KEY POINTS:
A day after being "reunited" with her beloved grand daughter via video link, Liu Xiao Ping is preparing to tell "Pumpkin" she won't be seeing her mother for "a very long time".
Yesterday, Qian Xun Xue's grandmother, 53 saw her grand-daughter for the first time in seven months via an internet webcam. Although technical difficulties meant they were unable to talk, close family friend David Ma said the little girl was "very very excited".
The reunion helped ease the deep anger Ma says Madame Liu is harbouring over police handling of her daughter's murder case.
She is due to arrive in Auckland from Shanghai on Wednesday for her daughter An An Liu's funeral and to begin adoption procedures to take her grand-daughter home to China.
Family friend Ma - who was interviewed by police for four hours on Friday - spoke at length to a tearful Madame Liu on Wednesday night and in an exclusive interview with the Herald on Sunday told how "extremely upset and angry" she was about the length of time it had taken police to find her daughter's body. "Her exact words to me were 'why didn't they check the car on the first day they were there?"'
For days, Ma said, Madame Liu had thought her daughter was still alive, only to have her hopes dashed by the news her body was in the boot of the family car outside their Mt Roskill home.
"She told me that if they had found the body earlier she would have been saved all this [extra] anxiety."
Police are making no apologies for the time it took to find An An's body in the boot of a car they had seized 16 hours earlier. A warrant to seize the Honda Rafaga was granted at 9pm on Tuesday but police did not find the body until 1pm on Wednesday during a forensic examination.
"She was crying on the phone and telling me it just wasn't good enough," Ma said.
During their phone conversation Ma, who comes from the same Chinese province as Madame Liu, also asked her how she planned to break the news to Qian Xun that her mother was dead.
Ma said Madame Liu had spoken to her grand-daughter 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." He said Madame Liu told him that if pressed further by her grand-daughter, another option was to say that An An was "away for a long while on business".
Madame Liu was consumed by anger about her daughter's death and the man she believed responsible - An An's husband Nai Yin Xue, who is on the run from authorities.
"She had never met Xue, but she was so angry, so very angry with him."
Ma said when questioned by police on Friday about the couple and the events leading up to An An's death he was asked whether he was a familiar with a yellow necktie which police told him was used to strangle An An. He told them he was not.
The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant Simon Scott, refused to comment on the significance of the necktie.
On Friday Madame Liu met Chinese authorities to satisfy their demands she was a suitable person to adopt Qian Xun.
The Lius last saw Qian Xun in February, when she and An An left China after a four-month stay.
The girl's grandfather has high blood pressure and is unable to make the long journey, so the grandmother will travel to New Zealand with a friend.
