Chapter Ten

After a night with very little sleep, morning found Noboru and Mamoru in their cluttered office. In front of Noboru was a cardboard box with cheap coffee mugs in it: all of them carried the logo of the supermarket that was located just round the corner of the police station.

"What's up with those?" Mamoru asked while nodding in the direction of the mugs.

"They're for the break room."

Frowning, Mamoru looked around in the small room to notice that the dirty crockery that was usually as much a part of their office as the stacks of files and pictures was gone. A quick glance into the rubbish bin told him where their sorry remains had landed.

"What happened to those?"

"I smashed them," Noboru answered in a voice that left no room for questions. It was beginning to turn to an annoying habit, Mamoru thought with more than a little resentment, and busied himself with the car case again. The theft of the Bugatti seemed to be linked to several other cases: a banker who parked his cars in the same multi-storey car park had reported three of his cars as stolen: a Porsche Boxter, a Lotus Evora and a silver Mercedes. The security on the car park was tight, and yet, all the cars had miraculously disappeared in the same night without anyone noticing it. It smelled like an inside job, but despite interviewing the security personel, Mamoru was no closer to solving this case than Noboru and Haruka were to solving the Missing Heart Murders. Grumbling to himself, Mamoru wondered why anyone in their right mind needed three cars, but then again, he was by no means rich and didn't live in the most expensive skyscraper in the whole of Tokyo and perhaps the cars were just a part of having too much money on one's hand. His contemplation was interrupted when their door flew open and Haruka burst in. Her cheeks were coloured with excitement, two patches of red that gave her a more girlish appearance.

"Noboru, downstairs, now!"

Unpacking the cardboard box, Noboru didn't even bother to look up. "What is it?"

"It's Ace. He's in the lobby."

Without wasting a second, Noboru shoved the box aside, and shot ouf his chair, a movement so abrupt that it caused his torn skin to scream in protest. Trying to work through the pain, he hurriedly followed Haruka out of the door.

Behind his desk, Mamoru was left alone, frustration seeping into his bones.

The lobby was filled with people. Flashbulbs went off and microphones were held out, all centered on the figure of Minako Aino's infamous lover: Kaitou Ace. The assembled press was silent, hanging on his every word. This was a man who clearly relished the spotlight.

His clear voice easily carried into the hallways of the station, and the assembled people were quiet so as to catch his every word. Noboru and Haruka pushed their way through the crowd until they were almost face to face with him. Dressed to the nines in designer jeans, a white t-shirt with a band logo on it and a well-tailored black blazer, the blonde was ready to charm the masses.

"Of course, I did not kill Minako. I loved her, I truly did." He paused for a moment, and gulped. It looked a little over the top to Noboru. "She was a star, the brightest and most brilliant of them all, and the world has lost a little bit of its beauty with her death. I will subject myself to the police's questioning now, and I expect my name to be cleared within the hour." He shot the photographers a winning, but appropriately sad smile, and then offered his wrists to the two inspectors as if he expected them to handcuff him immediately.

Knowing that the media would just eat that up, Noboru instead jerked his head to indicate that Ace should follow him, leaving Haruka to deal with the press. He hated how the man treated this situation as if it were a play he was in. Ace was silent while being lead into the interrogation room, but he was smiling, and his relaxed state unnerved Noboru. Either he was innocent, and therefore sure that he would indeed be allowed to go home again, or he was flat out crazy.

"Mr. Ace, I will be with you shortly. Do you want a solicitor present while we question you?"

"No, I have nothing to hide." Another wide smile followed that statement, and Noboru decided that Ace definitely belonged in the crazy category.

Haruka was waiting for him outside the room, and beneath her arrogant demeanour, it was easy to tell that she was practically giddy with excitement. "I will go in and speak with him first, you can have your pick later."

Remembering how effortless it was to work with Mamoru, Noboru sighed. God, he really wanted his old partner back. "No, this won't do. We're both going in."

Haruka pressed her lips into a thin line, and it was so evident that she was just searching for something that would put Noboru on the sideline that it was almost laughable. "You'll just scare him," she finally bit out.

Snorting, Noboru retaliated. "And you won't?"

It was then that the chief arrived. The older man interrupted the argument before it really began. "Stop it. Have you sent someone in to take his fingerprints and a sample of hair for the DNA analysis?"

