After a quick information handover was completed, Amon left Yanagi and Tojo, who seemed somewhat worried, and headed toward the train station. One of the Ghoul suspects on their list lived in an apartment near the station.
Lieutenant Morimine walked alongside him.
“Should I send my report on the investigation to the police station when I’m done?”
“You really are new to this ward, aren’t you? You gotta get a map or something. By the way, that’s the way to the train station.”
Morimine pointed at a narrow side street between two buildings. How did he know I was heading to the train station? Amon realized Morimine had been peeking at the document he was holding and felt his mood take a turn for the worse.
And Morimine felt the change. “I wasn’t looking at that,” he said. “I figured you were going somewhere you knew, because you came out of the CCG building and went right off without stopping, and since you don’t know the area you had to be going to the station. You took the train to get here, right?”
He was right. Amon had been worried about getting caught in traffic, so he’d taken the train instead. This guy looks rough but he notices more than I thought he would.
“What made you want to be a detective?”
I don’t really trust him much, but he must have a motivation to do this kind of work. Amon expected a positive answer, but instead, Morimine said, “It just happened.”
“It just happened?”
“Yeah. I didn’t really have any other options.”
“But you must take some kind of pride in your work?”
“Pride?” Morimine scoffed, as if this were somehow contemp-tuous. “I don’t have to take pride. Anyway, we’re going to the station, yeah? I’ll lead and you can catch up on your reading there. If there’s something you don’t get, just ask.”
This guy goes storming into the CCG’s offices, guns blazing, to get an investigation restarted and he has no pride in his work? Doesn’t say much for his profession. Amon dropped the subject but continued thinking over his suspicions as he watched Morimine walk on ahead of him. His eyes fell to the notes Yanagi had given him. Three months ago, Mai Hirano was on her way home from an after-school club meeting when she disappeared. She was not involved in illicit activities, and she was on good terms with all her friends.
There wasn’t much in the way of witness statements. People who had seen high school–age girls that looked like her hadn’t reported anything suspicious.
Searches turned up little in the way of concrete evidence, but eventually Mai’s barrette was found.
However, the place where her barrette was found was … “Near the 8th Ward police station?”
“That’s right. It was left in a prominent place just across from the station.”
Then there was the deposit of bodily fluid from a Ghoul.
“Did someone find the barrette and bring it to that location?”
“If they did find it, why not just hand it in? Although maybe under the circumstances they couldn’t.”
“Under the circumstances …”
“Perhaps they were involved in the case.”
Morimine turned to look at Amon.
“Look, Amon. Like I told you, I’m pretty sure this was the work of a human.”
True, that’s what he claimed when he was talking to Yanagi.
“What about this Ghoul fluid then?”
You know, the entire reason the CCG has to deal with this.
“Yeah … but the barrette was placed near the police station, right? Whoever put it there was counting on the police to find it, so whoever they wanted us to catch is probably human, in that case.”
“Isn’t that a bit too simplistic? The public has a friendlier relationship with the police than with the CCG. So there’s nothing special about someone taking it directly to the police.”
“You’re way off, man.” Morimine’s tone had an implication to it. He turned his eyes away. “This story goes a lot deeper than that.”
What does he mean by that?
“We’re almost at the station,” Morimine said, then clamped his mouth shut.
They spent that day walking around the area without making any real breakthroughs. When Amon said that he was going to leave it for the day and head back to the CCG, Morimine gave him a salute and said, “Thanks for your hard work,” then walked off. He stopped and turned back to add, “See you tomorrow.”
When he got back to the 8th Ward office, Yanagi and Tojo were waiting for him, their faces betraying their worry.
“You look beat, Amon. How’d it go?”
“Did things go all right with Morimine?”
“I’ve got absolutely no results to show for today.”
“Well, results don’t come that easily. The most important thing right now is for you to get acquainted with the area. Wanna come for a drink with us, Amon?” Yanagi mimicked waving a bottle. This, of course, also had implications of welcoming Amon to the ward and giving him information. In the old days, when he was full of passion for investigating Ghouls, he would not have looked favorably upon such an invitation, but now Amon replied, “Of course.” This was how much of an influence Nakajima—the clerk investigator from the 20th Ward who followed Amon devotedly—and Shinohara had had on him, not just as an investigator but as a man.
The place Yanagi took him to was a little restaurant with a relaxed atmosphere.
“Why do you come to cheapo places like this when your wife’s a great cook, Yanagi?”
“Tojo, shut it.” Yanagi gave a little shove to Tojo, who grinned, as they headed into the dining room.
“You’ve got children, don’t you, Yanagi?” Amon asked.
“I have a son. He’s in elementary school. All of a sudden he says he wants to be a chef, because he wants everyone to be able to eat good food. Just like my wife,” said Yanagi.
“A chef? It’s great that he’s got his sights set on something,” Amon said in admiration as he sat down at the table. Unlike Morimine, who just wound up in his job.
“Well, he’s still little so who knows … I mean, who knows if I’ll still be alive when he’s grown,” Yanagi said nonchalantly. As investigators, we come face to face with death. You never knew when it might be your turn. Investigators with families must spend a lot of time thinking about it.
For a moment, the air was charged. Tojo noticed and responded sensitively.
“Yanagi, it’s a little early to take the conversation somewhere that dark! You’re gonna be fine, and you’ll get to pig out on your grown son’s cooking!”
But Yanagi reacted badly instead. “You’re too damn positive, you know. You finally get this long-range ukaku Quinque that you’ve wanted for so long, and now you can’t hit a target to save your life. You need to practice! Practice!”
“I am practicing! Am I not supposed to listen to what Noyama said?” Tojo embraced the attaché case next to him. So, his Quinque is named Noyama, Amon thought.
“You’re really never gonna get promoted if you act like that,” Yanagi said, his face showing his astonishment.
“You have an ukaku Quinque, Tojo?” Amon asked.
“That’s right. Yanagi uses a bikaku on the front lines, so as backup …”
“Yeah, and because of you, I’ve almost been killed. If I don’t live to see my son as a grown man, it’ll be your fault, not a Ghoul’s.”
Ignoring Yanagi’s grumbling, Tojo looked down at Amon’s attaché case. “You use a kokaku, right Amon?”
“Yeah, it’s called Kura.”
“Kura?” Yanagi whispered, looking serious. “That was Mado’s …” Indeed, Amon had inherited this Quinque from Mado, who was now deceased. And thanks to it, he had been able to defeat the bikaku of the Bin Brothers, two of the Ghouls who had executed the Aogiri attack.