Li turned the body over onto its back. He evidently had not been dead for long, as his skin still held a reasonably lifelike colour, and was only slightly cool to the touch. The limbs still flexed as Li moved him, though with the sluggishness and resistance of encroaching rigor. The front of his shirt and trousers were sticky with drying blood, though there was only a small patch on the floor. A few small footprints were to one side, and Li shuddered at the thought of what this woman might be teaching her offspring.

The sergeant poked at the torn shirt with a pen, exposing thin, wavery wounds. 'Stabbed, by the look of him.' Li didn't need to be told that; he'd seen such wounds every other day for most of his adult life. 'Stomach and maybe up under the ribs.'

'Any sign of a weapon?'

'Lots of weapons. Whether any of them was the one that did this...' The sergeant looked round at the obsidian dragon, which leered as if drinking the taste of blood in the air. 'Could this be some sort of sacrifice?' The sergeant at least had the good sense to sound sheepish as he spoke.

'No. We don't do that sort of thing.' He didn't think so, anyway, though there were so many G.o.ds that he supposed some demanded sacrifices. He had never come across such a case, however. 'Besides, look at the wounds, and the small amount of blood here. He must have been killed somewhere else, and then brought in here.'

'There were no blood trails outside this room.'

'Perhaps they carried him in a sack.' Couldn't the sergeant see that poking holes in his theories wasn't going to let him concentrate? 'He must have been attacked quite near here; the body's very fresh. The street outside, perhaps.'

The sergeant gave him a disdainful look, then shrugged.

'I'll have the area searched, but we won't find anything.'

Li knew the sergeant was right, of course; the Tongs were very adept at concealing their activities whenever they felt it was worth their while to bother. That knowledge didn't free the police from their obligations, though. 'All right. I'll go and have words with the prisoners. Let me know what you find.'

He looked around the grimy little room, and noticed that some blood was seeping around his shoe. He shook it off with a grimace. 'This is going to be one of those nights.'

From the gap between two rain-barrels, Yan Cheh watched with fascinated interest as a beautiful young woman hurried over to a waiting Studebaker. The driver held open the door so that the woman could put down the child she was carrying and a.s.sist him inside. The driver was a tall and muscular man with an angular, pockmarked face and s.h.a.ggy hair. He took a last lock around before getting in the car, which set off along Bubbling Well Road.

Yan Cheh stepped around the barrels, and looked back towards the bar on the corner. A couple of Sikhs were looking either way along the street. Yan Cheh was not surprised they hadn't spotted their quarry: she'd made the journey from the bar to her rendezvous with remarkable speed. Still, at least he still had them in sight.

He wheeled out the Zundapp motorcycle which had been hidden behind a fruit stall, and swung himself onto it. Ignoring the Sikhs down the road, he set off after the Studebaker.

HsienKo allowed her eyelids to droop over her jade eyes; it had been a long and tiring day, and the motion of the car was surprisingly relaxing, despite the occasional b.u.mp. 'What happened, Ah-Kwok?'

'Just bad luck, as far as we can tell. A random spot-check.

Did it go well?'

'As well as can be expected. Have you arranged transportation to the Jade Emperor?'

'There's a wide path to the Daizong Archway. It's large enough to accommodate the trucks, though we ourselves can go much higher up the mountain.'

HsienKo nodded. 'Laying the cables should prove an interesting experience but I'm sure it'll do.'

'I hoped you'd approve.' Kwok couldn't keep the smile from his face.

She matched his expression. 'Miss me?'

'Always.'

'Naturally. Take me home now, but dispose of this car first; it may have been seen.'

'Of course, beloved.'

It had been a long night, and even though the air was now clearer, Inspector Li felt as if his head was stuffed with cotton wool. He had supervised the removal of the body from the small shrine and now prowled around the cleared opium den.

He knew he should be working out the details of the case, but couldn't help thinking about getting back home for a long rest.

The main part of the den was just a squalid empty room, and he had soon turned his attention back to the shrine. The obsidian dragon unnerved him, as its jewelled eyes seemed to glow from within. He turned it round to face the wall, hoping that he would no longer be able to feel the malice it exuded. It was a strange idol; not one of the G.o.ds or dragons that he recognized. A regional patron deity, perhaps. He made a mental note to enquire about that; it might help track down the owner if he knew where the person was from.

There were still marks of dried blood on the floor, and he followed them back from where the body had lain against the wall. That was odd; it was just a plain old brick wall, yet the trail led from it as if it were a door. As far as Li could work out there was only empty air and a twenty-foot drop on the other side, but he tapped at it anyway.

