Chapter 9 Chapter 8: Disaster Is Imminent

one "There's a woman lying there." "Where?" "No. On that rock, the one by the water." "Really! What are you doing lying there?" "What are you doing? You can still lie down and sleep in that kind of place." "You mean..." "Fell off a cliff." "It might be suicide." Tourists peered down from the sea cliffs and chatted.Leaning out from the fence of the watchtower on the cliff, you can see a woman in white clothes lying under the sharp cliff.The drop of the cliff is about 30 meters.Spray from the waves kept splashing on the rocks on which the woman lay.

The tourists ran to the national dormitory and reported the discovery to the police station under their jurisdiction.The nearest police station immediately dispatched police to the scene, but because the scene was under an extremely sloping sea cliff, it was difficult to approach for a while. The police and tourists gathered from the cliff shouted in unison, but the woman below did not respond at all. If it fell from the cliff, there is probably no hope of being saved, but the police still hope that it will happen. After a while, a team from the department arrived. The wind and waves were strong, and it was dangerous to approach the site from the sea.The police finally decided that the local firefighters would go down by rope. One end of a 40-meter-long mountaineering rope was fixed on the cliff.

When the firefighters were about to approach the woman, there was an inquiry from above the cliff, "How are you alive?" In response, the firefighters freed their right hands and shook them vigorously above their heads.An autopsy was not possible at the scene, and the body was put into a sleeping bag and pulled to the cliff. The fallen body of a young woman is at the foot of a cliff in Himisaki, Taisha-cho, Toshikawa-gun, Shimane Prefecture.When it was discovered, it was around 10 am on May 25, Showa 50. Himisaki is located at the neck of the Shimane Peninsula. It is a sea-eroded raised platform facing the Sea of ​​Japan.At the top of the strait stands the white tower of Himisaki Lighthouse, which is known as the tallest in the East.A park is formed around the lampstand, with lawns and pine forests inside, and sightseeing trails twist and turn on the cliffs.

Below the cliff is a seashore with scattered rocks, which tourists cannot set foot in. The woman fell to her death on the scattered rocks.The immediate cause of death appeared to be full-body bruises from the fall. Near the strait, there is a small rocky island with columnar stone pattern, which is called Jingdao.Designated as a natural monument because it is a breeding ground for sea cats, countless sea cats gather here during the spawning season of sea cats. The corpse of the woman pulled up from the scattered rocks was temporarily placed on the lawn under the lampstand, surrounded by ropes.The autopsy begins.

The deceased was a twenty-seven or eight-year-old woman, wearing a white dress with water drops and a white linen top.About 160 cm tall, with a long face, long hair, and fair complexion.Due to the impact of the fall, the whole body was seriously injured, but the face was basically intact.The face is comely, with a modern feminine beauty.There is a mole on the right corner of the eye. Around the neck hung a pendant watch on a silver chain with a shattered dial glass.It seems that it was broken when it fell. The hour hand stopped at 6:16, and the watch string was still full. Except for a thick silver bracelet on the right wrist, no other decorations or rings are worn.

A low-heeled shoe is worn on the right foot.His left foot was bare, and the shoe seemed to have come off when he fell off a cliff. A canvas travel bag rolled down among the rocks near the body, containing a set of cosmetics and toiletries.A simple change of clothes, sunglasses, and a wallet containing 97,000 yen, weekly magazines, and some odds and ends.But there was nothing in it to prove his identity. Moreover, there were no signs of surgery or scars on the body of the deceased that could serve as clues to speculate on his identity. On the other hand, the police who searched the scene of the accident found traces of a person slipping and a white low-heeled shoe on the left foot on the cliff almost directly above the corpse site.This low-heeled shoe is the exact pair worn on the deceased's right foot.Small amount of grit inside the shoe.

The first conclusion of the autopsy is that the deceased has been dead for 12-16 hours, and the time indicated by the pendant watch on the deceased is also the lower limit of the presumed time zone. At 6:16 p.m., it was the time when the final scheduled bus departed and most tourists returned.Lounges and souvenir shops on the waterfront were also closed.There is a national dormitory near the lampstand, but there are no such guest accommodations, and no such people book rooms. There was no private car of unknown owner in the parking lot, and the deceased seemed to have fallen off a cliff after arriving here by a final bus or taxi from the direction of Taisha Town.From the point of view of carrying a travel bag, it doesn't look like a tourist in his own car or a guest staying in a hotel.And no driver's license was found among the carry-on items.

It seems that the deceased fell from the sea cliff by slipping. However, the police are wary of a woman coming to the secluded channel alone when there are no tourists. At 6:16, the sky has begun to darken. At this time, can a young woman walk alone on this cliff without looking for a hotel? "Do you want to have a look at the sea at dusk before staying overnight?" Someone raised this opinion. "However, National Hotel does not accept reservations." "You may think that there are not many people in the hotel, so there is no need to make an appointment first. If you arrive at the hotel first, and then come out to see the sea and sky, it will be dark. Why don't you just bring your luggage and go to the beach first?"

