Кэйго Хигасино - The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

“Bedridden? Chiharu?”

“Yes. Some of the press barged in on Chiharu’s high school to get her to talk about her family. But Chiharu had taken a sick day. She’s been taking time off for ten days now, so she must actually be sick rather than avoiding the press.”

I tried my best to keep a straight face, with Yuguchi there. I felt incredibly thirsty, so I finished my glass of water.

“Can I have this?” I reached my hand toward the note.

“Go ahead. But it must be really difficult for all of you, Mr. Sakuma. For a case like this to occur right before the Nissei Automobile new car campaign.”

“It does feel like a bad break.” I didn’t tell him I’d been taken off the project. I didn’t have any reason to.

I thanked him for doing this when he was busy, took the receipt, and stood up.

Exiting the café and hailing a cab, I gave my company’s address. As the car went out, I pulled out the note Yuguchi had just given me. Gazing at it, I changed my mind.

“Excuse me, driver, I have a change of destination. Please go to Meguro.”

“Meguro? Where in Meguro?”

I gave the name of a particular women’s high school. It seemed the driver knew it.

Naturally, it was the one Chiharu Katsuragi attended.

When the school was about a hundred feet away, I got out of the taxi. It seemed it was already past the final bell, and I saw gaggles of students heading home.

There was a small bookstore, so pretending to peruse a magazine, I kept an eye out for a high school girl I might talk to. The world saw this academy as a place for rich kids, but many had dyed hair and makeup done in the style of popular artists and didn’t seem any different from other girls their age. The school must have loosened its regulations.

After the stream of students had trailed off a bit, a pair of girls came by. Both of them had brown hair. They had well-formed but somehow vulnerable features; if they went to an entertainment district, they would get hit on at least once an hour. They were no doubt confident about their looks. I made my decision and approached them.

“Excuse me,” I spoke to them with a smile.

They both stopped walking and cast dubious looks at me.

“I’m not anyone to be worried about. It’s just that I do this type of work.”

The business card I brought out was for a rival station of Yuguchi’s. Faced with high school girls, there was no better weapon than working for the popular show XX TV .

Just as I thought, their expressions became curious and expectant.

“Excuse me, but what year are you now?”

They looked at each other. The girl to the left opened her mouth. “We’re seniors.”

I’d guessed right. I smirked in my mind. “Do you have a little time right now? I’d like to ask you two something.”

“Uh, what kind of thing?” It was, of course, the left one.

“There’s a senior called Chiharu Katsuragi, isn’t there? Are you aware that her older sister has gone missing?”

“Oh yeah, I know. Everyone at school is talking about it.”

“I’ve heard that Miss Katsuragi is taking time off from school — is that true?”

The girl on the right side said something into the ear of the other girl. Their expressions were quite different from before. In other words, they became extremely cautious.

“We’re in a different class, so...” the girl on the left said and returned my business card. “We were warned not to go babbling.”

“Ah... then could you just tell me which senior class she was in?”

But waving their hands, they walked past me with quick steps.

After that, I used the same method to talk to three other girls, but the results were similar. I found out that Chiharu Katsuragi was in Class 2, but they ran away before I could ask anything else. It seemed the school had anticipated press initiatives and issued strict warnings to the student body.

I could get into trouble if the school found out that I was acting suspiciously in its vicinity. But there was something I just needed to know for certain.

I decided to move to Meguro station. It was a private school, so most of the students probably had to commute by train. I could see at a glance which school they came from by their uniform.

At a convenience store, I quickly spotted a girl. She was tall with long hair and was reading a magazine. I approached her from the side and said, Excuse me .

The girl furrowed her brow as she looked at me. She wasn’t even trying to conceal her suspicion. This one might be impossible , I thought. I decided to drop my earlier tactic.

“I’m someone who’s researching the disappearance of Nissei Automobile’s executive vice president’s daughter. Do you have time to talk?” I said in a low-key, professional tone.

I saw a change in the longhaired girl’s face. She lowered her guard and even looked interested.

“What have you learned about it?” she asked me in turn.

“Well, not much... The police are being stingy.”

“I see.” The girl looked down at the floor.

“Umm, are you and Chiharu...”

“We’re in the same class.”

I nodded broadly. Luck was on my side. I’d somehow manage to achieve my goal.

“Can we talk somewhere quiet? Even five or ten minutes is enough. Oh, this is me.” I showed the same business card as before.

“You’re from a TV station? I don’t think I can tell you anything special, though.”

“That’s okay. You can just tell me about Chiharu.”

She glanced at her cellphone. It seemed she was checking the time. She closed the flip phone with a snap and nodded. “I have half an hour.”

I thanked her.

There was a fast food place next to the convenience store, so we went in there. We sat near a window on the second floor. The girl with long hair had a frozen yogurt. Coffee again for me.

According to her, it seemed Chiharu did start taking time off from school around when Juri had run away from home. The school only said she was sick and didn’t give details about her condition.

“Our homeroom teacher told us she wasn’t feeling well and would be taking time off for a while. I don’t think he knows what kind of illness it is either. Even when I went to ask him later in the staff room, he shook his head saying he didn’t know. I don’t think it was an act.”

“Has your teacher tried contacting Miss Katsuragi’s home?”

“He might have, but they must not have told him. Because the truth is that she’s bedridden from the shock of her sister going missing, right? It would have been hard for her parents to say that. It seems like at that point they were hiding that her sister was gone,” the girl said, scraping at the frozen yogurt with her spoon and eating some. Her pink tongue peeked out of her lips now and then.

“Are you close to Chiharu?”

“I think we’re pretty close. I’ve gone to her house to hang out a few times.”

“Then, have you met Juri before?”

“I haven’t. Actually, this is just the first time I’ve heard of Chiharu having an older sister. She hadn’t said a word about it before. Even when I asked her other friends, they said the same thing. Don’t you think it’s weird? So when I heard her sister was missing, I didn’t know what to make of it. But Chiharu had such a shock from it that she’s bedridden. She must love her big sis.”

I didn’t comment on that. I had my own interpretation, but I didn’t think this girl needed to hear it. “Have you seen Chiharu since she started taking time off?”

“I haven’t. I called wanting to go visit her, but her mom turned me away.”

“Turned you away? What did she say?”

“Chiharu wasn’t home and was recuperating at some facility far away. Even if I went to her house, I wouldn’t be able to see her.”