The Master of Rain

Six

Field emerged onto the street, relieved to feel a breeze on his face, even if it did carry with it the smell of dead fish and stagnant water from the wharves and the sulfurous pollution of factories over in Pudong, on the far side of the Whangpoo River.

He had changed into his father’s dinner jacket, but it was just as thick and hot.

Once it became clear he wasn’t getting into a car, he was besieged by a group of rickshaw pullers—every one scrawny and shabbily dressed—imploring him to use their services. He shook his head and waved them away, but without discernible effect. He walked purposefully the other way, passing the open doors of a packed restaurant and a billboard advertising “Money Exchange.” The signs along the street ahead were mostly in Chinese, competing for the attention of the hordes rushing to their destinations. Long cotton banners twisted in the breeze.

An old man with no legs thrust a flat cap in Field’s direction and tugged at his trousers as he passed. Field fended him off and careered into a smart, handsome Eurasian wearing a white fedora and a long gray cotton tunic, with a silver watch pinned to his chest and bright, white shoes. Behind him was a woman in a long, figure-hugging white dress, her hair pulled back in a tight bun to reveal a pretty, oval face. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought she smiled at him.

Ahead, a thousand telegraph wires crisscrossed a dark, brooding sky, heavy with monsoon rain. The first drops landed on his face. Field wondered if he should feel homesick, but he didn’t. He missed nothing at all about Yorkshire.

Outside the white portico entrance to the tall red brick building that housed the American Club, Field stopped to light a cigarette. He looked up at the Stars and Stripes fluttering above the entrance. He was opposite the Municipal Administration Building and wondered if Geoffrey, too, would be walking. He couldn’t really remember what his uncle looked like. Field realized he was nervous, and recalled Edith accusing him, in a rare moment of disagreement, of “hero-worshiping a man who has played no part in our lives.”

Field stepped off the sidewalk and waited for a tram to rattle past before crossing the road and turning onto the Bund, the city’s business heart, the Wall Street of Asia. The wind was strong here, so that the Chinese walking next to him lost his hat and had to scrabble on the sidewalk to catch it. Field stopped and ran his hand through his hair, then put both hands in his pockets and watched the new Buicks and Oldsmobiles rolling past. A black Chevrolet moved slowly among them, with burly bodyguards—White Russians—standing on each running board, machine guns resting casually over their shoulders.

The Shanghai Club at number 2 the Bund was an ornate, classical stone building, with a red iron-framed awning shielding its entrance, Italianate cupolas capping a colonnaded facade of Ningpo granite. The street outside was quieter than usual, a group of chauffeurs kicking their heels, talking and smoking next to their sleek black cars. The rickshaw pullers stood discreetly about twenty yards down the street.

On the Whangpoo, Field could see two dragon boats pulling away from the shore, their sides and bows decked out with bright-colored silk hangers and paper lamps. He waited again for a tram to come past, then crossed the road, walking between the line of cars parked down its center. He headed for the war memorial—a bronze angel standing above a square stone pillar. Some children were playing tag around it while their parents watched the dragon boats.

Field looked at his watch. He did not want to be either early or late.

He waited for a few minutes. A steamer, loaded to the gills with people bent low beneath a canvas awning, made its way downriver. It was towing three cargo barges, but still moving faster than a similarly overloaded sampan struggling to get out of its way. Both were making for the wooden jetty that jutted out ahead of him.

Field leaned over the wall, looking down into the muddy waters. The lights along the shore came on suddenly. They were electric here.

He looked at his watch again and turned to survey the solid majesty of the Bund. It was like the Strand, or any of London’s other classical streets; every building along it, he thought, a projection of European and American power. He pushed himself away from the wall and walked back across the road and through the iron gates. The glass doors at the top of the steps swung back as he reached them.

“Good evening, sir,” the doorman said, bowing, next to a pair of Greek goddesses that guarded the entrance. He spoke with a thick Russian accent and wore a bright blue and gold uniform. Behind him, a broad staircase of white Sicilian marble climbed toward the first floor.

“I’m here to meet Geoffrey Donaldson.”

The man pointed toward the lobby. “Mr. Donaldson is not in yet, but if you’d like to wait through there . . .”

Field walked through to the colonnaded hall across a black and white marble floor. The opulence of his surroundings was testament enough, he thought, to confidence in the permanence of the European presence here. He looked up at the ceiling with its ornate plasterwork and the enormous light that hung from a chain thick enough to hold a ship’s anchor. There was a balcony above and, on the walls behind, pictures of Shanghai life—hunting out in the fields beyond the city limits, men standing at the Long Bar of the club, and a panorama of the Bund.

