The Master of Rain by Tom Bradby Read Free Book Online

instructions for the fingerprint bureau, ignoring Yang’s casually interested glance as he passed.

    In the lift he opened the folder again. It listed where in Russia Lena was from—near Kazan—and detailed three meetings she had attended at the
New Shanghai Life,
a magazine funded by Bolshevik intelligence officers from Soviet Russia working undercover at the consulate, but most of the file entries had been written by Prokopieff, who was as gifted with written English as Field was with his Chinese, and even by their standards, this was thin. They had files on so many people and most gave few insights. He’d learned more in five minutes at the woman’s flat.

    Field wondered why she’d attended meetings at the
New Shanghai Life.
The family had certainly looked as if it was part of the old, decimated aristocratic class and were unlikely recruits to the Bolshevik cause.

    The fingerprint bureau was on the fifth floor,
C.6
printed in the middle of its frosted glass door. Field knocked once, then entered.

    The room was in darkness save for the light from two desk lamps, one of which pointed toward a sheet of paper hanging from a piece of string that ran from one side of the room to the other. A tall man with gray hair and glasses, wearing a white coat, was using the other to look at a brown leather ledger, like the ones that filled the bookshelves above him. He sat hunched over it, holding a magnifying glass. He did not bother to look up.

    Field cleared his throat. “I’ve brought the paperwork on the Orlov case.”

    “The Russian prostitute?” The man was English.

    “Yes.”

    “Fine. Put it in the tray by the door.”

    Field let it drop into the wire basket. “Have you got anywhere yet?”

    The man looked up, staring at Field over his glasses. He had a long nose, with black hairs poking out of both nostrils, and poor teeth. “Do I look like a miracle worker?”

    “Not really, no.”

    The man stared at him. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

    “Yes.”

    “Where are you from?”

    “Yorkshire.”

    “Bad luck.” He exhaled heavily, turning back to his work. “Two days, minimum.”

    “Two days?”

    “Minimum, I said.” He straightened, gesturing at all the ledgers above him. “Do I look as if I have any assistance?” He muttered something to himself, then added audibly, “There were different prints in the apartment, so it might take longer.”

    “Have you found a match for Lu?”

    The man hesitated. “Pockmark?”

    “Yes.”

    “You may be disappointed to discover that I haven’t looked at the Orlov prints and they’re not next in line.”

    “It’s a murder case.”

    “So tell me something new.”

    Field took a step closer, looking over the man’s shoulder at the pages of prints in the ledger that he was using to try to find a match for the one on the piece of paper in front of him.

    “I’m Field, by the way.”

    He didn’t respond.

    “You’re Mr. Ellis.”

    “I’m Ellis.”

    “Is there any chance that, when you do come to the Orlov case, you might be able to check Lu’s prints against those you took from the bedroom? It’s just it would help to—”

    “Field.” The man did not look up. “Have you seen me in S.1 recently?”

    “No.”

    “Well, when you do, telling you how to do your job, then you can come up here and help me out with mine.”

    Field retreated, shut the door quietly, and crossed the corridor to the registry, a stuffy, hot room without ventilation or light. It was run by Danny Black, a first-generation Irish immigrant from New York, who’d fled from the civil war in Ireland to the East Coast of America, only to have found his way mysteriously thereafter to Shanghai. Without ever having talked about it, Field knew that he was Granger’s man, toiling away in the undergrowth for reasons unknown. He worked alongside Maretsky, who had a glass cubicle at the far end; both fat men with glasses and curly hair, they could have been twins. They