Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

“You mean he’s done similar things before?”

“I mean there is a history leading up to this. You would have a pattern of violence against women. To begin with, beating, sexually abusing… the abuse becomes steadily more violent. Then, one day, it gets out of hand and he actually kills a girl. He enjoys it. So now he goes about achieving the same satisfaction with greater confidence. He knows what he wants. The kind of attire he likes, tied up, under control.”

“So there might be a pattern?”

“There is a pattern. One might be able to find it.”

“And now it will accelerate?”

“I would say he has done this before. It will certainly continue now, and it might accelerate.”

“Other girls in Lu’s possession?”

“I don’t know.”

“So we do nothing?”

Maretsky shrugged.

“So you won’t help me?”

“I wish you good luck.”

“Tell me about Lu.”

“What about him?”

“He’s your private obsession.” Field looked at the clippings on the wall.

“Only in an academic sense.”

“Then tell me about him in an academic way. Whatever has happened, he is at the center of it.”

Maretsky closed his newspaper. He took off his glasses and placed them carefully on the desk. “There are many files,” he said quietly.

“And most of them are not in the system.”

Maretsky stared at his hands for a long time.

“Lu is restless. In ten years he has accrued to himself absolute power. You won’t believe me, of course, won’t accept the true nature of the word ‘absolute,’ or the influence I ascribe to him. Only those who know the city completely do. But it is true nevertheless. However, his power is never enough. Never. There is always someone not quite under control… something that is irritating, like a fly.”

Field wiped away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead. “Money? In the French Concession, I mean. He’s bribing people. Is that it?”

Maretsky smiled. “In the French Concession. Oh yes. Don’t they say every man has his price?” He straightened. “It’s true, of course. Every man does have his price.”

“So he buys people.”

“You misunderstand me. Every man has his price, but that does not mean every man can be bought.”

“Try to be less obtuse.”

“You’re an intelligent man, Mr. Field.” He nodded. “I can appreciate that, though perhaps not why you ended up here. I don’t doubt you are flushed with idealism and an optimistic and perhaps even opportunistic sense of the possible.”

“So it’s not always about money? He finds other ways of controlling people. Blackmail?”

“It is not always money. He likes the feeling of absolute control and has developed a taste for more, shall we say, persuasive measures. He is a gangster, a nobody from nowhere who had terrible bad luck as a child in a country where bad luck usually means destitution and death. He survived. With a cunning and ruthlessness and skill we can only imagine, he has dragged himself up through the underbelly of this city to a position he could never have dreamed would ever be his. He has power and money beyond the imagination of most Chinese, let alone those who began life in such desperate circumstances. His position is an obsession. He will leave nothing to chance and do anything to protect it. He has systematically set out to buy everyone and everything in this city so that he can never go back to the world he has fought so hard to get away from. The fear of a return to poverty keeps him awake at night, still. In this city it is the survival of the fittest, and believe me, he has done everything in his power to ensure no one can touch him. He is unassailable. If he is behind these murders, then you cannot win and you may as well not try.”

“So what other measures does he use?”

Maretsky frowned, as if frustrated that his message was not getting through. “Ask Caprisi to tell you about Slugger, Field.” Maretsky shook his head. “But why do you, a bright ambitious young man with the right social connections-or so I have heard-why do you care about a poor Russian princess who fell by the wayside?”

Field straightened. He felt his face reddening.

“You are a knight in shining armor, is that it?”

“No one is unassailable, Maretsky.”

“Then how little you really know.”

As Field and Caprisi stepped out of the car in front of the Happy Times block, a few rays of sunshine broke through the clouds, giving the yellow stone a mellow glow. The building had wide, circular stone steps at its entrance, with a small area of garden on either side, the trees now in bloom, the pink petals of their flowers thick on the ground, where they’d been swept up by the winds that sometimes accompanied the summer monsoons.

In the lift Caprisi checked his hair and turned to Field as they reached the top floor. It was just the two of them. According to the American, Chen had gone off before the briefing to try to establish the identities of the men who’d seized the doorman.

Field thought that Natasha Medvedev had been expecting them, because she was already dressed-in a long, floral skirt, with a simple white blouse-and they were ushered in without any resistance. Natasha ignored him and focused her attentions on Caprisi. She seemed different-quieter, shorn again of the air of sophistication and weary cynicism. All Field could remember was his anger at the sight of the old man clawing her buttocks the previous evening, light from the chandeliers reflecting off the sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“Some water, please.”

She turned to Field, without expression, but he shook his head.

Natasha came back with a glass of water and handed it to Caprisi.

“You were a friend of Lena Orlov?” Caprisi asked.

“Yes.”

“How close?”

She shrugged. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re both Russian girls. Did you know each other before you came to Shanghai?”

“Yes, we were at school together in Kazan, on the Volga. Our fathers were friends.”

Caprisi got out his notebook, taking the stub of a pencil from the top pocket of his jacket. “Does Lena have any relatives here in Shanghai?”

Natasha shook her head. “No. Most of her close family perished.” She looked at her feet, which were in open sandals. She moved them to and fro, before crossing one long, slim leg over the other, the skirt riding up the smooth skin of her calf.

“Did you see or hear anyone coming to the apartment the night before last?”

She looked up again. “I was out.”

“All night?”

“More or less.”

“What time did you leave?”

She thought for a moment. “About eleven.”

“And you didn’t hear anyone coming up the lift?”

“No.”

“You didn’t drop around before going out?”

Natasha shook her head.

“You went out… where?”

“The Majestic.”

“So when was the last time you saw her?”

Natasha hesitated. “In the afternoon.” She sat up straight, flicking her hair from her eyes. “I went for a walk on the recreation ground and, as I returned, Lena was coming in below. She’d been shopping on Nanking Road.”

“How was she?”

“She was…” Natasha shrugged. “She was okay.”

“Only okay?”

“What do you want, Detective? Her life wasn’t a picnic.”

Natasha was staring at both of them now, her brown eyes angry.

“She went into her flat,” Caprisi went on, unruffled, “and you into your own, and you heard nothing more until you went out again in the evening?”

“Yes.”

“And what about after your return that night? What time did you come in?”