Death In Shanghai (22 page)

He collapsed back onto the roof.

‘Make sure this piece of shit doesn’t move.’

‘Ye shouldnae have let the bastard hurt ye so.’

Strachan looked up to see a tall, burly Inspector with a shock of ginger hair standing at the entrance to the roof.

‘I remember ye from ma classes. Should hae done better, laddie.’

Strachan lifted his head and looked at the Inspector more closely. It was Fairbairn, the head of the Mobile Unit and the fighting instructor for the police.

Inspector Fairbairn shook his head at Strachan. ‘I’ll book ye in for some classes. Looks like ye need ’em.’

Strachan watched as a large globule of blood fell from his ear and landed on his shoe. ‘I got the bastard,’ he said as he gasped for breath.

‘Aye, but this time, it looks like he got you.’

***

‘While you were enjoying yourself on the roof of Great World, Stra-chan, I spent my time searching the car.’ Danilov placed a large box down on the desk. ‘It’s being dusted down by the fingerprint team as we speak.’

Strachan stood up and peered into the box. He began to take things out from it one by one. ‘Five brass cartridge cases. These must be from the floor of the car, Inspector.’

‘Right. These were the shots that nearly killed us. Allow me to compliment you on your driving, Stra-chan.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

He felt the side of his chest. ‘And remind me never to share a car with you again.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Strachan pulled the rest of the objects from the box: a cheap wallet with three dollars inside but no ID, two fedoras, old and used, a coat which had seen better days, a half-eaten packet of sweets, a used handkerchief, a woman’s shoe, three dirty rags and, finally, a small bag full of what looked like metal prongs.

‘I wonder what these are used for, sir?’

‘I think they are house-breaking tools, Stra-chan. It looks like our killer did a bit of burglary on the side. There’s one thing left inside. I found it in the boot.’

Strachan reached in and brought out a leather-covered book with the words ‘Holy Bible’ embossed in gold on the cover. He opened it to the fly leaf. ‘Ex Libris. The Church of the Redeemer, Sinza Road, Shanghai.’

‘It’s the same one Harriet Sole, I mean Henry Sellars, had in his locker.’

‘Right once again, Stra-chan. Where is our man?’

‘Downstairs in Room Four, sir.’

‘I think it is time to speak to him, don’t you?’

***

Inspector Danilov and Detective Constable Strachan entered the interview room without knocking. The man who had been arrested on the roof of Great World was touching a large bump on the top of his head that already protruded through his crew-cut hair. Two yellowish-black circles sat just beneath his eyes whilst a straight cut ran across the bridge of his nose.

He did not look a happy man.

The two detectives sat down at the table without saying a word. Danilov took out his tobacco tin and rolled a cigarette.

The man said something in Mandarin.

‘He’s just asked if he could have a fucking cigarette, sir.’

‘Tell him no, Stra-chan.’

The detective repeated the message. The man spat on the floor. Danilov carried on rolling his cigarette without looking up. He brought it to his mouth and sealed it with his tongue. From his pocket he produced a lighter and lit the end of the roll-up. He took a long, cool drag and blew three smoke rings out into the air of the interview room.

The man watched as the rings widened and eventually dissipated.

Danilov leant forward and placed his tobacco tin at 90 degrees to the edge of the table. He leant back to check if it was in the correct alignment before leaning in again to adjust it to the left slightly.

The man continued to watch the Inspector, his eyes, with their prominent bruises, making him look like a new species of panda.

Finally, when Danilov was satisfied with the position of the tin, he leant back in his chair. His head fell forward on his chest and he appeared to go to sleep.

The man shouted out in Mandarin. ‘Look, I know what you’re doing. I’ve been inside before. You can’t scare me.’

Danilov’s eyes opened slightly. ‘Just tell him exactly what I say, Stra-chan.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Please reassure Mr…?’ He looked at Strachan to translate.

‘Lin. He says his name is Lin, sir, sounds like Jimmy Lin, but his Mandarin is very thick. The aitches sound like Fs and the Ns like Ls. I think he’s from Hunan, sir. Probably Changsha.’

‘Thank you, Stra-chan. Please reassure Mr Lin that we have no intention of hurting him. On the contrary, we wish to help him.’

