Danilov walked slowly forward, the body becoming clearer with each step.
It was sitting upright on the bench, shaded by an old lacebark pine. From a distance, the body seemed to be wearing a long pink shirt. As he moved closer, Danilov could see the material wasn’t expensive. A rough cotton without the easy flow of a good fabric.
He took another few steps forward, his foot stumbling against a stone lying in the middle of the path.
The body had no face.
There were no eyes. Or nose. Or lips. Or mouth. Nothing that could define it as human. None of those facial characteristics that identify and separate us as human beings. Just blond hair flowing from nothing.
Another step forward.
Danilov felt the body was a man not a woman. There was an indefinable solidity to it, a breadth to the shoulders, a roughness to the size and shape of the hands shouting maleness, not the soft elegance of a woman.
The body’s arms were stretched out in front, resting on its lap, fists clenched. On the wrists, Danilov could see the marks of a thin rope. The arms were crossed horizontally by sharp red lines, as if somebody had taken a pen and ruler to draw across the skin.
The shift wasn’t dyed pink; it was blood giving the garment colour. Blood that had flowed from a deep gash in the neck on to the chest and been absorbed by the fabric like a sponge.
‘Not again,’ he said out loud.
He was standing over the body now, looking down at it. He knelt and touched the back of the hand. It had that peculiar, dough-like softness of death. He could see the hairs growing in profusion above the large knuckles. Definitely male hands.
He looked up into the emptiness of the face. There was something covering it, making it look featureless and inhuman. A thin film of plaster of Paris, or something similar, had been applied and smoothed over the features, removing all definition.
He heard footsteps on the gravel behind him.
‘Oh my God.’
Strachan was standing there, staring at the body on the bench, his mouth slightly open, breathing heavily.
‘Make sure nobody comes anywhere near here,’ Danilov ordered.
There was no answer.
‘Strachan, did you hear me?’
‘She’s like the one before. Elsie Everett. The one we found in the park.’
‘Detective Sergeant Strachan, pull yourself together,’ Danilov snapped. ‘Get those two coppers to guard the area. When they are here, call Dr Fang. Tell him we have a customer for him. Keep everybody away until Fang’s people get here. Understand?’
Strachan stopped staring at the body, his eyes focusing on Danilov. ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir.’
The detective sergeant ran back to the club building, his feet crunching on the gravel.
Danilov took one last look at the body sitting on the bench. It looked as if it was just enjoying the afternoon sunshine of a pleasant November day in Shanghai. He could see all the cuts; hundreds of sharply defined, bright-red slashes across the arms and legs. And the one deep gash that had once been a throat.
He remembered the day nearly two years ago. An actress with the same blonde hair – Elsie Everett was her name – found sitting on a bench in a park, her body also covered in cuts. They had eventually caught the murderer, Thomas Allen, a member of Special Branch. The Character Killer, the newspapers had dubbed him, because he carved Chinese characters into the bodies of his victims. Danilov had shot him twice in chest, watched as the man tumbled into Soochow Creek.
He had to be dead. Nobody could have survived.
Danilov could see no characters carved on the skin, but they might be concealed beneath the sodden fabric. Dr Fang would be able to tell for sure. The sooner the body was taken to the pathologist the better. Only then could the investigation begin.
He looked away from the body. The bench was in a small clearing, with just one tree shading it. A beautiful place to sit and read or enjoy a quiet game of chess.
A beautiful place, spoilt utterly.
He sniffed the air. For once, the sweet scent of roasting sweet potatoes was missing. The hawkers and their pots of charcoal and sweet potatoes had yet to discover this place. He suspected they would never discover it. The one place in Shanghai where you would never find them.
He walked back to the stone he had tripped over. What was it doing in the middle of an immaculately groomed path? He bent down and examined it closely. Was it just another stone or something else? A clue? Using a handkerchief freshly ironed by his daughter that morning, he picked it up and placed it in his pocket.
‘Excuse me.’ The man coughed in the peculiar way the British had of announcing an unexpected arrival.
‘What are you doing here? Nobody is allowed here.’
‘Do not use that tone of voice with me. I am the senior British member and I demand to know what is going on.’ He looked past Danilov’s shoulder and saw the body sitting on the bench. ‘My God!’
‘This is crime scene, nobody is allowed here, Mr…?’
The senior British member dragged his eyes away from the body, quickly regaining his composure. ‘Langlands, Geoffrey Langlands. I’m with the bank.’
‘I do not care if you’re with the Bolshoi Ballet, nobody is allowed here. Please return to the club; my men will interview you later.’ Danilov advanced towards him, using his body to move him away and shield the victim from view. Where was bloody Strachan?
Strachan arrived with two new police constables as if he had heard the inspector call his name.
‘Strachan, please escort Mr Langlands to the clubhouse. You two stay here. Form a cordon around the body. Nobody is allowed to come anywhere near until the photographers and Dr Fang’s men have finished their work.
‘Yes, sir,’ all three echoed in unison.
Danilov turned back to the dead body before Langlands could protest any more. It was still sitting there in its blood-soaked shift, eyes hidden behind a mould of plaster of Paris.
For a moment, Danilov imagined he saw a tremor in one of the hands as if it wanted to reach out a finger and point straight at him.
But it was only the wind.
He was sure it was only the wind.