The rainy season had just cleared, and the sun was shining from directly above, reflected from the windows of every household, and also shone from behind and from the side.The shadow of a telephone pole doesn't help either.Makino Kotaro rinsed the inside of his thirsty mouth with beer.
In front of the residence across the road, newcomers who entered the newspaper office this spring were pressing the intercom on the door.There was no response after pressing it several times, so he turned his face this way.Makino clicked his tongue.
"Press me loudly again. Until the other party can't bear it and comes out to beg for mercy."
"But, is it really not here..."
The young man named Narioka had a bitter face, as if he was about to cry.Makino laughed through his nose.
"Since I was born and grew up in a room with heating and cooling air conditioning, I have become dull to the heat of the hell."
What they visited was a single-family building in a residential area in southwest Tokyo, with wooden casement windows covering the windows.But the weeds in the small courtyard are automatic without wind, and there is an external unit of the air conditioner nearby.
Naruoka seemed to have finally noticed this, and started pressing the walkie-talkie again.He called out the name of the world-renowned weekly magazine in the hallway, and called in a weak voice, we just want to ask a few words.
There is still more than a year to go before the so-called 40, but the flesh is drooping everywhere. He loosens the tie that feels cramped, and looks around.The people nearby seemed to be worried about being implicated, and they seemed to hide their bodies and see no one.
"Forget it. Let's inquire around the area first, even if it's just to take a photo of the scene."
With a reassuring expression, Naruoka stepped away from the walkie-talkie and pointed the digital camera at the house.
"Hey, kid. If it's just the home, it's real estate information. The scene of the incident is the road."
According to newspaper reports, the family living in the house had planned to go camping in the mountains.The father pulled the limousine onto the road, and with the engine running, he made a trip home to move things with his wife.During that short time, the eldest son, eleven, got into the driver's seat and hit the brakes seemingly by accident.In front of the car that started suddenly was the six-year-old second son who was waving at his brother.
"However, it rained the day before yesterday, so there were no traces of evidence collection left, and it was impossible to form a picture just by taking pictures of the road."
After pointing the camera at the road in front of the house, Naruoka replied as if unconvinced.
"Heh, regular employees are really different... Are you saying that you can't form a picture? Then, how about this?"
Jinye walked to the middle of the road and tilted the soda can in his hand.Beer dripped from the mouth of the can and trickled across the scorched asphalt, quickly turning into black trails.
"You put this trace in front of you, and put the whole home in the background to take a picture."
The black marks, if viewed from a certain angle, can definitely be seen as the imprints of blood that flowed out.
Naruoka probably realized this, and said with a look of fear: "That...is it okay to do such a thing? Isn't this a fake?"
"What, are you nitpicking? I just want to write a report about a six-year-old child who died here. It's a matter of the reader's imagination how to see this trace. Hey, take a quick shot. It's hard to make it The screen is about to dry."
Naruoka lowered his face as if he was enduring pain, and he heard him murmur "Sex hunting wild".
Makino started as a newspaper reporter in Hokkaido, and went through the evening papers and sports newspapers in Tokyo. Since seven years ago, he has been registered in the current weekly magazine as a contract correspondent.Because he is good at writing reports on brutal murder cases and love-hate entanglement cases between men and women, he is secretly called a pornographic and curious makino, "color hunting wild".If you develop contacts with the police and people related to violent gangs, get inside information, focus on the ugliness and hypocrisy of human beings, add large sexual descriptions, and write sensational reports, you will be regarded as superior. In this circle, it is regarded as a treasure.
However, in the past six months, he was withdrawn from the feature group representing the image of the weekly magazine, and he was asked to serve as a guide for newcomers and collect topics as the main report side dishes.His original wish was to write newspaper advertisements or streetcar hang-tag advertisements as headlines in the right-hand column, followed by reports with headlines in the left-hand column.
"At the very least, you need to get testimony that the relationship between the couple is so bad that they are about to divorce. The eldest son deliberately bumped into his younger brother in order to prevent his parents from separating. If you give such an impression, you will probably get a slightly larger page." Makino Asanoka kept complaining, walked around the neighborhood, and returned to the publishing house before dark.
