“Amon, you gotta stop staying here overnight. You all right?” Yanagi called out, surprised to see Amon there already, sorting through documents on his own and collecting data.
“Morning. My body is disciplined so it’s not much of a problem.” Since the day he’d decided to really dedicate himself to the case, Amon had been staying in the office overnight trying to find clues in the case of the missing schoolgirl.
“You’re nothing if not predictable, I gotta say. Give Tojo some of whatever you’re drinking, man. Anyway, found anything?” Yanagi said, peeking over his shoulder. Amon showed him a flier.
“What’s this? ‘Have you seen this child? Please call’ … Did you make this? No, it looks old, and the name’s wrong. Who is Haruka Seta?”
Amon was meant to be investigating the disappearance of Mai Hirano. But this flier was regarding a girl named Haruka Seta. And the paper had turned reddish brown in the sun.
“Oh, the date of her disappearance is eighteen years ago.”
“That’s right, Yanagi. Eighteen years ago a similar incident happened in the 8th Ward.”
The picture on the flier was of a very serious-looking girl. And she, too, had suddenly and uncharacteristically disappeared.
“That’s not all. I found this in the newspaper—fifteen years ago another girl went missing in this Ward.”
Amon showed him a photocopy of a newspaper.
“If there’s no sign of Ghoul involvement, sometimes the CCG just doesn’t hear about a case … I might turn up more of these if I keep looking.”
“You’re right, you know. Maybe this case goes a lot deeper than we thought …”
Amon had a sudden sense of déjà vu and could not get any words out. I’ve heard those words before. Finally the memory came to him—Morimine talking about the case.
“This story goes a lot deeper than that.”
“You think Morimine knows?” Yanagi asked, as if he had read Amon’s mind.
“If he does, he hasn’t told me anything.”
“Right … He seems like the kind of guy who would tell you if he knew. But I think it’s kind of strange that he doesn’t know. If you found this kind of information, then the police must have it too. Amon, I want you to check with Morimine. You think he’ll be coming around today?”
Amon looked at the clock. It was almost time for him to arrive. Amon stood up, flier in hand. When he went out the CCG’s front door and looked around he saw Morimine crouching amidst the lush greenery, smoking a cigarette. He noticed Amon immediately, stubbed out his cigarette and stood up.
“You’re a bit early today.”
Morimine shoved his hands in his pockets and ambled over. Amon held out the flier in his hand.
“What’s this?” He took it from Amon, holding it up so he could see. “Huh …” he grunted. “This thing takes me back.”
“Eighteen years ago there was a similar case in this area. Did you know about this?”
Morimine glanced up at Amon. “As a cop, no, I did not know about this,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘as a cop’?” Is he speaking on behalf of the organization? All right, I’ll change my question.
“What about as an individual?”
I have here a guy who just keeps saying that because the barrette was left near the police station it must be the work of a human. But after that answer I wonder if there’s some real reason, some information only he knows.
Morimine was silent, as if he was considering something. Just when Amon lost patience and was about to tear him apart, Morimine spoke.
“This girl … Haruka Seta, who went missing eighteen years ago, disappeared on her way home from watching some fireworks.”
The flier didn’t have that piece of information on it. Morimine continued in a neutral tone.
“Fifteen years ago, another girl suddenly disappeared. And thirteen years ago too, although that happened one ward over, in the 7th.”
He didn’t pause to recall, nor did he stutter as he went through his memories. It was like he’d beaten the information into his mind.
And that fact made Amon feel even angrier.
Morimine continued, his voice clear. “Then nine years ago a girl was kidnapped in the 23rd Ward on her way home from a voice training class, and seven years ago …”
Amon grabbed him by the lapels. “If you knew all of that, why did you keep quiet about it until now?” If we’d had all of this information, it might’ve changed the investigation. But more than that, I’m furious with him for berating me all this time when he was withholding information about the case. For a guy who likes to remind you that a human life is at stake here, this is incredibly irresponsible.