"If you're going to commit suicide, there's no need to go to a hotel." "But there is no suicide note." "Many people commit suicide without leaving a suicide note." "However, the place where the woman fell was the jagged rocks at the bottom of the cliff. If she jumped off that kind of place, her body would fall badly. She could see it from above. There are many good places to enter the water near the cliff. One How could a young woman deliberately choose this place to jump off a cliff?" "It's hard to say. The psychology of suicides is abnormal. Aren't there people who jumped from upstairs?"

"Jumping down from the upstairs is actually neat, and you don't need to go to the beach." That's it, the meeting is over.It is unclear whether it was an accident or suicide. However, the police learned after the investigation that on the last bus on the 20th, there were no passengers similar to the deceased, and no taxi was found to pull her here.And the staff in the tourist lounge and souvenir shop did not see such a similar solo traveler. If a young and beautiful urban woman goes to the seaside alone with a travel bag at dusk, she will be quite eye-catching. However, there were no witnesses. Does this mean that the woman died later?If so, what does the time indicated by the pendant watch mean?

If the woman died later than assumed, the watch was broken before she fell.The pendant watch hanging on the chest will not naturally break (the dial is broken, the hands stop moving). If it was not naturally bad, it was intentionally broken by herself or others. If she committed suicide, there is no need to tamper with the time of her death.From this point of view, the possibility of suicide is relatively small. Then, such a question arises—someone deliberately broke her watch and made a fuss about the time of death. Why do such an article?That's because they don't want people to know the real time of death.Why not want to be known?Because if people know the real time of death, they will know that the deceased was deceived or forced to come here.Because a woman doesn't come to this kind of place at that time. It must be faked that a woman went to the sea cliff alone, and then stumbled and fell down. A "falsified stumble" is certainly not a stumble.Theoretically, a conclusion has been drawn - who pushed the woman down.There is another material to confirm this reasoning, and that is the fact that the woman fell on the scattered rocks. The "prisoner" took the "victim" to the cliff in the dead of night and pushed it down.So I didn't see any reefs under the cliff.If there is some light, it should be pushed into the sea water. "The Zhangba lighthouse illuminates far away but does not illuminate near", with 460,000 candles, the light reaches a lighthouse 40 kilometers away, but it cannot illuminate the scattered reefs under the nearby cliffs. As the incident was suspected to be criminal in origin, it was decided to perform a forensic autopsy on the body. The results of the dissection are as follows: (1) Cause of death: Skull fracture caused by falling impact. (2) Presumed time of death, within one hour before or after 10:00 p.m. on May 24. (3) Stomach content, basically fasting, with cloudy liquid containing hypnotics. (4) There is no sign of sexual intercourse or adultery before or after death. (5) The blood type of the corpse is AB. ⑹Characteristics of the corpse, there was a burn scar with a diameter of 3 cm on the knee of the right leg. The police station under its jurisdiction sends an inquiry to the computer of the Police Agency's Information Management Center via the prefectural police station with the results of the autopsy.This is an organization that centrally manages criminal investigation information nationwide through computers. The electronic computer of the intelligence center keeps three kinds of files of wanted criminals, runaways and criminal records. Since the identity of the deceased is unknown, first of all, a "comprehensive note" of three comprehensive file inspections was carried out based on physical characteristics.However, there is no such person in the 3 files. The police station under its jurisdiction is also investigating requests for missing people who have not been imported. Because about 50% of people who run away from home return home after leaving home for two or three days, so even entrusting the search is not immediately entered into the electronic computer, but to keep the interval of several hours.This also includes a request from a mental hospital to find a person who left the hospital without authorization, and a request from the director of the juvenile identification center to help find a runaway.Judging from the woman's attire and age, etc., the deceased was in large part an ordinary runaway. As a result of the investigation, it was found that it matched the characteristics of Masaki Kawa, the subject of the search commissioned by Nihon Futaba Shonai at 4-5-13 Sakurachayacho, M City, Tokyo on May 21. The notifiers are his mother and a friend.According to the declaration, at about 11:00 pm on May 19, the friend of the deceased suddenly received a call from me, saying that he was in distress and asked for help. For this reason, he searched all possible places for the person to go, but there was no whereabouts. Two days later, Fang and the client's mother reported the case together. The police department under its jurisdiction immediately asked his mother and friends to come and identify the body. two The bad premonition became reality.When he suddenly received a notice from a police station in Shimane Prefecture whose name he had never heard of, saying that a woman who looked like Oikawa Maki had died in the jurisdiction and came to identify the body, Kisaki was not very shocked.Because he already had such a premonition. The police station under its