Thank you very much for your reviews. I'm glad you like the previous chapter. You are so kind to leave me suggestions and ideas as to how to improve the fic. Thank you… : )
Krappkarmin – I think I would be adding more characters in time to come. Maybe as a cameo or something. Do check them out. : )
Dimension & Alexia – Thanks for pointing out certain things to my fic to make it better. Alexia-san, I've altered the parts you pointed out in your review to the second chapter. Thanks. : )
Lambie – Yes, it's AU but it's not going to be yaoi.
Now onto the next chapter… : )
X-Forces
Wintry Evolution
03/01/2003
Chapter 3Saturday, Dec 12, 11:14:19
Now that she thought of it, she knew she had seen the dead girl somewhere before. The long, curling eyelashes… a pointed nose…the protruding ears… all of which enhanced her facial features considerably. It was hard to forget features as distinct as that. In the archive room of the publishing house, Ayako ran her hands through the familiar yellowed, flimsy pieces of newspapers, which she used to spend much time with in her early years as a professional reporter. Stirring a huge amount of dust by her action of pulling the box from the shelf, she coughed and sneezed vehemently as the tiny molecules tickled at her nose.
After removing several boxes from their nesting places and rummaging through their contents, she finally found the article dated a few years ago that showed a faded picture of the dead corpse when she was still alive and kicking. Except that in place of the sharp pointed nose was a small blunt one and instead of the dyed black hair, the person in the paper had reddish brown hair.
Tightly, she hugged the article to her chest before slipping it secretly into her pocket. Armed with the absolute conviction that the police did not have this piece of priceless information; Ayako snickered in delight at the unexpected find. Perhaps she could use it to trade for some inside scoop from the inspector.
* * *
Saturday, Dec 12, 11:47:33
To accompany her white jumper and checkered short skirt, she wore black high-heeled boots and spotted a hairstyle so complicated that made Sendoh wonder the amount of time she spent dressing up like a clown every day. At that point in time, she was leaning against the window of a fashion boutique and appeared to be waiting for someone.
"What's her name?" Mitsui whistled softly at her great legs but added hastily a few seconds later, "On second thoughts, don't tell me."
Eyebrows arching a notch in mock surprise, the younger man grinned widely. Everyone in the agency knew it was Mitsui's policy not to get involved with their clients or targets in any way, this meant their names as well. At any rate, the spiky-haired lad started to review through her personal details in his mind.
Born to a Caucasian father and Japanese mother, she was known as Haruko to her close friends and classmates but Evelyn Tania Smith to her family members. In a few days' time, she was going to turn seventeen. Initially she was a very docile and hardworking child but she was getting unruly of late. Of the seven days in a week, she would return home in the wee hours of the morning for at least six days. Not only that, her results too showed signs of rapid decline. Where in the past, she would ace all her examinations easily, now she could only pass two out of five examinations.
As he pondered over the possibilities for her drastic change, the spiky-haired lad watched intently as she entered an enclosed telephone booth and dialed a number. Her expression revealed nothing of what she was talking about. If only Kenji was present, he would know what the girl was talking about. The brown-haired boy learnt the art of lip-reading a year ago.
Just then, an old woman accidentally tripped over her own foot and fell heavily onto the ground in front of them. Despite witnessing the incident, no passers-by came forward to assist her to her feet. Without hesitation, the helpful Mitsui stepped towards her when his partner grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back with much force.
Sendoh shook his head as subtly as he could. "Ignore that old woman."
"She fell, for goodness sake!" Mitsui hissed angrily as he roughly shook the younger man's hand off his checkered sleeve, "Where's your compassion?"
"This isn't the time for that. Don't forget, we're on an assignment." He whispered tonelessly as he glared at the reckless Mitsui.
"You can go on being professional if you want to. I'm helping her all the same."
On that note, his colleague went over to the elderly woman and helped her up. With a low frustrated growl, Sendoh returned his attention to their target.
"Sh*t!"
She was gone.
* * *
Saturday, Dec 12, 12:27:24
Adjusting his seating position to a more comfortable one, Inspector Maki rested his hands on the armrests at the same time he hitched up his legs on the desk. "Have you identified the girl yet?"
"The department is going through the database right now. I expect they will know the identity of the girl soon." Kiyota replied, as he stood, rapt with attention before the untidily cluttered desk.
"I see." The inspector struck a match and lit his cheap cigarette that was hanging limply from the corner of his lips.
"Inspector, I don't think it's wise of you to smoke in an air-conditioned building…" The unsmiling serious constable started when his superior scowled in displeasure, "Sod the rules."
