“Census Constable Wang,” the officer said, peering in disapprovingly at the two grinning faces. “This is my patch. You should have come to me before interviewing members of this street committee.”

Li leaned over, still with a smile creasing his face. “Don’t worry about it, Wang. We were only here for a singing lesson.” And he and Qian burst into fresh roars of laughter. Wang jumped back, pink-faced and angry, as Qian revved the engine and backed out into the compound with a squeal of tyres. He watched them go with the self-righteous anger of a thwarted petty bureaucrat, the sounds of their laughter still ringing in his ears.

When Li and Qian returned to Section One, there was a constant procession of people arriving to make statements. The street outside was jammed with bicycles and taxis, groups of men and women standing discussing the reason for their summons, children waiting in the care of patient grandparents. These were people from all walks of life: itinerant workers recently arrived in Beijing, small-time crooks, early morning habitués of Ritan Park—civil servants, factory workers, housewives, an army of pensioners. Additional officers had been drafted in from CID headquarters downtown to help with the interviews.

Qian could barely find space to park the Jeep, and he and Deputy Section Chief Li had to push their way through the bodies to reach the door. Inside was no better. There were queues trailing back down the stairs. Extra interview rooms had been set up on every floor to try to cope. Interviews were being recorded and transcribed, and the girls in the typing pool had been put on shifts to keep the flow of paperwork moving. And as far as Li could see when he entered his office, all that paperwork was moving on to his desk. There was a mountain of it accumulating there. Hundreds of statements had already been taken in all three murder cases—hundreds, maybe thousands, more were still to come. Also on his desk were the pathologist’s report from the autopsy on Chao, along with a résumé of his education and career at the Ministry of Agriculture, and various forensics reports from the different crime scenes. And beneath a pile of photocopied statements, he found the file he had asked Wu to take out on The Needle. He scratched his stubbled head and felt crushed already by the weight of it all. It could take weeks just to go through what was already there. A young female administration officer entering with another armful of statements was the final straw. He stood up and raised his hands to stop her. “Enough! I don’t want any more of these statements on my desk.”

The girl, a timid nineteen-year-old, was fazed and looked around helplessly. “Where’ll I put them, then?”