Mrs. Sackcloth Sorrow (3)

Scanning Proofreading: CSH

Chapter 7: The Trap

1 Two days later in the evening, the phone happened to ring just as Savehei Tanizu was returning from the office to his accommodation in Kichijoji.

Just as he inserted the key into the keyhole to open the door, the ringing of the phone stopped.

(Maybe the phone has been ringing for a long time!)

As Tanizu took off his shoes and put the drinks and instant food packets he bought from the convenience store into the refrigerator, the phone rang again.

“Hello! It’s Tanitsu.”

“Good night! I’m Saori.” A delicate female voice came from the other end of the line.

That beginning took Tanizu by surprise! “You said you’re Saori?”

Is it Saori, the one who lost track of her work at Mai Hime for no apparent reason?

As if knowing Tanitsu’s thoughts, the other party immediately said, “Yes, I’m Saori, who works at the Ginza ‘Maiko’! I heard from Mika that you were inquiring about my whereabouts.”

“That’s right, I wanted to ask you something about Mr. Tsuruta!”

After Tanitsu had learned of Saori’s place at the Sangen Tea House from Mika the other day, he had planned to visit every other day to see if he could find Saori, but ever since his actions had been recognized that night, he was afraid of revealing his whereabouts again, so he could only stay put for the time being and wait for the wind to pass before he acted again.

“How come you’re not going to work for no reason, and I hear there’s been a long period of time where you haven’t stayed in the dorms?”

“Something just happened to come up at my house, so I took a trip back home to Kyushu, and I was really surprised to learn that everyone was worried about me!”

“It’s very bad behavior to travel far away without asking for leave from the company, plus the time you lost track of your voice just happened to coincide with the time of Mr. Tsuruta’s accident, so everyone’s worried if something bad happened to you?”

“It’s my fault for not thinking about everyone’s feelings! I was surprised by Mr. Tsuruta’s car accident!”

“By the way, what did you call me about?”

“Whoa! I’d like to ask you to help me out with Mr. Tsuruta.”

“What is it?”

“Mr. Tanizu, did you keep something for Mr. Tsuruta?”

“Of course not, Mr. Tsuruta and I haven’t seen each other in about two years!”

“So! Did Mrs. Tsuruta ask you to take care of anything? In other words, did Mrs. Tsuruta ask you to keep a suitcase with documents or the key to a locker for her since Mr. Tsuruta’s accident?”

How did Saori know these messages?

Tanitsu suddenly felt that something was strange, so he tried to get her to talk and asked, “If she asked me to help her keep it, what exactly would that thing be?”

“I want to meet with you, I’m running into some difficulties right now!” Saori said pouting instead.

It’s not like she’s ever met Tanitsu, and every time Tanitsu goes to Maiki, Yumiga is the one who greets him, so it’s kind of weird that Saori hasn’t crossed paths with Tanitsu at all, so it’s kind of weird that she’d call and ask to meet him out of the blue!

“What difficulties are you having?” Tanizu asked directly.

“Mr. Tsuruta he gave me a key to a locker and asked me to keep it for him, and asked me to give that locker key to the police if anything happened to him, but when I got back from Kyushu I found that the key was gone!”

The comment delighted Tanizu, “Where’s the mail locker then?” He asked cautiously, eschewing breath.

“I think it’s the locker at the subway terminal! And Mr. Tsuruta gave me the key with the correct location of the locker, and now I’ve lost the key, so what should I do?”

“It’s useless for you to ask me for help! All the keys I have might be from a completely different place than the one you’re talking about!”

“I think it might be the same locker key! Because Mr. Tsuruta had carefully copied another locker key at that time, I think he might have given the copied key to his wife for safekeeping.”

I see, and hearing this, Tanitsu couldn’t help but admire Mr. Tsuruta’s thorough thinking.

If it’s the same key, then now Saori-san must be trying to borrow that key to get out the things Tsuruta entrusted her to keep!

“I’d like to borrow that key from you to get something from the mail drop, or we can go get it together now as well, I just happen to be off from work tonight.” It looked like Saori was in a real hurry to get that thing out.

Tanitsu thought fast with the microphone in his hand, but he still couldn’t come up with a way to do both.

If it was really the same key, then it would really be a windfall, because then he would know where the locker was located, and he could use it as an opportunity to talk to Saori about all the things that had happened to Yukio Tsuruta.

He looked at his watch and the hands showed that it was nine o’clock in the evening.

It would only take him an hour to arrive at the Sangen Tea House, so it seemed that he would have to make a trip to verify the authenticity of the case, and to be on the safe side, he asked, “Can you tell me Ms. Saori’s home address and phone number?”

The reason why Tanitsu had opened his mouth to ask was because he wanted to make sure that the woman who had made the call was really Saori Nogata.

As a result, the woman on the other end of the line gave the address of Room 406 of the Sangenjaya 2-chome so-and-so apartment, as well as the phone number, and all of this information matched the address and phone number that Mika had inquired about exactly.

“I know, I’ll leave right now to meet you.”

“I’ll have a bottle of red wine chilled for your grand entrance, and don’t forget to bring your keys.”

How did red wine and keys fit together? He wasn’t really sure what the connection was, and why did he think Saori seemed happy that he was going to her place?

Tanitsu takes off his suit and changes into civilian clothes and takes out the key Shoko asked him to keep and prepares to go out when the phone rings again.

He hurriedly picked up the phone again, and it turned out that this call was from Inspector Moriyama of Sado.

“Hi! Hello!”

In his mind, Tanizu had thought it was that pretty girl calling again!

“Find any clues?”

“I’m sorry to call and bother you at this late hour, but I wanted to start by thanking you for the photographs you sent me the other day, which I have already received, and thanks to them we were able to successfully locate the witnesses who had witnessed the presence of both Yukiyo Tsuruta and Kasumi Funakoshi on the island.”

I wonder if all the local police on the island are as sincere and down-to-earth as Inspector Moriyama.

The inspector then began to report on the progress of the current investigation.

A few days before the accident, it seems that Yukiyo Tsuruta and Kasumi Funakoshi did not rent a car, but used a Mercedes as a means of transportation to do a thorough sightseeing tour of the island, because the two of them were indeed seen in the vicinity of the Kamo Hotel in Ryotsu when they stayed at the hotel, and they have also been seen together at Nemotoji Temple, Myozenji Temple near Mano Bay, and the top of the mountain on the Osado Ryoji Line.

“At the present time we can’t find any clues that are directly related to this case, but we have found something interesting, which is that yesterday in the cedar cups near Myo-Shonji Temple, a famous temple, there was a car with a license plate number labeled Tokyo. Shinagawa. When we looked at the license plate, we found that it matched the license plate number of the Mercedes that was shipped to us when we took a boat from the port of Shinsengumi to the local area under the name of Tadayoshi Iriomoto. And what caught our attention was the way the Mercedes seemed to have stopped only after hitting a cedar, so we examined the car carefully and found that the brake pipe had been tampered with, which meant that the brakes were completely out of order.”

All Tanitsu felt was sweaty palms when he heard this, while his heart was beating hard.

“A state of brake failure?”

“That’s right, which means that someone is trying to get the driver to unconsciously drive out, and then put him or her in a perilous situation where they can’t bring the car to a stop, and that’s a favored tactic that murderers are used to.”

“Is that really what happened?”

“That’s right, and this discovery makes the crash lean even more heavily in favor of homicide.”

“But it’s been over two weeks since the crash, so how could the Mercedes have been found so late?”

“Because the place where the Mercedes was parked is in the innermost part of the cedar forest, no one would normally go there, and in this case it was completely unintended by a local farmer who had entered the forest to pick shiitake mushrooms and rushed to the police to deal with the situation.”

“And were there any clues found in the car that Yukiyo Tsuruta and Kasumi Funakoshi were actually dead or that there was a tendency toward homicide?”

“Only signs of a violent struggle remained, and no blood, hair, or other tangible evidence that couldz prove death was left in the car.”

“It’s really strange! If the two of them were killed in a car accident because of the Mercedes, then the bodies of the two of them should have been found in the cedar cups near the Myohsuanji Temple! How is it possible that the car that crashed and exploded was found at the end of the mountain on the Osado Mountain Ridge Line, and that the bodies of the two of them were found inside the car? What the hell is going on here?”

“I think from these clues, maybe we can venture the assumption that they deliberately faked a car accident to confuse us!”

“But if this hypothesis is valid, then why would they hide the Mercedes in the cedar forest? And to go to the trouble of destroying the brake system of the Mercedes before transporting it to that place to hide it; they would have repaired the Mercedes and then driven it to that place!”

“That’s what we couldn’t figure out, and it’s not as if they thought they wouldn’t be discovered if they parked deep in the cedar forest!” Moriyama took a breath and continued, “We also found an unexpected clue at the rental car office!”

“Whoa! What kind of clue is that?”

“We found that the car that crashed and exploded on the Osado Mountain Line was rented from a car rental company, and because the car that was involved in the accident had been hit so hard and burned, the number of the rental company’s car was illegible, so we investigated and confirmed it from the license plate where the paint had fallen off, and found that the car was indeed the one that Koyo Tsuruta had rented from the company the other day. However, we found that the rental company had also rented another car to Mr. Tadayoshi Nishimoto, who also came to the island the other day.”

“Iriomoto rented a car too?” Tanizu asked, speaking up.

“If Nishimoto wanted to create an accident when Mr. Tsuruta and the two of them were involved in a car accident and fell off a cliff, then it’s possible that he rented a car from a car rental company, and if that’s what happened, then Nishimoto is the murderer in this case lo!”

“We also think that Iriomoto is the murderer! And now that man named Tadayoshi Iriomoto seems to have escaped, but we can’t find out any information about his escape from this island!”

“That’s right, Sado Island is actually like a secret room, whether you enter or leave the island there will be a record, if you can’t find the information that he left the island, then you may have to start a carpet search on the island to be able to do so!”

“That’s right, we were going to start the search, but the day before yesterday Mr. Tanizu mentioned on the phone that Nishimoto was an employee of Roc Construction, so we also called the company to confirm, and we found that he’s currently on vacation; this makes us feel that things are evolving more and more strangely, so we’d like to ask Mr. Tanizu if there’s any new clues on the other side? “

“No, I don’t have any new leads here, and I only found out the day before yesterday that Iraben was on vacation.

