by Zhou HaoHui
‘That’s impossible. Impossible!’ The veins in Huang’s neck bulged. ‘I compiled our case files and they said nothing about this. I’d bet my life on it!’
Pei put his hand on Huang’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you see? Your officer was aware of the lead, but he didn’t report it. He covered it up. That’s why the case went unsolved.’
Huang looked at Pei in bewilderment.
How could he still not understand, Pei wondered. It must be his pride. Huang was too damn arrogant to consider the possibility that one of his men had acted out of self-interest.
Pei gritted his teeth. ‘So, can you tell me the name of the officer?’
Huang gave him a hard stare. ‘Are you implying that he withheld evidence and shielded a criminal?’
‘I’m not implying anything,’ Pei growled. ‘I’m stating a fact. There is substantial reason to believe that your officer did just that. If we track him down, we might be able to unravel the mysteries surrounding the April 7th robbery.’
Huang shut his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Captain Ding Ke.’
‘It was Captain Ding?’ Pei said, his jaw nearly dropping to the floor.
‘Correct. It was obvious that the hospital was the best place to start our investigation. So of course Captain Ding went there.’ Huang inhaled and regained some of his composure. His mouth contorted into a pained smile. ‘Now you know why no one ever questioned it. And why I couldn’t believe what you were saying. I’ve never had reason to doubt Captain Ding.’ He threw up his hands and slumped onto the sofa.
Pei could understand Huang’s confusion. How could he expect him to accept that his idol had betrayed the force eighteen years ago? Pei amended his earlier judgement: it wasn’t pride that had kept Huang from seeing the truth, it was his blind admiration for Captain Ding.
Ms Mu was the youngest person in the room and the name ‘Captain Ding Ke’ meant far less to her than it did to her two seniors. But this did not dull her analysis of the situation. ‘We’ve long been told that Captain Ding Ke retired because this particular case proved too challenging,’ she said. ‘But I would never have guessed that the greatest challenge actually came from within the man himself.’
Pei and Huang both looked at her in surprise, as though suddenly realising that she was right there next to them.
‘Captain Ding obtained what might well be the most important clue in this investigation,’ Ms Mu continued. ‘An officer of his calibre could certainly have used this lead to solve the case. So why didn’t he? Why did he quit instead?’
Pei’s confusion vanished instantly. ‘We underestimated Captain Ding,’ he said. ‘We believed that this case stumped him, when in reality he knew more about it than anyone else. He knew that Yuan Zhibang was behind the robbery!’
‘Yuan Zhibang?’ Huang asked, disbelief written all over his face. ‘But how is that possible?’
‘After Wen Hongbing’s death, Yuan grew close to his widow and child. That gives him a motive. He was familiar with the layout of Chen’s home, and also had the skills needed to carry out the robbery. That gives him the means.’
The truth was finally sinking in for Huang. ‘Well, perhaps I shouldn’t feel so bad about having been stumped on this case,’ he said. ‘But how could Captain Ding—’
‘Captain Ding Ke had two choices,’ Pei said. ‘One option was to continue investigating. What do you think would have happened if he’d done that?’
‘Hmm.’ Huang cracked his knuckles. ‘If your theory is correct, Yuan could have been arrested for burglary. Given the amount of money involved, he would have got a long jail sentence. The court would have returned the money to Chen Tianqiao and that would have left the widowed Mrs Wen and her son in a tight spot.’
‘And not only that,’ Pei added. ‘Mrs Wen could have been accused of being an accessory to the crime or even an accomplice. Her statements indicated that she knew where the money had come from.’
‘Isn’t that rather excessive?’ Ms Mu interjected. ‘Chen Tianqiao owed Wen Hongbing that money. You seriously think that the courts would have returned Wen’s money to the person who borrowed it from him and then prosecuted the widow?’
‘The role of the courts is to uphold the law, not to be kind,’ Pei said, trying his best to maintain a neutral tone.
Ms Mu fell silent.
