Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

Field could see he was as mystified as the pair of them. “What about the last entry?” he said. “The Saratoga on the twenty-sixth.”

Jenkins returned to his study of the ledger, running his finger down the pages until he found what he was looking for. “Ah, thought so. The Saratoga came in yesterday, from India. Empty.”

“Empty?” Caprisi asked.

“I thought ships generally took goods both ways,” Field added.

“Generally. Not always. Maybe she took cargo from Europe to India, had a contract out of here. Didn’t want to wait for something out of Bombay.”

“Must be a lucrative contract here to make it worth the rush,” Caprisi said.

“Fraser’s is a big company. The lure of regular work, I should think.”

“If the Saratoga is in,” Field said, “can we inspect her?”

“Of course.” Jenkins stood and opened his drawer, pulling out a Smith & Wesson revolver and putting it in his holster before leading the way down the staircase and through the throng that was still emerging from the exit.

It was less busy on the wharf inside, though there were small groups of passengers waiting in the shade of the customs inspection area as coolies hauled their baggage onto carts, or, in some cases, their backs.

Jenkins walked briskly out into the sunshine. Field squinted until they reached the shadow of an iron-framed shelter. There were fewer people here: some coolies squatting, a small group loading sacks onto a river steamer. The farther they went, the larger the ships became. The Saratoga was moored about halfway along the wharf.

It was a white ship with two yellow funnels. A dirty blue lifeboat hung above a gangplank with a rickety handrail covered in white canvas. Jenkins led the way.

They stepped onto the wooden deck and looked about, sheltered by an awning. There were two circular portholes ahead of them on either side of a wooden door. Jenkins walked down to a big cargo deck in front of the accommodation area, below the bridge. As they rounded the corner, a young Indian, who had been lying out in the sun, leaped to his feet and eyed them warily. His shorts were scruffy and his vest stained.

“Where’s the captain?” Jenkins demanded imperiously, but the man shook his head.

Jenkins led them back through the wooden door and up some steep iron steps to the bridge. The inside of the ship smelled of ingrained grease and the corridors were dark, like the lower decks of the vessel in which Field had set out from London earlier in the year.

There was no one on the bridge, which was small. “Only just got in,” Jenkins said. “I suppose they’ll be down Blood Alley.”

“What about searching belowdeck, in the bow?” Field asked.

Jenkins grunted and retraced his steps once more. He pulled open a wooden hatch in the middle of the deck, watched nervously by the Indian, who made no attempt to help or intervene, and descended into the darkness below.

The three of them looked around the cavernous hold, but there was little to see. They were standing on an iron floor, ropes and winches and disused tools strewn around them, along with the other detritus of a working ship. It smelled of grease and salt.

“It would be a good cover for smuggling, wouldn’t it?” Caprisi said.

“What would?” Jenkins asked.

Caprisi took a step forward. “What could be more harmless than a batch of sewing machines shipped by a subsidiary of Fraser’s?”

“I’m not following you,” Jenkins said irritably.

“If you wanted to smuggle something into Europe, you’d choose a shipment of goods that customs officials were unlikely to be in a hurry to check thoroughly. You could hardly find anything more harmless than a bunch of sewing machines.”

Jenkins frowned. It occurred to Field, as it had perhaps to Caprisi, that any operation of the kind they were talking about would be unlikely to leave the activities of customs officials to chance.

“I think we’d better find the captain,” Jenkins said. “Come back to my office and give me a number-I’ll contact you when he turns up.”

Field was the last to come down the gangplank and he hesitated for a moment at the bottom. The sky was still a clear, bright blue. A huge Union Jack above the dome of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank was slack in the still air. A flock of seagulls circled “Big Ching,” the clock tower of the Customs House, before breaking out across the river, as if something had startled them.

Field looked back. The deckhand was still watching him.

Sergei lived above the Siberian Fur Shop in the heart of Little Russia, in a tiny apartment with paint peeling from its walls.

He was the image of a radical student intellectual, with long, unwashed hair, a narrow face coated with stubble, and small, round glasses.

“Have you got a minute?” Field asked.

“Who are you?”

Field reached into his pocket and flicked open his wallet.

“Which branch?”

“It’s on there.”

“It doesn’t say.”

“S.1.”

“Special Branch.”

“Correct. My colleague here is from Crime. Can we come in?”

Sergei’s eyes darted between them, but Field could not tell whether it was because he had something to hide or because he was nervous of visitors. He stepped back and allowed them to enter.

Inside, it was even smaller than Field had first guessed, and filthy. An unmade bed alongside the far wall jutted out into a sea of discarded clothes and dirty plates, glasses, and coffee cups. There was an abstract oil painting above the bed of St. Basil’s Cathedral just south of Red Square. On a small table an overflowing ashtray rested against the base of a shabby lamp. The flat stank. A violin and trumpet were propped up in the far corner.

Sergei sat down on the bed. Field and Caprisi declined his invitation to take the ragged sofa opposite. Caprisi walked over to the window and, without asking, opened it. He turned back to see if there was any reaction, but Sergei was examining his long, manicured nails.

Sergei looked at Caprisi, then back at Field. “You’re from the Settlement.”

“This is a murder investigation, Sergei,” Field said.

“I don’t want to get into trouble with the French authorities.”

After appraising it distastefully, Caprisi sat down on the sofa. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”

Sergei flexed his fingers.

“When did you last see Lena Orlov?” Caprisi asked.

Sergei thought for a moment. “The night before…” He shrugged. “You know.”

“The night before she was murdered?”

“Yes.” He nodded for emphasis.

“Where?”

“At the Majestic. I play-”

“You play there, we know.” Caprisi leaned forward. “I’d like you to take this opportunity to tell us anything that you know about Lena that might be relevant.”

Sergei shrugged.

“You were her-”

“No.” He shook his head. “No.”

“What, then?”

“Friends.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“At the Majestic.” He nodded again.

“How long ago?”

“Two months, three, four. I don’t know.”

“Which?”

“Four, maybe.”

“So you didn’t know her in Russia?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No.”

“You met her at the Majestic?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t know her before then?”

“No.”

“You’d never seen her before?”

He hesitated. “I don’t think so, no.”

“You don’t think so, or no for sure?”

“No.”

“So you came here… how many years ago?”

“Four.”

“Four years ago. Nineteen twenty-two. You’ve lived here in Little Russia all that time?”