Above him, the stark cigarette of the Water Tower stood outlined against the night sky. Danilov realised it never went dark in Shanghai; there was always the glow of activity somewhere. But there were no people to be seen. Almost as if the area around the place was a void where Shanghailanders were reluctant to roam.
He listened to the sounds of the night. Off towards the river a baby was crying. The cry of hunger, thought Danilov, of demanding to be fed. A boat was chugging along the creek, its motor a staccato tap, tap, tap as it pushed through the muddy waters. Behind him, far off in the distance, a drunken man was singing an English song, a sailor’s song. An off-key ‘early in the mornin’ slurring into the night air.
He rattled the handle of the door facing him.
Locked.
He picked up a half-brick lying at his feet, smashing it hard against the glass. The small pane shattered and dropped to the ground. He picked out the shards wedged in the frame and reached in.
The bolt on the inside was easy to pull back and the handle turned as if it had been freshly oiled.
He stopped to listen once more. Inside the Water Tower all was quiet, deathly quiet.
The sailor had stopped singing now.
The boat had stopped its painful tap, tap, tap.
The baby had stopped crying.
He stepped inside the room and let his eyes adjust to the lack of light. Gradually, the greys and blacks resolved themselves into shapes and distances. The ceiling was high, with a glass chandelier hanging from it. The ambient light from outside reflected through the hanging glass teardrops of the chandelier, creating a pattern of light on the wooden floor.
Strange. It looked more like a house than the ground floor of a Water Tower.
Over to one corner, about five yards away, the area was darker, hidden in shadow.
Had he seen movement or just imagined it?
He took two steps towards the corner and suddenly the whole world erupted in light.
Danilov closed his eyes, shielding them with his hand.
‘I wondered when you would arrive. You came quicker than I thought.’
Danilov forced his eyes open, using his hand to shield them from the glare of the chandelier. A man wearing a black mask stood in front of him.
‘You can take off the mask, Mr Cipher.’
A muffled laugh came from behind the mask and the man began to clap. ‘You worked it out, Danilov. Congratulations. A little slow, perhaps, but you got there in the end.’ The man removed the mask and recombed his hair across his balding head. ‘Just one question. How did you know it was me?’
‘I was suspicious of the timing of the messages. They seemed to arrive just after the victim had been kidnapped. A little too timely and they all came from you.’
‘Except for the last one…’
‘You gave that to Mr Trainer to throw me off the scent, but it did the exact opposite. And then, of course, your name…’
‘Lou?’
‘Lou Cipher. Lucifer.’
‘I thought that was very funny. The devil in disguise. The plastic surgery in Japan is rather good, though, don’t you think?’ Allen modelled his face. ‘You didn’t recognise me at all.’
Danilov stared at Allen’s smirking face. For a second, the image of the Princess, the skin dripping off her face flashed into his mind. He ran towards the corner, thrusting his hands at Allen’s throat, forcing the shorter man up against the wall.
Allen staggered backwards, his body smashing against the stuccoed walls. Danilov forced his hands deeper into Allen’s throat. ‘Where’s my wife?’
Allen’s tongue was sticking out of his mouth. He was making gagging sounds. His feet kicking against Danilov’s legs, desperately trying to escape from the tightening grip around his throat.
Danilov pressed harder.
The gagging became louder. Allen’s face was bright red, his pink tongue hanging out of his mouth.
‘Where’s my wife?’
Allen lifted his arm, pointing back over Danilov’s shoulder to a door at the end. He let Allen drop to the floor and ran to it.
He burst through it into another room, smaller than the entrance room. It was lit by a single electric light bulb hanging from a flex in the ceiling. At the end, only twelve yards away, his wife was standing on a wooden platform built against one wall.
Alone.
After all this time, six years and more, they were together again. ‘Masha,’ he shouted.
His wife held up her arms, stopping him from rushing to them.
He saw the fear in her eyes as she glanced to her left. Standing next to the stage, a Chinese man with a bald head and scars on his face held a lever in one hand and a revolver in the other.
The gun was pointing at his wife.
Danilov forced himself to look again. A rope stretched from the ceiling down behind his wife’s head and around her throat. She was standing on tiptoe, trying to keep the rope as loose as possible.
Behind him, Allen was coughing. The man had struggled to his feet and was holding his throat, ‘That… wasn’t… smart… Danilov,’ he said through gasps of air.
Allen’s chest heaved and he spat on the wooden floor. For a moment, he staggered as if he was going to fall, then he regained his balance and the smirk reappeared on his face. ‘I see you still have a temper, Danilov.’ He sucked a large gulp of air into his lungs, coughed three times and continued speaking. ‘Not smart, not smart at all. One word from me and your once-pretty wife dances on the end of a rope.’
Danilov roared and took two steps towards Allen.
Allen jumped back to the wall, shouting ‘Han Kew!’.
The Chinese man pulled on the lever. Danilov could see the wire led to a trapdoor beneath the feet of his wife. He stopped and held his hands up in submission.
‘Good, I knew you would see sense.’ He waved a hand at the Chinese man. Instantly the tension on the wire eased as the lever was released.
Danilov could hear his wife sobbing. He moved towards her. The Chinese thug began to pull the lever again.
‘Not yet, Inspector; your wife isn’t going anywhere… yet.’
‘How did you find her?’
‘Oh, you mean, how did I find her when the great detective had been looking for six years, with nothing to show for it?’
Danilov nodded slowly. He had to keep Allen talking, play for time. Something would come up. Something had to come up.
‘Simple, I did what you should have done a long time ago; I went to Siberia and searched for her. It only took me a month. Of course, the resources of the newspaper helped enormously. You’d be amazed how far the contacts of the Morriss family and the paper reach, into even the most remote parts of Russia and China. Your wife was working as a cook in a logging camp in the middle of the Siberian wilds, Danilov. Shame you never made the effort to find her.’
Danilov’s wife began to sob again, her head dropping until the rope went taut, forcing her back on to her tiptoes again.
‘It’s quite painful, standing on tiptoe. I know, I tried. Only lasted seven minutes before I had to let my body take the weight.’
‘What do you want, Allen?’
‘Allen is dead. You killed him on Garden Bridge, don’t you remember? I’m the Judge of Souls now. So much more elegant than my former name, don’t you agree?’
Danilov stayed silent, staring at his wife, trying to give her strength.
‘What happened to my son?’
‘The big, strapping lad?’ Allen pointed downwards with his index finger. ‘He’s below in the cellar. We gave him an extra dose of morphia. To help him sleep. A growing boy needs his beauty sleep.’
‘Let him go, Allen. He has nothing to do with this.’
‘I might, Inspector, but first you have to do something for me.’
‘Do what?’
‘It’s quite simple. You have to make a choice.’