“Li Yan,” Li said. “My name’s Li Yan.” And he felt the colour on his cheeks rise involuntarily, blushing to the roots of his hair. He wondered if his day could possibly get any worse, and hurried into his office. The feng shui man was standing in the centre of the room taking notes. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to go,” Li said.

The old man nodded sagely. “I know,” he said. “I shall need to give this much thought.” He pointed towards the filing cabinet on the door wall. “This cabinet is no good here. It stops the door opening fully. The door must open one hundred eighty degrees. Negative ch’i collects in empty spaces behind doors, and you can’t see the whole room when you enter.” He shook his head and turned to the window. “Window is jammed. Restricts the view. Will bring limited opportunities.” He tapped the desk. “Are you left or right-handed?”

Li sighed. “Right-handed. Why?”

“We have to move the desk. Light must not come from your writing side. And we need water in here and fresh plants.” He pointed at dead plants in old pots on the sill. They had once belonged to Li’s predecessor, but since his death no one had watered them and so they, too, had died. “This is very bad feng shui. And we should think about the colour of the walls . . .”

Li took him gently by the arm. “I’m quite happy with the colour of the walls. But you really have to go now.”

“Tomorrow I come back with the plan.”

“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about that. I’ll speak to my uncle tonight.”

“Your uncle is my very good friend. I owe him many favours.”

“I’m sure.”

The old man took a last look back as Li guided him out into the corridor. “Bad feng shui,” he said. “Ve-ery bad feng shui.”

Li turned back into the detectives’ room to find all of them, including Margaret, watching him with ill-concealed smiles.

“Anyway,” Margaret said, “I think it’s time you took me to lunch, don’t you?”

“She just asked him to take her to lunch,” Lily translated quickly for the rest of the room, and they all waited with intense interest to see what Li’s response would be. He was trapped. She had just performed a huge favour for his boss, and therefore indirectly for him. The etiquette of guanxi required him to return the favour. And lunch was a very small price to pay. Except that his colleagues were unlikely to let him forget it in a hurry. He fumbled to remove his fob watch from the small leather pouch looped on to his belt and glanced at the time.

“I don’t have much time, and it’s a little late,” he said lamely.