‘And yet you will not drink with me.’

I relented. He poured another cup of boiling water on to the leaves.

‘We Chinese invented other things,’ he said. ‘We Chinese invented the snakehead. We invented the smuggling of people from a poor part of the world to a rich part of the world. The worst of our people have been doing this business for many years. So we are very familiar with the kind of people you are hunting. It is new to you. It is new to the West. But it is not new to us.’

‘And is she all right?’

‘My niece was fortunate. If nobody knows you’re here, then nobody knows you’re missing.’

‘And how did you know she was up there?’

‘One of my friends. She is out there now, in fact,’ he said, indicating the great game that is played under the streets of Chinatown. ‘She is one of the ladies you saw at my table playing Mahjong with me. She goes to that big glass tower – the Hopewell Centre – every day.’

‘Why?’

‘So she can clean it for them. All those rich, well-educated people – they can’t clean it for themselves, can they?’

‘She must be in her eighties. Bit old to be a cleaner, isn’t she?’

‘Chinese people don’t retire,’ he said proudly. ‘Only Europeans retire. And then they immediately drop dead. So much for retirement!’

‘Keith,’ I said. ‘There were other women up there who needed your help. There was a woman called Rabia Demir. She was in the cab of the lorry we found at the end of this street.’

‘And you think my men and I could have saved her?’

After a moment, I shook my head. ‘But I think we could have tried.’

There was a hard light in his eyes.

‘We came for my niece. I told you, Detective. We take care of our own. I’m sorry for that woman. I am sorry for all the women in that place. And I am happy that coming for my niece also meant that we saved your hide.’ He liked that one. Saved your hide. ‘But I told you before – this is why you tolerate us. Where were your colleagues?’

‘They got there in the end. Later than I would have liked.’

‘And did you catch the snakeheads you were seeking?’

I thought of Paul Warboys bleeding out on the floor of a holding cell in West End Central. I knew that Madam Theresa would be in a cell for the rest of her life. And I saw Troy of the camp finished at the hands of the small man drinking his tea on the other side of the desk.

I nodded.

‘They’re all done,’ I said.

It was time to go.

Keith Li stood up and held out his hand.

I shook it.

But there was one last thing.