The Master of Rain Read Free Page A

identical girls in white dresses with long dark hair, smiling shyly at the camera. They all held each other, displaying an easy warmth. The elder of the two girls had draped an arm protectively around the younger. Field thought again of the contrast between Lena Orlov’s squalid demise and the evidence of her own happy past. He felt like a voyeur. He coughed. “You read a lot?” he asked, gesturing at the books, which were all in Cyrillic script.

    The girl did not smile.

    “My father once said every man should read
Anna Karenina,
” Field said.

    “How wise.”

    He cleared his throat again. It seemed drier than ever. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You found the body?”

    “Yes.”

    “How?”

    Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean how?”

    “I mean you . . . went around to see Miss Orlov?”

    She shook her head irritably. “I went to ask for some milk, but there was no answer.”

    “So how did you get in?”

    “The door was open.”

    Field looked at her. “Did she usually leave her door open?”

    “I have no idea.”

    “You didn’t know her well, then?”

    “Not really.”

    “What does ‘not really’ mean?”

    “It means no.”

    “You weren’t friends?”

    She was staring at him, her hands still clutching her shoulders. She straightened, shifting her weight. “We nodded at each other on the landing, that was all.”

    Field glanced at the books and photographs. “It seems odd,” he said, “the two of you living next door to each other, similar backgrounds, strange city, but not knowing each other.”

    “If it seems odd to you, Officer,” she said, “then how little you understand.”

    Field tried to hide his embarrassment by turning again to the family photograph. Of course, two women living here from similar, proud backgrounds might have had every reason to avoid each other.

    He opened his notebook and took the old fountain pen his father had given him from the top pocket of his jacket. “I’m sorry,” he said.

    “Sorry for what?”

    She’d sat down, her head bent, hands now clasped around her body.

    “I don’t wish to take up too much of your time. Could I just take your name?”

    She looked up. “What’s yours?”

    The faint smile was back, her fragility evaporating.

    “My name is Field.”

    “That’s not much of a name.” Her voice was husky, like a singer who has spent too much time performing in smoke-filled nightclubs.

    “Richard. But most people call me ‘Field.’ ”

    “How unromantic.”

    Field gestured with his pen. “Can I take your name?”

    “Medvedev.”

    He waited. “And your first name?”

    “I don’t think we’re on first-name terms, do you?”

    Field wasn’t certain how to respond to her teasing, and couldn’t tell whether it was gentle or barbed.

    “Natasha,” she said. “Natasha Medvedev. But most people call me Natasha.”

    “You found the body about an hour ago?”

    “Yes.” She removed her arms from her shoulders, and for a moment her dressing gown parted sufficiently to reveal the curve of her breasts. His face reddened as he realized she saw the direction of his gaze.

    “You went around for milk?”

    “I’d run out.”

    “So you knocked, but there was no answer?”

    “That’s right, Officer.”

    “There was no answer, so you went in?”

    “We’ve just been through this.”

    Field looked at her. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I’m being stupid. You went around to get milk, you knocked, there was no response, so . . . then what?”

    She didn’t answer.

    “It’s just, if you hardly knew the woman, it would seem more logical to turn around and come back to your own flat.”

    Natasha was looking at him as if he were the stupidest man she’d ever met. “The door was open.”

    “So you went in to see if you could borrow some milk?”

    She didn’t bother to answer.

    “Then what?”

    “Then I found the body.”

    Field stopped writing. “How did you do that?”

    “Inspector, I think