He closed Twitter and opened the settings. The real name and payment details of the owner, sadly, were password-protected and couldn’t be viewed.
Next, he opened the call history. There were several months’ worth of records, but not that many voice calls had been made. Most were just numbers with no description, with only three entries labeled “Construction,” “City Hall,” and “Job Center.” The “Construction” entry had the most calls. Checking the numbers, “Construction” was a mobile phone number, while “City Hall” and “Job Center” had landline area codes.
Mitsuhiro put the stone and handkerchief he was holding in his left hand into his shirt pocket and switched the phone over to that hand. Then he pulled out his own phone with his right and searched the “City Hall” and “Job Center” numbers. The former was the welfare consultation desk at Shibuya City Hall, and the latter was the job placement office near Shibuya Station.
Neither contained any personally identifiable information, so he opened the phone’s text messages instead. This was all spam, with no signs of communication with friends or family. There were several messages from the “Construction” number, some with attached images, but he assumed they were mass texts informing crews of times and locations to report to, so he didn’t open them.
Looking for something else to check, he opened the photo album. It was full of images from the East Wing construction site, some of which he recognized from Twitter. There were some other images, too, and Mitsuhiro’s eyes were drawn to one of them.
In front of a small shrine, Araki, wearing a helmet, was pointing at a patch of the ground marked with ropes, surrounded by Yoshikazu Hara and five other workers. The body language seemed to indicate that Araki was instructing them to dig the ground in front of the shrine. Based on the shrine’s location, Mitsuhiro realized that they were standing right where the hole currently was.
This confirmed that the owner of this phone was one of the workers hired to dig that hole. Mitsuhiro might be able to identify the guy from his company’s work records. He closed the image, but then something occurred to him. Mitsuhiro returned to his call history, brought up the “Construction” number, and opened his own phone to check Araki’s number.
They matched. The owner of this phone had been in communication with Araki.
Mitsuhiro closed the call log, returned to the phone’s text messages, and opened one sent from the “Construction” number. There was no text, just images. Some pictures of the East Wing construction site—and shockingly enough, Mitsuhiro recognized all of them. They were the seven images that Mole Unit-01 had posted on Twitter, the ones that had led Mitsuhiro down to that site in the first place.
—Did Araki send these images to the Twitter poster?
He couldn’t come up with a logical reason why. Were they confirming some detail of the construction project? If so, there should have been some text accompanying them. There was no reason for Araki to send this guy images from areas outside the ritual hall.
Had Araki sent them to Mole Unit-01 and instructed him to post them on Twitter? That was plausible, but again, there was no reason for that.
—But what if there was?
The only thing Mitsuhiro could think of was that Araki wanted to lure someone into the ritual hall. If Shimaoka noticed the posts and took issue with them, someone would go into the site to check it out. If that was Araki’s aim, he would’ve had Mole Unit-01, a workman at the site, post it on his behalf.
—But what for?
A curse.
Human sacrifice.
Compensation.
The words flashed through his mind, but they didn’t form a clear explanation.
Mitsuhiro placed the two phones on the table and thought over what he knew for sure. Mole Unit-01 was definitely not Yoshikazu Hara, not unless Hara gave his phone to someone at the ritual hall and asked them to take a picture of him. Also, the images posted on Twitter by Mole Unit-01 were originally sent by Araki.
—Is all of that reasonable so far?
He realized that he was talking to the “invisible guest,” as Sae put it. Now he wasn’t so sure. He needed someone to discuss this with. Someone who’d understand the situation. Someone who wouldn’t ask for money in return. It was financially impossible to consult with Araki, and his connection to Mole Unit-01 made him very suspicious.
That left only one person. Mitsuhiro picked up his phone, knowing it was a long shot, and made the call.
“This is Sugawara.”
The person answered immediately. Mitsuhiro leaned forward on the table.
“I apologize for calling so late, Chief. This is Matsunaga from the IR department at Shimaoka. I’m calling because I’d like to consult with you.”
“I heard the police showed up. Has there been another incident?”
Ah, right. He still hadn’t ironed that out. But that could wait. He wanted to at least completely regain his sanity first.
“I don’t know if this is related to that, but… Um, sorry to bring this up, but you mentioned that you saw your deceased brother at one point…”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I saw my deceased father as well. I realized just now that I didn’t find it unusual at all, right up to this very moment…”
“And you realize now that it’s strange?”
“Yes. The moment I touched one of my father’s belongings, I immediately came to my senses. I also suddenly noticed that, um, my home smells bad, and there’s definitely something wrong with it.”
“Have you consulted anyone about this? Anyone from Tamai Construction Company?”
“Um, yes, I purchased an amulet from an employee named Sota Araki…”
“Purchased? You bought it?”
“It was quite expensive, but yes. Also, my father’s gravestone was damaged, and after discussing it with the previous president, he helped provide purification rites for the damaged piece.”
“The previous president?”
“Yes.”
“Are you referring to Yutaro Tamai, the previous president of Tamai Construction Company?”
“Yes, I believe it was him.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.
“And he said he discussed this with the previous president recently?”
“Yes, just yesterday. Is that a problem…?”
“Yutaro Tamai is dead.”