Chapter 19 (1/2)
Zheng Yi was momentarily stunned. The facts spoke louder than his eloquence.
Nodding his head, he lowered his voice, “Understood.”
“Besides that, we also discovered some synthetic fibres underneath her fingernails – these fibres probably came from objects such as sanitary masks.” Forensic Scientist Zhu continued, “The deceased only suffered from one fatal stab wound, which pierced her liver. Based on the angle of the wound, it appears that the suspect was much taller than the deceased, and a rough gauge of the suspect’s height would range from 178cm to 185cm.”
The captain knocked on the table sharply, and reminded the team, “This point is still under debate. Keeping in mind that the murder happened alongside the rape, the deceased could very well have been lying on the ground when she was murdered. If we use the angle of the deceased’s wound to narrow the suspect’s height, we may very well end up eliminating the suspect from our pool of candidates.”
“Yes.”
Flipping the autopsy report open, photos of the deceased Wei Cai flashed before Zheng Yi’s eyes. Wei Cai’s wrists, shoulders, and thighs, all reflected bruises and wounds commonly suffered during self-defence. It also proved that she put up a struggle against her perpetrator.
After the meeting ended, Zheng Yi dragged Senior Yang into his very own office, and poured a gla.s.s of water for him, “Stressed – if we’re unable to resolve the case soon, we’d most likely drown to death from all the saliva that would be spat at us.”
“There are some special cases, where simply relying on the traditional methods of investigation is insufficient.” Senior Yang drank a mouthful of water, “Sometimes, we have to rely on what I talked about during the previous meeting –”
“Criminal psychology.” Zheng Yi completed Senior Yang’s sentence for him.
“Precisely.” Senior Yang responded, “Let’s use this case as an example – why do you think the rapist committed the rape? There could be four types of reasons for the rape: First, power driven criminal, where the criminal committed the rape to satisfy his strong desire for power and control; second, the emotionally driven criminal, where the criminal committed the rape in order to build extremely intimate relations.h.i.+ps; third, the venting criminal, where the criminal committed the crime in order to unleash all his inner rage, unhappiness and dissatisfaction; fourth, the curious criminal, where the criminal committed the crime in order to satisfy his curiosity about s.e.xuality – such criminals are often youthful criminals committing a standalone crime.”
Zheng Yi nodded, “I took a look at the report you wrote. In the report, you mentioned that after your interview with the two victims, your preliminary determination was that the criminal in this present case is one who is driven by his desire to vent.”
“Yes. The power driven criminal tends to be in an older age group; the emotionally driven criminal tends to be extremely meticulous and detailed, and because of their desire for a relations.h.i.+p, they would often take the victim’s feelings into consideration and communicate with them.”
“A youth who is a venting criminal.” Zheng Yi murmured to himself.
“I’m not surprised that our venting criminal’s crimes escalated from rape to murder. After all, he’s enraged and he’s encountered innumerable obstacles in his life, and he’s desperate to vent all his frustrations; and yet, the victim struggles against him, trying her best to defend herself. She would probably humiliate him, and scold him. The criminal, now experiencing a new wave of obstacles once more, gradually escalates into murdering the victim. Furthermore, the criminal used a knife to stab the deceased to death – the stabbing action itself is an action which has strong underlying connotations of venting.”
“Yes.” Zheng Yi nodded his head once more before continuing, “Rapists who specifically target youthful girls are often in a similar age range as his victims.”
“Yes.” Senior Yang flipped his notebook open and placed it in front of Zheng Yi, “This is the suspect’s profile which I came up with after looking at all the clues.”
Zheng Yi glanced at the notebook, memorising the points written on the notebook.
1. The suspect’s age ranges from 17 years old to 19 years old, and s a taciturn and introverted person. The suspect is extremely cautious and relatively smart. He desires to blend in with his group of similarly aged friends, but encounters huge difficulty in doing so;
2. The suspect possesses relatively good looks (The people near the crime scene didn’t notice anything unusual, and good looking strangers tend not to raise any alarm bells.)
3. The suspect had discontinued his studies, or studies in a technical school with little to no discipline (his victims are all from high schools that are commonly viewed as ‘good’ and ‘normal’).
