Seventeen

Field was waiting next to Caprisi’s desk when the American arrived for work. Caprisi put down his leather case and hung his raincoat from the hatstand in the corner. “All right,” he said, “I get in early, but this is… How long have you been waiting?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“No shit?” The American shook his head. “And you couldn’t shave, either?”

“I forgot.”

Caprisi sucked his teeth. “You’re anxious to get to work?”

“I was just thinking…”

“Hold your horses.” Caprisi lifted a finger. “Let me stop you. In the spirit of the overworked and underpaid Criminal Investigation Division, unlike your own department, Chen and I now have to deal with this armed robbery yesterday and-”

“That can wait.”

“Says who?” Caprisi shook his head. “We’ll get back to the Orlov case, but-”

“No, we can’t do that.”

“We can’t?” Caprisi cleared his throat before turning to pour himself a glass of water from the purified jug in the corner.

Field took his hands out of his pockets. “Lena wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last.”

“Is that so?”

“Maretsky doesn’t believe this was the first case, and he is sure the perpetrator will now have a taste for it.”

“A taste for roughing up Russian girls narrows it down.”

“You sound like Sorenson and Prokopieff.”

Caprisi’s mouth tightened. “Be careful, polar bear. We’ve a heavy workload and this can wait.”

“It can’t.”

“Now…”

“I saw your face in Lena Orlov’s flat and down in the Chinese city. Why was Chen restraining you?”

“Back off, polar bear.”

“What happened to Slugger?”

“I said back off.”

“Was he a homosexual?”

Field held Caprisi’s stare. The American suddenly took a pace closer. “Slugger was twice the man you’ll ever be.”

“And Lu had something to do with his death?”

“Slugger liked men, Field, you’re right.” He shook his head. “You want to know, I’ll tell you. Slugger liked men. I didn’t know, his wife didn’t know, his kids didn’t know, but Lu found out. As I said, we were closing down a lot of opium dens on the Foochow Road, angering Lu and upsetting the cabal, and Slugger wouldn’t be bought, so they set him up. There were pictures, just for fun. Slugger wouldn’t bend to the blackmail and decided to leave. He told us what had happened, put his wife and family on the boat to England, and some men in raincoats met them as they came down the gangplank in Hong Kong and handed his teenage son a photograph of Slugger fucking another man. So Slugger walked up to the top of the Peak and blew the back of his head off.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not. You didn’t know him.”

“That doesn’t stop me being sorry.”

Caprisi turned back to refill his glass, and it was a few moments before Field noticed that Chen had come into the room and was leaning against one of the cubicles. “Field wants to concentrate on the Orlov case,” Caprisi said.

Chen shrugged.

“Maretsky says he doesn’t think there are any cases here, but what about in the French Concession?” Field asked.

“He’s asked them,” Caprisi said.

“Yes, but if they’re as corrupt as everyone says, then they will probably have lied to him, or lied about the details.”

Caprisi frowned.

“A death would still have been reported in the newspaper. The gendarmerie might not have given all the details, but they would have to provide some.”

Caprisi looked far from convinced.

“If we could find any deaths that seemed even vaguely similar, then a little investigation might show a connection. It’s a long shot, I know, but if we could establish that there was even a single other case, then a pattern might emerge.”

Caprisi took out his pad and the short stub of pencil and made a note of this underneath one saying “fingerprints.” He looked up. “What about the factory that was referenced in Lena’s notes, and the shipments of sewing machines?”

Field looked at Chen. “Is that a red herring? Are we sure there is a connection between that notebook and the girl’s death?”

“Why did she want to keep it secret?” Caprisi asked.

Chen moved closer. “Lena was Lu’s girl. The factory has some kind of criminal activity associated with him. When I went down yesterday, they were nervous… the manager was not there.”

“I saw Lu and Charles Lewis together last night. They seemed very at ease in each other’s company.”

“Where?” Caprisi asked.

“The Majestic.”

“What were you doing there?”

Field felt his face reddening.

“Ground research, I see.” Caprisi shook his head. “The fish don’t come bigger than Lewis, do they, Chen?”

The Chinese detective shook his head.

“Lewis doesn’t have any connection with Lu, does he?” Field asked.

“Not that we know of.”

“Is it possible that Lewis could be involved-that whatever is going on at the factory could be at that level?”

“Anything is possible,” Chen said. “But whoever is behind these shipments, if they are as significant as we think, is more likely to be someone lower down in Fraser’s.”

“Lena was Lu’s girl,” Caprisi repeated. “So, really, it has to have been him.”

Chen shrugged again. “He likes girls, boys. He has her, for sure, but if she is not a favorite, perhaps there are other uses. She is a spy, a conduit to the Bolsheviks and agitators, part of his intelligence network, or maybe he lets an associate use her.”

“I’m not expert on Shanghai real estate,” Field said, “but isn’t a penthouse in the Happy Times block, with a balcony overlooking the racecourse… that’s serious money. There must be many cheaper ways of gathering intelligence on Borodin.”

They both nodded.

“And if we think about it from the killer’s point of view… whoever it is cannot fail to know that this woman is an asset of Lu’s. To murder her in this way shows a supreme confidence that there will be no repercussions.”

Caprisi clicked his tongue against the top of his mouth. “Chen. Would Lu, as a point of culture, let anyone else sleep with one of his women? I mean, have we got this wrong? Would he even consider lending her to someone?”

“Probably. A concubine, certainly not, but this woman is not a concubine, so it is less clear. It is… He is Chinese. Easy for me to understand, hard to explain.”

“Try.”

Chen sighed. “Russian girls, they… Lu is Chinese, so if he has a Chinese concubine, then another man who has even looked at her is dead. No question. That is face. Chinese to Chinese. But Russian girls will be different… This is more complicated. Russian girls are a category to themselves. He keeps them, he fucks them, but there is not so much… face. Control is a little looser. He requires them to carry out other tasks. They are perhaps business gift, now to one man, now to another. Sometimes, if they are very beautiful, they are for show. He would keep them, but the money is nothing to him, small. He might go to apartment, but more likely to have them come to him when required. The face is different, that is what. If they humiliate him in public; if they are disloyal, or give information to enemy; if they fail to do what he asks, then they will be executed.”

Chen frowned, as if unsure of whether he had adequately communicated his interpretation of Lena’s precarious position.

“But he is,” Caprisi said, “not in the business of letting other people fuck his women for free? This Russian boyfriend, for example, what is his position?”

“If she chooses to do this, it is very dangerous. Perhaps Lu will tolerate-what is it to him? Only Russians. Or perhaps he will be annoyed. If the woman is beautiful, favored above others, it is very dangerous. He may execute immediately. If less important, perhaps he will ignore once-no point in wasting assets. Each case different. But, of course, it could be he like to murder. This is different. Russian girls are good, then. Inferior.”