Chapter Eleven

The call came at seven thirty in the morning.

Hisaya Nigoshi's landlord called the police to let me them know that the tenants renting the flat under Nigoshi's had reported an odd black stain on their ceiling. It might be a broken pipe, it might be something altogether different, but since Nigoshi had been officially reported missing yesterday, the landlord had called the police immediately.

Since Noboru was still nowhere to be seen, it was only Haruka and a constable that drove the short distance through the crisp Tokyo morning. When they arrived at the building, the landlord and several of Nigoshi's neighbours were already waiting despite the early hour. Their faces were curious and worried, their voices hushed but buzzing, and the overall atmosphere reminded Haruka of the countless traffic accidents she had seen back when she was a patrol cop. There had always been useless bystanders, satisfying their own curiosity rather than helping the hurt passengers out of wrecked cars. The whispers muted when she walked past, but she could still hear them gossiping about the scandalous life of the young man in 23B. More than once, the name Minako Aino reached her ears, and she made a mental note to ask around after she'd been in the flat. However useful to her, the misplaced sensationalism nevertheless made Haruka angry. Throwing the neighbours a few dark looks, she strode over to the end of hall where Nigoshi's flat was located. The landlord - a middle-aged man with a pot belly and too much cologne on - handed her a greasy key, and immediately fled from the hall, mumbling that the police could find him in his own flat on the groundfloor if they needed him. Not bothering to hide her distain, Haruka muttered a few choice words and pushed the key into the lock.

The lift pinged, and Noboru stepped out into the hallway that was now dominated by uniformed policemen. Haruka's call had reached him while he was under the shower, and his hair was still wet, leaving little drops of water on his black leather jacket. It seemed like just yesterday that he and Mamoru had been here to ask about the red notebook, a still missing piece from a puzzle that was getting more complex by the minute. Hisaya Nigoshi had been a strange man, a dangerous man, and now he was a dead man, and if Haruka was to be believed, his end had not been easy.

Nodding to Haruka, who was standing outside the door to Nigoshi's flat and busy briefing a few constables for interviews with the neighbours, he moved past her and stepped through the familiar door, the acrid smell already telling him more than he wanted to know.

What he saw however was worse than anything he could have imagined. Even after having seen the dead and mutilated bodies of Minako Aino, Ami Mizuno and even Makoto Kino, and after having stared at pictures of the respective crime scenes for hours, this was different. He felt himself growing cold, ice enveloping his heart and his mind.

Hisaya Nigoshi was tied to a wooden chair which stood in a large puddle of the man's own blood, vomit and feces.

The forensic team and the police photographer were already at work, having arrived at the scene only ten minutes after Haruka's call. At first, Haruka had thought that it was impossible that no-one should have heard anything suspicious, after all Nigoshi had been viciously tortured to death. It was only when Katsurou Hanzo arrived to take a first look at the victim that it all began to make sense. His tongue had been cut out.

Without preamble, bile rose in Noboru's throat and he reached for the wall to steady him. Something inside him snapped. He didn't notice the Chief stepping into the room and stepping beside him.

"Do you think it was the same perp?" Noboru's fingers curled, digging into the tapestry until slowly, his nails began to break. From the distance, Noboru could hear a familiar voice calling out to him, but the words to come together in his mind.

"Sanjoin? Are you okay? Sanjoin?"

His mind buzzing, Noboru began to walk out of the room backwards, slow and uncertain, tripping over his own feet until he hit the hallway's wall. Ignoring Haruka's perplexed command to stay and the chief's worried voice, he instead slowly turned and walked down the hall, past the lift and towards the staircase, each step faster than the one before until he was running down the stairs as fast as his shaking legs would carry him.

"SANJOIN! WHER ARE YOU GOING?"

But no call and no shout could cause Noboru to stop running. It wasn't the fact that Nigoshi was dead, it was how he had died. Bursting through the building's frontdoor, Noboru gulped in the morning's fresh air, but the oxygen didn't reach his lungs. He was drowning in fear, wishing with all he had that he had never seen the dead man on the chair. The dead man with bloody welts all over his body. Angry welts. Deep welts. Welts too much like the ones burning holes into his skin right now.

Somewhere down the street, a woman laughed and disappeared around a corner.

At the same time, a young constable raced into Mamoru's office, also almost tripping over his feet. He was young and eager, hoping that DI Chiba would take him along if he only delivered the news fast enough.