"Not yet," Noboru admitted sheepishly and beckoned the uniformed man closest to him to do so, who followed the silent order immediately.

"I'll be watching from next door," the Chief stated with another pointed look at his two inspectors and disappeared.

The interrogation room was bleak. Grey walls, a mirror that doubled as a one-way window from the other side, one desk, two chairs. Ace sat on one chair, Haruka on the other. Noboru was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed in front of his chest. The female inspector began the interrogation, her voice clear, cutting and precise.

"State your name, age, and profession."

"Kaitou Ace, 29, and I'm an actor." The note of pride in his voice was unmistakable.

"Describe your relationship to Minako Aino at the time of her death."

"She was my fiancée."

Haruka pretended to consult her notes, a movement that also served to hide her surprise. "I have no record of this, neither her manager nor her parents made any statements regarding an engagement. Can you explain this?"

"Setsuna was just an employee, Minako wouldn't share her personal life with her. And we were going to tell her parents at New Year's Eve, we had a big party planned for the happy occasion." Ace looked down at his hands as if in silent contemplation of the deceased singer and his destroyed future with her.

Thinking that Minako Aino would rather throw herself under a lorry than spend New Year's in the vicinity of her mother, Noboru resisted the urge to shake his head. There was something fishy about Kaitou Ace: the man was just putting it on too thick.

Haruka leaned back in her chair, seemingly at ease. "A friend of Miss Aino's, a certain Hisaya Nigoshi, reported that your affair was merely physical and that she had broken up with long before she was murdered."

Ace leaned forward, an intense glare in his blue eyes. "That's a lie." Noboru noted the intensity of the reaction, and mentally filed it away for later consideration.

Haruka switched tactics, it wouldn't do to get him all worked up before they had even covered the most basic facts. "Can you describe the engagement ring you gave to Miss Aino?"

"Of course, it is a six-carat pear-shaped pink diamond ring."

Not bothering to hide her disbelief, Haruka looked at Noboru, who was leaning against the wall on her right side. "How much does that cost?"

Noboru answered immediately, his voice carefully neutral. "Something close to 3,500,000 Yen."

Snorting, she turned back to Ace. "And you were able to afford that how? Did I miss the last big blockbuster you were in?"

"It is a family heirloom."

"No such ring was found in Miss Aino's flat."

"Well, then the murderer must have taken it with him."

"Speaking of which: where were you on Nov 3rd?"

"In my flat, I was preparing for an audition."

"Any witnesses to that?"

"No, I was alone."

"Of course you were. Perhaps a neighbour that heard you practice?"

Ace tipped his index finger against his chin. "Perhaps, but I tend to speak very low while practising to save my voice."

Rolling her eyes back, Haruka let out a snort and changed her angle. "Why did it take you so long to come forward? It's been over three weeks."

"I had to come to terms with the loss first. I was completely devastated, and I'm not ashamed to confess that I turned to drugs to numb the pain."

Noboru chose this moment to cut in and threw the group photograph of the girls on the table. "Can you identify the girls in the picture?"

Ace picked it up and looked at it closely. "No."

"They were Minako Aino's best friends, and you as her husband-to-be don't know them?" Noboru felt a bit hypocritical then; Mamoru had also not known his late wife's friends.

Sighing dramatically, Ace answered. "Inspector, a relationship is based on trust, not on control. Minako knew that she didn't need to tell me everything right away. Our connection was deep, and we didn't need many other people in our life together."

Haruka took over again. "We're you exclusive?"

"I thought we were, but then my beloved was a free spirit."

"So there might have been others?"

"Possibly. But I was the only one she always loved."

"But it must have made you very mad if she carried on with other men beside you. You were engaged to be married."

"I accepted her for who she was. Art requires sacrifices."

"Art? What art?"

"Her singing."

", she was a pop star. It was all very commercial, I don't see much art in flashing your legs while lip-synching."

"You wouldn't understand." Feeling that the interrogation had turned into a dead-end, Noboru produced another picture and threw it on the table. It was the paparazzi shot.

"Did you know you were being photographed?" he asked and watched the suspect closely.

"Not until I saw one of those pictures in the newspapers after her death."

"Are you sure? Because she knew that a photographer was there, look at this picture, she's looking right into the camera. Sure you didn't notice anything."

