After Alexandra’s second Smoky Negroni at after-work drinks with her team she’d texted Zhang to join her. It turned out he was back at the shop in Tianzifang commissioning a larger pottery piece for his apartment, so she extended the invitation to Cynthia and Lu as well. Drinks turned into spicy prawns with lily bulbs and almonds and some jasmine tea-smoked chicken.

Beyond black bamboo lattice walls and oversized red lanterns, tourist boats covered in fairy lights cruised the Huangpu River. On the opposite bank, the elegant skyscrapers of Pudong gave the sky a light purple haze. Music thumped in the background as waiters in miniskirts carried sizzling plates of food with spicy aromas.

Cynthia leaned in so she could be heard. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t got back to you about the photos. The designers are scanning them to a higher resolution. I’ve asked them to make a set for you.’

‘That’s very kind,’ Alexandra said, raising her voice to be heard over the music. ‘I’ll pay you, of course.’

‘No need. Have you thought more about why you came to my shop that day? It must have been fate.’

‘I just assumed the photo was a random find. Dumb luck.’

But even as she said it, she knew she didn’t believe it. There was a pattern—a trajectory—for everything. Mathematicians didn’t believe in luck.

Cynthia shook her head. ‘It’s yuanfen,’ she said. ‘A fateful coincidence. Finding that matching photo was not about luck. Coincidence is about your fortune. Your future. The events of your life are linked to your history. Bad or good.’

‘Like karma?’ Alexandra asked.

Cynthia shrugged. ‘Kind of. It means that your history has consequences. Your future—what we call fortune—is linked to your family’s past.’

‘Fateful coincidence.’ Alexandra turned the phrase over in her mouth. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. Both her grandparents had been forced to flee their country, and they were good people. To suggest otherwise was ludicrous. It was her Oma and Opa who had changed countries and given Alexandra her fortunate life. How could a Chinese family she’d never met shape her future? Or was she being far too literal? She thought about the Google search she’d done on Li Ho at work that day. ‘I did some research on Li, the girl in the picture with my grandmother. There was only this one page.’

She reached into her handbag and fished out a newspaper mention, dated 21 June 1945, she’d printed out. The headline read: TOP CATHAY HOTEL SINGER DISAPPEARS IN SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. Underneath was a single paragraph:

Li Ho, glamorous sing-song girl Yu Baihe, disappeared from her home in Frenchtown yesterday evening. The police are investigating the matter.

‘I can’t find any follow-up to the investigation. There’s no mention of her in any newspaper or on the internet. No photos. It’s as if she disappeared into thin air. It was so close to the end of the war. It must have been crazy here. I wonder what happened to her?’

Cynthia shook her head. ‘We have all the paperwork. Jian Ho—the previous owner of the shop—kept everything. It took a month to sort through all the boxes. Mostly they were filled with old receipts. The only things worth keeping were the photos. There were no letters from his sister.’

But as the gin, vermouth and Campari from Alexandra’s Negroni swirled in her belly, she considered the circumstances of finding this photo of her Oma and a childhood friend in a city of millions. Also, didn’t Opa mention a ‘Li’ to Alexandra just before he died?

Li. You won’t find her…

Alexandra shivered. What had Opa been trying to tell her?

In the darkened room, she could sense Zhang looking at her, feel his eyes on her bare shoulders as her heart beat with the crazy rhythm of the music. She looked up and met his eye. Zhang smiled shyly and then they both looked away.