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was not a great turnover of personnel at the top. One saw the same faces at meetings year after year until what was left unsaid became more significant than anything in the minutes. There were also disadvantages. It was really not possible, for example, for him to maintain that the rumors of the extensive criminal interests of the People’s Liberation Army were untrue. All three men knew perfectly well that PLA generals these days sold sophisticated weaponry to the highest bidder bytaking the Middle Eastern potentate, terrorist, whomever on a tour of his army and having him pick out the rocket, bomb, grenade, tank, whatever of his choice. And all this without the consent of anyone in Beijing. And then there were drugs.
    The fact was that ever since Deng Xiaoping had seen what Mikhail Gorbachev had seen in the USSR—namely, that a conventional socialist economy sooner or later ends in bankruptcy—the natural genius of the Chinese people for every aspect of capitalism had been unleashed. And one of the commodities of the bad old times introduced by the British themselves—namely, opium, these days in the form of heroin—was suddenly doing a roaring trade all along the old route from northern Burma through Yunnan and overland to Hong Kong and Shanghai, hence by ship to just about anywhere west. In Yunnan the army was openly involved, but in Hong Kong the generals had to make use of the triads.
    The problem, if you were political adviser to the governor of Hong Kong, was how to play down the delinquency of the three-million-man Communist army in order to avoid confrontation between the forces of law within the colony and the crooks in green over the border. This was the meaning of the silence around the table: The commissioner of police had brought with him the nightmare Cuthbert had been carefully sidestepping for the past ten years.
    Caxton Smith broke the silence. “Let’s face it, it was bound to happen, sooner or later.”
    Cuthbert grunted then stared at Tsui for a moment. “I think we need to know more about Chief Inspector Chan.”
    Tsui nodded. From a slim plastic folder he drew a single sheet of paper.
    “Chan Siu-kai, nicknamed Charlie by just about everyone after the ridiculous fictional character, is thirty-six years old. Divorced—from an Englishwoman. No children. He’s half Chinese, half of Irish extraction, but his loyalties and identity are entirely Chinese. His father disappeared without marrying his mother although he stayedlong enough to provide Chan with a younger sister, Jenny Chan Wong. She’s a celebrated beauty and an ex-Miss Hong Kong, by the way, married to a wealthy Chinese lawyer.
    “Most of Chan’s early life was spent in a squatter hut in the New Territories, not far from Sai Kung on the east coast. There’s a tragedy, I’m afraid. After the Irishman left her, Chan’s mother was killed by Red Guards during an ill-advised return to her native village in Guangdong. Charlie was fifteen years old at the time. Charlie and Jenny were left to be brought up by an aunt, who also lived in a nearby squatter hut. Chan joined the police as a constable when he was seventeen and rose steadily to his present rank of detective chief inspector. He’s not thought to be especially ambitious. His relatively rapid promotion has been due to a natural intelligence, tenacity in solving crimes and willingness to work long hours. Not especially social. Only hobby as far as we know is scuba diving, although in his twenties he won the police karate championship. Spends even more time at work now that his marriage has failed.”
    Tsui put the paper down, waited.
    “I see.” Cuthbert pressed his lips tight until the corners of his mouth turned down. “I did rather wonder why a perfectly ordinary chief inspector had bothered to stand up to some Communist thugs in their own waters. He hates them, I suppose?”
    “I’ve never asked him. But how would you feel about the organization that directly or indirectly