"DI Chiba?"

Mamoru looked up from his files, grateful for the distraction. The car case was still going nowhere, not that he put too much effort into it.

"Yes?"

"We just got a call, a walker found a body in the Hikawa Shrine. Can you go over and look at it? DI Tenoh and DI Sanjoin are at a crime scene, so is the Chief, and it's urgent."

Mamoru looked at the constable, mouth slightly agape.

"DI Chiba?"

"Did you say the Hikawa Shrine?" Shaking his head, Mamoru shot out of his chair, grabbing his jacket and the keys to his car. "I'm on my way."

"Do you want me to come?"

Turning and running backwards, Mamoru shook his head. "No, call DI Sanjoin and tell him where I'm going. Thanks, Constable!"

And with that, Mamoru rushed out, worrying and dreading that he would finally meet the most mysterious of his wife's friend, the elusive Rei Hino.

Jirou Koutani was worried.

He knew that his life was anything but normal, he had accepted this fact a long time ago, but these days, it was beginning to get a bit too much. After having woken from refreshing nine hours of deepest dreamless sleep (thanks to the pills his psychiatrist had prescribed him), he had put on his hiking boots and set out into the cold but sunny morning. Hiking around in the small woods in and around Tokyo was his hobby, it calmed his nerves and allowed him to be in peace for a little while. Under the green canopies, no painful thoughts or disconcerting memories could reach him. At some point, without noticing that he did it, he had stepped off the path he had chosen for the day. On and on he walked, one step at a time, his mind on shutdown. Only when the trees thinned and he suddenly found himself on the edge of the woods, looking at the deserted temple in front of him, did he realise that his mind had gone on autopilot.

Not knowing what had lead him here, but being very well aware of the fact that his final destination had not been reached and that in his life, there were no such things as coincidences, he approached the building, registering the mould on the damp walls, the mice rushing around and the worms slowly crawling through the rotting wood. It was a dead place, inhabited by dead things and dead thoughts. Despite his warm jacket, goosebumps danced over his skin.

It was then that he heard the music. A sweet and slow ballad, sung by a voice he was painfully familiar with. He hadn't listened to any of Minako's songs since her murder, but there was no mistaking the sound of her voice. He had heard it so many times, he would recognise it everywhere. Feeling his heart speed up, Jirou took a deep breath and pushed the thin door open.

A dead girl dangled from the ceiling, her rotting body in a wedding dress slowly twisting round and round. Her ever-growing nails had caused the seams at the tips of her white gloves to burst, and where should have been her heart was a hole as black as her hair.

Without taking his eyes off the corpse, he reached for his mobile, dialled the number ingrained in all children from an early age onwards, and once the operator answered his call, said quite clearly:

"My name is Jirou Koutani, and I would like to report a murder."

Twenty minutes later, hurried footfalls and a siren told him that the police arrived. Tearing his eyes from the dead girl, Jirou stepped outside the shrine. The sound of Minako's voice was still ringing in his ears, and he wiped some stray tears from his eyes. This was not the moment to cry, he thought to himself and steadily walked towards the tall black-haired man that was hurrying up the stairs and towards him. He was still too far away to see his face, but even soon, Jirou felt himself growing warm again.

"Are you Jirou Koutani?" the man shouted from a distance without breaking his stride."Did you call the station?"

Jirou nodded, and lifted the phone he was still holding in his right hand as if it explained everything.

"I'm Detective Inspector Chiba from the Homicide Division." The inspector came to stop in front of him, outstretching his hand for a greeting before letting it drop to his side again. Recognition flitted over the man's face, and Jirou gulped. It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

"Wait. I know your face."

"I don't think we've met yet, Inspector."

Mamoru shook his head. Images that made no sense were being pushed through his mind like the sun through clouds, but Mamoru stubbornly shoved them aside until only one from his own memories remained.

Looking into Jirou's eerily familiar blue eyes, the piece fell into place, and Mamoru reached for his gun.

One secret drawer, three pictures: The murdered girls, himself with the caption Endymion on the back, and finally, a blonde man that wasn't Kaitou Ace.

"Mr. Koutani, how exactly do you know Minako Aino?"

A sad smile tugged at the corner's of Koutani's mouth. "Inspector, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

End of Chapter 11.