She bit her tongue. After all, she had no ammunition with which to fight back. The Chinese might make studies of well-known cases in the US, but Americans were profoundly ignorant of headline crimes in China.

“I was once involved in a murder investigation that lasted more than two years,” Li went on, to illustrate his point. “A family were found slaughtered in their home. A mother, father, grandfather, child. There was a forced entry, a night-time burglary we believed had gone wrong. Blood everywhere. Footprints in blood, fingerprints. But our national fingerprint register is, as yet, limited. We had to trace and interview nearly three thousand migrant workers known to have been in the area at the time.”

Margaret interrupted. “How did you know it was a migrant worker?”

“In China,” Li said, “people respect the police. They know it is their duty to help the police. If they have a job, their danwei provides their apartment, pays for their medical treatment. Someone on their street committee will know if they are at home or not at home. There is a network of information about people’s lives and movements that we can call on. We call it the masses line. The masses line is the single biggest reason for low crime figures in China. People do not commit crime if they know they will be caught. And if they are caught they lose everything—job, house, medical treatment, pension . . .” He shook his head and scuffed his foot on the floor. “Everyone agrees, economic reform in China is good. Deng Xiaoping said: ‘To be rich is glorious.’ But now the iron rice bowl is broken . . .”

“Iron rice bowl?”

He seemed annoyed by the interruption. “Job for life. We call it the iron rice bowl. Now that the rice bowl is broken, there are many unemployed people. Many workers are itinerant. They move about the country looking for work. They are what we call the floating population. And as the floating population grows, so does the crime rate.”

Margaret nodded, beginning to understand just how such fundamental differences in a society can affect its criminal activity. “So you went after your three thousand itinerant workers.”

“We found eleven had gone missing. One by one they had to be found and eliminated from our inquiry. Finally we got our man.”

“Two years?”

“Two years.”

Margaret shook her head in wonder. “In the States we wouldn’t have had the money, or the manpower, to pursue one case that long. And anyway,” she grinned, “there’d have been a few hundred other homicides in the meantime.”

“I know,” Li said seriously, and Margaret wondered if this was straight-faced sarcasm. But he gave no indication of it.

Professor Xie glanced pointedly at his watch and sighed audibly.

“Okay,” Li said. “You want to have a look at the body?”

“Are there any belongings?” she asked.

“Don’t you want to see the body first?” Li seemed surprised.