“Look, don’t do this to me,” Li pleaded. “You know as well as I do that she’ll have been pulled in by another section. I wouldn’t have any influence . . .”

“So you won’t do anything?”

The door of the meeting room opened and Chen stood there looking at them. “Deputy Section Chief Li,” he said very deliberately. “I have a meeting in thirty minutes.”

“On my way in, Chief,” Li said. “Two seconds.”

“Will that be earth seconds?” Chen asked, and he let the door swing shut without waiting for an answer.

Li drew a deep breath and turned back to Yongli. “Look, I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

Yongli looked at him sceptically. “Yeah, well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Anything to get me off your back.”

“Aw, come on,” Li snapped. “Give me a break. I said I’d do what I could.”

There was contempt mixed with the hurt now in Yongli’s eyes. “I won’t be holding my breath.” He turned and walked briskly away down the corridor. Li felt like a complete shit. He screwed up his eyes and exhaled through his teeth. Yongli deserved better than that. And he thought about how good Lotus had been last night with Margaret. He would make some enquiries. First chance he got. He wheeled around and walked into the meeting room.

A dozen detectives and Section Chief Chen sat around the table waiting for him. A veil of smoke hung over the group like a cloud, reflecting Chen’s mood. “Sorry to keep you,” Li said. He sat down and lit up. “You’ve all got copies of the stuff from Hong Kong.” He pulled out the facsimile image of Johnny Ren. “Take a good look at this face,” he said. “He’s our killer. I expect to have full forensic confirmation by lunch-time. But I have no doubts that he is our man. He’s very good, and he’s very dangerous. And he’s still here in Beijing. Or, at least, he was last night.” He rubbed his bruising ruefully. “I want this face on the front page of every newspaper in China by tomorrow morning. I want it on every news bulletin on every TV station. I want his face faxed to every police station, railway station, border post. This man is armed and dangerous. I want us to brief the armed police, the border police, the transport police, and the army. I don’t want him to be able to move from A to B without someone recognising him. I want us to check every hotel and hostel and guest-house in the city. He’s got to be sleeping somewhere. Someone’s seen him. Someone knows where he is. It can only be a matter of time. Detective Qian, I want you to co-ordinate this.”