That was when Yutaro finally decided to tell his wife and daughter the truth. Although her mother seemed to have some knowledge of the plan, she hadn’t been given the full picture.
Natsumi was astonished at the notion of using liquid nitrogen to terrify Hasunuma into telling the truth. She was even more astonished when Yutaro explained all the different tricks that he and his fellow conspirators had deployed. Wow! All that was going on at the same time as the parade, she thought.
That wasn’t how things turned out. The case took off in a new and wholly unexpected direction, which started with the arrest of Rumi Niikura — a person everybody had assumed had nothing to do with the case. When the Niikuras’ statements were made public, Natsumi was astonished. Naoki Niikura confessed to having killed Hasunuma intentionally, motivated by the blackmailing of his wife.
Natsumi found it hard to believe. Rumi Niikura had always struck her as a kind and friendly person. Could she really have killed Saori? Of course, had she not done so, she wouldn’t have been vulnerable to blackmail.
Natsumi was mystified. Like her mother and father, her days were anxious and her nights sleepless. After a certain amount of time, Chief Inspector Kusanagi came to visit them.
“My being here today is a breach of the most basic police regulations. Nonetheless, I felt that forcing you to wait until the trial was over would be just too cruel.”
Kusanagi stressed that they should not share what he was about to tell them with anybody else.
Although Kusanagi’s tone was very matter-of-fact, Natsumi found everything he said astonishing. The fact that Saori intended to abandon her dream of becoming a professional singer was already a major surprise, but when she heard why — because Saori was pregnant with Tomoya Takagaki’s child — Natsumi simply couldn’t believe her ears. Her parents seemed to feel the same; they just kept repeating, “Is that true? Are you sure that’s true?”
Kusanagi always gave the same reply. He didn’t believe that Rumi Niikura was making things up.
Keeping his eyes fixed on his notebook and his voice heavy with suppressed emotion, he outlined what had happened in the park. When he got to the point where the enraged Rumi shoved Saori to the ground, he spoke a little faster as if he wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.
After dealing with Hasunuma’s blackmailing of Rumi, Kusanagi then switched over to Naoki Niikura’s testimony. He read them the part in which Niikura made up his mind to kill Hasunuma, after Rumi had confessed what she had done to Saori.
“Everything from that point on, we uncovered in our original investigation.” Kusanagi closed his notebook. “Do you have any questions?”
Natsumi couldn’t think of any. She looked at her parents. The sheer volume of unexpected news seemed to have left them unable to think straight.
“There is one more thing that I should mention,” Kusanagi went on, somewhat stiffly. “We got the results from an item of evidence, which we sent for analysis.”
The item in question was the hair slide. Kusanagi explained what the implications would be if blood was — or wasn’t — found on it.
“The bottom line is this,” he went on. “There was no blood on the hair slide. DNA testing of trace amounts of sebaceous matter and skin on the slide has enabled us to confirm that it is definitely the hair slide that Saori was wearing.”
“What does that mean? That Saori lost consciousness when she was pushed to the ground by Rumi Niikura, but that Hasunuma was the one who actually killed her?” Yutaro asked.
“We can’t definitively reach that conclusion,” Kusanagi said, weighing every word with care. “Nonetheless, I would certainly expect her lawyers to present it as a possibility in court.”
Natsumi felt a sense of relief. She had no desire to see Rumi Niikura as an enemy.
“We’ve got to draw a line under this,” Yutaro announced after Kusanagi had left. “We can’t go on agonizing about this forever. We’ll end up going crazy. We should let the police and the prosecutor do their jobs, while we concentrate on getting the restaurant up and running again. Are you both okay with that?”
Machiko nodded her head in silent agreement and Natsumi did the same. Her father was probably right.
I must do my best, she thought, as she remembered that day. She ran her hand down the freshly laundered noren curtain.
She had opened the door and was about to step back into the restaurant, when, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed someone walking hurriedly toward her. She looked up and gave a start.
It was Tomoya Takagaki. How long was it since they had last met?
“Reopening on schedule, I’m glad to see,” Tomoya said, his eye on the noren curtain.
Natsumi had sent him a text the day before to let him know that they were planning to open today. He had texted her back right away. I’m pleased to hear it. Wishing you the best of luck. Natsumi had detected a hint of something standoffish in his language.
“Tomoya... I thought we wouldn’t be seeing you here again.”
Tomoya’s gaze shifted from the noren to Natsumi. “Why?”
“Coming here must awaken so many painful memories...”
Tomoya gave a curt nod and his face darkened.
“You’re right. It will take me years to forget. I’ll always be mulling things over, you know: ‘What if Saori were still alive today?’ ‘What would our baby be like?’”
Shocked, Natsumi looked up at him. “Who told you?”
“The police called me in the other day. They asked me if I knew Saori was pregnant. I was stunned. I had absolutely no idea.”
“And how she died — did they tell you that?”
“The broad strokes.” Tomoya looked at the ground. “It’s all so staggering. Incredible, really.”
“Yes... I know what you mean.”
“They told you, too?”
“Yes, the head of the investigative team came here and talked us through everything.”
“If I’m honest with you, Natsumi, I was of two minds about coming here today. But I had the feeling that if I didn’t come today, tomorrow would only be that much harder. When I walk from my house to the station, my route always takes me past Namiki-ya. The idea of trying to live my life while deliberately avoiding this place is a recipe for heartache. I realized that the best thing for me to do is to keep coming here and to build myself a stock of nice, new memories.”
Tomoya was clear-eyed and articulate. Natsumi could see why her sister had been attracted to him. Saori must have felt that life with him would be a positive and enjoyable experience, if not a glamorous one. She must have been thrilled when she found out that she was pregnant. It was the sheer joy of that moment that had exploded her dreams of becoming a singer.
Natsumi said nothing.
“Is something wrong?” Tomoya asked timidly.
She shook her head. “No,” she replied. “It’s good to see you. In you go.”
She escorted Tomoya to a table. “We have our first customer,” she called in the direction of the kitchen.
Yutaro’s face popped up behind the counter. Catching sight of Tomoya, he flinched almost imperceptibly, then came out into the restaurant.
“It’s been a long time,” Tomoya said.
Yutaro removed his half apron. “We caused you a lot of trouble.”
“No, I mean, trouble. That’s hardly...” Tomoya waved his hand deprecatingly.
“No need to be coy. The police must have called you in quite a few times?”
“Um... well... yes, they did. Not that many times, really... I told them about transporting the liquid nitrogen.”
Yutaro clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Yes, I heard that silly bugger Shusaku got you to do that. Personally, I never wanted to involve you.”