Inside the station, there was the usual cacophony of noise.
Some people were shouting, some fighting each other, some waving papers over their heads, others simply standing there morosely, waiting for their names to be called.
At the centre of the action, behind a tall mahogany desk, was Sergeant Wolfe, the duty officer.
‘Oi, you there, yes I’m talking to you. Bie nayang zuo,’ he shouted in bad Chinese over the noise of the crowd.
Danilov caught his eye and waved. Wolfe shrugged his shoulders as if to say, what can I do?
Danilov pushed through the crowd and was greeted at the guardrail by a Sikh constable wearing a blue turban. The man opened the half-door, letting them both through into the inner sanctum of the station. They walked along the corridor towards the detective’s room.
‘Inspector Danilov, Inspector Danilov!’ The clatter of heels echoed down the corridor as Miss Cavendish ran after them. ‘Oh, what a relief, I’ve managed to find you.’
‘I don’t believe I was ever lost, Miss Cavendish.’
The middle-aged woman smiled and played with a rope of pearls twisted about her neck. She had come to Shanghai over twenty years ago in the company of her mother on one of the fishing expeditions so beloved of English middle-class women. Fishing not for the denizens of the deep, but for more humble prey: a husband. Unfortunately, she had not been successful in her quest, but had instead discovered marriage to a career as secretary to the Head of Detectives of the station.
‘You are a card, Inspector Danilov. But the meeting is about to start and I was sent to see if you had returned.’
‘What meeting?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘Miss Cavendish, if I knew, I wouldn’t be asking, would I?’
Miss Cavendish enjoyed these moments when she had a secret or gossip to impart. For Danilov, she was a fountain of knowledge about the happenings in the station, whether these involved the Western, Russian, Chinese or Japanese sections of the police force.
‘Well, Miss Cavendish?’
She leaned in and almost whispered, ‘The new Chief Inspector is here.’
‘Mr Boyle’s replacement? I thought he wasn’t coming till next week.’
‘So did we all, Inspector. But he’s here now and he’s giving a speech. We’d better hurry.’ She took Danilov’s arm. ‘You too, Detective Sergeant Strachan. You can’t escape either.’
‘But, I have work to do… an attempted murder,’ protested Danilov.
‘No exceptions, no absentees. That was the instruction from the new Chief Inspector. He was adamant. Not the same as Chief Inspector Boyle at all.’
She pushed them along the corridor, back the way they had come, turning right instead of going straight on to the lobby. She stopped at a glass-fronted door and knocked. A sharp ‘Enter’ came from inside.
She stepped back and opened the door for Danilov and Strachan.
The full detective complement of Central was gathered in the room. Some were sitting on chairs, others stood in the corner, a few more leant against the wall. At the front was a dapper man, dressed in a pinstriped three-piece suit. The cut was immaculate, with the trousers just breaking over the Oxford brogues. The tie was beautifully proportionate and knotted right in the centre of the throat.
Danilov admired the perfection of it. An obsession with the rituals of clothing was not one of his eccentricities, but he understood the motivation behind it. The appearance of perfection in a chaotic world. How he looked was the one way a man could control his world. And this man controlled himself with an attention to detail Danilov admired.
The man spoke to them. ‘Ah, come on in. You two are…?’
‘Inspector Danilov and Detective Sergeant Strachan, sir.’ It was Miss Cavendish who answered from behind them.
‘Do come in and make yourself comfortable.’ The voice was patrician and educated. A voice at ease with itself. Danilov noticed the head above the clothes was as well manicured as the rest of the man. The hair cut short in regulation fashion, with a sharp white line to indicate the parting. The eyes blue, against the grey of the salt and pepper hair. A pencil moustache, beginning to show flecks of grey, sitting like a trimmed centipede above the lip.
Danilov found a place against the wall. He could see all the other detectives, Japanese, Chinese and Western, looking straight ahead, ignoring the interruption. Cartwright and Meaker, however, were staring dolefully back at him. What were those two doing here?
‘As I was saying before our colleagues entered, my name is Chief Inspector Rock. And before we go any further, my nickname at school and Scotland Yard was Brighton, for obvious reasons.’
There were a few perfunctory laughs from the detectives.
‘But let me make it clear.’ He paused here, letting his gaze wander over the room. ‘To you, I will be Chief Inspector Rock. We are not friends, not pals, not best mates. We are professionals. You report to me and you work for me. If you don’t, you’re out. Do I make myself clear?’
