The knowledge that all this had happened twice before and that it was likely to happen again was a staggering blow to the police force. Three victims in three weeks and, given that they had made no progress in their investigation, quite possibly another one at the end of another week.

Yu’s colleagues were going all out, extending the search into every possible corner. The technical division was reexamining the scene of the crime, a temporary hotline was receiving tips from the public, every radio patrol car was on the watch.

A picture of the victim was faxed and posted everywhere. There was no point covering it up, and no attempt was made. Far more graphic pictures were being printed in the newspapers along with lurid descriptions. The news was spreading like wildfire, threatening to consume the city.

Grinding out his fourth cigarette in the morning, Yu looked up to see Liao striding into his office with the initial medical report. It confirmed strangulation as the cause of death. Lividity and rigor were also consistent with Yu’s estimated time of death. Like the second victim, there were no indications that the girl had sex before her death.

Since the second victim was a three-accompanying girl, Liao suggested that they try to identify the new victim by focusing on the entertainment business. It was consistent with his new focus, and Yu agreed.

Sure enough, around eleven o’clock, her identity was established. She was Tang Xiumei, a singing girl, more commonly known as a K girl, at the Music Box Karaoke Center. The manager, alert after the earlier cases, recognized her from the faxed picture.

“What did I tell you?” Liao said, waving a fax page in his hand.

What a K girl did in a private K room was open knowledge in the city. If a Big Buck took a fancy to her, he could demand services other than singing, and outside of the karaoke room, too, by paying for the so-called “company hour.” No club would say no. Tang’s coworkers said that she hadn’t shown up at the club that evening. But that wasn’t uncommon for her.

According to the manager, Tang didn’t come to work last night or the night before. What a girl chose to do on her own time was beyond the club’s control or knowledge. The manager’s statement, along with the testimony of several other girls, ruled out the possibility that the murderer picked her up in the club Thursday night.

Inquiries about the customers she’d met for the previous few nights led nowhere; the regular customers had solid alibis for that night, and none of the new ones had left their name or address.

Yu contacted Tang’s neighborhood committee. Liu Yunfei, the head of the committee as well as a neighbor of Tang’s in the same building, answered the phone.

“What can I say about those girls? Materialistic from head to foot. Tang had a favorite saying: to work well is not so important as to marry well. So she went to work in a K club, hoping that she could meet and marry a Big Buck.”

“Did you notice anything suspicious about her in the last few days?”

“She hardly talked to anybody in the neighborhood. If she wasn’t ashamed for herself, we were ashamed for her.”

“Did her neighbors notice anything on Thursday?”

“Well, she left a bit earlier, according to Auntie Xiong, who lives on the same floor. Around three. Normally she did not leave until around dinnertime. That’s her shift. Of course, we didn’t really know about her work schedule.”

“So she stayed at home all day?”

“Not exactly. She could be busy with so many things. But when she left for her shift, she was dressed like a vamp. Always in her pantyhose and high heels. So we knew.”

“Can you write me a report?” Yu said. “Include whatever you and your neighbors know about Tang.”

Yu made some more calls, talking to her neighbors and coworkers. After more than an hour on the phone, he learned practically nothing beyond the initial details he had gotten from Liu.

Shortly afterward, a three-page report came in through the fax machine. It was from Liu and contained everything he had learned from the neighborhood. It was fairly detailed, considering the short notice.

Tang had lost her mother quite young. When her father was laid off, she, still a high school student, became a K girl with a government-issued license. Her father, too ashamed to continue living in the lane, went back to his old home in Subei. So she lived alone and occasionally brought people home. The committee was well aware of it, but unlike in the years of class struggle, the neighborhood cadres couldn’t go barging into her room without something like a warrant. Fortunately, most of her clients preferred to go to a hotel instead of her small room in the squalid lane.

She had no phone at home, nor a cell phone, since both were still too expensive for her. Occasionally she used the public phone service at the lane entrance, but she had a beeper with text messaging, which she used a lot.

Yu checked with the beeper company. The response came back fast. There was no activity on Thursday night.

As Yu finished reading the report, another emergency meeting was called at the bureau.

“Look at the headline. ‘Shanghai in crisis,’ ” Party Secretary Li said, his face livid, his words stumbling out in rage. “Our bureau is a laughingstock.”

Neither Yu nor Liao had an immediate response. The headline might be an exaggeration, but the bureau was in a crisis.

“Third! On the Bund!” Li went on. “Have you found anything?”

Yu and Lao were pulling hard at their cigarettes, shrouding the office in smoke. Hong looked flushed, with a hand pressed against her mouth for fear of coughing out loud.

“The investigation must take a new direction,” Liao said. “Two of the three victims were in the entertainment business-the sex business. Both the second and the third were easy targets at a restaurant or a karaoke bar. Most of those girls wouldn’t tell their families about their activities, so clues about their disappearance would be hard to find. More importantly, such a girl usually believes she is going out with a customer and goes to a secluded area to perform her job. They wouldn’t have resisted until it was too late.”

“What about Jasmine?” Yu said.

“She worked at a hotel,” Liao said, “but he could have easily picked her up. In fact, her boyfriend met her like that. That’s why I’ve been pushing for a different focus.”

“What’s your point?” Li said.

“The motive is evident. Hatred against those girls. He could have paid a terrible price because of someone in the business-a sexually transmitted disease, for instance-and wants revenge. That’s why he stripped those victims without having sex with them.”

“What about the red mandarin dress?” Li asked again.

“He makes a point of dressing his victims like the one who gave him the sexual disease. A sort of symbolism.”

“But there could be different revenge scenarios,” Yu said. “A woman he loved, let’s say, dumped him for another. In his mind, she’s no better than a prostitute.”

“But that explains his choice of locations too. Inspector Liao’s theory, I mean,” Hong cut in. “A protest against the booming sex industry in the city. He must blame not only those girls, but the city government as well, I believe, for allowing it to take place.”

“Leave our government out of it, Hong,” Li said. “Whatever scenarios or theories we come up with, the killing will continue. And what are we going to do to stop the killer?”

A short spell of silence ensued in the office.

With the entertainment industry increasingly prosperous in the city, it wouldn’t be difficult at all for him to find new victims. And it was out of the question, everyone in the room knew, to shut down the business.

“I suggest we check the hospitals,” Liao said. “They keep all records of all sexually transmitted disease.”