There was no hollow sound to indicate any hidden pa.s.sages. Shaking his head, Li turned to go, then paused as something caught his eye. A corner of paper or card was poking out from under the shrine's low altar.

He retrieved it quickly. The name on it was that of one of the men they had arrested, but more interesting was its nature.

It was a dock worker's pa.s.s to Gongpinglu Wharf. That was a dockyard on the northern bank of the Huangpu just after it turned east, not far from the foreign emba.s.sies.

The various western governments were forever conspiring against each other, Li knew, so perhaps one of them was also involved. At any rate, this was the only clue he had as to where the escaped suspects might have either come from or gone to. He slipped the card into his pocket before leaving the opium den.

Nang Tao airfield was enclosed by a vast wire fence some nine feet high. A Tarmac runway was clearly visible against the surrounding gra.s.s, while mown strips of the field provided an informal landing area for smaller and st.u.r.dier aircraft. Off to one side, lights gleamed in the square and ugly concrete terminal with its wide barred windows. Hangars with colourful airline logos and slogans were arrayed beyond that, while a large arch stretched over the entrance for paying customers.

The Doctor crouched by the fence, Romana and K9 beside him. 'You are sure it reads as being here?' the Doctor asked.

Romana held up the tracer, which ticked softly. 'So it would appear.'

'All right. It'll be quicker to cut our way through than go all the way round to the main gate...' K9 powered up the blaster set into his snout. It would take only two seconds to burn through a wide enough range of wires with momentary sparks to allow them to pa.s.s through. The Doctor clapped a hand over the metal snout. 'The light might be seen.' He patted his pockets, then produced a small pair of wire-cutters from somewhere. 'Stealth and subtlety, eh?' He set to work, clipping rapidly at the links in the fence.

After a couple of minutes, he was able to pull away a roughly circular section of the fence and crawl through. He turned. 'Come on, K9, don't dawdle.'

K9 slid through smoothly, then paused, scanning the area just in case. 'Metallic ma.s.s detected, master. Halfway along the runway.'

'Later, K9. You next, Romana.' Nothing happened, so the Doctor stuck his head back through the fence. 'Romana?

Romana? Why is it that the simplest thing ' A discreet cough attracted his attention, and he looked up to see Romana standing beside him.

'If you weren't so lazy, we could have been at the source by now. It's not as if it's a very high fence.'

The Doctor rocked back on his heels. 'You climbed the fence?'

'Of course.'

'Ah.' The Doctor nodded to himself. 'You know I hate to sound negative, but what if it had been electrified, eh?'

'Then you would have been electrocuted when you cut the first wire, and I'd have got K9 to cut a way through.'

'That's very thoughtful of you.'

'You're the one that's supposed to be reckless, according to everyone at the Academy. I just thought I'd '

'Reckless?!' The Doctor shot to his feet. 'Me? I'm not reckless. Just sort of...informal. Try the tracer now.'

She did so, and the instrument ticked softly. She pointed.

'That way, on the runway.'

The Doctor wandered along the middle of the runway, peering from side to side. 'Well, there's nothing here now.'

His foot rattled against something with a metallic sc.r.a.ping.

'Wait a minute.' He bent down as Romana and K9 hurried to join him. The Doctor had lifted a gleaming metal object from the Tarmac. It was a knife of some kind, with a blade so slim it was almost needle-like.

The Doctor tentatively touched the blade, his fingers coming away darkened. 'Blood,' he murmured. 'Still quite fresh. Give me the tracer.' Romana handed it over silently, and the Doctor held it to the knife. The tracer ticked faintly. The Doctor tried holding it over the bloodied portion of the blade, but this made no difference.

'It's obviously not the fourth segment,' Romana told him.

'No. It may have been in contact with it recently, though.'

He frowned, turning the knife over in his hands, then offered it to K9. 'What do you make of this?'

K9's probe antenna reached out towards the knife. 'The blood is human, of type O negative. Weapon has a four-inch hilt and eight-inch blade, and weighs seventy-two grammes.

The blade is composed of an alloy of unniloctium and nitinol, and will be triggered by the victim's body heat.'

'What?' The Doctor stared down at the knife, wide-eyed.

'Unniloctium and nitinol, are you certain of that, K9?'

K9's antennae whirred briefly. 'Affirmative, master.

Metallurgical a.n.a.lysis double-checked and confirmed.'

'Is something wrong?' Romana asked.

'Probably,' the Doctor answered in a very low voice, without any of his customary humour. 'Unniloctium is a natural element, but nitinol was artificially created and neither of them will be discovered for a good half-century or so.'

