HAPPIER TIMES: Three-year-old Qian Xun with her grandparents. They last saw the girl when she visited them in China in February. -- PHOTO: NEW ZEALAND HERALD

The woman, identified as Ms Xu Qiu Yan, is the Chinese-born fugitive's former lover and may be the only person prepared to hide him.

Ms Xu featured in one of the chapters of Mr Xue's book Inner Strength Kung Fu Shocks US, in which he described his love for her.

Mr Xue, wanted over the death of his wife whose body was found in the boot of a car in Auckland on Sept 19, and Ms Xu were flatmates during the three months he spent in the US in 2000.

The relationship ended when he left the city to pursue other business interests, the New Zealand Herald revealed yesterday.

US police, who have now been joined by a senior New Zealand officer, are hoping the hairdressing instructor leads them to the wanted man.

Mr Xue, who fled to the US on Sept 15 after abandoning his three-year-old daughter Qian Xun at a Melbourne railway station, is believed to be hiding among Los Angeles' vast Chinese community.

Los Angeles police officer Mike Lopez said: 'We're working on every possible lead we can get.'

Meanwhile, further details of the manner in which Mr Xue's estranged wife Anan Liu may have died emerged yesterday, when a close family friend claimed that police told him a yellow necktie could have been used to strangle her.

Mr David Ma, who comes from the same Chinese province as Ms Liu, said that police raised the significance of the tie when they asked him if he recognised it.

Ms Liu had reconciled with her husband and returned home after he promised her a lavish wedding celebration.

Mr Ma, who was interviewed by police for four hours on Friday, spoke at length with Ms Liu's mother, Mrs Liu Xiao Ping, over the telephone last week. He told the Herald on Sunday that Mrs Liu had spoken to her granddaughter by telephone, but was waiting to see her before discussing her mother with her.

'She told me Qian was too little to understand what had happened so she would be telling her that her mother had gone away for a very long time.'

Mrs Liu is expected to arrive in Auckland tomorrow to arrange her daughter's funeral and be reunited with Qian Xun.

Over the weekend, grandmother and granddaughter were brought together in a webcam link-up between Melbourne, where Qian Xun is under foster care, and Changsha in China, where Mrs Liu lives.

A friend who witnessed the exchange said the child was 'happy and excited' to see her grandmother, with whom she had spent some time on a four-month holiday to China in February this year.

A possible tug-of-love battle may erupt over the child's custody between Mrs Liu and Ms Grace Xue, Mr Xue's daughter from his first marriage.

A spokesman for Ms Xue said she was 'open to the possibility' of looking after the child herself.

Ms Xue, who has a one-year-old son of her own, insists she only wants to do whatever is in her half-sister's interests.

She has set up a trust fund for Qian Xun and said she wanted to make sure her half-sister would be looked after financially.

'She has gone through so much in life already - and that is enough,' she added.

rogmaynard@compuserve.com