”

“Then we’ll start launching a search for Ro on the island! If we’re sure he’s the suspect in this case, we’ll contact the police department and start arranging a manhunt. It’s just that we can’t find a motive for his murder, and he made it look like Kouyou Tsuruta and Kasumi Funakoshi died together? So if Mr. Tanizu finds out the reason for this, please let us know as soon as possible!”

“No problem, I’m trying to understand the cause and effect of this right now.”

2 Saori Nogata’s lodging is located at the Sangenjaya intersection, turning into the apartment on the left facing Setagaya Street.

It seems to be a high class residential area with Scandinavian style.

Tanizumi entered the apartment’s front door around ten o’clock and took the elevator to the door of Room 406, and when he pressed the intercom, someone immediately answered back and asked, “Is this Mr. Tanizumi?”

“That’s right!”

“Come in!” The door was opened immediately after saying that.

“Welcome!” The open door was followed by a beautiful woman who welcomed him into the house.

Saori’s curvaceous body, wrapped in a white silk dress, exuded the charm of a first-rate Ginza club’s red-branded wine girl, something Tanitsu had known for a long time. However, it was the first time that he was able to see her face so close.

He had been to the Dancing Lady two or three times, but each time he could only watch her from afar, so he had no memory of her.

“What’s wrong? Have a seat!”

Tanitsu had been staring at Saori’s face since the moment he entered the room, and hadn’t taken his eyes off her at all.

Tanizu was guided to sit down on the couch, followed by Saori’s delivery of a cold drink.

“Is Saori-san traveling to Sado with Tsuruta-san?”

“Why would I go to Sado with Chief Tsuruta? Didn’t he take that pretty girl Kasumi with him to Sado?”

“That’s a combination of course, but I always thought you went along with Sado.”

The words of Inspector Moriyama that a woman wearing a red jacket had been found on the island the night before the accident came to Tanitsu’s mind, leading Tanitsu to intuitively believe that the woman was Saori Nogata, whose whereabouts were unknown.

(That’s probably just being sensitive, but it could also be bad judgment!) Saori uncorked the bottle, slowly poured the wine into two glasses, and handed the chilled red wine to Tanitsu. Since he was busy in his thoughts, he couldn’t think of a reason to refuse for a while, so he had to accept her kindness.

And when receiving the glass, Saori’s slender fingers inadvertently warped into Tanitsu’s, while a smile appeared on her face.

“Cheers!”

“Thanks! Cheers!” Tanitsu leaned his glass against Sha’s and asked, “What are we toasting to?”

“One, I wanted to apologize to Mika for the two of us enjoying the fun evening, and two, I wanted to thank you for bringing me the key to the locker.”

(Is that really true? Shouldn’t we pray for Mr. Tsuruta?)

Tanitsu finishes his drink as he examines Saori up close, a closer look at Saori makes his heart poof as he is now sharing a room with a super beautiful woman. If the woman in front of him really did go to Sado as he thought she did as well, then wouldn’t Kouyou Tsuruta be traveling secretly with Kasumi and Saori, enjoying the happiness of all of them?

This thought made Tanitsu wonder in his mind

(Shoko is pathetic!)

The thought of this made Tanitsu feel angry because of Shoko’s misfortune.

“When was the last time you and Mr. Tsuruta saw each other?”

“It was about a month ago! That’s when he told me that he was going to Kyushu on business.”

“What was the object he asked you to keep?”

“I had a gut feeling that it was something important. Especially after he told me to call the police if anything happened to him, I had a feeling something big was going to happen!”

Saori sat on the couch next to Tanizu, her long legs folded, and when she spoke about Tsuruta, a sad expression immediately appeared on her face and she took a sip of her wine.

“Now let’s go open that mail locker! For I brought the key.”

“Oops! Don’t be in such a hurry! The locker is near Shibuya, and it’s a very short taxi ride from my place, so it’s not too late for us to go there tomorrow!”

“No, I don’t have the luxury of chatting here, I’m anxious to try and see if this key actually opens the mail locker.”

“Try the key to open it? You saying that seems to indicate that there’s another key lo!” Saori asked while laughing.

“I didn’t mean that!”

“Kidding! Just kidding!” Saori saw that Tanizu’s glass was empty and immediately filled it up again for him.

The wine is a German red wine in a blue bottle with a slightly spicy taste that makes wine lovers want to have another glass.

“Who are you to Mr. Tsuruta?” Tanitsu seemed to have gotten drunk to ask such a thing.

“What? What’s his what?” Saori was still smiling and sipping her wine very elegantly.

“Even though you met at the store, your relationship looks like you’re lovers!”

“There’s no such thing! I’m merely always in charge of entertaining Mr. Tsuruta, so please don’t get any ideas.”

“Okay! I won’t be imagining things then! I just thought that if Mr. Tsuruta would entrust you with such an important matter, you should be very close!”

Just as Tanizu was talking, the phone rang in the bedroom.

Saori then put her glass down and said, “I’m sorry! I’m going to take a call first.”

After saying that, she stood up and walked towards the room. The scent of Chanel perfume lingered in the air.

And Saori walked into the room and picked up the phone not knowing who she was talking to.

Tanimatsu took this opportunity to stand up, and in passing picked up the purse placed on the uncluttered table and opened it to find that it was full of things for makeup, and among those things appeared a driver’s license as well as a regular parking ticket voucher.

And while the names are indicated on both documents, the name is not Saori Nogata, but Tomeko Shibata, age 20, occupation as a clerk, and even her address is not at the Sangen Chaya, but she lives in Kawasaki Kosugi Gotencho.

And the photo attached to the driver’s license is of the woman who is now sharing a room with Tanitsu and who claims to be Saori.

After reading it, Tanitsu immediately put the driver’s license and the regular parking ticket back into his purse and closed it softly with a look of feigned ignorance. Tanitsu sat back down on the couch as if nothing had happened, and continued to sip his drink, his mind pondering why this woman had set up this trap. Now that he understood the plot, saying something about something being left in a locker at Shibuya station, it was probably a storyline made up to lure him into appearing!

Tanitsu pondered to himself who this woman was working for, and why she had lured him out. And why did she lure him out? And what was the purpose of the lure? When he thought of this, Tanitsu became very angry and drank angrily.

“Sorry! Interrupted in the middle!”

This woman, who called herself Saori, made small talk with Tanitsu as if nothing had happened at all.

“It’s your boyfriend who’s hitting the pick checking duty, isn’t it!”

“Not at all! It’s from the store, mama-san called to scold me for not going to work!”

“It’s probably because you’re so beautiful that you have great soliciting power in the store!”

“You flatter me!”

“I don’t speak a third as much as you do beautifully!”

“So what you’re saying is that I’m the super-unbeatable beauty of the universe Lo!”

She said with a feigned shyness, her eyes sparkling with a moving light. Then she blinked those big, innocent eyes and ruffled her shoulder-length, raven-haired hair with her hand, each movement stirring ripples in Tanitsu’s heart.

“I feel giddy now, probably drunk. Does Mr. Tanizu not like drunk women?”

She said as she leaned her lips towards Tanizu. Seeing her start to seduce herself made Tanitsu’s tense nerves much easier.

(That’s not so bad! I’ll get such a reward for going along with her play!) Tanitsu accepted her kiss in a state of ecstasy, and her small, snow-white hands gently removed the glass from Tanitsu’s hand and placed it on the table next to him. At some point, the two of them couldn’t help but embrace each other.

And at some point the two had collapsed on the couch, intoxicated by the light alcohol and enjoying each other’s kisses.

Tanitsu couldn’t help but secretly think that embracing this fake Saori in his arms would be a fun adventure, and the thought of cozying up to this enigmatic beauty and taking the opportunity to pry into her true identity made Tanitsu’s whole body shiver with excitement.

“We can go into the room.”

So Tanizu picked her up and headed for the room. He found an oversized double bed in the room, Tanitsu placed her on the bed and undressed her while looking around. There should be no one hiding in the shadows in the room, and the undressed woman’s entire body was covered in cream-colored pink smooth skin.

“I’ll be shy, so could you turn down the lights.”

So Tanizu turned down the lights a little. Still, the snow-white skin all over her body was glowing, and the thick hair covering the underside of her flat belly blossomed into a dark luster.

Anxious to get to the foreplay stage, Tanitsu took off his own clothes while at the same time, but told himself he had to take his time.

“Let me prepare a little.”

Although he said it ambiguously, he actually wanted to take the opportunity of going to the restroom to make a round of the bathrooms, toilets, kitchen, etc. to see if there were still other people hiding.

(Maybe there’s another man hiding in this room.)

Once Tanizu was sure that there was no one else in the house but him and this fake Saori, he returned to his room with peace of mind and laid down naked on the bed.

And she was wrapped in a bed sheet, her round breasts wrapped even more towering tantalizing, Tanitsu reached out and lifted the bed sheet, and began to caress the towering peaks, and finally his lips sucked on the pink buds. This action attracted the woman to hold Tanitsu’s head, and said loudly: “Ah! Mr. Tanitsu, you’re wonderful!”

Her tight embrace, so tight that Tanitsu was almost breathless from the pressure of those ample breasts, Tanitsu proceeded to move his lips to hers, while his right hand went to the delta zone of her lower abdomen.

“Ah! Don’t be like that! I’m shy!”

The woman shrinks back as she avoids a right hand from Tanitsu.

“Don’t you like it when people touch you there?”

“No one has ever done this before!”

Still ignoring its objections, Tanazu probed his hand into that private part. It found that love juices were already gushing out of that valley.

(This game is getting more and more exciting, this woman’s body in front of me is fantastic!) “Look how good it feels! How many men have dreamed of you!”

When he finished, he slipped his fingers into that deep valley and felt the charm of that warm, soft forbidden place.

“Ah! Ah!” The woman involuntarily gasped loudly.

The air in the room was filled with lust.

Without thinking, Tanazu began to kiss the sweet forbidden place while his tongue probed into the valley and teased, though the move drew a forceful rejection from her.

“Ah! Don’t do that, just point it out.”

The woman forcefully refused to be kissed and teased by Tanitsu on that private part.

This behavior made Tanazu secretly wonder in his heart, she probably wasn’t bad by nature, but only offered herself when she met a man she liked!

So Tanizu skipped this foreplay step.

The woman held Tanitsu’s hand and gasped, “I want to go further!”

She leaned into Tanitsu’s ear and said, “I missed you so much there!”

