Кэйго Хигасино - The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

I got up sluggishly. My head hurt horribly. My throat was completely parched. I went to the kitchen and pulled out Evian water and drank it straight out of the bottle. I felt dizzy and leaned on the refrigerator.

My eyes rested on the large pot that sat on top of the microwave. I recalled Juri had used it to make stew. The various things she’d talked about passed through my head. How much of it was true, which parts were lies? Or had it all been lies? As I was now, I couldn’t judge.

I went back to the sofa and turned on the TV. In the early morning, every station repeatedly broadcast the same news. As I watched absentmindedly, the case in question came up, too. Nissei Auto EVP’s daughter missing — now there was a question mark appended to the words. And beneath them: Running away from home?

And again, the photo of a girl I had never met before popped up. The missing Juri Katsuragi , it was captioned. There wasn’t anything new in the story. It seemed they hadn’t spoken to the Katsuragis. They must have been wary of approaching the family behind a leading corporate sponsor. There were signs the media were frustrated about not being able to obtain detailed information.

Perhaps the press hadn’t been told that it was a kidnapping. I vaguely saw why. The police wanted their blunder of losing the ransom to be kept under wraps. They probably thought that bit could wait until the culprits’ arrest. But to conduct an open investigation, they needed the mass media. Thus they had simply made it public that she was missing.

Starting with TV, the issue was how the press would cover it, I thought. They wouldn’t accept just being used. They probably had a hunch that this wasn’t exactly a missing person case. First, they would try to find out more about the Katsuragi household. It was a matter of time before Katsutoshi Katsuragi’s womanizing ways came to light. Once they learned that Juri wasn’t his current wife’s daughter, the daytime shows would have a field day. The stations would compete at the art of dishing out gossip without angering a leading corporate sponsor.

No—

Was that story true in the first place? The person who’d shared it with me was herself a fake. Yet, for a quick lie, it was well crafted. Irregular blood ties, a complex human tapestry—

It was then that a certain hypothesis came to me.

That afternoon, I went to Akasaka, to a café facing out toward Sotobori Street. About ten minutes past two, I saw Daisuke Yuguchi’s fat figure on the other side of the glass door. Yuguchi spotted me right away, waved his hand, and entered.

“Sorry for making you wait.”

“No, thanks for agreeing to see me on such short notice.”

Yuguchi worked at a TV station right nearby. He had graduated after me from the same college, but we had also worked together just once.

He ordered coffee, so I ordered a refill of mine.

After some small talk, I started on the issue at hand. “So, about the favor I asked for on the phone, did you find out anything?”

As soon as I said that, Yuguchi frowned. “It looks like my station is hard at it. But the Katsuragis and the police both have their guards up, and we haven’t dug up anything concrete.”

“But it’s not like all your info gets broadcast. Aren’t there some bits you just haven’t reported yet?”

If you know anything about the Juri Katsuragi case, please tell me , I had asked of him. Yuguchi hadn’t suspected me at all when I said I needed to know all I could in advance about whatever happened to the family of the EVP of our biggest client, Nissei Auto.

“The guys at the top of the news division might have heard something, but nothing’s come down to the lower ranks. Umm, you know the basics of the situation, right, Mr. Sakuma?” Yuguchi said as he pulled out a note.

“I know the gist of it. But just in case, do tell me what’s happened so far.”

“That’s fine. Umm, first, Juri went missing when...”

Yuguchi started reading his note out loud. There was nothing new in it, but I continued to feign interest. “How about a kidnapping? Could it be one?”

“It’s hard to say, but I doubt it,” Yuguchi replied rather confidently.

“Meaning?”

“This is just between me and you.” After looking around, he leaned towards me. “According to the press club guys, the Metropolitan Police Department’s abductions unit hasn’t mobilized. If it were a kidnapping, the investigation would have started when Juri was abducted about ten days ago, so there’s no way the press club guys wouldn’t have caught on. The MPD is definitely acting now, but it doesn’t seem like there are detectives at the Katsuragi residence keeping watch, for instance.”

“The MPD’s abductions unit didn’t act when she went missing? Are you sure?”

“Yes, that’s what’s being said.”

It felt like something was toppling over in my head. The MPD hadn’t acted? There was no way. This was a child of the Katsuragi family who had been kidnapped, so in fact it wasn’t inconceivable for them to have mobilized their investigative capacities on a massive scale. That couldn’t have avoided the notice of reporters covering the MPD.

If what Yuguchi was saying was true, there was only one possibility I could think of. Just as Katsutoshi Katsuragi had insisted, he hadn’t contacted the police. He’d done so only after paying the ransom. Yet Juri hadn’t come home, and he hadn’t been able to endure it any longer. It really seemed that way.

Why hadn’t he contacted the police? Was it because he thought that Juri would be in danger if he did and the kidnappers found out?

“The whole thing is a mystery,” Yuguchi continued. “According to our guys, Mr. Katsuragi reported it to the police only a few days ago. Everyone’s wondering why he didn’t do so immediately after she went missing.”

“And Mr. Katsuragi hasn’t given an explanation.”

Yuguchi thrust his bottom lip forward and shook his head. “No explanations, and he’s turned down all requests for interviews. The official statement is that there’s no need to talk about anything beyond what’s been reported.”

I growled and crossed my arms. Why hadn’t Katsutoshi Katsuragi sought any help from the police for the kidnapping? Did he believe he could just pay the ransom and get his daughter back? Did he decide that telling the police could wait until it was over?

I shook my head in my mind. There was no way. I didn’t think Katsutoshi Katsuragi, of all people, would succumb to threats. He was confident when it came to games. In a battle of wits with the culprit, he wouldn’t have thrown in the towel from the outset.

There was something here. And that thing had everything to do with Juri being a fake.

“Did you get any info on the Katsuragi family?”

“Oh, that wasn’t very difficult. They’d already looked into it.” Yuguchi pulled out a new note and placed it in front of me.

It had a list of names: Katsutoshi Katsuragi, wife Fumiko, elder daughter Juri, younger daughter Chiharu.

“He has another daughter?” I asked innocuously, glancing at the note.

“It seems that way. She attends a private high school. She’s a senior, I heard.”

“Senior... I wonder which school.”

“It was definitely—” Yuguchi gave the school’s name. It was a high school affiliated with a famous women’s college.

Asking just about Chiharu Katsuragi would have been strange, so I inquired about Juri and the wife as well. But Yuguchi didn’t have many details. I knew more than he did.

“The wife and younger sister must be so worried that Juri has gone missing,” I said.

“Apparently, the younger sister was quite shocked. She’s been bedridden since her sister went missing.”