Field moved to a glass cabinet full of silver trophies at the edge of the lobby. Beyond it was a bulletin board covered in the latest Reuters reports, pulled from a telex machine. He read one that detailed further intercommunal riots in Rawalpindi and was grateful again that he’d not chosen to join the Indian police instead.

Field turned to see a tall, sandy-haired, pleasant-looking man limping toward him.

“Richard.” He was smiling. Field tried to wipe the sweat from his hand in his pocket before offering it. “I’m sorry to be late,” Geoffrey said.

“No, I was early.”

“Did you see the dragon boats?”

“Yes, in the distance.”

“You should take a closer look. It’s quite a spectacle.”

Field was suddenly embarrassed and searched for something to say. “How often do they have them?”

“Once a year. They are to celebrate a hero’s death. A faithful minister of state was dismissed by his prince, or so the legend goes, and threw himself into a small river in Hunan to show his humiliation. His friends gathered to throw rice across the water so that his spirit wouldn’t starve, and since then, on the anniversary of his death, they race boats on the river, presumably looking for his body.” Geoffrey smiled. “Let’s go through.”

He led the way down the corridor toward a set of glass doors that Field guessed must have been twenty-five feet high, with brass handles the size of a medium-size dog. As they approached, the doors were opened by Chinese waiters in newly pressed white linen uniforms.

The room he found himself in was the size of a tennis court, perhaps larger, furnished with sumptuously upholstered golden sofas and high-backed leather armchairs, dim lamps, and potted plants. A series of ceiling fans turned in unison. A long, L-shaped bar made of old, unpolished mahogany stretched all the way from one end of the room to the other.

“The longest bar in the world,” Geoffrey said as he led Field to the bay window at the far end, overlooking the Bund, the preserve of taipans and other members of the city’s elite. “Thought we’d have a quick drink, then meet up with Penelope at the country club. Been there?”

Field shook his head.

“Have you come here?”

“No.”

Field thought it would have been so easy for Geoffrey to patronize him—just a brief raise of the eyebrows, perhaps to remind him, as the family back home so often did, of their reduced circumstances—but his warm face was without any hint of prejudice. He was exactly how Field remembered him from their last meeting almost ten years ago, and he liked this man instantly again.

“Gin and tonic times two,” Geoffrey instructed the waiter, turning to Field to see if that was all right. He leaned against the bar to take the weight of his wooden leg. “How is your mother? I got the letter you posted for her.”

“She’s all right, thank you. You know how things are.”

He nodded. “I keep trying to send her money, but . . .”

“She won’t take it. It’s good of you to try.” Field sipped his gin. “I’m so sorry about . . . I know it’s a long time ago now, but Mother told me . . .” Field pointed to his uncle’s leg.

“Can’t be helped.” Geoffrey’s smile became somber. “I miss your mother. I’ve never held with all this nonsense from the rest of the family. I’m rather sorry I’ve been so far away.” His face was full of the compassion of a man who understands suffering. “I was, of course, sorry to hear about your father. Is your mother . . . is she all right—financially, I mean?”

Field did not know what he should say, or what his mother would want him to.

“Don’t worry,” Geoffrey said, touching Field’s shoulder. “I’ll have another go at her.” He took out a packet of cigarettes. Field didn’t feel like smoking, but wanted to be sociable, so accepted one when it was offered. “I never quite gathered,” Geoffrey went on, “and it’s difficult to write to your mother about it. But the final verdict was suicide?”

“Yes.” Field nodded, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“It was the business . . . the bankruptcy?”

Field hesitated. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“It was you who found him?”

“Yes. It was.”

“Sorry. Probably crass of me to talk about it.”

“No, really . . .”

Geoffrey was staring at his hand. “He was a good man, your father.”

Field didn’t answer.

“Quite tough, I suppose, but his heart was in the right place.”

Field sensed some reaction was expected of him. He shrugged.

“Sorry, not my business, Richard.”

“It’s the family’s business.”

“Jolly tough if luck goes against you. That’s all life is, Richard, the merry-go-round of fate. I believe they loved each other, and in better circumstances, things might have been very different.”

“But we have to live with the circumstances we are presented with.”

Geoffrey looked embarrassed. “He was tough on you, I know. Or so it’s been said. But not for want of affection, I’m sure.”

Field felt his face reddening.

“I’m sorry, truly. None of my business. It’s just . . . so easy to get out of touch. That is the one trouble of being away. It’s hard to bridge the miles that separate us.” He cleared his throat. “The letter from your mother was a little odd, in fact.”

