Fate (Death Notice Book 2) by Zhou Haohui

Author:Zhou Haohui [Haohui, Zhou]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838930790
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2020-12-09T20:00:00+00:00

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.

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