“I need to talk for a few minutes,” Li said, ignoring this exchange.

“Talk, then.”

“In private.”

“Where?” The Needle grew cautious.

“In the Jeep. I’m just round the corner in the carpark.” The Needle hesitated. Li said, “You’ve got nothing to hide, right? So you’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s just a little information I need.”

The Needle was pensive for a moment, then wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood up. “You’ve got ten minutes. I’m a busy man.”

His adjutant, on his left, moved quickly to let him out, and he followed Li and Margaret to the door.

“What’s going on?” Margaret whispered to Li.

“We’re just going to have a little chat,” Li said. But there was something in his tone that set Margaret’s nerves on edge. And there was something cold and hard in his eyes that she hadn’t seen there before.

The Jeep was in the carpark of the Landmark Towers Hotel. Li told Margaret to get in the back. The Needle got in the front passenger seat. Li started the engine. “Hey!” The Needle barked, startled. “You didn’t say anything about going anywhere.”

“Just a short drive,” Li said, unperturbed. “It’ll give us a chance to talk.” But he said nothing as they drove south, and then west on Gongren Tiyuchang Road. The Needle grew increasingly uneasy.

“Where are we going?”

“Just somewhere quiet and discreet, so we won’t be disturbed. I know how important your street cred is. You don’t want to be seen hanging around with a cop, do you?”

“Stop, right now, and let me out!” The Needle was starting to panic. “This isn’t what I agreed to.”

Li turned south on Dongdoqiao Road. “You’re not making a very good show of co-operating with the police,” Li said. “You don’t want to give our American observer the wrong idea, do you?”

“Fuck your American observer! Let me out!” He tried to open the door but it was locked.

“What’s going on?” Margaret asked from the back, becoming concerned.

“Oh, nothing much,” Li said. “Just a routine breach of human rights.”

He turned the Jeep hard right, through open gates, and into a vast concourse, the giant circular Beijing Workers’ Stadium looming ahead of them. Soldiers on exercise, dressed in green camouflage, were piling into covered lorries and sweeping through the concourse in a wide arc towards the gates as Li drove in. He steered a course between them and slid the Jeep to a stop outside one of the exit ramps from the stadium. He killed the engine, flicked off the central locking and turned to The Needle. “Get out,” he said.