"I'm sure," Ace bit out and shoved the offensive pictures away from him. Disdain was etched into his face, and it was the second negative reaction he had displayed so far. It was something to go on. Noboru hoped that the cameras in the interrogation room had captured this reaction, he wanted to show it to Mamoru later on. Pushing his chair a bit back, Ace put some distance between himself and the picture, the smile not returning to his face.

Behind the one-way mirror, the chief was watching the interview unfold. He knocked on the window, and the inspectors left the room. They met in the hallway. Noboru raised a hand to his head, but stopped when the raw wounds on his back screamed in protest.

"He's a lunatic, no doubt about that. I don't believe that Minako and he were engaged."

Haruka smirked. "The engagement ring he described is J-Lo's. Family heirloom, my arse."

The chief nodded. "Ask him whether he has alibis for the other murders."

"We can certainly do that with regards to Usagi Chiba and Ami Mizuno, but we only have a very rough estimate of Makoto Kino's time of death."

"Perhaps her colleagues can tell her when she went missing?" the chief offered, but Noboru cut across him. "She had taken her holiday, all of it, it's why she wasn't reported missing. Her colleagues thought she was visiting some friends."

"That's not good. What did the coroner say?"

"Hanzo says that when we found her, she was dead for about a month, give or take a week. Combined with the information of when she took her holiday, we can narrow it down a bit, but it's still a frame of four days. We'll check his alibis -if he even has any - for all of them."

The Chief looked at the non-descript door leading to the interrogation room. "Go get a search warrant for his flat."

Haruka nodded, and got on it immediately.

In the break room, Mamoru put the new coffee mugs into the cabinets.

"So I heard that Kaitou Ace came in today?"

Mamoru turned around, not even suprised to find Katsurou Hanzo in the door way. The coroner was just shrugging out of his trench, and he was soaked to the bones despite the umbrella he had propped up against the wall. A small part of Mamoru was actually surprised that Hanzo didn't just repel rain by force of will. Smiling hesitantly, he inclined his head in greeting before answering.

"Yeah, Noboru and Tenoh are interrogating him as we speak."

"You're not back on the case?"

Mamoru's face clouded over, and he twisted the coffee mug in his hands. "No."

"Well, the last word may not have been spoken on the matter."

"Do you know anything about the murder weapon?"

A ghost of a smile flittered across the coroner's features. "I don't think I'm supposed to tell you, but no. I have no idea what sort of weaponry was used to cut the victims open. I've even spoken with the university and the military, asking for an update of the latest advances in laser technology, but they couldn't tell me anything that would explain how the perpetrator burned holes into women."

"That's bad."

Katsurou raised one silver brow, his voice dry. "Thank you."

"I didn't mean it like that!" Mamoru hurried to add, but Katsurou had already picked up his umbrella and trench coat again. "I have to get back to work. Stop by sometime if you wish."

Still waiting for Haruka to return from court, Noboru was observing Kaitou Ace through the one-way window. The suspect was completely quiet, only occasionally looking at his nails as if he wanted to see whether he needed a manicure again. He had come to them on their own volition, but only after weeks of a more or less fruitless search. Where had he hidden from them? His flat had been under surveillance from the minute Nigoshi had identified him, but Ace hadn't been seen by anyone. Perhaps he had a secret hideout somewhere, and perhaps this is where Rei Hino was, dead or alive. Only that Noboru was sure that Ace wasn't their guy. Just as it had been with Hisaya Nigoshi, his instincts told him that while Kaitou Ace was crazy, he was not the one who had killed all those girls. He lacked the intelligence, the foresight, the brains. Perhaps the time would have come when Ace would have killed Minako Aino, but someone had done it before Ace's madness could manifest into something more solid and dangerous. Still, there was more to Ace than met the eye, and Noboru was sure that he had some valuable information hidden in the recesses of his mind. He stepped into the hallway and entered the interrogation room again, fully aware that it was not exactly the most collegial thing to do without his new partner by his side.

", I have some further questions for you."

"Of course," Ace answered pleasantly.

Noboru smiled, and put two further pictures on the table. They were the ones they had found in the secret drawer, showing Mamoru and the mystery blonde man.

"Do you know who these men are?"

Ace barely acknowledged the picture of Mamoru. "I've never seen him."