'Nineteen eighty-four and the late nineteen seventies respectively, mistress,' K9 supplied helpfully.

'Yes,' the Doctor went on thoughtfully. 'The unniloctium might have been discovered and then forgotten, since it is a natural element on this planet, but not the nitinol.'

Romana looked at the knife. 'Are those metals found on any other planets with s.p.a.cefaring capabilities, K9?'

'Affirmative, mistress. Unniloctium deposits are found in trace amounts in many G-cla.s.s star systems. Nitinol is currently used by the Draconian Empire, the Kaldanati, the Lamerdines, the Sauriate Alliance, and the Xatrox.'

'Any of whom would stand out like a sore thumb on this planet.' The Doctor straightened and peered at a large metallic ma.s.s K9 had noticed on first scan. 'Aha. Come on.' He led them down to the end of the runway. A car sat there, its black paint providing excellent camouflage out on the darkened landing field.

The doors were open but no one was inside. The Doctor laid a hand on the bonnet. 'The engine's still warm.' He climbed halfway into the car, then withdrew, and ushered K9 forward. 'Spots of blood on the seat, K9; are they from the same person as the blood on the knife?'

K9 whirred slightly. 'Affirmative, master. Genetic match one hundred per cent.'

'Yes, I thought as much...'

'Doctor?' Romana started measuring off paces between the car and the spot where they had found the knife.

'What?'

'The knife was here, and presumably was dropped after abandoning the car, right?'

'Right.'

'Why go along the runway? We'd have seen or heard a plane take off; they could have parked right next to another car if they wanted to swap vehicles, or they could have run off into the darkness. Why didn't they?'

'And where did they go?' The Doctor strolled around in a small circle, peering alternately at the ground and the sky.

'Hypers.p.a.ce?'

He stopped and shot her a look. 'That wasn't very funny.'

Yan Cheh ran a finger around the edge of the ragged hole in the fence. Had the couple from the Studebaker cut their way out here? It didn't seem likely; the gra.s.s was flattened more on the outside where they had knelt to cut through.

There was an odd trail beside the footprints of a man and a woman. Rather than being the child's prints, it was a continuous strip, as if some square box had been dragged along. The gra.s.s was flattened pointing in towards the runway, which meant it certainly wasn't his quarry.

He heard voices approaching, and swiftly leapt onto his Zundapp, since there was no convenient cover in which to hide. He would make more discreet enquiries later, he promised himself.

Three.

The Club Do-San was at the southern end of the riverside road known as the Bund, down by the old Chinese city. It was enclosed in a wedge-shaped Georgian style edifice on a corner just north of Shilipu Wharf. It shared a rear loading area with the Shanghai Club a very cla.s.sy British-only gentlemen's club with a marble-floored hallway that was almost as large as New York's Grand Central station.

The Club Do-San was equally ostentatious, but in a more discreet way. Once through any of the three arched double doors on the curved facade, a visitor would find himself in a thickly carpeted vestibule bounded by a reception desk as impressive as those in any of the city's hotels. A maze of shelves and hangers for hats and coats stretched out behind the desk, and flowing staircases beyond led up to the dining floor or down to the less formal dance floor.

The immaculately uniformed boys behind the desk nodded respectfully as their employer strolled casually in and went straight over towards the stairs. The owner of the Club Do-San had no such qualms over patronage as did the powers that be in the Shanghai Club. He had carefully made it very public that as far as he was concerned, money was money, regardless of whose wallet it was in. A short but lean figure with a s.h.a.ggy fringe, he was known by his staff simply as Mr Woo.

He knew that they sometimes wondered whether he even had a given name which of course he had but it appealed to his sense of humour to let them wonder.

The face under the thick fringe was only slightly too lean to be truly baby-faced and his almost black eyes glittered keenly.

He wore a dinner suit, to rea.s.sure his staff that he too knew the value of a neat and formal appearance. He skipped down the short flight of steps and through into the lounge. Informal tables were scattered around the edges of the polished dance floor, under the overhanging floor of the formal dining area. A set of seats for musicians were arrayed around a small stage at the far end of the floor, which also incorporated an elaborately sculpted fountain. A long bar with oak and bra.s.s fittings ran the length of the wall to the left, with the prices of exotic c.o.c.ktails listed on framed notices.

Woo palmed a toothpick from a holder on the nearest table, and set it into the corner of his mouth. He had never smoked, but he found that this slight gesture tended to put at ease those who did, as well as discouraging them from offering him any cigarettes. He wasn't sure why this worked, but was glad that it did.