Field frowned.

“Said she was worried you would take advantage of our position and . . . you know, I’m only mentioning it because it’s a load of bloody nonsense. You’re family, so of course, we’ll help you in any way we can.”

“I can assure you . . .”

“Don’t be silly, man.” Field could see there was steel in his uncle’s eyes. “You’re thousands of miles from home in a strange city. Of course, it’s an absolute pleasure for us to have a link . . . I only mention it because it worried me. I’ve never held, as I said, with this marrying-beneath-yourself business—your father was a fine man and I’m just concerned it may have got to her in a way I’d not envisaged.”

“There’s no need to worry. She’s fine.”

Geoffrey patted his shoulder, smiling again. “Said they’d wanted you to be a missionary.”

Field smiled back. “I don’t think there was much danger of that.”

“Thank God we’ve got you out here.”

A man in a white linen suit appeared through the swinging doors and made his way toward them. He moved with an easy, athletic gait. He ran a hand through his blond hair.

“Geoffrey.”

Field saw that his uncle’s smile of welcome was wary. “Charles. This is Richard Field, my sister’s boy. Richard, Charles Lewis, taipan of Fraser’s, Shanghai’s biggest trading company.”

Lewis’s handshake was firm, a smile breaking the handsome solemnity of his face. He was about Field’s height, but there the similarities ended. Lewis, from his slicked-back hair to his finely polished leather shoes, was every inch the son of privilege, confidently shouldered.

“Richard’s just come out, joined the police force.”

“The police,” Lewis said with gentle, mocking admiration. “Excellent. Not in the Traffic Branch, I hope.”

Field hesitated. Granger was always warning them not to tell anyone in the city what they did, but as members of the Municipal Council, both of these men were responsible for governing and overseeing the municipal police force. “No,” he said.

“One of Macleod’s men?”

“I work with Patrick Granger.”

“Ah.” Charles Lewis raised his eyebrows. “You look like you’ve been pounding the streets all day.”

Field smiled thinly. “There was a murder,” he said. He realized immediately he’d been trying to show off, and regretted it.

“The Russian woman,” Lewis said. “I was just reading about her in the Evening Post.”

“Lena Orlov.”

Perhaps it was Field’s imagination, but he got the impression Lewis had known Lena Orlov, or at least recognized the name.

“Handcuffed to the bed. Kinky.” Lewis took his hands from his pockets. “What are we doing?”

Geoffrey Donaldson looked at his watch and turned to Field. “We had better get along to meet Penelope.” He put his glass down on the bar, facing Lewis again. “You’re very welcome to come along,” he said without enthusiasm.

Lewis smiled. “Never say no to dinner with Penelope.”

Charles Lewis led the way out. Field held back to wait for Geoffrey. In the lobby Lewis took his trilby from the porter and walked straight through the doors. Geoffrey grabbed Field’s arm. “He’s all right,” he said. “Charlie’s all right.”

“Yes,” Field said. “Of course.”

Outside, Lewis’s chauffeur had already brought up his new black Buick and they climbed into the back before setting off down the Bund, past the brightly lit monoliths. The dome of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank was ghostly against the night sky. They turned left into Nanking Road and Field looked out of the window in silence at the streets and shops still bustling with life.

The country club on Bubbling Well Road was similarly grand, a wide circular stone entrance giving way to an airy stone-floored lobby with plants in large silver pots. There was a reception area on the left, but Lewis led them straight through to a veranda that overlooked a small fountain and several acres of flat, well-tended lawn. A group dressed in white was playing bowls in the corner, close to the wall; another group, nearer, croquet.

It was growing dark. An Indian waiter in a starched white and gold uniform was hanging lanterns all along the terrace and placing joss sticks and spraying paraffin beneath each table to ward off mosquitoes.

Penelope Donaldson was waiting for them at the far end, one long leg crossed over the other, both resting on a wicker and glass coffee table. As she turned toward them, Field saw immediately that she was pretty, with bobbed, jet-black hair. Her skirt was short, her mouth small. She wore, Field thought, a lot of makeup.

“Charlie!” she said, standing and putting her arms around his neck, kissing him on the mouth. “What a treat.”

“Penelope,” Geoffrey said a little stiffly, “this is Richard Field, my—I suppose our—nephew.”

She stepped forward and offered a slender hand, her smile warmer and more engaging than Field was for some reason expecting. “We’ll get along fine,” she said, “just as long as you don’t call me ‘Auntie.’ ”

Field smiled back at her.

“The boy’s in the police force,” Lewis said.

“Good Lord,” she responded with the same mock admiration.