An expression of disapproval on his pale smooth face, Kiyota made no reply while he observed the hunky man pinch out the minute fire at the edge of the short match with his fingertips.
"So have you found out anything that might remotely resemble that crisscross marks I showed you just now?" Inspector Maki said, taking the cigarette from between his lips.
Apologetically, Kiyota shook his head a second time, thinking that it might not even be crucial a clue to the murderer's identity at all. Perhaps the imprint was already there a few days ago. Who knew? It was so faint to begin with and located too far away from the body that he hardly considered it essential evidence. If he were the Inspector, he would roam the area around the corpse as Detective-Inspector Jin had done.
But unfortunately, he was not the Inspector.
Maki was.
Unfortunately, he was not assigned to work in District B.
But District A.
The loser district.
At the thought of this, Kiyota fumed in anger.
When the constable reported at the station on his first day of work, he was surprised to hear Inspector Maki call him by another name, Hanagata. Upon further query, he realized that he was supposed to report for work at District B instead of A as stated in the document he was handed. If the typist had not gotten his name mixed up with that other police officer, he would have been assigned to District B, under the wings of the highly intelligent Detective-Inspector Jin. At any rate, the superintendents thought it was a waste of time and energy to submit a report requesting a transfer between the two new recruits to their respective work places, and thus they remained where they were. And so here Kiyota was, all because of a stupid mistake made by the irresponsible administrative assistant, who had not bothered to check her work thoroughly before she presented it to her boss.
As if sensing his unhappiness, the tanned man waved his subordinate back to his seat behind the enquiry desk.
"Oh, this is a file the superintendent wanted me to give you." Constable Kiyota mumbled, leaving the blue folder on his desk before taking his leave.
However, before Inspector Maki could look through the blue folder, the telephone rang shrilly. The hunky man rifled through the mountain of documents and folders on the desk and floor for the damned object, which loved disappearing at times like this. Finally after some hurling of files and reports into the air to clear the area he was searching at that moment, he found it at the corner of the office, happily ringing away.
"Inspector Maki speaking," stated he in a crisp, matter-of-fact voice.
Just then, Kiyota knocked on the door. Still on the telephone, the inspector waved him inside, whereupon the constable gave him another folder, this time, yellow that was marked "Classified".
"Hello, Inspector Maki."
Upon hearing that familiar nasal tone, which had on many occasions grated his nerves in an undesirable way, his concentration on the telephone call ceased immediately as he transferred it to the folder sitting before him instead. "Come off the act."
Now that he had seen through her motive for calling him, Ayako wasted no time in getting to the point. "All right. I have a proposition for you."
All the while absorbing the details about the identity of body they found in the woods, he made no visible or audible comment to her words. Regrettably, the file only consisted of her physical traits and some personal particulars. There was no mention about the evidence found on, around and near the dead body. He had a good mind to remind Kiyota to collect the file on that later. He wanted to know what the evidence had to insinuate about the crime, especially the mobile phone found at the scene of the crime. He found that item lying a distance away from the body after storming away from Kiyota earlier that day. However, Detective-Inspector Jin, who feared that the tanned man might contaminate it with his unwanted fingerprints, confiscated it straight away.
Like he ever would.
He, Inspector Maki, had not been a policeman for half a decade for nothing.
Not only that, that pimped-faced jerk issued strict orders to all departments that he was in charge of the case and not Inspector Maki as presumed. How infuriating could one get?
"I have some information about the girl you found in the woods." Ayako deliberately volunteered this very slowly; knowing well enough that it would arrest the man's attention at once, which it did, his ears pricked up, waiting for what she had to say to this, "I will trade this information with you if you give me some first hand information on the police investigations on this matter."
"What makes you think I'll accept this deal?"
"Based on the fact I know something you don't know." The cocky reporter whispered so certainly that he could almost visualize the trademark smirk on her face.
"And did it ever occur to you that whatever you might know now would be revealed to us sooner or later in time to come?"
"It might reestablish your status as the best inspector in Kanagawa," tempted the quick-thinking girl.
Within seconds, he doused the cigarette on the ashtray and sniggered in contempt at her words. "What makes you think I will accept your suggestion after rejecting your numerous propositions in the past?"
Following that, he slammed down the receiver back into its place and gruffly headed for the exit of the building. When he passed by the enquiry desk where the constable who was busy teaching the new recruit the different methods of handling nuisance calls from pranksters, Inspector Maki conveyed his requests and strode out of the station in search of new information on the murder.