From time to time, he also teased behind Tanitsu’s ear with his tongue. At this time, Tanitsu couldn’t hold back any longer, and after adjusting his posture, he said, “Ms. Saori, then I’ll go in.” After saying that, he held his dragon vein in his hand and probed towards the entrance of that valley hole.

When she was completely filled, the woman cried out loudly, “Ahhhh! Aah!”

Tanazu watched the expression of enjoyment on her face as he rhythmically moved his body, his favorite time to admire a woman’s satisfied expression.

Soon he felt as if he was in a dream world, only remembered that the woman’s voice still came out of his ears, as to whether he had reached the end of the sprint, he could not remember, because his head felt heavier and heavier, as if the god of sleep was calling him, could it be that the wine he just drank had been drugged?

When he regained consciousness, it was the next morning. His head felt like a pinprick, like the morning after a hangover, and he felt like he was in the middle of the ocean, and when he regained some consciousness, he found himself in a slightly darkened room, but the glimmer of light coming in through the window made him realize that it was morning.

Not a single light was turned on in the room, rendering it dim.

Tanitsu tried to stretch his body, but unexpectedly realized he couldn’t move at all.

He found himself laid out on the bed in a cocoon of duct tape layers.

The room seemed to be the same as last night’s, but the woman posing as Saori had disappeared, and from next door he heard murmurs, and men’s voices at that, interspersed with occasional laughter.

He realized that the voice came from the living room, and the man who spoke seemed to be the one who was watching him.

The man was still eating his ramen loudly while saying, “That boy is really lucky to be able to have fish and water sex with Tae-chan!”

“You don’t know that, we found out that Tae-chan was quite involved in the drama at that point!”

“So that means she likes that guy too Lo!”

“I think you’d probably like to have a go with that woman yourself!”

“It’s always a bit of a shame to think that that beauty queen is about to be taken care of, yeah!”

“That’s right, it’s really a pity, if we had known we would have gotten her earlier, we wouldn’t be feeling sorry for her now!”

“Kenjou-san is really too cold to settle for people when he thinks they no longer have any use for them, even such a beautiful woman.”

The two continued to talk while Tanizu listened, but was secretly angry.

(It’s amazing how they’ve been set up and completely caught in their trap.)

Gu Zin secretly cursed his bullishness with courage but not resourcefulness, it was all because of this bullishness that caused him to fall into the trap set by others.

Tanitsu tried to turn his body, which resulted in a noise as his body went to hit the wall.

“Did you hear anything?”

The two men then stopped chatting, and Tanizu heard the sound of their chairs getting up, followed by the door to the room being opened.

A man’s figure was seen in the faintest light. He was dressed in a tracksuit and approached Tanitsu, at this point Tanitsu realized that he was someone he had seen before, if he wasn’t Yanase, he was Leek Saki, and there was no mistaking it.

“Looks like you’re already enlightened!”

“What are you going to do with me?”

“What do you think should be done about it?”

“Untape me and let me go!”

“We’d love to do that, but we have a very non-communicative person present yay!

”

The man put both hands in his pants pockets with an air of carelessness.

“But now I can think of a gift to give you first, as a thank you for your action of K-ing me hard in the head in Hirakawa-cho, let’s see if I’ve given you a gift of enough weight?”

Without saying a word, the man immediately kicked at Tanizu’s lower abdomen. The kick caused Tanizu to shrink in pain.

“Stop! It’s a dishonorable thing for you to attack a bound man!”

“Whew! Still have the energy to use your eloquence against someone who’s tied up, and I’m being polite like that.”

Then came another blow that left Tanitsu bent at the waist while his head rested painfully against the bed.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Who told you to go after our company like this, and the truth behind Yukio Tsuruta’s car accident!”

“Are you guys afraid of being investigated, is there something unseemly going on?”

“Of course there isn’t! If there really is something unseemly, it’s your own wild guess, so we wanted to teach you a little lesson so we could remind you not to be so nosy.”

Then the man pounded again, causing Tanizu to moan out in pain.

“You want to kill me?”

“Yo! You finally got the results, what? Scared?” The man grinned wickedly, seemingly enjoying the thrill of punching someone right in front of him, and then followed up with a beating that was literally killing Tanizu.

“Yanase, that’s enough! If you beat him to death right now, things will get messy!”

The man who walked in from the next room immediately stepped in to stop the man who was beating up Tanizu.

“What are you afraid of! The guy’s going to end up in the Japanese sea anyway, whether he’s dead now or not!”

“In that case, what does it matter if we keep him a little longer? Besides, now that we don’t know where the suitcase is kept in the mail locker, we must still keep this man to get a word in edgewise with the widow of the sackcloth. Don’t spoil things for personal grudges.”

Leek Saki said so and pulled Yanase away from Tanazu.

“It’s already half past ten, Mr. Kenji is now waiting for us in his office to settle this one, come back and we’ll talk about it, now it’s time for us to go out.”

“What about this guy? There’s no one to guard him!”

“He’s tied up like this, are you afraid he’ll run away? Let’s just seal his mouth so he doesn’t make a sound! Then just lock the room door.”

For the next twenty minutes, the two of them were busy tying up Tanitsu with more duct tape and making sure he was too tied up to move before tying the other end of the tape to the foot of the bed, and when they were done, they locked the door to the room and went out.

It appears that the key to the shipping locker that held the suitcase has been taken by them.

And it doesn’t seem to be a bluff that Tanizu, who has no use for him, will be dumped in the Sea of Japan!

It sent shivers throughout Tanizu’s body, but he heard that he still had a use for the Mabu Widow, which was how it happened.

How could Tanitsu not think of any other use he could have for Shoko.

3 Called five times and no one answered.

（Where the hell did Mr. Ping go?)

Shoko shook her head as she hung the microphone back on the receiver.

Last night she called twice to Tanizu’s place in Kichijoji, and there was no answer, and then she called again this morning, and there was still no answer, so she called the news agency as well as the press club around eleven o’clock, and she got the answer that he hadn’t shown up.

(Where the hell has he gone crazy at this hour, and why hasn’t he returned to Mabu?) Shoko muttered in her mind while her eyes looked out the window.

Outside the window it was raining, a spring rain, but it felt as cold as winter.

While looking at the spring rain outside the window, Shoko suddenly felt that the house was unusually peaceful, and on the left hand holding the microphone, there was a cigarette, but that cigarette was unlit.

This would be the moment when Shoko was in the most relaxed mood!

Because after spending the night with Shoutarou Funakoshi in Yinggu, he slightly expressed the desire of his heart.

It was irresistibly attractive, and it was nice to let the body relieve itself of a little stress.

Why hadn’t Tanitsu been back to his house in Azabu for three nights since that night, and was it because he didn’t feel threatened by anyone else lately, so he didn’t have to come to Azabu anymore? And why did he himself sleep with Shoutarou Funakoshi again?

But sleeping with him would be the only way to get Kasumi’s diary from Funakoshi! If we get the diary, we can only help Tanitsu understand more about the real reason why Tsuruta had a car accident.

At that thought, Shoko remembered to get ready to go out.

Because at two o’clock in the afternoon, she had an appointment with Shoutarou Funakoshi, who worked at the Shikoku Tsukishima Construction Company, to pick up Kasumi’s diary at the black tea store near his company. Funakoshi might make some unreasonable demands on her again, so Shoko had to take care of the errands she wanted to finish during the day anyway.

If she could only make an appointment with Tanazu to pick up her diary once she’d gotten in touch with him, that was the real reason she’d kept calling Tanazu today, even when she realized that he’d been out of the loop all day.

Before going out, I’d like to make one more phone call. I might be able to reach Tanitsu in the evening.

Shoko thought so as she began to put on her make-up and choose her going out clothes. Since it was raining outside, she picked a white dress with a V-neck, and standing in front of the dressing mirror, Shoko didn’t look like a widow in any way.

After grabbing her purse and keychain and umbrella, she walked out of the house and headed for the garage and drove the red BMW out the front door.

The road was a little slippery from the rain, and the raindrops hitting the windshield in front of her were reminding her of the reason why she couldn’t speed up as much as she would have liked to, even though she wanted to.

Before going to Yotsuya, she went around to the bank and insurance company in Roppongi to do some errands, and Shoko’s bank of exchange was the Hiroo Bank. The bank was on the left hand side of the road towards Roppongi. After pulling into the parking lot and parking her car, she went to the bank’s window to collect her living expenses.

Just as she finished her withdrawals and was about to walk out of the bank, she saw a woman in a red jacket on the opposite side of the road from the main entrance of the bank, causing Shoko’s eyes to light up and wonder what she was seeing.

(True image! She looks like a person!)

So she rushed out of the bank’s front door, and her face even hit the automatic door, which she anxiously blamed for not opening faster.

Waiting to get out of the bank’s front door, he crossed the street and headed for the woman’s place.

She found herself traveling through a series of umbrella formations, and after she had traversed the cluster of red, blue, and yellow umbrellas, she finally caught up with the woman in the red jacket, who she found ascending the overpass with a blue umbrella in her hand.

This woman was not someone Shoko would have greeted out loud, and was not her friend at all, but she felt that the woman looked like the woman who was with Kouyou at the time of the accident, and she took a few steps forward to chase after her, and finally remembered the woman’s name, and when she tried to call out to the woman, she stood dumbfounded in the group of umbrellas.

(Could… Could this be the Rain Spirit?)

That woman really did look like Funakoshi Kasumi. It was practically identical to the person she had seen in the photo.

Shoko, who had regained consciousness from her daze, continued to follow the woman on the footbridge wearing a red jacket and holding a blue umbrella, and watched as the woman, who looked like Kasumi Funakoshi, disappeared from Shoko’s sight as she walked.

(Is it just me? What a hell, that woman is so much like her.) Shoko said to herself as she ended her tracking and turned back to her car.

Just as she was getting into the car, she stopped driving. Because of the open door, her eyes suddenly found the focus of her attention, that is, in front of a high-class furniture store about 20 meters ago, there is a man who is looking from the aisle to the furniture in the window, and the man attracted her attention.

She realized that the man’s back and side looked so much like a person.

(But… but… how is that possible?)

How is it possible that Kouyou, who died, is now strolling along the streets of Hiroo? There’s no way he’s standing in front of a window looking at furniture!

（Shoko! Don’t get any ideas!)

After a while, the man entered the furniture store.

(Wake up! Shoko, that’s someone else!)

Then Shoko got into the driver’s seat and started the car, heading for Roppongi.