‘Captain Ding’s second choice just so happened to be the opposite of the first,’ Pei went on. ‘Namely to ignore the lead and allow the investigation to go cold. If he did that, Mrs Wen and her son could keep the money. Justice would have been done in regards to Chen Tianqiao. And Captain Ding’s star pupil would stay out of prison. If you were Captain Ding, which option would you choose?’
Ms Mu shook her head in frustration. ‘What a choice! By “solving” the case, he would have sent Mrs Wen to her doom.’
‘And,’ Huang added, ‘Captain Ding was grooming Yuan to be his successor in the criminal police. How could he bear to see his protégé’s future ruined?’
Huang’s words rang true. Pei remembered when Captain Ding had come to the academy to select a trainee. Every criminal-investigation student had been buzzing at the prospect. They all knew that whoever the legendary Captain Ding chose would one day take his place on the criminal police force. Pei himself had been a candidate before he began his tumultuous relationship with Meng Yun. Ultimately, it was Yuan who got chosen.
‘However,’ Huang continued, ‘it’s hard to be certain. Even though that first option would have pained Captain Ding greatly, that doesn’t mean the other option would have felt liberating. I believe he would have been very averse to the second option. If he ignored Yuan’s crime, he would have betrayed his duty as a police officer. I was Captain Ding’s assistant. I knew him very well, and nothing mattered to him more than doing his duty. He sacrificed a lot for his career. Some of those sacrifices would have been too much for an ordinary person, but he was able to bear them all. He was the staunchest defender of the law I ever knew. That man would never have compromised his principles.’
‘So he didn’t choose either of those options,’ Ms Mu said. ‘Instead, he decided to run.’
The room fell briefly quiet. Pei leant forward in his seat. ‘Our current thinking is that the April 7th robbery was the needle that broke the camel’s back for Captain Ding. But wasn’t Yuan under just as much stress when he committed the robbery?’
Ms Mu considered this then shook her head. ‘It sounds like you’re saying that everyone was forced into their decisions and had no alternatives. Are we supposed to sympathise with every single person involved in this case?’
‘Everything starts somewhere. Perhaps both Captain Ding and Yuan faced an impossible choice before the robbery was committed.’
‘Are you talking about the January 30th hostage case?’ Huang asked.
‘We still don’t know everything. If Yuan really did kill Wen Hongbing, perhaps we should reflect on the circumstances under which he did so,’ Ms Mu said. ‘His subsequent behaviour shows a level of concern for Wen Hongbing’s wife and son that is far from normal. In fact, it’s almost as if he was paying off a debt. Or felt very guilty.’
Anger flared in Pei’s heart. ‘He shot a man who was holding someone hostage and threatening to blow up an entire apartment building! Even if Wen Hongbing had good reasons for doing what he did, why would Yuan feel guilty?’
‘While I don’t know the specifics, I am sure that Yuan committed the robbery because of some emotional reaction after he killed Wen Hongbing,’ Ms Mu said. ‘The most likely scenario is that something unexpected happened inside the apartment. A mistake. And Yuan was the one who made that mistake.’
Pei avoided her gaze, but the gleam in his eyes grew brighter until he was practically trembling with excitement.
‘What’s on your mind?’ Ms Mu asked.
Pei looked at her and then Huang. ‘If my colleague is correct, we may very well have figured out a way to defeat Eumenides. A method that’s less violent than what we ori
ginally intended but possibly far more effective.’
Huang blinked in confusion. Ms Mu, however, immediately grasped Pei’s meaning. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘We can seize Eumenides’ emotional centre—’
‘Stop speaking in code,’ Huang said, scowling in frustration.
Ms Mu turned to him. ‘We know that the orphaned Wen Chengyu became Eumenides and that he became a killer only after having undergone years of training from Yuan Zhibang. Eumenides sees Yuan as his mentor and the person who controlled his life’s path. As far as we know, he’s never had any reason to doubt Yuan. But how will he feel if he discovers that his path began with the death of his own father and that Yuan Zhibang was the one responsible for his father’s death?’