* * *
Saturday, Dec 12, 12:35:21
His stomach growling in protest at the maltreatment meted to it, he stepped into a bakery round the corner and ran his eyes appreciatively over the butter-smelling buns and cakes. Taking a tray from the stack at the corner of the crowded shop, he pondered over the bread and pastries he should choose for his lunch. There were so many varieties available that he was spoilt for choice. Finally, he selected a cake with lots of peach atop it and a loaf of chocolate bread. While he was waiting in line to pay for his food, he noticed a familiar looking back view bending over a platter of pastries and arranging them in neat rows and columns.
When he realized who she was, he raised his eyebrows in surprise.
He burst into his hallmark raucous laughter, which attracted everyone's attention to him at once. "Hmm… what if the editor hears of this? His money-churning machine here selling pastries!"
"This is my father's shop, if you don't mind." She flashed him a disarming smile, which she ended it in a matter of seconds as she carried the platter to the shelves beside him. "And it doesn't matter if word gets to my editor that I'm helping out here. I have his full consent to do so."
"Then how about trying to bribe a police officer?" His eyes glinted dangerously.
Though inwardly she was boiling with fury at his insinuation, she managed to keep calm. "I'm not bribing. That's called an exchange of information."
"What exactly did you want to tell me just now?"
"If I remember correctly, you slammed the phone on me. That tells me clearly your sentiments about the proposition I made."
"Fine, I shall report our telephone conversation in full detail to the superintendent then."
The fuming girl eyed him in hatred and revulsion. "You wouldn't dare!"
"Try me." A smug smile played over his lips.
* * *
Saturday, Dec 12, 13:44:09
"What do you mean she's gone?" Sakuragi yelped with incredulity.
"I don't know. One minute she's here, the next… poof! Disappeared!"
"Disappeared from your vision? Just like that?"
Exasperated, Sendoh yelled into the receiver, "How many times must I repeat it to you?"
"Kenji's not…" The redhead halted in his speech as he saw a whistling Kenji walking in through the entrance and motioned him to come over, "Hold on, Kenji's here."
What's the problem? Kenji mouthed to his red-haired colleague in confusion as he took the receiver from him.
After what seemed to be an hour long of speech by Sendoh, Kenji questioned tentatively, "You've lost the girl?"
The spiky-haired boy nodded, forgetting that his partner was not present and thus could not see his actions.
"Calm down. It's fine. We'll just have to wait for her at the same place tomorrow and begin from there. Why are you so uptight, Sendoh? It's unlike you to lose your cool." Worried, Kenji sat himself on a chair as he waited for his reply.
A tensed Sendoh grimaced. "I don't know but my gut tells me there's something fishy going on. Something we are not aware of."
* * *
Saturday, Dec 12, 14:14:56
In the meantime, a doctor who was struggling to keep awake after a day long of studying rotting or hacked up corpses was examining an unclothed body in the ice-cold mortuary. Switching on the recorder to document his findings on the body, he first proceeded with his visual examination.
The roots of her dark black tresses spotted faint traces of red, which he deduced was the original color of her hair. Soon his body examination brought him to her serene face. Every facial feature was perfectly in place but something about this unbelievable perfection nagged at him. He worried away, trying his best to identify the discrepancy but unfortunately, he was still unable to put a finger to it.
Giving up at last, he continued with his physical assessment of the rest of the body. Save for the rampant callous bloody stab wounds that destroyed the beautiful outline of the upper torso, everything seemed to be in place. That was true until he came to the lower half of the body. It was then it struck home the cause of the nagging feeling he experienced earlier with the sculpted body lying there peacefully, as if mocking him for his stupidity.
Compared to the normal female pelvis, the corpse had an unusually big one. Furthermore, there was an unnatural contour to the pelvic area of the corpse. Upon further examination, he realized that it had gone under the knife before. Where the penis and testicles were located in the past, they were now non-existent.
The female corpse was in reality a male, who had undergone a sex change operation.
At the newfound discovery, Doctor Rukawa hurriedly scuttled to where the intercom was and switched it on. Immediately a polite boyish voice piped through it.
"Yes, Doctor? Is there anything you want?"
"Yes, Hikiochi, get me the inspector in charge of Case Number 341."
A slight pause ensued and a rustling sound was heard after which his assistant answered, "That would be Detective-Inspector Jin Soichiro."
"He's in charge?" Doctor Rukawa frowned thoughtfully as he glanced at the deceased on the metallic rectangular table, "No, get me Inspector Shinichi Maki of District A."
Yes, compared to the young rookie, Inspector Maki would be better equipped with the knowledge to handle this case.
