“Good evening, Chang,” Geoffrey said as he handed the servant his jacket. Field took off his own, hesitating a moment before also removing his holster.

“Straight to the table,” Penelope said. “I’m sure you boys have managed to find time for a drink.”

The dining room was smaller than he’d imagined, the silverware on the square, polished table bright in the candlelight.

“Richard, on the far side, beneath Christopher of York-one of our most distinguished ancestors.”

Field glimpsed a large dark portrait of a man in full military uniform. He sat down, taking the linen napkin from the glass in front of him.

“Red wine, Richard?” Geoffrey asked. “It’s-”

“Lamb,” Penelope said.

“Whatever is… Yes, please, red.”

Geoffrey stood again and left the room.

“You survived the Volunteers.” Penelope leaned forward as she took out her own napkin. The dress was just as revealing as the one she’d worn at the country club.

“It was a good speech.”

“He can charm.” She sighed. “Which is, of course, why I married him.” She leaned forward again. “You have no idea how handsome and dashing he was in uniform.” She smiled, a gesture that was at once both weary and almost bashful. “Do you know, Richard, you’re a big man, and yet I don’t think there is an ounce of fat on you.”

Field looked toward the door to hide his embarrassment.

“You really must get yourself a girl. It’s a terrible waste.” She sighed, smiling at him. “You always look so hunched up and angry, like you’re about to hit someone.” She smiled again, imitating his posture. “You’re not about to hit someone, are you?”

“I try not to, most of the time.”

“See. You look lovely when you smile.”

Field frowned.

“And now you’re scowling again.”

“So one can’t win, really.”

“Of course not. That’s a woman’s prerogative.” She looked suddenly more serious. “What are you angry about?”

“I wasn’t aware of being angry about anything.”

“Everyone is angry about something.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“Do you ever talk about your father?”

“No.”

“Is that wise?”

“Probably not,” Field said, irritated by this unwarranted intimacy.

“Is that why you’re so angry?”

Geoffrey reentered the room, carrying a decanter. Two servants followed, the old man and a shy young girl with a wide, flat face and hair pulled back from her forehead. “A Bordeaux, I thought. Do the trick?”

Field realized his uncle was talking to him. “Yes, of course… I’m sorry, we don’t often have wine in the mess.”

“Then we must get you into more civilized accommodation.”

“He could come and live here,” Penelope said.

Geoffrey filled their glasses. “Can you imagine being in a city as exhilarating as this and being stuck with your uncle and aunt?”

“Speak for yourself, darling!”

Geoffrey sat down, pulling his chair in, before reaching for the salt and grinding it over his plate. The window was open, the cicadas noisy. The candle flames flickered in the faint breeze that carried with it the damp, musty aroma of the street. Field ate a mouthful of lamb. It had been cooked with apple and was served with thickly cut, creamy potatoes. It was by far the best food he’d had since arriving in Shanghai.

“This is very good,” he said.

“I slaved all day over it,” Penelope said. “Didn’t I, dear?”

Geoffrey smiled at Field. “You begin to see why we can never come back and live in England.”

Field took a sip of his wine. He heard the low rumble of a foghorn on the river. It seemed to be answered by others.

“Who is Stirling Blackman?”

Geoffrey replenished their wineglasses before answering. Field noticed Penelope’s was already empty.

“Blackman is not… how should one say? Not always a friend of the city.” Geoffrey looked at Field. “The thing about the New York Times, Richard, is that it thinks it invented the notion of integrity. The difficulty is that it sometimes provokes a response from Washington, which in turn causes problems in London.”

“How is the Russian girl?” Penelope asked.

For a moment Field assumed she was asking about Natasha. “She’s like a ghost,” he said eventually. “Her friends are either too frightened or too disinterested to want to talk about her.” He put down his knife and fork and took another sip of wine. “Her fate does not seem to elicit much sympathy… not in the force, anyway. She did not keep good company. She began life in such gilded circumstances and her end was so squalid. It seems… tragic, in its own way.”

“You’re a romantic, Richard,” Penelope said.

“No-”

“She was a whore, you know.” Penelope’s mouth had tightened and her eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t get yourself too worked up about it.”

There was a momentary silence.

Geoffrey cleared his throat again. “Richard is right, I fear. We cannot get into the business of ignoring cases on the basis of who the victim was, tempting as it may be at times.”

“Our concern,” Field said, “is that it may be part of a pattern. That the perpetrator may strike again.”

Penelope looked up with an emollient smile, as if regretting her earlier harshness. “Thank God for the boys in blue.”

“The difficulty with the Russians,” Geoffrey went on, “is that none of us like to ponder their fate too closely. It won’t happen to us, of course, but we’ve all seen the photographs: the big houses, the servants, the military schools, and holidays in the Crimea. It’s uncomfortable, particularly for those lower down the European social order here, who’ve never had any of those things.”

“They’re unreliable,” Penelope said.

“Perhaps that’s no surprise,” Geoffrey said, “under the circumstances.”

“It’s no surprise that it happened to them. If they’d been…” Penelope looked at her husband, her face harsh again. “Well, you know what they’re like. No wonder there was a revolution.”

Geoffrey looked at Field. “Better to give them a wide berth. That much is certainly true.”

By the time Field stepped back out into Crane Road it was past midnight and a thick blanket of fog had descended. The smell of damp streets-from the dirt and dust that settled in dry weather-swelling drains, and the pollution caught in his nose and mouth. He was tempted to put a handkerchief to his face and breathe through it as he had seen others do. Instead, he put on the dark felt trilby that his uncle had pressed upon him and lit a cigarette. At least it tasted better than the air around him.

Field began walking, his footsteps noisy, his feet again quickly damp. Another foghorn sounded on the river and he heard the rattle of a tram on the Nanking Road ahead, a Chinese banner on the corner highlighted through the gloom by a gas streetlamp-as in so many areas of the city, they had not got around to installing electric lights.

Field crossed the main road and carried on, pacing out the silence, his metal-capped heels creating a steady staccato. He passed somebody hidden beneath a blanket, then realized that it was an entire family as they receded into the fog once more.

He felt driven.

Perhaps, he thought, it might have been wiser to have stayed with his uncle.

He turned left into Nanking Road. Chinese men and women appeared suddenly through the fog and disappeared back into it just as quickly.

Field thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He saw the sign for the Majestic ahead, and his pace quickened.

He handed the doorman his hat and climbed the shabby red and gray staircase, emerging into the refurbished splendor of the ballroom on the first floor as she began singing. It was as if she had been waiting for him.

Natasha stood in front of the microphone, and for a moment he lost himself in the sight and sound of her, his eyes locked on her long legs and narrow hips as they swayed with the rhythm of the music. Her voice drifted lazily around the hall. She had her eyes shut, and as she opened them, it seemed to him that she was smiling at him.