“Working on that Russian woman found handcuffed to the bed.”

“How exciting,” she said, ignoring Geoffrey’s frown. “It’s sexual?”

They were all looking at Field, who was wondering what the Evening Post had written about the story—sensational nonsense, probably—or from where they had received such detailed information. “In a sense, yes.”

“What do you mean?” Penelope asked.

Field wasn’t sure it was a good idea to get into this. “The consensus seems to be that it is a crime of a broadly sexual nature.”

“Perhaps he couldn’t find keys to the handcuffs,” Lewis said. Penelope laughed. Geoffrey looked embarrassed.

Lewis turned his hat in his hand as he contemplated Field. Field thought him the most supremely arrogant man he’d ever met. He was handsome, and he knew it, and was clearly totally comfortable at the apex of Shanghai society. Slowly, he turned away, toward Penelope. “You weren’t at the Claymores last night.”

Geoffrey interrupted by signaling for a waiter, another Indian, this time all in white, without any brocade. The three men opted for gin, Penelope for “a slow comfortable screw.”

She laughed as she said it, embarrassing her husband. Field could see from the menu in front of him that the cocktail was called simply “The Screw.”

“How are you finding Shanghai?” she asked him when the waiter had gone.

Field sat up straight. “Hot.”

“Got yourself a girl?”

“Penelope . . .”

“What?”

“Give the chap a break. He’s only been here five minutes.”

“I’m sure he has. Probably found a Russian already. They’re a bargain. Grateful, too, I gather, unlike us lot.”

The waiter arrived with a large silver tray, the drinks, and two bowls of peanuts. He set them down carefully, bowed once stiffly, and retreated.

“Come on, then, Richard . . . is that what we should call you?”

“Most people just know me as ‘Field.’ ”

“We can’t call you that! It’s far too impersonal.”

“Delusions of grandeur,” Lewis said.

“Richard,” Geoffrey instructed his wife.

“All right—Richard. You must have a girl. Handsome chap like you.”

Field blushed. She was smiling at him. She leaned forward, the strap of her black dress falling off her shoulder to reveal a small, firm breast and nipple, only just visible in the half-light. She followed the direction of his gaze but made no move to pick the strap up.

“It’s been all-consuming since I got here.”

“You’ve been training?”

“Yes.”

“With guns?”

“Amongst other things,” Field said.

“How very brave. I’m sure your mother told us you were a fighter. Didn’t she, Geoffrey?”

“Richard is an accomplished boxer.”

“And she said you have a temper . . .”

“Penelope,” Geoffrey said sternly.

“No, I like a bit of spirit,” she said.

“Better watch our step,” Charlie Lewis added.

“Have you learned Chinese?” Penelope went on.

“I wouldn’t claim to be fluent.”

“Neither would I, but then I don’t speak a word. Geoffrey and Charlie do, of course.”

“Ignorance,” Charles Lewis said languidly, “is the preserve of the taitai.”

Field was frowning.

“Consort of a taipan,” Geoffrey explained, “but in more general usage, expatriate lady.”

“So you’ve not sampled the exotic delights of the city?” Penelope asked again, raising her eyebrow but still not lifting the strap of her dress.

“Penelope.” Geoffrey was smiling benignly as he eased back in his chair, stretching out his false leg. “Do give the chap a break.”

“No, it’s a serious issue,” Lewis said. “A man, whatever his station, must live here.”

“Or a woman,” Penelope said. She took a sip of her cocktail, which was yellow in color, with a cut strawberry resting on top. “I think he should have a Russian.” She leaned forward again. “They’re so beautiful and sexy, don’t you think, Richard?”

Penelope smiled and touched his leg, the front of her dress dropping still further. “I’m sorry, we’re teasing you.” She sat back, taking a cigarette from the silver case on the table in front of her. “Everyone expects Shanghai to be decadent, so we like to give the impression of debauchery, but you’re too nice to be teased, and you’re family.”

Field had drunk both the first and now this gin and tonic quickly, and was beginning to feel the effects.

“Another one, Richard?” Geoffrey asked.

Field shook his head.

Geoffrey leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette in the silver ashtray. “I think we should go through to dinner.”

To Field’s dismay, Penelope Donaldson put her arm through his and led him along the veranda to the French doors, leaning against him a little, so the smell of Parisian perfume caught in his nostrils.

“How is your mother, Richard?” she asked.

“She’s fine.”

“I keep telling Geoffrey he should send money.”

“She won’t accept it.”

“I’m sorry about your father.”

