When we finished eating, Ryuto told us the results of his investigation.
After the mass murder at the Himekura estate, Akira Shikishima had gone to Germany to study abroad as planned. A Japanese student studying abroad around the same time had written about Akira in his letters home, and through his connections, Ryuto had been allowed to see them.
“At first, Akira threw up and stuff a bunch from stress, and he took awhile to recuperate apparently. It sounds like he had a lot of trouble ’cos he couldn’t communicate.
“So there was that, and then the way he talked and carried himself was real classy and polite, and he was serious, but he wasn’t good at interactin’ with people. He didn’t drink alcohol and went back to his boardinghouse before the sun set. The guy really whined in his letters, like ‘Oh, it’s such a shame ’cos I wanna get to know the other Japanese students,’ or ‘Oh, I think he hates me in particular,’ or ‘Oh, Akira Shikishima is like the moon floatin’ high in the sky overhead.’”
Akira would often sit by himself, zoned out, and at those times he would always tug on his earlobe with a sad look in his eyes. The love he’d left behind in Japan had had the habit of touching her earlobes originally. Apparently he would talk about how she was gone now with a dark look on his face.
Yuri’s habit of touching her earlobes—
Maybe Akira thought back about what had happened in Japan while touching his soft ears.
He’d known about Yuri drowning herself. How had he felt about his love ending her life because of him…?
It coincided with my life and sent a jolt down my spine.
That was a torment more terrible than death!
Apparently Akira never once went home while he was studying abroad. It was almost certainly because of Yuri. He probably would have felt as if his heart were being ripped apart. Even after his period of study abroad passed, he stayed over there, and after a while, he disappeared.
Germany entered a dark period, and even after the student who’d written the letters returned to Japan, he worried about Akira. Then a letter reached him from a local friend there that told him about seeing Akira on the street holding the hand of a small child. Since the child looked like Akira, the friend supposed that he had married and started a family.
What had Akira’s life been like after that?
Tohko put her index finger to her lips and listened intently.
Ryuto also told us about the fire that had occurred at the estate fifty years ago.
“I heard the police were investigatin’ it as an arson, but in the end they never caught the person responsible and there was somethin’ really off about the whole thing. The source of the fire wasn’t a storage shed or a side building, it was right smack in the middle of the main house. And even though it was the middle of the night, they got word about it fast. The fact that the master of the house happened to be stayin’ there by himself secretly was the weirdest thing of all. And he definitely didn’t get his eye hurt from the fire. When he was carried into the hospital, some people said there was blood pourin’ down his face…”
Ryuto drained his now-tepid cup of tea in one gulp and returned the cup to its saucer.
“There’s definitely somethin’ more to the fire fifty years ago. The Himekuras’re involved, so the local cops probably couldn’t interfere much. I mean, the possibility that there was direct pressure from the Himekuras is huge.”
“The master fifty years ago would be Maki’s grandfather, right?”
“Yup. The current head of the family, Mitsukuni Himekura. He had just taken over when it happened, still a young buck. Surprisingly, he was sickly when he was a kid, and he would go and recuperate in the countryside. After the thing with Shirayuki, people in the main branch of the family were droppin’ left and right and the boy who was supposed to take over died, so Maki’s grandpa was pulled out in a hurry. He was a sheltered rich kid, so at first everyone around him underestimated him, I guess. His true colors came out fast, though, and he crushed all of his enemies. He made the Himekura family, which had been headin’ for oblivion after the thing with Shirayuki, even richer than before. He’s still the reignin’ head of the family. He’s a monster.”
“Grandpa has an unquestioned role within the family, like a god. Nobody opposes him, and no one is allowed to have an opinion.”
Maki had said the same thing about her grandfather.
Mitsukuni Himekura was involved in the fire fifty years ago. What did it mean?
Tohko asked, “When the fire happened, who was the first one to start putting it out?”
Ryuto grinned as if he’d been waiting for that question.
“A woman who just happened to be walking by. Her name was Hiroko Uotani.”
Tohko gasped and leaned forward.
I gasped, too.
Did he say Hiroko?! Uotani’s grandmother was Hiroko, too! She’d been a maid at the estate eighty years ago—
The smile still on his face, Ryuto told us, “Yeah, the only person who survived the incident eighty years ago.”
The air grew suddenly heavier.
With a perplexed expression, Tohko whispered, “Hiroko was the first person to discover the mass murder, and thirty years later she was the first to discover the fire that had broken out at the same house.”
A tiny shudder ran through my spine and cold sweat trailed down my back. It was too perfect to be chance.
“Hiroko alerted the fire department and then ran into the fire herself and even managed to rescue the master. Mitsukuni Himekura owes her his life. Last year, when Hiroko died, they say he came to see her in secret before her funeral.”