Danilov could see the ornate roof of the Cercle Sportif just five hundred yards away.
He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving and the lungs grasping for air. He ran past the Cathay Theatre where a crowd was queueing up to see The Love Parade. A romantic comedy with Maurice Chevalier.
One of my wife’s favourite films, he thought. Before the Revolution, of course. The supply from America had dried up after Lenin took over, leaving only a few Chaplin shorts. They had been to watch The Rink eleven times.
Must focus, concentrate on running. His breath was coming hard now and he could feel the pain in his calves.
The Cercle Sportif wasn’t far ahead. The place where the French played and danced and exercised. Strange how Allen kept choosing open places, as if he wanted to be discovered. Danilov was moving slowly now. Must get fitter, he told himself. Need to run more. Can’t run like before.
On the right was a building site for one of the new developments sprouting up all over the city. Cathay Mansions, the hoarding said, ‘a home for elegant living’.
He limped across the street. He heard the squeal of brakes and the shouts of an irate driver behind him. He ran on anyway.
Where was Strachan?
Danilov glanced to the left and right. The man should have waited for him; it was too dangerous to go in alone.
A new neo-classical building dressed in the finest marble greeted him. People of all ages lounged on the veranda, eating and drinking, smoking and chatting, Chinese waiters dancing between the tables.
He ran up the steps and stood there, his hands on his waist, fighting for breath, staring down at the ornate brown and white tiles on the floor.
The people stopped what they were doing and stared at him, glasses half-raised to their mouths, a snapshot of surprise.
‘A man… running… where…?’ was all he managed to gabble between breaths as, hands on knees, he stared down at the brown and white tiles. One of the waiters pointed to the interior of the building.
He stumbled on through the doors. Behind him, he could hear the hubbub of French voices beginning again as if he had never been there.
Where was Strachan?
Through the large double doors into the entrance.
A French couple lounged on the leather armchairs reading newspapers. To his left, the way was blocked by planters embedded with large palms. In front, a long, high-ceilinged corridor with small motifs of fans picked out in gold along its length. On his right, more rooms.
It was another day, just like all the other days at the Cercle Sportif.
Where was his detective sergeant?
He shouted ‘Strachan? Strachan?’ in the loudest voice he could manage.
The couple looked up from their newspapers, but didn’t move, as if it was perfectly normal for a tall, thin man, struggling for breath, to be shouting in English at the entrance to their club.
From the direction of the corridor, Danilov heard a faint reply.
He ran along the corridor, shouting ‘Strachan, Strachan’.
He could hear the man more clearly now, but it was muffled as if coming from behind a smothering pillow.
The sound seemed to be hiding behind a door on the left. He yanked it open and a stairwell was in front of him, leading into the depths of the building.
He shouted again, ‘Strachan, where are you?’
The answer was clear now, but still distant. ‘Down here, sir.’
Danilov hurried down the stairs, the sound of his shoes echoing in the stairwell. No marble here, the stone reserved for upstairs. He bustled down two flights and was confronted by a long corridor stretching out in front of him, lit by lights set into the ceiling.
‘Strachan, where are you?’
‘Here, sir.’
The voice sounded like it was next to him. ‘Where?’ he shouted.
‘Here, at the end of the corridor’
The corridor must act like a loudspeaker. An interesting effect, thought Danilov, as he hurried along its length. At the end, he could see an open door and the shadow of a man inside a room. The face turned towards him.
It was Strachan.
Danilov pushed the door open with his right arm. The Princess, or what was left of her, was sitting tied to a chair.
Danilov looked away and then forced himself to look back.
In front of her, three pipes were pointing like evil eyes staring directly at her body. The walls and floor dripped with water and the air had a heavy, moist feel, like an indoor pool.
He forced himself to look at the Princess’s body. Her face was red and the skin was peeling from it in sheets of transparent white flesh. The arms were blotchy and inflamed, while the hair, which had always been so beautifully coiffeured and brushed, hung down in limp strands over her face. The mouth was open wide, inflamed gums unnaturally red, as if shouting a last scream at the world.
But it was the eyes Danilov couldn’t stop staring at. They were open and an opaque white, like those of cooked fish.
White eyes.
Unseeing eyes.
Dead eyes, where there had once been so much life.
He gathered himself. ‘Go upstairs and call Major Renard. Ask him to send a squad here.’
‘What should I say, sir?’
‘Tell him there’s been another murder, a Russian woman this time. Don’t mention who it is.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Strachan brushed past the inspector.
‘And Strachan, call Dr Fang, tell him he has another autopsy to perform.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Strachan ran off along the corridor.
Danilov turned back to the corpse of the Princess. A life had ended, cruelly and painfully. This had to be the last one.
No more.