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    Inspector Zhang and the Perfect Alibi (a short story): Inspector Zhang Short Stories, #5
    Inspector Zhang and the Perfect Alibi (a short story): Inspector Zhang Short Stories, #5
    Inspector Zhang and the Perfect Alibi (a short story): Inspector Zhang Short Stories, #5
    Ebook38 pages31 minutes

    Inspector Zhang and the Perfect Alibi (a short story): Inspector Zhang Short Stories, #5

    By Stephen Leather

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Inspector Zhang of the Singapore Police Force is called in to what appears to be an open and shut case. A young woman has been killed during a burglary. The fingerprints on the murder weapon point to a well-known house-breaker. And his bite marks are on the victim's arm. But the burglar has a cast-iron alibi because at the time of the murder he was in police custody.

    The Deputy Commissioner wants Inspector Zhang to find out how the burglar managed to get out of the locked cell – but that is easier said than done and the mystery puts the inspector's deductive skills to the test.

    This is a short story, just over 9,000 words, equivalent to about 30 pages. A perfect read if you have half an hour or so to kill.

    Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers. He was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full time in 1992, he has sold more than three million copies and his books are published in more than ten languages. You can find out more about his work at www.stephenleather.com

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStephen Leather
    Release dateMar 9, 2012
    ISBN9781465912220
    Inspector Zhang and the Perfect Alibi (a short story): Inspector Zhang Short Stories, #5
    Author

    Stephen Leather

    Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an eBook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan "Spider' Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mirror, the Glasgow Herald, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He is one of the country's most successful eBook authors and his eBooks have topped the Amazon Kindle charts in the UK and the US. He has sold more than a million eBooks and was voted by The Bookseller magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world. His bestsellers have been translated into fifteen languages. He has also written for television shows such as London's Burning, The Knock and the BBC's Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com

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      Book preview

      Inspector Zhang and the Perfect Alibi (a short story) - Stephen Leather

      INSPECTOR ZHANG AND THE PERFECT ALIBI

      Stephen Leather

      ****

      Published by:

      Stephen Leather at Smashwords

      Copyright (c) 2012 by Stephen Leather

      ****

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

      Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

      ****

      Sergeant Lee frowned as she looked up from her pocket notebook. She had been scribbling in it for at least two minutes and now, as she read through her notes, her confusion began to show. So he did not leave the cell? she asked.

      How could he? asked Inspector Zhang. The walls are solid, the windows are glass blocks, and the CCTV footage shows that no one entered or left the cell from six o’clock in the evening until he was given his breakfast at seven-thirty.

      They were standing in the corridor that led to the holding cells in the Jurong West Police Headquarters. They had spent half an hour going over every inch of one of the cells, tapping on the walls, floor and ceiling. Everything was as it should be. Prior to checking the cell they had gone through the CCTV footage of the corridor to confirm what the duty officer had told them – that nobody had gone near the cell all night, other than at midnight when there had been a change of shifts.

      But while he was in the cell, his fingerprints appeared on the knife that was used to kill Miss Chau and he managed to bite her on the arm, said Sergeant Lee. She was wearing a dark green jacket over a pale green skirt and had tied her hair back into a ponytail making her look much younger than her twenty-four years.

      You have summed up the facts most succinctly,

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