‘I thought it was pretty good evidence,’ Kikuchi said after Ryo had left.
‘Evidence for what?’ Yuichi asked.
Kikuchi looked at his friend, surprised for a moment. ‘Oh right, you didn’t go to the same elementary school he did. You don’t know.’
‘Don’t know what?’ Yuichi asked, growing irritated.
Kikuchi looked around before replying, ‘That big park up by the station? You remember the building next to it? The one they left half built?’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, four years ago, they found Ryo’s dad in there. Murdered.’
Yuichi’s mouth hung open.
‘His money was gone, so they said it was probably a mugging. You should’ve been there. The cops were all over town for days.’
‘They catch the guy who did it?’
‘They found someone they thought might’ve done it, but they never knew for sure. He died.’
‘What, someone kill him too?’
Kikuchi shook his head. ‘Car accident. But when the cops checked his stuff, they found the same kind of lighter that Ryo’s dad had.’
‘That sounds like pretty good evidence to me.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. They couldn’t prove that it was the same one that belonged to Ryo’s old man. And that’s where it gets interesting. See, people started wondering if it wasn’t his wife who did it.’
‘Whose wife?’
‘Ryo’s mom, dumbass. They say she was going at it with the guy who worked in their shop and Ryo’s dad got in the way.’
The story was that Mr Kirihara ran a pawnshop out of his house, and the ‘other guy’ was an employee who worked there. The whole thing seemed a bit unreal to Yuichi, like something on TV. Besides, he wasn’t really sure what was meant by ‘going at it’.
‘So, what happened?’ Yuichi asked.
‘Well, the rumours kept flying, but there was never really any proof, so I guess people forgot about the whole thing. I barely remembered it myself. Until I saw this.’ Kikuchi held up the photograph. ‘Take a look. See that place behind the couple? That’s one of the hotels people go to to do it. Doesn’t it look like they just walked out of there together?’
‘What does this have to do with what happened four years ago?’
‘Everything, man! This is evidence that Mrs Kirihara was having an affair with the guy at the shop. That means she had a motive for killing her husband. That’s why I wanted to show it to Ryo.’
Yuichi shook his head. Kikuchi spent way too much time reading books.
‘OK, but Ryo isn’t going to suspect his own mom,’ Yuichi pointed out.
‘I get that, but there’s some things you just got to get to the bottom of, even if the truth hurts,’ Kikuchi said, excitedly. It sounded like another line from one of those books he was always reading. ‘Anyway, I’m gonna prove that this is Ryo’s mom somehow. Then he can’t ignore it. I bet if I brought this to the police they’d fire up the investigation again. I even know one of the detectives who was on the case. Maybe I’ll show it to him.’
‘Why are you so obsessed with this?’ Yuichi asked.
‘It was my little brother who found the body.’
‘Your brother? Seriously?’
Kikuchi nodded. ‘Yeah, he came and told me, so I went to look for myself. It was there, the body, really. I told my mom, and she was the one who called the police.’
‘No way.’
‘So because we found the body the police had us in for questioning like a hundred times. And they weren’t just asking about how we found the body, either.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The guy had his money stolen, right? Well, it turns out that sometimes the killer’s the one who takes the money, but sometimes it’s someone else.’
‘You mean —’
‘Like whoever found the body might’ve snatched the money before telling the police!’ A little smile came to Kikuchi’s mouth. ‘The cops didn’t stop there, either. They suspected my dad might’ve killed him, then had us find the body, see?’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘I know, but it’s totally true, just because we were poor. My mom used to go to Ryo’s shop, too. That had the cops real excited.’
‘But they cleared you, right? They didn’t arrest your dad, did they?’
Kikuchi snorted. ‘No, but they suspected him,’ he said. He didn’t elaborate any further.
After class Yuichi went back to the Seika Girls Middle School. He walked along the fence surrounding the school, stopping when he heard the sound he’d been listening for: a violin.
He looked around and once he was confident the coast was clear he climbed on to the fence and moved along it until he could see in through the window the music was coming from.
There was a girl inside sitting at a black piano, her hands on the keys. Her back was turned to Yuichi.
Yes! Yuichi thought, and shifted, craning his neck to see beyond the piano. There was a girl standing there in her sailor uniform, playing violin.
Miyako Fujimura.
She looked shorter than Yukiho. Her hair was short, too. He wanted to get a closer look at her face and was just craning his neck further when the sound of the violin abruptly stopped and, to his horror, the girl ran up to the window.
The window opened right in front of Yuichi and the girl stared straight out at him, a victorious smile on her face. Yuichi froze, unable even to climb down the fence.
Then Miyako Fujimura shouted something at him. Her voice hit him like a ton of bricks and he let go of the fence, tumbling when he hit the ground. Thankfully, he’d managed to land feet first.
The girl was still screaming inside the classroom. Yuichi ran for his life.
It was only later when he caught his breath that he was able to process what the girl had shouted at him through the window.
‘Cockroach.’
On Tuesday and Friday evenings, Eriko went to English lessons with Yukiho from seven to eight-thirty. The lessons had been Yukiho’s idea, of course.
The class was only a ten-minute walk from school, but Eriko always went home first to eat dinner before going. While she was doing that, Yukiho stayed at school to practise with the theatre club. Eriko was like Yukiho’s shadow these days, following her everywhere, but she had stopped short at trying to join the theatre club.
One Tuesday night after class the two were walking back home as usual. They were nearing school when Yukiho said she had to call home and went into a phone booth. Eriko looked at her watch. It was almost nine o’clock. They’d stayed too long after class finished, chatting.
‘Thanks for waiting,’ Yukiho said as she came out of the booth. ‘Mom told me to hurry home. How about we take a shortcut?’
‘Sure.’
Normally the two of them walked along the main road where the buses ran, but tonight, they took a back road they usually avoided because there weren’t many lights, which made it really dark, and there weren’t many homes, just empty car parks and warehouses. They were just passing by the storehouse for a lumberyard when Yukiho stopped.
‘Hey,’ she said, ‘see that thing over there? Isn’t that a school uniform?’ Yukiho pointed towards something white lying on the ground next to a stack of wood.
‘I don’t know,’ Eriko said, craning her neck. ‘Maybe it’s just a piece of cloth or something.’
‘No, that’s definitely a uniform.’ Yukiho walked over and picked it up. ‘See? What’d I tell you?’
She was right. It was torn, but it was definitely one of their school uniforms – the light blue collar was unmistakable. A small name tag was attached: MIYAKO FUJIMURA.
A nasty tingle ran down Eriko’s spine. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to leave this place soon as possible.
But Yukiho just stood there, looking around until she noticed that the door on the side of the storehouse was slightly ajar. Bravely, she walked up to it and looked inside.