Giving Naruoka the task of reporting to the editorial director, Makino went to a cafe near the company to order a glass of beer, and turned on the computer on the corner table.There are desks, too, but journalists who stay in the office after evening are derided as unusable characters.He roughly ended today's work, and the wet sweat made people feel uncomfortable, so he washed his face in the toilet.The mirror reflected dark eyes, heavy eyelids, an oily face marked with rough acne marks that seemed to ooze base desires.
When he returned to the table, perhaps the waiter told him that the editorial director Ebihara was sitting on the chair next to him.Hai Laoyuan was six years older than him, with drooping corners of his eyes, seemingly soft-tempered, but there was an unpredictable dark color in the depths of his eyes.
"Narioka came to tell me that he wanted to resign. Mr. Ye's concern doesn't seem to be conveyed very much."
He maintains polite words at all times, even if he gets along with him for a long time, he will never go beyond the working relationship. This gesture of his is a bit irritating, but also relaxing, and sometimes intimidating.
"It's a young kid who has studied psychology. He said that for this accident, rather than blaming the parents, he wanted to write a report to support the family's future. I told him, let's do what he thinks first. Write it down and see."
"Huh? Mr. Hai has become sweet too. Could it be that he has diabetes?" Jino drank the newly delivered beer.
"Since childhood, we have been exposed to the news of brutal murders every day, and this generation is gradually becoming the backbone of society." Ebihara took a spoon over the cappuccino froth in front of him, "The times have become tired of the pungent reality. That is Speaking of which, the direction of Mr. Ye, who is constantly obsessed with digging out the evils of human beings, has almost reached his limit, right?"
"The reality is that there are brutal murders happening. The reports of climbing ants by urinating can't be confused."
"If you just aim at the so-called headlines on the right and headlines on the left, if you are not careful enough, you will lose a lot."
At the end of last year, Makino heard from an acquainted criminal policeman that a 20-year-old unmarried mother had killed two babies one after another, so he started interviewing child abusers.He inquired that the woman was an idol-level beauty who had grown up in an educational institution and was abused by her father. If this person was arrested, it would definitely arouse the interest of the readers, and Mino persuaded the people around him to pass this plan.He brought the young reporter into direct contact with her, cutting straight to the point.Is it you who did it? The terrible memories of the past have been revived, so you started to attack your own children, right...
He asked a young reporter to secretly take pictures of her angry face, and the manuscript interspersed with sexual descriptions also received good reviews, and the editor said it would be placed on the left headline.But just before it was published, it was found through other journalists’ conclusive interviews that the abused by the father was someone else with the same surname, and the cause of death of the two children was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and the police did not file a case.After that, the woman who was the subject of the interview tried to commit suicide. Although her life was safe, the reporter who was investigating the murder with Makino resigned on the grounds that her conscience was harsh.Since that incident, Yano has been on the bench.
"Mr. Hai, I'm enough of a babysitter. Please let me work in the thematic group. I'll get a big one."
The contract is renewed every year, and due to the achievements so far, it can be signed this year, but based on the current situation, the next contract will be in jeopardy.However, Ebihara's calm expression did not change.
"Before the next contract, just bring in newcomers and discover topics that can make the weekly magazine sell well."
"Is it acid that comes out of the urine? Even if there is a subject, do I have a business trip right now?"
"If it's a subject that readers love, I'll let you go anywhere. By the way, Naruoka's manuscript will be sent to the other party, so please revise it appropriately. Please let that guy accumulate experience in ringing the doorbell tomorrow."
Hai Laoyuan was about to leave with the receipt, when Makino called to stop him, and asked the waiter to add a third glass of beer before returning the receipt to Hai Laoyuan.
After walking out of the cafe, the street was full of people returning home from get off work.It's summer, but he feels an inexplicable coldness on his skin, why don't he hug the woman, thinking about it, he looked at his wallet.In order to socialize with the interviewee, he has accumulated debts and is not well-off.In desperation, he called the woman he met while interviewing housewives for prostitution, and asked her to lie to her family.Let the other party pay for the hotel.The woman said that the child had a test tomorrow so let me go back early, and he was greedy for the body of the woman who said this.
