Author's note: massive SPOILERS for files 815+, tomes 77-78, aka the Belltree Express (or Black Mystery Train) case.
Translated from french, original is on my profile under "La Femme Morte."
The Dead Woman.
Part One: A woman like an angel...
I remember... I understand now. It's strange how shock can throw a fresh light on memories from over five years ago.
I close my eyes to focus on my recollections, taking refuge in my memories to ignore the tears running down my face and their main cause.
We were all so excited to go on that train, the mystery train named "Belltree Express." It was to be expected from a gang of primary school kids keen on police investigations. We had all dressed up: Conan had on his distinctive jacket, shirt and bowtie, Mitsuhiko and I both had on our Sunday best, and Genta had even changed his style to put on a brand new jean overall, similar to the ones we associated with train conductors in cartoons. Even professor Agasa had found a suitable hat for the occasion and Ai wasn't to be forgotten, not allowing her cold to stop her from accompanying us.
Maybe she shouldn't have.
Evidently, as was always the case during a Detective Boys expedition, an incident took place. We only understood too late that it was nothing to do with the train's annual quiz, that it was for real. Going against the custom, once the murder was revealed Conan asked us to take refuge in our cabin. For our safety he told us, now I wonder if there wasn't more to it than that...
Now that I think back, there were plenty of signs that something was wrong; not only Conan's behaviour, but also Ai's. The scared glances towards the intimidating stranger, the manner in which she would grab onto Conan and Ran's clothing as they walked down the corridors of the infamous train, her mute behaviour in front of Ran's friend, Masumi Sera if I recall correctly. She had seemed rather distracted when the possibility of encountering the mysterious woman who had saved us from the fire the week prior was mentioned... And then...
Unconsciously, I exit my reminiscence to look at the one I had just thought of. My hands shake as I see her, the one who hadn't ignored the signs five years ago. The one who, even though she had tried so hard, hadn't been able to stop the tragedy then... Nor today's. My legs buckle, the weight of these revelations pulling me down to the height I had then...
I, Ayumi Yoshida, hadn't had a clue that the fated moment where my best friend had left us, pretending to head to the bathroom to take her cold medicine, was to be the very last time I would see her, as she was then at least...
Ran had worried, having lost sight of her before she could accompany her. She had even gone to check the nearest toilets to find her when Ai hadn't reappeared several minutes later. When she received a message from the mixed-race girl telling her not to worry, Mitsuhiko, Genta and I had simply thought, innocent as we were, that she'd gone to join Conan to follow the resolution of the murder mystery that had robbed us of any opportunity to explore the train freely. Not that I think back, I understand why that message had worried Ran so. It was nearly like she knew Ai better than we did.
The fire alert pushing us to the front of the train took us all by surprise. Having only just recently escaped from a fire, Mitsuhiko, Genta and I exchanged worried looks. The boys looked afraid. Me? I had passed out during that incident, I could only recall one thing...
An intense heat, heavy and dirty air that a breeze came to clear... My exhausted limbs had been unable to move, but that wasn't a problem. Squinting my eyes open, I had realised I was being carried, gently but surely towards the sweet fresh outdoors. A woman like an angel, whose face seemed familiar and whose eyes were filled with gentle kindness when she heard my question.
"Ai?"
"She must be evacuating too," answered the professor, seeming worried but striving to reassure us. "If she isn't already at the front of the train."
"Let's go check..." Ran said, not waiting to join the crowd in the corridors. Her voice melded into the cacophony of the other scared and confused passengers. "We can also ask the conductors...!"
We followed on her heels with the Professor and Sonoko, eyes scanning through the crowd and holding each other's hands to not lose one another. We did try to ask miss Sera when she ran passed us in the wrong direction, but...
She was already a train ahead of us.
Masumi Sera awoke to the sounds of panic in the corridor, a burning pain in her chest and in her head. She was lying down, alone, in her cabin in the fifth car. She didn't recall returning to it... It took her a moment to sit up, to fight her dizziness, and recall what happened. She had been investigating with the Sleeping Kogoro and little Conan, and had left the eighth car to meet up with the other kids and show them her videos of the suspects... And, maybe, to have a short chat with little "Haibara." That was when she...
"... Big brother Shuu?" Rubbing her chest, and glancing inside her t-shirt, she quickly confirmed her suspicions. He'd used an electric taser to knock her out.
