Fateful Consequences: A Guardian Story

Zhao Yunlan's team had now interviewed each of the girls, and in some cases boys, working for Deng Bin.  Of course, he knew that none of them had anything to do with the murder, but they had been able to provide some useful insight into the victim.

Once again, Shen Wei had hit the nail on the head.  Whilst it was true that they all looked healthy and well cared for, they were not happy.  Most had been brought from abroad, their passports and identification papers taken away as soon as they arrived.  The money that the men handed over to spend time with them went straight into the pockets of Deng Bin and his associates, so they saw little to none of it.

The excuse was that they would start earning larger amounts once they had paid off the cost of being brought into the country, but in reality, the young men and women, not much older than children, were treated as objects.  Used and then discarded as soon as they became too old for the clients' tastes or too sick to work.

The hunt to identify a suspect with a connection to both of the victims was proving to be an uphill battle.  Unsurprisingly, Deng Bin had not kept registers of his clients.  Those types of men paid handsomely for the assurance of anonymity.  Consequently, all they could do was ask the workers themselves if their clients had ever mentioned Wen Kai, the Imperial History Museum, or a passing interest in the Chinese emperors, but thus far, they were drawing a blank.

As far as the legitimate staff in the fronting businesses were concerned, the victim had had very little interaction with them.  The bar where the body had been found was run by a dedicated manager, and he was the only one who had any kind of regular contact with Deng Bin.  His alibi had been checked and confirmed.  He was at home with his wife on the other side of town at the time of the murder, which had been between the hours of 4.00am and 6.00am.

However, he had told them that it was not unusual for his boss to use the space for meetings or just to have a quiet drink after the place had kicked out the final stragglers, which was always at 3.30am on the dot, with the staff all leaving at 4.00am after a brief clear up.  It also meant that there was someone on-site to receive the occasional late night/early morning deliveries, Deng Bin being too tight to pay anyone overtime for that purpose.

As of this morning, they had moved on to looking at whether there had been any such deliveries scheduled, and also, as a different line of enquiry, the victim's business rivals, but no one with a connection to either the curator or the museum was emerging.

Yunlan sat back in his chair, lifted his arms towards the ceiling, and stretched out, arching his back like a cat.  It had been an exhausting morning.  He had not been home since the previous day but had managed to catch a few hours' sleep on a sofa in the corner of the bullpen just before dawn.  However, if anything, it had only succeeded in making him more tired, and the words on the computer screen were now swimming in front of his eyes.

He lowered his arms as Da Qing entered.

"Why don't you go home, Yunlan?  You look like crap, and there's nothing more you can do here.  Everyone knows what they're supposed to be working on, and it will be a few hours before we get Zhu Hong's full report."

Zhao Yunlan had never liked being told what to do, but he had to admit that his friend was right.  In his present state, he was no use to anyone.  He grabbed his coat and car keys.

"Fine.  But call me as soon as you get anything.  And I mean anything.  No matter how insignificant."

"Yes boss!"

Thirty minutes later he was stumbling through his apartment front door, sleep the only thing on his mind.  He face-planted onto his bed, and the world mercifully disappeared.