As she finished her errands in Roppongi and was about to drive to Yotsuya, the rain lightened slightly and Shoko suddenly felt as if her car was being followed. She kept looking into her rearview mirror, but didn’t realize that she didn’t see any suspicious cars.

(That’s weird. What’s wrong with me today?)

She finally arrives at the black tea store in Yotsuya and meets up with Shoutarou Funakoshi. While drinking tea, she gets Kasumi’s diary, though she feels strange about the images she saw today.

“Is Kasumi still alive?” She asked, suddenly putting down her teacup and opening her mouth.

“What?”

Startled, Funakoshi looked up at her.

“Shoko! What are you babbling about, I’ve been to the scene of the accident, not only did I recognize the remains and the relics, but I watched the remains being cremated yeah! How can Kasumi still be alive when she’s already in the sky?”

Funakoshi looked at her with an incredulous expression.

“Yeah! It was incredible.”

“Hey! Shoko, what’s wrong with you?”

Leaving Funakoshi, who had a stunned expression on his face, Shoko stood up and headed for the entrance of the black tea store.

She put the diary in her purse. The parking lot where her car was parked was located in the basement of the building near the black tea store.

When Shoko got there, she saw a public phone booth, so she walked over to it, picked up the microphone, and called Tanitsu.

But he still can’t be reached, neither at his workplace nor at his residence in Kichijoji.

Shoko, who had given up, headed for the BMW.

The underground parking lot was very empty in the afternoon, not even a soul in sight, and it made her feel a touch chilly.

Shoko’s car was parked at the corner, she opened the door and got into the driver’s seat, she was about to start the car when she exclaimed as if she had realized something because she noticed the faces of men appearing in the back seat in the rear-view mirror, and it was two of them, they could have snuck into the car, and they were the same two people who had broken into her house, Yanase and Leek Saki.

“What do you want?” Shoko’s voice and body were very stiff.

“We came in because we saw your car door half open.”

“That’s rude, please get out of the car!”

She figured it was probably the two of them when she felt followed just now!

“Get out of the car! Or I’ll scream!”

When she was about to scream, Leek Saki reached out his hand from the back seat to stop her mouth, and he was holding a white handkerchief in his hand, and she immediately smelled a foul odor. After smelling the pungent odor, Shoko gradually lost consciousness.

“Yanase! Quickly! Let’s pretend she’s a patient and carry her to the backseat of our car when the parking lot isn’t half full! I’ll drive this car while you drive ours!”

4 It was one surprise after another that this day brought to Shoko.

Shoko, who has been drugged in the lower parking lot of Yotsuya-ji, gradually regains consciousness and finds herself taken to the elevator of a building.

“Yanase! She can be made to stand up and look.”

They were probably carrying her on their shoulders, and immediately after hearing the sound, Shoko felt that she was standing on the ground, her consciousness still groggy. That’s why it still looked like she couldn’t stand steadily.

“It seems she’s still unsteady on her feet, so we can’t take her to the principals yet, so we’ll just have to wait for the ground to sober up a bit more!”

Leek Saki and Yanase were talking like this, but Shoko always thought that their voices sounded like they were coming from far away.

When she was fully awake, she found herself left on a bed in one of the women’s rooms in a building.

“This woman looks skinny, but she’s heavy as hell to carry!”

When she heard Yanase say that, Shoko finally couldn’t help but let out a voice and asked, “Where is this place?”

As she jumped up from the bed, she yelled, “What the hell are you doing? I want to go home!”

“Don’t be so hysterical, okay!” Leekzaki said as his face edged closer to hers.

“Let me go home or I’m calling the police!”

“How could we let such an important you come home! Not to mention that your favorite man is also lying very quietly in this room yay! I’m sure you’re happy to see him!”

When Shoko looked down to her feet, it surprised her for the third time today as she realized that Tanitsu had been left tied up on the carpet.

“What…?” Earth couldn’t speak right away. “Mr. Tanitsu, why are you here too?”

Tanitsu’s mouth was gagged with something and all he could do was whimper at the sight of Shoko.

Without him opening his mouth to explain, Shoko could guess that Tanitsu must have been caught here by them in order to track down the truth behind the fake car accident and real murder incident of Kouyou and Kasumi.

“This is too much for you guys, how can you treat him like this?”

Shoko, who was about to approach Tanazu, was pulled away from them instead.

“Do we have to tie you up like this too so you’ll be quiet?”

After saying that, Leek Saki picked up the tape beside him and tied up Shoko, and when he was done, he also threw Shoko on the ground.

“I think you’ll be more restrained when the man you love is in front of you, we’ll have something to ask you later, so settle down until then!” With those words, the two of them walked out of the room.

Shoko and Tanitsu had to spend the long night leaning back to back against each other.

Since Tanitsu’s mouth was gagged, he couldn’t speak at all.

Later that night, Isao Kenjo enters the room with Leek Saki and Yanase behind him.

Of course, they were still questioning Tanitsu and Shoko about the safe or locker where Yukio Tsuruta had entrusted them with the item, that is, Louis Carton’s suitcase, and since the key had been taken away from them, Tanitsu and Shoko could only say that they did not know anything about the origin of the key or anything else.

“Hmph! You don’t know? Which bank is Kouyou Tsuruta’s correspondent bank?”

Shoko, who was asked this question, asked them instead, “Why do you ask?”

“Maybe the key is to a bank safe!”

“My correspondent bank is the Hiroo branch of Miyuki Bank, but whether Kouyou has dealings with any other banks, that I don’t know.”

“So does he commute to work, or does he drive?”

“Sometimes I commute, sometimes I drive!”

“Commute on that line of the subway?”

“Why do you ask?”

“So we can do a carpet search along the mail lockers at every subway station!”

“Hmph! Whatever you guys! Even a child knows that the closest station to Hiroo is the one with the Aoyama Sanchome line as the most common itinerary.”

“Fine! Leek Saki, tomorrow you’ll take that key and go to the safe deposit boxes at the Hiroo branch of the Miyuki Bank, as well as the mail lockers at the stations along the subway line, and try to open them one by one for me.”

After Kenji finished his explanation, he took out a loose-leaf diary.

“This is what Yanase and the others got from your car, did you find any clues after you read it?”

“I didn’t even get a chance to look before you guys charmed me and brought me here!”

“So yeah! That’s best!” Kenji nodded like he was relieved.

It seems that they kidnapped both Tanitsu and Shoko in order to obliterate all evidence related to the fake martyrdom incident.

Kenji then turned to Tanitsu and pulled the barrier off of his mouth as if he were giving him a great favor, and then asked, “Mr. Tanitsu, you seem to still be in contact with the police on the Sado side, don’t you? Why do you need to contact the police?”

(How did they know? Has the room been bugged?)

“I’m not going to lie to you, the local police have long since discovered that the car accident involving Yukiyo Tsuruta and Kasumi Funakoshi wasn’t a mere traffic accident at all, but rather a murder disguised as a martyrdom!”

“Really?”

“Why would I lie to you guys?”

“How much do the police know?”

“Will they tell me what they know?”

After saying that, Tanazu immediately looked away from him and did not want to answer.

“Hmph! It seems that you don’t know what we’re capable of until we give you some pain. Let’s just let you stay here and see if your minds can clear up a bit more!” Jian Zhi said coldly, then got up and walked out of the room, while the other two followed him out.

Thus the two of them were confined in this room through the night and through the day, and so on from day to day.

And they judged day and night entirely by the light that filtered through the windows  cracks in the room.

It’s probably been two nights or three.

Enduring empty stomachs and thirst has reached its limits, and these feelings have strongly clouded their judgment.

And the hands and feet had been paralyzed like stones without feeling.

“Mr. Tanizu! You’re awake?”

“Ah! What the hell, how did I fall asleep again!”

“Are we just going to die here?”

“Maybe ooh! It’s so hateful, they’re not just talking about it, they’re very serious.”

The horror of the thought of both he and Shoko starving to death out here was going to outweigh the anger.

The more I would think about it, the hairier I would get inside.

“Mr. Tanizu, I’m sorry!” Shoko suddenly said this.

“Why say sorry to me!”

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this danger.”

“No such thing, this is entirely due to my own negligence and that’s why I fell into their trap, it has nothing to do with you at all!”

“But if I hadn’t called and asked you to come to Sado to discuss things, maybe you wouldn’t have gotten into this trouble today!”

“The person to blame is not you, Shoko, but those guys who designed to kill Tsuruta-san and Kasumi, those guys are real yakuza!”

Tanizu was quite surprised that he would say that.

“I can’t understand a word you’re saying, but I’m glad you said that.”

Shoko proceeded to be quiet for a moment, as she still felt guilty, but, after a while she spoke up again, “Mr. Tanizu, can I trouble you about something?”

“What is it?”

“One thing I want you to answer me seriously is do you like me? Even though I’m not some heavenly beauty!”

“Of course I like it! How could I be here if I didn’t like it?”

“And do you love me?”

“Love!”

“Really?”

“Really!”

“I’m so happy!” Shoko cried. “I’m relieved to hear you say that, and I feel happy to be able to die with Mr. Tanizu.”

“What are you talking about dead or not! We can’t give up until the last minute!” Tanizu said so.

Only both of them knew very well in their hearts that those were comforting words.

The night was chilly after a while.

“Did you hear anything?” Shoko wasn’t asleep yet.

“From what you’re saying, it seems like there really is some kind of sound!”

They heard the doorbell ring at the door while a whispered man’s voice came through the intercom.

After that the door seemed to be opened, followed by an inaudible conversation.

And that conversation was laced with women’s voices.

After a few more moments, they heard a brief groan followed by the sound of something falling over, and then the door was immediately slammed shut, with the sound of it being locked.

Then there was a dead silence in the room.

(What happened to the caretaker?)

Both Tanitsu and Shoko thought they were hallucinating and then drifted off to sleep.

“Hello! Mr. Tanizu!”

Shoko slammed into Tanitsu-san’s back after a while. I should say about a few minutes, I think, and Tanitsu’s consciousness was completely unclear.

“Mr. Tanizu, wake up!”

Shoko’s voice trembled like she was frightened by something.

“I saw a ghost!”

Tanizu moved to look ahead.

He saw a ray of light appear in the doorway and the door was actually opened.

And in the midst of the light stood something white, and on closer inspection, a woman in white.

But the harsh light made it impossible for Tanizu to see exactly who the person was.