There had to be something more going on. She knew her big brother was an FBI agent with a formidable intelligence, capable of anything to reach his target, but... Shuuichi, using a taser? To get rid of her? Wasn't he dead? Didn't she cry, nights on the trot, once the shock from the news had sunk in? She remembered the anger that had pushed her to leave the States, to head to Beika, the Tokyo suburb from which her eldest brother had sent her his last missive... The anger she had directed towards the young woman she had known five years prior, who was the reason her brother's life had taken such a turn.
Frustrated at having been caught out so, whether the scarred man was her sibling or not, she took a moment to think. If she was that woman and things were heading south, where would she hide? If she were one of the many enemies hunting her, where would she go?
"I repeat, a fire alert has been declared in car 8, passengers from cars 6 and 7 are required to evacuate to the front of the train."
It clicked, and she wasted no time. Rushing down the corridor, she only glanced at the Detective Boys long enough to confirm that their number had been reduced to three. She didn't even hear their questions.
I recall that my stomach had tied itself in knots when we caught up with Ran, seeing the expression on her face.
"What do you mean, you've lost Conan? And you're certain you've not seen Ai?"
"What do you want?" Her father, Kogoro Mouri seems confused, annoyed and worried all at the same time. "I was sure the brat was following me when we left car 8, as for the girl, wasn't she with you?"
Shoved around by the crowd pressing against him and pushing us towards the front of the train, the great detective of the sleepy reputation made an exasperated gesture towards the panicked travellers.
"They're probably just lost amongst this lot. They won't be far, I'm sure."
"Don't worry Ran, your dad must be right. Let's go check the front of the train..." Sonoko, Ran's friend from a rich family tried to be reassuring. It was thanks to her we'd got tickets for this trip. If she had known...
"Okay..." Ran replied after a short pause. The high schooler took a step back. "All of you, go check up front. I'll just make sure they haven't got trapped behind."
And before her father or friend could stop her, she had slipped in between the panicked passengers to head towards the sixth car. The boys and eye shared a quick look before checking that the adults had lost sight of us, a skill we'd learnt from Conan, before following her. It was easy for us to weave through the legs of all these strangers. It would be harder for Sonoko, Mister Mouri and Professor Agasa to see which direction we had left in once they finished their short debate. They would probably presume us to be heading to check the front of the train but...
If ever Ai and Conan were stuck in the car on fire? On our honour as Detective Boys, we weren't going to leave them there!
If only it had just been a fire...
A corridor filling with more and more smoke greeted Masumi as she dodged the very last of the evacuees: a conductor looking stressed who'd just done the final call for evacuation. He knocked repeatedly on the cabin doors as he passed, and had made a valiant effort to redirect her to the front of the train but... It was obvious that even the great Suzuki Corporation didn't pay him enough to block the road of a Jeet Kune Do expert.
Once satisfied that she was clear to find the root of the fire, the high school girl quickened her pace. Her shoe knocked against an object that went flying, clunking into the door between cars seven and eight with a metallic sound. She recognised her smartphone that she'd lost in her encounter with the scarred man but paid it little heed. It collided with her feet a couple more times as she leapt into the last car, the smoke making it hard to spot, before it vanished. All thoughts about the murder case and the videos on her device evaporated the moment she turned down into the car's corridor, seeing that the latter was much more occupied than the one she'd just left.
She could only glimpse vague silhouettes at first, but what she couldn't distinguish with her sight, she could by ear...
"Step away from her..." It was a voice she recognised all too well. That voice had occasionally given her guidance throughout her childhood, the strength and firmness in it had always served as her aspiration... It was her brother's voice.
"Who? Vermouth?" A voice she didn't know: male, young, smart... "No... You."
Masumi could make out a third silhouette, its edges blurry but vaguely more feminine than that of the two men. She could hear the latter struggling, the stranger seeming to hold her with a hand behind their back.
"Moroboshi... Dai?"
Impossible to mistake it, that was the voice of the girl she'd met the last time she'd been to the land of the rising sun, when Shuichi had introduced her to his new girlfriend. A touch more mature, despite the circumstances, she seemed to have kept the calm and dry tone that had always riled Masumi up. The confusion in her voice was a suitable reflection of that the young detective felt having been certain to have seen her in a shrunken form just an hour prior.
Normally she would let anger dictate her actions without considering a proper strategy. Shuu had always told her off for this. That was why she learnt Jeet Kune Do: to compensate for the issues her hot temper could cause... But she was unsure how her martial arts could help in this situation. None of the three seemed to have noticed her, but she couldn't come closer without them noticing her presence.
