Francis has a feeling that with the background of the deceased, the autopsy results, and the physical evidence, the truth is not far away, or even within reach.
The SCIU seems to be trapped by the fixed mindset, like ants without a sense of three-dimensional space, crawling in the same direction all the time, turning back when they hit the wall, going round and round, and never getting out of the experimental labyrinth.
They may need to ‘climb over the wall’. Instead of bumping around on the ground looking for a way out, circling, and ending up in the same place, they should find a high ground to look at the whole picture and work out the fastest route.
Both of them are thinking in their own way. John is thinking about exploring different aspects of the investigation, while Francis is reflecting on the process of deduction itself. Still, both of them have the same ultimate goal in mind, and they remain silent for a while.
After a while, Francis feels that it's a bit too quiet, and finally elbows John next to him to break the silence.
"John, I want to solve this case really badly."
"Why?" John asked, in response to his words.
"Hm? Do you really want to know?"
"Aren't we roommates? It's important to communicate with each other." John said.
Francis walks to the window, takes a deep breath, and then exhales the whole breath from his lungs.
Hecticity has serious air pollution. Adding that the Choi Fung Building is old, there is dust in front of the window light flying. Inhaling too much is bad for health, but since the case has stuck at this point, Francis is gloomy and has to use deep breaths as a way to get himself refreshed.
John realises that the person beside him is obviously expressing his feelings, and only then does he completely pull himself out of his own thoughts. He turns his head to look at Francis, and carefully asks him again, "I want to know why. Do you want to tell me?"
"I feel that part of the reason why I want to solve the case is because of my personal feelings," said Francis, "Apart from forensic pathology, I chose criminal psychology for my other PhD degree, and that is due to personal reasons too. Honestly, I didn't plan to study for an extra PhD degree, but somehow I did, and when I thought about it again afterward, perhaps it was just to face the past more rationally..."
Francis recalls his childhood in a calm, even light tone as if he is recounting a beautiful fairy tale, but his hands are clasped and trembling slightly, making it obvious that some parts of his memories are not that pleasant.
The story begins with the "highly internationalised" history of the prostitution business in Hecticity.
After the British took over Hecticity, it was opened as a free port with free access to capital, people, and goods. This brought in a large influx of Europeans, Americans, Japanese, Indians, and Southeast Asians, with British sailors and seafarers from all over the world being the main source of customers.
At the time, sailors and seamen disembarked at the Royal Navy base or at the cargo terminals in Hecicity, which led to the emergence of pubs and brothels, ranging from high-class ballrooms to the more commonplace "big numbers" (Note: the brothels were marked by the street number written in big letters on the door).
Francis's biological father, a sailor of mixed English and French descent, met Francis's mother, a young local hostess, in a nightclub when he was sailing to Hecticity last century.
In those days, women's education was lagging behind and she knew nothing about contraception. After a one-night fling, she accidentally became pregnant.
Yet, the sailor, with his charming curly hair and blue eyes, is a womaniser, unwilling to take any responsibility for his love affairs.
Three months later, when the freighter was about to depart, the sailor wanted to leave and the hostess wanted him to stay, so they quarrelled and fought in a nightclub suite. Francis's mother accidentally swept a vase off the shelf; it tipped over and killed the sailor by mistake.
She fled from the nightclub in a panic, and with the little money she had saved, she hid in the darker slums of Hecticity, where she gave birth to Francis.
"S-She was afraid of the accidental killing," Francis said.
When Francis was a baby, he had the impression that his mother would wake up in the middle of the night and scream, scaring away the john who was sleeping next to her. When she sold herself and didn't receive any money, she held her son and cried helplessly until morning.
However, at some point, she seemed to decide to move on, but she was also like going completely insane.
She was dressed up again. She picked rainy nights and midnights to go out alone without an umbrella. She would get completely soaked at the taxi stand to seduce taxi drivers and passengers.
When John hears this, he cannot help but take a breath of cold air and realises who Francis's mother is.
Rika To, the first serial killer in Hecticity ever since there was an official record of serious crimes, murdered thirteen johns on thirteen rainy nights.
This old case was then a shock to the city. Hecticans have since remembered her and there is no one but knows it. They have given this female killer Rika To a creepy nickname, "The Rainy Night Butcher".
