But what it really conveyed to him, the inspector knew only too well. Melong must have got something specific – too specific for him to talk about on the phone.

The sickly inspector had no choice but to go there, but he still had some time, so he tried to make another attempt at the report after taking two more pills for his badly upset stomach.

Standing in front of the crowded station, Detective Yu started typing a text message.

‘A man from Lou’s apartment building came out early this morning, jogging for a few minutes before taking subway trains to the New World, and jogging around there for a while before he headed back. I followed him all the time, and—’

He stopped typing. He was going to say it was the husband of the patient named Shen who’d passed away in the hospital seven days before the death of the first victim.

But things were suspicious, and Inspector Chen too must have a lot on his plate. Yu decided to do something more on his own before he would send the message to the inspector so early in the morning. Chen had looked so sick at the café, and Yu did not think it really had a lot to do with coffee.

So Detective Yu decided to go to the neighborhood committee with the pictures in his cellphone.

Around seven fifty, Detective Yu arrived at the office of Zabei Park neighborhood committee again.

It was still early, but luckily enough one retiree neighborhood activist there was capable of getting several of the committee members into the office for him. Yu was able to show the pictures he had just taken of the morning jogger to them. They immediately confirmed it was Lou.

Sitting around the long desk in the office, they were very cooperative, each of them trying to say something about what he or she knew regarding Lou. With their permission, Yu put a mini recorder on the desk so that he could listen more carefully later. If need be, he could also give a copy to Chen, though he wondered whether the inspector might have the time for it.

‘The Lous have lived in our neighborhood for less than a year. Newly married, they passed around wedding candies in the building, amiable to all the neighbors there. But Lou’s been a changed man since his wife got sick.’

‘That’s understandable for the newly married husband. Just about a month after their moving in, the wife was admitted into hospital. Heartbroken, he was heard crying like a baby at night! And he has been making an unbelievably big deal of the seven-seven ritual for her, spending money like water for the meal dedicated to her.’

‘He behaves as if it’s the end of the world for him. According to a neighbor in his building, he has shut himself up in the room since her death, mourning with her pictures against his bosom for hours, and hardly coming out. Not even for the work at the company. In a matter of time he’ll lose his job. It cannot go on like that. Neighbors are sympathetic toward him.’