by Lei Mi
Interestingly, according to the victim's coworkers, he had been gay. This made police suspect that perhaps the killer was gay as well, or rather had merely pretended to be so that he could trick the victim into accompanying him to the murder scene, where he then took the man's life.
The U.S. and Chinese heads of state had visited each other's nations at the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. This was perhaps even more significant for the new American president, who was making his first visit to China. A high-ranking U.S. military officer was also set to visit China at the end of the year, and now the whole world was watching as military relations between the two countries appeared to warm. Therefore, the U.S. consulate in Jiangbin City was paying close attention to this case and had spoken on multiple occasions with the city government and Public Security Bureau in hopes of obtaining a speedy resolution.
The special investigation team could feel the pressure.
Another bright afternoon. As usual, Tai Wei and Fang Mu were sitting on the bench beside the basketball court, a stack of absurdly thick folders beside them.
First, Tai Wei updated Fang Mu on their current progress investigating the case. Fang Mu listened closely, rarely interrupting. Finally, with a downcast look on his face, Tai Wei said that they still hadn't found any clues as to the next murder. Fang Mu thought for a moment, and then grabbed one of the case folders and began reading.
While he was looking through the evidence photos, Fang Mu paused on one of the pictures for a long time. In it, the contents of the victim's wallet were spread out on a table. In addition to a bank card and credit card from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and a certain amount of U.S. dollars and Chinese renminbi, Fang Mu also saw a strangely-colored bill, but because it was halfway covered by some of the other items, he couldn't make out its denomination or form of currency.
"What's this one?" asked Fang Mu, pointing at the unknown bill. "The one in the middle."
Tai Wei looked over. "Oh, that one. It's British. Five pounds."
Fang Mu frowned. "Why would he be carrying British currency in his wallet?"
"He's a foreigner," said Tai Wei casually. "They always walk around with foreign currency."
"Yeah, but this guy's an American. For his day-to-day life, all he should need in his wallet are dollars and renminbi. Why carry around pounds? And why only five?"
This question stumped Tai Wei. Scratching his head, he said, "Maybe… maybe it had some sentimental value for him. Why?" He looked at Fang Mu. "Are you thinking this is a clue to the next crime?"
"I can't say for sure," said Fang Mu, shaking his head. "I just think it's a little peculiar. I'll have to do some more research."
"All right. So how's it been over here? You found anything?" Tai Wei looked over the stack of documents Fang Mu had brought along. He knew the kid was going to tell him what was inside, but he was too impatient to wait.
As Fang Mu nodded, his eyes became calm and resolute.
"Things are beginning to come into focus," he said.
"Really? What do you mean?"
"Hold your horses; let's do this one thing at a time." Fang Mu laid the folders from the first four cases in a row. Tai Wei noticed that atop each of the four stacks he placed several sheets of photocopied text.
"Let's start by looking at the second case," said Fang Mu. "At the scene of the first crime, the female victim was found with a syringe stuck in her chest. I believe this was meant to hint that the second crime would take place at a hospital, or that at the very least it would have something to do with the medical profession. Sure enough, it was committed at the school hospital, the victim was a forty-three-year-old woman, and the cause of death was heroin poisoning." Here Fang Mu paused, took the photocopied papers from atop the second stack and handed it to Tai Wei. "Take a look at this."
Taking the papers from him, Tai Wei looked at them. They appeared to have been copied from various books and journals, and each was covered with Fang Mu's underlines and scribbled notes.
"It's probably a little disorganized," said Fang Mu. "Why don't you look through it while I narrate?" Then, speaking slowly, he began. "What you're looking at are some documents on the infamous British serial killer Harold Shipman. In 1963, when Shipman was seventeen, he knelt at his mother's bedside and watched her die of cancer at the age of forty-three. This incident was an enormous blow to him, and it became the turning point of his whole life. For this reason, he decided to study medicine. Before she died, his mother had been in such pain from her illness that for a long time she had been forced to rely on heroin and morphine to get through each day. Therefore, Shipman desired to kill others by using a lethal combination of these drugs. With his mother dead, he could not tolerate other middle-aged women getting to live their own safe and happy lives."
