The Peace Palace Hotel, across Nanjing Road from the Peace Hotel in Shanghai, becomes the stage for a rare public briefing on a criminal investigation. In its function room, the police announce an early explanation for the bodies before a roomful of international reporters; in its lobby, Margaret Campbell immediately objects to the account. The hotel’s ceremonious setting thus frames a contest over who will define the case before the evidence has been fully examined.

Setting and Arrival

Margaret reaches the Peace Palace Hotel after arriving in Shanghai. She has time to check into the Peace Hotel opposite and have her cases taken to her room, but Li Yan quickly hurries her back out into the rain. The two hotels face one another across Nanjing Road: the Peace Palace is the older building, recently acquired by its more affluent neighbour. The brief crossing leaves little time for Margaret and Li to discuss the investigation before the press conference begins.

The approach establishes an abrupt contrast between luxury and haste. Margaret barely takes in the Peace Hotel’s polished mahogany arches, stained-glass galleries, wrought-iron lamp holders, and pink glass uplighters before the rain sends the party across the road. At the Peace Palace, the interior is markedly darker: floor-to-ceiling darkwood panelling absorbs the light, and a broad staircase leads to the upper landing where uniformed, armed guards direct the visitors into the function room.

The Press Conference

The function room is crowded with reporters from around the world. Television lights make the space feel unreal; cameras line the rear, while Chinese media have the seats at the front. The arrangement is unusual in itself: the authorities do not generally hold press conferences to discuss criminal investigations. On a raised platform, microphones are crowded together on the table, their cables spilling onto the floor. The Commissioner of Police appears as unused to addressing the press as the reporters are to attending such a briefing, and he is visibly nervous.

Before the conference, Margaret, Li, and Nien Mei-Ling are hurried into a side room for introductions to the Commissioner, his deputies, Huang Tsuo, Mei-Ling’s superior in Shanghai Police Section Two, and an interpreter. The meeting is too hurried for Margaret to keep track of everyone. Huang speaks quietly with the Commissioner, while the head of public relations joins them and speaks rapidly to him; the movement of these officials signals how closely the presentation is being managed before the group steps onto the platform.

Official Account and Public Framing

The Commissioner’s announcement gives the reporters a preliminary account that sharply undercuts the possibility of a mass killer. Through the interpreter, the audience hears that the pathologists’ initial examination suggests the women died of natural causes, and that their bodies may have been used in illegal medical experimentation or by medical students for illicit practice. The reporters’ buzz of speculation registers the immediate effect: the official version is already shaping public understanding of the case.

Li meets Margaret’s angry look with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. The gesture indicates that the announcement is not the investigative conclusion she might expect from the team, even as the Commissioner presents it confidently. He then turns toward Margaret and identifies her to the assembled press as a leading American pathologist who has previously worked with Chinese police. The introduction makes her an official part of the public narrative, but also places her under the scrutiny of every reporter in the room.

The Hotel as a Point of Reversal

After the briefing, Margaret strides through the Peace Palace Hotel’s lobby, furious that she has been brought all this way for what she understands as a case of bodies mutilated by medical students. Li hurries after her. Her protest turns the hotel into more than a venue: it is where the discrepancy between the police’s reassuring public account and Margaret’s reading of the case becomes impossible to ignore.

The scene’s spatial contrasts sharpen that discrepancy. Outside, the investigators have crossed between neighbouring hotels in the rain; inside the Peace Palace, guards, a raised dais, cameras, and microphones organize the case into a carefully staged public event. Yet the briefing does not settle the investigation. Instead, Margaret’s response makes clear that the announced explanation has intensified the conflict over what the evidence means.