

‘He gave Miss Cavendish some sweets.’

‘I don’t understand. What has Miss Cavendish got to do with this?’

‘One of the witnesses, the boatman, reported smelling a strange smell when Allen passed him on river. I thought it was probably a distinctive cologne.’

‘Like my 4711. Picked up a case in France when I was there.’

‘Precisely. Except it wasn’t. When Miss Cavendish came into the interview room, she was chewing the sweets that Allen had given her. The boatman recognised the smell right away. When I found the same sweets in the stolen taxi, then it all fell into place.’

Boyle scratched his head again. ‘And the second mistake?’

‘He allowed one of the victims to tell me who he was.’

Danilov was going to leave it at that but Boyle pressed on. ‘I don’t understand. How could a dead person tell you the name of the killer?’

Danilov sighed. ‘It was the last thing Maria Tatiana Stepanova did before she died. She scratched the words “HATE ALL” into the base of the lid with her fingernails.’

He imagined her last moments, gasping for breath, the smell of the pig’s blood, its slimy wet stickiness touching her naked body. ‘I thought the killer had done it. Another warning. Dr Fang showed me the truth. She scratched it with her nails. The strength of will and presence of mind to write those words at that moment…’

‘But weren’t the words “HATE ALL”?’

‘That’s right. At first, I thought it was English.’

‘“HATE ALL” sounds pretty English to me.’

‘That’s just it. The word “HATE” wasn’t English at all. Why would a dying Russian woman write in English? Strachan pointed it out to me and all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle clicked into place. She was writing in her own language. Russian. I should have realised it much earlier. In Cyrillic, the word “HATE” is used when you are giving something to somebody. She was giving us her killer.’

‘What about “ALL”?’

‘That’s the saddest part. She was giving us his name. But she died before she could finish writing it. Once I realised that, I knew who our killer was. Proving it though was a different matter.’

‘That’s why you went to find him?’

‘We had to bring him out into the open.’

‘A dangerous game.’

‘I think it would have been more dangerous not to go.’

Boyle scratched his head. A red lesion appeared on the skin. ‘Very clever.’

‘I should have spotted it much earlier. May have been able to save the life of Dr Renfrew if I had. Mr Allen was…’ He searched for the right words.

‘We are well aware of that Mr Allen was.’ He searched for the right words, ‘…a misguided man.’

‘Misguided? He murdered at least five people. Probably more.’ Danilov reached across and took a cigarette out from the box with his left hand. Boyle reached over and lit it for him. He inhaled the rich tobacco. ‘It will all come out in the trial.’

‘Allen is dead. There will be no trial.’ Boyle knitted his arms across his chest and stared at Danilov.

‘But there has to be a trial.’

‘Li Min has already been handed over to the Chinese authorities in Chapei.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘He was due to be executed this morning. I’m sure his head no longer rests on his shoulders.’

Danilov just sat there, his yellow pallor even more pronounced. The cigarette burned uselessly in his hand, its blue smoke rising up to stain the ceiling.

‘Allen is already dead, and now the Chinese man has joined him in his own version of hell. No point in stirring things up unnecessarily, is there?’

‘But justice…’

‘Justice is a fickle mistress. She changes her affections depending on the mood of the day or of the time.’ Boyle threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘Danilov, you’re a man of the world, you know how these things work.’

‘But he murdered five people…’

Boyle sighed, combing back the tuft of hair above his ear with his hand. ‘Sometimes, I just don’t understand you. How do you think a police force of 150 Europeans, a few Russians, Sikhs and Japanese manages to control a city with a Chinese population of four million people?’

Danilov stayed quiet, his cigarette beginning to burn his fingers.

‘It’s an illusion, that’s all it is. We have managed to convince four million people only we can manage their affairs to ensure they enjoy the freedom to make money, make children and make a life. We do it all because they respect us. Respect our prestige as natural rulers. That prestige must be maintained at all costs.’