Keigo Higashino: Malice

Do you know what happened after Fujio left your school?

No, we all split up after that. I didn’t see the Gooch very much after that either.

On the assault:

Yeah, I heard about it, that girl from the Catholic school, right? But I don’t know much. That’s the truth. Me and Fujio were close, but he never told me stuff like that. And I hardly ever saw him after he left. They had him grounded for months.

You weren’t with him at the assault?

No way, man. I heard someone was there, but it sure wasn’t me. What does all this old crap have to do with your case, anyway?

Look, I can tell you one thing. You said that Hidaka guy was the one who got killed, right? I might not have seen Fujio after he left, but I did see him—Hidaka—once, just about three or four years ago. He came over to my place, said he wanted to know about Fujio and the assault.

He told me he was writing a novel about Fujio. Can you believe it? I didn’t take him too seriously, so I didn’t think much about it. I guess if it became this big seller, I shoulda asked for more money! (Laughs)

What did you tell him?

Just what I knew. He didn’t seem like he held anything against me in particular, so what’s the harm?

What exactly did you know?

Hardly anything. But he was persistent, wanted to know if I remembered any detail at all. Turns out he thought I was the one with Fujio, too.

On the photograph:

I don’t know anything about a photograph.

I heard you might have it.

Who would say something like that? That’s crazy.

Okay, okay… maybe Fujio did give me one, just before they got him. It was blurry as hell.

You kept it?

Yeah, what’s the harm in that? Doesn’t mean I did anything. It’s not like I was holding on to it special or anything, either. I just forgot to throw it out. I bet if I searched your house, I’d find a few photos from when you were a kid, Detective.

Do you still have the photo?

No way. I threw it out a little while after Hidaka visited.

Did you show it to him?

Yeah, I showed it to him. I figured I owed him that much at least, what with our past, and him coming all the way out to see me. He wanted to borrow it, so I let him have it for a while. He sent it back a few days later in an envelope, though, with a note about him not believing in saving photographs or something. I just threw the thing in the trash, envelope and all.

Did you see Hidaka after that?

Nope.

Were there any other photographs?

Just the one. I don’t know if Fujio even took any more photos than the one.

We done here?

Interview: Heikichi Tsujimura

Note: For this interview, I spoke with Mr. Tsujimura’s granddaughter, who acted as his interpreter, since Mr. Tsujimura has difficulty speaking clearly .

How old is your grandfather?

Um, ninety-one, I think. His heart’s strong, but he can’t walk around anymore. Still sharp as a tack though, if a little hard of hearing.

When did he retire?

He stopped making fireworks about fifteen years ago. It was less his age and more a problem of supply and demand. They stopped doing fireworks shows down by the river so work got really slow. We think it was probably good timing, though. And since my father wasn’t in the business, we didn’t feel there was any need to keep it going.

Have you seen this book?

An Unburning Flame ? Oh, it’s by Kunihiko Hidaka! No, I hadn’t heard of it. I don’t think anyone in my family’s read it.

Could you ask your grandfather?

I’ll try, though I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

…No, he’s never heard of it either. He hasn’t read a book in years. What about it?

It’s based on your grandfather’s work.

Really? It’s about a fireworks maker?

…Grandpa says that’s a strange thing to write a book about. Not many people know much about his line of work, he says.

On Hidaka’s visits:

Really? Well, Grandpa used to have his workshop right next to the shrine in town. So Mr. Hidaka saw my grandfather work when he was a kid and wrote his novel about it?

…Grandpa says some of the neighborhood kids would come and play nearby sometimes. He tried to keep them away because it was dangerous, but some of them were persistent so he let them inside once or twice.

Were there many of these kids?

…Actually not that many, he says. He just remembers one.

Does he remember a name?

…Sorry, no. He says he didn’t forget it, he never knew it in the first place.

Would he recognize the boy from a picture?

I’m not sure… it was a long time ago. I’ll ask him, though.

…Okay, well, he says he remembers what the boy looked like. Do you have a photograph with you? Okay, let’s show it to him.

…He says the boy he remembers was smaller than any of these kids. What is this? A middle-school yearbook? So the boy is one of the ones in this group here? But wouldn’t he have been younger than this when he visited the workshop? Right, that’s what I thought. Okay, well, I’ll try to explain it to him….

I believe I’ve met with everyone I can who has anything notable to contribute about Osamu Nonoguchi’s and Kunihiko Hidaka’s past, particularly their time in middle school. I’m sure there are others I haven’t been able to track down, but I feel I’ve obtained all I need for now. Though the evidence and testimony add up to something like a box of unassembled jigsaw-puzzle pieces at the moment, I do have at least an idea of the completed picture in my mind, a picture that I believe reveals the full truth behind this case.

At the heart of everything is the bullying that took place during Nonoguchi’s and Hidaka’s middle school years, and which defined their future relationship. Once I realized the significance of those events, several other parts of the story fell into place. I’m now convinced that it is impossible to understand what happened on the day Hidaka died without first understanding this troubled history.

I know something about bullying, though not firsthand (as either victim or aggressor—at least, not so far as I’m aware). My experience is secondhand. Over ten years ago, I was a homeroom teacher at a middle school, in charge of a class of ninth-graders.

Toward the end of the first semester the first signs appeared. The semester-end exams provided the first clue: according to an English instructor, five of the students from homeroom had given the exact same incorrect answer to a problem.

I knew the English teacher to be a thoughtful man who kept a clear head. Indeed, he didn’t seem upset or angry in the least when he came to me.

“It’s almost certainly cheating. They were all sitting together in the back of the classroom when they took the test. I can talk to them myself, but I thought I should let you know first.”

After considering it for a while, I asked if he was willing to let me handle it. If there was cheating going on, it probably wasn’t limited to English class.

“Act quickly,” he advised. “Let them get away with it once and there will be more students involved when it happens next time.”

I took his warning to heart.

I went to the teachers who had these students for other subjects and asked if there had been anything suspicious in the exam answers they’d received. I also reviewed the tests I’d given them in the subjects I taught: social studies and geography.

Despite some similarities in the five students’ answers, I could find no clear evidence of cheating in composition, science, or my subjects.

The science teacher’s opinion:

“They’re not idiots. They wouldn’t do anything too obvious. Kids can be crafty when they put their minds to it.”