It's just that the media didn't mention that the killer was a single mum with a baby son... The record kept in the Police Force didn't contain any records of this piece of information as well!
Francis - the son of the Rainy Night Butcher?
John remembers that his mother, a primary school teacher, like many other parents at that time, loved to warn her children by using the story of the Rainy Night Butcher.
"Don't go out and wander around in the rain, or else you'll be abducted by the Rainy Night Butcher and have your heart ripped out and stored in a suitcase!" This was how those parents warned their children.
John also remembers that the TV channels in Hecitcity would from time to time re-play films and TV productions based on the crime committed by Rainy Night Butcher, and very often, they were pornographic horror films such as ‘13 Bloody Rainy Nights’ and ‘The Heart Reaper’, which had left him with terrible memories.
But it is no wonder that the Hecticans remembered this wicked woman and kept talking about her over the years. Rika To was just a frail woman, but with her charm and seductive skills, she hunted men taller and stronger than her. Her way of killing was extremely bloody and secretive, and the police had been blindfolded for a long time.
If it was not for Rika To's obsession with keeping "souvenirs" that led to her exposure, there would have been many more taxi drivers and passengers who would have fallen into the trap of lust and disembowelled by a steel saw.
In the eyes of the old men, Rika was as pure as the moonlight, like a forgotten first love whose name they had long forgotten, appearing before them once again with an everlasting charm.
Amid the rain, their hearts fluttered, as if the closer they got to her, the younger they would become, and then, with her eager gaze, they couldn't help but feel adrift, and eagerly dragged her away, ready to show off their masculinity once again.
In the eyes of married men, she was young and beautiful. She could wave boldly and openly, and she could lean into their arms and whisper too - which is very different from their dull, worn-out wives at home.
She was like a timely rain which brought nourishment to their boring work and family life. She could revitalise not only their bodies but also their dry souls.
In the eyes of the young boys, she was a charming young married woman who had been abandoned or roughly treated by her husband, which was why she was out in the rain in such a miserable state. The way she looked at them and the tone of her voice when she talked to them was full of sorrow which aroused their desire to protect her, and they couldn't wait to prove themselves to her that they were a true strong man.
This woman didn't kill for money. She just wanted to lure men to her tiny, shadowy home.
After the poor victims were poisoned to death, Rika cut up the body with a hacksaw in front of her son, then she discarded the body parts and leaving only the heart, which she stuffed into a large suitcase full of garlic and mothballs and placed it under the bed.
From time to time, she would take out the hearts one by one and teach her son to count.
"My little Frank, look, this goes one, two, three, four... These men love me so much that they have given me their hearts".
And sometimes she would say, ‘Men in this world are very good at cheating and won't love others with their true hearts. So I have to lie to them too, to keep their hearts forever."
Eventually, the stench of the rotting hearts became so strong and unbearable that the neighbours began to suspect that something was wrong. It was then the crimes were revealed.
Francis recalls softly, "She heard her neighbour call the police and realised that the police were on the way, but she didn't want to leave me and run away herself. She poured out all her beloved rotting hearts and hid me in that suitcase to flee together."
Rika To took off her high heels and threw them away, dragging her suitcase and running barefoot, as terrified as the day she killed her lover by mistake. Her hair was as messy as a mad woman, and she knocked down pedestrians and ran across the streets frantically, and finally reached the pier.
"My little Frank, don't be afraid - there's a ship ahead! A ship with a British flag! " she shouted in ecstasy, "Your father has come back for us at last! He's on the ship, can you see him? I'm now bringing you to him - he's going to take us to England!"
But she seemed to have forgotten that her lover had been killed by her, and she also seemed to be unaware that she was jumping into the sea with her son.
"The suitcase was buoyant, and I was saved before it went completely underwater, but she didn't know how to swim and drowned."
Francis, the son of Rica To, was only three years old when he witnessed all those mutilations and lived with thirteen severely rotten hearts. He turned out not to be afraid of blood or corpses at all. When he was living in the public children's home, he would pick up the corpses of sparrows, rats, and frogs, cut them up, and study them, which scared all the other children and made him a freak.
He once suspected that his mother was born with a criminal trait and was destined to become a murderer. Even if there were no such a series of changes in her life, the gene in her body would have awakened at some point, and she would still resort to killing to satisfy her desire for possession.
