The Master of Rain (29 page)

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Authors: Tom Bradby

BOOK: The Master of Rain
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“Even if it were, for the sake of argument, a serious crime, say a murder, and the call had gone first to headquarters on Rue Wagner, you would file a report, because it occurred in your area.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In all circumstances?”
“Yes, sir.”
Field smiled and turned back to the box, suddenly less confident that this process was going to lead anywhere. If the headquarters staff wanted something hushed up, he thought it likely they would instruct Givreaux’s men not to attend the scene of the crime, in which case it would be well nigh impossible to file a report, even if they had wished to.
He worked back all the way to April 4, which was where the box started. Most days, there were only a few incidents. May 1 turned out to have been exceptionally busy.
The constable brought him tea and he sipped it slowly and ate the biscuits that had come with it.
There didn’t seem much else that he could usefully do.
He leaned forward to look through the cards for May 1 one more time, going extremely slowly, so as to pick up anything he might have missed. After flicking through five or six, he noticed that there was one missing.
Each card was coded, the serial number written in black ink at the top left-hand corner. Here the cards jumped from F6714 to F6716.
He looked carefully through the whole box to be sure that it had not been filed wrongly, somewhere else.
“Constable . . .” Field leaned back and put his hands in his pockets. “In the Settlement, all incidents have to be first noted in the incident book, usually by the duty sergeant, before an incident report is written up and filed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s the same here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you mind showing me the incident book for May 1?”
The constable nodded and left the room, walking briskly down the corridor. He was gone for perhaps ten minutes and Field began to think he might have consulted Givreaux about this new request, but when he returned, he apologized for the delay and explained that one of the detectives had been noting down the details of a domestic dispute he’d attended.
Field took the book.
He flicked through the pages, his pulse quickening.
It was there, in Ngoc’s neat flowing hand:
Incident number F6715. Body of woman found stabbed, Avenue Joffre. Natalya Simonov.
There were no further details, nor was there a house or apartment number. Avenue Joffre stretched the entire length of the French Concession, so door-to-door inquiries were likely to prove time-consuming and possibly fruitless. Field assumed that, somewhere, there must be a file on the case.
He turned around again. “You would keep files here on important cases or individuals?”
“No, sir. Rue Wagner.”
“They’re all kept at headquarters?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There are none here at all?”
“No, sir.”
“So what happens if you want to look at a file? Do you have to go down to Rue Wagner?”
“A car delivers the file in the morning and takes it back in the evening, sir. Or we can go down if there is a hurry.”
Field nodded and smiled, turning something over in his mind. He held out the incident book. “Do you remember this case—Simonov? Do you remember the address or section of . . .”
The constable looked at the entry and shook his head, but his smile vanished.
Field turned the book around and began to leaf through its pages. He worked forward but nothing caught his eye, so he went to the Simonov entry and worked back to the beginning.
He reached March 31, where the book began.
F6222,
an entry read.
Body of a woman found stabbed. Avenue Joffre. Ignatiev, Irina.
Field closed the book carefully and put it on top of the box. “Thank you.”
He walked briskly down the corridor and was about to continue through the hall, but he changed his mind at the last minute and turned right, into Givreaux’s office.
“Success?” the Frenchman asked. He stood and moved to the side of his big teak desk. It was covered in paperwork, held in place by a series of crocodile-skin weights.
“In a sense, yes.” Field cleared his throat. His instincts were to leave it at that, but he could not resist pushing further. “Do you remember the Simonov case?”
The lieutenant was unfazed, responding with an indolent shake of the head.
Field persisted. “Natalya Simonov, Russian girl stabbed more than a month ago.”
“I don’t recall.”
“It was dealt with by CID at Rue Wagner?”
“Probably.”
“I imagine it is quiet here, relatively speaking.”
“Depends on what you mean by quiet.”
“You get a lot of murders?”
Givreaux was staring at him, now understanding the drift of his questions. “Not a lot, no.” He moved closer. “I forgot your name. You are Richard . . .”
“Field.”
“Field, yes.” Givreaux’s gaze was level.
“What about Irina Ignatiev?”
Givreaux’s brow creased, as if he were trying to recall the name.
“Her body was also found on Avenue Joffre, on March 31—two and a half months ago.”
Givreaux shrugged.
“Also dealt with by Rue Wagner?”
“Sure. It was . . . I remember now. It turned out to be a domestic, I think. Why, are you—”
“Is Constable Ngoc around?”
“Ngoc?” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“He made a note of the incident here.”
Givreaux nodded. “It was CID who attended.”
“Is there any chance I could have a word with Constable Ngoc?”
“He will not be in today.” Givreaux showed Field to the door. “I’m sorry not to have been more help.”
Twenty-three
F
