"What did you tell him?"
"Nothing much, just what I knew. However, I began to have a feeling that what this guy was really interested in wasn't Third Brother; it was you."
"Interested in me?"
"That's right, for example what your personality was like, how you behaved after everything happened. I think it was because you were the only survivor."
Fang Mu thought for a moment, and then asked, "What was this guy like?"
"While I can't say anything for sure, his voice didn't sound that old, around thirty, more or less, and he was very polite." Then, noticing that Fang Mu's brows were drawing tighter and tighter, he asked: "What's wrong? He never interviewed you?"
"No." Fang Mu shook his head.
"That's strange. What could this guy have wanted?" said Eldest Brother, visibly puzzled.
Fang Mu was thinking the same thing. He thought of the person that Librarian Zhao had mentioned over the summer.
Who was he? And what was he after?
Zhao Yonggui's trip to HegangCity turned out to be a big waste of time. At first, however, it seemed promising. Once there, he was informed by the local police that while in high school, Wang Qian was strenuously courted by a male classmate named Yan Hongbing. The problem was, his method of professing his love was a little excessive; any boy that came in contact with Wang Qian would inevitably be beaten up by Yan Hongbing and some of his hooligan friends. One time, Yan Hongbing happened to run into Wang Qian while she was being tutored in physics by a male teacher; as a result, this man was later beaten so bad he ruptured his spleen. This incident caused so much fuss that if the College Entrance Exam hadn't been coming up, Wang Qian might have changed schools. Afterwards, Wang Qian began attending JiangbinCityUniversity, while Yan Hongbing, who failed to graduate, became a jobless vagrant, and traveled twice to JiangbinCityUniversity to pester her. The second time, however, he was soundly beaten by Qu Weiqiang and his soccer teammates.
"Just you wait," Yan Hongbing was reported to have said at the time, "sooner or later, I'm going to take care of you." And as it happened, at the time of the 7/1 double murder, Yan Hongbing had left HegangCity, and his whereabouts were unknown.
This piece of information closely conformed to the murder motive suggested by Professor Qiao, and Zhao Yonggui grew excited about the prospects. So, when the Hegang police informed him that Yan Hongbing had suddenly returned, he asked them to detain him, and then drove straight through the night to Hegang to begin his interrogation.
The result was greatly disappointing. Although the story about Yan Hongbing pestering Wang Qian at JiangbinCityUniversity turned out to be true, a short time after that he had gone to Guangzhou and found work as a hired goon in an underground gambling hall. Then, while participating in an armed fight in mid-June 2002, Yan Hongbing was severely injured. On the day of the crime he was still in a hospital in Guangzhou undergoing treatment, and under strict police supervision to boot.
So when Tai Wei emerged from the director's office and then, while heading back down the hallway, once more came across Zhao Yonggui leaning against the window and smoking sullenly, he knew exactly what was meant by the phrase 'misery loves company'.
Because right then, Tai Wei's mood was no better.
Not only had the hospital murder case reached an impasse, there were also zero leads in the recent killing of the little girl. So far, all preliminary investigations into the case had come back with nothing.
On the day of her disappearance, nearly all of Jin Qiao's classmates were promptly picked up by their parents. Only one, a little girl, recalled that when she was heading home, Jin Qiao was still standing outside the school doors, as if waiting for someone. And because the teacher in charge was celebrating her father-in-law's birthday that evening, she had left as soon as school was out. No one noticed who Jin Qiao ended up leaving with or where they went.
Although Jin Bingshan and Yang Qin were originally both professors at JiangbinCityUniversity, Jin Bingshan later left to form an arts and entertainment company with some of his friends, while his wife continued to teach. But whether at the university or in society at large, they both had excellent reputations and no enemies. And while Jin Bingshan did work in the business world, he kept his hands clean, and was never known to have engaged in illicit relationships with any other women. Therefore, the possibility that this was a crime of either passion or revenge could essentially be eliminated.
Interviews with those living near the crime scene also brought miniscule results. According to Jin Bingshan, when he returned home at roughly 2 a.m. that morning, the box was discovered; it was not yet there and he did not register its appearance until five hours later, when he tried to leave and found it blocking the door. Therefore, at some point between two and seven in the morning, the killer must have transported the box containing Jin Qiao's corpse to her parents' doorstep. At this time of year, the sky would already have begun to brighten by 6 a.m., meaning that the killer most likely dropped off the box at some point between two and five. Incidentally, this also happened to be the time when most people sleep their deepest. So when police asked the building residents whether they heard the sound of someone moving something heavy that morning, or saw a suspicious car parked outside, nearly all of them just shook their heads. Only one, a middle-aged man with prostate issues, said that while he was getting up to use the bathroom at around 4 a.m. he heard the sound of a car engine outside. As for the model, license plate, or driver, he never even looked.
As for the box itself, police checked Adidas company stores and specialty shops across the city. They learned that boxes like it were originally used for shipping sportswear, and that after it arrived at a store and was unpacked, it would either be sold to a salvage station or occasionally taken home by one of the employees. There were over a thousand salvage stations of all sizes across the city; investigating them one by one would take a lot of time.
As for the piece of broken pottery, police discovered that it did indeed come from a replica of a vase by the British artist Grayson Perry. Such replicas were available in arts and crafts stores in every corner of the city. Finding the buyer of this specific piece would be like dredging a needle from the bottom of the ocean.
Neither investigation was going anywhere, so when Tai Wei received orders to report to the director's office, he had sighed and prepared for the worst. Luckily, the director didn't blame him at all; just told him to pay attention to every detail and pursue every lead.
After leaving the director's office and nodding at the equally gloomy Old Zhao in the hallway, Tai Wei returned to his office and slumped into his chair. Then, kneading his temples, he lit a cigarette, opened the case folder and began to read, word by word, page after page.
Several hours later, when Tai Wei finally left PSB headquarters it was almost midnight and he was exhausted. At a small roadside wonton restaurant, he ate a cup of hot soup mixed with spicy pepper flakes and looked over the few lines of notes he had scribbled hastily in his notebook.
While reading aimlessly through the case files that afternoon, he had suddenly thought of Fang Mu and remembered how the kid had once talked about a killer's symbols and needs. With nothing else to go on, Tai Wei had figured he might as well try analyzing the case from this perspective.
In a criminal investigation, the key breakthrough point is determining the killer's motive; that way the range of possible suspects can be reduced. And to a certain extent, what is found at the crime scene will suggest this motive.
For example, in the killing of the little girl, there were certain elements that seemed to distinguish the case.
First, the torture. For an adult, murdering a seven-year-old girl would not be a difficult task in the least. So why had the killer taken the time and energy to torture Jin Qiao to death and then afterwards raped her corpse? If this was done to satisfy some sexual need, then the killer was most likely a sexual psychopath.