The Master Of Rain

“Yes I was.” Now she threw her own cigarette through the window.

“Then why did you lie to me?”

“Because I didn’t want to answer a lot of questions.”

“Why did you go around to her apartment?”

She sighed. “To get some milk.”

“But—”

“I went in because it was unusual for her door to be unlocked. That was the only lie.” She sighed. “Lena was a Russian girl, Detective.”

“Like you.”

“Yes, like me.”

“So it doesn’t matter.”

She looked at him, then came forward and took the lapel of his jacket, flicking it with one long, thin finger. “You need a new suit, or you’ll boil to death. The summer has only just begun.”

Charles Lewis walked in through the doors and stopped. “Conspiracy,” he said. “He’s not rich enough for you.” He took Natasha Medvedev’s hand. “Come on, I want one more dance.”

Field left and took a rickshaw back to his dingy room in the Carter Road quarters. The steward was asleep in his chair when he got to the top floor and the corridor quiet. Prokopieff’s door was, thankfully, shut.

Field closed his own door carefully, lest Prokopieff hear, and took off his jacket, switching on the fan on the wall beside him.

The room was tiny. Yellow paint peeled in large strips off the walls and ceiling on account of the damp. There was a small window, but Field had learned never to open it in the summer because of the mosquitoes.

He sat down at his desk, put his holster on the starched white sheet beside him, and opened the leather- bound diary. He returned to his jacket to remove his father’s fountain pen.

Underneath the date and still feeling drunk, he wrote: Met a girl—a woman—and can’t stop thinking about whether or not she is compromised and . . . honest. Don’t know why it matters, but it does.

He stared at the page for a few moments more—this was the first thing he’d written for weeks—then slipped off his shoes, trousers, and shirt and slumped down onto the bed. He leaned forward again to flick the light switch and clumsily knocked the copy of The Great Gatsby he had bought last week onto the floor. He didn’t bother to pick it up.

There were no curtains, so the streetlamps created dappled pools of light and shadow on the walls and ceiling.

Field closed his eyes. His head and heart pounded as he imagined Natasha doing what the Chinese girl had done, his hands entwined in her long hair. His whole body was covered in sweat.

Eight

We have made the assumption,” Caprisi said, looking around the C.1 office, “that the doorman was killed because he could definitively identify the murderer. Chen has been through the building and the surrounding area, and everyone insists they saw no one arrive or leave. But the murderer must have come in sometime during the evening.”

They were in a small group outside Macleod’s office. It was not yet nine and Field was glad he’d come in early, though his awakening several hours ago was the result of a night’s drunken, dehydrated sleep and Prokopieff berating the steward on their landing for bringing him tea rather than coffee.

“Where does Lu come into it?” Macleod asked.

“Lu owned the flats,” Caprisi said. “We believe his men were responsible for the abduction of the doorman.”

“Says who?”

“Chen.”

They all looked at the Chinese detective, who smiled.

“All right,” Macleod went on, “his men were cleaning up, so he might have killed the girl, but why?”

“His flat,” Caprisi said, “his girl. His pleasure.”

“Wouldn’t he take the precaution of getting her over to the French Concession first?”

“Perhaps he lost his temper, although”—Caprisi looked at Field—“Maretsky says it is more premeditated than that.” He shrugged. “Maybe Lu is arrogant enough now to think he can get away with anything, anywhere.”

Macleod nodded.

“We should apply to the French authorities for permission to interview him formally.”

“Yes.” Macleod’s voice was hard and confident, but he fiddled with the chain around his neck as he talked. He looked at Field—which all of them kept on doing, he noticed, as if eyeing an enemy in their midst. It was clear that none of them trusted him or felt comfortable with his presence. “So you think it could have been Lu himself?” Macleod went on.

“It could have been,” Caprisi said. “But if it isn’t, then he knows who it is and is protecting him. That’s why they disposed of the doorman. There was certainly a cleanup operation. There was no murder weapon, no prints on the cuffs.”