Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China (16 page)

After leaving number 27, Han and Botham headed across the Badlands to the Olympia Cabaret, the source of the matchbook found in Pinfold’s pocket. Han knew the place, and the Chinese owner, a Pekinger who had gone to Paris and made a lot of money. He’d run various joints around the edge of the Legation Quarter and throughout the Badlands, but now stayed mostly in France, looking after his business interests there. In his absence, the cabaret was run by an American.

The building was new, another hastily thrown-together Badlands specialty, but a lick of paint, some table linen, dim lights and a permanent layer of cigarette smoke hid the jerry-built nature of the place. It was pretty small but typical of its type, with a dozen tables, a discreet entrance, waiter service, a small stage with a Russian two-man band and singer who kept it low-key, and a half-dozen Russian dance hostesses. The latter spoke broken French to appear classy, and claimed to be former Russian nobility.

The Olympia was an after-hours joint, even for the Badlands, with nothing doing until midnight or later. It was a place for prostitutes to unwind, cozy up with their pimps; a place for men to bring women they shouldn’t be seen with. They huddled at the back tables, ruby-red table lamps obscuring their infidelities.

Han and Botham were seated at the bar by the Russian doorman while he went to find the manager, a short, stocky man in his mid-forties called Joe Knauf. Han nodded to him in acknowledgement and introduced Botham. The American ordered a round of whiskies, which the detectives accepted—it had been a long night. They chinked glasses and downed them in one. Another round, uncalled-for, appeared in front of the policemen.

Knauf already knew about the roust at number 27—news travelled fast in the Badlands. He said the place was a dive, and Madam Oparina a White Russian bitch he wouldn’t trust farther than he could throw her. The whorehouse at number 28 had been a poxed dump.

He also knew Pinfold, who had come into the Olympia a few times. The two had been out hunting together in the Western Hills. There was a bunch of them, Knauf said, who did that now and then, to get a break from the city. It wasn’t so easy now, though, with the Japs nosing around.

Knauf was a solid-looking tough guy, but he was all helpful big smiles and back-slapping bonhomie with the coppers. But when it came to the Russian Christmas, he couldn’t remember whether he’d seen Pinfold. He gave the same story—that had been a crazy night, with a lot of drinking. Those Russians really knew how to celebrate—it was very good for profits. Anyone could have come into the place and picked up a book of matches from the bar, Knauf wouldn’t know. He shrugged. Then he asked if this was about Pamela Werner, and when Han confirmed it was, the American said it was a terrible crime, and according to the papers she’d been a pretty girl. He’d read about it in the Tientsin papers too, when he’d gone there a few days before on some business.

There wasn’t much more to be learnt. Knauf ordered another round of drinks for the detectives, and they stayed to take in the show, a White Russian jazz quartet that persuaded a few punters to get up for a smooch. Han and Botham kept drinking.

Of Rats and Men

F
riday, 15 January: one week in from Pamela’s murder, with the forty-eight-hour rule well out the window, and the twenty-day barrier getting ever closer. A suspect was in custody, but no forensics had been confirmed, and there were still no witnesses. Werner had been pushing for the release of his daughter’s body, and the British Legation had requested it too. Now release was granted, and the burial would take place the next day.

The prostitutes, pimps and drunks rousted from number 27 had been questioned that morning, after cooling their heels in the Morrison Street cells for the night. Then they’d been let go—the station had addresses for all of them, though these would no doubt be useless by noon.

Botham, with a sore head from the night before, gave Dennis a report of the raid, which had uncovered pretty much nothing. Plenty of people knew Pinfold by sight, Botham told the DCI, but there hadn’t been a single sighting of Pamela. It looked as though the day would yield little more than the previous week had.

Then Dennis got a call from Commissioner Thomas. The Legation Quarter police had picked up Pinfold several times, on charges of loitering, suspicion of selling stolen goods, living on immoral earnings. None of the charges had stuck, but Thomas expressed his surprise that the British Legation hadn’t already been in touch with Dennis—he happened to know that Pinfold was on their Suspicious Persons list.

Thomas had other fascinating details. He suggested Dennis ask the British Legation about a nudist colony that operated in the Western Hills, and specifically an American called Wentworth Prentice and an Irishman called George Gorman. Along with Pinfold, they were thought to be members of the colony, as well as fellow hunters, part of a small group who went after snipe and duck in the paddy fields and hills around Peking.

At first Dennis thought Thomas was joking. A nudist colony in Peking? But one did in fact exist, and had done for a couple of summers, apparently.

Wentworth Prentice had started it. He was a dentist who worked out of the Legation Quarter, a seemingly respectable professional who was involved in some questionable activities with some questionable people. The group rented an old temple in the Western Hills, as did many foreigners on summer weekends, to retreat from the dust and humidity. But this was different, not a base for picnics and rest but a nudist colony. The local Chinese police had let it operate, had probably been paid to do so, and anyway, it was just crazy foreigners being crazy foreigners. Who knew what they got up to?

According to Thomas, Prentice was also rumoured to hold nude dances in his Legation Quarter apartment, where girls were hired to dance naked for a bunch of men. Apparently the British Legation knew about those too. It was all a little bohemian, a little strange, but was it criminal?

As for the Irishman, George Gorman, he travelled on a British passport and had drifted through various Chinese cities before arriving in Peking, where he passed himself off as the local correspondent for the London
Daily Telegraph
, a paper he occasionally freelanced for. He also freelanced for Japanese publications and sometimes wrote for the
Peking Chronicle
. Most people saw him as an apologist for the Japanese military, and many remembered that when Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931 Gorman had been working for the Japs directly, disputing stories by foreign correspondents that Tokyo disapproved of, sowing seeds of doubt and obfuscation.