Field had been trying not to look at her, but he turned and found himself flushing. Her brown eyes were soft, her gaze solemn now; only the corner of her mouth betrayed her amusement. He shrugged, not certain what he should say.

They had reached the dining room, which was again huge, the walls covered in floor-to-ceiling mirrors, in between which hung dark paintings of English country landscapes.

There were only a few groups eating, and another Indian waiter led them to a table by the window. It looked out onto the veranda where they’d just been sitting and the lawns beyond.

As his chair was pulled back, Field glanced up at the giant chandelier and wondered if he should offer to pay for his own dinner. He suspected that it would be bad form, but did not want to be seen as another poor cousin intent on sponging off the wealthy branch of the family.

Geoffrey ordered a bottle of champagne and lit another cigarette, offering the case around the table, so that, as the waiters filled their glasses, they were all smoking.

Field had never had champagne and had often wondered whether he would like it. He took to it so quickly that it was hard not to gulp it down.

“So who do you think is your man?” Geoffrey said when the waiter had placed the bottle in the silver wine bucket next to him.

“For the murder?” Field said, beginning to feel quite drunk.

“Yes.”

“We’ve hardly begun—”

“Initial theories. A Jack the Ripper?” He turned to Lewis. “An Eastern Jack the Ripper?”

“The woman’s flat belongs to Lu Huang.”

Both the men opposite him frowned. “He’s your suspect?” Geoffrey asked.

“Difficult to say at this stage. It’s just that it was his apartment, and my colleagues think it was his men who bundled the doorman down to the Chinese city and presided over his execution.”

“Doesn’t seem Lu’s style, stabbing a woman,” Geoffrey said.

“I get the impression he’s more or less above the law.”

Geoffrey Donaldson shook his head vigorously. “No, no. We’d love to get him for something if we could, but . . . you know.” He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “He has the French in his pocket and he’s careful what he does and doesn’t do in our jurisdiction, but . . .”

“Isn’t the abduction of the doorman a crime in our jurisdiction?” Field had begun to sound truculent, so he took another large sip of champagne. “As well as the murder of the girl, of course.”

“Yes, absolutely,” Geoffrey said, nodding. “If you boys could get him on this, it would be marvelous, send a signal . . . you know. Don’t you think, Charlie?”

“Absolutely,” Lewis said without enthusiasm.

“The municipal authorities keep open contacts with Lu,” Geoffrey said, “for reasons I’m sure you appreciate, but that doesn’t mean he’s above the law.” He took another drag of his cigarette. “Anything you can do to teach everyone in this city a lesson on that score would earn you a lot of plaudits.”

“That’s enough politics, boys,” Penelope said. “It’s only a Russian girl, after all . . . Let’s order, and then I want to know everything about Dickie’s life here.”

She looked down at her menu and then stood to excuse herself. As she passed her husband, she draped her arm over his shoulder affectionately and he placed a hand over her own. They both smiled.

By the time they’d finished dessert, Field was drunk and had said considerably more than he’d intended to. He’d talked about the rivalry between Macleod and Granger and told them about Prokopieff and his habit of leaping out of bed in the middle of the night and beating on the walls all the way down the corridor outside, shouting something incomprehensible in Russian.

They had smiled while he told this story, but Field thought he’d talked too much. Lewis’s eyes had begun to glaze over.

“I propose,” Lewis said, “that I take our boy here on a tour of the city’s ‘exotica.’ ” He stood, then they all did.

“Excellent idea. I’ll take Mrs. Donaldson home,” Geoffrey said.

“Now hang on a minute . . .” Penelope interjected.

Geoffrey cleared his throat noisily.

“Well,” Penelope said petulantly, “a girl knows when she’s not wanted.” She leaned over and kissed Field on the cheek, her skin warm and her hair soft. As she did so, she touched his hip with her hand, leaving it there as she pulled her head back, before slipping it into the pocket of his jacket. “I hope you’ll be virtuous tonight.”

“Actually, I really ought to be getting home.”

“Nonsense,” Lewis said, adjusting his jacket and glancing at himself in the mirror.

Field’s face was reddening. “I’m not actually sure I can afford . . .”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Geoffrey said, looking at him with astonishment. “You’re a policeman. Fraser’s will pay.”

Penelope’s hand was still in his pocket and she scratched his side, then leaned forward to give him another kiss.

She picked up her shawl from the back of the chair and walked toward the door. Geoffrey edged around the table, smiling at him. “Good to see you, old chap.” He shook Field’s hand. “Let’s stay in touch.”

“I’d like that.”

“Let’s see to it, then.” He nodded at Charles, then set off after his wife, who’d already gone through the big wooden doors.