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murdered your mother?”
    Cuthbert glanced sharply at the commissioner. “Quite. But that does rather make him unsuitable for the present case, doesn’t it?”
    Tsui’s features went flat. “You could say that. Although an administration with a little backbone might take the opposite view.”
    Cuthbert stared at Tsui. Tsui stared back. Caxton Smith stared at the floor. There was a long silence.
    “I think I understand Ronny’s point, Milton. And I agree with him,” Caxton Smith said eventually.
    “Oh, really! What point is that?”
    “That when it comes down to it, we British can be the world’s most nauseating cowards.”
    Cuthbert looked from one to the other, tapped his pad, muttered unintelligibly, stood up, went to a window, stared out. The large ships in the harbor were lit up from stern to bow in garlands of light, like Christmas trees. Beyond them lay Kowloon, the other part of the colony of Hong Kong. And thirty miles to the north lay the People’s Republic of China where lived one quarter of the world’s population with an army of over three million and an enduring resentment against Great Britain dating back to the Opium Wars. Unlike the other two men, he regarded the land over the border as part of the constituency with which he worked. He understood Tsui’s point of view, but as a senior diplomat one had … other considerations.
    He turned back to the table, drew his chair near to Tsui, who was sitting stiffly. When Cuthbert spoke, it was in a soft, almost consoling voice.
    “Think about it, Ronny. If he finds out who was behind the killings, and he probably will, and if it’s who we think it might be, he’ll find a way to tell the world. I really can’t have a chief inspector with a twenty-odd-year-old grudge against the Communists upsetting the relationship between Great Britain and China. Not now, not barely two months away from the handover of power. Anyway, suppose the cat is let out of the bag. What is Britain supposed to do? Arrest the Red Army?”
    It was Tsui’s turn to stand up. “Maybe letting the cat out of the bag is what matters. I’m Chinese; you’re not. On fourth June 1989 those old men in Beijing ordered the massacre of thousands of peaceful young demonstrators. They ran over them with tanks—minced them up, you might say. In eight weeks’ time those same old men will be running this place, where six million of my people have sought refuge. Every one of us sitting here will be gone. I’ll be retired, and you’ll be following your careers elsewhere. We can afford to make a fuss now, when there’s a chance of focusing world opinion on the problem. I would consider it a betrayal of my people to miss an opportunity to expose the nefarious activities of those thugs over the border. However, I’ve taken my oath to the queenand all that, and I’ll obey orders. But if you want me to take Chan off the case, I want it in writing, signed by the governor.”
    Cuthbert’s face hardened. “Very well, Ronny. You’ll have your orders. Signed by the governor. But I’ll have to fax London first. Just hold Chan off for twenty-four hours, would you? And in the meantime I suggest you appoint this Chief Superintendent Riley to work closely with him. Just in case he gets a little too creative even for your taste.”
    In the glacial silence that followed, it was Caxton Smith once more who intervened.
    “What’s he like, this Chief Superintendent Riley?”
    Tsui coughed. “Reliable, hardworking, sensitive to political nuances.”
    “That sounds like an official line, Ronny,” Cuthbert interrupted. “Off the record, what sort of man is Riley?”
    Although bilingual, Tsui thought first of a Cantonese word that he took a couple of seconds to translate into the English vernacular.
    “He’s a jerk.” He looked from one to the other. “If that’s all, perhaps you’ll excuse me, gentlemen? Caxton, d’you mind finding your own way home?”
    “Not at all, Ronny,” Smith said. He