Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

“Why the…” Field looked at Maretsky. “Why the stockings and the handcuffs?”

He shook his head. “This is about sexual inadequacy, I think. This is what arouses him, or once did, but he has had a bad experience. He is immature or angry emotionally; he blames others for this inadequacy, which he feels deeply. It is not his fault, but that of the women, and…” He gestured at each of the three photographs in turn. “You see, these are not girls, these are women. All are in their twenties, at least, all fully grown, mature.”

“So these are the women he blames?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Maretsky hesitated. “We are outside the realms of modus operandi.”

“So this stuff is a hobby,” Caprisi said. “We know that.”

“Perhaps such theories have no place in a police investigation.”

“Get on with it, Maretsky,” Macleod said with impatient affection.

Maretsky sighed. “I would have to be familiar with the precise nature of his sexual inadequacy to tell you why. All I can say here is that he feels this inadequacy deeply, and an accompanying sense of rage. The way the girls are asked to dress, the handcuffs, that is part of the picture.”

“I think,” Field said, “that Lu Huang may be impotent.”

They all looked at him. Maretsky frowned.

“The Medvedev girl?” Macleod asked.

“Yes. She is summoned to his house in Rue Wagner, then made to wait for up to two hours in the living room on the first floor. Eventually, a housekeeper comes to fetch her and takes her to the bedroom on the second floor. She is required to stand in front of the bed and take off her clothes. Slowly.” Field was trying not to show any emotion, but he could feel his cheeks reddening again. “Lu lies on the bed, an opium pipe next to him.”

“And then what?”

“When she is naked, she stands there.” Field hesitated, reluctant to share these intimacies. “He looks at her with glazed eyes and then she retrieves her clothes from the floor, goes to a dressing room, dresses again, and leaves by a separate door.”

“That’s it?”

“I think so, yes.”

“That’s what she told you?” Macleod smiled at him, benignly but with more than a hint of disbelief.

“Why would she lie about that?”

“He doesn’t touch her, ask her to come over?” Maretsky asked.

Field hesitated. “I don’t think so, no.”

“She says not?”

“Yes.”

“And you think she is telling you the truth?” Macleod said, daring him to be naive.

“I don’t see why she would lie about it.”

“To manipulate you, Field,” Macleod said. “Which appears all too easy.”

Maretsky was thinking, eyes narrowed behind his still-greasy glasses. “Has he ever asked her to wear anything in particular?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Not that you’re aware of, or definitely not?”

“She says not.”

Maretsky crossed his fat legs, his trousers only reaching two-thirds of the way to his feet. “The impotence would fit. He has become impotent, but does not blame himself and his addiction to the drug, but rather the women who once aroused him. He wants them to dress in the manner he once found so appealing, so that their punishment is more satisfying. It is one explanation.” He looked around. “But only one.”

Field leaned forward in his seat. “But why does he invite Natasha-the Medvedev woman-to his house at Rue Wagner? The others were all murdered in their own apartments.”

“They were killed at home,” Maretsky said, “but we do not know what occurred in the weeks or months preceding their death.” He shook his head. “Whoever it is, he must wish to get to know his potential victims. There may have been previous occasions on which he asks them to strip for him-to attempt to arouse him. Perhaps he believes on each occasion that this girl is the one to excite him and to revive his performance, and his anger is therefore all the greater when it does not work. Perhaps he likes them to perform to stoke that anger, so that the murder is all the more satisfying.” He uncrossed his legs.

They digested this. Field willed Maretsky to gather up the pictures and put them back in the folder.

Caprisi stood and leaned against the wall, beneath a shield from the New York Police Department. “The girl Irina was the first victim. The naked one.”

“Yes. The first one took some savoring. It was exciting. Satisfying, but it probably took him time to bring himself to the point where he needed to do it again. Now he is into the habit of it. He is addicted. The intervals between are likely to get a little shorter; each one is not quite as thrilling as he anticipates. A law of diminishing returns.”

“Unless there were others we don’t know about,” Caprisi said.

Maretsky turned toward him. “Yes.”

“But why Russian girls?” Macleod asked. “He could kill any number of Chinese out there and no one would bat an eyelid. Why Russian girls in the Concession, and now the Settlement?”

“Testing the limits of his power. Perhaps also part of what excites him.”

“But if it is Lu…” Field looked at each of them in turn. “Given his reputation for ruthlessness… I mean, why now? He could have been doing this for years.”

“Dispensing death with an order to a subordinate is not the same as plunging the knife in them himself.”

Macleod rubbed his chain between thumb and forefinger.

Caprisi took out his notebook. “You have an address for either of the girls?”

“My friend said this file and nothing further.” Maretsky stood. “He is smart enough to know what will happen if he gives out addresses.” He left without another word.

Field watched him walk to the lift. Then he reached over and put the photographs back into the file.

“If the French catch us asking about these girls in the Concession without permission, they’ll create hell,” Caprisi said.

“We’ve no choice,” Macleod said. “But be discreet.” He turned to Field. “What about the girl?”

“I’m still working on it.”

“You have briefed her?”

“Yes.”

“She knows what we require?”

“Yes.”

“She has seen the ledgers?”

“No, but she will look.”

“You really think she is reliable?”

Field hesitated.

“She’d better be, because if she isn’t, I want her back inside.”

“She is.”

“It’s Lu she fucks, no one else?”

“She doesn’t-”

“She’s not mentioned anyone else?”

“No. She goes down to his house.”

“And does he ever come to her apartment?”

Field thought of the dressing gown she’d given him, with the short arms. He clenched his fist. “I guess sometimes, yes.”

Macleod looked at him intently. “Lu doesn’t know she was taken in?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Macleod turned to Caprisi. “Are the handcuffs all the same make?”

The American took out the photographs again. He examined each one carefully. “Impossible to say,” he said. When he put them back down on the table, the picture of Natalya Simonov was on top.

“Are we missing something obvious?” Macleod asked. “What about Lena’s other neighbors?”

“Chen talked to them all, but he got nothing.”

Macleod turned to Field. “You’re going back to the factory this afternoon. You will travel with an armed escort. I have asked Charles Lewis to be present at three P.M.; it’s his bloody factory. I might even come myself if I can get out of this damned budget meeting.”

Field put the photographs away again. Then he folded the file and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

Five minutes later Caprisi and Field were sitting alone in the canteen, drinking coffee.