In the uneasy silence of a room where minutes earlier she wept inconsolably for her loss, the mother of the murdered girl composes herself, wipes away her tears and, with quiet dignity, lays out a neat row of documents for me to examine. It is the paraphernalia of a young life lost: glowing school reports out of which smiles the face of a bright girl; exam certificates; bank loans secured to send her overseas; wage slips; and the property transactions made to fund college fees in Britain.
Pan Ning, 49, a former factory worker who sacrificed everything to give her daughter, Jia, a better life away from her home city of Guilin, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, gazes sadly at the documents spread across the table. This paper trail of hope led Jia from an upbringing by a single mother in one of the mainland's poorest areas to what must have seemed an impossible dream of academic excellence and a life abroad.
'These papers used to represent everything we had worked for. They used to represent our future,' says Pan, who goes by the name of Penny. 'Now they mean nothing. They are just worthless scraps of paper.'
IN EARLY MARCH, while winter snow still blanketed Britain, Jia - a petite 25-year-old economics graduate who married a British fellow student - was beaten to death as she walked home through woods from her job at the headquarters of chocolate maker Thorntons, in Derbyshire. Her brutal murder generated nationwide publicity in Britain, especially when her husband, Matthew, with whom she had had an argument the night before her disappearance, was arrested. He would be released without charge three days later.
Matthew, a music teacher, was cleared of any blame and, after a manhunt lasting weeks, 21-year-old drifter David Simmonds was arrested and charged with Jia's murder. Last month, he was jailed for 28 years.
It was a murder of the ultimate senselessness. When an attempted robbery went wrong, Simmonds - who weighed three times as much as Jia - apparently panicked as she fought back and pummelled her to death, rupturing her heart. She had only a few pounds in her purse.
For Penny - who met and married Matthew's divorced father, John, after their children married in 2006 - Jia's death marked the end of an extraordinary journey out of poverty.