by Zhou HaoHui
Also by Zhou Haohui
Death Notice
FATE
Zhou Haohui
www.headofzeus.com
First published in the UK by Head of Zeus Ltd in 2020 Originally published in China as Si wang tong zhi dan: su ming by Beijing Times Chinese Press, Beijing, in 2014
Copyright © Zhou Haohui, 2014 English Translation Rights © China Educational Publications Import and Export Corp., Ltd, 2020
The moral right of Zhou Haohui and Zac Haluza to be identified as the author and translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781838930806
ISBN (XTPB): 9781838930813
ISBN (E): 9781838930790
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CONTENTS
Welcome Page
Copyright
Death Notice I: The Story so Far
Chengdu Police: Current and Former Officers
Chengdu Police Cases
Prologue
Chapter 1: The New Captain
Chapter 2: Undercurrents
Chapter 3: Unmasking Eumenides
Chapter 4: Subway Chase
Chapter 5: Setting the Trap
Chapter 6: Face to Face
Chapter 7: Death of the Father
Chapter 8: Bait
Chapter 9: Like Father…
Chapter 10: Stirring Up the Past
Chapter 11: The Bagman
Chapter 12: Blood in the Office
Chapter 13: Investigating the Crime Scene
Chapter 14: Let Yourself Be Huge
Chapter 15: Behind the Murder
Chapter 16: Fallen Soldier
Chapter 17: A Pact
Chapter 18: Portrait of a Suspect
Chapter 19: Death of the Son
Chapter 20: Captain Ding Ke
Chapter 21: Rite of the Dead
Chapter 22: Fate
Epilogue
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
DEATH NOTICE I: THE STORY SO FAR
When Sergeant Zheng Haoming, a well-liked officer in the Chengdu criminal police force, was murdered in his digs on the twenty-first of October 2002, a ‘death notice’ was found at the scene. The news made ripples across the city and beyond.
Captain Pei Tao of the regional Longzhou police received a mysterious request to attend. He learnt that the late sergeant had been a member of the April 18th Task Force, set up eighteen years prior after a series of murders linked to the Sichuan Police Academy. Captain Han Hao of the Chengdu police ordered the task force reinstated and the investigation into those distant events of the eighteenth of April 1984 began anew. Pei Tao was joined by Captain Han’s assistant, Lieutenant Yin, psychologist Ms Mu and Technical Surveillance Officer Zeng. Team member Captain Xiong of Chengdu’s special police unit was subsequently killed in the line of duty; he was replaced by SPU Captain Liu.
When prominent businesswoman Ye Shaohong was also murdered, the team discovered that a vigilante called Eumenides (named after the Greek goddess of vengeance) was behind the serving of death notices on her and other figures deemed guilty of unpunished crimes. It seemed Eumenides could not be stopped. In the final showdown on the twenty-fifth of October 2002, the task force was unable to prevent the killing of the powerful Chengdu figure ‘Mayor’ Deng, despite the best efforts of his bodyguard Brother Hua; Captain Han was even blackmailed into unwittingly murdering the mayor himself.
In the end it was revealed that Pei Tao’s former police academy classmate and best friend Yuan Zhibang – long thought dead but actually hiding behind a new identity – had been secretly training a new Eumenides, creating a dark force for administering justice outside the law.
With former police captain Han Hao now on the run and Yuan Zhibang dead by his own hand, the April 18th Task Force needs to quickly find a replacement captain and unmask the new Eumenides before more lives are lost…
CHENGDU POLICE:
CURRENT AND FORMER OFFICERS
Captain Ding Ke – retired captain of the Chengdu criminal police
Captain Han Hao – disgraced former captain of the Chengdu criminal police
Captain Pei Tao – co-opted from Longzhou to serve on the April 18th Task Force for the Chengdu criminal police
Captain Xiong Yuan – former captain of the special police unit (SPU); killed in the line of duty on 24 October 2002
Commissioner Song – commissioner in charge of Chengdu criminal police
Huang Jieyuan – retired former lieutenant in the Chengdu criminal police
Lieutenant Yin Jian – officer of the Chengdu criminal police and member of the April 18th Task Force
Ms Mu Jianyun – psychologist and lecturer at the Sichuan Police Academy
Sergeant Zheng Haoming – former sergeant in the Chengdu criminal police and member of the original April 18th Task Force; murdered on 21 October 2002
SPU Captain Liu Song – captain of Chengdu’s special police unit
TSO Zeng Rihua – chief technical surveillance officer for Chengdu criminal police
Vice Commissioner Xue Dalin – former vice commissioner of Chengdu criminal police; murdered on 18 April 1984
CHENGDU POLICE CASES
January 30th, 1984 – the hostage case involving Wen Hongbing and Chen Tianqiao
March 16th, 1984 – the huge drugs bust led by Vice Commissioner Xue Dalin
April 7th, 1984 – the robbery at former hostage Chen Tianqiao’s home
April 18th, 1984 – the murder of Vice Commissioner Xue Dalin, and the warehouse explosion that left police academy student Meng Yun dead
January 12th, 1992 – the Bagman Killing
PROLOGUE
24 October 2002, midnight
Outskirts of Chengdu, Sichuan Province
Two men stood in the shadows beside a fetid pool of stinking river water on the outskirts of Chengdu. Heaps of rotting, months-old rubbish gave off a hideous stench. It was usually only the most desperate beggars that ventured out here, but the two men – one considerably younger than the other – had chosen this spot on purpose. They’d been meeting in godforsaken places like this for more than a decade. It ensured they didn’t get disturbed. This particular rendezvous, however, felt very different from their previous encounters.
