“Okay.” Old Yifu waggled a finger at him. “Now you are asking the right question. The big question. But before you know the answer to that, there are many smaller questions to be answered. And this brings you back to the cigarette ends. Because without them you would never have made any connection. But then, why would a professional be so careless in this, when he had been so careful in everything else? This is not right. This is something to focus on.”

Li knew that all of this had been somewhere in his head, but it had taken his uncle, with a disinterested perspective, to crystallise it for him. He gazed thoughtfully at the chessboard, a battlefield, the scene of his ignominious defeat. Old Yifu was right. It was all about focus. His uncle started gathering the pieces and placing them in their box.

“So,” he said, “this American pathologist. She will continue to help?”

“No!” Li realised immediately he had been too quick, too definitive, in his response.

Old Yifu missed nothing. “She does not want to help?”

“No . . . Yes . . . I don’t know. Professor Jiang at the university offered to make her available.”

“And you said . . . ?”

Li looked at his hands. “I said I didn’t need her.”

“Then you are a fool.”

Li flared angrily. “We do not need some American showing us how it should be done!”

“No. But you need an edge. You always need an edge. And the experience that this American has will give you an edge.” Old Yifu slipped the box of pieces and his chessboard into his satchel and stood up stiffly. “Time to eat.”

II

All of Ma Yongli’s knives—for paring, scraping, chopping, slicing—were laid out on the stainless-steel worktop, reflecting in its shiny surface. One by one he ran them through the sharpener, three, four, five times, until they offered little or no resistance and their blades gleamed, sharp as razors. He glanced at the figure of his friend sitting on the worktop opposite, legs dangling. “Cheer up, Big Li. It might never happen.”

“It’ll happen,” Li said disconsolately. “Unless I die between now and tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds like a good excuse for going out and drinking ourselves to death, then. At least we’ll die happy.” Yongli paused and scratched his head, then smiled wickedly. “Mind you—happy? It’d be a first for you.”

Li made a face at him. He had arrived at the end of Yongli’s shift. Dinners at the hotel had been cooked, served and eaten. The duty chef, who would provide for the few patrons who made use of the twenty-four-hour café in the small hours, was out back smoking a cigarette. The kitchens were otherwise deserted and in darkness, lit only where Yongli was sharpening his knives.

“So let me take a guess,” Yongli said. “Would your mood have anything to do with your Uncle Yifu?”

“Do I need to answer that?”