It was after one o'clock in the morning when he returned to his apartment on conveniently located Student Street.
Makino holds a can of beer in his hand and watches the recorded news program.This is his daily homework that has been going on since he switched to freelancing, with the purpose of searching for subjects.Holding the calculator in one hand, he pressed the keys whenever the number of the deceased appeared on the screen.
People die from accidents, homicides, suicides.Bodies were also found today.The number on the calculator is eight.In the Middle East, fifty people were killed when bicycle bombs exploded in a market, but because deaths other than compatriots abroad did not make it into magazine coverage, he did not press the calculator.If there are no major disasters or accidents, the reported death toll is about ten people a day.The annual death rate in China has exceeded one million in recent years.Calculated, about 2,800 people died a day, and about 0.36% of them were reported dead.
Makino walked to the workbench and turned on the computer.He started the website several years ago, soliciting e-mails from a large scale.The ugliness, the obscenity, how heartless humans can be, the actual experience of victimization/victimism like that...he wanted people to write about it in detail.There is only one condition, and all of them have to be facts that you have experienced.
Initially, there were more stories of relatively common experiences, pet abuse or child sexual abuse, nurses who tormented patients, and caregivers who bullied hospital patients.After that, Kakino established that people could read each other's postings, and hinted that it might be introduced in the weekly magazine, so the number of mails increased, and stories that seemed to be able to be reported were also received.
A teenager wrote that he killed family members one by one with an undetectable poison that made it look like they were sick.The woman who lives with the corpse of an old lover shows that she is looking for opportunities to make the current lover something only her own at some point.A man claiming to be an active-duty police officer says he knowingly arrests disabled people for performance-enhancing purposes, and a college student at an all-girls school complains that half of his students in extracurricular activities were violently assaulted by a counselor.
The emails unfolded continuously on the screen, the content of which would frown for the average person.After reading this, Anise calmed down.Of course there will be fictional stories mixed in, but this also contains a certain meaning that evil emotions must be poured out in this way. It is human beings who are full of malice and insult, he thought, almost laughing.
His spirits were high, and he got up to get a beer.When I got home, I didn't notice that the telephone on the side of the kitchen had a flashing signal light, indicating that there was a recording in it.He played the recording back, and from it began to emerge the voice of a middle-aged woman hoarse from alcohol and cigarettes.A woman who lived with his father for a long time.
"Why don't you come? As I said, your father is in the hospital. He said he wanted to see you, but you didn't listen. He seems to have something to tell you. Although there are many holidays, he is sick..."
Yano didn't hear it and turned off the recording at the end.What else is there to do, he thought.It's not just that there are a lot of festivals, what a bad thing that guy has done to himself and his mother.If you want to die, just die casually, even I don't know how to use incense.
However, Makino is not qualified to say anything about others.Four years ago, he divorced his wife because of his affair, and his son should be in the third grade of primary school, but he hasn't seen him once since we parted.He stopped paying the alimony for half a year, and the son had a new father.Even if he died, there would be no one offering incense.
Feeling depressed, he browsed through the manuscript that Cheng Gang had sent by e-mail.The content is to express sympathy for the remaining members of that family and to encourage them in the future.Talking and not practicing, but to make himself feel at ease, Makino cursed fiercely, changed it into a report that completely blamed his careless parents, and sent it to Ebinohara.
Makino lay down on the bed with his clothes on.The sound of the phone woke him up.Sunlight peeked through the cracks in the curtains.He thought it might be the reproach from Ebihara, but the call was made by the police department of the Hokkaido Police Headquarters.
At half past five that afternoon, Makino arrived in Hokkaido.
The light in the evening is as soft as spring, and the air feels more mellow than Tokyo.Compared with nostalgia, what is connected with this feeling is a feeling of disharmony, that I no longer belong here.
