Liu Hao explained to me that the police usually don’t use ordinary people as informants, it’s too dangerous, and for cases this big, they usually try to get their own people on the inside.
An informer is called a peg, and the person who scatters the pegs is called a stakeholder. A peg is identified by only one stakeholder, and they are connected by a single line, and the leader will at most know that such a person exists, but will never know who the person is.
The work of the police is very dangerous, even more so when they are deep in the enemy’s heart, so the protection of their informants is even more important.
“Haozi has been a police officer for so many years, I don’t believe he will say anything.”
I nodded, this was something I could check with Liu Hao again.
“Now all the lines are broken, maybe the only lead left is the old ghost’s wife, she’s looking for something the old ghost hid, that thing even the crime syndicate wants, we’ll get the rest of them all together after we get that first.” I said.
Xia Gehuai laughed bitterly, “Easier said than done, the biggest problem is, where to find it?”
I let out a long sigh, that was a problem close at hand.
As the four of us were frowning, there was a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Lao Wu said nervously.
“Team Wu, is the statement still being taken? The room is ready.”
We didn’t want to arouse suspicion, so the play still had to be done in full, and Lao Wu whispered to us, “We’ll be in touch when we get back.”
Then he yelled outside at the top of his lungs, “Here it comes!”
He admonished us, “What we say today must be kept secret to the public.”
I said, “You too.”
After that we went with the little policeman to take statements, answering whatever was asked, nothing special.
I felt the need to talk to Haozi, there was some information that it would be easier to find out if we both exchanged.
But in order to get rid of the fake Baldy, I had to “sacrifice” Liu Hao.
After we had finished taking our statements, we had just walked out of the hall when a Land Rover pulled up in front of us.
I said, “Team Liu, since when can you afford to drive a Land Rover?”
Liu Hao said, “This is my friend’s car, I drove it here after paying my respects to the New Year and rushed over to pick you up.”
I took a look at the bald guy in the back seat, damn, it was exactly the same person as the real bald guy, I really couldn’t tell any difference, the face and eyes were similar.
I forgot that I should have reminded Old Wu to do a DNA comparison between the bald guy and Yun Dye, maybe I could identify this fake bald guy.
Baldy still said very little, sat back and greeted me in a nonchalant manner, no different from before.
I was afraid that if I looked too long, I would reveal a flaw, as I was already very surprised inside, so I hurriedly turned back and stopped looking at him.
Liu Hao came over and said to me secretly, “This friend of yours, he’s good at everything, but he’s just too scary, he’s been pestering me since yesterday, he won’t leave me an inch, my god, I’m getting annoyed.”
I wanted to say that Zhao Zichen had done it, but I didn’t say it, I just laughed furiously in my heart, Zhao Zichen was such a genius, he could think of such a desperate solution.
It wasn’t that the bald man had to listen to Zhao Zichen, but the real bald man would definitely listen to Zhao Zichen, and if this bald man didn’t listen, then he would immediately be exposed. The fake one had to act more like the real one than the real one in order not to reveal himself.
I said, “Can you kid be so kind as to come and pick us up? Aren’t you supposed to be walking your relatives today.”
Liu Hao suddenly licked his face and smiled, which I felt was not simple.
As expected, Liu Hao said, “I’m going to my uncle’s house tomorrow. My uncle’s family is doing well, and his two sons are both PhDs, unlike me who is a cop. He has eyes up to his head and looks down on me very much, so I thought, get two bottles of good wine to go, buddy, give me the Black Fang you bought last time, you don’t go to relatives anyway.”
Zhao Zichen deliberately sneered, “It seems you really are a good, clean cop who is not corrupt, black fang is considered expensive in your eyes.”
Liu Hao said, “That’s not true, all foreign wine is expensive. Anyway, my uncle doesn’t really know how to buy it, so I’ll just give him one to fool him.”
I suddenly remembered and said, “No, didn’t you leave the wine to the old man’s wife? I remember I tripped on my way out, and the two bottles of Black Fang were given away long ago.”
Zhao Zichen, however, retorted, “No, I carried the wine back.”
Xia Gehuai said, “Maybe Zhang Chao tripped first, and then Zhao Zichen carried the wine downstairs.”
I said nervously, “No, when we withdrew that day, it was clear that Zhao Zichen was in front of me, he went out first, and then I went downstairs.”
Baldy watched us silently and said coldly, “The bottle of wine might have been bought by the family themselves.”
It was a possibility, but all three of us present knew it was impossible; Li, the old devil’s family, was so poor that the walls were falling off, so where would they have the money to buy the Black Fang.
And if he had bought it, why didn’t he drink it or give it away? Instead, they just casually placed it in the foyer?
The two bottles of wine were in the same bag as the ones we brought over.
Again I asked, “Lao Zhao, did you really bring the wine back with you?”
“It’s true, it’s in the living room at home.”
Many memories passed through my head like lightning, and in just a few dozen seconds I had figured out many things, clues that I had found a long time ago, but it had never occurred to me that they might be the same thing, and therefore it had never occurred to me to think of them all as the same thing.
I snapped back to my senses and said to Liu Hao, who was driving, “Go to the tobacco and liquor store.”
“That tobacco and wine shop?”
“The one where we buy foreign wine on the morning of the first day of the year, quick, the quicker the better!”
The day I went to buy wine on the first day of the New Year, the owner had told me that someone had put something in his place and had given him a few thousand dollars to open on the first day of the New Year and would pick it up then.
This person was probably Old Ghost, because Old Ghost couldn’t have gone to buy such expensive wine, his family was very poor.
And as soon as this wine was bought it was put in the side corner, and it looked like the two of them hadn’t thought about what to do with the drink.
It is likely that the old devil saw the tobacco and liquor shop that day and in order not to draw attention to himself, he bought the liquor and left the stuff in the liquor shop by the way.
Liu Hao probably guessed it too, and without asking me why, the car went straight to the foreign wine shop in a frenzy.
After a quarter of an hour, our car pulled up in front of the foreign wine shop, and a few of us rushed out of the car. The owner was receiving a customer and was startled by our heavy panting and footsteps, and he looked up and recognised me with a glance.
“It’s you, wait a moment.” He went on to ask the customer he was tending to at hand, “What did you just say?”
The guest said, “Never mind, go ahead and get busy, I’ll have another look.”
The owner of the wine shop was particularly happy to see me, I was a potential big customer for him.
I got straight to the point and asked if anything had been taken that someone had left with him the other day.