Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

She looked up. “What’s yours?”

The faint smile was back, her fragility evaporating.

“My name is Field.”

“That’s not much of a name.” Her voice was husky, like a singer who has spent too much time performing in smoke-filled nightclubs.

“Richard. But most people call me ‘Field.’ ”

“How unromantic.”

Field gestured with his pen. “Can I take your name?”

“Medvedev.”

He waited. “And your first name?”

“I don’t think we’re on first-name terms, do you?”

Field wasn’t certain how to respond to her teasing, and couldn’t tell whether it was gentle or barbed.

“Natasha,” she said. “Natasha Medvedev. But most people call me Natasha.”

“You found the body about an hour ago?”

“Yes.” She removed her arms from her shoulders, and for a moment her dressing gown parted sufficiently to reveal the curve of her breasts. His face reddened as he realized she saw the direction of his gaze.

“You went around for milk?”

“I’d run out.”

“So you knocked, but there was no answer?”

“That’s right, Officer.”

“There was no answer, so you went in?”

“We’ve just been through this.”

Field looked at her. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I’m being stupid. You went around to get milk, you knocked, there was no response, so… then what?”

She didn’t answer.

“It’s just, if you hardly knew the woman, it would seem more logical to turn around and come back to your own flat.”

Natasha was looking at him as if he were the stupidest man she’d ever met. “The door was open.”

“So you went in to see if you could borrow some milk?”

She didn’t bother to answer.

“Then what?”

“Then I found the body.”

Field stopped writing. “How did you do that?”

“Inspector, I think this conversation has gone as far as-”

“I’m not an inspector.”

She sighed. “No, well…”

“Was it the smell?”

She screwed up her face in disgust.

“It’s just,” Field said slowly, “that I don’t see how you got to the bedroom when the kitchen is the other side of the living room.” He pointed. “The same layout as here.”

Natasha Medvedev stared at him, and he held her gaze. He had no idea what he saw there. Contempt, perhaps. What he didn’t understand was that it would have been very easy to make up a convincing lie, and she wasn’t bothering to do so.

Field was still standing close to the photographs, and he took a step toward the bookshelf as one at the back caught his eye. Natasha was standing on what looked like the dance floor of a nightclub. She wore a figure-hugging dress with a plunging neckline, her unfashionably long hair tumbling over her shoulder just as it did now, her face impassive. By contrast, the woman next to her-not in the same league as her friend and with too much makeup, but an open, friendly face-was smiling.

Field held it up, pointing to the second woman. “Lena Orlov.”

Natasha Medvedev shook her head. “No, another friend.” As she said it, she was transformed again, clutching herself once more, dropping her head, so that her hair fell forward.

“Oh God,” she muttered under her breath.

Field did not know what to do. He took a pace toward her, then another. He shut his notebook and slipped it back into the pocket of his jacket.

“I’m sorry, Miss Medvedev.”

She did not respond.

“Is there anything I can get you?”

She shook her head, gathering her hair at the back of her neck with her hand.

“There’s nothing I can do for you?”

She looked up. “You can go away.”

Field hesitated again, wishing that her eyes betrayed something other than bored hostility.

“Of course. Thank you for your time.”

“It’s been my pleasure.”

“I doubt that.”

She shrugged.

Field stepped out into the corridor, pulling the door quietly shut. He breathed in deeply, allowing himself a moment’s peace before returning to the savagery of the apartment next door.

He put his hands in his pockets.

Was it just that he couldn’t fault her, that she was physically perfect? Is that all it was?

Caprisi was standing by the French windows in the living room, looking out toward the racecourse. He turned as Field came in. “Chen’s already been downstairs,” he said. “There are two couples below, both away in New York. We’ll have a talk with the doorman in a minute. Chen says the flats on this floor belong to Lu Huang. Pockmark Huang.”

Field nodded. “I see.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“You understand?”

“Yes. So… both these women belong to Lu also.” Field tried to dispel a sense of discomfort at the combination of this news and the recollection of Natasha Medvedev in her white dressing gown. Why wasn’t she dressed when it was past lunchtime?

“There is no sign of the murder weapon,” Caprisi said. “The handcuffs have been wiped clean, so…” He turned to Field, staring right through him. “Somebody has been cleaning up. Somebody has been in here after the murder and cleaned up.” The American looked up. “What did the woman say?” he asked, but his demeanor suggested he already knew the answer.

“She was not helpful,” Field said quietly.

Caprisi turned to the window and looked out toward the clock tower, wrestling with himself. “Fuck it.”

Maretsky emerged from the bedroom, blinking through his small thick glasses. His hair was even longer and scruffier than it had been when he’d come down to lecture the new recruits. Once a professor of philosophy at St. Petersburg University, Maretsky had found a niche here as an expert in the methods of Shanghai’s criminals. His official title was head of Modus Operandi and from his desk in the main police library and records office, he assisted both the Crime Branch and the Special Branch. He brought his philosophical and psychological training to his work and had somehow managed to command wide respect in an intensely macho force. His insightful lectures had been, Field thought, the highlight of the official police training.

Maretsky took a couple of paces toward the window. “She’s in sexually appealing underwear.” His Russian accent was as faint as Natasha Medvedev’s. “She’s handcuffed to the bed, so that she cannot move. There’s no sign of a struggle, but nor is there any indication of assault, or even of consensual intercourse. As you say, no semen on her panties or on the bed.” He shrugged. “Of course, there’s a lot of blood.”

“So what does that mean?”

“Is it what she liked?” Maretsky asked, glancing at the photographs on the bookshelf. “The handcuffs, I mean. And the underwear. Or is it a man’s sexual fantasy? A man whom she is in love with, or serves in some way.”

“They had an argument, lovers’ quarrel?” Caprisi asked. “He ties her up, then they have a fight?”

“No.” Maretsky shook his head emphatically. “This must be about a much deeper, more virulent rage. Look at the body. We are probably seeing rage against women in general, not Lena Orlov in particular.”

Field thought of the woman lying on the bed and the disconcerting appearance of pleasure that death had left playing on her lips. He found himself imagining the terror on her face as the knife was plunged into her, again and again.

“Chen says,” Caprisi went on, “that this flat and the one next door belong to Pockmark Lu. And therefore, presumably, the women in it.”

Maretsky said, “She was obviously a… you know, high-class.”

“She was his woman?”

“I’m sure he would have had her, but she may have had other uses.”

“Hiring her out?”