But Morimine’s expression did not change in the slightest, as if he already knew how Amon had arrived at this answer and that he was being blamed.
“Listen, Amon. At the time that Haruka Seta, probably the first victim in this case, went missing, it was barely investigated and she was treated as a runaway.”
Amon let go of Morimine’s lapels and took another look at the flier.
“I looked into the disappearances in the other wards, too, and in some cases Ghoul involvement was suspected and the CCG cooperated in the investigation. But the investigations all ended without much in the way of results.”
Morimine stopped there for a second and sighed.
“And the connection between them was ignored, and now, in this case in the 8th Ward, a barrette has been found with a Ghoul’s bodily fluids on it. What drives me crazy is that there’s one guy who decided eighteen years ago, when Haruka Seta disappeared, that she’d run away and there was no need to investigate. And that guy is now at the top of the Criminal Division.”
“You don’t mean …”
“He doesn’t want Haruka Seta’s case to be dredged up and tied in with this case, all to protect his own damn neck. The police and all the newspapers hounded Haruka’s mother, saying that there had been problems at home, and in the end, she couldn’t take it and killed herself.”
Is there some kind of corruption going on here?
Morimine gave a grim, self-mocking smile. “If the culprit is a Ghoul then they can be taken down without argument. And then the Haruka Seta case can sort of be put to rest. That’s what the higher-ups are hoping. But with such a passionate Ghoul investigator on the case that doesn’t seem possible. I mean, look at all this old stuff you’ve managed to dig up,” he said, sounding impressed. But that was not what Amon was looking to hear.
“Morimine, you’ve told me time and time again that you believe this was the work of a human. Do you have some reason to think that?”
“Like I keep saying, the barrette was dropped near the police station. That’s the biggest reason. Because, you know, since eighteen years ago the same kind of disappearances have kept happening, but not a single piece of evidence connected to the perpetrator had ever emerged. Maybe that’s just because the culprit is very careful. But this time, this barrette appeared. It got me thinking.”
Morimine, who always seemed very detached, now wore an expression of anguish. It was the first time Amon had seen him look that way. “Someone put it there because they were counting on us, the police. They want us to catch the culprit. That’s why I think the culprit is human.”
There was something incomprehensible about Morimine’s theory to Amon. But there was also something strangely sincere about the way he spoke. However, there were some points that Amon just couldn’t concede.
“I can understand the police’s position here. But I think a Ghoul was involved in this case in some form, for more reasons than just the fluids on the barrette.”
Morimine said nothing.
“I can’t just let that go, and I think we have to find that Ghoul before we can get any closer to the truth about what happened in this case. So again, I cannot simply turn this case back over to the police.”
Scratching his head, Morimine grumbled, “God, you’ve got a stick up your ass.” But he had a smile on his face. “Well then, I’m with you to the bitter end.”
Morimine gave Amon information about all the similar incidents that had occurred over the last eighteen years. Then they looked at all the suspected Ghouls to see how they applied to the cases. Thanks to Morimine’s cooperation and the avalanche of information he supplied, the investigation had picked up momentum, but all the answers that emerged were rather lacking.
“None of them could’ve done it …”
After looking into the suspected Ghoul who lived near the police station, Amon stared at the documents given to him by Yanagi, muttering to himself. Everyone who had been considered suspicious had an alibi.
This investigation is just going nowhere. The CCG has done all it can, so maybe this is one of those times we could turn it back over to the police.
However, Morimine wasn’t in as big a hurry as before.
“Did you get information from other wards about suspected Ghouls? And Ghouls that prey upon teenage girls?”
“I requested it, but inevitably, there are a lot of suspected Ghouls living outside of the 8th Ward.”
“I guess it’s more difficult for you to leave your post and go off searching, since you’re temporarily in charge of the ward. And I guess you can’t hand the contents over to me due to confidentiality …”