ield instructed his driver to take him down to the Customs House on the Bund. It was still overcast and the light drizzle left him again with wet feet, so he took the stairs to the seventh floor in an attempt to stamp out the water. As he climbed, he looked down toward the neat public gardens next to Garden Bridge.
The immigration room was small and crowded. It smelled of damp from too many raincoats and umbrellas. Field strode over to the counter in the far corner and interrupted the woman behind the grille as he produced his card. “I’m afraid I need some assistance.”
An older woman in a black cardigan turned around and stepped forward to examine his ID before moving to unlock the partition door. She ushered Field into a back room.
“I’m correct in thinking that everyone who arrives in the city has to register with you here?” Field shook his foot to try and get rid of the last of the water.
“In theory, yes. As you know, not everyone does.”
“But Russians have never been refused entry, so there would be no point in trying to come in illegally.”
“Less bureaucracy.”
“But life is difficult without identification papers,” Field persisted, thinking of the hours he’d spent here filling out the necessary forms.
“That is true.”
“And if a Russian, a noncitizen, changes his address, he is supposed to inform you?”
“In theory, yes.”
“And most do?”
She shrugged. “There is no reason not to. The majority do.”
“Okay, I have two names and I urgently need an address for both of them.”
The woman put on her glasses and looked at his notebook.
“Do you know in what month of what year the women originally came here?”
“No.”
“You don’t know what year?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t be sure.”
She sighed. “It will take two to three days, Mr. Field.”
“Three days?”
“Do you know how many people arrive here every year?”
“Thousands.”
“Sometimes more than a hundred thousand.” She looked down at the names again. “I can assume they arrived after 1918?”
“Yes. Probably after 1920, but 1918 to be on the safe side.”
“May I take this page?” She ripped it out. “Please give me your telephone number.”
Field wrote it down. “You can’t do it sooner? These two women have both been murdered and their cases are a crucial part of a bigger picture.”
“I will do my best. But it will still be two to three days.”
Outside, Field gripped the wooden banister of the staircase and placed his forehead against the window, gazing down at the traffic moving slowly along the Bund, far below. He felt the anger and frustration swelling within him.
It found its expression twenty minutes later, back on Avenue Joffre, when Sergei Stanislevich opened the door a fraction and then, upon seeing Field’s face, tried to close it again.
Field thumped it with both hands, sending Sergei tumbling back into his bed, the towel around his waist falling down. There was a squeal as a small, naked Chinese girl leaped off the bed and tried to cover herself. Field thought she could not be more than fourteen or fifteen.
He turned away instinctively and did not turn back until they had both hastily dressed themselves. The Chinese girl fled down the stairs.
“Right, Sergei,” Field said, shutting the door behind her. “I’m going to ask you some more questions, and if I don’t think you’re telling me the truth, you’re going to regret it. Is that clear?”
The Russian nodded, his Adam’s apple moving violently as he swallowed. Field picked up a violin and put it carefully on the floor before seating himself on the arm of the sofa and crossing his legs. There was a tray beside him, a syringe and two long metal spikes alongside a simple opium pipe.
Field sighed. “Irina Ignatiev and Natalya Simonov.”
Sergei clearly recognized the names.
“Who are they?” Field stood.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“No . . . no.”
Field took a step toward him.
“Natalya . . . the second one, no, but Irina . . .”
“You knew her?”
“No, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Lena mentioned her once.”
Sergei had pushed himself back to the far side of the bed and leaned over to take out a cigarette.
“In what context?” Field asked.
“In what—”
“How did the conversation go?”
Sergei looked confused.
“Why did Lena mention her?”
“She was another of Lu’s girls.”
“Irina?”
“Yes.”
“Irina Ignatiev?”
“Yes.”
Field thought about this. “What did Lena say about her?”
“She’d heard he had another Russian girl over here in the French Concession. She wanted to know what the girl was like, whether I had met her.”
“And had you?”
“No.”
“Where did Irina live?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d never heard of her before.”
“What else did Lena say about her?”
“That was it. She wanted information from me, but I’d never heard of her.”
“She lived somewhere on this street. Which house?”
He shook his head so vigorously Field thought it might fall off.
“Lu has other Russian girls?”
“Probably.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Natasha Medvedev?”
“Yes.”
“You know her.”
“Only through Lena.”
“And from the Majestic.”
He shrugged. “Yes.”
“Did Lena mention any others?”
His head shook as he sucked heavily on his cigarette.
“So you know only about Irina and Lena and Natasha. You’ve never heard of Natalya Simonov?”
Sergei shook his head, and this time Field thought he was telling the truth.
“Lena and Irina have been killed, but not Natasha.”
Sergei smirked. “She fucks better.”
Field stood, his fists bunched, then, watching the puzzled reaction in Sergei’s face, he fought to bring himself under control. “What do you know about Natasha?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“You must know something.”

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