Tai Wei had forgotten to look at the documents in his hands, but rather had stared open-mouthed at Fang Mu this whole time. Unperturbed, Fang Mu continued to speak in the same slow, calm manner: "In 1970, he graduated from medical school, and soon became known as an unusually skilled and highly ethical family doctor. However, he was never able to truly forget what had happened to his mother. In 1984, Shipman began using heroin to kill his own patients, selecting as his victims mainly women around the same age as his mother when she died. By the time he was arrested at the end of 1998, he had poisoned a total of two-hundred-fifteen people to death."
It took Tai Wei a long time to gather his thoughts. At last, he said, "So what you're saying is, the killer was copying Harold Shipman's criminal method?"
"Exactly. Now as you'll recall, the victim at the second crime scene was found with a pornographic Japanese manga in her handbag. Its contents included scenes of torture fetishism and homosexuality. I believe this comic was meant to be a clue to the third crime, during which a seven-year-old girl was tortured to death." Saying this, Fang Mu took several more photocopied papers and placed them in Tai Wei's hands.
"These documents are about the infamous Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki. He was born prematurely, leaving him with deformed carpal bones in both hands. Because of this, he developed an inferiority complex from a young age. Although he did not like to interact with other people," he said, "he loved watching pornographic anime. When he was arrested, police discovered over six thousand titles of pornographic anime in his apartment, much of which was focused on torture fetishism. Miyazaki committed his first murder in 1988. The victim was a four-year-old girl. After strangling her to death, Miyazaki raped her corpse and then filmed a close-up of her genitals, which he later used to masturbate. In October and December of that year, and then in June of the following, he committed three more murders. The victims were all little girls no older than seven, and after torturing each to death, he raped their corpses. Most perversely, in January of 1989, the killer returned to the site where he had buried the first victim's body and collected her decomposed remains. Then he packed them in a cardboard box and sent them to her family. Inside, he also left a short, cryptic note describing the crime. Later, he would also send similar notes to several relatively large newspapers. Then, in July of 1989, Miyazaki was arrested. In 1996, the Tokyo district court sentenced him to death; however, he is still appealing the charge to this day."
Hearing all this, Tai Wei muttered to himself. "This…this is simply identical to the Jin Qiao case." Then, too impatient to wait for Fang Mu, he grabbed the documents stacked on top of the fourth case folder and said, "What about this one? Who was he copying here?"
"Ed Gein, the infamous American serial killer." For some reason, whether exhaustion or something else, Fang Mu's voice had grown quiet and his expression was even gloomier than before.
"When the body of Jin Qiao was discovered, she was holding a broken piece of ceramic pottery in her hand. This piece came from a copy of a vase originally created by the British artist Grayson Perry, who is a transvestite. The most famous transvestite serial killer in history was Ed Gein. For his whole life, Gein lived under the stern a
nd tyrannical eye of his mother. When she died, he placed her corpse in a special room in his house and then sealed it off, like a holy tomb. At first, to stave off loneliness, he would dig up the bodies of recently buried women, and then touch and enjoy the sight of them. Later, he began skinning these corpses and sewing them into dolls. In the end, his perversity intensified, and within three years he killed three middle-aged women. He would later turn their body parts into 'handcrafted objects', which included clothes made of human skin and a bowl made of a human skull."
Fang Mu pointed at a photograph on one of his photocopies. "Here, these are the clothes made of skin. After Gein was captured, he admitted to longing to know what it felt like to have breasts and a vagina. When he wore the human skin-clothes he had sewn, he would fantasize that he was his own mother. Have you ever seen The Silence of the Lambs?"
Tai Wei nodded.
