Fang Mu's face seemed to relax a little. Actually, he had been partly responsible for what had happened that afternoon. If he hadn't enraged Ma Kai by saying, "You'll never hurt anyone again!" he could have kept the situation under control. Still, he couldn't help but take it personally that he was nearly killed while Tai Wei was absent from his post.
"You should really eat something, too. My treat," said Tai Wei effusively, mostly because inside he was filled with guilt and fear over what could have happened. He ordered a heap of food and several bottles of beer.
After emptying several glasses of beer, the two of them began talking more freely, as if they had forgotten the terrifying events of earlier that day.
"You know," said Tai Wei, his face flushed, "I really admire you, little brother. If it weren't for you, who knows when we would have cracked this case."
Shaking his head, Fang Mu just smiled and took a sip of beer.
"Still, there's something I don't get," Tai Wei continued.
"Oh," said Fang Mu, "what's that?"
"Well, for one thing, how'd you determine Ma Kai's appearance? Or where he lived and what his family was like?"
Fang Mu placed his glass of beer on the table. "The first time we met, you gave me a bunch of crime scene photographs and reports to look at. Later, we went to one of the scenes together-the one where Yao Xiaoyang and Tong Hui were killed. Taken together, all this information gave me a distinct impression: total chaos. The victims were chosen without rhyme or reason, no forethought was put into any of the crimes, and the scenes themselves weren't straightened up at all. He was even taking the knives used to cut open his victims from their own homes, and then leaving them there afterwards. This led me to believe the culprit was what criminologists call a Disorganized Serial Killer."
"A disorganized serial killer?"
"That's right, as opposed to an Organized Serial Killer. This classification was created by the American F.B.I. in the 1980s. So-called disorganized serial killers usually suffer from serious mental disorders. Additionally, they have often lost much of their intelligence and social awareness-or never had much to begin with-and are either partly or fully disconnected from reality. This results in certain commonly recognizable aspects to their crimes; i.e., they are often impulsive and commit the crimes in areas well-known to the killer. And the scenes themselves are generally messy-carelessly so-and full of evidence. In the case of the bloodsucker, all of these characteristics were obvious."
"Is that so?" Tai Wei was listening intently. "Regardless, it still doesn't seem possible to determine the killer's appearance, family background, and living situation from this information alone."
"Of course it's not. But first let me ask you a question. Have you ever felt a certain way about someone, good or bad, the moment you saw them, and then after meeting them found that your intuition was exactly right?"
After thinking for a moment, Tai Wei nodded. "Yeah, I have."
"Any idea why this happens?"
"Not a clue," said Tai Wei honestly.
Fang Mu smiled. "It's because this person closely reminded you of someone you met in the past, someone who definitely left a deep impression on you. So when you encountered this new individual, you subconsciously replaced his personality with that of the old person, and as a result immediately liked or disliked him. And as we have discovered, there are times when this seemingly improbable kind of intuition is totally correct, which goes a long way to solving the problem."
"What problem?"
"Sometimes, people who look alike are alike."
Tai Wei frowned. "Are you talking about Cesare Lombroso? Born criminals?"
"Yes, very good. In his book, Criminal Man, Cesare Lombroso set forth his theories about so-called born criminals. He also boldly detailed the physical appearances of various kinds of criminals. For example, murderers often have cold, detached eyes, aquiline noses, strong jaw lines, and large ears; while thieves have short hair, narrow foreheads, and thick, closely-spaced eyebrows. Many people have criticized these theories as being unrealistic, but they forget that that Lombroso was a classic empiricist. He made sure that all of his theories were based on concrete evidence. So although a lot of modern empiricists doubt it, I believe his theories about born criminals are entirely scientific. For example, environment, upbringing, culture, and diet all have clear effects on criminality."
"In what way?"
"Let me give you a simple example. You ever hear how husbands and wives look alike?"
"Of course."
"One man, one woman, different in appearance before marriage, increasingly similar afterwards. Why is that? It's because when people live together, their diets become more or less the same-their work and leisure habits, too-and as a result their complexions follow suit. For this reason they will seem to be growing more and more alike."
"Huh." Tai Wei nodded, seemingly lost in thought.
"Now let's look at Ma Kai. I deduced he was very thin for two reasons. The first was that I knew the killer struggled violently with some of his victims. The second was that I sensed an extreme anxiety in his crimes, which I felt was connected to his perceived lack of blood or some other negative physical condition. Think about it: if a person were to live with this kind of anxiety over the long term, his diet would definitely be affected, and he would display signs of malnourishment. In other words, he would look thin and weak. A person like this, who couldn't even attend to his most basic needs, would obviously not be doing squat for his appearance. Among other things, this would lead most notably to him having long, dirty hair. He was also almost certain to live alone, because if he shared a house with relatives or friends their guidance would have calmed him down and prevented his anxiety from devolving into paranoia. His sickness must have only come on in the past few years, otherwise he would have killed sooner, and there have been no crimes like these in the city for some time."
Fang Mu took a sip of water and then lit another cigarette.
"The disorganized serial killer has a few classic characteristics," he said. "These include poor social skills, a tendency toward anxiety, and the inability to hold skilled jobs, among other things. They are also often the youngest son, pay little attention to the news, and live alone, generally near the scenes of their crimes. This is why I felt the killer probably lived nearby. And since Hongyuan District is in the old part of the city, it has very little commercial housing. This is significant. Because the killer would have been unable to hold a high-paying job due to his mental disorder, he also would have been unable to afford an apartment at market price. Therefore, he most likely lived in a house inherited from his parents. This meant that they must have worked for some state-owned company, because back then only state employees received discounted housing."
Fang Mu tapped the ash from his cigarette. "So, to sum things up, the killer was under thirty, emaciated, unkempt, with an apartment near the crime scenes, parents who once worked for a state-owned company, and with a very serious mental disorder."
Tai Wei stared at Fang Mu. He was dumbstruck, and it took him a while to snap out of it.
"My god," he said. "You were right about everything."
Fang Mu smiled faintly. "Not quite. I was initially wrong about the connection between blood and his crimes. I thought his anxiety about blood had something to do with the weather."
"Really?" Tai Wei thought for a moment. "Oh yeah, now I remember. When Tong Hui was taken, you said the killer would probably be wearing thick clothing."
"That's right. Since his first murder was committed just after the end of winter, I had thought he was afraid of his blood freezing, or something along those lines, and was taking various measures to keep warm-like wearing thick clothing, for example. But after seeing where Tong Hui was murdered, I decided he was actually paranoid about his blood being somehow deficient."