Fog City Detective

Chapter 9: Breakfast

After Liang Xi finished speaking, the car jerked a few times and slowly slid forward for a dozen meters before stopping by the roadside.

The woman was annoyed, "Are you playing tricks on me?"

Liang Xi quickly raised his hands, "No, absolutely not. The fuel gauge is here." Damn it!

The woman leaned forward, and the dim light inside the car made it hard to see the dashboard. Liang Xi reached for his phone to use as a light, but the woman grabbed his wrist, stared at him, and asked, "What are you trying to do?"

"Using the phone as a flashlight," Liang Xi felt the strength and dared not move recklessly, saying, "To let you see clearly."

"No need," she said. She had sensed that something was off with Liang Xi. If he could tell she wasn't an ordinary person, he was too calm. If he considered her an ordinary person, he shouldn't have had such a cooperative attitude. The woman let go of Liang Xi's wrist, opened the car's central drawer, and pulled out a driver's license.

Using the interior car light to take a glance, she said, "John?"

Liang Xi said, "It's me."

The woman remarked, "The photo doesn't match."

Liang Xi explained, "I meant to say: I'm his grandson."

Before the woman could ask more, a black seven-seater van pulled up beside them. The woman tossed John's driver's license onto the front passenger seat, held the gun with her left hand, pressed her right forearm against the wound, and opened the car door with her right hand. While doing all these actions, she kept a vigilant eye on Liang Xi.

As the van's rear door opened, and the woman was about to get in, Liang Xi rolled down the window and called out, "Hey."

The woman turned back, "What?"

Liang Xi asked, "Could you spare some gasoline?"

The woman turned back to get into the van, closed the door, and the car sped away.

Liang Xi got out of the car, hands on hips, watching the van's taillights, feeling frustrated, "Damn MI." If he hadn't lost the 60 kilograms of the woman, he could have maintained a steady speed of 80 kilometers per hour and likely covered the remaining four kilometers. Would he need to refuel in London? No, he wouldn't bother. The towing bill would be John's, and he could take the 24-hour subway home.

Liang Xi had concluded that the woman was not a bad person, but she might be a good person gone rogue. The tone and attitude of her questions, the gun-handling, the composed emotions, the alertness—all indicated this. This had also saved her life; otherwise, if Liang Xi had seized the opportunity to break, she would have pierced through the windshield and been run over.

What Liang Xi couldn't be sure of was whether the woman belonged to MI5 or MI6.

Now, all Liang Xi could do was wait for the tow truck in the dark and return to London with it. However, good deeds were repaid with kindness. Just when Liang Xi was about to make a rescue call, a passing driver helped him. The driver siphoned some gasoline from his own tank for the Beetle. Liang Xi hypocritically handed him £10, and the driver graciously accepted before shaking hands with Liang Xi without any courtesy.

Liang Xi first drove to a well-lit area in the suburbs, and used drinking water from the trunk along with a cloth to wipe away the bloodstains left by the woman in the back seat. Finally, driving through the early morning, he reached John's house around four in the morning. Liang Xi felt a bit smug inside, having calculated the gasoline to its limit, almost bringing the car into the garage just as the fuel was about to run out. He imagined John starting the vehicle and being bewildered by the fuel gauge; he would probably wake up laughing from this dream tonight. There's a cost to calculating me.

The garage had a partition, which was Liang Xi's residence during high school. Mary was dissatisfied with John's decision to let Liang Xi stay in the garage; she believed he could live with them. Liang Xi agreed with this, but John remained noncommittal. After living together for half a month, Liang Xi quietly moved to the garage because Mary was too enthusiastic. She would knock on the door for no reason, bring snacks, and tea, and chat with Liang Xi. She also corrected some bad habits, such as Liang Xi lying down and throwing things around when he returned, making the table messy, etc.

Although the garage compartment was simple, it was the first personal space Liang Xi had ever owned. Here, he could freely put up posters of celebrities, play pop music, and even do a crab dance on the spot if he felt like it.

After Liang Xi went to college, the bed, tables, and a few pieces of furniture were covered with dust covers. Liang Xi pulled half of the bedspread, as he only slept on half of the bed. Without freshening up, he took off his pants and socks, threw them at the end of the bed, and lay down to sleep.

...

At seven in the morning, Liang Xi was promptly awakened by his biological clock. He left the garage, had breakfast on the front lawn, and exchanged greetings with Mary and John, who were breathing in the fresh air. Liang Xi went to the first-floor bathroom to wash and use the toilet. Returning to the front yard, Mary had already poured him a cup of tea.

Liang Xi placed the car keys in front of John, sat down, picked up a croissant, enjoyed his breakfast, and detailed the process of his investigation the previous day.

After listening, John asked, "What was the basis of your suspicion?"

Liang Xi replied, "Lawyer Cook was brought from London to Reading to witness a sealed will. Later, at the behest of the Earl, he rushed to Oxford and took a plane to France. Cook is an elderly man, and from what I know about the Earl's children, the Earl shouldn't have dispatched Cook in this way. I speculate it might be because the Earl ran out of time. Considering this line of inquiry, combined with various pieces of information, I arrived at the conclusion."

John nodded, "This case doesn't pose much difficulty for you."

Liang Xi disagreed, "It's not that simple. The most troubling aspects of this case for me are several questions: Has the will already been destroyed? If the will hasn't been destroyed, is it in the hands of the butler? The children? Or the maid who has worked in the manor for decades? If I ask the wrong person or the wrong question, I'll lose all my bargaining chips."

John remained noncommittal, used a tissue to wipe the tea water that had stuck to his big mustache, and asked, "For the Earl's family, who is more important, Cook or the butler?"

Liang Xi answered, "Certainly the butler. He knows all the family's secrets and is responsible for the entire family's operations."

John said, "Since you deduced that the Earl used subtle or coercive means to drive Cook out of the Davis family, is it possible that the Earl would let the butler he distrusts stay in the family?"

Liang Xi slowly nodded, "Therefore, the butler is one of the Earl's most trusted people."

John said, "The two maids have been with the Earl's family since their twenties and are the most trusted by the Earl. But you have to know that the butler's job is incomparable to that of the maids. For example, you can extract information about the Davis couple from the maids, but you cannot get these clues from the butler. Also, you've interacted with the Earl's four children, so you should be able to determine that the butler must know about the will. The only headache for you is whether the will is still there."

John continued, "Assuming the will has already been burned, your conversation with the butler is asking the right person but saying the wrong things. You shouldn't have played your cards so early; you should have first explained Cook's many years of contributions to the Davis family, tactfully inquired, expressed that you knew the butler understood the will and handed over the initiative to the butler. The result may be good, but there were some small issues in the process. However, I am overall satisfied with your performance. Therefore, I've decided to give you two gifts."

Liang Xi rubbed his hands, "John, we're so close; I really can't accept your gifts. Cash will do."