‘Well? Were you taking pictures? Tell the truth, now.’
The younger detective joined in glaring at Yuichi. Meanwhile, the guidance counsellor was practically simmering in his chair.
‘Yes,’ Yuichi said, lowering his head. He heard Bear give a big sigh.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ the guidance counsellor scolded him.
‘Let us handle this,’ the detective said, holding a hand up to the guidance counsellor before looking back at Yuichi. ‘Were you taking photos of a particular student?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You know her name?’
Yuichi nodded. His voice was caught in his throat.
‘Think you could write it here for me?’ The detective pushed a piece of paper and a pen over to Yuichi.
Yuichi wrote Yukiho Karasawa’s name on the paper. The detective took a look at it and nodded.
‘Anyone else?’ the detective asked him. ‘You just took pictures of her?’
‘Just her, sir.’
‘She your favourite or something?’ the detective asked, a knowing smile spreading across his face.
‘Not my favourite exactly. More like my friend’s. I was just taking the pictures for him.’
‘Why couldn’t he take them himself?’
Yuichi looked down at the floor and bit his lip. The detective watched him, then chuckled. ‘You were selling the pictures?’
Yuichi flinched.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Bear muttered next to him. ‘Of all the stupid —’
‘You the only one taking pictures?’ the detective asked. ‘No one else was doing the same thing?’
‘I don’t think so, sir.’
‘What about the kids on the fence by the athletics field? You one of them, too?’
Yuichi looked up at the detective. ‘That wasn’t me. Honest, sir. I only took the pictures.’
‘So who was on the fence, then? Any idea?’
Yuichi was sure it was Muta and his gang, but he didn’t say anything. Who knew what they would do to him if they heard he’d squealed.
‘Understand: if you’re hiding something it’s not going to go well for you.’ The detective gave him a meaningful look. ‘But right now what I want you to tell me is what you were doing yesterday after school. Be as detailed as you can.’
‘Huh?’ Yuichi blinked. ‘Did something happen?’
‘Akiyoshi!’ Bear shouted. ‘Answer the man’s question!’
‘It’s OK,’ the detective said. There was a faint smile on his face when he turned back to Yuichi. ‘One of the students from Seika got pretty roughed up near school yesterday.’
Yuichi felt the muscles in his face freeze. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘We’re not saying you did. But we were talking to the students at Seika, and your name came up.’ There was nothing threatening in the detective’s tone, but Yuichi could hear the meaning behind his words: you’re our prime suspect, kid.
‘I don’t know anything, really!’ Yuichi shook his head.
‘OK, then tell me what you were doing yesterday and where you were.’
‘Yesterday… on the way home from school I stopped at the bookshop and the record shop,’ Yuichi said, recalling. That had been a little after six, and after that he had spent the entire night at home.
‘Was your family home?’
‘Yeah. I was with my mom. Dad came home around nine.’
‘So no one other than your family was there?’
‘No, sir,’ Yuichi said, worried that they might not take his family’s word for it.
‘So, what to do?’ The detective talking turned to the younger detective. ‘Mr Akiyoshi here says he wasn’t taking those photos for himself, but I’m not sure what reason we have to believe him.’
‘I really was taking them for my friend.’
‘If that’s the case, you should probably tell us your friend’s name.’
Yuichi was in a fix. If he didn’t tell them, he was sure they would suspect he did it.
‘Don’t worry,’ the detective said suddenly, ‘we won’t tell anyone it was you who told us.’
His timing was uncanny. It was as if he had peered right into Yuichi’s thoughts. Hesitantly, he gave them Muta’s name. As soon as he said it, the guidance counsellor’s face fell. Probably because that was the name that always came up whenever there was trouble at the school.
‘And he only asked you for pictures of Miss Karasawa? He didn’t want pictures of any of the other girls?’
Yuichi hesitated for a moment, but decided not to hide anything. It wasn’t like he had much left to lose. ‘Actually, just the other day he asked me about one other one. Her name’s Miyako Fujimura. I don’t know her, though.’
A change came over the detectives’ faces.
‘And did you take her picture?’ the detective asked him in a low voice.
‘Not yet, sir,’ Yuichi said, immediately regretting his choice of words.
The detective nodded.
‘I don’t ever want to hear about you taking any more pictures, you got that?’ Bear growled next to him. ‘If you hadn’t been out there being an idiot you wouldn’t be sitting in here right now, understand?’
Yuichi nodded silently.
‘There’s one more thing I wanted to check with you,’ the detective said, pulling out a plastic bag. ‘Have you ever seen this before?’
A small figurine was in the bag. Yuichi gaped. There was no doubt in his mind it was Kikuchi’s missing key chain.
‘Looks like you have seen it.’
If he told them who it belonged to, would Kikuchi become a suspect? But, if he lied, things might get worse for him, quick.
‘Well?’ the detective asked again, rapping his fingers on the table. The sound felt like needles pricking at Yuichi’s skin.
Yuichi swallowed and told them.
It was Thursday morning when the announcement came. All students were to leave school by no later than five o’clock, even if they had after-school activities. They were reminded of the new rule again by their teacher in homeroom.
It seemed only natural to Eriko. When she thought about what she’d seen the other day, she felt like even five was too late, and every student should go home right when classes ended.
But all the other students complained. It was a testament to how well they had covered up the incident. It was safe to say that no one else in the school knew what had happened two nights ago in the storehouse so close to campus.
Of course there were rumours, and some bore a resemblance to the truth. One was that a pervert had attacked a student on the way home from school. But even then, they could have made that up just from reading the announcement. Eriko couldn’t imagine any of the teachers talking, and neither she nor Yukiho had said a word. No one even knew that they were the ones who had found the victim.
It had been Yukiho who suggested they keep it to themselves. She had called Eriko that night after they got home.
‘Miyako must be in shock, having that happen to her. If people start talking about it… I mean, what if she does something? What if she kills herself? So I was thinking we should keep it to ourselves. Maybe we can stop the rumours from starting.’
It was a wise suggestion, Eriko thought. She told her friend that she had planned on staying quiet, too.
Miyako Fujimura had been her classmate in second year. She was a good student with a cheerful personality, a natural leader in class. She wasn’t Eriko’s favourite person, however. Miyako had a tendency to lash out whenever she felt her pride was being injured, which was often. She also never thought twice about saying bad things about people. There were others who felt the same way about her, Eriko was sure. If they heard about what had happened, they would be right up there in front, leading the rumour mill.
That day at lunch Eriko ate with Yukiho at their desks by the window. No one else was around.