Chapter 15 14. Aquarium the mermaid

Dr. Panyanagi, Nozaki's assistant, and the Boyoshi police department rushed to meet at Satomi's house in Sugamo that night, and conducted a carpet search in that area, but unfortunately found nothing.The demons were free-spirited sprites, not a single hair remained of them except the letter—the only clue. However, the day after Kinue's disappearance, another event occurred that shocked newspaper readers in Tokyo. Walking across a long wooden bridge from the Katase coast in southern Shonan to Enoshima, you can see a small aquarium at the entrance.It is still early in the summer season, so most of the tourists who visit the aquarium are tourists from other places. The empty interior looks like a tourist attraction in the off-season, deserted.Especially in the morning, there is almost no customer, only the conductor at the ticket booth and the old man in charge of sanitation are yawning and chatting slowly.

At around ten o'clock, a customer finally came to buy the first ticket of the day, it was a young oil painter who came to sketch.After handing over the tickets to the old man at the gate at the edge of the wooden fence at the entrance, he strode into the dark and silent hall. The light in the venue is dim, and the sinks about one room wide are lined up on both sides like commodity display windows.The light penetrates through the dark blue water of the tank and the thick glass plate, illuminating the room like the seabed, faint and cool. The young painter put his face on the glass plate and carefully observed each one.

Some tanks kept a group of Ise lobsters, like giant spiders in the water, creeping around among the dark rocks; , Disgusting suckers are displayed in front of your eyes at a glance; the square puffer fish, like an irritable and harsh country old man, dashes left and right; The body of the sea swims leisurely; there is also a rare sea snake, which is twisting its phosphorescent body and dancing wildly. However, how is this going on?The young painter walked to another sink, jumped away from one room as if struck by electricity, then tremblingly approached the glass plate, bent down, peeped at the upper half of the sink with timid and erratic eyes.What kind of strange fish is parked there?

Gradually, the young man's face became paler and paler until his entire expression froze. "Mermaid, mermaid..." He waved his hands as if he was about to throw off some phantom, frantic words came out of his mouth, his body that was almost fainted shook violently, and the next second he yelled loudly, his feet staggered like crazy rushed to the entrance. On the edge of the wooden fence at the entrance, the old ticket inspector is holding a thallium bean pipe and puffing clouds leisurely.The young painter who rushed out grabbed his sleeve and pulled him towards the sink without saying a word.The old man was so bewildered by this unexpected recklessness that he didn't even have time to protest.

"Look at that! Look at that!" The young man pushed the old man's face against the edge of the glass, his panicked voice was dry and incoherent. At the beginning, the old man hadn't recovered from his angry and inexplicable emotions. He glanced at the sink inadvertently, and jumped away with a scream like the young man. There was an object floating on the water in front of him, it was a huge prone mermaid, floating helplessly in the water. Her black hair is like tangled seaweed, and her downturned face does not lose any beauty because of the painful frown; her plump breasts hang in the water like solidified stalactites; her legs are stuffed into the narrow sink , twisting a peculiar curve.Below her left breast, there was a huge wound, and the blood that was slowly flowing out slightly stained the dark blue water in the sink.

Just as such a bizarre picture appeared in front of them, neither the young artist nor the old ticket inspector realized that a terrible murder had taken place, and they didn't even realize that it was a victim's body for a moment.However, readers must have guessed that the mermaid in the tank is the beautiful body of Satomi Kinue, who was murdered by a vicious murderer.