I put the jacket on, lifted the cardboard box onto the trolley, and headed for the municipal sports ground. It didn’t take me long to locate the silver treasure chest. There were two cardboard boxes inside it. One contained six plastic bottles of water, the other the same number of bottles of oolong tea. I took both boxes out and replaced them with the one big cardboard box I had brought with me, which I fixed in place with the straps. The whole operation took me less than ten minutes. Then I pushed the trolley loaded with the two boxes of drinks back to where Tojima was waiting and returned the staff jacket to him.
Mr. Tojima told me that if I wanted to be present at Hasunuma’s interrogation, I should wait in the parking lot of Yamabe Shoten. Apparently, he’d already communicated my request to Mr. Namiki.
For the time being, I went to rejoin my wife and resumed watching the parade.
It wasn’t long before Team Kikuno stepped off. We walked alongside their float.
When they eventually got to the end of the parade route, I told Rumi to go on to the singing contest venue by herself, because there was something I needed to take care of. She set off. I don’t think she suspected anything.
I went to Yamabe Shoten and waited for Namiki in the parking lot. Four o’clock came and went with no sign of him. That’s odd, I was thinking, when I got a call from Tojima. There had been an accident, he said, and the plan was called off. He told me to get into the minitruck and go and retrieve the cardboard box from where it was in front of the hut.
Having been raring to go, all of a sudden I felt quite deflated. The whole plan was a nonstarter and I just had to let it go. I did what I was told and drove the minitruck to the hut where Hasunuma was.
Sure enough, there was the cardboard box just outside the front door, where someone had put it. I thought I’d try the door to the hut before loading the box back onto the truck. It was unlocked.
I looked to the far end of the hut where the little room was. The sliding door was pulled shut and the latch was down. The metal door handle had been removed, as I’d been told it would be, and where it had been there was a square hole that went right through to the other side.
I took my shoes off and walked over to the sliding door, taking care to be as quiet as I could. I was halfway there, when the sound of a loud snore made me start. I froze.
Hasunuma didn’t wake up. I went right up to the sliding door and peered through the square hole into the room.
I could see Hasunuma’s face. He lay sprawled out on his mattress, drooling and grunting. The sight of that face ignited a fierce surge of rage in me.
That was the man who had killed our darling Saori? Why, for God’s sake? What happened between the two of them? How had she died?
I had to have answers, right then and there. This was our only chance to get Hasunuma to tell the truth. What if I stepped in and took over Namiki’s role in the plan?
I lugged the cardboard box into the hut and unpacked it. One of the things inside the box was a special funnel and the first thing I did was stick it into the hole in the door. I then removed the cover plug from the liquid nitrogen container. After that, I started thumping the sliding door and shouting Hasunuma’s name.
He woke up. “Who’s that?” he yelled. He must have got to his feet, because he tried to open the sliding door. Since it was on the latch, it remained firmly shut.
I lifted up the container, carried it over to the door and started tipping the liquid nitrogen into the mouth of the funnel. Hasunuma was quite taken aback. “What is this stuff?” he shouted.
“Liquid nitrogen,” I said. “The more I pour in, the thinner the oxygen in there will get — and you will die.”
Hasunuma started yelling wildly: “Stop it”; “I’ll kill you”; stuff like that. Worried he might try to break the door down, I leaned against it with my full weight, still holding the container. Nothing like that happened. I can only assume that he was trying to keep his distance from the liquid nitrogen as it poured out of the spout of the funnel and into the room.
It wasn’t long before Hasunuma started complaining about the physical effects of the gas: his head hurt, he was feeling nauseous. “Tell me the truth, if you want to get out of there alive. Tell me what you did to Saori Namiki,” I told him.
“Just open the door,” Hasunuma said. “Let me out of here and I’ll tell you.” It was obvious he was lying. “First, tell me everything and then I’ll let you out,” I replied. I continued pouring the liquid nitrogen.
A little later, I heard screaming from inside the room. “Okay, okay, I’ll talk. Please just stop!” I stopped pouring the liquid nitrogen.
“I always fancied having a go at the girl from Namiki-ya,” Hasunuma began. Basically, what he said was that he had had his eye on Saori for quite a while. He was furious when the restaurant banned him and he resolved to get back at them by assaulting the girl. One evening, he spotted her from his car. She was alone. He followed her to a small park and assaulted her there. The park was being refurbished, so there was nobody around. He tried to drag her back to his car. She resisted. He shoved her to the ground. She suddenly went all quiet on him. Wondering what was going on, he knelt down for a closer look. For whatever reason, the girl was dead. This is a disaster, he thought to himself. In a panic, he stuffed the body into his car. As he was wondering where he could get rid of the girl, he remembered the house with his mother’s undiscovered corpse inside. This was what Hasunuma told me, gasping for breath the whole time.
I felt a renewed surge of fury. Why didn’t you hand yourself in to the police? I asked him.
What do you think the bastard said to that? “Why would I do anything dumb like that? If I hide her corpse, then I have the advantage.” That’s what he said.
I resumed pouring the liquid nitrogen into the room and I commanded him to make an apology. “Say you’re sorry to the dead Saori. Beg for her forgiveness! Beg from the bottom of your heart!” He did say something, but it didn’t sound much like an apology to me, so I just kept on pouring.
At a certain point, I realized that the room had gone silent. The liquid nitrogen container was almost empty. I plucked the funnel out of the hole and peered into the room.
Hasunuma had fallen to the floor. He was lying there, completely motionless. I’ve screwed up! I thought to myself. I unhooked the latch and slid open the door. I knew it was dangerous to go in right away, so I waited a minute or two before stepping inside.
Hasunuma’s heart had stopped and he wasn’t breathing. I tried CPR, but he showed no sign of coming back to life. I placed the funnel and the liquid nitrogen container in the cardboard box and carried it out of the hut.
I loaded the box on the bed of the minitruck and drove back to Yamabe Shoten. On my way, I called Tojima to tell him what had happened.
For a few moments, Tojima was dumbstruck. Then he really showed his mettle. “You just stick to the plan,” he said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
I did what he said. I parked the minitruck in its original spot, then went to the park to rejoin Rumi. I was hardly in the mood for a singing contest; having to be all cheerful and upbeat as a member of the judging panel was a struggle.
After the singing contest was over, I bumped into Tojima. Since Rumi was there, he kept his mouth shut.
The three of us went to Namiki-ya. It was there that we heard the news of Hasunuma’s death, together with all the other customers. Maintaining the pretense of calm until then hadn’t been easy.