Li opened the folder and found himself staring at a black-and-white image of the man who had done so much damage to his face the night before. He felt a chill run through him.

II

Margaret stepped from the taxi outside the university administration block. She had long since stopped hurrying. There was little point. The lecture she should have taken was due to have finished more than an hour ago. She had taken the taxi from Li’s back to her hotel, showered and changed, and collected some notes before getting another taxi to the university. Her hair was just about dry, and she was wearing more make-up than usual to mask the ravages of the night before. Her head still hurt, and her stomach was distinctly wobbly. As she ran up the marble steps inside, she heard the clip, clip of footsteps descending. She looked up to see Lily Peng.

“Hi,” Margaret said, a little breathless. “You don’t know where Bob is . . . ?” But Lily failed even to meet her eye as she went past. She disappeared through the doors without a word. Margaret was taken aback. Even when being short with you, the Chinese were usually courteous.

She carried on up, and along the corridor to the office she had returned yesterday to Professors Tian, Bai and Dr. Mu. Only Dr. Mu was there. “Hi,” Margaret said again. “Do you know where Bob is?” Dr. Mu looked at her as if she had two heads. Of course, Margaret remembered, she didn’t speak English. “B-o-b,” she said again, slowly, with emphasis on both “b”s. It sounded ridiculous. “Forget it.” She headed on down the corridor towards Professor Jiang’s office. She was about to knock on the door of the outer office when it opened and Veronica very nearly walked into her. “Oh, hi,” Margaret said. “I’m looking for Bob.”

Veronica regarded her very coldly and said, “He taking lecture.” And then she brushed past without another word.

Margaret was starting to get a bad feeling about this. The pain in her head was making it feel heavy, and the weight of it was beginning to make her neck ache. She sighed and went back downstairs and across campus to the lecture rooms. She found Bob tidying up his notes after class. He glanced up as she came in, then turned back to his notes. “I’m surprised you bothered turning up at all,” he said, and looked pointedly at his watch. “I mean, you’re only two hours late for your lecture.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, Bob. I slept in.”

“Was that ‘I’ singular or ‘we’ plural?”

Margaret flushed. “I’m sorry?”

“Well, I’m assuming you didn’t go back to your hotel to sleep in after spending the night at Detective Li’s apartment. I mean, would it be fair to say that you both slept in? Together? At his place?”