The young man’s eyes glittered with excitement, but the older man appeared to be anything but eager. ‘You should get going,’ he rasped. ‘I’ve already said everything I need to.’ The moonlight shimmered dimly as it reflected off the river, illuminating the scars on his disfigured face.
The young man stayed silent for a while, then blurted out, ‘Where will we meet next time?’
His question was met with a grating laugh as gruesome as the man’s damaged face. ‘Why do you ask these unnecessary questions? You know there won’t be a next time.’
The young man glanced away. He’d known that this day would come eventually, but knowing it and confronting it were two very different things.
‘Pei Tao’s already got wind of my whereabouts. I need
to settle things with him once and for all,’ the scarred man said. He looked directly into the younger man’s eyes. ‘You have nothing to fear. You’re already more than strong enough to shoulder this responsibility on your own.’
‘The path ahead isn’t very clear to me,’ the young man said softly.
‘I understand how you feel. But it’s a path you have to take.’ His cracked lips parted to reveal a set of bone-white teeth. ‘It’s your fate – it was set in motion eighteen years ago.’
‘But—’
‘I’m aware of the urges you have, how much you long to experience those sides of life that I have kept from you. Once I’m gone, you should act on these urges. They’ll teach you things that I never could.’ The older man turned away swiftly, hiding the tears that welled in his misshapen eyes, and with a pained grunt he hobbled off down the track beside the river.
The young man gazed fixedly at the retreating figure of his mentor. He wanted to rush after him, but he knew that nothing he could say would change his mind. So he stood there watching the scarred man limp away, his mind plagued by the same old thoughts:
Who is he? And who am I?
Why am I here?
The past eighteen years had brought him no closer to resolving these questions. But his mentor’s last words had planted a seed of hope. Perhaps it was finally time for him to go and find his answers.
1
THE NEW CAPTAIN
26 October 2002, 9:25 a.m.
The remains of the Jade Garden restaurant
It was already nearly twenty-four hours since the explosion had ripped apart the Jade Garden restaurant, but the air was still thick with the smell of smoke and death.
More than twenty firefighters were combing through the debris, raking over the brick and concrete rubble with their heavy-duty equipment. A handful of white-clothed men flitted among the figures dressed in red. They worked in pairs and carried large black plastic bags. Every now and then they would interrupt the firefighters’ work, lift something from the rubble and place it inside their plastic bags. Their stern, unsmiling expressions looked almost like masks.
*
Xingcheng Road was lined with row after row of towering office blocks. High up inside one of them, the young man stood staring at the ruined restaurant through a telescope. He focused on every detail of the scene unfolding below him and soon realised that the objects the men in white – forensic scientists from the provincial police department – were placing inside their black bags were human remains. ‘My mentor…’ he murmured to himself. He felt both sad and resentful, but above all he felt profoundly confused.
His mentor had left him. Despite all the assurances that the scarred man had given him two nights prior, it was hard to fight the feeling that his world had been torn apart, just like the restaurant outside the window. Who else but the scarred man, he thought, could answer the questions that gnawed at him?
‘It’s a path you have to take,’ his mentor had told him. ‘It’s your fate.’
The time had come for him to continue down that path.
*
28 October, 3:17 p.m.
Thousand Peaks Hotel
The luxurious Thousand Peaks Hotel was located in a busy district of Chengdu. Being a five-star hotel, every one of its thirty-six floors was practically perfect in every detail.
Teacher Wu Yinwu had never seen such opulence in all of his fifty-eight years. He couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed at the sight that greeted him as he entered the suite at the top of the hotel. When he gingerly lowered himself onto the astonishingly soft leather sofa, he placed both hands on his knees and carefully sat up straight, as though worried he might damage it.
He was accompanied by three high-school students – two young men and one young woman. It was immediately apparent that these youngsters were what most parents would describe as ‘juvenile delinquents’. Although they too marvelled at the plush surroundings, they exhibited none of Teacher Wu’s restraint. They tore around the suite, leaping over the furniture and playing with the massive flatscreen TV on the wall.
One of the young men wore a large gold earring in his ear. When he tired of racing around the room, he flung himself onto the sofa next to his teacher. ‘Shit, this feels good,’ he said with a malevolent chuckle.