Huang’s face lit up. ‘His faith in Yuan will be shaken to the core. He’ll feel that Yuan was using him all along – that Yuan hurt him. Eumenides will feel like a pawn in Yuan’s plans, like he’s been really taken advantage of. He’ll begin to detest everything about the man – including the very role of Eumenides that Yuan created.’
‘And then we’ll have defeated him without having struck a single blow,’ Ms Mu said, curling a hand into a fist.
‘It’s a good idea. Damn good,’ Huang said, his excitement rising. ‘But there is one hole in it. We still don’t know exactly what happened at Wen Hongbing’s apartment.’
Ms Mu was undeterred. ‘At the very least we have a lead. And it’s the same lead that Eumenides is tracking. I’m confident that we will soon learn the truth behind Wen Hongbing’s death. And so will Eumenides.’
11
THE BAGMAN
2:13 p.m.
Private upstairs room, Black Magic Bar
‘It’s time to talk about another case,’ Huang said quietly. ‘The January 12th case.’
Ms Mu shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The dim room seemed to grow even darker. ‘The Bagman Killing,’ she whispered.
‘How much do you two know about that?’ Huang asked.
‘The files are in my office, but I haven’t had much time to go through them,’ Captain Pei said. ‘I’ve spent most of my time today researching the April 7th robbery.’
‘Hmmm.’ Huang nodded. ‘Ms Mu, you were born and raised in Chengdu. I assume you’ve heard a great deal about that case over the years.’
‘There was a time when I heard a gruesome new rumour about the killer almost every day for months on end,’ she said.
‘Tell us what you know then. I’d like to hear how it felt from a civilian’s perspective.’ Making himself comfortable on the sofa, Huang pulled a cigarette from his pocket and prepared to listen.
Ms Mu clasped her cup of hot tea with both hands, as though trying to gain all the extra warmth she could. ‘The Bagman Killing… that was back in 1992, wasn’t it? I was about to leave senior school. Actually, it happened right before my final exams. I always stayed late at school to study and one night our teacher wouldn’t let any of us female students go home by ourselves. He insisted that our parents come and pick us up. My father eventually turned up. When I asked him what was going on, he told me that there was a very bad man on the loose in Chengdu and that I couldn’t go out alone any more. He was going to accompany me to and from school from then on. I tried to ask more questions, but he clammed up. He just told me to focus on my studies and not to worry about anything else, but that only made me more curious.
‘At school the next day, all of my classmates were discussing what had happened. That was when I found out just how terrifying the situation was. I still regret listening to all those rumours back then, but they were impossible to ignore. Everyone was talking about it, and I didn’t get a good night’s sleep for months.’
Huang took a long drag of his cigarette. ‘What kind of rumours were floating around?’
Ms Mu took another sip from her cup to moisten her throat and dipped back into those decade-old memories. ‘I heard that a girl had been killed. People said that the killer was a psychopath. They said that he chopped the girl up into little pieces and fried her. He ate pieces of her and scattered other bits around the city. Some even claimed that he’d boiled her brain and organs. We all thought that the killer’s main desire was to eat human flesh.’
Ms Mu’s voice faded and she shuddered. Even Pei grimaced at the grisly images her words conjured. Only Huang looked unperturbed. He’d been involved in the case from the very beginning and had long been numb to the details. What time could not erase, however, was his shame at the investigation’s outcome.
Ms Mu took several deep breaths and the clamps around her chest began to loosen. ‘Eventually, the police came to my school. They showed us pictures and asked us to identify the objects in them. The item that stands out most clearly in my memory is a red down jacket. It must have been what the victim was wearing when she was killed. I still remember the exact shade of red – it was as bright as fresh blood. I had nightmares about that jacket for days. It wasn’t long before I heard rumours that the killer had made an announcement: he was going to devour a new victim every month. The next target would be a long-haired girl wearing a jacket like the one in the photo.’
‘Pure fabrication,’ Huang interrupted.
