The morning had the dreary smell of a brand-new Shanghai day. A mixture of coal smoke, steaming bao and damp mist that rose from the Whangpoo and swamped the International Settlement.
At Miss Frodsham’s School for Girls, the children were enjoying themselves on the square of tarmac that surprisingly carried the name of a playground.
A group of infants were unsuccessfully playing hide-and-seek in a playground where there was nowhere to hide. They seemed to be enjoying themselves, though.
Three girls from Year 2 were practising their skipping skills, singing a song in the rhythm of the rope as it scraped the tarmac. Evelyn Turner thought she knew the melody, but the words in Mandarin had a strange lilt to them. She would ask them later what they meant.
Next to her, two girls were all alone. The Chen twins stood together in the centre of the playground, holding hands and staring at the other children through the fringes of their pageboy hair. They were too close, those two, always together, as if they could never be separated.
Miss Turner looked at her watch: 7.50 a.m. Just ten more minutes to go and she would ring the heavy brass bell that called the children to form orderly lines before they marched into school.
She thought of last night with Tom, a lieutenant in the Worcesters. The latest trouble between the Japanese and the Chinese had played merry hell with their love life, but he had somehow managed to get time off from his regiment. They’d gone to their usual haunt: the nightclub at the top of the Cathay Hotel, overlooking the Bund.
Of course, she had seen Victor Sassoon at his accustomed place in the corner. For a moment she had been tempted to go over with Tom and introduce them to each other. Her way of saying she had a new man in her life. But there was no point. Sassoon was surrounded by a bevy of girls fresh off the boat, just as she had been six months ago, drinking champagne as if it was their last day on earth.
God, she had enjoyed that life; a shame it had ended. But she was a teacher now, and her charges were the children of the wealthy Chinese nobility of Shanghai. Miss Frodsham’s School for Girls prided itself on raising well-trained young women who would provide all the support a successful husband could ever need. If they received an education at the same time, all well and good. An education could be a great asset to a husband.
Miss Turner checked her watch again: 7.55. The cars were still arriving at the entrance to the school. The bodyguard with the obvious bulge of a pistol beneath his jacket jumped down first, before the back door opened disgorging another young lady accompanied by an amah in the traditional outfit. The amahs were not allowed past the school gates, so they sent their charges in alone with a quick pat on the back and a gentle wave. The bodyguard returned to his position on the running board, and the car sped off. This short performance was repeated again and again as each successive car delivered its child.
Evelyn Turner heard a cry from behind her. One of the girls had fallen over and grazed her leg.
She rushed over, helping the child to her feet. ‘Maisie Zeng, how many times have I told you to be careful in the playground? A young lady does not run; she strides purposefully. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, Miss Turner.’
‘Go and see the nurse and get your knee cleaned up.’
Maisie Zeng limped off, her arm resting across the shoulders of a friend. She would have to watch those two; make sure they returned to class on time and didn’t play truant for the rest of the morning.
God, she sounded like her prep school teacher. How had she become another Miss Nightingale so quickly?
And then the memory of Tom’s body next to hers, the softness of the sheets in the Cathay, the warmth of his mouth all came back to her in a flash. A frisson of pleasure ran through her body once more. She could feel her neck reddening and the warmth spreading down to her chest and up to her face.
She looked around quickly to check if any of the girls had noticed. Luckily they were all preoccupied with their various games. Only the twins were staring at her, their beady eyes boring into her through the hedge of their fringes.
Her watch said 7.59. Never mind, she would be early for once. She raised the heavy brass bell and let it fall. The tone rang out across the playground. The girls instantly stopped playing; they were well trained. The last remaining amahs hurried their charges through the gates as Mr Wang, the old nightwatchman, moved slowly to shut them.
She lifted the bell again, ringing it continuously now. All the girls ran to form lines in front of the school, the class monitor at the head and the rest lining up behind her. From the left, each rank slightly taller, showing the different years of each class.
‘Quiet, children, form ranks quietly,’ Miss Turner shouted.
The pushing and shoving amongst the girls stopped and they resolved themselves into neat lines. It always amused Evelyn how order could be created from apparent chaos by the simple act of ringing a bell.
‘Now, everybody knows the drill. When you are all quiet, we will march directly into school, with Year Six leading off.’
A few girls were still chattering away to their next-door neighbours.
‘Iris Koo, do you want to spend this evening in detention?’
‘No, Miss Turner.’
‘Then stop talking when I am talking. You do know better, don’t you?’
‘Yes, Miss Turner.’
‘On the count of three, we will begin. One… two… ’
Before she could get to three, she was interrupted by the sound of shouting behind her. Three men, dressed in dark suits and matching hats, had opened the gates and were pushing past old Mr Wang. He tried to stop them, but they ignored him as if he didn’t exist.
Evelyn Turner stepped forward. ‘Excuse me, you can’t come—’
The leading man raised his fist and struck her across the jaw. She dropped to the hard tarmac, watching herself fall in slow motion.
Why had he hit her?
Her body felt like it belonged to somebody else, her limbs not responding to the command to move. For a moment she struggled to remember who and where she was, until the sun burst through her fog-shrouded mind and she shook her head, lifting it off the ground.
The man was in the middle of the girls, pulling one of them away. Evelyn tried to shout out, but no words came from her mouth. It was one of the twins. The man was carrying one of the twins away. The other twin was struggling with him, gripping her sister’s arm, but the man shoved her away roughly and hoisted the girl over his shoulder.
Evelyn sat up, trying to grab his leg as he passed, but she missed, merely lunging at empty air.
One of the other men, a scar red and livid below his right eye, dressed in the same dark suit, kicked her in the stomach, shouting, ‘Chau bi!’
She threw up the champagne from last night, and most of her breakfast from that morning, all over the black mass of the playground.
The last image she remembered was the eyes of the twin staring down at her from the shoulder of the man. Eyes that held all the fear in the world.
They carried on staring at her as the man strode through the gates, accompanied by his gang in dark suits, into a waiting car.
And then her world went black.