jurisdiction only said "dead", without mentioning how he died, and Kisaki was sure that he was "victimized". Maki wanted to make money from the tiger's mouth, but finally became the bait of the tiger. No matter what, Kisaki still told Fengzu the news of his death. "Really? It's still..." Feng lived on the phone talking to himself.There was the same premonition as Kisaki in his tone. "So, what are you going to do?" Fengzhu asked after a short pause. "What? A trip to Shimane, of course. Her mother is in such a daze that she can't handle it alone." "Can I go with you too?" "Why, you're going too?" "Since I have intervened, I have no choice but to accompany her to the end. There seems to be something appalling hidden behind her death." "Considering the mood of the family members, don't interfere." "It's not disturbing, but you should be more careful." "What does this mean?" Kisaki was a little uneasy at Toyozumi's hesitation. "Oikawa Masaki knew too many secrets. If she knew, it would be fine to be honest, but she wanted to use it as a way to get money from Sakaki, so she was killed." "I don't want to get any money!" "I know this, but it looks the same to the enemy. It always seems that the middle management is involved in this incident. In this way, as an employee of this company, if you stand on the side of the real tree and start activities, it will be very important to the middle management. You have become a disciple of the Buddha who slandered the Buddha, and you are a black sheep. So far, you are just a tool for the Central Economics and Management. If you act rashly in this state, what do you think will be the result? This is what I mean. " "You mean dangerous?" "It's never going to be safe." "So, aren't you the same?" "I'm working. I'm mentally prepared, and the other party doesn't dare to do anything to me easily. Because it's terrible to make the press an enemy." "I'm also mentally prepared." "Do you have to do that?" "why?" "Isn't your relationship with Oikawa Masaki purely spiritual? Even if it's not, you shouldn't risk squeezing in." "You don't know, even a little contact is a connection of destiny." "It turned out to be fate. I really convinced you." Feng Zhu smiled wryly, and the conversation ended. It was indeed the body of Oikawa Masaki, who fell from the cliff onto the reef and was seriously injured, but the face remained almost intact, which is always a bit of comfort to the family. The police department under its jurisdiction seems to believe that the real tree was taken to the cliff and pushed down, and is conducting a search.Kisaki's testimony about receiving the call of Masaki's death is the basis for the police station's opinion.What Maki said "can hear the sound of the waves" means that she was imprisoned near the coast before her death. Leaving the old mother holding the dead body and mourning, Kizaki and Toyozu went to the channel where the dead body was found. "If you are pushed down from here, it will definitely be hopeless." Two people leaned out from the fence beside the road and looked down.The waves hit the scattered reefs, and there were bursts of white foam.Under the erosion of the waves, the reef is as sharp as a sharp sword.The sea is boiling among the reefs.Because the scene is frightening, the cliff feels even higher, and the scene of the exposed reef like sharp teeth is also hairy to the men. However, turning the strait a little, the cliff fell straight down to the deep seabed as if cut by an axe. "Yes, if you want to commit suicide, you should jump from here." The two observed the scene, nodded and sighed. "That shoe fell there." A policeman from the police station who led the way said, pointing to a spot on the side of the road.As a relic, I have seen it just now. "It must have fallen when being pushed down." Kisaki agreed absent-mindedly. Fengzhu's expression suddenly became serious, and he said, "Couldn't it be that the prisoner stayed here on purpose?" "Then why?" Kisaki asked, looking away from the cliff. "Because it was dark and couldn't see the bottom clearly, the prisoner mistakenly pushed down the place. The prisoner thought that the bottom was the deep sea. Maybe the corpse could not be found or was washed to another place by the waves. Therefore, they jumped down from here to explain the dead. Yes, I left the shoes behind." "Why do you do that?" "I don't know about that either, but it might be useful for the criminal to prove that Oikawa Maki jumped from here." "It's common in mystery novels to do tricks to fake the scene, but the real tree did jump from here." The police at the police station applauded Kisaki's words.Through autopsy, it was confirmed that the physical damage of the real tree had a physiological response, which proved that the body was not transported to the fake scene after being killed in other places. "Judging from the practice of pushing it into the sea, the prisoner didn't want to keep the body hidden. He probably wanted the body to be found in a proper place, so he pretended to commit suicide." "If that's the case, the police are underestimated." "No. If it wasn't for the wrong place to push it down, it probably wouldn't be so easy to see through. And now it's not concluded that it was homicide." Kisaki turned his back to Toyozumi, and while listening, he thought of the despair of Maki who was brought up this cliff late at night.There is no light on land or sea.The 460,000 candles of light that the lighthouse broke through the darkness and sent to the other side did not bring any hope of rescue to Makoto.The greater the brilliance, the greater the contrast with despair. Facing the level of despair, Masaki was desperately calling for help even though he knew it was useless. In this regard, I did not stretch out a finger, and on the road built on the hard rock, Kisaki's footsteps echoed lonely.