Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

Field had never met Biers. He’d only ever seen him once, coming into the lobby, in uniform, his nose and cheeks red from, Prokopieff said, a night’s hard drinking. Field thought he’d seen him stagger, but later decided it might have been his imagination.

He pulled forward the form in front of him. It was form number 6.3000-3.23, the number listed next to the logo of the Shanghai Municipal Police, a star with the words Omnia Juncta in Uno inside it. Field’s Latin was shaky, but he assumed that meant “all acting in unison.”

In the box marked Made by he wrote his own name, and in the one marked Forwarded by he crossed out the “by,” wrote “to,” and wrote Caprisi’s name, before going on to fill out the address at which the fingerprints had been found and the nature of the crime -murder. He left the time blank, not certain whether this referred to the time of discovery or of the murder itself, which had not yet been determined. Caprisi hadn’t mentioned the pathologist, but Field assumed they would go and see him together.

For a moment Field wished he’d ended up in Crime, which had always been his intention. He thought there was something vaguely disreputable about his own department.

He pictured Lena Orlov again, and the way her body had strained to avoid her assailant, then he thought about Natasha and her nonchalant disinterest. What did she really think? Hadn’t the two of them been friends? Perhaps that had been the cause of the moments of fragility he’d witnessed.

Field flicked open the file in front of him and glanced at the small picture clipped to the single sheet of paper it contained. It was a poor photograph, which made Lena look like a convict, her blond hair flattened and her face gaunt. Field thought of the happy family scene in front of the country house in Russia.

He turned, feeling Yang’s eyes on him, but she was staring in a different direction now, toward Granger’s office.

Field wondered about Yang and Granger.

He stood, clutching Lena’s file and the instructions for the fingerprint bureau, ignoring Yang’s casually interested glance as he passed.

In the lift he opened the folder again. It listed where in Russia Lena was from-near Kazan-and detailed three meetings she had attended at the New Shanghai Life, a magazine funded by Bolshevik intelligence officers from Soviet Russia working undercover at the consulate, but most of the file entries had been written by Prokopieff, who was as gifted with written English as Field was with his Chinese, and even by their standards, this was thin. They had files on so many people and most gave few insights. He’d learned more in five minutes at the woman’s flat.

Field wondered why she’d attended meetings at the New Shanghai Life. The family had certainly looked as if it was part of the old, decimated aristocratic class and were unlikely recruits to the Bolshevik cause.

The fingerprint bureau was on the fifth floor, C.6 printed in the middle of its frosted glass door. Field knocked once, then entered.

The room was in darkness save for the light from two desk lamps, one of which pointed toward a sheet of paper hanging from a piece of string that ran from one side of the room to the other. A tall man with gray hair and glasses, wearing a white coat, was using the other to look at a brown leather ledger, like the ones that filled the bookshelves above him. He sat hunched over it, holding a magnifying glass. He did not bother to look up.

Field cleared his throat. “I’ve brought the paperwork on the Orlov case.”

“The Russian prostitute?” The man was English.

“Yes.”

“Fine. Put it in the tray by the door.”

Field let it drop into the wire basket. “Have you got anywhere yet?”

The man looked up, staring at Field over his glasses. He had a long nose, with black hairs poking out of both nostrils, and poor teeth. “Do I look like a miracle worker?”

“Not really, no.”

The man stared at him. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you from?”

“Yorkshire.”

“Bad luck.” He exhaled heavily, turning back to his work. “Two days, minimum.”

“Two days?”

“Minimum, I said.” He straightened, gesturing at all the ledgers above him. “Do I look as if I have any assistance?” He muttered something to himself, then added audibly, “There were different prints in the apartment, so it might take longer.”

“Have you found a match for Lu?”

The man hesitated. “Pockmark?”

“Yes.”

“You may be disappointed to discover that I haven’t looked at the Orlov prints and they’re not next in line.”

“It’s a murder case.”

“So tell me something new.”

Field took a step closer, looking over the man’s shoulder at the pages of prints in the ledger that he was using to try to find a match for the one on the piece of paper in front of him.

“I’m Field, by the way.”

He didn’t respond.

“You’re Mr. Ellis.”

“I’m Ellis.”

“Is there any chance that, when you do come to the Orlov case, you might be able to check Lu’s prints against those you took from the bedroom? It’s just it would help to-”

“Field.” The man did not look up. “Have you seen me in S.1 recently?”

“No.”

“Well, when you do, telling you how to do your job, then you can come up here and help me out with mine.”

Field retreated, shut the door quietly, and crossed the corridor to the registry, a stuffy, hot room without ventilation or light. It was run by Danny Black, a first-generation Irish immigrant from New York, who’d fled from the civil war in Ireland to the East Coast of America, only to have found his way mysteriously thereafter to Shanghai. Without ever having talked about it, Field knew that he was Granger’s man, toiling away in the undergrowth for reasons unknown. He worked alongside Maretsky, who had a glass cubicle at the far end; both fat men with glasses and curly hair, they could have been twins. They were assisted by a Russian woman of similar physique who sorted through the files, occasionally filling in at the front desk whenever Danny or Maretsky was involved in Modus Operandi briefings or research. Maretsky also had an office up on the sixth floor.

There was no one in evidence, so Field filled out one of the white forms. He wrote: Natasha Medvedev, Happy Times block, Foochow Road.

He hesitated a second before taking another sheet, writing Lu Huang on it and hitting the brass bell on the front desk beside him.

After a minute Danny emerged from behind one of the iron shelves at the far end of the room. “Mr. Field,” he said. Everyone liked Danny. His face exuded good-humored bonhomie. “What have you been up to?”

“A Russian woman,” Field said.

Danny looked up from the forms. He appeared worried. “Lu?”

Field waited for him to expand, and when he didn’t, said, “Yes, Lu.”

Danny looked shifty. “We’ve not got a file for Lu.”

Field frowned.

“There’s a background file,” Danny added hastily.

“Then I’ll take that.”

Danny turned around, disappearing behind the shelves and reemerging a few moments later with one bulging folder and a slim one.

“Can I get the current file on Lu?”

“There isn’t one.”

“There must be one.”

“We don’t have it.” Danny was flustered.

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Field hesitated. “I thought all files have to be signed out and a memo put through to you if forwarded anywhere different.”

“Yes.”

“So you have a note of who the file’s signed out to?”

“No.”