“It’s Hurst.” She hands him the phone. “The Fanin credit card trail’s gone dead.”
DCI Gary Hurst is the senior investigating officer on the Viktor Kedrin case. He has been following up a loose end which, just conceivably, could indicate an error on the part of those who set up Kedrin’s murder. It seems that the theft of the card used by Lucy Drake to check into the hotel was reported to the police by Julia Fanin, but not to her bank. As a consequence, the hotel registration went through unchecked.
This discrepancy puzzled Hurst, especially when Fanin insisted that she had rung her bank’s Lost and Stolen Card number, a claim validated by her mobile phone records. It turns out that the bank’s credit-card support services are outsourced to a call-centre company based near Swindon, in the south-west of England, and Hurst’s investigation has concluded that one of the company’s employees unfroze the card after it was reported missing, so that it remained usable. Thousands of pounds worth of clothes, flights and hotel bills were then charged to the account over a two-week period, at the end of which the expenditure stopped dead. Which is where the investigation has stalled. Hurst’s text reads:
Right now working thru 90+ employees who might have taken JF’s call. But relevant records deleted so not confident of a result.
“And even if by some miracle he gets a result, it’s a dead cert we’d just hit another cut-out,” says Simon, returning Eve’s phone.
She slips it into her bag. “Let’s go and see Jin Qiang. The taxi should be waiting downstairs.”
Opened in 2009, the first new building on the Bund for seventy years, the Peninsula Hotel is dauntingly grand. The lobby is pillared art deco, a tone-poem in ivory and old gold. The carpets are vast, the conversation muted. White-uniformed bellboys hurry discreetly between the vast reception desk and the near-silent lifts.
In the online catalogue, Eve’s mint-green shift dress was described as a “chic, summery office staple,” but catching sight of herself in a mirror in the lift, she senses that she’s striking the wrong note. The dress is sleeveless and she’s cut herself shaving—her armpit still stings quite badly—so somehow she has to conduct a vital meeting with a senior officer of the Chinese Ministry of State Security without ever raising her right arm.
Jin Qiang is alone in the suite. It’s vast, soft-lit and restfully luxurious. Sky-blue curtains frame a view of the river, and more distantly the skyscrapers of Pudong.
“Mrs. Polastri, Mr. Mortimer. This is a great pleasure.”
“Thank you for agreeing to see us,” says Eve, as she and Simon lower themselves into silk-upholstered armchairs.
“I have most affectionate memories of Richard Edwards. I trust he’s in good health?”
For some minutes, the niceties are observed on both sides. Jin is a quietly spoken figure in a dove-grey suit. He speaks English with a faint American accent. At intervals a look of refined melancholy touches his features, as if he’s saddened by the vagaries of human behaviour.
“The murder of Zhang Lei,” Eve begins.
“Yes, indeed.” He steeples his long, manicured fingers.
“We wish to convey our assurances that this action was not sponsored, executed or in any way enabled by agents of the British government,” Eve says. “We have had our differences with your ministry, particularly concerning the activities of the individuals calling themselves the White Dragon. A unit, we have reason to believe, of the Chinese military. But this is not the way we would choose to resolve those differences.”
Jin smiles. “Mrs. Polastri, you are mistaken in thinking that the White Dragon group is part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. They, and others like them, are just mischief-makers, acting without reference to anyone.”
Eve inclines her head diplomatically. This, she knows, is the official line on all cyber-attacks originating in China.
“We’re here in Shanghai to assist in any way we can,” says Simon. “Especially with reference to the killer of Lieutenant Colonel Zhang.”
“He was, I’m afraid, just plain Mr. Zhang.”
“Of course. My apologies. But we understand that Richard Edwards has communicated to you our suspicions concerning a female assassin?”
“He has. And I’m aware of the circumstances surrounding the death of Viktor Kedrin.”
Eve leans forward in her chair. “Let me cut to the chase. We believe that the woman who killed Kedrin also killed Zhang Lei. We believe she is not acting alone, but on behalf of an organisation of considerable reach and power.”
“That is indeed cutting to the chase, Mrs. Polastri. May I ask what Zhang Lei and Viktor Kedrin had in common, that they should both be… eliminated by this organisation?”
“At this stage it’s hard to say. But I would repeat that neither we nor our American colleagues had any hand in the death of Zhang Lei. Nor that of Viktor Kedrin.”
Jin folds his hands in his lap. “I must accept your assurances.”
Eve is suddenly conscious of the cut under her arm. For a ghastly moment she wonders if she has left a bloodstain on the silk upholstery of her chair. “May I be frank with you?” she asks.
“Please do.”
“Richard Edwards’s belief, which we share, is that a covert organisation—as yet unidentified—is committing these murders. We don’t know their purpose or agenda. We don’t know who they are, or how many. But we suspect that they have people placed in our own organisation and also in MI5, for whom I used to work. And almost certainly in other intelligence services.”
Jin frowns. “I’m not sure how I can help you.”
Eve feels the meeting slipping from her grasp. “Our only way forward, as things stand, is to follow the money. Is there anyone in the Western security services, Mr. Jin, whom you know or suspect to be in the pay of an organisation such as I have described?”
Silence swirls dizzyingly around her. She senses Simon’s shock at the impropriety of