Hearing all this, Dennis couldn’t keep from wondering himself why the legation hadn’t mentioned any of it when Pinfold’s name became public. He said as much to Thomas, who surmised that since the nudist colony had a few dozen members, it no doubt included some otherwise respectable foreign residents of Peking, and probably a senior-ranking Englishman or three, who wouldn’t like the idea of being quizzed by the police about their summer weekend activities. Neither would they appreciate being asked about their patronage of nude dances. It wouldn’t do to have it revealed that your erstwhile straitlaced doctor, bank manager or customs official spent his Saturdays running round the Western Hills stark naked.

Dr Wentworth Prentice represented the point at which the two sides of foreign Peking crossed. At his Western Hills colony and his nude dances, the respectable people of the city met the sinful.

Dennis had Pinfold brought back up from the cells to the interview room. Han joined him, and Dennis confronted Pinfold with what he’d heard. It was time to go in heavy, provoke a response.

‘Let’s talk about the Western Hills nudist colony,’ Dennis said, and Pinfold blanched. But now that he knew he’d been positively IDed, he finally started talking.

He had been there, he admitted, during the past two summers, up at an old temple Prentice had rented. It was the dentist who ran the place, and he didn’t want any Peeping Toms or voyeurs coming over for a look-see, so he’d hired Pinfold to provide security. The local police hadn’t been too bothered—the place was for foreigners only, and an envelope with a little cash for their boss ensured they didn’t cause any trouble. A bunch of people came out on the weekends and sat around naked, picnicking, playing tennis, swimming—all the usual activities of foreigners in the Western Hills, just with no clothes on. At night they had parties. It was all pretty harmless, and Pinfold had an easy job. The temple was quite remote, with nothing overlooking it.

Who else was involved? Dennis wanted to know. Apart from Prentice, there was the Irishman called Gorman, but Pinfold didn’t know the names of any other members. Some were big shots, Legation Quarter types. Others were a little further down the foreign totem pole, and some were women of a ‘dubious background.’

How did he get the job in the Western Hills? Dennis asked, and heard that Pinfold had gone hunting with Prentice and Joe Knauf, the manager of the Olympia Cabaret, and a few of their friends a couple of times. The dentist had asked if he wanted to make a little extra money on the weekends. Pinfold was easy with the whole nudist thing, and how hard was it to score some wages while eyeing up naked women? He ran security for the place with Knauf, who, being an ex–U.S. Marine, hired himself out for that kind of work, but Knauf didn’t show up every weekend.

As for the nude dances, they were no big thing either. Pinfold would find a girl down on Chuanpan Hutong who wanted to make a little extra cash—maybe a dancer from the Olympia or the White Palace. It was ‘gentlemen’s entertainment’ for a select group of friends at Prentice’s apartment on Legation Street, nothing more. It gave a Russian girl or two their dinner money. Where was the crime in that?

What about the blood on his shoes and knife? Dennis asked. Was that from the hunting? And what about his clothing—where were the rest of his clothes? At these questions, Pinfold clammed up.

Dennis broke off the interview for lunch, feeling that something had been achieved. He had names—Prentice, Gorman, Knauf—and details of nudist colonies and nude dances, weekend antics. Maybe it would prove to be nothing, but it was definitely strange. Perhaps Pinfold was right to ask where the crime was. And where was the connection to Pamela? Dennis himself wondered. But there were crossovers, links. He needed to probe deeper, build up a picture of these men and how they interacted.

He headed back to the Wagons Lits for some Western food and a change of shirt. When he got there, the receptionist passed him a note from his secretary, Mary McIntyre, asking him to phone her as soon as possible. Dennis made the call and was told he was being recalled to Tientsin, by no less a personage than Consul Affleck.

Mary McIntyre told him that Affleck, as senior as senior got in the Tientsin British Concession, was raising a storm. He wanted Dennis in Tientsin immediately. There was to be a meeting first thing in the morning, at which the DCI’s presence was required. He’d need to get the next train. There were no further details.

Dennis caught the International from Peking, steaming through the monotonous sorghum fields outside the city to Tientsin’s East Station, where a crowd of porters, rickshaw pullers and taxis jostled for fares. His driver was waiting for him and drove straight to the British Concession and Dennis’s home on Hong Kong Road. He kissed his sleeping son on the head, ate a hastily prepared cold supper, then headed to his office and a pile of paperwork.

There his deputies filled him in on the events in Tientsin since he’d been away. Several cases had gone to court in the past week, and there’d been some fallout from fistfights with troops on leave down on the strip of dive bars and brothels on Dublin and Bruce roads, at the seedier end of the concession. There was some paperwork that needed his signature. Then the Pamela Werner investigation.

On the face of it, there was little to tell. Bill Greenslade had personally checked out the boyfriend, Mischa Horjelsky, and he was off the list of suspects. Greenslade had also paid a visit to Tientsin Grammar. It was still school holidays, and the students weren’t due back for the new term until the following Monday, but it was the teachers who’d interested Greenslade most—they seemed nervous at the mention of Pamela. It was understandable that they’d be upset, and unsure how their charges were going to handle the situation, but they were downright jittery, referring Greenslade’s enquiries to the headmaster, Sydney Yeates.

Since Yeates wasn’t at the school, Greenslade went to his home, the School House on Race Course Road, where Pamela had been a boarder. But the servants told him Yeates wasn’t there either. Greenslade suspected they were covering for their master. His copper’s intuition told him that the man was at home but didn’t want to talk to a policeman.

Then Consul Affleck and some of Tientsin Grammar’s board members, mostly local bigwigs, had got in touch with Greenslade and in no uncertain terms told him to stop questioning the teachers and pupils, and to stay away from Race Course Road. They also told him that DCI Dennis would be coming back to town. It was all very queer, Greenslade thought. Dennis had no idea what to think.