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He looked around. A spacious foyer. Later in the evening, this would be where they sold tickets, drinks, cigarettes. The wall across from the cash till was hidden by a flurry of posters, flyers, newsletters and a pinboard bristling with announcements. Obviously some kind of subculture clearing house. Jericho went closer. It was mostly requests for work or for rideshares, for rooms, instruments and software. Second-hand goods of all sorts were offered for sale, some doubtless stolen, and sexual partners for hire – for a night, for longer, for particular tastes. Sometimes the offers matched what other notices sought. Most of the sheets of paper were handwritten, an uncommon sight. He went into the actual concert venue, a bare hall with high windows giving onto the courtyard. Most of the windowpanes were boarded or painted over, so that little light filtered through despite the harsh sun outside. Here and there a sheet of cardboard stood in for missing glass. The far end of the hall was taken up by a stage that could easily have accommodated two full orchestras. Speaker boxes were piled up each side. Two men on ladders were adjusting spotlights, others carried crates of kit past him. A steel stair ran up to a balcony along the long side wall across from the windows.

Jericho thought of Chen Hongbing and the suffering in his eyes.

He owed Tu more than just conjecture.

Two men pushed past him with a huge trunk on wheels. One of them lifted the
lid and took mic stands from inside, handing them up to the stage. The other went back towards the foyer, paused, turned his head and stared at Jericho.

‘Can I help?’ he asked in a tone of voice that suggested he should shove off.

‘Who’s playing tonight?’

‘The Pink Asses.’

‘The Andromeda was recommended to me,’ Jericho said. ‘Apparently you have some of the best concerts in Shanghai.’

‘Could be.’

‘I don’t know the Pink Asses. Worth my time?’

The man looked at him derisively. He was well-built, handsome, with regular, almost androgynous features and shoulder-length hair. The orange T-shirt above his shiny leather trousers clung to him like a second skin; it could have come from a spray-can. He wasn’t wearing the usual appliqués found in this subculture, or any other jewellery.

‘Depends what you like.’

‘Anything that’s good.’

‘Mando-prog?’

‘For instance.’

‘You’re in the wrong place then.’ The man grinned. ‘The music sounds just like the band’s name.’

‘It sounds like pink backsides?’

‘It sounds like arseholes fucked bloody, you simp. Both genders. Ass Metal, never heard of it? You still want to come?’

Jericho smiled. ‘We’ll see.’

The other man rolled his eyes and went outside.

Jericho felt stymied for a moment. Should he perhaps have asked the guy about Yoyo? It was easy to be paranoid in a place like this. Everybody here seemed part of a shadow army whose mission was to stop folks like him asking anything about Yoyo.

‘Rubbish,’ he muttered. ‘She’s a dissident, not the Queen of Quyu.’

Tu had spoken of six activists. Six, not sixty. Yoyo’s blog post had suggested that all six were members of the City Demons. Further, she had to have helping hands here in the Andromeda. It was quite certain that most people here had no idea who Yoyo was nor that she was hiding somewhere in the complex. The real problem was that the locals in a place like Quyu refused on principle to answer questions.

As he watched them putting down cables and lugging instruments up to the stage, he considered his options. Daxiong had warned Yoyo that someone was interested in the Andromeda. He must believe that Jericho was still wandering
around in the Quyu hinterland with no clue where he was, out of circulation for the next few hours. Yoyo would think the same.

Time was still on his side.

He glanced all about. The stage was covered over by a kind of alcove, where two windows which used to look out over the factory floor were bricked up. Work went on around him. Nobody was paying him any attention. Unhurried, he climbed the metal steps and went along the balcony. It ended in a door, painted grey. He turned the handle. He had been expecting to find it locked, but it swung silently inwards and showed him a twilit hallway. He slipped in, went through a doorway to the right and found himself in a neon-lit room with a single window that overlooked the yard.

He was right over the stage.

Even though it was cold, barely furnished and unwelcoming, there was something indefinably lived-in about the room, typical of a place vacated just moments before. An energy that lingered on, unconscious memories stored in the molecules, objects that had been moved, recently breathed air. He went to a table with chairs around it, formica seats on rusty legs, under the table a half-full waste-paper basket. A few open shelves, mattresses on the floor, only one of them in use to judge by the tangled sheets and the pillow. Laptops on the shelves, a printer, stacks of paper, some of it printed. More stacks of comics, magazines, books. The centrepiece was a prehistoric stereo with radio and record player. There were vinyl records ranged along the wall, by the look of them survivors from the time when CDs were still rare. Right now of course CDs were a dying species as well. But you could buy records again, in today’s download era, new records from new bands.

