“I know you were doing it deliberately before, but I guess it’s also just a subconscious thing with you. You probably haven’t noticed, but each and every little movement you make is exquisite. It’s like you know exactly what to do and how to do it to show off your looks and get people to do exactly what you want.”
“I don’t…”
Kamemura gave a self-deprecating laugh.
“I know, I know. You don’t realize you’re doing it. That’s just the kind of person you are. I’ve known women like that, too.”
He took a file folder out of his bag and opened it. The first page had an A4-size photograph on it. A photograph of the woman. Had Kamemura printed out the data Miyoshi had put together? No… She looked younger here than she did in the 3D model. Her makeup was rather distinctive, and she had a flashy sense of style. Could this be…?
“She’d been famous for her talent and beauty ever since she was little. She might not be on your level, but she was a real looker. Unusually tall for a Japanese woman, too. Those long, slender arms and legs… She was a ballerina, and a good one at that. Went to study in Russia when she was young. But she never really made it over there. She met a Japanese businessman while abroad, married him, and moved back to Japan.”
“Hold on a minute, this is all happening so fast. Who are you talking about?”
“Haruko Kadowaki. The lady in the photo. She’s probably a generation too old for you to know about, but she was pretty famous back in the day. She was on TV and everything. A local girl, on top of that. Even I was a fan.”
Haruko Kadowaki. Like Haruko from the story? This couldn’t be a coincidence. The woman in the photo must be the same person who’d come up in the elementary school’s Seven Mysteries story. Toshihiko’s lip trembled. He couldn’t even say something random to fill the silence.
“She had a son, and for a while, the three of them lived happily together, but then she fell into her bad habit.”
“Bad…habit?”
“Are you sure you’re all right? I can take you to a hospital if you’re not feeling up to this.”
Kamemura offered him a bottle of tea, and Toshihiko took a swig of it.
“I’ll be okay… Please, continue.”
“If you’re sure. You can probably imagine what comes next, but her ‘bad habit’ was that she liked to play around with other men. Even if she didn’t actively flirt or entice them, people got drawn to someone as pretty as her no matter what she did. I’m sure you know what’s that like.”
For a split second, Toshihiko thought of Miyoshi. Kamemura ignored his reaction and continued: “She was a mature-looking beauty, you know? Even when she was in elementary school, she already had several admirers. I don’t know how it was for her in Russia, but I doubt getting married and having a kid did much to change her. Her husband never confronted her about her infidelity. He was probably too infatuated with her to say anything.
“Haruko, on the other hand, started finding fault with every little thing he did. I’ve been doing this job a long time, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people who cheat—both men and women—always assume everyone is just as bad as them. They convince themselves their partners must be cheating, that they’ve already betrayed them, and won’t let it go. That’s how it was with her.
“She took their son and came back here, to where her family home was. Around that time, she started aging pretty badly. It was like the way she’d been living had finally caught up with her.”
A tapping noise echoed throughout the room. Kamemura was drumming his fingers on the table. His brow was deeply furrowed. The depth of those lines seemed to hint at the kind of stressful life the police officer had led.
“Mr. Katayama… Have you ever thought about what you would do if you lost your good looks?”
“Not really. Not at all, in fact.”
“Is that so? You seriously are a special one.”
Kamemura’s fingertips were turning white. He pressed down hard on the photo of Haruko Kadowaki.
“For most of us, we know we’re going to get old someday, so it’s not a huge deal when it does happen. But really pretty people find it hard to accept. Our girl Haruko started piling on the makeup and dancing outdoors like a crazy person. She may have been out of practice, but she was nonetheless a pro. Watching her at it was still kind of spellbinding. Creepy, too, in a way. Eventually, there wasn’t a man left who was good enough for her…”
“Detective Kamemura?”
“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing. Anyway, I never had the courage to talk to her myself. All I could do was admire her from afar. People used to call her the Spring Ephemeral. I was actually the one who came up with that nickname.”
Kamemura’s face twisted with regret, his voice too quiet to make out. He looked like he might start crying at the slightest provocation. Toshihiko could imagine what he was going through. He must have felt so powerless to see this woman he’d loved since childhood go so very far off the rails.
“Turns out that nickname wasn’t as nice as it seemed at first. Almost feels like I jinxed her. There’s a flower called the spring ephemeral, see? It has a really short lifespan—blooms in spring, then withers and dies before the season’s out. I think Haruko Kadowaki’s life ended up following that pattern, too.”
He slowly turned the pages in the file until a newspaper clipping came out.
“And here we have the article reporting the end of the Spring Ephemeral.”
The cold, robotic ticking of the clock on the plain white walls was the only sound in the room.
“So tell me, Mr. Katayama. Why are you accusing a dead woman of being behind all this?”