Old Files, New Proof

Xu Zhixia watched him and understood something clearly: this man was probably not the worst one involved. He was just very good at cutting responsibility into pieces, passing it along, and tucking it safely inside procedure. She set her phone on the table and opened the recorder. On the screen, a saved call record appeared. "Then explain this," she said. The recording was from an anonymous voice message she had received through the neighborhood site the night before. The caller had first asked whether she was still investigating the fire, then told her in a low voice not to touch "the attachment that was removed from that year," and finally said one short line: the original survey record was not lost. It had merely changed hands.