Inspector Thatcher was mortified.

"I'm mortified," she said, then folded her arms and glared, as though daring her visitors to disagree with her.

Turnbull was looking suitably contrite, Fraser was looking mild and courteous, but that American detective was smirking. Well, she thought he was... perhaps she was still a little paranoid. The shirt he was wearing just had to be a hallucination.

"I would like to apologise to you Detective Vecchio, for ever implying that there were hostilities between our two nations. Whatever the circumstances, it was a terrible way to behave, completely inappropriate. I have absolutely no idea why I would think a thing like that."

"It's okay," Ray said, "we have the World Series instead of border conflicts these days anyway, when you guys are up to playing us that is. Less messy that way."

"As it happens," Fraser began, "the term 'world series' is factually incorrect, given that most of the world neither participates in the games themselves, nor watches them. If people were to adopt the more accurate term 'Major Baseball League' then there wouldn't be any confusion..."

"Fraser," Ray rolled his eyes, "this isn't the time."

"No. No, I don't suppose it is."

Meg sighed. "So, forensics is back?"

"Yes Sir," Fraser confirmed. "It would appear that our clothing was somehow imbued with a hallucinogenic compound."

"At the dry cleaners?"

"Yes Sir."

"I suppose we should be glad really," she said.

"Sir?"

"Well, at least our behaviour is explicable. We were poisoned. We're lucky that this hasn't cost us our jobs."

"Yes Sir," Fraser nodded. "There is that."

"And Fraser?"

"Yes Sir?"

"From now on I'll get my own dry cleaning."

…

Welsh was on fine fighting form. The dawn raid on the dry cleaner's had turned up three illegal immigrants, and one small chemical laboratory in a large closet behind the water tank. The owner of the dry cleaner's was sitting in the interview room, nervously pinning his own hands between his legs to stop himself from twitching.

"Gardino, Huey..." Welsh glares at his detectives. "I want you to do this right. No screw ups, do you understand? This guy in here," he pointed through the observation window, "this guy poisoned a cop. You get that? He poisoned Fraser. One of ours. And an Inspector in the RCMP. Two cops in fact. There is no way that someone who owns a little business in China town is doing this all by himself. For one thing, he has no motive. So I want you to find out who's behind this. You get me?"

"Yes sir." The guys look serious, no joking around this time.

"Okay. Go in there and make this count."

And the detectives did just that. He sang like a bird.

...

Bao opens his eyes again, and she's still there. Even tired as she is, lips pale and cracked, hair unkempt, smelling of sweat and ammonia, even so she's beautiful to him. He hurts, and he's floating in his pain, but she holds him, and that's a safe place to be.

…

Fraser hadn't got his uniforms back from forensics, so he was still in his scruffs and leather jacket. His hat however was declared fit for purpose, and he wore it like a Chicago cop wears his badge. He was going through Ray's case reports on the missing persons.

"So," he mused, "they disappeared four days ago, nobody's heard from them since?"

"Nobody. In fact, apart from Bao's mother there was no witness to their relationship until yesterday."

"What happened yesterday?"

"A friend of Bao's, a Frank Greene, finally came forward, saying that Sally and Bao were in a relationship, but that he's been sworn to secrecy because Sally was afraid of her family."

"And does anyone think that the family is behind it?"

"No, they don't seem to have a motive."

Fraser nodded. "Any clues?"

"Only one. We can't make sense of it, it might not even be anything to do with the case."

Fraser looked up, patiently. "What is it Ray?"

"Someone left her a note. 'Meet me at four nine one.'"

"Might that be 'four ninety one?'"

"What difference does it make?"

Fraser cocked his head to one side, quizzically. "Well, if it's four ninety one, then perhaps we should go to the library."

"For what?" Ray's irritation was born of tiredness more than anything. "We've got analysts crunching numbers as we speak. You're not going to find the answer at the library."

"On the contrary, you can usually find any answer you need at the library."

"Jeez, Benny... I get it, you like libraries..."

"Oh dear." He scratched his brow in a puzzled fashion. "I don't seem to be explaining myself very well. Four ninety one is a Dewey Decimal classification. Libraries follow a system, a pattern. The number four ninety one would refer to books pertaining to China."

Benny and his patterns. "You're saying that the message means 'meet me by the Chinese book shelves?'"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean."

