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out.”
    Faulkner looked around, and, without warning, pushed past her and took a big stride towards the nearest grotto.
    Before he knew it he was on his back and a foot was on his chest; he looked up into her eyes.
    From behind double doors on the far side of the room an old white man, Laurence, walked out. He had a thin face and wispy, almost colourless, hair and the manner of a doddery school-master, as if he was only half-aware of the world around him. “Everything all right?” he asked in a soft English accent.
    “Yes, father,” said Lucy.
    She looked down at Faulkner, her face still emotionless. “You’re quite a number yourself.”

    In 1951, Faulkner cuts through the streets between street-vendors selling dim sums and fried octopi on sticks. The smell of spices mixes with that of things rotting in the street. Chinese women walk in twos beneath umbrellas with picture of dragons on them. A few people ride bicycles. It begins to rain—large, slow drops that threaten to become a deluge.
    Through an alleyway, narrow enough to be missed by the casual passer-by, Faulkner comes to a ramshackle wooden staircase running along the back of a building. Four flights up stands a trench-coated policeman, smoking a cigarette. An open doorway spills yellow light onto him.
    Faulkner takes the stairs two at a time, conscious of the man looking down.
    “Whaddya want, buddy?” the cop says.
    “Come to see the scene.”
    “Not open to the public, mister.”
    “Not the public. I live here.” Faulkner takes a pinch of dust from the bottle hidden in his coat, and blows it quickly at the man. It billows out unnaturally, red and radiant. The man takes a surprised breath and collapses.
    “Sleep, my friend, and dream of a Shanghai Princess,” Faulkner says softly. For a moment he regrets employing the dust, which he wanted to use himself.
    He tiptoes inside and peeks around. There’s blood on the couch, and his face tightens. There are two glasses on the coffee table, a book lying open next to them and cigarettes in an ash-tray. Cigarettes without filters.
    So she knew the rat, thinks Faulkner. They were drinking, before he went to work. She didn’t put those cigarettes out on herself, he thinks. In any case, there’s one thing you know about a rat. A rat always leaves a trail.
    Almost inaudible muttering comes from behind the front door. Faulkner ducks through the back door and in a couple of deft steps disappears up the rear stairwell, standing out of sight on the landing above as the muttering becomes words.
    “Could have been a thrill-kill, but something tells me there was more to it,” says a man in a police officer’s uniform, jangling the keys in his hand.
    The second man, tall and cadaverous like some kind of bony bird, looks at him sharply: “What makes you say that?”
    “She was tied up, right? But the cigarette burns and the cuts. They’re not excited, they’re methodical. Don’t usually see those on thrill-kills. Nope, usually they let the beast out.”
    “The beast?”
    “When killers give in completely to their urges, they let it out—the beast.”
    “Right. Well let’s find that boyfriend of hers, Faulkner. He’s number one suspect, so bring him in. And when you have him, let me work him over.”
    Christ, thinks Faulkner. Now they are after him. But pieces are coming together: the murderer wasn’t a psycho; it was a professional job. So the cigarette burns meant he wanted something from her, but what? Information?
    The two men freeze and, wild-eyed, glance towards the back door. In great strides they cross the floor and step onto the landing, looking down at the unconscious policeman lying there. The officer takes a sharp intake of breath. They look around suspiciously, their heads swivelling to and fro in sudden movements, their eyes moving against the pattern of their heads.
    Standing above them, a ghostly figure, is Faulkner. The two men look out at the alleyway and the rain.
    “It’s a cold