The Golden Library by Scott Mariani

Author:Scott Mariani [Mariani, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2024-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

Late that afternoon, Shi Yun at the wheel of her new unmarked police car, they cut back across the city to the flyover where the stolen van had been found, and from there to Wang’s fast food joint. En route she phoned in to learn whether anything had yet been gleaned from the interrogation of Zhu ‘the Shrimp’ Tianyong. It seemed that the tough little guy was holding out and still refusing to talk. ‘Let’s hope we have more luck with the kid,’ she said to Ben.

Wang’s young employee Dylan Li was in the kitchen storeroom hauling sacks of rice around and seemed happy to take a break from his shift to talk to them, once he understood he wasn’t in any trouble for working off the books. ‘Sure,’ he said brightly. ‘I still have that piece of shit’s registration number. Is he in serious trouble?’

‘He’s a suspect in a kidnapping and several murders,’ Shi Yun told him.

‘Cool. I hope the fucker gets the needle.’

Dylan happily handed over the grubby delivery receipt on which he’d scribbled the registration, and provided a description of the car and driver. It was a shitbox of an old model Volkswagen Bora, something between puke green and piss yellow according to the kid, with a broken headlight and a taped-up wing mirror probably from the last time he’d knocked into someone. The culprit was a few years older than Dylan, hard to say but maybe about twenty-five, with long floppy hair and a stupid-looking face. Back in the police car, Shi Yun wasted no time talking to HQ, and very soon afterwards the database matched the number to a 2004 VW Bora.

‘Registered owner is one Jia Wenguang,’ she said with a smile. ‘Twenty-seven years of age, resident of Xi’an. We can access his whole file right here from my phone. Social credit status, financial history, details of relatives. He works part-time in a print shop that makes T-shirts, and also has a job working in a restaurant. Parents are deceased but he has an older sister, now married and still living in the city.’

She showed him their suspect’s government ID mugshot. Dylan Li’s description of his stupid-looking face might have been a little prejudiced, but he’d been right about the floppy hair. ‘Looks like our man,’ Shi Yun said with satisfaction.

Ben studied the image and tried to picture Jia Wenguang as a masked kidnapper snatching a young woman in the woods and dragging her into the back of a van. The face in the photo looked more like that of a college student than a hardened criminal. Yet appearances could be deceptive, and the evidence spoke for itself. Sometimes it was the innocuous-looking types you had to watch out for.

‘Any previous criminal history?’ he asked.

‘None that he’s ever been caught for,’ Shi Yun replied, scanning the file. ‘But our records show he has zero social media profile, no WeChat account, nothing. That’s suspicious in itself.’

‘I don’t have any social media profile either. Am I suspicious?’

‘I don’t know.

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