Lady Joker, Volume 1 Kaoru Takamura (ereader ebook .TXT) 📖

on the night of the incident, chances were high that they would remember it. This was the reasoning for putting up signs along the roads.

One by one, the names of officers were called to join the ranks of the Vehicle Investigation Squad, and from the head of the line, the squad leader—who was in charge of the ninth unit of Violent Crime—passed out maps. The one Goda’s team received was a road map of the Ome Highway that included the intersection at the entrance to Ikusabata Station—the intersection was marked with an X and the estimated time of passing, “23:30 ± 15.” There was another X about ten kilometers to the west at the Hikawa intersection and one more X at a fork in the road on Route 139 near the prefectural border with Yamanashi. They would be responsible for having road signs put up at these three spots, and for the related dynamic on-scene investigation and legwork.

“This is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Goda’s partner, an inspector from Crime Prevention, muttered, but Goda didn’t feel the need to complain. Considering the distance to Lake Kawaguchiko and the road conditions late on that snowy night of the 24th, there was a better chance that the perpetrators had driven over the Daibosatsu Pass—a relatively easy ride from Ome Highway, compared to the other routes—and besides, it was a good season to be in Okutama in western Tokyo, with the cherry blossoms coming into bloom.

The Vehicle Investigation Squad was ultimately increased to three times its original size. Now thirty-six men strong, there were eighteen teams, twelve of which were assigned to trace the perpetrators’ possible movements along these six routes; three teams were assigned to investigate the recordings from N-system and speed enforcement cameras, and the remaining three were to check the toll booth ticket passes. The meeting was adjourned after less than ten minutes. The Search and Inquiry Squad, where half of the new members had been allocated, still awaited their team assignments and instructions from the top. And the Evidence Investigation Squad, which had also received a large influx, likewise awaited instructions before commencing the task of pinpointing where the food items consumed by the victim during his confinement had been purchased. It was not by chance that Goda noticed Handa again among the latter group. Quite suddenly, Handa had turned to look over at him.

While the rest of the squad members were taking notes, heads bowed, only one man had raised his eyes and was slowly looking around, as if casing his surroundings. When his gaze met Goda’s, he instantly looked away, but in that moment, Goda felt like Handa’s gaze had pierced him right in the gut.

Why did he do that? Was it just his imagination? No, he definitely looked over here. Goda dredged up his dim memories of Handa from Investigation Headquarters at the Shinagawa Police Department in the fall of 1990. Back then, during morning and evening meetings Handa had always kept his head down—he was an unremarkable detective whom Goda had rarely seen chatting with colleagues. On the random occasions when Goda happened to see him on the platform at Aomono-yokocho Station, Handa was always reading a horseracing newspaper. He’d had one in hand last year when Goda ran into him in front of Kamata Station. The guy must be quite the racing enthusiast . . . That was the extent of the insight Goda could conjure about the man’s character, but then he recalled another matter. In the course of a murder case in Shinagawa of an old man who liked to wander, Handa himself had strayed from his assigned but dead-end territory and was later fired from headquarters for deviating from the investigation. On the morning when that happened, Goda had passed him on the stairs at the Shinagawa Police Department, Handa had suddenly lunged for him and tried to grab him.

Goda tried to remember why Handa had done such a thing, but it was beyond him. Handa’s inscrutably enraged expression hovered in the fringes of his memory until Goda finally convinced himself he was reading into things too much. And yet a visceral sense of unease remained on the surface of his skin, and his mind felt fuzzy as well. Handa’s gaze, whenever it was directed at him—on the stairs five years ago, or when they bumped into each other in front of Kamata Station, or today, for that matter—felt a bit too persistent, and it triggered a deep, instinctive ache that was well outside of the ordinary.

After spending nearly half the day distracted by recollections of Handa’s eyes, Goda concluded that he was the one who was going off his hinges. Five years ago, Goda had been the kind of man who barely acknowledged other people, even when the veins were popping out of their temples right in front of him, but now here he was latching onto this person’s behaviors and expressions, and indulging in pointless contemplation. Something is wrong, something about me is out of order, he mumbled, and before even starting to wonder how long he had been feeling this way, he repeated to himself, It’s all right. You’ll feel better as long as you stay focused on the investigation.

根来史彰　Fumiaki Negoro

The Metro section of Toho News had been in an uproar all morning over the breaking story that three rival papers had scooped them on—the managing editor had come by personally to check with Toru Maeda, the Metro chief.

“Are you guys all right over here?”

“We’re fine, totally fine,” Maeda responded, his voice energetic as he quickly turned away and beckoned the slot editors over. “The meeting’s starting!”

On one of the sofas by the windows, Tetsuo Sugano, chief of the MPD beat, had suddenly materialized, and even though he was the one at the very center of this morning’s maelstrom, his face was stoic. After exchanging a few dry greetings with the others, he took out his habitual comb. Negoro took a seat toward the back.