4. The suspect frequently plays truant, and would often loiter in the vicinity of various schools in order to observe his victims;
5. The suspect is extremely familiar with the area where the rapes took place. As such, it is more likely than not that he lives nearby, or that he frequently scopes out the area before committing his crimes. From this, it is pertinent that the suspect is extremely meticulous and organized;
6. The suspect has a unharmonious family, and his relations.h.i.+p with his mother is especially strained (When the suspect rapes his victims, he frequently insults them and tortures them). The strained relations.h.i.+p could be due to the following reasons: (a) He was abused by his mother; (b) He was abandoned or neglected by his mother; and (c) His mother has innumerable s.e.xual partners, or is a prost.i.tute.
Zheng Yi sighed, “I’m amazed at your a.n.a.lysis – but even so, it’s still terribly difficult to arrest the suspect successfully.”
Senior Yang replied, “Don’t fret. Let’s comb through Wei Cai’s case a few more times – I’m sure we’d be able to find some critical clues that would reduce the size of the suspect pool.”
“That’s true.” Zheng Yi returned the notebook to Senior Yang, “The suspect has a vehicle, and given his young age, the possibility of him owning a car is simply too small. However, it is extremely difficult to transport corpses using a bicycle, and thus his vehicle is most likely a motorcycle.”
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The two youths woke up extremely early the next day.
They scurried too and fro within the house, wearing their clothes, combing their hair, brus.h.i.+ng their teeth, and was.h.i.+ng their faces.
The number of times they went out to play by themselves were simply too little.
Chen Nian stared at her reflection in the mirror, gently combing her hair meticulously and tying it up into a neat ponytail. After ascertaining that no stray locks of hair were sticking out, she placed the comb on the table and walked out of the room.
As it was early in the morning, the temperature was neither too hot nor too cold, and was settled at comfortable level instead. Bei Ye and Chen Nian sat by the table, quietly eating their pastries. Both of them did not exchange a single word.
Gradually, the narrow and small room grew stuffy, as though the entire room was a pressure cooker that was gradually warming up. The two youths set off.
When Bei Ye shut the shutter doors, Chen Nian stood beside him, unable to keep herself from tiptoeing in excitement.
The two youths trooped out of the abandoned steel mill; their footsteps were light as they walked across the field of wild gra.s.s. At long last, they reached the train tracks. Bei Ye stopped walking, and turned to glance at the morning sun. Bei Ye suddenly lowered his body and lay on the ground, propping his legs on the train tracks. After a few minutes, he turned to look at Chen Nian, and wordlessly patted the ground next to him, indicating for Chen Nian to lie beside him.
Chen Nian didn’t question him, and simply lay her body next to him and used his arm as a cus.h.i.+on.
The sky was a nice, cool shade of azure blue. Occasionally, a lone bird flew across the sky.
Chen Nian too, propped her legs on the train tracks. “Are we suntanning?”
Bei Ye answered lazily, “We’re waiting for the train.”
“Waiting for the train?”
“The train will arrive in twenty minutes.”
“When the train arrives, are we simply going to …… look at it?”
Bei Ye turned his head to stare at Chen Nian, the humour unmistakeable in his eyes, “We’re going to ride the train.”
“But we didn’t buy the train tickets?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Bei Ye replied.
Ah, if Bei Ye said it didn’t matter, then it wouldn’t matter that they didn’t have any tickets. Raising her eyes to stare at the unbroken sea of blue, Chen Nian gradually shut her eyes in contentment. The wind grazed across her cheeks, and the entire world was silent. Just as the two youths were about to fall asleep, the train tracks beneath their feet began to tremble violently. The two youths opened their eyes immediately, and turned to look at each other.
Bei Ye pulled Chen Nian up in one swift motion. The huge, metallic train could be seen from a distance away. It was the green train that was headed towards the countryside, and was of a slower speed compared to other trains.
Chen Nian stared at the train unblinkingly for a few moments before finally discovering the oddity – “The train isn’t go to stop?”
“It won’t stop.” Bei Ye replied.
“If that’s the case, how are we going to hop onto the train?”
“Even if it doesn’t stop, we’ll still manage to get on the train.” Having completed his sentence, Bei Ye stretched his hand out towards Chen Nian. Chen Nian’s heart began to beat rapidly, and she timidly placed her hand on his, carefully wrapping her fingers around his huge, warm palm.
“Hey, Little Stutterer.”
“Yes?”
“Do you ever think about dying?”
Momentarily stunned, Chen Nian turned to look at Bei Ye’s side profile. Returning her gaze to the train tracks that were trembling violently in front of her, she said in a low voice, “I did think about it before.”