"The plot of that movie was adapted from the life of Ed Gein," said Fang Mu, picking up some of the case files that Tai Wei had brought for him. "In the fourth crime, the CD that the skinned girl was 'listening' to was a clue to the next murder, in which the killer imitated Charles Manson. After claiming to have received instructions from The Beatles song Helter Skelter, Manson began what he hoped would become an apocalyptic race war by slaughtering bourgeois whites. As I said before, not only did Manson write something at each crime scene calling the victims pigs, he also always referred to his murders as 'pig butchering'. Before you is all the information I have gathered over the last two days. I believe that the killer is modeling his crimes after history's most famous serial killers and is leaving a clue at each scene that hints at whomever he will be copying next. In my opinion, the sixth crime will most likely have something to do with that five-pound note."
For a moment Tai Wei appeared lost in thought. Then, as if something had just occurred to him, he said: "What about the first crime? You never said who he was copying there."
Frowning, Fang Mu said, "I've also been racking my brains about the first crime. There are too many historical examples of serial killers who dismembered their victims after murdering them. Based on the method used by our killer, it's extremely difficult to judge who exactly he was imitating. However, one of his motives for the crime was definitely jealousy, I'm certain of that. Think of the risk he took transporting Qu Weiqiang's body from his apartment all the way to the soccer field. That's got to mean something."
After thinking for a moment Tai Wei said, "What about Professor Qiao's idea about the killer wanting to rebuild Wang Qian anew. Could that be some kind of clue?"
Fang Mu didn't reply. Picking up the folder from the first case, he flipped directly to the crime scene photographs.
Wang Qian's body lay on the floor, cut into six parts and pieced together in a spread-eagle position.
Fang Mu stared at the photograph, as well as its accompanying description. All of a sudden he seemed to notice something, and his brow furrowed in concentration.
"Head to the north, feet to the south… head to the north, feet to the south…" he muttered to himself, before abruptly asking: "Where were the door and window located at the crime scene?"
After thinking about it for a moment, Tai Wei replied, "I think it was a north-south arrangement. The door was north and the window south. I remember Old Zhao saying to me at the time that the victim's head was pointed towards the door and her feet towards the window."
"What you're saying is, when the police entered the room, this is what they saw?" Saying this, Fang Mu thought for a moment, and then rotated the photograph. Wang Qian's spread-eagle body was now upside-down, her head, arms and legs pointing in five different directions.
Fang Mu's swept his eyes across the victim's head, torso, arms, and legs. Suddenly his breathing grew rapid. Pulling his cell phone from his pocket, he quickly dialed a number. Tai Wei could see his hands were shaking.
After a few seconds, Fang Mu heard Du Yu's voice on the other end: "Hello?"
"It's Fang Mu. Du Yu, do you still remember what that five-pointed star on our door looked like?"
"Five-pointed star? What five-pointed star?"
Fang Mu leapt to his feet in agitation. "The one from the night of the World Cup finals! We watched the game at a restaurant, came back, I went to the bathroom, and then when I returned to our room, you were wiping something off our door. You said it was a five-pointed star. Do you remember or not?"
"Oh, now I remember. Yeah, that's what happened. What made you think of it now?"
"That's none of your concern! I just need you to tell me, what did that five-pointed star look like?"
"It had five points man, what else can be said? As I recall it was pretty damn ugly, too."
"C'mon, just think; was there anything else special about it? For example…"
"Oh yeah, I just thought of something. The five-pointed star, it was upside-down."
"…Upside-down…" said Fang Mu, seemingly speaking to himself. All of a sudden, his face was ashen.
"That's right. It was drawn with one point down and two points up. Why do you want to know? …Hey, Fang Mu, can you still hear me? Hello, hello…?"
Ignoring him, Fang Mu slowly hung up the phone.
Looking as if all his energy had left him, Fang Mu leaned back against the bench, his eyes empty. From Fang Mu's conversation with Du Yu, Tai Wei more or less understood that on the eve of Qu Weiqiang and Wang Qian's murders, someone had drawn an upside-down five-pointed star on Fang Mu's door. Now he wondered what it was supposed to mean.