Strachan translated the words. The man shouted back.

‘He’s asking why, sir. Why do you want to help him?’

‘Because the other two men who died in the crash were his relatives. We must help him to see them get into the next life properly.’

Again Strachan translated. The man looked at the Inspector suspiciously. ‘He’s asking why you would do that?’

‘Because he is going to tell us why he committed the murders.’

The man listened to Strachan and stared at the Inspector. After a long pause, he shrugged his shoulders.

‘He says that if he tells you, will you send his cousins back to their families in Changsha?’

‘I give him my word. On the soul of my father.’ Danilov touched his heart.

The man spoke again.

‘He says they got in his way.’

‘How did they get in his way?’

The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘They just did, sir.’

‘Why did he carve Chinese characters into their bodies?’

The man looked surprised. ‘What Chinese characters? He says he shot them.’

‘The Chinese characters on the French magistrate, the Russian woman, Henry Sellars and Elsie Everett.’

Strachan translated again. ‘He’s asking who these foreigners are. He’s never heard of them.’

Danilov crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘Let’s start again. His car was seen leaving the Astor Hotel with one of the victims inside. Elsie Everett. She was later found murdered.’

Strachan translated and the man giggled.

‘Why is he laughing, Stra-chan?’

‘He says the car isn’t his, sir. He stole it. With his friends. They found it on the Bund with the keys inside. Took it for a joy ride. Then we showed up. Now his cousins are dead.’

Danilov held up the bible he had taken from the car. ‘How does he explain this? It’s the same bible that we found in Henry Sellars’s locker.’

The man giggled again.

‘He says he doesn’t know, sir. They just stole the car.’ Strachan thought for a moment. ‘I think he’s telling the truth. This isn’t an educated man. He’s just a street thug with bad Mandarin. Can I try something, sir?’

Danilov lit another cigarette and placed the tobacco tin back in its proper place on the table, Jimmy Lin watching him all the time.

Strachan produced his pen and note book from his pocket. He passed it over to Jimmy Lin. ‘I’ve just asked him to write down what happened, sir.’

Jimmy Lin stared at the pen, holding it between his third finger and his thumb.

‘This man is illiterate, sir. He can’t read or write.’

Danilov sighed a long blue trail of smoke. ‘I do know what illiterate means, Stra-chan. Charge him with the murder of the waiter and the taxi dancer. He’s not our killer.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Danilov got up to go. ‘And tell him I will send the bodies of his cousins back to Changsha. I give him my word.’

Chapter 22

‘Please sit down. Cigars?’ Boyle offered them his box of Havanas. There were only two left. Both Danilov and Strachan declined.

‘I just thought I would extend my personal thanks to you both. Catching the murderers so quickly was a bit of a coup for us. Upstairs is very pleased. I’ll leave you to phone the French, Danilov. Put them out of their misery. We had to do their detective work for them. Of course, you’ll both receive commendations and a note on your records. How’s your ear, Strachan?’

‘Still sore, sir, but the doctor said it would heal soon. It looks a bit of a fright though.’

‘The bandage is rather large. Sure you wouldn’t like a few days off?’

‘No thank you, sir. Too much to do at the moment.’

Danilov coughed. ‘Sir, the man we are holding in the cells is not the murderer. He’s just a small-time car thief.’

‘What? What’s that?’

‘He isn’t our killer, sir.’

Boyle scratched the top of his bald head. Flakes of white scalp fell like snow onto his shoulders. ‘But…but…you arrested them. They shot at you. They were driving the killer’s car.’

‘They stole it from the Bund. The keys had been left inside. Obviously, the killer wanted to get rid of it. The easiest way was to get somebody to steal it. We’ve charged the man we are holding with murder. He shot a waiter and a taxi dancer.’

‘But he’s not the murderer. Not the man who killed Richard Ayres’s fiancée?’

Danilov shook his head. ‘This man is just a two-bit hood from Hunan. Out to make a quick buck in the big city.’

‘What am I going to tell upstairs?’

‘I suggest you let them know that our investigations are ongoing, sir.’

‘Ongoing? Ongoing?’ The Chief Inspector’s voice rose an octave. ‘Not good enough, Danilov.’