"Way to go Benny!" Ray clapped him on the shoulder, tiredness temporarily forgotten. "Now we're getting somewhere."

…

Yes, it appeared that his friend was definitely back to normal. Crouched at the Chinese section of the library, next to the stacks, sniffing the floor.

"Awh for the love of... Benny, don't lick the ground... what is that?"

Benny sat back on his haunches, looking puzzled. "It's a coincidence."

"A coincidence? You've just been sniffing a coincidence? What's that smell like Fraser, strawberries?"

"Soap," Benny looked really puzzled now. "You know, I think there might be a connection between the two cases."

"Yeah, I know, the kids are an item."

"No, that's one case. I mean, there might be a connection between Inspector Thatcher and I being poisoned, and this kidnapping case."

"What makes you think..." suddenly Ray laughed. "Oh, I get it. It's the soap. Laundry room soap, yes?"

"That's correct Ray, well done."

"Well, you don't have to sound so surprised about it. I'm a cop too you know."

"Yes, I know that Ray."

"Glad to hear it."

"My pleasure."

Ray gave a retrained sigh. He didn't know anyone else who would sniff and lick the floor, then casually and courteously insult your intelligence without even realising he'd done it.

Yeah, definitely business as usual.

Benny was still in his squat, looking thoughtfully into the distance. "There aren't many footprints here, as you can see. The cleaners don't even seem to get here very often, which is fortunate. See here?"

Ray sank to his own heels and examined the floor. "Yeah, I see that." He frowned recollecting. "Her shoe size is six point five, and she was wearing slight heels when she vanished. These look like her footmarks."

"Yes, there are fainter traces all around this area," Benny continued, "but these appear to be the most recent. You can see two sets of male footprints here..."

"Bao wears size ten."

"I see, so these would be his then. And these ones here, size eight, quite fresh, they belong to someone else... no treads on them, smooth soled, and slightly pointed, which is unusual for a man's shoe unless he's wearing dress shoes. People don't wear those kinds of shoes unless they are in smart attire, so we're looking for a man in a suit."

Ray nodded. "That makes sense."

"And if his feet are size eight or thereabout, then his height should be..." Fraser looked at the ceiling as though for guidance, computing under his breath. "His height should be between one hundred and fifty eight and one hundred and seventy one centimetres."

"So between five foot two and five foot foot seven. That's not much help Benny."

"We can make an educated guess that he is somewhere between those two points. He's wealthy, assuming that's always been the case he was probably well nourished as a child, so he'd be nearer the top end than the bottom. Though of course the assumption may be wrong. Let's say we're looking for a man of five foot five to five foot seven."

"In a suit, with dress shoes that taste like a Chinese laundry."

"Yes..." Benny slapped his head all of a sudden, causing Ray to jump. "Stupid, we're stupid."

"What?"

"Charlie Wong, he's out."

Ray groaned. Benny was right... They had arrested Wong and his crew a while back on serious charges of kidnap, extortion, blackmail and attempted murder. However, the FBI in their zealousness to bring the guy in bungled their side of the investigation, and destroyed most of the evidence by setting fire to, of all things, a firework factory. The ballistics report, which should have proved that Wong and his crew were shooting at police officers, was irredeemably compromised by the blaze, and the ricocheting rockets and sparklers which ensued. It had been a great spectacle at the time, but it had consequences. To everybody's disgust and the FBI's shame Wong got out on licence after little over a year, a reward for his "good behaviour". He had been lying low since then, seeming to live by the book. But leopards and their spots don't change, Ray thought, grimly.

"It might explain the Chinese connection, the soap on the shoes... and if there is a connection to the laundry then it might even tie in with the poisoning case. He's certainly got motive against you... you did encourage people to stand up to him, and he lost a lot of face over that. If there's one thing a gangster needs it's face. You showed people they could stand up to him and win."

Fraser stood up and put his hands behind his back, staring at the shelves.

"Do you see it Ray?"

"What?" Ray stood again, feeling his knees crack. "Oh, yeah, that." He did see it. The shelves were covered with dust, but in front of one thick, grey volume that nobody would read if you paid them, there was nothing. The bald patch on the shelf was almost gleaming amongst it's shabby surrounds, and there were several satisfying smudges. "You know, Frase, we might have prints. I bet Chang wouldn't have expected anyone to track this down."

