Кэйго Хигасино - The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

I saved the URL and, for the time being, disconnected.

I pulled the ransom letter from earlier up on the desktop. After looking at it for a while, I continued it as follows:

If you intend to comply with the transaction, access the URL below and use Juri’s name on the bulletin board to state your intent. Upon confirmation, you will receive a response.

Site name: CPT Owners Club

URL: http://www...

“How’s that?” I turned around and looked at Juri.

After reading it over several times, she nodded her head up and down. “I see. It won’t make anyone suspicious, and you’ll be able to confirm their intent.”

“Kidnappers in the past often used newspapers. They’d demand a classified in one of the major dailies, with copy like ‘So-and-so: Problem solved, come home asap.’ But with that, you have to wait until the next day. By using an internet bulletin, we can obtain confirmation immediately, and more than anything, it’s cheaper for the victim. It’s become a convenient world.”

I turned on the printer and tried printing.

“Wait a second,” Juri said, placing her hand on my shoulder.

“What is it?”

“I have just one request for the ransom letter.”

“A complaint, miss?”

“I’m not satisfied with the ‘your dear daughter’ part. Write my name properly. Say ‘Juri.’”

I read the wording over again. Then I shook my head. “We can’t. If it’s ‘Juri’ then it feels slack. Why not ‘your dear daughter’?”

“I’m not their dear daughter,” she insisted, facing down.

“I’ll say this again, but the kidnappers don’t know about your upbringing. They think of you as the Katsuragis’ precious girl. I don’t think it’d be unnatural for them to put it that way. In fact, calling you ‘Juri’ would be odd.”

“Anyway, I don’t want it like that.”

I sighed. “Then how about ‘your daughter’? That’d be fine, yes?”

But she wouldn’t nod. “I’m Juri. Juri Katsuragi. I’m not really their daughter.”

“What a pain...” The girl was giving me a headache. “Fine. Then it’ll be ‘Juri Katsuragi.’ I won’t add ‘Miss.’ No honorifics. Agreed? That’s the most I’ll compromise.”

Juri nodded slowly. “Agreed.”

I shrugged my shoulders, then tapped on the keyboard and modified the text. Damn if I understood how girls her age felt.

I read through the ransom letter again, and verifying that there were no typos, I printed it out. After checking the ink quality, I handed it to Juri.

“You’re sending this with an actual fax machine? Not your computer’s fax modem?”

“Just in case. I don’t want them specifying my computer due to the document format. Also, in my experience, faxing a document of this length takes no time at all. If something happens, the line can be killed quick, too.”

With a pair of scissors, I carefully cut off the margins in order not to eat up extra transmission time. Then I sliced the sheet into eight pieces at random.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, just watch.”

Pulling out cellophane tape, I reassembled the pieces in a haphazard order with some facing the wrong way. I set the patchwork in the fax next to the computer.

“You’re sending it from here?” Juri asked in a surprised voice. “Won’t they trace it?”

“I made it into this patchwork so they won’t. Even if police are waiting at the Katsuragi household, they won’t know what it is at first, right? Once they put together the jigsaw puzzle and realize it’s a ransom letter, the phone will have hung up.” I looked right at Juri. “My contract for this phone withholds the caller ID, so as long as I don’t press 186 beforehand, the number doesn’t show up on the other side. Now then, let’s have you dial. You’re going to send this fax yourself.”

“Why are you having me send it?”

“I want you to be aware you’re complicit in this crime. You said you’d go along with my plan, but once you actually have to commit to it yourself, you might balk. I can’t have you saying you changed your mind after I’ve sent the ransom letter.”

There , I pointed at the fax.

Juri bit her lower lip. She glared at me. I just sat on my chair and looked back at her. My own way of doing things was to secure an out even if I was attempting something risky.

Juri exhaled. “I have something that I want to do before sending the fax.”

“Are you going to take a shower and cool your head?”

“I want to go to my house.”

“A-ha.” I made a disappointed face. “Are you missing home after getting this far? In that case, it can’t be helped.” I took the ransom letter out from where it was set in the fax and made to tear it apart and throw it away.

“Wait, it’s not that. It’s not that I want to go home. I just want to see it from outside.”

“Same difference, you’re balking. If you’re like that, we can’t win this game.”

“I told you it’s not like that. You just don’t get it.” Losing her patience, Juri shook both her hands. “I don’t intend to run away from this game. I want revenge on that family, too. What I want to check is whether Papa is in the house. Because if you send that fax when he isn’t, then it’s meaningless. Like I told you, the fax machine is in his study, and no one can touch it without permission.”

“Hunh.” I returned the ransom letter back to the fax’s top. “But it’s not like your dad wouldn’t ever come home. He would sooner or later and notice the fax.”

“But I don’t like not knowing when that’ll be. Until I know Papa’s read the ransom letter, I won’t be able to calm down and sleep.”

I put my index finger in my ear and scratched inside. I understood how she felt. “You wouldn’t know whether he’s home just by looking from outside, though.”

“I’ll check the garage. If he’s home, his car will be there.”

“I see.” I could only agree. “Is the fax combined with the phone? Or is it—”

“Its own line. One digit different from the phone.”

“When a fax is sent, is there a ring?”

Juri shook her head. “There shouldn’t be.”

“Then even if Mr. Katsuragi is home, he might not read the ransom letter until tomorrow morning. He’d be asleep at this hour.”

“I want to check that, too. It’s been more than twenty-four hours since I left home, right? I want to see with my own eyes if they’re still going on with their daily lives like nothing happened.”

“If the house’s lights are all completely on, then everyone’s worried, you feel moved, and you bail?” I asked in my best sarcastic voice.

“I don’t think I’d ever, so I want to go see. Plus, it can’t be bad for the plan, either, to see how the house is before dispatching the ransom letter.”

“What’s so good about it?”

“We’d be able to check if the police are on standby.”

I laughed. “You think they parked some patrol cars in front of the house?”

“If there are detectives, wouldn’t the house have lights on at least?”

“That’s...” I couldn’t say there wasn’t some truth to it. “But it’s dangerous. The police would definitely notice a suspicious car parking nearby. And your house has security cameras, too. If we get caught by those, then it’s all for nothing.”

“We can just go past the front. That wouldn’t be suspicious.”

I growled and folded my arms. I looked her in the face again. “What if I said no?”

“Then” — she shrugged her shoulders — “it can’t be helped. Do things your way. But I won’t send the fax.”

“Point taken.”

I stood up and went to the window. I opened the curtain a little and gazed down at the nighttime city.