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seemed okay to him.
    ‘When did Wei Wei live here?’
    ‘She moved in in September of last year, and she moved out again after three months.’
    ‘Did she say where she was going?’
    ‘No. She moved out in secret, when we were all at college.’
    ‘She didn’t leave a note?’
    ‘No. She ran away owing a lot of rent. Three hundred and sixty pounds.’
    ‘Did she leave anything?’
    ‘We put it in a box. I’ll get it.’
    Song left the dingy kitchen. Jian opened drawers. He found food in the cupboards, bottles under the sink. A cork noticeboard held postcards, bills, restaurant flyers, timetables , phone numbers and the like. A magazine on the table had glossy images of good-looking people on the cover, and inside were bad photos of these people doing ordinary things, shopping or just walking in the street. Good-quality paper, though. So much of detective work was about spotting things that didn’t quite fit – but he couldn’t do that here, where everything was strange to him. The girl returned with a cardboard box.
    ‘This is the stuff she left. You’re lucky we haven’t thrown it away.’
    Books, pens, folders – she’d left behind everything associated with her course. Even though she was writing in English , he still recognised her slapdash hand. In notebook margins she had doodled elaborate question marks, turning them into spirals and swirls. Across the cover of a textbook she had scrawled ‘dull dull dull’, and that symbol he hoped she’d grown out of, a flower with a happy face. He put the relics carefully into his suitcase.
    ‘Is this an official investigation? You’re going to struggle without a translator.’
    He said, ‘You didn’t like her.’
    ‘She never talked to us, she was hardly even civil. Except when my boyfriend came round. An English boy. Then she’d put make-up on and walk round in a nightdress. She was flower crazy.’ A flirt. ‘She liked to show that her English was better than mine, so she used long words to him. I think she looked them up in the dictionary before coming in.’
    She slopped the remains of the pizza into a bin and dropped the plate into the sink with an irritable clatter. There was a catch in her voice as she said, ‘He kissed her.’
    ‘I see. And?’
    ‘And that was the kind of person she was. She was trouble.’
    ‘I need to see her old room.’
    ‘We got someone in as soon as we realised she wasn’t coming back. Mili is in there now.’
    ‘I have to have a look around.’
    ‘Mili doesn’t like anyone going in there.’
    ‘If you fail to co-operate with the investigation, that will be noted in my report.’
    She rolled her eyes.
    ‘Be quick.’
    She led him up two sets of stairs. It didn’t feel right to be walking on carpet in shoes. The walls were wallpapered and the lights had tasselled shades. It was civilised and girly and he felt like a trespasser. Song knocked on a door and, when there was no reply, opened it.
    Plastic figurines were displayed on shelves and posters of Japanese cartoon characters covered the walls. He’d imagined there would be something of his daughter left, some lingering presence, but of course there was nothing. He’d fooled himself. He’d intended to treat the place as a crime scene but what had really motivated him was a pilgrim’s crude need to see.
    But now he was here, he had to try. The main light was dim, so he replaced it with the much brighter bulb from the hallway. He got down on all fours and examined the carpet.
    ‘Please be quick. Mili might come home any minute.’
    The bed was on a baseboard on castors. He tried to peer under it but the bottom was only a few centimetres off the floor. He shifted a bedside table and a robot-shaped alarm clock fell off. Song watched him from the doorway as he dragged the bed away.
    ‘You’re a northeasterner, aren’t you, like her? Which city?’
    ‘Qitaihe.’
    ‘What’s it like?’
    ‘It’s a pearl.’
    Qitaihe might be home but Jian had no illusions.