Could he have inherited her criminal traits and become a devil like her?
Fortunately, when Francis was six years old, he was adopted by Kingswell Fung, a retired doctor, who made up for the missing paternal guidance, and then Francis went to the United Kingdom, where he studied and grew up properly, and got his concepts right.
When Francis finishes telling his story, he laughs, "Commander, as you see, your roommate is the son of a murderer. Do you want to make an arrest?"
John, who lacks a sense of humour, does not notice that this is a joke and replies seriously, "I won't arrest you."
"Oh? Why not?"
John does not know what is the most appropriate thing to say. He deliberates for a while before replying, "You are not the one who killed. I think it doesn't matter what your background is. As long as you enjoy your life and have a goal to achieve - it doesn't have to be great, but it's worth striving for - that will be fine."
"That's a good way of looking at it. Of course, in my opinion about life, I'd like to add a little bit of British humour to the mix." Francis winks with a sharp wit. ‘So, can we settle down again based on our philosophical understanding of life?"
"Actually, I don't understand why you were angry in the dorm." John scratches his head in embarrassment. "But I sincerely apologise for offending you in any way."
"Throw that bloody thermometer away and that's all."
"Oh." John is still puzzled, but he promises honestly, "I'll throw it away when I get back. I promise you won't see it again."
‘I was just thinking about how to think out of the box, and I don't know why I suddenly started to talk to you about life. Am I getting in the way of your investigation?"
"Not at all. The case is jammed and those few minutes do not matter. What did you mean by thinking out of the box?"
"It means to think differently and not be limited by our existing mindset. I believe that the evidence collected in this case was quite enough, and we just need that one essential puzzle to make up the whole picture."
At this moment, there is an idea coming up in John's head that disappears in the next second like a tiny flash of light.
What was that? Before he chatted with Francis, he felt like his brain had stopped functioning! Could it be that there is something in their conversation that inspired him?
"Dr. To, could you repeat what you just said?"
"Hey, you weren't listening at all?" Francis glared at him. "I still have a sore throat. Is this how you treat your special consultant?"
"Oh sorry, of course not. I just suddenly felt that a certain thing you said just now seems to be helpful to the case - Dr. To, please, do me a favour." John pleads urgently.
Francis is just joking, and he is not going to refuse him.
"It's impossible to repeat the whole thing word by word, perhaps I give you a rough idea? Hm, I had a miserable childhood, I don't know my father's name, and my mother is a cruel serial killer whose first kill was an accident but the later ones turned into murders, and she dismembered the bodies with a hacksaw..."
Francis speaks slowly. Seeing John puzzled and couldn't find the origin of inspiration, he cannot help but laugh.
"Are you guessing that my mother has crawled out of her coffin to commit a crime?"
John rubs his forehead in frustration, "No way...I just feel that we have missed a very insignificant but crucial person in our investigation."
The suspects on the current list are all with motive, but they cannot be matched with the physical evidence.
Working gloves, imitation leather, screwdriver, lubricant. All these are industrial products or supplies. They just seem to have nothing to do with prostitutes, johns, and landlord.
But at this stage, the police cannot conclude that it was a stranger who committed the crime either because there is still one more person being the prime suspect.
Joan Wong's ghost-like boyfriend. This is probably the person who missed out in the investigation.
"You just mentioned the Rainy Night Butcher, and I have a feeling that there is something in common with this case." John tries to comb through his thoughts. "The modus operandi (method) of the murderer in this case is highly secretive... a bit like the Rainy Night Butcher, isn't it? Could it be like the Rainy Night Butcher because of their occupation..."
John's words come to a halt.
Francis also slightly widens his eyes.
"Ah!" The two of them look at each other and exclaim in unison.
"Taxi driver, it's the taxi driver! We have completely missed out on such a person! Fibres from working gloves, scraps of imitation leather, wounds made by a screwdriver, traits of lubricant attached... That person can enter and exit the scene with ease... Not so familiar to the resident of Choi Fung Building, but at the same time not to be taken as suspicious!"
"A round applause to the Rainy Night Butcher, my deadliest murderous mum, for helping the police to solve a case in a coffin." Francis pretends to be poker-faced and says something serious, and the next moment he is amused by his not-so-funny British humour. "Time to catch the culprit!"
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