Chapter 227: A Murder Performance (1/2)
At exactly 10 o'clock, we all gathered in the conference room. Besides the usual officers we often cooperated with, I noticed a fresh face. Xiaotao started with a brief account of the case before we each stated the clues we had obtained so far.
First of all, the victim’s identity had been determined! A detailed investigation showed that the victim wasn’t involved in any enmity with anyone. Neighbors described him as an eccentric man who seldom had contact with others. His only interests were smoking and drinking.
The incident had taken place in an old area of the city so there weren't any surveillance videos. However, according to residents, a short man wearing a tank top and a face mask was seen wandering the nearby area at about 11 that night. But because of his face mask, they weren’t sure what he looked like.
Then, an officer whom I had never seen before shared his findings. It turned out that he was a bomb disposal technician from the bureau. He said that the explosion showed signs of artificial tampering and the murderer’s technique was quite professional, having constructed a crude homemade bomb using magnesium strips, an alarm clock, phosphorus extracted from commercial fertilizers, and the gas tank in the victim's house. The angle of the blast allowed for an immediate collapse of the entire building structure which demonstrated how professional the murderer was, comparable to a demolition expert!
After Bingxin shared the lab results, Xiaotao asked me if I had anything to say. ”I just drew a picture,” I said, standing up. “Let's all have a look at it!”
Xiaotao asked an officer to turn on the projector and placed my pencil drawing on it. When the drawing was projected onto the white screen, the officers looked alarmed.
What I drew was a man in armor walking on red-hot charcoal. I summed up my hypothesis, ”This is what it looked like when the victim was murdered!”
”Why would anyone specially forge a suit of armor just to murder someone?” asked Xiaotao.
Staring at the screen, I said, ”Don't you think his death resembles a sort of performance?”
”Performance?” Xiaotao looked at me in consternation.
“Doesn’t this remind you a lot of torture by the Bronze Toaster?” I prompted. “Ancient people had little to amuse themselves with, so what better entertainment than an execution? They used to watch executions with relish, the ancient equivalent of watching a movie. The murderer tortured the victim with much effort and then destroyed the body with an explosion. There seems to be no point to that entire process. I imagine he must’ve recorded the torture so others can enjoy watching it, or perhaps it was for his own gratification.”
When I put forward this hypothesis, there was immediate opposition. ”But there was no armor found at the scene,” argued one of the officers.
”The victim was tortured elsewhere,” I concluded. “Just think about it. How loud would someone scream if they were tortured in such a cruel manner? The victim was most likely tortured in a secluded location isolated from everyone else, perhaps an underground club, where the murderer tortured the victim to satisfy his audience’s twisted urges.”
”Song Yang, isn’t your idea a bit exaggerated?” Xiaotao remained skeptical. “If such a place indeed exists in Nanjiang City, why haven’t we heard about it?”
”I'm sorry, I might have gone a bit too far with my speculations but I still think the performance nature of the crime is a valid explanation,” I said.
Other officers seemed to agree with me as well, but another policeman asked, ”How do you explain the pinhole camera we found at the scene?”
”Perhaps the behind-the-scenes boss didn’t trust the person who destroyed the corpse and asked him to record the whole process,” I ventured. “Or maybe the destruction of the corpse was another performance!”
As soon as the words fell, the room erupted into vociferous discussion. Xiaotao rapped her knuckles on the table, motioning for the room to settle down. ”If this is the case, then this crime is a serious provocation to the police and the murderer must be arrested!”
Xiaotao assigned tasks to the officers, mainly to investigate the surrounding areas of Nanjiang City and to look for secret rooms, basements, old warehouses and places of the like to determine the first crime scene. But I was a little worried because I had a nagging suspicion that this was the first of a serial murder case and we would soon discover the next victim.
A few days later, we hadn’t made much progress with the case. Although Lao Yao found the video converter at the crime scene, it was severely damaged so he couldn’t recover any data at all. During the rubble removal, the fire brigade found the remaining corpse fragments, including the victim’s internal organs. At least the victim’s family would have a complete corpse to bury. But the murderer had been so thorough that even the restoration of the corpse contributed little information.