But the outline of the face became clearer and clearer, while Tanizu began to doubt his eyes, thinking that he must be losing consciousness!

(I saw a ghost! I saw a ghost!)

The woman holding the knife and approaching his side looked a lot like Funakoshi Kasumi in the photo anyways.

This woman in white, with long hair, holding a knife as she wordlessly approached Tanazu, was Kasumi in every sense of the word.

What was even more surprising was that behind the woman, a man wearing what looked like a black uniform of a funeral parlor appeared and approached Shoko with a knife taken out of his pocket.

(Did we both see a ghost?)

The man looked like Kouyou Tsuruta anyways.

The two ghost-like men and women waved the knives in their hands, and the tied bodies of Tanitsu and Shoko were immediately freed. At that moment, Tanitsu and Shoko, who were still in a state of bewilderment, did not make a sound.

Once all the tape had been removed from her body, Shoko managed to stand up, but staggered into the wall.

And that’s when she saw the face and eyes of the late-night visitor in the mirror in her room and thought she was seeing a ghost.

“You… you…”

She couldn’t say, “Why are you still alive?” And Tanitsu couldn’t say it either.

“Shoko, don’t be afraid, it’s me! It’s me and Kasumi! We’re not ghosts, don’t worry!”

（”So it was really the two of them that you saw in Hiroo that day?)

“But I still can’t believe that you weren’t in Sado already…”

“Eh! Dead! No, to be clear, actually killed, but, I don’t know if it was lucky, or unfortunate, that we were caught in a trap, but Kasumi and I did not die, and look at us, we’re not still standing in front of you alive.”

“Tell us more clearly so we can understand what’s really going on?” Tanizu finally spoke up.

“Mr. Tanizu, thank you for what you did to Shoko. But now we don’t have time to explain, we just beat the guards, and now the car is still waiting for us at the bottom, so I think we need to get out of here in order to stay out of sight.”

“But… but… I want to know more!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll definitely explain it in detail afterward. You can wait until this weekend, Roc Construction’s 40th anniversary celebration reception, and the truth will come out then. At that time, I would also like to trouble Mr. Tanizu to be the witness of this truth!”

Mrs. Sackcloth Sorrow (08)

Scanning Proofreading: CSH

Chapter 8: A Twist in the Road

1The 40th Anniversary Celebration of Roc Construction Company was held on Thursday, April 26, at 6:30 p.m. in the Peacock Room of the Orian Hotel in Akasaka. It was a great party. In a banquet hall with a capacity of 1,500 people, the party was attended by a number of dignitaries, showing that Roc Construction was demonstrating the strength of its company.

On that day, Mr. Tanitsu participated in the event as a member of the Board of Governors who was invited to the banquet on behalf of Mr. Tanitsu.

Luckily, Kenshiro, Leek Saki, and Yanase were all party preparers that day, so Tanitsu’s face was nowhere to be seen at the venue, and Tanitsu was able to avoid causing a commotion in the crowd.

Tanizu obtained the convention materials from the signing office and stood in the corner for a moment, watching the crowds come and go.

On the wall in front of the banquet, “Roc Construction Company 40th Anniversary Celebration Party” is written in gold paint.

The large bleachers, paired with the intense lighting of the ballroom, exuded a golden dazzle.

At last the time arrived at half-past six o’clock, when the scheduled opening was to take place, when the sound of the band was raised aloud.

And the center of the stage, there stood a wearing a black dress belly full of fat intestines, that person is the roc construction company’s president Washio Ryutaro, he began to speech said “Today is the roc construction company was founded 40 anniversary of the celebration of the evening, here, on behalf of the company only thank you for coming!”

“Looking back, Roc Construction and I struggled together during that chaotic time after the war, came to Tokyo to establish a private company, and one person working alone, through many hardships, finally officially established Washio Construction in 1950, and then through Tokyo’s economic recovery and development, the company was fortunate enough to develop steadily along with the high level of economic growth, and with the goal to build Japan With the mission of building Japan as our goal, we finally changed the name of the company to Roc Construction Company, presenting the current prosperity of the company.”

“In order to thank you for your support and love for our company over the years, today we would like to invite you all to join the party organized by our company, there are rough food and wine on site to show our appreciation, and we have also prepared some programs and charity sales, so I hope that you all will have a good time today!”

There was thunderous applause. Then came the sound of cheers, one after the other.

When the sound of toasts subsided a bit, an elderly man with white hair appeared on the stage, Atsutoku Tanabe, president of the Japan Construction Industry Association.

Tanabe gave a brief speech and then shouted to the guests, “Come on, let’s raise our glasses again for this celebration!”

So everyone raised their glasses again and toasted together in celebration.

“Cheers!” All the voices in the meeting hall shouted one after another.

And before the other guest of honor gave his speech, the assembly prepared a program that involved the opening of huge wooden wine barrels.

“And now, after our toast, it’s time for the first of tonight’s after-party programs to begin, and that’s when we’ll open the king-sized wine barrel presented by the Kanto Tsui Myung Association to congratulate Roc Construction on its rise to greatness!”

Two wine barrels were placed side by side on the stage. The kegs were about three times larger than normal kegs.

President Washio and Chairman Nomura of the Kanto Tsuimei Association, holding a mallet, were in charge of one barrel, while the other barrel was opened by Vice-President Takamatsu and Director of Construction of the Ministry of Construction, Kameo Tokuoka, holding a mallet.

“Ready? Be ready to knock!”

The master of ceremonies loudly began to count: “One, two, three!”

“One, two, three!”

Bang!

Bang!

When the mallet struck the barrels twice at the same time, both barrels were instantly broken.

After that, the venue but there was a rise and fall of screams.

Instead of sake, a blood-like liquid flows out of the barrel, and out of it jumps Kouyou Tsuruta, the supposedly dead head of the tender division, dressed in a black tuxedo, who rises out of the spotlight in full view of the crowd.

In the other barrel stood the president’s secretary, Funakoshi Kasumi, who was wearing a white evening gown and was also supposed to be dead, standing in front of everyone with a smile on her face.

“What… what the hell is going on?” Washio Ryutaro let go of the mallet in his hand in surprise and loudly scolded.

“Weren’t you guys supposed to have died in Sado’s car accident? How is it possible that you’re still alive?”

“That’s right, it was you who ordered the two of us to be killed and silenced at Sado.”

“What are you babbling about?”

Washio suddenly realized something was wrong and changed his tune again.

“What are you babbling about? What I ordered to kill you to silence you?”

The whole audience was in an uproar. The guests who realized that something was wrong had already dispersed, but because of their conversation they were now rushing closer to the stage to find out what was going on.

And the man near the keg began to speak words that surprised everyone.

“Aren’t they human?” “They’re just wax figures made to look like humans!” “What a prank! These guys are just dolls that look like humans!”

At this point, all the guests thought that the person in the barrel was not a real person, but a doll or wax figure, and they had also heard the conversation between Washio and the man, and the conversation might have been recorded.

“Everyone! Please be quiet! Please be quiet!”

Tetsuya Tono, a well-known entertainer who was invited to be the master of ceremonies, said in order to control the chaotic scene, “What you all saw just now was purely a prank! This is a program designed to celebrate the company’s success, so please raise your glasses again and let the program continue.”

And so the party went on with a ruckus.

Since many of the guests were not from the construction industry, most of them did not recognize Yukio Tsuruta and Kasumi Funakoshi and therefore did not pay much attention to the show. However, for those in the same industry who knew that the two died in a car accident, they were in awe of the chilling atmosphere brought about by these two horrifying figures.

“How about it, President? We don’t want to cause a ruckus, so do we have to talk about it in another room!”

Although Washio was angry at whoever had played the prank that caused him to lose face in front of everyone and break out in a cold sweat, Saito’s sales manager, who was in charge of the program, rushed out to resolve the embarrassment in front of him in order to cover up the situation.

“The conduct of the party will not be affected, please be at ease, it’s better to ask the president to take a rest in the rest room first now!”

Washio has been warned by his doctor to pay special attention to high blood pressure, so he follows the minister’s advice and goes to the president’s special lounge.

Mr. Saito, the head of the sales department, escorted Washio to the entrance of the lounge, and then bowed to the open door, saying, “Please feel free to leave all the programs to me after this! If there is a need for a speech, I will ask the vice-president or the board members to make a speech on behalf of the president.” After closing the door, he left.

And Washio was sweating profusely from the shock of the program he had just put on, so he hurriedly grabbed the handkerchief in his pocket to dry himself off, and as he was about to sit down on the couch, he suddenly stopped moving.

For from the gloom of the couch two men and women slowly rose to their feet and appeared in front of Washio.

That’s the real Yukio Tsuruta and Kasumi Funakoshi waiting in ambush for their chance.

“President! It’s been a long time!”

“President! We missed you so much!”

The two men, each wearing black and white dresses, greeted Washio, who looked like he had seen a ghost.

“You… you…” This time he finally realized that what was in front of him was not a mannequin.

“President, too much excitement can hurt your body, let’s have a quiet chat! Mr. Tanizu, could you please lock the door? And Inspector Moriyama, please join us!”

At some point in time, both Savehei Tanitsu and Inspector Moriyama, who had come from Sado, also stayed in this lounge.

Tanizu locked the door and took the tape recorder out of his pocket and pressed the record button.

While Inspector Moriyama sat on the other side of the couch, waiting to solve the mystery in front of him.

Kouyou Tsuruta, on the other hand, sat quietly in the corner with a smile on his face, an expression like he was ready to fix someone else’s good and tidy mood.

The battle-hardened Washio Ryutaro, on the other hand, was too stiff to speak at that moment.

“Didn’t the president just ask us how we’re still alive? Now we’ll explain it to you slowly! But before that, is it possible for the president to explain why he killed Kasumi and I?”

2 As a major construction company in the Tokyo Bay Bay Project, which is being developed to meet the needs of the 21st century, Daihaku Construction, a major construction company, was preparing to contract for the project by acquiring the Tokyo Bay Renaissance Building in advance in order to secure the main project of the Tokyo Bay Crossing Bridge.

“Tsuruta! This project must be marked!” This was an order given by President Washio himself, with a secret face.

Usually the government units of the project bidding, will find ten construction companies to participate in the bidding, but this time the bay plan by many construction industry attention, so the bidding is quite competitive. So Tsuruta Kouyou in the formal bidding before, and many construction companies to negotiate, bargaining, and finally and the other nine larger construction companies to negotiate terms, by the Roc coordinated to bidding, to be determined by the government unit after the Roc won the bidding, and then by him and the previously agreed upon companies to share the work, and jointly share the project.

