“I slaved all day over it,” Penelope said. “Didn’t I, dear?”
Geoffrey smiled at Field. “You begin to see why we can never come back and live in England.”
Field took a sip of his wine. He heard the low rumble of a foghorn on the river. It seemed to be answered by others.
“Who is Stirling Blackman?”
Geoffrey replenished their wineglasses before answering. Field noticed Penelope’s was already empty.
“Blackman is not . . . how should one say? Not always a friend of the city.” Geoffrey looked at Field. “The thing about the
“How is the Russian girl?” Penelope asked.
For a moment Field assumed she was asking about Natasha. “She’s like a ghost,” he said eventually. “Her friends are either too frightened or too disinterested to want to talk about her.” He put down his knife and fork and took another sip of wine. “Her fate does not seem to elicit much sympathy . . . not in the force, anyway. She did not keep good company. She began life in such gilded circumstances and her end was so squalid. It seems . . . tragic, in its own way.”
“You’re a romantic, Richard,” Penelope said.
“No—”
“She was a whore, you know.” Penelope’s mouth had tightened and her eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t get yourself too worked up about it.”
There was a momentary silence.
Geoffrey cleared his throat again. “Richard is right, I fear. We cannot get into the business of ignoring cases on the basis of who the victim was, tempting as it may be at times.”
“Our concern,” Field said, “is that it may be part of a pattern. That the perpetrator may strike again.”
Penelope looked up with an emollient smile, as if regretting her earlier harshness. “Thank God for the boys in blue.”
“The difficulty with the Russians,” Geoffrey went on, “is that none of us like to ponder their fate too closely. It won’t happen to us, of course, but we’ve all seen the photographs: the big houses, the servants, the military schools, and holidays in the Crimea. It’s uncomfortable, particularly for those lower down the European social order here, who’ve never had any of those things.”
“They’re unreliable,” Penelope said.
“Perhaps that’s no surprise,” Geoffrey said, “under the circumstances.”
“It’s no surprise that it happened to them. If they’d been . . .” Penelope looked at her husband, her face harsh again. “Well, you know what they’re like. No wonder there was a revolution.”
Geoffrey looked at Field. “Better to give them a wide berth. That much is certainly true.”
By the time Field stepped back out into Crane Road it was past midnight and a thick blanket of fog had descended. The smell of damp streets—from the dirt and dust that settled in dry weather—swelling drains, and the pollution caught in his nose and mouth. He was tempted to put a handkerchief to his face and breathe through it as he had seen others do. Instead, he put on the dark felt trilby that his uncle had pressed upon him and lit a cigarette. At least it tasted better than the air around him.
Field began walking, his footsteps noisy, his feet again quickly damp. Another foghorn sounded on the river and he heard the rattle of a tram on the Nanking Road ahead, a Chinese banner on the corner highlighted through the gloom by a gas streetlamp—as in so many areas of the city, they had not got around to installing electric lights.
Field crossed the main road and carried on, pacing out the silence, his metal-capped heels creating a steady staccato. He passed somebody hidden beneath a blanket, then realized that it was an entire family as they receded into the fog once more.
He felt driven.
Perhaps, he thought, it might have been wiser to have stayed with his uncle.
He turned left into Nanking Road. Chinese men and women appeared suddenly through the fog and disappeared back into it just as quickly.
Field thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He saw the sign for the Majestic ahead, and his pace quickened.
He handed the doorman his hat and climbed the shabby red and gray staircase, emerging into the refurbished splendor of the ballroom on the first floor as she began singing. It was as if she had been waiting for him.
Natasha stood in front of the microphone, and for a moment he lost himself in the sight and sound of her, his eyes locked on her long legs and narrow hips as they swayed with the rhythm of the music. Her voice drifted lazily around the hall. She had her eyes shut, and as she opened them, it seemed to him that she was smiling at him.
He stepped forward a couple of paces, then saw Charles Lewis sitting close to the edge of the iron-framed balcony, staring at her.
Field moved quickly down the staircase and around the back of the dance floor. He climbed up to the balcony opposite where he thought he would be able to stand unseen in the darkness.
Even up here, away from the stage, few people talked among themselves. It wasn’t difficult to be captivated by the power of her voice.
Natasha wore a black dress. A short, thick string of white pearls, held in the center by a gold clasp, hung down to her breasts. Her hair was glossy and unkempt.
