countries—a unique situation in history—but Chinese people living in these areas and the foreigners who don’t enjoy these rights (Russians, Bulgarians) are subject to the Chinese law of the “mixed courts” in the Settlement, which makes their position precarious. Sometimes, Chinese wrongdoers are just ejected to the Chinese city itself, where they are brutally dealt with by local warlords. This is especially true if their crime is “political.” Anyone caught trying to sow Bolshevik ideas is in deep trouble.
The Chinese city is outside the International Settlement and French Concession. This is the beginning of the real China, where everyone lives under Chinese law, not that there is much. Ever since the fall of the imperial dynasty, the whole of China has been controlled by competing warlords, and Shanghai is no exception. Foreigners are mostly okay, but many of the local Chinese do have a rough time of it.
Field thought again of the sound of the doorman’s head hitting the ground, echoing through the silence of the crowd.
I’ve found myself in the Special Branch, as I said. I’d like to report that this was because my superiors spotted a vein of natural genius, but actually it is because Mother is a Catholic and because of my rugby. I’ve already found this to be the most extraordinary force. It’s made up primarily of Americans, Brits, and Russians (and the locals, of course), but it’s controlled by two factions, the Scots and the Irish, and everyone—American, Russian, English—has to fall into one camp or other, like it or not. The commissioner is from New York but is too fond of the bottle and is rarely seen out of his office on the sixth floor. The real power rests with my boss, Patrick Granger, who is head of Special Branch, and with Macleod, head of Crime.
Granger is from Cork and fought with the IRA after 1916. They say he was a friend of Michael Collins and that the two fell out. I don’t know. Like everyone else here, he doesn’t talk about his past (it’s a strange city like that—I’ll tell you more next time). Macleod, by contrast, is a Protestant (Presbyterian, I think) from Glasgow, who scowls a lot and gives the impression he thinks the city is a mess and a discredit to all concerned. Both men are rugby fanatics and where you end up is largely down to religion and sport, though there are some exceptions. Granger found out that I’d played flanker at school and my mother was a Catholic and that was that. I have my first game for his team this week against—yes, you guessed it, Crime Branch. The two men seem to have a deep-seated enmity and rivalry that everyone has a theory about, not always convincing. You are expected to show loyalty to your faction and I suppose I’m Granger’s man now. He’s a big fellow, in every sense, and gives the impression of looking out for his men, though he also always talks to you as if his mind is elsewhere and sometimes looks right through you. I think you’d find him quite handsome—he certainly dresses well. Hardly like a policeman at all. Macleod has been perfectly friendly too, but it doesn’t do to even contemplate loyalty outside your faction.
I must go. I’ve endless journals to look through, which seems to be my task (all publications in the Settlement are censored for Bolshevik propaganda, which certain Russians living here are secretly trying to export to the Chinese masses). I will try to tell you more of this strange city next time. Sometimes I wish you could see it and sometimes I’m glad you can’t. Opium dens are illegal and we sometimes raid them, but you can get heroin from room service in all the best hotels. You can get anything on room service. No one who has money wants for anything. Anyone who hasn’t money wants for something.
One last thing might interest you. A mythical Chinese gangster—I’ve not met him or seen him—but they say this man called Lu, who lives in the French Concession, controls much in the city and nothing happens without his knowledge and say-so. I find it hard to believe and accept the level of influence ascribed to him, but he appears to have taken the lead in fighting Bolshevism. Whenever they suspect a local Chinese, even if he’s in the Settlement, of working for the Bolsheviks, they expel him to the local warlords in the Chinese city, who cut his head off. This is seen as a necessary expedient on behalf of the British and American authorities in order to persuade local Chinese not to spread Bolshevik propaganda—Lu is making too much money to want a Bolshevik revolution— but there is also a feeling I’ve picked up amongst police colleagues that Lu is getting too big for his boots and shouldn’t be allowed—literally sometimes—to get away with murder. He’s using the well-founded fear of Bolshevism amongst foreigners here to get away with doing anything that he wants and undermining (some feel) the authority of the big international powers.
Field looked up again, running his hand through his hair.
He picked up his pen and wrote, This is a dangerous city, but I’ll do my best to keep safe. Love to Arthur . . . isn’t it about time I was an uncle?
He found he was smiling and was tempted to write that he’d “met” someone very beautiful today, but thinking of Natasha Medvedev and the misleading boast he’d been about to make suddenly brought down a familiar blanket of loneliness and depression.
He still did not believe that a woman like that could submit herself to a man against her will.
Field began to sweat again, the blood pounding in his head. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, fumbling around his throat until he found the silver cross. He took it off and held it in his palm, tightening his fist until it hurt.
He fought to contain the anger that still came upon him when his confusion was complete, knowing what his father would have made of the city and of Natasha and Lena and the women like them.
Field had a sudden, clear image of his father, with his trimmed mustache, neat hair, and carefully polished shoes. He could see the waistcoat and the shirt that his mother had starched, the chain of the silver cross just visible above the collar. For a moment he allowed himself to hate the man, for his unyielding, obstinate, puritanical priggishness, for his cane and the power with which he had wielded it.
He gripped the cross more tightly, thinking of his mother and the quiet shock with which she had met his decision to join the Shanghai police force.
Field breathed out and opened his eyes. He was here now and it was his life. He put the cross in his left hand and ran his right through his hair. He put the chain back around his neck, did up his collar, and tightened his tie.
It was all in the past now. That was the point of being here. It was why he’d made the journey.
Field wrote, Your loving brother, folded the letter and put it in the envelope, sealed the back, then wrote her address in his careful, flowing hand.
He turned and saw Yang looking at him. She was “his” secretary, his and Prokopieff’s, a tiny, slim dark girl with a neat, pretty face and an upturned nose. Her gaze was steady, and for a moment he thought her mind must be elsewhere, but she shifted her head a little, without looking away, and he knew that she was still appraising him. She wore a short cream skirt, without stockings, the thin cotton hem rumpled halfway up her thigh.