A few of them really were old, though, as Jericho found out when he squatted down to look. He flicked through the sleeves and read the names on the covers. There were examples of Chinese pop and avant-garde, such as Top Floor Circus, Shen Yin Sui Pian, SondTOY and Dead J, but also albums by Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, King Crimson, Magma and Jethro Tull. There was scarcely a gap in the collection from the sixties and seventies, the era when prog rock was invented. In the eighties it had been fighting a losing battle against punk and New Wave, in the nineties it was on its last legs, in the first decade of the new millennium it seemed to be dead, and the genre owed its revival not to Europeans but to Chinese DJs who had begun to mix it in with dance beats around 2020. This glittering new mixture of concert rock, dance floor and Beijing Opera had been enjoying a boom ever since, with new bands sprouting daily. Popular artists such as Zhong Tong Xi, third-party, IN3 and B6 made whole new worlds of sound from the complex concept albums of the prog era, and the local superstars Mu Ma and Zuo Xiao Zu Zhou organised all-star projects with grand old men of rock such
as Peter Hammill, Robert Fripp, Ian Anderson and Christian Vander, filling clubs and concert arenas.

Yoyo’s music.

An omnipresent hum tickled at Jericho’s eardrums. He looked up, spotted a fridge at the back of the room, went over and looked in. It was half full of groceries, mostly untouched fast food. Bottles, full or half full, water, juice, beer, a bottle of Chinese whisky. He breathed in the cold air. The fridge made a clicking sound. A breath of air stroked the back of his neck.

Jericho froze.

That click hadn’t been from the fridge.

The next moment he was flying through the air, to land on one of the mattresses with a dull thud. The impact drove all the air from his lungs. Fast as lightning, he rolled to one side and raised his knees. His attacker lunged for him. Jericho slammed his feet at him. The man leapt back, grabbed an ankle and twisted him about so that he ended up on his stomach. He tried to get up, felt the other man jump on him and drove an elbow backwards in the blind hope of hitting him somewhere it would hurt.

‘Take it easy,’ said a voice that seemed familiar. ‘Or this mattress will be the last thing you see in your life.’

Jericho wriggled. The other man pushed his face deep into the musty fabric. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Panic galvanised him. He flailed wildly around, kicked his legs, but the man pressed him mercilessly down into the mattress.

‘Do we understand one another?’

‘Mmmm,’ said Jericho.

‘Is that a yes?’

‘
MMMMMM!
’

His tormentor took his hand from the back of his head. The next moment, the weight was gone from his shoulders. Gasping for breath, Jericho rolled onto his back. The good-looking type he had spoken to earlier was leaning above him, and gave him a knife-blade smile.

‘This isn’t where the Pink Asses are playing, simp.’

‘I wouldn’t advise them to.’

‘What are you looking for up here?’

Well, at least they were on speaking terms now. Jericho sat up and pointed at the shabby furniture.

‘You know, I’m a lover of luxury. I was thinking of spending my holidays—’

‘Careful, my friend. I don’t want to hear anything that might make me angry.’

‘Can I show you something?’

‘Give it a try.’

‘It’s on my computer.’ Jericho paused. ‘That’s to say, I’ll have to reach into my jacket, and I’m going to produce a device. I don’t want you thinking it’s a weapon and doing something hasty.’

The man stared at him. Then he grinned.

‘Whatever I do, I can assure you I’ll have the time of my life doing it.’

Jericho called up Yoyo’s image and projected it onto the wall opposite.

‘Have you seen her?’

‘What do you want with her?’

‘I’ll tell you when you’ve answered my question.’

‘You’ve got some nerve, little man.’

‘My name’s Jericho,’ Jericho said patiently. ‘Owen Jericho, private detective. I’m five foot eleven, so don’t call me that. And drop the mind games, I can’t concentrate when someone’s trying to kill me. So, do you know the girl or not?’

The man hesitated.

‘What do you want from Yoyo?’

