He pushed through the gate and walked down a short green-walled corridor. The only light came from a single dim bulb hiding behind a frosted-glass sconce. A door on the right was stencilled with the words Detective Office in thick block letters. He opened it. Immediately the group of detectives in the corner fell quiet and stared at him.
‘He’s here, lads. Danilov’s little chum.’
The voice came from a ginger-haired detective seated at a desk on one side of the group. . Strachan ignored him.
‘And where’s the great detective today? Solving another devilish plot?’ The group of detectives sniggered.
Strachan faced them. They all stopped laughing. ‘It’s his day off. He deserves one day to himself.’
‘He deserves one day to himself,’ mimicked the ginger detective. ‘Shame he missed the murders last night, wasn’t it?’
Inspector Danilov’s daughter placed the plate of syrniki in front of him. The food was slightly charred at the edges and gave off a strange orange glow.
She had decided that he needed to eat more regularly, and part of this new healthy regime was a home-cooked breakfast, just like his wife used to make back in Minsk.
Except she didn’t cook like her mother. She cooked like a poet with a vivid imagination; everything was overdone and overwrought.
‘Thank you, Lenchik. It looks delicious.’
There was no answer. Since coming home she had gradually lapsed into an uncommunicative silence, but he would keep trying. ‘Is it a new recipe?’
Again, no answer. She turned back to the stove and took her own plate.
She sat down opposite him. Inspector Danilov saw the puzzled look on her face and that slight tilt of her head to the left. A movement she had made even when she was three years old, explaining to him why her doll had made such a mess on the floor.
Was she pretty? He couldn’t judge. A father can never judge his own daughter.
He stared at the syrniki. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. He tucked into the food with gusto. The strange texture fought with the leftover taste of the opium he had smoked the night before, creating a bitter mixture in his mouth.
He fought the urge to gag and closed his eyes, imagining he was eating a dish from the Princess Ostrapova’s cafe.
‘It’s not that bad,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of starch.
‘It’s not that good, either.’ She pushed the food away from her across the table.
Danilov continued to eat his. ‘What are you going to do today?’
‘Same as I do every day.’
‘Which is?’
‘You know, Papa, you don’t need to ask.’
At least she was talking. He struggled to find a way to keep the conversation going. He had lived on his own for so long before she had come to Shanghai; he had lost the knack of making small talk. And in his job, he didn’t need to. ‘I’m curious about what you do when I’m not here,’ he finally said.
‘I read or go to the movies or eat or sleep. In the mornings, I study Shanghainese and Mandarin. Sometimes I go out for long walks. My day in a nutshell.’ She picked at a thread that had come loose from her housecoat.
‘Why don’t you go back to school? I could arrange for you to attend one.’
‘We’ve been through this before. Not yet, maybe soon.’
‘You’re seventeen now…’
‘Too old for school. Too much to catch up.’
‘It’s not too much.’
She sighed as if explaining something to a six-year-old who kept asking the question ‘why?’. ‘Last time I was at school was when I was twelve. I can’t imagine sitting in some classroom surrounded by giggling schoolgirls. I’ve seen too much since then.’
Danilov pushed his plate away from him. He had eaten half of it. He hoped she wouldn’t notice how much remained. ‘You haven’t told me what happened.’
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Not really.’
‘Papa, we’ve been through this so many times.’ She brushed her fingers through her hair and began speaking in a fast monotone as if reciting a story simply because a teacher had demanded it. The voice was flat without emphasis or excitement. ‘After you went to Moscow, the problems started. The local security committee began asking Mama so many questions. Neighbours were called in. A couple made accusations…’
‘About?’
‘About you. Working for the Tsar’s police. Arresting revolutionaries.’
‘They knew all about that. I investigated some anarchists who had planted bombs. The party investigator cleared me in 1922.’
‘It didn’t matter. Mama was under so much pressure. Then one night she woke us, we dressed and ran down to the train station.’
‘A friend had warned her?’
‘See, you know the story better than I do. It doesn’t change, Papa.’
Danilov wanted to roll a cigarette but stopped himself. ‘I just want to know what happened. Maybe it will help me find your mother and brother.’
‘You know what happened next.’
Danilov spoke. ‘I came back and found a note from your mother. She wrote you would meet me in Kiev. But when I got there, I found another note at the station saying you had all gone on to Tsaritsyn.’
‘We never got to that city. Bandits stopped the train. We were forced off near Donetsk. All our clothes, everything, was stolen.’ She picked up the plates and took them to the sink. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. I’ve told you so many times.’ She washed the dishes, making a loud clattering noise to silence his questions.
He persisted. ‘I just feel there are some details you haven’t told me. Small secrets that could help me find Mama.’
She turned on him, her eyes like light blue ice beneath her shock of brown hair. ‘Secrets? All families have secrets, Father. You above all should know that. I’m not one of your suspects to be interrogated for their crimes.’
‘It’s not that, Lenchik, I just want…’
‘You just want to find Mama. I know. You’ve told me a thousand times.’ She sneered. ‘The great detective who can’t even find his own wife. How that must stick in your throat.’
His heart sank and his head followed. Did she resent him that much? Or was it a stronger emotion, a more Russian emotion, contempt and hate?
He planned to spend the rest of the day with her. They would play a little chess, the only time they could sit opposite each other without her silence coming between them. It was as if the logic of chess was a shared moment, full of the possibility of more shared moments.
And maybe, just maybe, he would be able to ask her a few more questions.
The phone began to ring in the living room. A long, insistent ring that begged to be answered.
Danilov ignored it.‘Lenchik, I just want to bring our family