“Do you think that the place the body was dumped has a specific meaning in connection to the music institute, as those journalists claim?” Yu said.

“We looked into that. Jasmine never studied at the institute. She was fond of music, like most young girls, humming a song or two occasionally, but nothing more than that. Nor did her family have anything to do with the school. Since the second victim was dumped at a different location, I don’t see any point in taking the newspaper crap about the music institute seriously.”

“Li may have a point here. The two locations both being very public, the criminal could be bent on making a statement,” Yu said. “You must have already contacted all the nearby neighborhood committees.”

“You bet, but the queries focused on one type of criminal-sex offenders with previous records. Nothing so far. The second body came up only this morning.”

“Tell me what you know about the second one.”

“The body was discovered by a Wenhui boy who came to replace the newspapers there. He pulled down the mandarin dress over her bare thighs and covered her face with newspapers, then he called the newspaper office instead of us. When we got to the scene, a large number of people had been gathered around there for quite a while, having possibly turned the body over and over. So any examination of the scene was practically meaningless.”

“Has the forensic report come out?”

“No, not yet. Only an initial report done on the scene. Again, death by suffocation. The victim seemed to have suffered no sexual assault, but like the first one, she had nothing whatsoever on underneath the mandarin dress.” Liao produced more pictures on the desk. “No trace of semen, with vaginal, oral, and anal swabs taken. The latent-print people have done their job too, and they did not see even a single stray hair on the body.”

“Any copycat possibility?”

“We have examined the two dresses. The same material with an imprinted design on it, and the same style too. No copycat could have known or reproduced all those details.”

“What else have you done for the second?”

“A notice with her picture has been sent out. Phone calls have been coming in, offering a number of possible leads. The bureau machine is clunking into high gear.”

“Whether Li likes the term serial murderer or not,” Yu said, “there’s no ruling out the possibility. In a week, we might find ourselves with a third body in a mandarin dress.”

“Politically, Shanghai cannot acknowledge a serial killer. That’s why Li brought in your special case squad.”

“In case it is a serial killer,” Yu said, aware of the long rivalry between the homicide and the special case squads, “we need to establish a profile.”

“Well, the dresses are very expensive, so he probably is rich. He has a car. He most likely lives by himself: he could not have done all of this without a place of his own-an apartment, or an independent villa. Certainly not in a single room in a shikumen house with twenty other families squeezed together-there is no way to quietly move the bodies in the midst of all those neighbors.”

“That’s true,” Yu said, nodding. “He is also a loner, and a pervert too. The victims were stripped naked, but there’s no standard sexual assault. He’s a psycho who gets his mental release from the ritualistic killing, leaving the red mandarin dress as his signature.”

“A psychopath with his mental release?” Liao exclaimed. “Come on, Detective Yu. You sound just like those mysteries your boss translates. Full of psychological mumbo-jumbo, but with nothing we can grasp.”

“But from that sort of a psychological file we may move on to learn other things about him,” Yu said. “I think I read about it in a book he translated, but it was quite a long time ago.”

“Well, my file is far more practical, material rather than otherwise, and it is effective in narrowing down our suspect range. At least, we don’t have to worry about those who don’t meet these material conditions.”

“What about the red mandarin dress?” Yu said, avoiding for the moment a confrontation with Liao.

“I thought about putting up a reward for information, but Li vetoed the idea, worrying about rampant speculation-”

Their talk was interrupted by the entrance of Hong, a young graduate from Shanghai Police Academy who worked as an assistant to Liao. She was a handsome girl with a sweet smile that showed white teeth. Her boyfriend was said to be a dentist who had studied abroad.

“Well, I’ll start looking into the folders,” Yu said, standing up. As he walked out, he found himself thinking that Hong bore a slight resemblance to the first victim.

THREE

CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN WAS on his way to the Shanghai Library.

That morning, he chose to walk along Nanjing Road, his pace leisurely as he thought about a possible topic for his first literature paper.

Near Fujian Road, he stopped at a new construction site and lit a cigarette. Looking ahead into the crowd of new stores and signs, he still recognized a couple of old stores, though these were thoroughly redecorated, as if having undergone plastic surgery.

The Shanghai First department store, once the most popular in the city, appeared shabby, almost depressed in contrast to the new buildings. He had worked on a homicide case in the store. At the time, the decline of the store was not foreseeable to the victim, a national model worker who had been worried about her own fading political status. Now, the state-run store, instead of representing reliability and respectability, was known for its poor “socialist service and quality.” The change was symbolic: capitalism was now recognized as superior.

In the store window, a slender model-a foreign one-stretched herself in an amorous gesture, staring out at Chen, who pulled himself back from wandering thoughts.

An idea for his first paper had come from his talk with Bian, from one particular phrase: thirsty illness. He had looked up the term in dictionaries at home; none of them supported the way Bian had used it. While thirsty might be used as a general metaphor for yearning, thirsty illness referred only to diabetes. So he planned to spend the morning looking through reference books in the library. Perhaps he could get something out of it-maybe an evolution of semiotics-for the paper.

The pinnacle of the library came into view, shimmering over the corner of Huangpi Road. The library, too, was said to be moving soon. Where would the new site be, he wondered, pushing open the revolving door.

On the second floor, he handed over a list of books to Susu, a pretty, young librarian behind the desk. She flashed him a smile that brought out two vivacious dimples, and started checking for the books.

He had just installed himself in the reading room overlooking the People’s Park and opened the first book when his cell phone rang. He pushed the button. No one spoke. Possibly a wrong number. He turned the phone off.

The term thirsty illness first appeared in “The Story of Xiangru and Wenjun,” originally in a biographical sketch in Sima Qian’s Shiji. The library edition of Shiji was a fully annotated one, so he could be quite sure of its meaning. The story began at the very beginning, narrating how Xiangru and Wenjun fell in love through music.

He sang the lines at a grand banquet in the mansion of Zhuo Wangsun, a rich merchant at Lingqiong. Zhuo Wangsun’s beautiful daughter was in the adjoining chamber, where she stole a glance at Xiangru. She proved to be one who truly understood the music. So she made up her mind to elope with him that night. They became husband and wife and lived together happily ever after…

The story mentioned the term thirsty illness, but only once.

Xiangru stammered, but he was an excellent writer. He suffered from thirsty illness (xiaoke ji). Since he married into the Zhuo family, he was rich. He did not commit himself to an official career…