“When did you make your rounds last night?”

“Eleven thirty. We checked several times before closing. No one was left here.”

“So you’re sure-”

Their conversation was interrupted by a peal of laughter ringing from the bank near the gate. There, a young woman posed with a Japanese umbrella for a young man’s camera. Sitting on the embankment wall, she leaned her upper body out over the water. A dangerous pose. Her cheeks flushed, and the camera flashed. Possibly a young couple on a honeymoon trip. A romantic day starting with picture-taking in Bund Park.

“Vacate the park and close it for the morning,” Chen ordered, frowning. He wrote a number on the back of a bookmark. “Dial this number from your office. Detective Yu Guangming’s number. Ask him to come here as soon as possible.”

As Zhang hurried away, Chen began to examine the body. A male in his early forties, of medium height and build, dressed in expensive-looking white silk pajamas. His face was blood-smeared and bore deep cuts, and the left side of his skull had been smashed by a heavy blow. It was hard to imagine what he might have looked like alive, but it did not take a medical examiner to see that he had been hacked more than a dozen times with some sharp and heavy weapon, heavier than a knife. The cuts on his shoulders were deep, to the bone. Considering the multiple wounds, there was surprisingly little blood on the ground.

There was only one pocket in the pajama top. Chen reached into it. Nothing there. Nor could he see any clothes label. Carefully, he touched the parts of the corpse’s lower jaw and neck not covered in blood. Rigidity was noticeable, but the rest of the body was still relatively soft. There was some lividity in the legs. At the pressure of his finger, the discolored purplish spots blanched. So death had probably occurred four or five hours earlier.

He pulled up the dead man’s eyelid-a bloodshot eye stared at the sky, which was dappled with clouds. The corneas were not yet opaque, reinforcing his estimate that death was recent.