“Lots of Chinese men treat their wives badly,” said Ting-Yan, nibbling on a leaf of bok choy as though it were fatty pork. “But Tak-Wing is taking it too far.”

“Lots of men treat their wives badly, Chinese or not,” Professor Duffy said.

“Emily is in a dangerous situation,” I said. “This is not the normal bickering that occurs in married life.”

Courchene, who’d fallen quiet in the corner, said, “Let’s storm the house.”

“Maybe we should just go there and try to reason with him. He was a sweet boy once,” Ting-Yan said.

“He was. Once.” I scarfed my last bite, a forkful of rice with a last lonely bean on it. “But I think he’s past reason now. Though the problem with storming the house is that he knows we know.”

“We’ll have to do something he really doesn’t expect,” said Courchene.

“If he’s already feeling edgy, it’ll be impossible to surprise him,” said Professor Duffy, scraping her plate.

“He’s got her locked in a room,” said Courchene. His plate was empty too. I saw him glance hungrily at the rice pot, but we all knew it was empty. None of us complained aloud because we didn’t want to make anyone else feel bad for eating. “All over this godforsaken city,” he continued, “there are squadrons of marauders banging on the doors of houses trying to get at the women inside. We’d be the only ones doing it for a good reason.”

“You have a point,” Professor Duffy said.

“We need to get my poor sister away from that monster, however we do it.”

“I could train you,” Courchene said. “We’d need guns.” He looked at Ting-Yan, who looked back but offered nothing.

He waited.

Finally, Ting-Yan spoke. “When you use guns, people die. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to kill the brother of my late husband either.”

I wondered if she still had feelings for Tak-Wing, though I didn’t say so out loud.

As if reading my thoughts, she said, “That was a million years ago, Violet.”

“Chinese women deserve more,” Professor Duffy muttered, “so much more than they are given.”

“Bill can’t do this on his own,” I said. “I’ll go with him.”

“I’m not against working with a woman. But Emily is your sister. A deep attachment adds a risk factor.”

I snorted. “Then I’ll be someone else on the day. I’ll be a soldier, like you.” A gift came in the form of two men looking for someone called “Ga-Chan.” Old Cheung had sent them over from the cricket club. One of them was Emily’s former bandmate Tanaka, the other a rum importer called Morgan Horace. Horace told us that Cheung didn’t seem well, but he’d encouraged them to look for me and Emily while it was still possible to do so.