‘Thank you.’ Jericho switched off the projection. ‘Yoyo’s father, Chen Hongbing, has hired me. He’s worried. Truth to tell, he’s worried sick.’

‘And what makes you think his daughter might be here?’

‘Among other things, your friendly and forthcoming manner. Incidentally, who do I have the pleasure of addressing?’

‘I ask the questions, friend.’

‘All right.’ Jericho raised his hands. ‘Here’s a suggestion. I tell the truth, and you stop the hackneyed dialogue. Can we agree on that?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Your name’s Hmm?’

‘My name’s Bide. Zhao Bide.’

‘Thank you. Yoyo’s living here, right?’

‘It would be a bit much to call it living.’

‘So I see. Look, Chen Hongbing is worried. Yoyo hasn’t been in touch for days, she didn’t turn up for their meeting, he’s a bundle of nerves. My job is to find her.’

‘And do what?’

‘And do nothing.’ Jericho shrugged. ‘Well, I’ll tell her she really should call her father. Do you work here?’

‘In a very loose sense.’

‘Are you one of the City Demons?’

‘One of—’ Something like annoyance flickered in Zhao’s eyes. ‘No, what makes you think so?’

‘It would make sense, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Do I look like one?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘That’s right. You’re clueless.’

‘Right now I think that Yoyo’s closest friends are the City Demons.’

Zhao looked at him mistrustfully.

‘Check my story,’ Jericho added. ‘You’ll find all you need to know about me on the internet. I don’t mean Yoyo any harm. I’m not from the police, I’m not Secret Service, I’m nobody she needs to be afraid of.’

Zhao scratched behind his ear. He seemed at a loss. Then he grabbed Jericho by the upper arm and propelled him towards the door.

‘Let’s go and drink something, little Jericho. If I find out that you’ve been lying to me, I’ll bury you here in Quyu. Alive, just so you know.’

* * *

They sat at a café in the sun across from the venue. Zhao ordered, and a girl with so many appliqués stuck onto her shaven scalp that she could have been mistaken for a cyborg brought two bottles of ice-cold beer.

They drank. For a moment, glorious silence reigned.

‘It won’t be easy to find Yoyo,’ Zhao said eventually. He took a long swig at his bottle and belched loudly. ‘It’s not just her father who’s lost sight of her. So have we.’

‘Who’s we?’

‘Us. Yoyo’s friends.’ Zhao looked at him. ‘What do you know about the girl? How much did they tell you?’

‘I know that she’s on the run.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘Why do you ask?’ Jericho raised his eyebrows. ‘Wondering if you can trust me?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And I don’t know if I can trust
you
, Zhao. I only know that this isn’t getting us anywhere.’

Zhao seemed to consider this.

‘Your knowledge for mine,’ he suggested.

‘You begin.’

‘Fine then. Yoyo’s a dissident. She’s put the Party in a fine old tizzy these last few years.’

‘True.’

‘As part of a group calling themselves the Guardians. Criticising the regime, calling for human rights, the odd act of cyber-terrorism. All ideas you can agree with. Until recently, she got away with it.’

‘Also true.’

‘Your turn.’

‘On the night of 25 May, Yoyo left her flat in a hell of a hurry and fled to Quyu.’ Jericho took a swig, put down his bottle and wiped his mouth. ‘I can only speculate as to why, but I should imagine she saw something online that scared her.’

‘All true so far.’

‘She was found out. Or at least that’s what she thinks. With her previous record, she must be more frightened of being exposed than of anything. She was probably expecting a visit from the police or the Secret Services that same night.’

‘Quyu is her fallback position,’ said Zhao. ‘It’s practically free of surveillance, no scanners, no police. Terra incognita.’

‘Her first port of call was the City Demons workshop. It’s just that it’s not safe there for very long. So she came here to the Andromeda, as she has done before.’

‘How did you find out that she was at the Andromeda?’

‘Because she posted a message to her friends from here.’

‘And you read it?’

‘It brought me here.’

Zhao narrowed his eyes mistrustfully.

‘How did you get hold of the message? Usually only the security services can manage something like that.’

‘Take it easy, little Zhao.’ Jericho smiled. ‘Cryptography is part of my job. I’m a cyber-detective; most of my work has to do with industrial espionage and IP infringement.’