Zhou Jin: “…That’s not something you can blame him for.”
She nudged Jiang Hansheng lightly with her elbow.
He looked down and met her gaze. She gave a small blink — her way of offering support.
Watching the two of them exchanging these little looks, Wang Pengzhe — a man of considerable years — felt his teeth ache from the sheer sweetness of it.
He brought himself back to the matter at hand. “There’s no use counting on their cooperation. But you mentioned last time that Qi Yan may well still be alive — I’ve actually turned up a lead here that I need you both to follow up on.”
Wang Pengzhe had spent more than twenty years in his youth working in Huaisha’s criminal investigation unit, and while his network of contacts could not be called extensive, it was not without its connections.
At the time of the original case, Wang Pengzhe had synthesized evidence from multiple sources and drafted a preliminary criminal profile report. Since criminal profiling had not yet been formally incorporated into investigative practice, he had only been able to pursue it privately. When his own capacity fell short, he had occasionally called on fellow officers to lend a hand.
Today, Wang Pengzhe’s trip to the county attached to Huaisha had been to visit a retired former colleague.
It was a reunion over drinks — and it was precisely those drinks that had stirred the old colleague’s memory. He recalled a household he had investigated back then, one that might just fit the profile they were looking for.
---
Over the table, the two of them had talked through the hardships they had endured during the investigation of the Huaisha serial murder case.
At the time, the police had worked from multiple angles — looking into the victims, examining their backgrounds, social connections, and the places they frequented; and separately looking into persons of suspicion, checking their alibis, financial circumstances, and so on.
In total, over twenty thousand individuals had been screened. Even now, thinking back to those days made his head ring.
After a good laugh, Wang Pengzhe walked his old colleague through the latest criminal profile, point by point.
“The perpetrator was still an adolescent at the time of the crimes, with either no formal schooling or a pattern of chronic truancy; raised in a single-parent household, living alone with the mother…”
“Adolescent” was inferred from the nature of the killings — the entire series bore the hallmarks of crimes driven by sexual motivation.
“No formal schooling or chronic truancy” was derived from the timing — three of the Huaisha serial murders had taken place on weekdays, which were also school days.
“Single-parent household, living with the mother” was inferred from the killer’s evolving selection of victims, which showed an increasing preference for more mature women.
As Wang Pengzhe laid out this analysis, the old colleague was suddenly reminded of a household he had interviewed, one that matched these criteria reasonably well.
He recalled, “You remember the first victim? I was conducting interviews in her residential complex at the time. A property owner told me he rented his unit out regularly. Previously, he had rented it to a woman.”
“She was single, and apparently very beautiful. She didn’t go out for work — men would come to see her, different ones on different occasions. Neighbors had complained to the landlord about it, telling him to be more careful next time and not rent to a woman of questionable character. My guess at the time was that she was engaged in sex work.”
At this point the old colleague paused, looking puzzled. “But something doesn’t quite fit…”
Wang Pengzhe asked, “What doesn’t fit?”
“She did have children. But not one child — two.”
Wang Pengzhe said, “Two?”
The other man nodded. “That’s right. Two boys. Twins.”