Tracking a Killer by Scent

Chapter 23: Tracking a Killer by Scent

Everyone had a unique scent. Since his sense of smell had improved so dramatically, Xiang Kun could feel this more clearly than ever.

But he had only been awake for a few hours that evening, and he was still unfamiliar with distinguishing all the different scents. At the crime scene, he had wondered whether he could find the perpetrator's scent and track him by smell.

However, Xiang Kun lacked a scent trail to follow. The perpetrator had probably left not long before, so traces of his scent should still have lingered at the scene. But Xiang Kun hadn't been able to pick it out among all the other smells—or, rather, there had been too many possibilities for him to be sure.

Once the police arrived, the scene grew crowded, making it even harder to track anything.

Still, thanks to his powerful hearing, Xiang Kun had overheard the officers talking and learned that they hadn't found the weapon yet.

There should have been blood from the victim on it. From what Xiang Kun had seen at the scene, there was nothing that could have been used to wipe the blade clean, so the blood should still have been on the weapon—or the perpetrator should still have had the paper or cloth he'd used to wipe it.

That gave Xiang Kun an idea. He wanted to see if he could track the scent of the blood and find either the perpetrator or the weapon.

The strongest trace of the victim's blood naturally led back toward the crime scene.

But Xiang Kun didn't go back there. Instead, he headed in the opposite direction.

Based on his estimate, the perpetrator couldn't have left more than three minutes before Xiang Kun spotted the victim.

And before Xiang Kun caught the smell of blood, he hadn't seen anyone suspicious or heard hurried footsteps. Clearly, the perpetrator hadn't fled in his direction after attacking the victim.

With one direction ruled out, the perpetrator had two routes left. But one alley led straight to a main road, which was busy and still full of pedestrians at this hour. There were also plenty of surveillance cameras, so it would be easy to identify him.

The perpetrator hadn't attacked the victim right outside the ATM. He'd followed the victim to a quieter spot before striking, so Xiang Kun figured he wouldn't have headed that way.

That left the other route, so Xiang Kun chose it and searched as he went.

But he couldn't really follow the smell of the victim's blood. If he did, he'd only end up heading back toward the crime scene.

Xiang Kun wasn't discouraged. Catching the perpetrator had never been his duty or responsibility. He was only trying to practice tracking by scent.

He imagined himself in the perpetrator's place. At every intersection, he almost instinctively chose one direction and kept going.

After walking a long way, the scent of blood from the crime scene had grown faint. Xiang Kun was almost ready to give up when he caught a trace of something familiar, faint and mingled with a jumble of strong, competing smells.

Xiang Kun's spirits lifted. It was the victim's blood. The scent was almost gone, but it came from a different direction than the crime scene. That meant he might be close to finding something.

Following the scent, Xiang Kun wandered back and forth for over ten minutes before finally pinning down its source: an open-top trash bin.

It was clearly for the nearby residents' household garbage. Some bags of food scraps had split open, spilling juices and leftovers everywhere. As soon as he approached, a wave of pungent smells hit him. With his sense of smell so much sharper now, it was pure torture.

He had to stay focused to keep track of the faint trace of the victim's blood.

Looking at the trash bin crawling with flies, Xiang Kun hesitated. It wasn't his job to investigate the suspect, so why was he about to rummage through garbage?

But after a moment, he decided he wanted to know if he was following the right trail—whether he'd found something stained with the victim's blood, perhaps even the weapon.

Xiang Kun sighed, shooed away the flies, then bent down and started searching.

It didn't take long for him to find something with the victim's blood on it. It wasn't the weapon, but a pair of bloodstained cotton gloves.

Xiang Kun didn't pick them up with his bare hands. He tore off a piece of plastic bag from nearby, used it to grip the gloves, and held them up to his nose. A mix of foul odors made him sneeze three times in a row.

Even so, he keenly picked out that trace of human scent from the stench.

It came from sweat, sebum, and other secretions from the skin's glands. Trapped inside the gloves, the smell wouldn't fade easily.

As for the victim's blood, that went without saying. He didn't even need to smell it; he could see the bloodstains covering the gloves.

Xiang Kun hesitated over whether to tell Officer Chen where the gloves were. In the end, he put them back in the trash bin and didn't call Officer Chen. He simply couldn't come up with a good explanation.

Besides, he figured the police would search thoroughly and find the spot soon enough.

He only hoped the sanitation workers wouldn't empty the bin before then.

Although Xiang Kun had found the perpetrator's scent, he found nothing after searching the surrounding area. In a city, both sounds and smells were drowned out by too much interference.

The next day, Xiang Kun used the number Officer Chen had given him to add him on WeChat and ask how the investigation was going.

He hadn't expected much. He knew the police generally didn't share details of active investigations with the public. But to his surprise, Officer Chen sent him a photo right away.

The police had moved even faster than Xiang Kun expected. In just one night, they had identified the suspect!

According to Officer Chen, the suspect had been released from prison in March and had arrived in the city in April. Just a few months later, he'd committed another serious crime. The victim who had been stabbed the night before had died in the early hours of the morning, despite efforts to save him.

The police had sent the suspect's photo and information to train stations, airports, hotels, and guesthouses. Later that day, the local TV station would also broadcast a wanted notice. It was only a matter of time before he was caught.

Officer Chen also warned Xiang Kun not to act rashly if he spotted the suspect. He should call the police, or contact Officer Chen directly.

In Xiang Kun's view, the suspect was practically guaranteed a prison sentence. These days, surveillance cameras were everywhere, and everything required real-name registration and an ID card. And with a murder on his hands, the police were surely devoting plenty of manpower to the manhunt.

So Xiang Kun didn't plan to use the scent he'd found to track the suspect. This was a city of more than ten million people. Without knowing where to start looking, trying to find one person by smell would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

But what Xiang Kun hadn't expected was that he would run into the suspect before the man was caught.