Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

For a moment Field stood still. He saw Lewis move, then turn around. Their eyes met.

Field moved quickly down the stairs. He retrieved his jacket and pistol from the chair and walked to the door.

Outside, without saying anything, the doorman offered him a cigarette. Field took it in the hope that it would relax his nerves, but it had the opposite effect.

He closed his eyes. Christ, he was drunk.

He waited, pacing one way and then another, wondering what he should do. He couldn’t see any rickshaws and they seemed to be down some kind of back alley.

The door opened and Lewis was standing there, his hat on, unruffled and cool. “What was that all about?”

Field stared at him. “I don’t fuck prostitutes.”

“Suit yourself.” Lewis shrugged. “They’re pretty top-end, you know. Good-time girls.”

Field didn’t respond, taking another deep drag on his cigarette.

“They’re only Chinese girls.” Lewis saw the look on Field’s face and frowned. “All right, we’ll take it down a step.” Somehow the Buick had appeared from nowhere and Lewis bent over to speak to his driver once more. “Majestic Café.” He turned to Field. “Come on, Russian girls. They sometimes do it for free.”

Field shook his head. “No. Thanks, but no thanks.”

Lewis was laughing at him again. “Come on.”

“No, I’ve an early start.”

“Haven’t we all.”

Field shrugged. “Maybe I just haven’t adjusted yet.”

“Don’t you want to see where Lena Orlov worked?”

Through the haze of his drunkenness, Field tried to identify what kind of look had crossed Lewis’s face, but he couldn’t be sure. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t you want to see where Lena Orlov worked?”

“You knew her?”

“Hardly. Of her. She danced at the Majestic. We took a turn once, but she was too tarty for me.”

Field found himself thinking not of Lena but Natasha. “All right,” he said.

On the way to the club, Field had barely registered where they were going, but he saw now that they’d been in the Outside Roads Area, a part of Shanghai that was not quite under either international or Chinese jurisdiction-the road belonged to the international community, but the houses off it were a gray area-and it took a few minutes to return to the better-lit streets of the Settlement. They didn’t talk on the way.

The Majestic Café was on the first floor, and Field recognized her voice as they walked up the newly carpeted staircase. “Best Russian girls in town,” Lewis said, but Field ignored him.

Her voice was low, husky, languid, as if the song could go on all night. As he came to the top of the stairs and saw her, she was almost caressing the microphone, her hips swaying gently from side to side with the mesmeric rhythm of a metronome, her unfashionably long brown hair tumbling down the front of a close-cut, regally elegant white dress.

Ahead of them, couples twirled slowly on an enormous dance floor, but on both sides, those still seated watched the stage, held by the power of her voice.

“I think you’d better shut your mouth, old boy, in case you catch a fly,” Lewis said, smirking at him. “Jacket on,” he whispered.

Lewis walked forward to the iron balcony overlooking the dance floor, and for a moment Field thought that Natasha was looking at him, but her eyes returned slowly to the middle of the room, her hips still swaying as she threw her head back and smiled.

The song came to an end and she put the microphone down. For a moment there was a hushed silence, as if they wanted to be sure she had finished, and then the room was filled with thunderous applause, some of the men close to the stage on their feet and shouting, “Encore! Encore!”

She waved them away, almost contemptuously, before climbing down the small wooden steps at the end of the stage. As a large man stood and walked up to take her place, she tried to make her way down the side of the dance floor, past well-wishers and admirers who impeded her progress. She bent her head to kiss an elderly, balding man who was seated in front of her, and he held her arm, whispering in her ear. Field noticed how low her dress was cut. She had a string of pearls around her neck that reached almost to the floor when she was bending down, and her hair obscured her face.

She laughed and the man stood, taking her hand and leading her through to the dance floor, smiling smugly, Field thought, as they took their place among the twirling couples.

He forced himself to turn away, only to find Lewis still smiling at him. “In love, eh?” He shook his head. “Beyond your price range, old man.”

“She was a friend of Lena Orlov’s.”

“She was, but then, I think you’ll find Natasha has quite a few friends, if you know what I mean.”

Field turned to face the dance floor again, to avoid saying something he would regret. His eyes were drawn back to her even though he tried to focus on almost anyone else.

She towered over the old man, but he was clutching her-pawing her-his hand on her buttocks.

Was that what she did? She danced and fucked men like that for money?

Field looked up across her head, to the tables beyond. This room had formed the backdrop for the photograph he’d seen of Natasha and Lena together.

“Does she work here?” he asked Lewis.

“Who?”

“Natasha… Miss Medvedev.”

“Not anymore.”

“She used to?”

“Not so very long ago, she was the star attraction, but she only takes a turn now if she wants to. She sings when the mood takes her. Great voice.”

“What has caused the change in her position?”

Lewis shrugged. He was playing the indolent, ignorant playboy, but Field had already judged him a man of shrewd intelligence, much sharper than he liked to make out.

Field was suddenly certain that Lewis had slept with Natasha.

The band temporarily halted, the white man at this end of the stage lowering his trombone and wiping the sweat from his brow with a cloth. Lewis turned around, descended the steps to the dance floor, and walked to the other side. He followed Natasha as she glided elegantly to her place on the plinth above and waited as the elderly man she had danced with kissed her hand.

Natasha smiled as she saw Charles Lewis, and Field watched him kiss her on the cheek and lead her back to the floor as the band started up again.

Field found it impossible to take his eyes off them.

They were a handsome couple, the same height, his face square and handsome, save for a broken nose, hers so perfectly formed it was uncomfortable to look at.

Field tore himself away and turned around.

He needed to have a piss, so he walked to the set of swinging doors beside him and pushed his way through to the corridor beyond, smacking the doors loudly into the walls.

He washed his hands, looking at his face in the mirror and seeing his anger reflected back at him. He breathed in deeply and bent his head.

Back in the lobby, he bought a packet of cigarettes from the attendant. He smoked one, looking out through a small window at the end at the rooftops behind the Bund. It was time to go home now. Lewis would probably not even notice he’d gone.

He was leaning against the wall, thinking he was smoking too much, when Natasha Medvedev came through. Her smile faded as she saw him. He straightened, holding the cigarette down by his side.

“I’m not one of your schoolmasters,” she said.

Field tried to laugh, but wasn’t certain he even got as far as a smile. Self-consciously, he took another drag.

“Are you going to offer me one?”

He dug the packet from his pocket and chucked it at her. She caught it and took one, waiting until he leaned forward to light it.