There was the creak again. Two people coming up the stairs.
She could hear their footsteps now. Remorseless, one after another, coming closer to her door.
Whispering.
Two men’s whispers. She couldn’t hear what they were saying.
The footsteps stopped outside her door.
Whispers again. A language she’d never heard before. Words she didn’t understand.
The round wooden handle of her door began to turn. She buried her head beneath the covers, pulling them over her.
Please don’t come in here. Please don’t. I’ll be a good girl. I’ll say my prayers every night and be good to my mother. I promise. I promise.
The door cracked as it opened. More whispers in the strange language. She stayed beneath the covers and closed her eyes. Perhaps, if she pretended to be asleep, they would go away.
Please let them go away.
Soft steps across her room towards the bed.
Please let them go away. I’ll be good from now on, I promise.
A hand pulled the covers off her. She opened her eyes and stared into a small mousey face with a sharply pointed chin. She knew that face. She had seen that face before. What was he doing here?
On the next floor up, the slamming of a door. Heavy boots running up the uncarpeted stairs to the top floor. Her father’s footsteps.
The man ran out of her room, closing it behind him. She lifted her head off the pillow. More footsteps running up the stairs. A door on the top floor slammed shut.
A loud shout. Again, she didn’t understand what they were yelling. Something foreign, like the words her doctor spoke at the hospital. Harsh words, hurtful words.
Someone was banging on a door upstairs, shouting once again in a loud voice. The sound of a door being kicked, once, twice, flying open, knocking against the wall.
A shout from her father. She knew it was her father’s voice. Then a bang, muffled, less sharp than before.
Heavy footsteps stomping across her ceiling. She followed them until they reached the window upstairs, right above her bed.
Another bang.
Something falling heavily, hitting the ceiling with a loud thud.
She wanted to scream, to shout out for someone to save her. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She tried again, but all she heard was a gagging noise in her throat.
Her body was rigid beneath the covers. Should she try to get away? She lifted her head above the sheets. Her wheelchair and crutches were still propped against the far wall. Why had the maid put them over there?
Steps on the staircase, coming down, getting closer, getting louder.
The handle of her door turned again.
The door opened a crack, throwing a sharp shaft of light onto the wall, illuminating her crutches.
Please don’t come back. You don’t belong here.
The shadow of a man was thrown into the room. He was standing in the doorway. She could see no features on his face, just a darkness and the sharp outline of a pointed chin. But she knew it was him, the man she had seen before.
She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. It was as if her voice was now as paralysed as her body.
The shadow moved into the room.
She closed her eyes tight.
The footsteps on the carpet were getting closer to her bed.
Keep your eyes closed. Pretend you’re asleep. Perhaps he will go away and leave you alone.
She opened her eyes.
The round end of a piece of metal was staring straight at her. Wisps of blue smoke escaped from it, sinuous strands rising into the air. The smell was sweet and heavy, like the morning after Chinese New Year when the stench of the firecrackers hung over Shanghai.
A hand with dirty nails was holding the metal, pointing it straight at her, coming closer with every second.
The other man in the doorway silhouetted against the light from the hallway. More words in the language she didn’t understand. The small man turned and said something.
They were talking about her. She knew they were talking about her.
Her eyes darted left and right. How could she let them know who he was?
Then she saw the letter lying on the table, next to her bed. She grabbed it while the men were talking and crushed it tightly into a small square in her palm.
She closed her eyes again. She prayed like she had been taught by the nuns at her school before the illness, mumbling the words over and over again.
Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.
Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.
Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.
The men finished speaking. Through her mumbled words, she heard his breathing. Short, sharp bursts of breath, as if he had been running.
She couldn’t help herself, her eyes opened again. The metal cylinder began to come closer, lowering, pointing directly at her now. The metal eye getting larger with every step.
‘Sleep well, child,’ he said in Chinese.
They were the last sounds she ever heard.
Detective Sergeant Strachan strode up the steps of Central Police Station and pushed through the double doors.
As soon as he entered, he was hit by a wall of sound. Two half-naked rickshaw drivers were arguing with each other in a dialect he didn’t understand. A woman was wailing in the corner, bemoaning the loss of her little boy. A group of hawkers were pushing and shoving each other, and, in turn, being hustled by a Sikh guard into the corner with shouts of I mi te, I mi te in Indian-accented Shanghainese.
At the centre of the mayhem, as calm as the eye of a storm, was Sergeant Wolfe, perched behind his desk, above it all.
Strachan elbowed his way through the crush to the Sikh sergeant who guarded the entrance to the interior. It was one of the times he loved most. The sense that he knew what was going on behind these closed doors whilst the rest of Shanghai remained ignorant.
His father had brought him here before he was killed. Proudly showing him where he worked and what he did. Strachan had sat on the knee of the desk sergeant, played with the beards of the Sikhs, listening to the arguments in all the languages of China; Mandarin, Shanghainese, Chiuchow, Hakka, even the sing-song tones of the excitable Cantonese. He remembered some of the words even to this day. Being able to say, ‘Good morning’ in eight different dialects amused him.
His father loved being a policeman, walking the beat, sorting out the problems on his patch. Strachan had listened to all his stories when he came home in the evening, sitting by the fire. The tales of cheating merchants, kidnappers, burglars, con-men, pickpockets, street fighters, and card sharps were his bedtime stories. It was inevitable that one day he would join the police, even though his mother, in her Chinese way, had tried to persuade him against the idea.
‘It’s not the profession of a good boy. Become an accountant or a lawyer instead.’
‘I don’t want to be an accountant or a lawyer.’
‘Get an education first and then decide.’
He had done as she wished. Went to St John’s University, got his degree and then decided.
She wasn’t happy but knew he had made his