There were a few muttered yesses.
Rock stood up straighter. ‘Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the detectives answered.
‘Good, now we understand each other, let me make a few other points. Brighton Rock was my nickname because I was a copper through and through. I carried on working even when the Met went on strike in 1919. For me, a copper doesn’t go on strike, ever. I headed the investigation into the poisoning of the Met’s Commissioner, Sir William Horwood, in 1922.
‘Was that the walnut whip poisoning?’
Rock raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘It was, Inspector Danilov. I’m surprised you know about it.’
‘An interesting case, sir.’
‘Anyway, we caught the madman who did it and put him away for life. I also ran the response to the General Strike in 1926, and the investigation into the bent sergeant in C Division, George Goddard. I am a copper’s copper. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’ This time all the detectives answered smartly.
‘I will run this detective squad for the three years of my secondment from Scotland Yard as if I were still a member of the Met. We will be professional. We will be a team. We will work together. There is no place for mavericks on my squad.’ Here he looked pointedly at Danilov. ‘A professional detective force runs methodically, with planning and procedures. It’s not a fly-by-night bunch of hooligans whose one skill is the ability to arrest just enough criminals to keep their bosses happy.’ His hand slammed down on to the desk in front of him. ‘Such behaviour will not be tolerated. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ all the detectives answered, including Danilov.
A smile spread slowly across Rock’s face. The patrician voice returned. ‘Good, I’m glad we understand each other, gentlemen. Continue with your duties.’
There was a scraping of chairs and desks as the detectives rose, stretched, and formed little groups to talk under their breath.
‘Inspector Danilov, I’d like to see you in ten minutes,’ said Rock above the noise of the departing detectives.
‘Of course, sir.’
‘We need to discuss the attempted murder of the woman yesterday. I have a few ideas how we might proceed.’
‘Ten minutes, sir?’
Rock looked at his watch. Danilov noticed it was an elegant gold Rolex. ‘At noon, precisely.’
‘Yes, sir’
Rock left the room, followed by Miss Cavendish.
A collective sigh of relief went round the detectives.
‘It looks like you’re fucked, Danilov. This one won’t put up with your shite like Boyle did.’ The speaker was Cartwright, still sitting on his chair, a roll of fat dripping over the top of his trousers.
‘What are you doing here, Cartwright?’
‘As soon as Boyle left, I was on the phone straight away. Knew Rock from the army days. We weren’t in the same unit, but I helped him out a few times. Good man.’
‘I’m happy to hear you are friends, Cartwright.’
‘No, you’re not. And you know why you should be unhappy?’
‘I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’
The man smiled, his moustache twitching over his top lip. ‘Because you’re fucked, Danilov. I give you two weeks before Rock has you out in the Badlands with a bog brush in your hand, inspectin’ toilets. You’ll never have time to find your wife when that happens. She’ll stay as lost as the day you left her in Minsk, or whatever rat-infested city you came from.’
The words cut Danilov to his core. Cartwright, despite his oafishness, was smart enough to know Danilov’s weakness.
‘It’s always amused me, the supposedly smart detective who can’t even find his own wife.’ Cartwright nudged Meaker sitting beside him. As if waiting for his cue, the other detective chuckled.
Danilov checked his watch. Time to put an end to this. ‘Talking about wives, it pains me to see that yours has left you again. Does your Japanese mistress still kiss you on the cheek every time you leave her?’
Cartwright quickly wiped his cheek, removing the smudge of red lipstick that had been there since breakfast. Meaker laughed at him.
‘And you, Inspector Meaker, still wasting your money on the greyhounds at the Canidrome, are we? I would have thought a man of your intelligence knew it was all rigged. I’m sure you’ll pay them back eventually. How much do you owe? Four hundred dollars?’
‘How did you know?’ blurted out Meaker.
‘Your collar is ragged and your left shoe has a hole in it. You obviously can’t afford new ones. And throughout Chief Inspector Rock’s speech you kept looking at the piece of paper in your hand. A betting slip, if I’m correct. Twenty dollars on some old dog at 20-1. If you win, you’ll be able to pay them off nicely.’
‘You bastard…’
‘I’m sorry to tell you, but it will come in fourth, so my sources tell me. Come on, Strachan, we have work to do and a Chief Inspector to meet.’
They both left the room, the shouts of Meaker striking their backs. ‘You think you’re so fucking smart, Danilov, but I’ll get you. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get you.’