‘I was just a teenager,’ Ms Mu said, her hand grazing the edge of her bob. ‘I didn’t know rumour from truth. All I knew was that all the girls in my class cut their hair, including me, and none of us wore a single piece of red clothing for the next six months. That all-consuming fear didn’t let up until I was at the police academy, in a safe environment.’
‘Tell us what you know about the investigation, Huang – the bits you know to be true,’ Pei said.
Huang sucked on the last of his cigarette and stubbed it out on the table. His voice took on a low, gravelly quality. ‘You were right about the date, Ms Mu. The Bagman Killing came to light on the twelfth of January 1992 when a middle-aged street cleaner discovered a black rubbish bag by a public bin on Dongba Road. She was curious, so she prodded some holes in it with her broom, revealing several slices of what appeared to be fresh meat glistening in the early morning sun.
‘She assumed it was a bag of fresh pork that a meat vendor had dropped while rushing to the morning market. She took it home, thinking it would be impossible to trace its original owner – she thought she’d got lucky.’ Huang attempted a smirk but couldn’t quite manage it. ‘It was only when she started going through the bag that she noticed something unusual. Three things, in fact. Three human fingers, to be precise.’
Pei glanced over at Ms Mu. Her face had gone pale.
‘The woman ran shrieking out of her home. Her neighbours heard and called the police as soon as they learnt what she’d found. We received the call at exactly 7:23 a.m. Fifteen minutes later, I arrived on the scene with a team in tow. I knew from the start it was a major case.
‘The sliced flesh was very fresh. As bizarre as it sounds, it really did look like pork from the market. The bag weighed four and a half kilograms and contained four hundred and thirty-six slices of flesh. It had been sliced with surgical precision and piled up very neatly. Very deliberately. Each slice was two to three millimetres thick. Forensics concluded that the slices had all come from the leg of an adult female and that the three digits were the index, middle and ring fingers of a woman’s left hand.’
Huang paused to sigh and collect his thoughts.
‘What we didn’t realise,’ he continued, ‘was that this was only the beginning. Our dispatch centre received a second call at 9:37 a.m. Two construction workers had discovered an abandoned suitcase at a building site on Shita Road. We rushed over there as fast as we could. By the time I arrived, the local police had already set up a cordon and a crowd had gathered around it.
‘I remember talking to the two workers who’d discovered the suitcase. They were frightened out of their wits. I didn’t even have time to take notes. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw inside that thing. It was the coldest day of the year, but my clothes were soaked with sweat.�
��
Huang stared at his hands in numb fear. He lit another cigarette.
Ms Mu suddenly found it hard to breathe, but it wasn’t due to the smoke. ‘What exactly was inside that case?’ she asked.
‘A human head and a complete set of human organs,’ Huang said, digging his fingers into the palm of his hand. ‘One of the rumours that you mentioned was true. The organs had been boiled.’
Ms Mu tried with all her might to suppress the nausea rising from her stomach.
‘The head was a deep shade of red, all soft and bloated. The organs had been separated into five clear plastic bags, each placed neatly around the head. And the intestines were folded and stuffed inside the skull.’
The last detail alone sent a great shiver down Pei’s spine. He pictured the killer calmly folding the victim’s intestines, as composed and focused as an accountant preparing a client’s tax return. Never in his entire career had he encountered a criminal that cold or detached. Not even Eumenides could be so disturbed.
Huang resumed his account. ‘Everyone was shocked at the contents of the suitcase. I immediately reported the situation to my superior. Not long after, a task force was convened, led by the head of the public security bureau. Its first meeting was held at the construction site and marked the official start of the investigation into what we called the “January 12th Dissected Corpse Case”. But everyone soon came to call it the “Bagman Killing”.
‘The task force came up with a three-part strategy. To locate the other bits of the body, the team would conduct a citywide search; to determine the identity of the victim, they would check Chengdu’s missing persons records for women who’d recently gone AWOL; and to prevent the killer from striking again, they would step up patrols and increase the number of safety warnings issued to the public.’
Pei nodded steadily. ‘They made the right choices. How did the investigation get on?’