‘We’re moving as quickly as we can. It’s a complex case…’

‘It seems to me you are spending more time on the French killings than you are on solving the murder of the fiancée of one of the leading members of Shanghai society.’

‘I think that’s unfair, sir.’

‘You do, do you? Have you caught the killer? Have you brought anybody in for questioning yet?’

Danilov slowly shook his head. ‘Not at the moment, sir, but…’

‘Don’t give me any buts, Danilov, I want this case solved. Is that clear? Off the books, out of…’

Before Boyle could finish his sentence there was a knock at the door. It opened and Miss Cavendish entered. ‘I do hope I’m not disturbing anything, Chief Inspector, but Mr Allen thought you should see this.’

She laid the latest copy of the
Evening News
on Boyle’s desk. Glaring headlines shouted from the front pages.

ANOTHER VICTIM FOR THE CHARACTER KILLER

Underneath in a slightly smaller typeface:

POLICE STUMPED

Boyle sighed and ran his fingers through the tuft of hair above his right ear. More dandruff fell on his jacket. ‘See what’s happening, Danilov? When I ring upstairs and tell them we haven’t caught the killer after all.’

‘You caught the killer?’ asked Miss Cavendish.

‘No,’ sneered Boyle, ‘Danilov caught a car thief. He thought it was the killer.’

Danilov ignored Boyle, scanning the article beneath the headline. ‘How did the reporters get this information? We’ve been keeping the details of this case under wraps.’

‘Never mind that. JUST. SOLVE. THE. CASE. Do I make myself clear?’ Boyle stared at Danilov.

Danilov stared at the flakes of white skin on top of the Chief Inspector’s blue pinstripe jacket. ‘Very clear, sir,’ he answered.

Boyle turned to Miss Cavendish. ‘Please thank Mr Allen for the information.’

‘He’s out at the moment, sir. I’ll call him when he gets back.’

Before Boyle could continue his lecture, Danilov stood up. ‘Come on, Stra-chan, we have work to do.’ He quickly opened the door with Strachan right behind him.

As they closed it, the phone rang on Boyle’s desk.

***

The preacher died as he was removing his right leg. What a shame. He would have preferred him to stay alive for a little longer. Perhaps he should have waited before taking it off, let him recover for a while.

It was a messy business. The preacher bled a lot, making the knife slippery to hold as the blood spurted onto the grip. And then there was the smell. He didn
’
t mind the pungent aroma of the blood, a metallic, almost rusty smell. But the preacher himself stank to high heaven, which is where he was aiming to go, of course.

Luckily, he had prepared for every eventuality. He remembered the 6Ps from the army: Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. It was the motto of the staff of the division. Shame it wasn
’
t practised in reality. The staff work throughout the war was piss poor despite his attempts to make it better. They just wouldn
’
t listen to him. Idiots. Generals. Field Marshals. Idiots all of them. They should have been the ones to march across no man
’
s land, holding a rifle above their heads as they stumbled through the muck and shit. But no. They were at HQ safely tucking into a chateaubriand and a Ch
â
teauneuf-du-Pape. Criminals. He would have to judge one of them after he
’
d finished with Shanghai.

He made the final cut through the thigh bone using the cleaver. The knife scraped the bone pleasingly and made a sharp crunch as it chopped through the last spur and embedded itself in the wooden slab.

The body of the preacher lay in front of him in five neat pieces: a torso still with genitals attached. He didn
’
t want to remove those this time, just the two arms and two legs. Not a bad job, even if he did say so himself.

The preacher wouldn
’
t be playing with any more young boys, not any more.

It was interesting what people told him when they knew they were going to die. Henry Sellars couldn
’
t stop babbling about the preacher when he was being cut. He described how he had to take off his shirt and pants and put on a girl
’
s yellow dress. Then he was led to a bare wooden table with just a single cross on it. There, he had to lie on his stomach and face the cross, shouting out his sins to Jesus. The preacher pushing into him. Punishing him nearly every day by bending him over the table with the single cross. He had prayed for it to end, but it never did.

Now it had ended, for both of them. Neither Henry nor the preacher would commit any more crimes. They had both been judged, sentenced and executed. For him, there was no mitigation, no excuse. No feeble justifications for crime. No spurious reasons. Just the crime itself and its judgement. And they had both paid the price.