Toshihiko would never have answered a call from an unknown number if he hadn’t had a fever coming on. He didn’t remember what happened after he saw the woman at the police station. He’d gotten home somehow, but he didn’t recall anything about the journey. It wasn’t cold out, but his whole body was shivering. It wasn’t hot, either, but he was sweating out of his every pore.
He’d asked his mother to call in sick for him. He’d vetoed her request to call him an ambulance, though. This wasn’t something that going to a hospital would fix. Ishigami’s talisman really had been protecting him, and now it was gone. He crawled into bed and lay there shivering, desperately clutching his rosary. It barely did anything besides warming his hands a little.
He could hear the grinding inside his head. It might have just been his imagination, but it still kept him from sleeping. He turned the TV on and looked at the current time displayed in the top right of the screen. All he could do now was lie there and stare at it, watching the minutes tick by. It was no wonder he wasn’t thinking straight when the phone rang.
In Toshihiko’s experience, calls from unknown numbers were usually from people who’d formed a one-sided attachment to him and had gotten his number without him knowing. Hence why he usually didn’t answer them. But the vibrating phone felt like it was rattling around in his already aching head. He just wanted it to stop, so he swiped to answer the call before he knew what he was doing.
“This is Kamemura from the Aoba Police Station. Is this Toshihiko Katayama?”
Toshihiko sprang up suddenly, then swayed unsteadily on his feet and collapsed right back into bed.
“Is everything okay…?”
“Y-yes, I’m fine!”
Kamemura sounded so much nicer over the phone than he did in person.
“I’ve had confirmation on the matter you asked me to look into.”
“What matter…?”
“You know, the woman… The one you said was the culprit.”
The image of that woman laughing uproariously rose up in his memory. He let out a little involuntary groan.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine…”
“You don’t sound fine. Are you okay to meet right now? Or do you have something else to do?”
Toshihiko focused what energy he had and managed to sit up. His vision was blurry, and he could still hear the grinding.
“Yeah, I can meet you.”
Once he finally spoke, he began to feel like he might get through it after all.
“Should I come to the police station? It might take me a while to get there.”
“Actually, I had somewhere else in mind. I’ll tell you the address, so can you meet me there?”
“Okay…”
Toshihiko made a note of the meeting place. His writing was so sloppy that he could barely decipher what it said himself. Kamemura hung up immediately afterward. So much for him being nicer than usual. But it was a miracle he’d even looked into things this far. From Kamemura’s point of view, the imaging data and the idea that it showed the culprit in this case was dubious at best.
Still holding tight to his rosary, Toshihiko headed to the address. Perhaps Kamemura had chosen the location out of consideration for him, for it was much closer to Toshihiko’s home than the police station. He could have walked there in ten minutes, but because of the way he was dragging his tired, lethargic body along, it took twice that amount of time.
It was an office building with the first five floors dedicated to rental space. Kamemura had told him to go to the fourth floor. Thankfully, he hadn’t felt the clingy gaze on him on the way over. When he reached the fourth floor, Kamemura appeared and took his arm, as if he’d been hovering around, waiting for Toshihiko to arrive.
“In here.”
He pulled Toshihiko into a little room on the left side of the hallway, where the two of them sat down on opposite sides of a small table. Toshihiko had never been in an interrogation room, but he imagined this might be what they were like. Kamemura was silent for a while, then finally spoke.
“You’re looking a little pale.”
“I’m fine. It’s nothing to—”
“Still beautiful, though,” Kamemura continued without letting him finish. It didn’t sound like the detective was trying to tease or insult him. His voice was calm and clearheaded.
“Color me surprised. Even you say stuff like that sometimes,” said Toshihiko.
Kamemura held his gaze, his eyes steady.
“‘Even me,’ huh? Truth is, I’m the type to say that kind of stuff more than anyone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know I’ve been pretty harsh toward you.”
“Well…”
It was true. He’d basically told Toshihiko it was his own fault that he was being stalked. He’d acted like the whole case was just an annoyance and nothing else.
“I’m actually really shallow. Only judge people by their looks. I like pretty people and get the urge to treat them better than anyone else.”
“I…see?”
Toshihiko was eager to move on to the main point of their meeting, but he found his interest piqued in spite of himself.
“I know I’m that kind of person, so I get scared. Of beautiful people, I mean. Of what I might do just because I like the look of them.”
Kamemura suddenly lowered his head. His forehead actually touched the white table between them, making a dull thunk. The hair on the top of his head was thinning.
“I’m sorry. I was a jerk to you all because of my personal hang-ups,” said Kamemura.
“It’s okay… I’ll admit I was annoyed at the time. But you followed up on this weird lead I gave you… I’m guessing you did that part as a personal favor? That’s why you asked to meet here instead of at the station.”
Kamemura took another long look at Toshihiko’s face and sighed.