Her despair only deepened, as she wandered aimlessly around. The police would probably arrest her. Niikura’s life would be thrown into disruption. Worst of all, she could never justify having taken the life of his protégée, the girl who made his life worth living.
I should kill myself. It’s the only way to make amends. How shall I do it? Where? Jumping off a building is probably easiest.
She was just wondering if there were any tall buildings nearby, when she heard the sound of an ambulance siren in the distance. Had someone found Saori’s body? Were they taking her to the hospital? The park was probably crawling with people by now.
Next thing she knew, she was walking back toward the park. In her mind’s eye, she pictured a cluster of parked police cars. The police would have no trouble identifying her as the killer. I must kill myself before they get around to it, Rumi thought.
When she got close to the park, there was no commotion of any kind, nor were there any police cars. The ambulance she had heard, she realized, had nothing to do with her.
Full of apprehension, she made her way to where she had pushed Saori to the ground. Her legs were trembling uncontrollably. Awareness of the enormity of what she had done made it hard to breathe.
However—
Saori’s body was no longer there. Had she got the place wrong? She looked around. It was nowhere to be seen.
Rumi was mystified. What the hell was going on? Where had Saori’s body got to?
She was looking down when she noticed something glinting on the ground. She picked it up. It was a gold hair slide in the shape of a butterfly. She remembered that Saori had been wearing it. It must have come off when she fell over.
What if I was too quick to decide Saori was dead? Perhaps she was just unconscious. Perhaps she came to, got up, and has walked off somewhere. If anyone had found her, the police would definitely be here.
The more Rumi thought about it, the more plausible it felt. She called Saori on her cell. She had to apologize for lashing out like that. But she couldn’t get through. She wondered if Saori had switched off her phone on purpose.
Unsure what to think, Rumi started walking home. Saori had a singing lesson scheduled for the next day. Maybe she wouldn’t show. Maybe Niikura would get annoyed. That was the last thing she cared about now. All that mattered was to establish that Saori was safe and well as fast as possible.
Niikura got back home late that night. A good meeting about Saori’s imminent debut had left him in high spirits. Rumi’s heart ached at the sight of him. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that Saori had decided to abandon her dreams of becoming a singer.
Her anguish then was nothing compared to what came later. She shuddered with horror when her husband got a call from Yutaro Namiki late that night. “Saori went out this evening and isn’t back yet,” Niikura told her after hanging up.
Rumi fell into a full-blown panic. She was completely bewildered. Seeing the state she was in, Niikura thought that concern for Saori’s welfare was behind it. “There’s no need to worry,” he said to comfort her. “She’ll turn up right as rain, I’m sure.”
When the next day came and Saori was still missing, the police launched a proper investigation into her whereabouts. Rumi knew that she ought to tell the police about what had happened, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. It was just too painful to have to tell Niikura about Saori’s change of heart — and she wanted to keep her own bad behavior secret. She kept assuring herself that there was no link between what she’d done and Saori’s disappearance.
That was how Saori vanished. Rumi never knew what had happened to her. The sight of her husband — who had lost the great dream and purpose of his life — was a torment to her, but she kept her mouth shut. She persuaded herself that saying nothing about what had happened that night was better.
More than three years went by. With the passing of time, Rumi’s memories of the event became hazier. While she never forgot what had happened between her and Saori, she began to feel that it wasn’t quite real; that something from a dream had got mixed up with reality.
About six months ago, her worst nightmare was proven to be true. Saori was indeed dead. Her body had been found — and in a most unlikely place: a burned-out trash house in a small town in Shizuoka.
With no idea what was going on, Rumi and her husband just looked on as events unfolded. The police soon arrested a man by the name of Hasunuma. They were almost certain that he was the killer.
Rumi cast her mind back to that. What on earth had happened after she pushed Saori to the ground and left the park?
No further information came to light. Throughout his time in custody, Hasunuma remained doggedly silent. In the end, the police just let him go. At the news of his release, Niikura exploded with rage. “I want to kill the guy myself,” became a verbal tic with him.
Rumi found the whole thing baffling. If the police had bothered to arrest Hasunuma in the first place, they must have had evidence. So why had they subsequently let him go?
A phone call Rumi received not long after rendered all those questions moot. The caller was a man who introduced himself as her “savior.”
He sounded like a creep. Rumi was about to hang up, but the caller must have sensed that. “Cut me off and things could get very awkward for you. I know what you did to Saori Namiki on that night three years ago,” he said.
“You’ve probably heard my name, if nothing else,” he continued. “I’m Kanichi Hasunuma. I was accused of murder. My reputation was destroyed. And I almost got sent to jail. When it should have been you.”
Rumi was dumbstruck. Hasunuma snickered under his breath.
“Shocked? I know. I bet you thought the whole business was over and you were done with it. You thought it had all been laid to rest. Well, that’s not how it is. You’re still the star of this show. Or maybe it’s more like your star turn is only just getting started: your performance in the role of Saori Namiki’s murderer. Don’t tell me that it slipped your mind. You knocked the girl down and killed her right there. I was — ha, ha, ha — watching. The whole thing. Including the bit where you ran away. I didn’t report you to the police. What do you think I did? I took the body away. I took it and I stashed it some place where no one was ever going to find it. It’s thanks to me that the police haven’t come knocking on your door. They never suspected you — because I kept my mouth shut. I think I’ve said enough for you to get what happened.”
“But why?... Why did you hide the body?”
“Huh? You’d have preferred if I didn’t? You’d have liked it better if the body had been found, and you’d been arrested for murder? You think I should have minded my own business? What I saw that night was a business opportunity that I wasn’t willing to let pass by.”
“A business opportunity?”
“That’s right, business. Come on. Don’t tell me you thought I got rid of the body and kept my mouth shut out of the pure goodness of my heart? No one’s that stupid. I did what I did because I saw money in it.”
Every word he uttered was like a fragment of darkness that stuck to her body. If it went on, she’d be reduced to a black lump.
“Which is why you’ll be fine,” said Hasunuma in a chirpy tone that was the antithesis of Rumi’s own despair. “The police aren’t going to arrest you. No one knows the truth. The girl’s family, the general public — they’ll all keep right on thinking that I’m the one who offed her. As long as you accept my deal, that is. Still, I’m hardly expecting you to turn me down.”