“Hey.” He put up his hands and grinned, shaking his head. “I’m not going to win this one, am I?”

“Nope.” She raised her glass. “Cheers.”

They all drank. Li enjoyed the way Margaret had dealt with Yongli. He was usually too quick for most people. And women preferred to laugh at his humour, rather than compete with it. She caught his eye over the glass, and they shared a moment.

There was a scattering of applause around the club as Lotus finished her song and gushed her thanks. She was finished for the night, she said, and stepped down from the stage. Margaret was uncertain whether the applause was for the performance or the fact that it was over. Lotus approached their table, flushed and a little breathless. Yongli was on his feet in an instant, pulling out a chair for her. “I’ll get you a drink. What would you like?”

“Some white wine.” Lotus had learned to affect a taste for wine during the many meals she had sat through in restaurants in joint-venture hotels. She looked at Margaret expectantly, waiting for an introduction.

In English, Yongli said, “Lotus, this is Li Yan’s friend . . .”

“Margaret,” Margaret said.

Lotus shook her hand. “Ver’ pleased meet you,” she said.

“Lotus only speaks a little English,” Yongli told Margaret, almost apologetically.

“A lot more English than I speak Chinese,” Margaret said.

Lotus sat down as Yongli headed for the bar. She was clearly intrigued by Margaret, immediately seeking her approval. “You like my singing?”

In other circumstances Margaret might have been ambiguous, perhaps ironic, even cruel. But somehow there was such innocence in Lotus’s question that she couldn’t bring herself to do anything other than lie with great sincerity. “Very much,” she said.

Lotus beamed with pleasure. “Thank you.” She reached out and touched Margaret’s hair as if it were gold. “Your hair ver’ beautiful.” And she gazed into Margaret’s face quite unselfconsciously. “And your eyes so blue. You ver’ beautiful lady.”

“Thank you.”

“Bukeqi.” Margaret frowned. It sounded like boo keh chee.

Li said, “It means you are welcome.”

Lotus took Margaret’s hand and ran her fingers lightly over the forearm. “I never see skin so white. So many beauty spot.”

“Freckles,” Margaret laughed. “I hated them when I was a kid. I thought they were ugly.”

“No, no. They ver’ beautiful.” She turned to Li. “You ver’ lucky.”

Li blushed. “Oh, no, we’re not . . . I mean, Margaret’s a colleague. From work.”

“What are you saying?” Margaret asked, surprised by Li’s sudden lapse into Chinese.

“Just that we only work together.” He blushed again. Lotus’s arrival had unsettled him completely.

“You policeman?” Lotus asked Margaret with incredulity.

“No. A doctor.”

“Ah. You fix up his face?”

“Sort of.” She smiled at Li’s bruised and battered face.