Feeling his heartbeat accelerate, Noboru tapped his fingers on the other picture. "What about him?"

Ace crossed his arms. "I don't know, I met many people."

"Perhaps he was a friend of Miss Aino's?"

"As I've said, I don't know."

Nodding, Noboru took the pictures back. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, Mr. Ace, but you surely understand that I have to ask this." He made a little pause to establish eye contact. Building rapport was everything now. "Do you think that this man in the picture might have been...?" Noboru then looked to his feet, making himself feel sheepish even though he was anything but.

The suspect took the bait."A lover?"

Noboru shrugged, quietly cursing himself immediately. He should just stop moving altogether for a day or two to give his skin some time to heal.

"I wouldn't know that, would I, Inspector Sanjoin?"

"You were her fiance. I don't think that there was much that got by." The flattery was careful, but it did the trick.

"I saw him leaving her apartment building once or twice. Can't tell whether he was visiting her, of course."

"Of course."

Noboru excused himself again, and hurried down the hallway to send a copy of the picture to the techs. If he was really lucky, they might find the mystery blonde through facial recognition software. Beckoning a constable to come over, he handed him the picture and sent him to Aino's neighbourhood to ask around a little bit.

The afternoon dragged on, and Mamoru couldn't remember the last time he had been this frustrated and bored. He had even stooped so low as to tidy up their office: the bins were now flowing over with old files, and not for the first time did Mamoru wish for a shredder. His phone showed three missed calls, all from the same and very familiar mobile number, but Mamoru wasn't in the mood to talk to Setsuna today. Or tomorrow, come to think of it.

Noboru returned to their office just as Mamoru prepared to leave for the day.

"Huh. What happened here?"

"I threw some old stuff out. How did the interrogation go?"

"Ace is crazy, that man has deluded himself into thinking that he was engaged to Aino. He doesn't have an alibi for any of the murders but Usagi's. He was in Kawasaki for that time, appearing in a small play five nights in a row. I already checked back with the theatre, they confirmed it."

Strangely torn between being relieved and disappointed, Mamoru leaned against the large crime board they had shoved against a wall. Behind him, portraits of all the victims stared into the room. "What do you think? Guilty?"

Noboru shook his head.

"No. But he knows something that he's not telling us."

"You think he might know the murderer?"

"Uh huh."

"I spoke to Hanzo today: no news on the weapon."

"Well, fuck."

"I know."

Silence settled over them, but none of them made a move to leave. Eventually, Mamoru reached into his jacket and pulled out a small tube of lotion, throwing it to Noboru, who managed to catch it with a pained groan.

"This should help with your back."

Noboru turned the tube over in his fingers, not meeting Mamoru's eyes. He nodded, more to himself than to Mamoru.

Trying to break through the tension, Mamoru pushed his hands deep into his pockets. "Wanna go get a beer?"

A sad smile hushed over Noboru's face before he brushed over it and slapped Mamoru on the back as he made his way out of the room. "I can't, sorry. There's something I have to take care off."

"So, back again." She was staying in a filthy hotel room, and when she opened the thin door to him, Beryl was already naked. Her skin was white, but her eyes were dark. Noboru tried to root himself in the reality of his job: he needed to end this, he needed to function, and for that, he needed to leave her behind. Only that he couldn't leave her without understanding what made him seek her out in the first place. Throwing a quick look over his shoulder, he entered. The hammering rain had soaked his clothes, and the added weight tugging on his frame was an unpleasant sensation.

Beryl closed the behind him and ran a hand through his wet curls, tugging her nails into his skull. Once again, she broke the skin.

Breaking away from her with a disgusted expression, he walked to the window. Distance was everything, he had to keep a cool head.

Pained, he looked at her."What is it that draws me to you?" The desperation in his voice made her laugh; it was a mirthless sound, a distorted echo of a real laugh, a mere farce in this twisted room of torture.

"Darkness. Memories. Pain. You want all of that, and only I can give it you." She was next to him in an instant, and ran a hand over his chest. "Only I, Noboru. Only I."

Despite himself, he leaned in and stayed, hating himself a little more with every passing second.

When he left hours later, he found himself driving aimlessly through the rainy night, the sound of the drops hitting the car's roof the only sound he could bear. In his head, he was still screaming.

End of Chapter Ten