1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 962: Behind the Murder
Su Tong is the only clear insider found in the process of solving Hassan's murder so far. Perhaps only he knows the real purpose of Hassan's trip to Victory Port, which is very likely to be the real reason for Hassan's murder—of course Now, it may also be the reason for his murder.

Although there is no definite evidence to join the Su Tong case and the Hassan case, the members of the task force all subconsciously believe that the two cases are closely related.However, there are obvious differences in the modus operandi of the two cases, which is also the main reason why the task force cannot make a conclusion for the time being.

"Maybe it's because the murderer didn't have enough time this time to slowly plan a murder method with fewer flaws." Fu Li raised a relatively large possibility: "We posted a reward notice to collect clues, but in fact, it only took one day. Assuming that the murderer also saw this notice, he must know that Hassan is dead and the police have discovered his body long ago. Doesn’t our method of concealing it show that the police are stepping up their investigation of the truth of Hassan’s death? Shopkeeper Su and Hassan I have met him, he may be an important insider, so the murderer must shut up shopkeeper Su completely to prevent his hidden danger from being exposed. He probably knows that we will soon find shopkeeper Su, but it is impossible to go to the business district The place where people come and go, so I rushed to Shopkeeper Su's house to lurk at the first time, and when he came back, he took advantage of his unpreparedness to attack directly."

It seems that the move of reward announcement has played the role of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it saves the task force the time and manpower required for large-scale investigations, and obtains key information directly and accurately. It may have made the murderer who was secretly observing the trend of the situation aware of the police's intentions, so he rushed to attack Su Tong, an important insider, before the police.Judging from the current results, it seems that this measure does more harm than good in the end, and instead brings the investigation of the case to a stalemate.

Zhang Qianzhi said: "We will wait for the autopsy report tomorrow to discuss the cause of Su Tong's death, but there is one thing we have to do immediately."

Fu Li said: "What's the matter?"

"There may be other employees in Nanyang Pavilion who know about Hassan, we must protect all of them now!" Zhang Qianzhi suggested: "Now check the list of employees immediately, and then gather these people together overnight. "

"I'll check the list." Lin Nan volunteered to take over the task.

Hassan went to Nanyang Pavilion to meet Su Tong. Since there were more than one witness outside, it is very likely that there were other employees in the store who also experienced what happened that day. If there are clues, then everyone who was present at that time will most likely become the target of his attack.Su Tong is already one step behind, and the special case team can no longer let the black hands behind the scenes continue to succeed.

However, there is one point that Zhang Qianzhi did not directly explain, that is, the employees in the Nanyang Pavilion store were a blind spot in the previous detection process. They knew the purpose of Hassan's visit to Nanyang Pavilion and could accurately grasp Su Tong's itinerary. A perfect persona.But if the employees were arrested directly, there would be a risk of scaring the snake again, so Zhang Qianzhi chose a more tactful way of saying it, anyway, get everyone back first, and then slowly interrogate and investigate.

When Lin Nan went to the Ministry of Commerce in Fort Victory to retrieve the list of Nanyang Pavilion employees, Zhang Qianzhi and Fu Li started investigating Su Tong's social relations on the spot.Although the task force basically determined that this matter was related to the Hassan case, other possibilities had to be ruled out first.

Su Tong was originally from Zhaoqing Prefecture, Guangdong Province. He was originally a subordinate of a major shareholder of Qiong Lianfa. After he was transferred to Sanya to work, he did not join Haihan's native place.And his family members are almost all in their hometown, except for an old slave, they didn't come to Sanya with him. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are working alone.There are only two main social relationships in the local area. One is the colleagues and subordinate employees of Nanyang Pavilion, and the other is some customers. For example, Hassan may be one of them.But Su Tong didn't have much contact with the neighbors where he lived. After all, the nature of his work was to leave early and return late, and the circle he came into contact with was quite different from the workers here, so he didn't have much in common.

The special case team basically stayed up all night, and the three led their teams back and forth across Victory Port.At dawn, the special case team gathered again at the Shengli Port Police Station to hold a meeting to report the progress of the case.