On the other hand, President Washio Ryutaro dealt with the Kanto Tsuraminekai and probed into the business conditions of each company, analyzing the information that would be most beneficial to Roc, and securing the services of powerful politicians to mediate between them.

At this time, Roc’s Moon Island Construction Consultants, on the other hand,  set the base price of the government unit’s project, so notify the other construction companies of the alliance what price should be offered to bid on the bidding, it is the bidding section chief responsible for the implementation.

When the bidding process was officially underway, Roc Construction was fully mobilized to estimate the cost of the entire project in order to obtain the construction permit for the project, while the other privately-allied construction companies, because they were only cooperating with the bidding stage, did not put as much effort into estimating the cost of the project.

Because Roc had already secretly allocated the bidding amount that each company needed to fill in, and each company’s bidding amount was a bit higher than Roc’s, so that Roc could obtain the right to build the project at an overwhelming price. And all these work by Tsuruta is responsible for the center of the negotiation, even if each company’s estimate statement, also by his responsibility to prepare and become.

Through Tsuruta and Washio’s covert operation, all the companies also gained vested interests, so everyone was willing to cooperate with Roc Construction’s arrangements, and the final result of the project was that Roc Construction won the bid with a total project cost of 23 billion won.

“Tsuruta! Finally we get this project!” For the first time, President Washio expressed his reward for this case.

That was last November. However, in February of this year, rumors spread that someone had reported the inside story of their private alliance to the Tokyo District Attorney’s Office.

Afterwards, President Washio and the directors of Dapeng Construction Company were summoned for questioning by the District Attorney’s Office. Although they insisted that there was no such thing when they came to the court to explain, the District Attorney’s Office still started to investigate whether there were any frauds, which made Washio and the directors of the company and other senior members of the company all scared.

According to the Government Procurement Regulations, “illegal enterprises are prohibited from bidding for public works projects of governmental units”, and even the Ministry of Construction explicitly stipulates that “the contract with the winning company can be terminated at any time”, and that those vendors who have won the bidding for the project by using unlawful means or improper behavior “will be disqualified from bidding for a period of time ranging from one to nine months”. The Ministry of Construction even explicitly states that it “may terminate the contract with the winning company at any time” and that, for those who have won a project by using illegal means or improper behavior, “the company will be disqualified from bidding for the project for a period of time ranging from one to nine months.

In addition, in the Criminal Code, this type of lobbying is recognized as an act of obstruction of fair trade under article 96, paragraph 3, of the Criminal Code, while chapter V of the same article provides that such lobbying can be prosecuted as “obstruction of the performance of official duties”.

Any of these clauses will result in a “No Named Bidding” sanction for the vendor.

In addition, if the investigation reveals that the allegations are true, a fine of two to three years will be imposed, prohibiting the contractor from contracting all public works projects of the government unit concerned.

Each of these penalties will deprive Roc Construction of its ambitions for future development, and more importantly, the survival of the business.

“No matter what, the truth must be stopped from being revealed!”

Washio Ryutaro is determined to cover up the truth.

Since the only person who knew the whole story of the bidding incident was Koyo Tsuruta, the head of the bidding division, if Tsuruta was taken into custody, the whole truth would probably be revealed. On the other hand, if Tsuruta escaped, no one in the company would know the inside story of the whole bidding case. Therefore, Washio ordered Tsuruta to go into hiding for a while.

In order to make the escape more realistic, Washio even thought of asking Tsuruta to run away on the grounds that he had embezzled money from the public coffers so as not to arouse the suspicion of the District Attorney’s Office. When Washio persuades Tsuruta to cooperate, he offers his lover, Kasumi Funakoshi, to accompany him, and Tsuruta agrees to run away from Tokyo towards Izu.

“That’s right! Mr. Washio!”

Tsuruta said this, not forgetting to glance in Washio Ryutaro’s direction for approval.

This action caused Washio to panic and rush to deny it.

“Lies… lies!” Washio desperately denied it, “Hey! What are you talking about? We didn’t have an agreement!”

“This agreement was a private agreement between the two of us, and we both swore at the time that we would never disclose it to the public! I was supposed to honor that agreement, but the president broke it on his own.”

“Hey! What did you say about me breaking the pact, breaking what pact?”

“You said you’d promote me to head of sales after I got through this period peacefully, but it turns out that when you devised this escape plan from the start, you wanted to kill people, so isn’t that the same as breaking the agreement?”

“Hey! What are you babbling about?”

“Take it easy! Take it easy! Just hear me out!”

3 After Tsuruta had stayed in Ito and Atami for about two weeks, Washio made a mysterious phone call indicating that the District Attorney’s Office had launched an in-depth investigation, and requested that Yukiyo Tsuruta and Kasumi Funakoshi leave the resort hotel in Atami in the black Mercedes driven by Tadayoshi Nishimoto, on a Wednesday, April 4, when the time to leave the hotel had already been in the evening.

The two took a black Mercedes and drove at high speed on the Tomei Expressway, returning to Tokyo that night and spending the night in a business hotel, and the next day, the original team set off for Shin-Erase in the same car, destined for Sado, and the instructions they received were from the driver, Mr. Irihimoto, and that is, Tsuruta and Kasumi were to meet with the personnel of the Sanchimura Construction Company and three other companies on the island of Sado in order to discuss how to explain the incident when actually facing an interrogation, that is, a ploy. They were instructed by Mr. Nishimoto, the driver, that Tsuruta and Kasumi were to meet with the three companies on Sado Island in order to discuss how they would explain the incident if they were to be interrogated.

As a result, the car was carrying a large sum of money with a negotiation amount of about 10 million yen or more.

On the way, Nishimoto spent a night in Niigata on the grounds of fatigue, and the next day set out for Niigata Harbor to take a speedboat on the “Osaka Ferry,” arriving at Ryotsu on Sado in the evening of April 6th.

That night, they stayed at the Kamo Hotel in Ryotsu. Tsuruta and Kasumi stayed there under the names of Mr. and Mrs. Sadao Naito, and Iriemoto stayed there under an assumed name so that their whereabouts would not be discovered. According to Nishimoto, the day after the scheduled meeting, they were to meet with the three companies at the Lakeside Diamond Hotel, the highest class hotel in Ryotsu, to discuss their plans.

However, the other party did not show up that day, so Tsuruta and the others took a tour of the island on their own, but they began to think that something strange was going on because the driver, Yoshi Irihimoto, suggested, “Oh, my! The other party may not be able to come, so let’s change the meeting time! I’ll tell you what! I’ll lend you my Mercedes, so you can enjoy the island today.”

“That’s better!”

Tsuruta and Kasumi, who had no doubt, gladly accepted Iriomoto’s suggestion and borrowed a Mercedes in the afternoon to go sightseeing at the Noh stage of the Homma family, the Nichirenji, the Nemotoji Temple, the Mano Goryo, and the Myozenji Temple.

But just as they were about to make their way back from Myokenji at about 2:00 p.m., Tsuruta realized that something was wrong, as he noticed that the brakes were suddenly out of order. “What to do! Danger!”

Tsuruta steered the car as if he thought he was going to die. Fortunately or unfortunately, the car was accelerating on a downhill stretch of road, and there was no way to stop, so when the car accelerated into the thick growth of giant cedar trees, they skidded through the grass for nearly 20 meters before slowly hitting a cedar tree and coming to a halt.

When Tsuruta gets out of the car to check it, he realizes that the braking system has been sabotaged while they were traveling.

“Look! The brake system doesn’t work at all.”

When he explains the car situation to Kasumi, he notices that Kasumi’s face is getting paler and paler.

“Hey! What’s wrong with you?”

“Looks like they want to kill us to silence us!”

“I suppose you’ve been suspecting that for a long time!”

At this point, Tsuruta still didn’t believe the facts in front of him.

“Pull yourself together! Mr. Tsuruta! Because you’re the only witness who knows about this bidding case, that’s why Washio ordered you to hide for a while first, in fact, to find a chance to get rid of the only witness.”

That’s right, the whole bidding process, if you exclude Tsuruta, there is no second person who knows the whole story.

“So it is! But isn’t it too much to pull you down as a wronged ghost!”

“Not! In fact, Washio’s motivation for wanting to kill me was probably greater than his motivation for killing you, which is why he sent me on a trip with you and then looked for a chance to kill us both together.” Kasumi suddenly blurted out.

“What do you say to that?”

“Don’t get angry when you hear me out!” Kasumi said so as if she was about to reveal some secret.

“We just almost got killed yay, what could be more surprising and still piss me off than what just happened?”

“I’m the one who went on the secret!”

“What?”

Those words really startled Kouyou Tsuruta.

“You said you went on a tip-off? About what?”

“It’s the Gulf Project! It’s the plan that I sent to the Tokyo District Attorney’s Office to denounce you after I had completed a rough description of the process of your bidding for the covert operation. In order to take revenge on Washio Ryutaro, I had no choice but to report it!”

In the shadowy cedar cups the voice rang out like a demon.

Completely ignoring Tsuruta, who stares angrily at her upon hearing the news from the blue, Kasumi tells the story of her own upbringing Kasumi’s parents, who used to run one of Washio Construction’s downstream companies in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, were framed for murder by Washio Construction in her sophomore year of high school, which led to the closure of the company, and the death of her parents as a result of that bitter experience.

Anyone who is familiar with the division of labor in the construction industry knows that usually large construction companies have their downstream partners, and Kasumi’s father was running the “Housing General Construction Company” at that time. However, one year, the company suffered an accident at the construction site, which led to a downturn in its operation. In order to compensate the victims, her father wanted to ask the upstream company, that is, Washio Construction, to lend them money to help the company tide over the difficult times, not to mention that the accident at the construction site was also caused by Washio Construction’s improper design of the project at that time, and Washio refused to lend a helping hand for the reason that it had delayed the construction progress.

After several unsuccessful requests for assistance, her mother finally appeared alone to plead for help, Washio had long coveted her mother’s beauty, so while pretending to say that he was very willing to help the company, but at the same time, he showed his hideous face, when he asked her to be his lover and she refused, that is, he was not willing to lend money to its parents, leading to the couple Oshinohiro and his wife, therefore, they fell down in ruins and in order to express their apologies for the death of the deceased. In order to apologize to the deceased, when Kasumi was in her sophomore year of high school, they chose to commit suicide by taking poison to thank for their sins.

