“Was your wife with you?”
“No. We live above the restaurant.” He held up a cell phone. “I let her know what happened—so she wouldn’t worry.”
“She wasn’t helping at the tent?”
“My wife speaks almost no English, Inspector. She assembles the rolls in the restaurant kitchen, then we finish them off in the tent.”
“All right,” Tom said. “You packed up the shrimp rolls. What happened then?” His voice had the reasonable, unhurried tone he used whenever he wanted to put people at their ease.
“I was on my way back to the tent when I noticed the door to Mr. Tweedy’s shop was open. Naturally, I dismounted to investigate. That’s when I saw the blood.”
Bloody footprints, more than one set, led from inside the shop.
“You went inside?”
“I was afraid someone might need help.”
“Where were you earlier in the evening?”
“I’d been at the fair since four thirty. “
“What time did you leave to pick up the shrimp rolls?”
He hesitated, suddenly looking lost. “I’m not certain. Around nine, I think. The pageant had just begun.”
“And you came through the passageway from the High?”
“Shortest route.”
“Did you see anyone—or anything—suspicious?”
I pictured the trail of congealing blood.
“Nothing suspicious.” He shook his head. “Everyone was at the fair.”
“Was the door to Mr. Tweedy’s shop open then?”
“No. If it had been, I’m sure I would have noticed.”
“How long were you in the restaurant?”
He looked at Tom blankly “I couldn’t say for sure. Maybe forty minutes—no more than that. I was in a hurry to get back before the pageant ended. We expected more customers.”
“Stay where you are until we’re able to seal off the area. We’ll need your fingerprints and shoe prints. It shouldn’t take long. Call your wife again if you think she’ll worry. In the meantime, Constable Weldon will take down your details.”
“Fingerprints? Am I a suspect?”
“We need them for elimination purposes.”
“What about my shrimp rolls?”
“I’m sorry. Nothing leaves the scene until it’s been processed.”
A knot of bystanders gaped at us from the passageway.
“Stay where you are,” the constable called out. “This is a crime scene.”
“Let me through.” A younger version of Mr. Liu elbowed his way past the bystanders. “Dad? What happened?”
Mr. Liu shrugged and gathered his canvas jacket more closely around his body.
Tom stopped the younger man from approaching. “No further, please. I’m Detective Inspector Mallory. Are you Mr. Liu’s son?”
“Yes, of course.” The son was the spitting image of his father except he was several inches taller and wore a pair of round wire spectacles. “What happened? Is he all right?”
“Your father is fine.” Tom moved toward him. “Your name, sir?”
“Liu Zhong. In English, James Liu.” He flicked his head toward his father. “Is he in trouble?”
“He reported a crime. As soon as we’re finished, we’ll escort him back to the restaurant. The best thing for you to do now is—”
James Liu cut across him. “What sort of crime, Inspector?”
“A break-in. Possibly an assault.”
“Exactly how is my father involved?”
Tom ignored the question. “Why did you come looking for him?”
“I heard the ambulance. People were running. Someone said there’d been a murder.”
“Where do you live?”
“My wife and I are staying with my parents for the present, in the flat over the restaurant.”
“Where is your wife?”
“At the tent, where I should be. Look, I want to make sure my father’s all right.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait here. When Constable Weldon has finished with your father, she’ll take your statement. Then you can leave.”
The temperature had dropped. I buttoned up my sweater.
Tom took my arm. “I need to know if anything’s been stolen.”
Constable Weldon handed us paper booties.
“Follow my footsteps,” Tom said. “And don’t touch anything.”
We moved slowly, skirting the blood.
“What would Evelyn Villiers have been doing here tonight?” Tom asked.
“I can’t imagine. Unless—” I shook my head, unable to finish the sentence.
“Unless what?”
“Well, unless she changed her mind and wanted the húnpíng back, but that doesn’t make sense. She didn’t have to break in. Maybe she came to talk to me and interrupted a burglary in progress, but why wouldn’t she have telephoned me first? And what was she doing in the stockroom?”
“This is where she was stabbed,” Tom said. A pool of congealed blood lay soaking into the floorboards. “Is anything missing?”
My eyes swung to the shelves.
The rosewood box had been pushed aside. The felt polishing cloth lay on the floor.
I felt sick and lightheaded. “It’s gone, Tom—the húnpíng jar is gone.”
“What’s this?” Something small, white, and cuplike lay at Tom’s feet.
He pulled latex gloves from inside his jacket and snapped them on before reaching down to pick it up.
He held out his hand.
In his palm lay a single white petal.
I leaned against the picket fence surrounding Vivian Bunn’s garden. Tom and I had remained at Ivor’s shop until the crime scene team arrived. Since my car was within the cordoned-off zone, he’d driven me home.
“Nothing about this makes sense,” I said. “Why was Evelyn Villiers so focused on the girl playing the green maiden—and why would she tell her about a German porcelain factory?”
“That’s up your alley, not mine.” He wrapped his arms around me. “You’re shivering.”
I slipped my arms inside his jacket, feeling his solid warmth.
“In the next few days, we’ll need you to take a thorough inventory,” Tom said. “Make sure nothing else is missing.”
“Of course.”
“What did you make of Mr. Liu senior?”
“He was horrified. In shock.”
“And the son?”
“Slightly belligerent.”
“I thought so too. Notice something else about the son?”
The scent of evening primrose met me, light and lemony.
“Like what?” I pulled back to look at him.
“He never asked about the victim on the green.”
“Maybe he didn’t know.”
“When we asked him why he checked on his father, he told us someone said there’d been a murder.”
“You’re right. What really puzzles me is that flower petal.”
“Did someone drop off a bouquet for Ivor today?”
I shook my head. “The only person in the shop the entire day, besides me, was Evelyn Villiers, and she didn’t bring flowers. She wasn’t even in the stockroom.
