They left the forensics man dusting for prints and went through to the other bedroom. By comparison it was neat and tidy. The bed was made up with clean sheets. It didn’t look as if it had been slept in recently. The wardrobe was hung with rows of dark suits and pressed white shirts. Beneath them a row of polished brown and black shoes on a rack. In the other bedroom they had just seen the private face of Chao Heng. In this one they saw the face he showed in public. Two different faces, two different people. Li wondered which, if either, was the real Chao Heng. And how many people, if any, knew who that was?

Perhaps a third face revealed itself in Chao’s living room. Here was a comfortable, stylish room tastefully furnished with items of traditional Chinese lacquered furniture, many of them antiques; low tables inset with mother-of-pearl, hand-painted screens subdividing the room, embroidered silk throws draped over low settees. Three walls were hung with original scroll-mounted paintings, the fourth groaned with books from floor to ceiling. Books of every description in Chinese and English. Classic fiction in both languages: from Cao Xueqin’s A Dream of Red Mansions, and Ling Li’s Son of Heaven, to Scott’s Redgauntlet, and Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. A veritable library of scientific textbooks: Plant DNA Infectious Agents, Risk Assessment in Genetic Engineering, Plant Virology, Genomic Imprinting. Books on health: The Classified Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion, Fighting Drug Abuse with Acupuncture.

Qian whistled in amazement. “Can any one person read that many books in a lifetime?”

Li picked one out at random, Gene Transfer in the Environment, and examined the spine. “Chao Heng apparently,” he said, slipping the book back into the bookcase.