For a seventeen-year-old girl, the news was like a bolt from the blue, and sowed the seeds of revenge in her heart against the president of Washio Construction Company.

“From that time onwards, I am a witch, every day seriously study, after graduating from the university, I entered the Roc Construction Company’s secretarial section of the post, at the beginning of the president of my original last name vigilance seems to be very strong, but at that time, my vengeful heart is completely unobtrusive, coupled with my willingness to cooperate, so that he produced the illusion that I am a trustworthy person, in fact, I was waiting for the opportunity to move! In fact, I was waiting for the opportunity to move, secretly I began  to set the evidence against the company thought vengeance and hatred, and this time the ins and outs of the Gulf plan were all secretly  set by me complete, I secretly reported to the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office.”

After listening to her narration, Tsuruta Kouyou’s heart was really mixed, looking up at the sky thinking that the alliance plan that he alone had worked hard to operate secretly was actually investigated by this woman in front of him, secretly, he felt unbelievable.

When the case came to light, the company executives and himself thought there might be a mole in the company, not realizing that he had gone on a long love affair with the mole to Izu, Atami, and Sado. And now he actually had to be murdered along with this mole. It’s for this reason that the development of their relationship is accelerated, who called the two of them the same person at the end of the world!

“It should have been Iriomoto who did it!”

Tsuruta said so as he stood beside the destroyed brake system.

“That guy must have snuck up behind us too, and then looked for an opportunity to strike.”

“So he’s been spying on us lo!”

“Damn! That guy must have taken the opportunity to approach the Mercedes and then tampered with the car’s braking system.”

“It might not be just Iriomoto who did it. Because yesterday at the hotel, I seem to have seen a woman we both recognize appear.”

“A woman? Who is it?”

“She’s made some changes to her outfit and styling, so I can’t be very sure, but I always thought she looked a lot like Ms. Saori, who works at the Ginza ‘Maiko’ yay! That woman came to Sado too!”

“How could it be Saori?”

“I’m not quite sure, but I think that Iriomoto would never be able to pull it off by himself, so he should have help, maybe there’s a woman who’s secretly helping him yeah! Think about it, a woman who is quite familiar with Tsuruta, traveling alone, but by chance met by chance in Sado, so that they can successfully ambush them, and if Irihimoto’s plan fails, the two of them can also conspire for a second, or even a third wave of killings in order to accomplish their mission.”

“How is it possible? That’s a wicked idea!”

“I have to think like that!”

“Fair enough, was having to think that way!”

“So what do we do now?”

“First, we have to stay still!”

Then Tsuruhi said to Kisumi, “It seems that we have to help ourselves, we have to catch evidence that Irihimoto wants to murder us, so we can’t be angry about what happened today, we even have to return to the ryokan as if nothing has happened, and see what his next move is.”

On that day, the two of them abandoned their Mercedes in the cedar forest, walked side by side to a nearby store to borrow a telephone, called a taxi and returned to the hotel as if nothing had happened. Iriomoto was shocked to see the two of them return to the hotel unharmed. But he hid his inner surprise while asking, “Where is the Mercedes?”

“It broke down on the way, so we parked it in the temple’s parking lot.”

“Wow! That’s really inconvenient yeah! Tomorrow we have to climb the Osado Yamaruga Line, so we’ll have to go rent a car.

”

“Why are we going up to the Osamu Watanabe Ling Line?”

“Just now Mr. Wakai from Mitamura Construction called and asked us to meet tomorrow morning at nine o’clock at the Grand Terrace Prospect Restaurant.”

“The Prospect Restaurant on the hill, huh? That doesn’t have to be so early in the morning!”

“I’m not sure, but I hear the sunrise over the mountains is quite beautiful!”

Irihimoto explained himself. He was probably afraid that he wouldn’t be able to carry out the original plan, so he was in a hurry to explain.

“So we’ll go rent a car, what about you?”

“I rented the car yesterday because I wanted to let the two of you use the Mercedes for the time I was on the island.”

In the evening, Tsuruta and Kasumi rented a car from a car rental agency near the harbor and returned to the hotel, where they saw a woman in a flaming red coat standing in the lobby.

“Hi! Chief Tsuruta!” The woman piled on a full smile and walked toward them.

She’s really Saori Nozomata, who works at Mai Hime, as Kasumi said.

“Wow! What a rarity! How did you get here?”

“I took a leave of absence from the company and came here on vacation alone! Sado has always been a dream destination for me! But it’s so lonely traveling alone, so can I have dinner with you guys today, Chief?”

Saori Nogata was probably really bought off, so she sold her acting skills.

So for dinner that day, the four of them shared a table together.

When the topic of going up to the mountains tomorrow came up during dinner, Saori, in an innocent voice, pouted and begged them to make sure to take her along. “Besides, I can be the driver!”

As a result, it turned out that she followed her up the mountain. We all made an appointment to leave at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.

The front rental car was shared by Tsuruta and Kasumi, who was the driver that day, while the back rental car was shared by Irimoto and Saori. Iriomoto and Saori were also driving their car, because Saori had always expressed her desire to drive the whole way up the mountain by herself in order to conquer the Osado Yamaruga Line. The Osado mountain line was covered with a thick fog, and there were no cars in front of them, and there were no cars behind them.

At about 9:00 a.m., the group arrived at the Outlook Restaurant on the large platform, and Iriomoto had probably taken care of the restaurant beforehand, so that the room had been prepared long before the restaurant’s opening hours. Since they decided to stay in the guest room of the restaurant that night, the consultants from three companies, including Wakai of Mitamura Construction, of course did not show up.

“That’s weird! What’s going on?”

Looking at the hypocritical expression on Iriomoto’s face as he kept saying what a strange thing to say, Tsuruta kept suppressing his anger, this damnable man was really a big loser.

（”So black-hearted as to kill!)

After fifteen minutes of drinking beer and waiting for them, Irihimoto went to make a phone call, and when he was done, he trotted back to the table and said, “What a nuisance! They’re wasting our time, and the three of them are waiting for us at the bottom of the mountain at the Kanayama Memorial Hall, which is a real pain in the ass! So let’s take a short break and go down the mountain!”

Tsuruta, who could no longer watch Irihimoto’s play, finally couldn’t help but say, “Mr. Irihimoto, please come with me for a moment, I have something I want to ask you!”

Then he lured Iriomoto inside the restaurant. When no one was around, Tsuruta couldn’t help but grab Iriomoto by the collar, and pressed his head hard against the wall, and asked, “Hey! Mr. Iriomoto, you’ve been fooling us from the beginning to the end! Are you trying to kill us? Why don’t you just say it?”

He probably had a fierce look in his eyes, because he couldn’t tolerate Iriomoto’s tricks anymore!

“What are you talking about?” Iraben denied in a panic.

“So tell me, how did the brake system on the Mercedes fail yesterday?”

“I didn’t know about this!”

“What do you intend to do with us when you bring us to the mountains today?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, get off me!”

He was beginning to loathe the swarthy Iraben in front of him.

“You murderer, tell the truth!”

Tsuruta asked in a completely out of control rage.

“Come on, tell the truth, are you the assassin they sent to try to kill us, aren’t you?”

He asked while his hands strengthened their force.

Iriomoto and Tsuruta were just about equal in stature, and Tsuruta had some wrist strength, so in his full fury, he was completely out of his mind.

“Get the hell off me! What are you babbling about?”

“Tell the truth! Did the president send you to kill us?”

“Let go! I didn’t get any orders at all!”

While struggling, the two men got into a serious scuffle. Tsuruta, on the other hand, because he almost lost his life yesterday when the brakes failed, decided that Iriomoto was trying to kill them, so he was so enraged that he completely lost his mind, and as he grabbed the collar, he viciously banged Iriomoto’s head against the wall, waiting until Iriomoto appeared to be unconscious from those impacts, then he stopped in panic. He watched as Irihimoto slid down towards the ground, so he nervously probed into Irihimoto’s chest and was relieved to find that he was still alive.

“Hey! Irihimoto!” He slapped Iriomoto’s cheek desperately, trying to wake him up, while at the same time his mind was reeling.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that the reckoning was a murderous thought, but technically, it wasn’t a murderous motive. It was because Iriomoto had tampered with the car yesterday, so that he would have to make sure that the brakes were not damaged before he left the house today, and that he would have to be careful to make sure that Iriomoto didn’t put sleeping pills in the coffee they drank this morning. This was what kept Tsuruta’s emotions tight.

Coincidentally, Funakoshi Kasumi had the same thought in the restaurant, Kasumi realized that Nozomata Saori, who was sitting next to her, hadn’t touched the coffee in front of her at all, could it be that she had tampered with the coffee, especially when Kasumi came back from the restroom, she noticed that Saori’s face looked strange, so Kasumi’s own suspicion was born of darkness and so she didn’t move her own coffee either.

Maybe Saori drugged both of them in their coffee!

In order to solve the current suspicious situation once and for all, they had to let themselves die once first so that the murderous demons of Tokyo could be put at ease, and a flash of inspiration flashed through Tsuruta’s mind.

Iriomoto and Tsuruta were of the same size, even their clothes and pants were the same size, so Tsuruta took off his own clothes and pants with his wallet, business card holder, and driver’s license, and took off Iriomoto’s clothes and pants, so that the two of them could match up, and since Iriomoto was in a state of unconsciousness, it took quite a bit of time for him to get the clothes on him.

Then, he dragged Irihimoto to the seat next to the driver’s seat of the original car he rode in and sat him down, and in order to hide it from Saori, so he said to her after returning to the restaurant, “It’s time, isn’t it? Let’s go! Mr. Iriomoto just drank a beer, and the result of yesterday’s drink together, so he is now drunk, while clamoring to wear my clothes, while crazy, so I had to change clothes with him! It was hard to get him to go back to the car and sleep!”

When Saori heard such a remark, she just felt a little incredulous and said, “What a strange person!

Big men still play swap clothes!” She wasn’t even suspicious.

At that time, Saori’s eyes were already looking a bit sleepy and her steps were also a bit hobbling, after which Kasumi explained to Tsuruta that it was probably because Saori accidentally drank her own coffee mixed with sleeping pills that she was in a sleepy state.

So they walked out of the restaurant and set off in the direction of Aikawa.

“Where is Ms. Saori’s car? This time our car is following you.”