* * *
Saturday, Dec 12, 14:29:01
In a brute manner, a firm hand seized her arm and hauled her resisting body towards the dark alley near the bakery. Irked, she clawed at his hand like a wild cat and screamed at him to release her right away. But he did not. Soon they came to the end of the alley where he pushed her forcefully against the wall. Upon physical contact with the uneven rough wall, she winced in pain and glared at him in fury at the way he treated her. To avoid being scratched at with her sharp fingernails, the man before her pinned her hands to the wall above her head.
"We can do this the gentle way or the rough way." His breath felt strangely warm and comforting against her ear.
Surprisingly, her heart started pumping harder and harder as her body senses became more aware of his masculine presence. Without being conscious of her actions, she chewed her lips nervously and her breathing became more labored. She noted him study her face in full detail and suddenly felt very insecure of her looks at that moment. She watched as his eyes stop at her full red lips and reflexively licked them. For once, she was at a loss of words.
Inspector Maki raised his eyes level to hers and grinned in such a suave way that no woman could resist his charms, though what he was going to do next reduced his appeal by half.
"I would like that piece of information, if you don't mind."
Ayako's brain was swirling from the close proximity they were engaged in and she found her ability to think diminishing greatly. "Why do you want it so much?"
"Because I'm a policeman? And my job is to hunt down any possible clue that helps to solve the crime?" He cocked his head sideways and winked at her in his trademark cheeky way.
"Do you then have to resort to this?"
"No but you left me with no other choice."
"You've no other motive for doing this?"
Frowning, he enquired curiously, "What other motive should I have?"
"Let my hands go."
An incredulous look planted itself on his face. "What? And let you scratch me again?!"
"The article is in my pocket. I need my hands to reach into my pocket for it."
Inspector Maki peered intently at the faded words in the article, which Ayako handed him. "What does this have to do with the crime?"
"Look at the picture for goodness sake. Whatever are you looking at?"
"He does look like the body we found in the woods, so?"
"So?" Ayako echoed impatiently before continuing, "Don't you think it's funny that there can be two people in this world who look so similar to each other?"
"Have you found out their relationship then?"
"No. There's hardly any available records on the person in the picture."
"…"
"But you being in the police force and thus having access to the profiles of everyone in the country, should be able to find out if they are related."
Raising the article to his forehead, he awarded her with a vague salute before turning around to leave her. "Thanks."
When he left, surprisingly for the first time, Ayako felt hollow and disappointed.
***
As he got off his car, Inspector Maki scanned through the faded old article Ayako gave him, finding it hard to believe there could be two people in this world who bore such uncanny resemblance to each other. At any rate, the article reported this man Taku Ito and his successive failures in writing after his one-shot hit in the literary world with his book, 'The Downfall Of The Famous'. Being a recluse, he did not enjoy staying in the limelight at all. He vehemently refused to have his photographs taken or interviewed. This was perhaps the only article that carried a picture of him. Maybe that was why Inspector Maki was unable to recognize the name when Ayako showed him the article just now. In fact, he doubted anybody would.
Rumors had it that he was an only child in the family. His father died when he was two and thus his mother slogged hard for money to feed and educate him. Unfortunately, before he turned twelve, his mother died of exhaustion. Since then, he led a lonesome life, apparently never finding enough comfort in any women to marry them. He barely supported himself by writing for some sleazy magazines and newspapers before he hit the jackpot with 'The Downfall Of The Famous'.
He wondered what the connection was between the writer and the dead corpse in the woods.
With the intention to call the pathologist, he took his mobile phone out of his pocket.
Arragh!
Of all times, it had to break down now. Irritably, he shook it in his hand and after failing to obtain any success with it, kept the miserable item in his coat pocket and stepped into the police station.
"Inspector Maki, there was a call for you about fifteen minutes ago." Miyagi started as he handed a file to the tanned man, who was walking towards the enquiry desk. "I've left the note in your in-tray."
"Thanks, my boy." Taking the file from police officer, Inspector Maki faced the monkey-faced Kiyota, who was struggling to match his fast-paced steps, and inquired in a gruff undertone, "Did you check out the last number she dialed on her mobile phone like I told you to?"
"Of course I did!" The constable quivered in indignation, miffed that his superior had placed so little faith in his ability in carrying out orders.
Maki frowned at the sudden change in his behavior but shook it off as he proceeded in a business-like manner, "So what about it?"
"The last call she made to…" Kiyota faltered for a second before continuing in a small voice, "It was to our station."
"What?!" Hands on both sides of his waist, Maki's footsteps dwindled to a stop, pursed his lips in disbelief, and then turned around to face the monkey-faced man, whose cheeks were, at the moment, as red as tomato.
"The last call she made… it was to our police station."
Oh no! What's going to happen next?
Three chapters within two weeks… wow… Hope you enjoy reading this chapter. Please do review… : ) I'm going for my lunch now…