Кэйго Хигасино - A Midsummer’s Equation

The next day, Shigehiro was back to being her gentle father, a kind husband. He apologized to both of them about drinking too much the night before and said he didn’t remember a thing. It never came up again, and Narumi never asked her mother about it, but she didn’t forget.

Nobuko Miyake brought that memory screaming back to the surface, and with it came the fear that her family would fall apart. She saw the woman walking away, her silhouette floating in the light of the streetlamp. Narumi grabbed the knife tight in both hands and charged. Her mind was a blank. She didn’t stop to think — that this was a crime, that people who did this went to prison.

She didn’t remember what happened next very clearly. When she came to, she was curled up in her bed. She didn’t sleep, she just lay there trembling until morning. When her mother questioned her, she tried to tell her what had happened but couldn’t put the pieces together. Her recollection was too vague.

But she did what she was told, and when her mother came back to collect her, she changed her clothes and left the house with no idea where they were going, what they were doing, or what would happen to her.

A few days later, it was announced on the news that the man who killed Nobuko Miyake — a man she didn’t know — had been caught. Her mother then explained who he was, and why he’d taken the blame. Narumi was aghast. She didn’t want to believe it, she couldn’t believe it. And yet, here she was, free and not in prison.

“You can’t tell anyone this. Especially not your father,” her mother said, her face severe.

Narumi didn’t object. Her chest ached when she thought of this man she’d never met serving her prison sentence. But there was blame there, too, for the married man who had a one-night stand with another woman. And for the child born from that union, there was guilt.

Her days were spent struggling with that guilt. She’d put her real father in jail and deceived the man who had raised her. When her father would come home on the weekends, she would feel such a welling of emotion she couldn’t look into his eyes.

Which was why she didn’t resist when her father quit his job and said he was going to take over the inn. She wanted to leave that place as soon as possible. Her knees felt weak every time she walked past where it happened.

Then, about a month after they had moved to Hari Cove, one of her friends took her to the observation platform on their way back from school. It was the first time she’d really looked out over the ocean, and she was awestruck by its beauty. She remembered then what her mother had said about the painting Senba had given her.

In that moment, she felt like she knew what she had to do with her life. She owed it to her real father. She would protect the ocean that he loved until the day he could see it again.

Yukawa worked his diving fins like a pro, not a bit of wasted movement. Narumi started to wonder if he’d been lying about not having a license. She showed him a couple of her favorite spots, then they went back to the shore and climbed up on the rocks.

Yukawa took off his snorkel mask and smiled. “Amazing. I understand why you’re so proud of the ocean here. Makes me wonder how so many people in Tokyo can go off to Okinawa and Hawaii when there’s this beauty right here under their noses.” He turned to Narumi. “Thank you. When I think of Hari Cove, this is what I’ll remember, and that’s saying something.”

Narumi took off her fins and sat down on the rock. “I’m glad you liked it. But wasn’t there something else you wanted to talk to me about?”

Yukawa smiled knowingly and sat down next to her. His eyes were fixed out on the horizon. “Summer’s ending soon,” he said.

“Mr. Yukawa?”

“My detective friend found Hidetoshi Senba. I met him yesterday, in fact. He’s in the hospital with an incurable brain tumor. He doesn’t have long to live.”

Narumi felt a lump form in her chest, an uncomfortable tightness she couldn’t swallow or spit out. Her face drew tight.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why a physicist would go so far out of his way. I wonder that myself. It’s really none of my concern.”

Narumi searched for something she could say that would explain it all away. But at the same time, she realized there weren’t any magic words. He already knew everything.

“The man mostly responsible for taking care of Senba was none other than the detective who arrested him sixteen years ago. Tsukahara had retired from the police force, but that one case still bothered him. I’m not sure what the two of them spoke of, but I imagine that Tsukahara tried everything he could to get the truth out of Senba. And I’m guessing he did, in the end, though he didn’t feel the need to make that public. Instead, all he wanted to do was fulfill an old man’s dying wish to see the daughter he’d traded his life to save.”

Yukawa spoke evenly and calmly, giving each word time to make an impact. Narumi remembered when her eyes met Tsukahara’s at the hearing, finally understanding that gentle look he had given her.

“I don’t think what Tsukahara was trying to do was a bad thing. But it was dangerous. Like trying to open a set of doors on the bottom of the sea. You don’t know what’s going to happen when you do. That’s why no one touches them. And when someone comes along who does, others try to stop them.”

Narumi looked over at Yukawa. “Are you saying it wasn’t an accident?”

“You think it was?” Yukawa asked, giving her a cold look. “Really?”

“Of course,” she wanted to say, but she couldn’t make her lips form the words. Her mouth was bone dry.

Yukawa was looking back out at the horizon. “I didn’t want to say anything, to be honest. There were a number of things about what happened that bothered me right from the beginning, but I decided to ignore them. That is, until I realized if I didn’t take action, it would have a tremendous impact on someone’s life, through no fault of his own.”

Narumi looked at him, not understanding.

“Tsukahara’s death wasn’t an accident, it was murder,” he said, suddenly turning to face her. “And the murderer... was your cousin, Kyohei.”

For a second, everything around her went silent. Even the surface of the sea appeared still, completely frozen. Then, sound returned with a gentle lapping of waves. She felt a gust of wind blow between them. She stared at the physicist. What the hell is he saying? For a moment, she wondered if she had misheard.

“Of course,” Yukawa said, “he didn’t do it on purpose. He didn’t even understand the meaning of what he was doing at the time.”

“What did he do?” Narumi asked, her voice a whisper.

Yukawa looked down in silence for a moment before turning to face her. “I believe I mentioned that the police were having a hard time re-creating the conditions for what happened. There’s a simple reason: your father is lying to them. In order to reproduce what happened, one very important condition needs to be met. It’s nothing elaborate, nor particularly difficult. But it’s impossible if you have a bad leg like your father, which is why forensics hasn’t even considered the possibility.”

Narumi flinched. “I don’t understand.”

Yukawa took a deep breath. “It’s simple. All you have to do is cover the top of the chimney, which causes the exhaust to flow back down the pipe, eventually resulting in an incomplete burn in the boiler. The carbon monoxide then goes up, and leaks out through the cracks in the pipe into the Ocean Room. I calculated that it would take fewer than ten minutes to reach lethal concentrations.”

“When did you know this?”

“I understood the potential when forensics first came to the Green Rock Inn and began sniffing around your kitchen burners.”