Tan offered one of his knife-edge smiles. "Perhaps I judged you too hastily."

"It will be sufficient to complete a file," Shan explained. "After the inspection team leaves, your prosecutor will know what to do." As he spoke, he recalled Tan had another reason to close the matter soon. Before referring to the inspection team, he had mentioned Americans, on their way for a visit.

"What will the prosecutor know to do?"

"Convert it to a murder investigation."

Tan pursed his lips together as if he had bitten something bitter. "Only a Taiwanese tourist, after all. We must guard against overreaction."

Shan looked up and spoke to the photograph of Mao. "I said it was the perfect scenario. Do not confuse it with the truth."

"Truth, Comrade?" Tan asked with an air of disbelief.

"In the end, you will still have a killer to find."

"That will be a matter for the prosecutor and myself to decide."

"Not necessarily."

Tan raised an eyebrow in question.

"You can complete a file sufficient to divert the matter for a few weeks. Maybe even send the file without all the signatures. It might sit on a desk for months before someone notices."

"And why would I be so negligent as to send the file without signatures?"

"Because eventually the accident report will have to be signed by the doctor who performed the autopsy."

"Dr. Sung," Tan said in a low, sour voice, as though to himself.

"The medical report was rather thorough. The doctor noticed the head was missing."

"What are you saying?"

"The doctor has other authorities to whom she reports. They do their own audits. Without the head, I doubt your accident report will be signed by the medical officer. Without the report, the Ministry will eventually examine the case and classify it as a murder."

Tan shrugged. "Eventually Prosecutor Jao will return."

"But meanwhile a killer is out there. Your prosecutor should be considering the implications."

"Implications?"

"Like how this man was killed by someone he knew."

Tan lit one of his American cigarettes. "You don't know that."

"The body was unmarked. No evidence of a struggle. He smoked a cigarette with someone. He walked up the mountain voluntarily. His shoes were clean."

"His shoes?"

"If he was dragged, they would have been scuffed. If he had been carried, he would not have picked up the fragments of rock that were found on his soles. It's in the autopsy report."

"So a thief found a rich tourist. Forced him to walk up at gunpoint."

"No. He wasn't robbed- a thief would not have overlooked two hundred American dollars. And he didn't drive to the South Claw on a whim, or at the request of someone he did not know."

"Someone he knew," Tan considered. "But that would make it local. No one is missing."

"Or someone who knew someone here. An old feud rekindled by a sudden visitor. A conspiracy unraveled. An opportunity for settling a score presented itself. Have you tried to contact him?"

"Who?"

"The prosecutor. One of the troubling questions I didn't write down is why the murderer waited until the prosecutor left town. Why now?"

"I told you. I don't want to speak about this on the phone."

"What if something else is planned for his absence? Before the inspection team arrives."

He had Tan's attention now. "I don't know. I don't even know if he's reached Dalian yet." Tan studied the ember of his cigarette. "What would you have me ask?"

"Ask him about pending cases. Was he putting pressure on someone."

"I don't see-"

"Prosecutors look under rocks. Sometimes they stir up a nest of snakes."

Tan blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. "Did you have a particular breed in mind?"

"Potential informers get killed. Partners in crime lose trust. Ask if he was compiling a corruption case."

The suggestion stopped Tan. He crushed his cigarette and walked to the window. Staring out the window for a moment, he absently picked up a pair of binoculars and raised them toward the eastern horizon. "On a clear day when the sun is right, you can see the new bridge at the bottom of the Dragon Throat. You know who built that? We did. My engineers, without any help from Lhasa."

Shan did not reply.

Tan set down the binoculars and lit another cigarette. "Why corruption?" he asked, still facing the window. Corruption was always a more important crime than murder. In the days of the dynasties, those who killed sometimes simply paid fines. Those who stole from the emperor always died by a thousand slices.

"The victim was well dressed," Shan observed. "Had more cash than most Tibetans earn in a year. Statistics are kept in Beijing. Cross-references between cases. Classified, of course. Murders typically are the result of one of two underlying forces. Passion. Or politics."

"Politics?"

"Beijing's way of saying corruption. Corruption always involves a struggle for power. Ask your prosecutor when you reach him. He will understand. Meanwhile, ask him for a recommendation."

"Recommendation?"

"A real investigator, to start the fieldwork now. I can finish the form, but the real investigation needs to start while the evidence is fresh."

Tan inhaled and held the smoke in his lungs before speaking again. "I'm beginning to understand you," he said, letting the smoke drift out. "You solve problems by creating a bigger one. I wager that has a lot to do with why you are in Tibet."

Shan did not answer.

"The head rolled off the cliff. We will find it. I'll send squads out tomorrow. We'll find it and I'll persuade Sung to sign the report."

Shan continued to stare at Tan in silence.

"You're saying if the head isn't found the Ministry will expect me to offer up a killer."

"Of course," Shan agreed. "But that will not be their primary concern. First you must offer up the antisocial act. Your responsibility is detailing the socialist context. Provide a context and the rest will follow."

"Context?"

"The Ministry will not care about the killer as such. Suspects are always available." Shan waited for a reaction. Tan did not even blink. "What they always seek," he continued, "is the political explanation. Murder investigation is an art form. The essential cause of violent crime is class struggle."

"You said passion. And corruption."

"That is the classified data. Private, for use by investigators. Now I am talking about the socialist dialectic. Prosecution of murder is usually a public phenomenon. You must be ready to explain the basis for prosecution here. There is always a political explanation. That will be the concern. That is the evidence you need."

"What are you saying?" Tan growled.

Shan looked at the photograph and spoke to Mao again. "Imagine a house in the country," he said slowly. "A body is found, stabbed to death. A bloody knife is found in the hands of a man asleep in the kitchen. He is arrested. Where does the investigation start?"

"The weapon. Match it to the wound."

"No. The closet. Always look for the closet. In the old days you would look for hidden books. Books in English. Western music. Today you look for the opposite. Old boots and threadbare clothes, hidden away with a book of the chairman's sayings. In case of a new resurgence of Party enforcement. Either way it shows reactionary doubts about socialist progress."