‘Do be careful, all of you,’ Teacher Wu pleaded quietly, but Gold Earring ignored him and focused instead on the other young man, who sported a curly perm and was just then opening the mini fridge on the coffee table.
Gold Earring’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Hey!’ he hollered. ‘No hogging all the food for yourself!’
When Curly pulled his head out of the fridge, he was clutching two bottles of beer. He tossed one to Gold Earring, opened the other for himself, tilted it to his lips and took a satisfied sip.
‘You shouldn’t be helping yourselves like that,’ Teacher Wu said, his voice wispier than a strand of cotton. ‘It’s all got to be paid for, you know.’
‘But not by us!’ said the young woman, walking over from another corner of the room. ‘What’s there to worry about?’ She had a round, chubby face and dyed red hair.
Curly handed her a beer. ‘Care for a swig?’
‘Half of it’s probably backwash,’ Red shot back. She plucked a can of cola from the fridge. As she opened it she smiled and looked over at the older man. ‘Want one, Teacher Wu?’
He waved his hand at her. ‘No, no, I’m fine.’
Gold Earring sat up straight, extended an arm round Teacher Wu’s shoulders and with the other brought his bottle of beer up to the teacher’s lips. ‘Come on.’ He winked. ‘Have a drink.’
Teacher Wu pushed the young man’s hand away. ‘Stop it,’ he said angrily. ‘I told you, I don’t want any.’
‘Teacher Wu says he doesn’t want any,’ Curly said mockingly. ‘There’s no point forcing him.’ He smirked and the other two burst into malicious giggles.
Teacher Wu shifted uncomfortably, feeling nothing short of humiliated, and wondered to himself again why the man hadn’t arrived yet.
Once his students had done laughing at him, they too had questions.
‘What’s going on? Where’s the guy who said he’d meet us here?’ Gold Earring asked. ‘He’s not stood you up, has he?’
Curly shot him a nasty look. ‘You think this guy would rent us a deluxe room just to stand us up? Use your brain, man.’ He took another swig from his bottle.
‘Still, there’s no need for him to keep us waiting,’ Red said with displeasure. ‘I already told two friends I met online that I’d hang out with them later. Tell him to hurry up, okay?’
Curly considered this for a moment, then pulled out his mobile and dialled a number. He pressed it to his ear briefly. Then he frowned.
‘What is it?’ Red asked, hovering over him.
Curly lifted a finger from his bottle and pressed it to his lips. ‘Shhh.’ His eyes darted to the door of the suite.
The room fell silent and they all heard the faint strains of a melody. It was coming through the unlocked door.
The music stopped. Slowly, the door began to open. As everyone watched in astonishment, a peculiar man came into the suite.
He towered over all of them. His clothing was quite ordinary except for two striking details: he wore a pair of black gauze gloves, and his face was almost entirely hidden behind a ski mask, save for his eyes, which gleamed brightly.
‘Who… Who are you?’ Teacher Wu asked, slowly rising to his feet.
‘I’m the person who asked to meet you.’
The man shut the door. He spoke in a low voice, but his enunciation was crisp and clear.
‘What’s up with you, bro? Just got out of plastic surgery?’ Curly asked, grinning broadly.
Gold Earring and Red laughed.
The man showed no reaction but simply picked up one of the wooden chairs from beside the coffee table and dragged it over to the door, blocking the exit. He sat down on it. His gaze slowly swept across the three teenagers.
There was nothing cruel in the way he looked at them, but he had such a forceful presence and his eyes were so piercing and powerful that Curly and the others were silenced straight away.
‘Sit down, please,’ he said.
Teacher Wu immediately sat down on the sofa. The three teenagers weren’t normally inclined to obedience, but on this occasion fear flickered across their faces. None of them was sure why the man’s voice had this effect on them, but something about his tone compelled them to do as he’d asked.
Gold Earring and Red hesitated and glanced over at Curly, the de facto leader of their group.
Curly considered the situation. Deciding that he was unwilling to suffer this particular indignity, he stuck his chin out and cleared his throat. ‘We agreed to come here on certain conditions. You’ll have to make good on those conditions before we do anything else.’
The man raised his right hand. Within it were three scarlet envelopes, the sort used for gifting money on special occasions.
‘Here you are.’
His directness gave Curly pause. He waited a moment, then took several steps forward and accepted the envelopes.
‘This one is for you. Give that one to the girl and the third one to your other friend,’ the man instructed.
Seconds later, all three envelopes were in the hands of their intended recipients. Teacher Wu looked on blankly, struggling to work out what was happening. He had somehow become a mere spectator.
Gold Earring opened his envelope first. Inside was a flimsy piece of paper – clearly not what he’d been hoping to find. When he’d finished reading what it said, he couldn’t restrain himself any longer.
‘What the hell is this supposed to be?’
Curly was looking at the contents of his own envelope. Several lines of text had been written on the slip of paper inside. The calligraphy was flawless.