Someone had forestalled him. In spite of his precautions, the path had been anticipated and blocked as soon as he had turned mistakenly pleased with his Chen trail-in targeting someone not conspicuous, and in a roundabout way. All his efforts had fallen through and he did not know which link had gone wrong. That was the terrifying part. It appeared he remained in the light, while the enemy remained in the dark, ready to pounce on him.

There were a lot of things he did not know, but he was almost sure-no use pretending to himself-that she had alarmed some people in her effort to find the whereabouts of Ming. She must have made phone calls.

So that would be the direction for him: her telephone records for the last few days. But the case was not assigned to the special case squad. His pushing Sergeant Kuang would be like attempting to cook in somebody else’s kitchen.

What was worse, if he himself was under watch, as he suspected, any steps taken by him could have consequences, not only for him. He thought of what Dong had ominously suggested.

That night, he failed to fall asleep for a long while. A cricket chirped intermittently, not too far away, rubbing its wings in a corner of the room. He stared up at the ceiling like one possessed. In his police experience, he had occasionally speculated on the possibility of investigating a victim close to him. An was not exactly close-never had been. Still, she had been nice to him in the reading-group days. More than anything else, he cherished the memories of their literary passion then.

One evening, he recollected, after their reading activity, four of them walked into a shabby ramshackle eatery near the Bund. Han, An, Ding, and he, sitting around a rough wood table. They were poor, ordering plain noodles, sharing a tiny dish of roast Beijing duck, and spending two hours over a poem, to the great annoyance of a white-haired waiter.

Tonight, the same night cloud, the same siren over the river, the same petrel flying, perhaps, as if out of a calendar, in spite of all the changes…

Lying on his bed, he also thought of Han, who by now must have learned about his wife’s death, and of Ding, who seemed to have disappeared in the south. Chen, alone, was the one still hanging on there. He should be grateful, he contemplated, for being able to do something for those not as lucky.

And he fell asleep with a new plan for his action.

CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN ADOPTED a different approach with Jiang Xiaodong, the Director of the City Land Development Office.

It was an attempt with dual purpose. He had to investigate Jiang’s involvement in both the An case and the Xing case.

According to the information initially given to Chen, Jiang had never met Xing in privacy. Nor was there any record of his meeting with Ming. But for those pictures with An, no one could have suspected there was anything untoward about the approval of the land development.

But Chen was not going to use the pictures too early. The scandal would spell the downfall of the corrupt director, but it would not necessarily prove Jiang a murderer nor lead to a breakthrough in the Xing investigation.

So Chen started by focusing on something small, the company car service for Jiang. In China, a Party cadre, once promoted to a certain rank, would be provided with a company car. Theoretically, the car was meant for business use only, but a dinner or karaoke party could be claimed as necessary for business. No one would raise any question about those requests. At the rank of a chief inspector, Chen had the use of the bureau car, though not exclusively, and not with a designated driver. At Jiang’s rank, a car and driver were at his service, but they were not available twenty-four hours a day or parked at his residence. Jiang still had to call beforehand. So the chief inspector would check through the Chen trail first.

Early in the morning, Chen went to Jiang’s office, which, like Dong’s, was located in the City Government Building. Instead of entering the building, he headed straight for the parking lot, where he saw a small office with a couple of people dispatching various cars. It took him no time to find out that Jiang’s driver was Lai Shan. Lai had already left to get the car maintenanced that morning, so Chen had to wait there patiently.

Around ten-thirty, someone in the office said to Chen, “Lai has come back. He’s probably going to have lunch in his car. A couple of steamed buns-you know.”

Chen stepped out to find Lai, but quickly changed his mind. He walked out to the square and hailed a taxi to Xinya Restaurant on Nanjing Road. It took him only five minutes to get to the restaurant, where he had the taxi wait for him. He chose a roast Guangdong duck, had the chef slice it, meat and skin together, and put it into a plastic box. He had the duck bones put into a larger plastic box and, in addition, he got steamed buns and a six-pack of Budweiser. He then rushed back.

Lai was a man in his early fifties, short, swarthy. He was reading a newspaper in the car, yawning, staring out at the approaching cop. Chen handed in his business card with a plastic lunch box in his hand.

“I’m Chen Cao, of the Shanghai Police Bureau. I have a couple of questions for you. Nothing wrong with you, Comrade Lai. Don’t be alarmed. I happen to know you have not had lunch yet, neither have I. So how about us talking over our lunch together?”

“Fine. I only have cold buns,” Lai said, eyeing him up and down. “If my boss needs me, I have to move immediately.”

Chen moved in and put the plastic box between them. A popular way to eat a roast duck was to have the duck slices wrapped in pancakes, but it was not too bad wrapped in the soft, warm buns from Xinya. When Chen popped open the beer, it was like opening the chatterbox between them.

“ Guangdong roast duck is different from Beijing roast duck, not so fatty. So I had the chef slice the meat and skin together.”

“Yes, I had Beijing roast duck last night. Nothing but crisp duck skin in pancakes, with green onion and Beijing sauce. Really tasty, but I like duck meat too. Guangdong roast duck is better for me.”

“It’s a pity that we can’t have the duck bone soup here,” Chen said, finishing the second bun. “It has to be hot, with a lot of pepper.”

“Exactly, that’s one of the three celebrated ways to eat a duck,” Lai said, smacking his lips. “Thank you so much for the lunch. I have heard your name before, Chief Inspector Chen. No free lunch in the way of the world, I know. You are a busy man with a lot of questions. So go ahead.”

“Did Director Jiang use your car last night?”

“No, Jiang didn’t request the car service last night. I was at a wedding. My friend’s daughter got married at Yanyun Pavilion.” Lai took a picture out of his wallet. “Look at the picture. What a grand wedding. Twenty-five tables altogether. And an impressive array of luxury cars. The bride had an uncle coming in a Mercedes, and they insisted on my driving the Lexus there too.”

Chen took a glance at the picture. The date was imprinted on the right corner of it. No mistake about the date. The part about luxury cars also sounded true. It was an age when being rich meant being glorious. For a wedding, people would show off their wealth in whatever way possible.

“Let me ask you a different question. Does Director Jiang use your car all the time?”

“Theoretically, my job is from eight to five, but as you know, there’re a lot of dinner parties in the evening. To be fair to Jiang, he makes a point of discussing his schedule with me. So like today, I took my wife to hospital in the morning. And he gives me twenty extra hours every month. That helps.”