First of all, Fu Li reported the preliminary conclusion of the autopsy. He had been staring at Wu in the morgue for the autopsy in the middle of the night last night. At this time, his eyes were also bloodshot due to excessive fatigue, and they became red and scary.Wu Zuo's inspection results were basically consistent with what they saw at the scene. The fatal injury of the deceased was caused by a heavy object hitting the back of the head. Based on the scars, Wu Zuo speculated that the murder weapon might be a hard object such as a hammer.According to Su Tong's servant, there was no such tool in the house, and it seemed that the murder weapon was probably brought by the murderer himself. In other words, this was a premeditated murder incident.

Then Zhang Qianzhi and Lin Nan were responsible for the summons and investigation of other employees of Nanyang Pavilion. At this point, the case finally turned around—the people who were in the store on the day Hassan went to Nanyang Pavilion besides Su Tong. There is an employee named Li Qin, but the task force failed to find him at his residence last night.As for the other employees belonging to Nanyang Pavilion, all of them have been summoned to the case, and up to now they are still being interrogated separately.

"I have a premonition that this person was either silenced like Hassan and Su Tong, or it was related to the death of these two people, and he fled overnight!" Zhang Qianzhi made a bold guess: "I I don't believe that there are so many coincidences in the same case, and the sudden disappearance of Li Qin may allow us to find out the truth of the case."

At this time, someone whispered a few words next to Lin Nan. After listening, Lin Nan raised his hand to signal, and then took over Zhang Qianzhi's words: "The employees of Nanyang Pavilion said that Li Qin can do carpentry. He was responsible for all the repairs. In addition, our people found a toolbox in the Nanyang Pavilion shop, which contained an ax, chisel and saw, but the hammer was missing."

"I went to kill someone with an iron hammer in my pocket. Since I have decided to escape, I probably won't make a special trip to return the iron hammer." Fu Li immediately added: "I think we can issue an order to arrest this person." Now, this is two lives!"

"He may not be the one who killed Hassan." Lin Nan shook his head, not agreeing with Fu Li's speculation: "The killing methods used in the two cases are quite different. And we also investigated Li Qin's work schedule On the day Hassan was killed, Li Qin was working in the shop until after the street lights were turned on, and at that time Hassan and the mysterious figure had already met in Zuixian Tower."

"Then it's not Li Qin who Hassan met in Zuixian Tower?" This turning point was slightly beyond Fu Li's expectation.

"Judging from the evidence we have so far, it shouldn't be him. But the two cases are very coherent, and I also think there may be more than one murderer." Zhang Qianzhi agreed with Lin Nan's speculation: "But if Hassan is in The person I met in Zuixianlou is an accomplice of this Li Qin, so everything can be explained."

"As long as the person is caught, everything will be revealed." Fu Li got up and said, "Let's split up the notification first, and start to block the port area!"

It seems that there is only one step away from the truth. In order to prevent suspects from escaping, the port area must be the first place to set up a checkpoint.There were no ships leaving Shengli Port last night this morning, and the railway line with Sanya Port was also suspended. If this person is alive, he should still be in the Shengli Port area.The next thing the special task force has to do is to use the power at hand to investigate the area.

At the same time, the details of the case were also notified to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Security respectively. Serial murders like this with unclear motives are still quite rare in the Sanya area in the past two years. Only in this way can the various local units cooperate.

As a result, the Shengli Port area fell into a state of turmoil that has rarely been seen recently, and even the militia was mobilized to check people entering and leaving the port area at various intersections.Nanyang Pavilion is also temporarily closed, waiting for Qiong Lianfa's internal rectification.

On February [-], after two days of large-scale pursuit and arrest operations, they finally got something.In the canyon passage between Tiandu Industrial Zone and Tielu Port, the militiamen belonging to Fushandong captured a suspicious person who was trying to flee to the direction of Tielu Port. After identification, it was confirmed that this person was the one the task force was arresting. The target is Li Qin, an employee of Nanyang Pavilion.Because of the saltworks in Iron Furnace Port, there are often foreign salt ships entering and leaving the port area, and the local defense against foreigners is not like Shengli Port, which conducts one-by-one inspections, and it is indeed a route for escape.But Li Qin probably did not expect that Fushandong, who moved from the inland to settle in this canyon passage a few years ago, would actually become a stumbling block for him, blocking his escape passage from Sanya at the last moment.

