“Not anymore.”
“She used to?”
“Not so very long ago, she was the star attraction, but she only takes a turn now if she wants to. She sings when the mood takes her. Great voice.”
“What has caused the change in her position?”
Lewis shrugged. He was playing the indolent, ignorant playboy, but Field had already judged him a man of shrewd intelligence, much sharper than he liked to make out.
Field was suddenly certain that Lewis had slept with Natasha.
The band temporarily halted, the white man at this end of the stage lowering his trombone and wiping the sweat from his brow with a cloth. Lewis turned around, descended the steps to the dance floor, and walked to the other side. He followed Natasha as she glided elegantly to her place on the plinth above and waited as the elderly man she had danced with kissed her hand.
Natasha smiled as she saw Charles Lewis, and Field watched him kiss her on the cheek and lead her back to the floor as the band started up again.
Field found it impossible to take his eyes off them.
They were a handsome couple, the same height, his face square and handsome, save for a broken nose, hers so perfectly formed it was uncomfortable to look at.
Field tore himself away and turned around.
He needed to have a piss, so he walked to the set of swinging doors beside him and pushed his way through to the corridor beyond, smacking the doors loudly into the walls.
He washed his hands, looking at his face in the mirror and seeing his anger reflected back at him. He breathed in deeply and bent his head.
Back in the lobby, he bought a packet of cigarettes from the attendant. He smoked one, looking out through a small window at the end at the rooftops behind the Bund. It was time to go home now. Lewis would probably not even notice he’d gone.
He was leaning against the wall, thinking he was smoking too much, when Natasha Medvedev came through. Her smile faded as she saw him. He straightened, holding the cigarette down by his side.
“I’m not one of your schoolmasters,” she said.
Field tried to laugh, but wasn’t certain he even got as far as a smile. Self-consciously, he took another drag.
“Are you going to offer me one?”
He dug the packet from his pocket and chucked it at her. She caught it and took one, waiting until he leaned forward to light it.
“You’re not much of a gentleman, are you, Officer?”
“And you’re not much of a lady.”
She inhaled, blowing the smoke out of the side of her mouth, before moving over to the wall opposite him and leaning back against it.
Field threw his cigarette, which he wasn’t enjoying, out of the window and put his hands in his pockets.
“I saw you arriving with Charlie Lewis. You’re a friend of his?”
“I hardly know him.”
“Well, you should get to—”
“You danced here with Lena Orlov.” Field had taken his hands from his pockets again and spoken with unexpected ferocity. “You were friends.”
“So?”
“Everything you told me this afternoon was a pack of lies.”
“And you’re hurt?”
“That’s an offense, do you know that?”
“Is that a threat?”
“You can laugh at us all you want, but you’re vulnerable here, Miss Medvedev, no matter how much you sleep with the likes of Charlie Lewis or Lu.”
She was staring at him. “Is that what you think I am? You think I’m a prostitute?”
From a standing start, he’d insulted and perhaps—this couldn’t be true, but somehow seemed to be—hurt her. He wished he were less drunk. The conversation had developed a momentum that their brief acquaintance hardly merited.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. The ways of the city are strange.”
She was still looking at him, her hostility not assuaged. “They are strange, and perhaps it is you who should be careful.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a warning.”
“You were good friends with Lena Orlov.”