Born in Hakodate, he was brought up by his father in Tokyo until he was twelve years old. After graduating from university, he worked as a reporter in Sapporo for five years.There is a tomb of my mother's family in Hakodate, and her remains are also buried there.The mother, who hated her father but did not divorce because of her faith, only got her wish after her death, sleeping next to her parents.
I have no contact with my mother's relatives, and as for my father, I don't even know any relatives.I will usher in the end of my life in solitude, and be placed in the columbarium of the small temple as an unworshiped person. This will be the fate.
Makino took a taxi to Otaru.In the afterglow of the setting sun, he confirmed the somewhat high mountain where the bones were said to have appeared, and then returned to Sapporo where he planned to stay.After checking in at the hotel, he walked into the sushi restaurant he used to frequent, which was quite close to the Hokkaido Police Department, and waited for him at the innermost seat.
While working at a newspaper in Hokkaido, Makino became acquainted with a non-elite police officer who was desperately taking the promotion exam, and he invited him to drink and let him experience women's pleasures.The other party's first search section at the Hokkaido Police Department has now become a police supplement.Although I told him to tell him if there is an interesting subject, it is not bad for the other party to contact him once a year, and most of them are unusable materials.This time the subject matter is also hopeless.
Said it was twenty years ago, so it was when Makino was studying at university in Saitama.A twenty-five-year-old female bank clerk living in a neighboring town in Sapporo has disappeared.The apartment room was not messed up, and from the fact that she broke up with her boss not long ago, the murder was suspected of running away from home or suicide, and almost no search was done.
However, three days ago, walking about 35 kilometers northwest from Sapporo, the bones were found near the middle of a mountain with an elevation of about 500 meters facing the Otaru Sea. The results of the identification came out yesterday, and the bones were the bank clerk.
"You haven't heard about this in the news?"
When asked by the police department on the phone, Anino remembered the case of seeing the corpse in the recorded news.However, if he was dispatched as a weekly reporter, it would either be judged as a homicide, or even if a psychic told about the location of the body, it must be a special murder case.
"Spiritual person... It's not far away." The police department let out a wry laugh.
Makino came to the company during the day and applied for a business trip to Ebihara.Although I don't have the confidence to be the subject of a special report, it is better to eat some delicious fish in Hokkaido than to continue to be a babysitter for a newcomer who is acting like a spoiled child.He insisted that if the report could not be written, he would pay for it at his own expense, and he was promised a travel subsidy for the time being.
At the sushi restaurant, Xue Ye waited for nearly an hour with a bottle of beer, worrying about his own expenses.The other party finally showed up. Although we hadn't seen each other for four years, the other party probably wanted to finish the conversation earlier, and the conversation was hasty, and then the conversation started from the core.
He said it was impossible to know whether the body was killed or not because too much time had passed.But the man who told her that the woman's body was in the mountain, the man who may have committed the murder, had been heard to confess something like a confession.
"That's the person who discovered the body. Thirty-two years old, male. He used to be a salesperson for a medical equipment factory. Now he has no job and no fixed residence. It is said that his hometown is Yokohama, and his parents are still alive. It is said that he quit his job five years ago. , obsessed with traveling. The corpse was confided to him by a man who looked like a homeless man whose name he didn't even know when he was sleeping in a seaside park in Chiba. The man was between fifty and sixty years old. , more gray hair, wearing a blue jacket and overalls... that's about it."
Makino could barely understand the words that the other party said so quickly.While he was sorting it out in his head, the police department probably decided that this side would pay the bill, and ordered expensive sushi one after another.
"Well, the person who found the body, wouldn't it be the real murderer who was buried after the murder?"
Makino tentatively took this as an entry point for questioning and asked.The other party twisted his lips and smiled.
"When the woman disappeared, he was in the sixth grade. Hey, even if there is evidence. He has never been to Hokkaido."
"However, do the Hokkaido police believe that the bones were accidentally found during the journey?"
