147 Exposed
Shen Yin drove to the vicinity of Rongsheng Restaurant and stopped. She and Zou Sheng checked if there were surveillance cameras installed at the entrance of the shops that Hu Jin and Wang Gang might have passed by.
After searching the entire street, Zou Sheng dejectedly handed Shen Yin a bottle of water he had bought from the convenience store and said, “Sister, what should we do? This place is too remote. Few houses install cameras. They want to save money.”
Shen Yin unscrewed the bottle and took a sip. She frowned and said, “Let’s search again. Maybe we’ve missed something.”
As they were talking, they suddenly saw a woman holding a basin of water in her hand and angrily scolding several naughty five or six-year-old children. “You brats, I’ve finally caught you. You were the ones who broke my glass with a ball, right?”
“It wasn’t us, it wasn’t us.” The children firmly and stubbornly denied it. They even secretly made faces at the angry woman.
“How dare you deny it! My son specially installed a camera for me to catch you brats! I’ll call the police now and ask your families to compensate me!” The woman took out her phone and prepared to make a call.
Shen Yin immediately jogged over with Zou Sheng and asked softly, “Hello, is it true that you’ve installed a camera at home?”
The woman looked at them warily and asked, “What business is it of yours?”
Shen Yin took out her police badge and smiled. “You don’t have to call the police. We’re the police. We can help you deal with this matter, but can you do us a favor too?”
“So you’re a police officer!” The woman smiled when she thought that she could save herself some trouble “Sure, how can I help you?”
Shen Yin asked, “Where do you live? How large an area does your camera cover?”
“Oh.” The woman pointed at a broken glass window on the second floor of the old building and said, “I live there. These children broke my glass several times before so my son bought a surveillance camera for me to use. I don’t really know how to use it, but the footage is really clear. It can record the entire empty space in front of this building.”
The woman lived in the old building behind Rongsheng Restaurant. If it could record this entire area, it might have captured some clues.
Shen Yin immediately said in delight, “May we make a copy of the surveillance video?”
“Yes, of course.” The woman warmly invited the two police officers upstairs. When they reached the door of the house, she suddenly stopped and said hesitantly, “Then about the children just now and the compensation for my window glass…”
“Don’t worry.” Shen Yin smiled and nodded. “I’ve already informed my colleagues to handle this matter. Please let us to look at the surveillance camera first.”
“Okay, okay.” After receiving Shen Yin’s assurance, the woman relaxed and hurriedly invited them into the house. She poured hot tea for them and smiled as she let them check the surveillance cameras.
Zou Sheng took out the tablet he carried with him. After a few simple steps, he snapped his fingers. “Done.”
Shen Yin smiled and shook hands with the woman. “You’ve helped us a lot this time. Sorry to trouble you. We’ll get going first.”
“Take care, Officers.” The woman politely saw them out. Then, she received a call from the police station in charge of this street. She beamed as she listened to the amount of compensation the police gotten from the parents of the children.
Shen Yin and Zou Sheng could not wait to return to the police station. They started watching the surveillance footage in the car.
They rewound the footage to the night of the murder. Although there were no street lamps near the old building, the surveillance cameras had captured Hu Jin.
It was two o’clock in the morning on the night of Tan Li’s murder.
This corresponded to Hu Jin’s statement. He only found out that his wife had mysteriously disappeared after working overtime at the office that night.
Shen Yin watched the man in the surveillance cameras tiredly walk by the alley and said coldly, “Let’s forward it little.”
Zou Sheng did as he was told.
The two of them stared at the surveillance footage, but no one related to the case appeared.
When the time was set to 10 p.m., the entire old building grew silent. Most of the residents here were old people and the shops would shut when the sun set. Even the lights in the residents’ houses were switched off.
Suddenly, a silver-white car barged into the view of the surveillance camera.
Shen Yin and Zou Sheng looked at each other and subconsciously held their breaths. When the car completely disappeared from the surveillance cameras’ range, Zou Sheng hurriedly fast forwarded through the surveillance video. Based on the video, the car only left at 10.20pm.
Unfortunately, the footage was too dark to see the person in the car. Fortunately, the surveillance camera had captured the license plate of the car.
Without another word, Zou Sheng hacked into the Traffic Administration’s website and entered the license plate number they had seen in the video. Wang Gang’s personal information appeared in front of him.