Fraser nodded. "And perhaps we'll find the prints of our kidnap victims."

Ray felt his shoulders droop. The hope that the kids had just eloped had pretty much vanished by now. Something bad was afoot.

Oblivious to his partner's distress Fraser continued. "This book looks like it's been removed recently, and it's the only one."

"Chinese architecture." Ray snorted. "Can't say that surprises me."

"Actually, it's a fascinating study, but this isn't the time."

Opening the thick volume Fraser started flicking through the pages, with an increasingly disappointed look. "I can't see anything..."

"You're not reading it that fast?"

"No, no, not reading, just scanning for anything that jumps out." As he shut the book with a disappointed thump a little piece of paper fluttered to the ground. "Oh," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I didn't think to look in the spine."

"You're still off your game." Even off his game Benny was doing great, but he normally wouldn't have overlooked the spine of the book. "Just as well this thing 'jumped out' at you." Ray plucked the paper from the floor, using a tissue to avoid adding his own prints to it. Looking at it he laughed. "Great, this one's for you."

Fraser peered over Ray's shoulder. It was in Chinese.

"So," Ray queried, "he left a note for someone?"

"Actually, no, she left a note for Bao. The characters are sloppy, and the language is fairly simple. She was taking Chinese as one of her options, wasn't she?"

"Yeah, first semester."

"Oh, well then." Fraser looked at the paper with new approval. "She's not doing so badly for a beginner."

"Yeah yeah, what does it say Fraser?"

"It's a love letter."

"Sweet. What does it say?"

"Actually, it's less of a love letter, and more of a suggestion." Fraser blushed. "I think she must have had some extra curricular language lessons."

Ray laughed. "What, you know dirty words in Chinese? I thought your Grandmother taught you."

"She did indeed Ray, she was very keen that I have a fully rounded education. But you are quite correct, she didn't teach me this kind of language. I do read, you know Ray."

"What kind of books you been reading in Chinese then?"

Fraser gave him a pointed look and Ray took mercy and stopped teasing him.

"Hmm," Benny pondered. "So to sum up, we have a note in Chinese, written by an English speaker. We have possible finger prints. The most recent footprints are those of a third man, possibly Wong, and of Sally Cooper. Perhaps he lured her here. We have no direct evidence that the other man was Mr Wong, not until forensics get here, and perhaps not even then. And since we don't want to tip him off we need to proceed cautiously."

"Yeah, let's do that, cautious is good. We don't want him to get off again."

"Well, we may be able to pick up the tracks outside. It hasn't rained since the disappearance." Fraser stopped abruptly, looking uncomfortable. "Well, I assume it hasn't rained. I'm not entirely sure what the weather was doing every night this week..." It was an odd feeling for him to have had even a few days that were so much inside that he hadn't seen the sky. "But the city feels dry, like it's been waiting for rain, am I right?"

"Yeah," Ray reassured him, feeling bad for his friend. "It's not rained for over a week."

Fraser nodded, and straightened his hat. Ray grinned. "Ride em, cowboy. We've got a bad guy to catch."

…

Sally is standing, staring at the floor, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone. Not wanting to look at the unconscious form of Bao. Not unconscious, she tells herself, he's sleeping. She doesn't believe herself. She has no choice.

"I'll tell you," she says. "Just don't hurt him any more."

She knows that she's throwing away her one advantage, but this isn't her risk. Bao is the one they've been really hurting. She knows that most likely once she's given the information they will both be killed, but there's a chance that she can think of something. If she doesn't say something they'll kill Bao for definite.

Mr Chang smiles, satisfied. "Good. I knew you would see reason."

"What assurances can you give me?"

"Assurances?"

"That you'll let Bao go."

"You have only my word."

"That's not good enough."

"It's all you're getting."

She lifts her eyes, and stares, blue hatred burning straight at him.

"All right then," she snarls, and begins her list of off shore accounts, and the names that they are registered under. Her father had used the names of the pets to open the accounts in. They were easy, too easy to remember. The names roll off her tongue, and she doesn't even feel the sting of being a betrayer. She just wants it over, so that she can be with Bao, whatever their final union entails... liberation or death.

She stands and betrays her father's darkest secrets, and feels nothing at all.