It was as well, Bob thought, that this was a very long corridor. Otherwise, he was sure, Margaret would simply turn around when she reached the end of it and stride back along its length. She seemed to need to burn up her anger in long, quick strides, and he was having trouble keeping up with her.

“First they say they want my help. Then Mr. Smartass Deputy Section Chief Li decides I’m superfluous to requirements. ‘Superfluous,’ no less!”

“I’m sure that’s probably lost—or gained—something in the translation, Margaret. Li wouldn’t mean it like that.”

“Oh, wouldn’t he? Well, whatever he meant last night, he’s changed his mind this morning. Maybe he woke up and realised what an inadequate he really was. Now, it seems, I’m not ‘superfluous’ after all, and they’d be ‘very pleased’ to accept my help. I mean, as if I was offering! They asked me, then told me I was superfluous. Talk about losing face! Jesus!”

“Superfluous” had been an unfortunate choice of word, Bob thought. Almost certainly a result of Veronica expanding the breadth of her vocabulary at the expense of its nuance. Tactless, at the very least. He must have a word with her about it. Unfortunately, where Margaret was concerned, the damage was already done. Clearly it had got right under her skin. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I know what I’d like to do. I’d like to tell them to stick it.”

“That would hardly help the cause of Sino-American relations.”

“Fuck Sino-American relations!”

“You know,” Bob said, starting to get breathless now, “most pathologists in the US would give their right arm to be asked to assist in a murder investigation in Beijing.”

“For heaven’s sake, Bob, whoever heard of a one-armed pathologist?”

“You know what I mean,” he said, irritated, and she flashed him a wicked half-smile, to his further irritation. “The thing is, it’s going to look pretty damned good on your résumé. Don’t you think?”

She stopped suddenly, taking him by surprise, and he was a pace and a half beyond her before he could pull up. He wheeled round. “For God’s sake, Margaret!”

But her eyes were burning with some fresh inspiration. “Well, if I do it,” she said, “there’ll be a price to be paid. I must have accumulated a little bit of guanxi in the bank by now, don’t you think?”

III