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someone cut his head off. Not quite as cleanly as the previous victims – but it might just be that his blade’s starting to get a little blunt.’ Li ignored the jibe. ‘From the amount of blood I think you could safely say that his heart was still beating when the blow came. So, yes, I’d happily put money on decapitation being the cause of death.’
    ‘But only,’ said Li, ‘if the government ever decides to legalise gambling.’
    Pathologist Wang smiled. His addiction to cards and mah jong was well known. ‘I was speaking figuratively, of course.’
    ‘Of course,’ said Li. He would not have been surprised if money changed hands at Pao Jü Hutong on the outcome of autopsies. ‘What about time of death.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Wang. ‘Now that really is a lottery.’
    ‘Your best guess, then.’
    The pathologist scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘It takes about twelve hours for rigor mortis to reach its stiffest. He’s not quite there yet.’ Wang looked at his watch. ‘About nine hours, maybe. Say … eight, eight-thirty last night, give or take two or three hours.’ He waved his cigarette at Li. ‘I’m going outside for a smoke if you need me for anything else.’ He pushed out on to the landing.
    Li stepped carefully into the sitting room and surveyed the scene. Qian followed at his shoulder.
    The body had toppled forward from a kneeling position, and then fallen on to its side, so there was something oddly foetal about its final resting position. Except for the fact that the arms were pinned behind the back, tied at the wrist. Li crouched to have a closer look. Silk cord. Just like all the others. As he stood up and moved carefully round the body, he saw the eyes of the disembodied head watching him. They gave the disconcerting impression of following him as he stepped across the room. He looked away, and his eyes fell on a once white placard lying partially in the main pool of blood. The cord with which it had hung around the neck of the victim had been severed and was stained dark red. Carefully, Li lifted an unbloodied corner of the placard to reveal characters daubed in red ink on the other side. A nickname, Digger, was written upside down and crossed through. Above it, three single, horizontal strokes. The number 3. All so familiar.
    Li stood up and looked around the room and realised that something wasn’t right. There was a sofa, a table with a lamp, a TV cabinet with a small set on top. The sofa was old, but it didn’t look sat in. There were no knick-knacks, personal belongings of any sort, papers, mail. Li picked his way carefully around the body and saw that a wastebasket by the TV cabinet was empty. He opened the cabinet. Nothing.
    ‘What is it, boss?’ Qian asked.
    Li went out into the dining area and opened the built-in cupboards against the back wall. There were a couple of jackets, a pair of trousers, a couple of pairs of shoes. They were big cupboards, but they seemed very empty. ‘Do we know who he is yet?’ Li asked, and he went through to the kitchen.
    ‘Still working on it, boss,’ Qian said. ‘It’s a privately owned apartment. The guy had been renting for about three months, but none of the neighbours knew who he was. They hardly ever saw him.’
    ‘What about the street committee?’
    ‘They don’t know either. Since the apartment wasn’t provided by his danwei  …’
    Li cursed the move to privatise housing. It might be desirable for people to own their own homes, but it was breaking down the traditional structure of Chinese society. The opposite ends of the new economic spectrum, home ownership and unemployment, were creating a large, unregistered, floating population that was almost impossible to keep track of. It was proving a breeding ground for crime. He threw open the kitchen cupboards. Apart from a few cans, and some prepackaged dried noodles, they were empty, too.
    ‘Who raised the alarm?’
    ‘Couple in the flat below.’ Qian wrinkled his face ‘The