The shards of broken glass crunched beneath his shoes as Strachan knelt down and took a deep breath. He stared through the empty space where a pane of glass had been smashed in the door.
Nothing.
He reached into the hole and slowly opened the door.
Still no sound came from inside.
He crouched low and jumped into the room, revolver held in front of him, ready for action.
Nothing.
A light in the corner. Another open door. He could hear a gagging sound. And then a voice; muffled, soft, gloating.
‘I’ve enjoyed this, Han Kew. Sometimes, the old methods are the best. I think the woman and her child should follow the inspector in his dance, don’t you? Please fetch her.’
A grunt in reply.
Strachan crept to the inner door. He could hear heavy footsteps coming towards him. It was now or never.
He kicked it open. A large bald-headed Chinese man stood in front of him, arm raised. Behind the man, in the middle of the room, a young boy lay stretched out on the floor.
The boy kicked out with his leg, striking the knee of the Chinese thug. He doubled over and Strachan fired.
Once.
Twice.
The thug went down like a sack of potatoes, sprawling across the young boy.
To the right, the body of Inspector Danilov, still dressed in his working suit, was hanging in mid-air, his tongue sticking out between his teeth.
Too late. He was too late.
A bullet smashed into the wall above his head. Instinctively, Strachan ducked down and was showered in fragments of plaster and brick.
Another bullet. This time beside his right shoulder. He jumped back into an alcove, hiding behind the wall.
The stench of cordite filled the air. The Chinese man groaned loudly and then was silent. The sound of running feet.
He slowly manoeuvred his head around the edge of the wall.
A door was open on the other side of the room, steps leading upwards. The young boy was violently pushing the thug away from him.
In the corner, the body of the inspector twisted slowly in some hidden breeze above a hastily assembled stage…
Over his head, the sound of footsteps running across a wooden floor. Should he chase after him?
A noise behind him. He turned, gun poised to shoot.
‘David, it’s me.’ Elina stepped into the room, her hands held above her shoulders.
‘How… how?’ Strachan stammered, lowering his revolver.
She rushed past him into the room. Danilov still twisted slowly on the end of his rope.
He ran after her, jumping on to the stage.
The inspector was hanging by his neck over a trapdoor, his face a pale shade of blue, his tongue just visible between his teeth.
Another noise above his head. A door being slammed against a wall. Another shot.
A shout from beneath his feet. There must be more people down there.
The young man had struggled from beneath the thug and was kicking the dead body. He could hear the shouts from the cellar more clearly now. A woman’s voice, speaking a language he didn’t understand.
Elina had taken hold of the inspector’s body and was trying to move it on to the stage. Strachan pushed her away and grabbed the body. The weight was light, surprisingly light.
He laid it down on the wooden floorboards of the platform.
Outside, he could hear sirens. The Rapid Action Force.
More shouts from the basement, louder, more insistent now. He looked down at the face of the inspector. Pale and unbreathing. He seemed younger, the lines etched into his face, softened and erased.
A man at rest. The most restful he had ever seen this face. It was as if all the worries of the world had been removed and all that remained was peace.
Pure, unadulterated peace.
What had he learnt at police school?
Strachan began pounding on the man’s chest, counting as he did so. ‘Elina, blow into his mouth, inflate the lungs.’
Elina knelt down next to her father and began to blow into his mouth.
There was no reaction from Danilov.
She stopped and lifted up her father’s eyelids. Inside, the whites of the eyes were streaked with lines of red.
Strachan stopped pounding on the inspector’s chest, placing his ear over the heart.
Still nothing.
He pressed down even harder, using his body weight and counting as he did so.
‘One-two-three…’
Elina blew into her father’s mouth, holding his nose.
He stopped pressing down on the sternum. She placed her head on her father’s chest, listening for a sound, any sound. She looked at Strachan and shook her head.
Nothing.
He began to press and count again. ‘Three-four-five-six-seven…’
Slamming car doors. Footsteps outside in the courtyard. Deep voices shouting.
‘In here, quickly,’ Strachan shouted.
Danilov’s shirt was open, the white skin stretched tight across the rippled wave of the ribs. Elina stopped blowing into Danilov’s mouth. They both listened.
Nothing.
He pressed down again on the chest with both hands. ‘Eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen…’
‘You’re gonna break my ribs,’ a voice croaked.
He jerked backwards. The inspector’s eyes were open. Glazed red eyes, staring into the distance.
Danilov coughed and coughed again, spitting blood from between his lips. Strachan and Elina pulled him forward so he sat upright, the blood dripping from his mouth on to his open shirt.
Chief Inspector Fairbairn ran into the room, followed by three constables.
Danilov coughed again. ‘Go after Allen, Strachan… can’t escape again.’
Strachan jumped down from the platform. ‘This way,’ he shouted over his shoulder at Fairbairn and the constables.
He charged through the door and up the stairs. A mezzanine floor with another open door in the corner. The steps led upwards, vanishing as they spiralled around the inside of the tower.
Strachan sprinted to the door and up the stairs. He could hear footsteps above him. ‘He’s up here,’ he shouted, and climbed upwards.
The heavy tread of the constables echoed behind him as his own feet clattered on the wooden risers.
Up and up he went, always turning left as he followed the spiralling stairs.
A door banged above him; a shaft of light illuminated the motes of dust floating in the air.
His chest heaved, fighting for air, but still he climbed higher and higher.
He could see the top now. An open door.
He stopped.
Fairbairn and the constables clattered into his back. He could hear their panting as they desperately sucked air into their lungs. Or was the sound his own lungs scrabbling for air?
Calm yourself, Strachan.
He took three deep breaths and peered around the corner of the blue door.
A man was standing at the edge of the parapet, facing towards them, revolver in his hand. He seemed to be talking to someone, but the roof was empty.
‘I failed you, Yama. Again, I failed you.’
The man then lifted his head into the wind as if listening to an answer.
All Strachan could hear was the wind whistling around the concrete parapet.
Strachan jerked his head behind the door. He signalled to Fairbairn, who took up position on the other side of the entrance.
‘Give yourself up. There’s nowhere to go,’ Strachan shouted.
The man laughed. ‘There’s always somewhere to go. It’s time for this body who once was Thomas Allen to join me.’
The voice had a strange tone, deep, foreign.
‘He failed me. He knows what to do.’
Strachan put his head around the door.
The man was standing on the parapet, the revolver still in his left hand. Slowly, he brought the gun up and placed it against his temple.
‘Noooooooo,’ Strachan shouted and rushed on to the top of the tower.
The man fired. A single shot.
He remained standing on the parapet for a second, smiling at Strachan, before his knees began to give way and the body toppled slowly over the edge.
Strachan raced to the parapet and looked over. The body was falling, a smile still etched on the face and a single red dot smeared on the temple.
It landed with the softest thud on the flagstones of the courtyard.
Strachan looked up. The brown haze covering Shanghai lifted for a brief moment to reveal the city, in all its wretched glory, sleeping quietly under a full moon.
Beneath him, the body of Thomas Allen, the Judge of Souls, lay with its legs stuck out at an awkward angle, a pool of blood already forming around the head.
Strachan remembered another body with blood forming a dark pool on a tiled floor.
His mother.
What was it Danilov had said in the cemetery? ‘Our job is to protect the weak from the wolves.’
Looking down at the misshapen body of Thomas Allen lying sprawled and unmoving on the concrete of the courtyard, Strachan finally realised he couldn’t save everyone, but that would not stop him from trying.