"You mean, it's Bao's investigation now? A simple missing person case?"

"Public Security has the authority if they choose to exercise it. Two days ago he choose to do so, on the grounds that she was a former public official. We transferred our file and he inserted two more witness statements. No case anymore. He closed the file. Finding of death by accident."

"So all the detainees in the investigation can be released now."

Xu ignored him. "Bao contacted his Public Affairs Officer. There will be an expanded story in praise of Lau in the newspaper."

"What witnesses gave statements?"

"Comrade Hu, from the school. He reminded us that he had reported Lau for praising dissidents in her classes. Then he signed a statement. Walking to work the day after the reported accident he saw a woman's body floating down the river."

"Just like that, he suddenly remembered." What had Hu said at the camp? He had a family to think of.

"The other was a forensics expert in Kashgar. Said the wallet with the identity papers they recovered had traces of mineral consistent with the riverbank she reportedly fell down."

"I am endlessly amazed," Shan said with a sigh, "at what the resources of the people's government are capable of when properly motivated." He stared into his hands. "Did you verify how Sui came into possession of Lau's papers?"

"A responsible citizen." It was a familiar code for government files, referring to an anonymous source.

"I don't think so. I think Sui had them himself."

Xu rose and slowly walked behind him. He braced himself but did not look back. She reappeared holding one of the wooden slats and sat again.

"I thought Bao might pursue the other theory," Shan suggested impassively. Xu's eyebrows rose in inquiry. "That Lau and Sui ran away together. Secret lovers, maybe. Or perhaps they both drowned, valiantly trying to save a copy of the Chairman's speeches that had fallen into the river."

Xu's eyes smoldered. She slapped the stick lightly in her palm, as if gauging its balance. "My chief investigator and Lieutenant Sui were friends. Sui would come here and wait for him sometimes by the stairs, at the end of the day." Shan glanced at the door. The bald man would be there, in the lobby, while Sui waited, listening to what Sui said. Perhaps, Shan thought, Xu's real investigator was the quiet, unobtrusive bald man. "Sui boasted a lot. He bought a new television, a new radio, a Japanese vacuum cleaner. He was going to buy a new car soon."

Shan stared at her. "The streets are paved with gold in Yoktian. You don't even have to be in the Brigade to get rich. But especially the Brigade. Comrade Ko, he's so rich he can give his sports car to Bao."

"Bao? Impossible. Complete opposites. They barely speak to one another. I've heard them argue in meetings. Ko says Bao is too rooted in the old economy. Bao says Ko does not sufficiently appreciate what the state has done for him."

"But he did," Shan said. "Should be simple enough to verify. A bright red car in a dull grey town." Xu's eyes stared intensely on the wooden slat, as if it might explain why Ko would do such an unlikely thing.

"Ko doesn't make enough in five years to buy such a car," she said slowly, speaking to the slat.

"But now he has announced he will buy another one, to take Loshi for a ride."

Xu looked up, her face clouded. "Loshi?" Xu asked, then nodded as if she had remembered that Shan had spoken with Loshi when he had visited the first time. Her hands became busy, playing with the slat, shifting it from one hand to the other. Then she abruptly laid it on the table and clasped her hands over it. "It's the bonuses," she said in a low voice.

"Bonuses?"

"You saw the memorandum from Ko. Economic incentives. It's the new world, comrade." Xu sounded unconvinced. "The market economy comes to Yoktian. Blend the best of capitalism with the tenets of socialism."

"Must be the Chinese characteristics that confuse me," Shan said with an exaggerated shrug, completing the slogan. It had been painted, bannered, and chiseled throughout China for years. Build for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. He stared down at his own hands. "But Ko was just talking about disc players for students and teachers."

"There's more. It's the Brigade. They're so infected with capitalism," she said bitterly. "Bonuses to workers for achieving special goals."

"Special goals?"

"Bring in unregistered sheep, fifty renminbi. Bring in unregistered herders to be converted to Brigade employees, five hundred renminbi. Bring in unlicensed religious practitioners to be screened and licensed, three thousand, half in cash, half in Brigade shares."

"A bounty." Shan spat the word like a curse. Three thousand renminbi was more than a year's wage for many inhabitants of the region.

"Economic incentives. To help the growth of enterprise," Xu said in a hollow voice.

Shan placed his face in his hands, elbows on the table. What was it Marco had said that first day at Karachuk? The worker's paradise just keeps getting better and better. "Who," he asked in a taut voice, looking up, "who is eligible for this honor?"

"Only the Brigade, at first. They're a private company, they can spend their money as they wish."

"You said, at first."

"A month ago, it changed. General Rongqi is very influential, expected to be the head of the Brigade in another year. He arranged a telephone call with Ko and me, and Public Security. Bao couldn't attend so he sent Sui. The general asked that key enforcement officials in Yoktian be permitted to participate in his program. I refused. I said Ministry of Justice workers don't accept bribes. It was lucky that Bao was not on the call. Bao would have been furious."

But Sui had secretly accepted the invitation, Shan realized. And Bao, however angry he might have been at Rongqi's suggestion, had also eventually joined the program. Everyone had their price. Bao had gotten involved, not as Sui's superior, but as Sui's competitor. Bao would never have investigated Sui's murder if he himself were Sui's killer. But that didn't explain why Ko had surrendered his car to Bao.

Xu sighed. "Rongqi argued that having all of us join would help accelerate the Poverty Eradication Scheme, he said. The government supports the Brigade, and it's all Brigade money anyway."

"In some places, Comrade Prosecutor, it seems the Brigade is the government. Just without all the rules."

The comment seemed to wound Xu. Her head bent into her hands. "You know how campaigns work, Comrade Shan," she said sourly. "Two steps forward, one step back."

She had spoken his name. It confused him.

"You have no theory," she said. "You think everyone in government is guilty, is that it?" But her voice wasn't accusing, it was resentful. "Because of what the government did to you."

They were silent a long time. From outside, in the square, came the sound of a harsh voice over a public address system, announcing a curfew.

"Why have you been here so long, Comrade Prosecutor?" he asked at last. "Twelve years in Yoktian, it's a lifetime."

"I make a difference here," she said woodenly. "We've made historic progress."

Xu was a different woman, Shan saw, when the almost constant flame of her anger burned away. The Jade Bitch wasn't made of stone. She was made of gristle, tough, indigestible gristle, that bore the marks of having been chewed on for many years.