Since all the cars from the rental car company are similar, Saori Nozomi gets into the car Tsuruta told her about and starts the engine without any doubt. Tsuruta and Kasumi get into the car in the back, and the two cars leave the place.

As the car drove from the Tai Tai platform to the nine turns of the accident scene, the distance between their cars was slightly closer.

Tsuruta sat in the seat next to the driver’s seat, while Kasumi was driving, the heart is mixed watching the car in front of the direction of the car, as they expected, the front of the car driven by Saori, the car speed gradually accelerated, when the drive to the nine curves and eighteen corners of the road, Tsuruta felt a burst of inexpressible nervousness, his heart beating so much, he was thinking that now he had to step in to help her.

But Destiny, it seems, has made its decision.

Because it was too late. At the fourth sharp turn, Tsuruta and Kasumi were shocked to see Saori’s car run over the guardrail and fall to the end of the mountain, and they couldn’t believe what was happening in front of their eyes.

“But… but… this should be fate! God has to punish them, I guess! It’s cruel, but there’s nothing we can do to stop it!” Kasumi exclaimed, muttering to herself while Tsuruta’s body shook uncontrollably.

When the two arrived at the Kanayama Memorial Hall in Aikawa, they immediately dashed to a nearby business registration pretending to be witnesses and reported the incident to the police.

Tsuruta still can’t figure out whether Nozomata Saori’s car fell off the mountain because the brakes were damaged, or because she drank a drink laced with sleeping pills and drove in a drowsy state. Or both, it is not certain.

4 A strange dead silence gripped the chamber.

When Yukiyo Tsuruta had finished recounting what had happened at Sado, there was a horrible dead silence in the lounge of the celebration venue. Washio Ryutaro, Tanizumi, Moriyama, and the others did not make a sound right away.

Everyone was probably digesting the veracity of the things Tsuruta had said, as well as lamenting the trickery of fate.

Tanitsu still can’t quite believe that Tsuruta and Kasumi, both of them, went through death and rebirth in such a way.

Still, Tanitsu felt it was time to say something to break the ice.

“So, Mr. Tsuruta how is it possible that you guys completely disappeared as if you were on the island?”

That was the only question Tanizu could think of right now.

“After we returned the rental car to the rental car company, we hid in a hotel in Kogi Harbor for about three days to get out of the wind. It was only on the fourth day that we escaped Sado by speedboat from Kogi Harbor.”

Funakoshi Kasumi, who had been sitting next to Mr. Tsuruta and had been quiet, spoke up to answer this question.

“When the speedboat arrives at Naoetsu, we cannot return to Tokyo at once, for by going back to Tokyo at once the news that we are still alive may soon get out, and we, who want to avenge ourselves, think it easier to carry out our act of vengeance by making everyone think that we are dead as a result.”

Kasumi, who had clearly explained their future whereabouts, looked at Washio Ryutaro with determined eyes.

So Tanitsu also followed her line of sight and looked at Washio. At this moment, Washio’s face showed an unbelievable expression, he might have already had a rising liver fire when he saw the two of them appearing in front of him, and now after listening to their story, his blood pressure might have risen to between one hundred and ninety and two hundred! Because he was now gasping for breath with his face red and his mouth unable to utter a single word.

(Danger! If we don’t call a doctor, I’m afraid…) Tanitsu thought so.

But Tsuruta at this time as if he had not finished explaining things, continued: “Mr. Washio, I think of my own murder when I was also very angry, so I want to make our secret alliance of things to the public, and as early as before the incident occurred, I already for self-protection, those alliance of all the documents and information all into a suitcase and locked in the bank’s safe deposit box, but now I heard that the key to open the safe deposit box has fallen into your hands, now think of the most pitiful is Iriomoto Tadayoshi and Nobukata Saori, they probably never thought that I would fall into the hands of! Now the key to open the safe, I heard that it has fallen into your hands, now think of the most pitiful is Iriomoto Tadayoshi and Nogata Saori, they probably never thought that they would fall into my hands! In other words, all of us are victims, and the culprit is you, Washio Ryutaro, isn’t it?”

The accusation pierced Washio as cruelly as a million arrows through the heart.

At that moment Tanizu stood up, headed for the corner of the room and picked up the phone, asking the hotel to arrange for a doctor to be called.

“I… I… didn’t even give such an order!” Finally Washio spat out these words angrily.

“Who else but you would dare to give such an order?”

“I… don’t know!” Washio continued, “What proof do you have that what you say is the truth?”

“There is a lot of evidence! Evidence such as the president’s car that was placed in the cedar forest near Myoshuji Temple, the suitcase containing 12 million yen in cash that was intentionally placed in the Ryotsu Hotel’s safe with Kasumi’s name on it, and Tadayoshi Nishimoto, who drove the president’s car from Atami to Sado for no reason at all, all of this evidence shows that all of these actions were ordered by Ryutaro Washio, the supreme leader of Roc Construction. .”

“There’s no real proof of any of the things you’re saying, and it wasn’t even my order what happened to Iriomoto!”

“Mr. Washio, you’re a real heartbreaker!” Tsuruta continued to accuse cruelly, “Now that the person is dead, there are no witnesses at all. You are lucky that you can easily escape the charge of abetting a murder, but you won’t be able to get away with it in the Sekiguchi case! I’m still alive as a witness! You gave the order! Don’t you think so?”

“Then I don’t deny it, because I had no choice but to make this decision, and I didn’t just do it for the company, I did it for… for…”

“For the sake of the whole industry right?”

“Yes, yes, it’s because of the industry that we have to start with the alliance, if we don’t assign everyone’s roles beforehand, when the project starts to be carried out, it’s easy for the project to be delayed, which will waste the taxpayers’ money and damage the image of the overall industrial sector, so it’s very important that everyone’s roles are clearly defined beforehand. “

“You’re wrong! Your words all for the industry are simply bullshit! All I know now is that you are behind a string of dirty and sordid things in the Union. The industry is supposed to be moving to the point of fair play now to convince the taxpaying public!”

“Enough! You two gentlemen!”

Inspector Moriyama, who had been sitting on the sidelines, finally stood up from his corner.

“Mr. Washio is no longer fit to speak, it’s more important to get him to a doctor first, and what Mr. Tsuruta said will be reported in the newspaper by Mr. Tanitsu, and the District Attorney’s Office should begin an in-depth investigation into the authenticity of the story, while we’ll be sure to focus on whether or not there was any abetment of the murder!”

After finishing his sentence, Inspector Moriyama scratched his head and said, “Now, what should we do? I think that although the events in Sado have come to an end, but for the sake of caution, we still ask Tsuruta and Funakoshi to come to Sado again, we will go to the scene to slowly understand a little bit, as for the two of you, whether or not their behavior is involved in the crime of homicide, we still have to discuss it with the superiors before we can decide.”

When a knock sounded at the door, it appeared to be the doctor who had arrived, while the giant of the post-war construction industry was lying on the couch, gasping in pain.

5 It was the end of April, and the Arikawamiya Memorial Park was filled with soft afternoon sunlight.

Shoko Tsuruta came to the appointed place, but was surprised to find no one there. The park was empty, so Shoko found a chair and sat down. Not long after she sat down, footsteps sounded behind her. Turning her head, she found Kouyou, who looked slightly tired and dressed in a teal colored suit, appearing in the bushes and walking silently towards her.

“Why don’t you go home?” Shoko questioned as she stood up.

“Why did you call me over here when you’re already here?”

“Because your home, which is the same home, is no longer a home I can go back to! I’ve passed by the house several times but didn’t have the courage to ring the bell, so I thought it would be better to talk about it close to home!”

“Meaning you’re not coming home again?”

“It can’t be helped, I’m not married to you anymore, maybe someone else is better for you!”

“Someone else?” Shoko said skeptically, “Are you filing for divorce?”

“Divorce? Oi oi! Shoko, we’ve long been divorced, and it’s still a death separation yeah! At the same time I was declared dead, my household registry was deleted from your house long ago, so now we’re simply divorced!”

The truth is really as he said.

Shoko asked another practical question, “If your domicile is restored, will you come back again?”

“Is that what you want?”

“…” Shoko was stumped by the question. She had no choice but to look up at the sky speechlessly.

“Well? Do you want to do this?”

(I don’t know!) Shoko thought so in her heart, but didn’t say it out loud. Even if she resumed her relationship with Kouyou, there was no guarantee that she would be happy in the future, no, it could even be said that the possibility of that was rare.

“I went through this incident this time, and that woman called Funakoshi Kasumi is simply a community of destiny, originally our relationship was just a man and a woman who slept together every day by the order of our superiors, but after the incident in which Sado was almost murdered together, the two of us overcame all the dangers together, and we trusted each other, and the love seedling grew day by day as a result of it. “

Shoko was speechless.

“Kasumi and I have already approached the police, we have so many formalities to juggle, and now we have to do an investigation into whether we acted in self-defense or in excess of self-defense, and maybe we’ll be charged with manslaughter! How the court will rule, we can not guess, so I and Kasumi vowed, no matter what happens, we have to overcome together, together to face, I hope you can understand our pain.”

Shoko nodded wordlessly. Then said, “I understand!”

“How are you and Tanizu doing? I’ve seen the two of you together a lot these past two weeks, and I think that if Tanazu is with you, he’ll definitely give you happiness, and I really hope that you’ll be with Tanazu.”

That probably wasn’t Kouyou’s intention! Shoko couldn’t accept the fact in front of her for a moment.

“Let’s see again!” Shoko replied as she looked at Kouyou.

As a result, she realized that on the walkway between the woods, Tanimatsu Savehei was slowly walking towards her, and Tanimatsu Savehei was waving his hand to her. At this moment, Shoko was wondering how he could appear here so coincidentally.

“I’m sorry! I was the one who called and asked him to come here because I wanted to keep the two of you here to continue talking.”

“Leave us here to talk, about what?”

“N… nothing!”

“What a strange thing for you to say!” Shoko finally smiled.

“Anyway, you guys are just chatting! Tomorrow, Kasumi and I are going to Sado, and when all the investigations are completed, we might even be brought to justice for the car accident! Regardless of the outcome, Kasumi and I don’t plan to come back to Tokyo. So I’d like to leave you in Mr. Tanitsu’s care, since I’ve noticed that he takes good care of you… That’s all, I think I’ll take my leave now!”

Without waiting for Shoko’s reply, Kouyou walked slowly towards the woods in the park… [End of book]