"I said let her go!" Her brother's authoritarian voice... She could sense the frustration in it. He made no effort to answer the queries of the stranger or Shiho Miyano.
"Sherry is coming with me, Rye." The mysterious man answers. Her eyes adjusting to the smoke, Masumi noticed the glaring lack of flames, and the cold sharp shape of a revolver held against the woman's head. Drat...
I remember that we were running, Genta, Mitushiko and I... We'd gotten passed most of the crowd and could see Ran at the end of the corridor. She was haphazardly checking cabins, as well as the toilets as she passed, but we could sense her fear. We shared it. The main advantage of having been stuck in a burning cabin the week prior was that we knew the smell of a fire... The smoke we could smell didn't smell right.
If she were to try and recall the scene later, Masumi Sera would find it difficult. It all went down so quick... It was strange, she thought, to see the man, that later was confirmed to be her brother, go to such lengths to try and save a hostage... and fail.
Shuuichi Akai always had a plan. He was always prepared. He always used his formidable intellect to analyse all his enemies' moves and counter them.
In her heart she could sense that that had been the case, that something must have occurred to turn all his preparations to rubble, something unforeseen.
Shiho and the stranger were stepping back towards the back of the train, the small car that held supplies. That's when Masumi slowly had began her approach, before noticing, distractedly, that the man she thought might be her brother was wearing a hat very similar to hers.
The distraction was deadly. The stranger, a man whose brown hair and dark skin she glimpsed, spotted her. He didn't even warn her with any cry before shooting bullets at her.
Shuichi took the opportunity to rush at the gunman, earning him some shots in his direction. She couldn't tell if any had hit him, but she could feel shivers running down her spine. Masumi had blood running down from a sudden graze along her cheek.
It wasn't as though she would let a small scare freeze her to the spot when there was action to be had... As Shuichi wrestled the armed man, she leapt forward to force him to release his hostage... A hostage who seemed more afraid at the sight of her than the recently fired Beretta. Masumi shoved her with some force towards the half open door of a cabin before diving to the ground: the man was firing again, and it sounded like he was emptying his clip.
Half a dozen bullets soared across the carriage in a wide arc, from the door to cabin B through the roof to the windows in the corridor. The window pane, following the impact of two bullets, broke into pieces, various shapes of glass smashing to the floor or flying out into the train's slipstream. Masumi quickly got on her feet to head into the cabin and attempt to close the door, but not without glancing back at the two men in the corridor who were no longer fighting over a gun, but a grenade. The firearm had fallen to the ground.
She watched in horror as they both pressed each other up against the empty frame of the broken window. It didn't take much to see them fall. A horrified expression, a sad look in her direction, a hat fluttering down to the car's carpet, last memento of the person rescuing the chemist behind Masumi who was having trouble breathing.
"Damn it, Bourbon!" A troubling cough made Masumi whip her head around... "Didn't they teach us to aim better than this?"
Yukiko Kudo, during this time, held her hands up towards the ceiling with the barrel of a revolver less than five centimetres from her nose. The situation wasn't completely unexpected. After all, her opponent was none other than her previous colleague and friend, Sharon Vineyard, and she had volunteered to distract her. However, that was on condition her son and their new ally could save little Ai from herself.
Yukiko was beginning to feel nervous.
She still hadn't received a call from Shinichi to confirm the success of their plan. For once that no news was bad news... Especially when Sharon was telling her in a delighted tone that her accomplice had found the girl in the eighth carriage.
A few minutes of silence went by, the near diabolical grin of the American really helping her to play the role of distraught woman whose plans had been thwarted. And still no call from Shinichi... Didn't he promise to inform her with predetermined phrases whether their plan was a success or not?
That said, Sharon's smile was not without wobbles now... There was a degree of impatience in the movement of her eyebrows and the tightness of her jaw. She too was awaiting a signal.
After a few more minutes, her enemy finally sighed before pointing the antenna of her mobile phone towards Yukiko.
"Sorry, Yukiko dearest, but it seems you are going to miss the climax..."
She couldn't help the high-pitched cry she let out as Sharon pointed the odourful gas at her airways. She couldn't avoid inhaling the gas, and she quickly went under its knockout effects.
She barely glimpsed young Sharon putting back on the scarred man mask, before falling into a deep slumber, prone against the couch of her cabin...
To be continued...