The next interrogation work is also the part that Haihan's public security agency is best at. After Li Qin persisted for two hours, his mouth was pried open by the interrogators, and he admitted that he had killed Su Tong, and recruited him one after another. Discovered the inside story that shocked the task force.

Li Qin came to Sanya from Guangdong as an immigrant in 1632, and joined the Haihan naturalization at the end of that year.But before that, he was not a genuine Cantonese native, but a second-generation Chinese born in Manila.He was first recruited and trained by the Manila authorities, then secretly went to Guangdong, where he defected to the Haihan immigration camp as a refugee, and then came to Sanya to perform latent missions.After obtaining naturalization, he quickly got the opportunity to work in Nanyang Pavilion, and gradually turned it into an information exchange station.

"So the shopkeeper Su Tong is also your accomplice?"

"No, he is just a businessman who is greedy for money."

"What is Hassan's purpose in coming to Nanyang Pavilion?"

"Pass the news through Nanyang Pavilion and make an appointment with Du Da."

"Who is Duda?"

"It was my boss. Hassan killed him."

"What is this Duda's local identity?"

"I don't know...I only saw him in Nanyang Pavilion..."

As the interrogation progressed, the truth of the case was unearthed bit by bit.Hassan, a Persian businessman, was a messenger who secretly delivered information to the Spaniards. When he came to Sanya this time, he also brought a secret letter from the Manila authorities, and met Du Da, an intelligence officer lurking in the local area, through Nanyang Pavilion.But for some reason, Duda silenced Hassan and tried to evade detection by faking it as an accident.Of course, this trick didn't work. In the end, the Haihan police discovered the loophole because of the clues left behind.

When Duda found out that the police were offering a reward notice to investigate Hassan's murder, the first thing he thought of as the hidden danger that might expose him was Nanyang Pavilion.As long as the police find Nanyang Pavilion to inquire, it is not difficult to know that Hassan came here to meet him.So he immediately notified Li Qin, asking him to solve the hidden danger of Su Tong as soon as possible.This Li Qin didn't have as many routines as Du Da, but he knew the situation of Su Tong's home, so he rushed into the courtyard before Su Tong arrived, and then killed him with an iron hammer from behind when he was not prepared.

After Li Qin did this, he also knew that he might be suspected. He planned to escape by boat after dawn. As long as he left Sanya, he could go to other places.But no matter how hard he tried, he never thought that just after he killed Su Tong and left, the task force investigating the case arrived at the scene and deployed measures to hunt down the murderer overnight.As a result, Li Qin's original escape plan turned into a bursting soap bubble, and he had to find another way to leave Sanya.

The last solution Li Qin came up with was to cross the canyon from Tiandu to Iron Furnace Port, and see if he could take a salt boat to leave here.Although Li Qin knew that there was a shortcut between Tiandu and Tielugang, he didn't know that ordinary people were not allowed to pass through this passage. The Dongli people in Fushan are responsible for the task of guarding this place.Unknown people like Li Qin who tried to pass through the local area were naturally blocked. In a panic, the Li militia soon realized that something was wrong, detained him and reported it to the Tiandu police.

But Li Qin didn't know much about his immediate boss, the man code-named Du Da.Apart from his general appearance, he didn't even know what the other party's public identity in Sanya was, let alone where he settled down.And all the past contacts between them were that the other party came to Nanyang Pavilion on his own initiative according to a certain schedule, and Du Da had always given him instructions, but he didn't know Du Da's daily movements.

"Find someone to draw the picture first, and then inform all units to assist in the investigation." After receiving the report, Ren Liang gave instructions to the task force: "As long as this person is still in Sanya, he must be found out!"

(End of this chapter)