"It's not accidental, have you said it? I was asked by a homeless man when I was sleeping in the park, saying that there was a dead body buried in the mountains of Otaru, so if I came nearby, I would pay my respects. I actually climbed up the mountain to have a look, and at the mentioned location There's a birch tree with a mark on the trunk and a horizontal hole in the side that's covered by fallen leaves... that's it. Sent searchers to Chiba to find the guy, but I heard that in February, so it's probably out of the question Bar."
"February...? Why did the discoverer decide to come to Hokkaido after five months?"
"That's a real joke. Said it was because of the cold. It is said that he stayed in the south before the weather warmed up, and traveled all the way north in the spring, and that's when it came. An inspection of his luggage confirmed it. "
"But, he was arrested, right? Wasn't he detained because of a crime?"
"I said it was twenty years ago. It's not a crime. It's just that he died after all. I want to ask the person who found it. But he has been sleeping in the open and said he has no money to stay in a hotel. There is no way, so I did something special for him." Protection. This is based on the consent of the parties, don't forget."
The sushi ordered was delivered, and the other party interrupted the conversation.The more Makino listened, the more he couldn't figure out how to understand the words, so he urged the other party to continue.That is, what the police plan to do with the man who found the body.
"It is impossible to detain him for a long time. I have contacted him and decided to ask him again tonight. If there is nothing else, let him go tomorrow morning. I think it would be quicker for you to ask him directly. He is a weirdo. I also contacted his parents and said that the child is indeed doing it. Such a trip. The usual tone. Is there a lot of people who come to ask him about his identity? Well, I don’t understand. Because that guy seems to be wandering around places where people are dead.”
"That's it. On the phone, you also said that there was a guy wandering around where dead people found the dead body. I seem to be attracted by this to come here. Tell me more specifically Say."
"So, as I said, ask yourself everything. Let him show you the notepad too. It's very interesting."
"Aren't the local reporters also interested? It's not just about our magazine's news, is it?"
Kakino asked with a cautious expression on purpose.The other side shrugged.
"Of course the news was given to various news organizations. It is a thing that the missing person twenty years ago was found as a body. However, killing depends on the statute of limitations. It seems that several families of the deceased have gone to interview, but even the murder case Not really, the discovery of the dead body won’t make a report. After Chiba’s investigation is over, we will also mention that the fallen leaves piled up after the female bank employee committed suicide, or that there was a landslide accident when she was tired and fell asleep in the mountains... Don’t you want to end up with something like this?”
"How about telling the man who found the body? No clue at all?"
"According to a retired senior, the whereabouts of a construction worker living near a female bank employee was found to be missing, which is very suspicious. However, the possibility of her running away from home is high, and it seems that no search was carried out. Or the discoverer this time Terrified after stumbled upon a dead body, telling tales of non-existent bums. But—"
The other party ordered an expensive drink, and continued: "You may not know it while you are traveling. There was a shooting in Ishikari just now, and people died. The reporters must be flocking there in large numbers now."
Makino bid farewell to the other party, and immediately watched TV in the hotel.There was indeed a shooting incident in the downtown area of Ishikari City, and a man was killed.It is difficult to report on the remains of the bones, and this incident happened to be a timely help.Ebihara in Tokyo also got in touch and asked him if he knew about Ishikari.Ebihara said that if it looks interesting, it will be submitted.
Makino traveled nearly 20 kilometers in a taxi to take photos of the scene in Ishikari City, which is still in turmoil.He contacted the source of the police again and learned that it seemed to be a dispute between young and Dangerous boys around women.After briefly asking questions at surrounding shops and other places, he tentatively took a taxi back to Sapporo.
On the way, several parked patrol cars came into view.Two badly hit cars were parked near the curb.Around the time of evidence collection, the flash was turned on, and a blood-stained air bag emerged.
As soon as Makino returned to the hotel, he immediately turned on the computer and began to write the manuscript of the Ishikari shooting case.
However, what the police department said about "the man who hangs around the place where the dead" said was mysteriously stuck in his mind.He half-playfully searched by fingering the name of the man who found the remains, and tried to read the words displayed on the screen.
"Shizuto Sakazuki..."
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