They abandoned the Jeep in the street and ran up the ramp through large open gates, past armed guards, into the bowels of the Pao Jü laboratories of forensic pathology. “A few minutes, Li, that’s all,” the lead forensics officer told him. They waited in an office on the ground floor, Li sitting on the edge of a desk swinging his legs impatiently. Margaret recalled Bob’s tale about the Three Ps—Patience, Patience and Patience. The three things you must have to survive in this country, he had said. Li seemed to have run out of all of them. She examined his face. “They must have some witch-hazel here.”

“Some what?” he said.

“It’ll bring down the swelling and stop your face from going completely black and blue by the morning.”

She spent some time in conversation with a lab assistant before he went off, returning a few minutes later with some clear fluid in a bottle and some large wads of cotton wool. She soaked a wad and told Li to hold it to his face. He didn’t argue with her, but with his free hand shook a cigarette from its packet and lit it. He had only taken one pull at it when the lead forensics officer hurried in, pink with exertion and breathing hard. He, it seemed, had also been infected by Li’s sense of urgency.

“A single index finger. Smudged. No use.”

“Shit!” Li looked sick.

“Hang on,” the forensics man admonished him. “We also got a thumb.” He held up a sheet of paper with a blow-up of the print. “It’s not Chao’s, and it’s just about perfect.”

IV