Кэйго Хигасино - The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

“Facility... Did you ask where it was?”

With her spoon still in her mouth, the girl shook her head. “I didn’t. It seemed like she didn’t want anyone visiting her, so I lost interest, too.”

I nodded. I could understand the longhaired girl’s reaction.

“Hey, would you have a photo of Chiharu?”

“Of Chiharu? I don’t have one now, but I think I might at home.”

“Where is your house? If I come with you, will you let me see them?”

The girl furrowed her brow again and cast me a suspicious look. “I’m not sure I should be doing that without permission.”

“Just looking at it is enough. I won’t ask you to lend it to me, and I’ll give it back to you on the spot.”

“Then why do you want to see it? Chiharu doesn’t have anything to do with her sister’s disappearance.”

She had a point. It wasn’t like she trusted me. “I’m thinking of meeting with Chiharu. Before doing that, I should find out what she looks like. If I don’t know her face, then I can’t go looking for her.”

I thought it wasn’t a very persuasive answer, but it seemed the longhaired girl accepted it. After nodding, she asked me to wait for a bit, then took out her cellphone.

“What are you doing?”

“One sec.”

She started composing a message. I drank the terrible coffee. When she was done, she looked up and asked, “Is it true that Chiharu’s sister got kidnapped?”

I almost choked. “Who’s been saying that?”

“Everyone’s secretly talking about it. That she’s actually been kidnapped.”

“I wonder where that rumor came from.”

“I’m not sure. But somehow it’s been spreading. Is it true?”

“The police haven’t announced such a fact. They haven’t told the press, to say the least.”

“Isn’t it that thing? A whatever agreement.”

“Ah, an intermedia agreement? I don’t think so, but the higher-ups might know something.”

“But even if it were a kidnapping, if she hasn’t come home in over ten days...” After saying that much, she cast down her eyes. “Forget it. I’m scared of saying something awful and having it come true.”

I immediately understood what she was trying to say. It wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted happening in real life.

Her cellphone went off.

“Ah, that was fast,” the girl said.

“Huh?”

“Chiharu’s pic. I just asked my friend to send it to me. That friend has a scanner or something, so she scanned a photo of Chiharu and sent it.”

“I see...” Honestly, I was astonished. High school girls had a leg up on your usual businessman when it came to utilizing such tools.

“There you go.” She turned her cellphone towards me. A girl smiled at me from a LCD display that was just a few inches large.

I had foreseen it, but the impact I felt still wasn’t small. Somewhere inside of me, I wanted to disprove my own hypothesis. But what was on the screen made everything fact.

Displayed there was Juri’s face. It was the girl who’d participated in a game with me until just days ago.

Even after I got back to the company, I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I was in no shape to work, my hands full just organizing my disordered mind.

My theory had been right. The one who had appeared before me wasn’t Juri Katsuragi, but her younger sister Chiharu. Chiharu had run away from home.

What I didn’t understand was from there. Why had she said she was Juri? Was it simply on a whim? If so, why not tell the truth before embarking on a kidnapping game?

There were also too many things about the Katsuragis’ reaction that were odd, starting with the father’s. They must have known since receiving the first letter that the one who had been kidnapped was Chiharu and not Juri. Why hadn’t they pointed out the mistake? Because the culprits mistaking the younger for the older sister didn’t change the fact that their daughter had been kidnapped? Had they decided not to provoke the kidnappers needlessly?

There was just one thing that was clear. The fake Juri, in other words Chiharu Katsuragi, had returned home. She wasn’t missing. The family was telling people that Chiharu was recuperating, so perhaps she was somewhere else, but she seemed to be under the Katsuragis’ protection.

The one who was missing was the real Juri. And I hadn’t ever met that Juri.

Where had Juri Katsuragi disappeared to?

The foreboding words the girl with long hair had uttered came back to me. I shook my head. Whatever might have happened, it wasn’t my doing. The girl I’d dealt with was Chiharu.

Another ten days passed. I was still in turmoil. Neither the papers nor the nightly news reported any new developments regarding Juri Katsuragi. My honest wish was for things to stay that way. If I could have, I would have stormed into the Katsuragi residence and yelled at them to let me see Chiharu. I’d grab Katsutoshi Katsuragi by the collar and interrogate him about what on earth he was up to.

I wasn’t getting much sleep. It was morning, but I writhed in my sheets. It was time to rise and shine, but my head felt incredibly heavy. I tried out excuses to take the day off.

But the phone ringing roused me even in that state. It rang without mercy, and I dragged myself out of bed to pick up the receiver.

“Yes, hello.”

“Sakuma? It’s me, Kozuka.”

“Ah, did something happen?”

“Judging by how groggy you sound, I assume you haven’t watched the morning news yet. Try tuning in. Once you get the situation, call me.” With that, he hung up.

Scratching my head, I turned on the TV. A morning news program was playing. The male newscaster was saying something. Juri , I heard, and my eyes opened wide. I turned up the volume.

“This morning, in Yokosuka, the body of what is thought to be a young woman was found. From the fingerprints and other identifiers, it is believed that the woman is Juri Katsuragi, the elder daughter of Mr. Katsutoshi Katsuragi, the executive vice president of Nissei Automobile. She had gone missing about twenty days ago—”

Juri Katsuragi’s overnight vigil was being held at a Buddhist temple about fifteen minutes by car from the Katsuragi residence. Many of us at Cyberplan were there to help and to offer incense, me among them. Naturally, people from Nissei Automobile handled greeting people, dealing with the VIPs, and all the other important stuff. We were just acting as guideposts on the streets.

Because it was the vigil of Nissei Automobile’s EVP’s daughter, the temple premises were overflowing with guests making condolence calls. Even though there were five lines for offering incense, people were crowding out into the street. Those of us who had come to help wondered in hushed tones what the next day’s funeral would be like if the vigil was this way.

There was a break in the callers, so we decided to rest in a room in the back. There was sushi and beer, but it wasn’t as though we could wolf down food there. Kozuka instructed us Cyberplanners to limit ourselves to one glass of beer each.

“Mr. Katsuragi looks down, as one might expect,” Sugimoto whispered. “During the incense offering, I took a peek at him, but it’s the first time I’ve seen him this down. He always seems filled with confidence with his head held high.”

“No wonder. His daughter died,” responded another coworker. “And it’s not a normal way to die either.”

“I think he must have been prepared for it, but of course it must be a shock to hear it for real.”

“Of course. Honestly, I thought maybe she’d already been killed, but when I actually saw the news, I was shocked, too.”

“I wonder what kind of person the culprit is.”