“I’m doing my job.”
“Of course you are.” She stood, walked to the mantelpiece, and took down a packet of cigarettes. She lit one and then sat back down, her dress riding up her thigh.
Field’s throat felt dry.
“Is it because you think I belong to him? Does that disgust you?”
“You do have to help me.” Field no longer trusted his voice, which sounded as if it belonged to someone else.
“I don’t have to do anything.”
He stared at her. “Have you ever seen the inside of a Shanghai prison?”
“No.”
“I doubt you’d survive a month.”
“Perhaps you’d be doing me a favor.”
“If that’s what you think, I might as well take you back right now.”
“You cannot hide behind your badge.”
“You don’t believe we can protect you from Lu?”
“Half of you work for him.”
“And you think—”
“No. That’s why I’m talking to you.” She shook her head in irritation. “Please. Do what you want with me, but don’t talk about this anymore.” She took a deep breath. “You ask me if I know who Lena was seeing, but I don’t. She was secretive those last few months.”
“She told you nothing about him?”
Natasha shook her head.
“And yet you lived next door.”
Natasha shrugged. “It was always a desire to be private.”
“So you never saw a man entering her apartment, never heard a voice, never saw a car parked outside?”
“No.”
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? The two of you friends, knowing each other back in Kazan. You end up living next door to each other, and yet you know nothing whatsoever about her life?”
“Believe what you want.”
“What about the notes she left on these shipments—the SS
She was still shaking her head.
“I would say the notes were left for someone who would be able to decipher them and would know what they meant. Were they left for you?”
Natasha stared at him without answering.
Field stood and crossed to the window. He looked down toward the racetrack and saw, to his surprise, that the large clock read almost five o’clock.
He turned around. “Do you ever go to Lu’s house?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you do there?”
She dropped her head an inch, looking at her hands, and Field felt his face reddening again.
“Of course, you go into his bedroom.”
“Of course.”
The emotion was like a drug. His mind raced, his heart thumping in his chest.
“What do you . . .”
“Can we not talk about this now?”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“No.” She was avoiding his eyes. “Of course, but I’m tired.” She looked up. “Please, just not now.”
He could see the pain in her eyes. “I have to go, anyway,” he said. “We have to investigate this Fraser’s factory.”
He stopped at the door.
She had followed him over. “Thank you,” she said.
“Tonight, then?”
“Yes, perhaps.”