"What's the significance of an upside-down five-pointed star?" asked Tai Wei.
Fang Mu seemed to be so scared that he had begun to tremble. It took him a long time to reply. At last, lips shaking, he said, "Richard Ramirez. American serial killer. On multiple occasions between 1984 and 1985, he snuck into peoples' homes, killed all the adult men, raped the women and children, and then dismembered their corpses. Once he was finished, he would leave behind the same symbol at every crime scene: an upside-down five-pointed star. Sometimes he would leave it on the wall, sometimes on a mirror, and sometimes directly on the bodies of his victims."
He pointed at the crime scene photograph. "Wang Qian's head is facing the door and her feet are facing the window so that when police entered the room she would have looked just like an upside-down five-pointed star. Ramirez was different than other serial killers. Not only did he lack any trademark method of murdering his victims—he'd shoot them, beat them to death, slit their throats, strangle them—he also didn't seek out any particular kind of victim. He killed children under five, men and women over seventy, and people of all races and walks of life. As a result, he was extremely difficult for police to catch. At last, Ramirez was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to death in 1989."
With that, Fang Mu dropped his head and said no more.
Lighting a cigarette, Tai Wei slowly organized his thoughts.
"Richard Ramirez, Harold Shipman, Tsutomu Miyazaki, Ed Gein, Charles Manson," he said at last, seemingly lost in thought, "it really does seem like this guy is copying famous serial killers from history. And he even left a clue to the first crime on your door—the five-pointed star…"
The moment these words left Tai Wei's mouth, he abruptly stopped talking and his eyes went wide. The cigarette in his hand was immediately forgotten. For several seconds he sat there, stunned. He then turned to face Fang Mu, who was trying to light a cigarette, but his hands were shaking too much to use the lighter.
At last, with what seemed great determination, Tai Wei slowly said: "Fang Mu, I think this guy is coming for you." He gave the kid a careful look. His face was now deathly pale. "He's testing you, trying to see whether you can guess who he'll be copying next. No one else on campus understands this stuff as much as you do."
Tai Wei spoke slowly and softly, but to Fang Mu, each word felt like a bullet shot straight at his heart. "You think so?" he asked at last. "No way, that's impossible." Lighting a cigarette, he inhaled deeply, and then turned to T
ai Wei and forced a smile.
What kind of smile was this? Tai Wei had to wonder.
Disheartened. Indignant. Despairing. Terrified. Was he trying to convince himself that this was all just a coincidence?
Don't be such a fool, Fang Mu thought as his thin, self-deceiving smile twitched involuntarily.
Time passed and the sky grew dark. To Fang Mu, it began to seem as if all the dim shapes around him were growing nearer. The basketball hoops, the chain-link fence, the trees, even the dorms all appeared to come alive, and with the deepening darkness they seemed to be secretly laughing at him, as if they were closing in on him, malice in their hearts, step by step.
He felt his throat become dry, his mouth bitter, and his head spin. At last, unable to stop himself, he bent over and began to vomit.
Tai Wei sat there motionlessly, watching as Fang Mu retched so violently that his body appeared to split in half.
His heart was filled with sympathy and misery.
CHAPTER
18
The Yorkshire Ripper
Fang Mu lay in bed all day. He didn't eat, didn't drink, didn't say a single word; just stared at the ceiling and ignored everyone. Although Du Yu was already accustomed to this sort of behavior, he had a vague feeling that something was different this time.
Tai Wei came by later that night.
When Tai Wei entered the dorm room, Du Yu was trying to convince Fang Mu to have some of the dinner he had bought for him. Tai Wei saw that a lunch tray was still sitting on Fang Mu's desk, the food long since gone cold.
Du Yu nodded at Tai Wei as he came into the room and then motioned helplessly in Fang Mu's direction.
Only a day had passed, but Fang Mu had already thinned out considerably. His chin was even sharper than usual and his eyes, still staring motionlessly at the ceiling, appeared startlingly huge.