Qiu Xiaolong - Hold Your Breath, China

D etective Yu Guangming of the Shanghai Police Bureau was dragging his feet toward the bureau meeting room early Monday morning.

As the police officer in practical charge of the Special Case squad, he was far from eager to attend the first joint meeting of his team and the Homicide squad. In fact, Yu was both upset and worried, his mood almost as foul as the smoggy air outside.

It was upsetting that a serial murder case, initially reported to the Special Case squad three weeks ago, had been assigned instead to the Homicide squad under Detective Qin Xiejun.

What had happened since was no less upsetting. Qin and his people had proved not to be up to the job, having wasted three weeks with no progress made at all, and with two more bodies found in a similar manner in the early mornings.

As a result, Party Secretary Li Guohua, the number one Party boss of the bureau, wanted Detective Yu, as well as his long-time partner and personal friend, Chief Inspector Chen Cao, to help. They were supposed to serve as something like informal consultants, but with the case still under the charge of Qins squad, and with the implication that the credit went to Qins squad if and when the case came to be solved.

For Yu, however, that was not his main concern. He was more worried for Chen.

It was another ominous sign for the chief inspector. Once a rising star in the system, Chen was now being seen as having fallen out of the Partys grace. It was because of several successful anti-corruption investigations, ironically, involving high-ranking Party officials. With the conclusions not being what the high-above had wanted to see, Chen was noted down in an inside blacklist as one who stubbornly pushed the investigations to the end in his own way in the name of law and justice, but not in the interests of the Party.

All of a sudden, consequently, Chen was shelved, though nominally still a chief inspector. He was quite well known as a capable, honest cop in the city. It could possibly backfire if he was too quickly removed from the position, but it made a different story to start by barring him from any politically sensitive investigations.

At least no one outside the circle would have known anything about it. Party Secretary Li was too shrewd a Party boss.

Yu thought he could guess the reason behind the arrangement made by Li. For the present case, presumably a serial murder, Chen was a most qualified investigator, having done similar investigations before, but this being a case with potential political complications presented Chen as an unreliable choice in the eyes of Li. However, the lack of any progress in the investigation, bodies piling up, the speculations about it abuzz on the Internet, all put increasing pressure on Li, who had to turn to Chen for help.

Chen must have known about the bureau politics only too well, but the inspector appeared nonchalant in the meeting room, sipping at his tea against an erratic light streaming in through the blinds. He had text-messaged Yu to request his participation in the case discussion with Qin, who was waiting there with files spread out on the long desk.

Qin nodded with a slight frown upon Yus entrance, choosing not to say anything immediately.

After two or three minutes, Li also stepped in. Nodding at the chief inspector, the Party secretary took the seat beside him and turned to Qin opposite,

Please go over the basic facts for our chief inspector, and for all of us, Detective Qin.

Qin started with an involuntary cough, an effort to clear more than his throat.

As you may have known, the first victim appeared about three weeks ago. Shes a night caregiver at the Number One Peoples Hospital. Peng Nian, thats her name. Her body was discovered east of Bund Bridge before six in the morning. Close enough, with quite a number of people and vehicles moving around in the early hours. Its not a likely place for murder. Similar with the time in the morning. As for the cause of death, a single blow from behind with something like a heavy brick. Her skull was fractured. Several minutes later, about five forty-five, a passerby noticed and reported her lying there unconscious, but when the ambulance arrived there was no sign of life in her.

A night caregiver you mean Peng took care of patients in the hospital, but not as a nurse? Li cut in with something not exactly like a question.

Yes, some patients need looking after twenty-four hours. Its too much for the nurses there, and for the patients families too. A tough job, but Peng had no choice, what with her husband paralyzed in bed, and with her son being a twenty-three-year-old dependent addicted to computer games. That morning, after having finished the night shift at the hospital, Peng was walking back home

How can you have ruled out the possibility of some street mugging? Li questioned again, apparently anxious to assert his number one position in the bureau, though with little knowledge about