I knew it. The voice I was hearing right now was the same as the day before, on that rain-soaked road.
It was that woman. Dead, without really being dead.
And she now seemed to be talking on the phone with someone, since I could only hear half a conversation taking place on the other side of the door I was standing in front of.
"No, I'm still looking..." I heard her say.
She seemed relatively calm as she talked about something I had no idea about. Maybe it was a business call?
"I'll try to go back further, to see if I might have missed something... Yes... I'll keep you informed." She said.
Then there was silence, which made me realize that she must have finished the call in progress.
Pushing finally the door to enter the bedroom without being invited, I saw in front of me a woman with long brown hair and dressed in a simple kimono turning my back, sitting in front of a kotatsu where a basket of fruits and an electric kettle were placed.
It was then that I realized that I hadn't thought at all about what I might say after I entered.
Should I introduce myself? Ask her name? How she had survived the accident?
I hadn't thought about that at all, too focused on the need to get to her immediately.
Maybe because the idea of her slipping through my fingers again had crept into my mind.
Having heard the door open behind her, she turned around, and with a very surprised look, stared at me while exclaiming:
"Well! That was fast!"
Did she seem more surprised to see me suddenly standing behind her, or by the fact that I had arrived so quickly after her message? I had absolutely no idea.
However, she was acting as if she had predicted that I would come and find her. It was as if blackmailing someone was a regular thing for her, and that she already knew the outcome by heart.
And with a wave of her hand, she was already inviting me to sit down right in front of her, on the other side of the small heated coffee table.
Silently closing the door behind me, I complied, and moved towards a small cushion that she had indicated to me.
She took advantage of the time it took me to lean over and sit down to take a slice of melon from the bowl between us.
Really, it was like a scene where two roommates or classmates were inviting each other into the other's room.
Except that we were neither roommates nor classmates. So I didn't know if I should draw a parallel between these examples I had in my memory, and the current situation.
Probably not, on second thought.
Not saying a word, I watched her eat in silence, waiting for her to make the first move. I wasn't good at starting a conversation at all, anyway. And besides, she seemed relatively sure of herself, not doubting for a moment that I was going to listen carefully.
She took the time to finish her slice of fruit, which made me notice that two of her fingers - the ring and pinky - on her left hand looked like they had been sewn back together, an odd scar running around them.
Right.
Last night, her head had become completely detached from her body.
And immediately, I looked up at her exposed neck, and saw a similar long scar circling it.
I was not surprised by this. After all, she had continued to talk to me, even though her head and body were separated by about ten meters.
So the fact that she could put her head back on? It wouldn't shock me.
"So, Nijima Iwao, what should I do with you?" She finally said, while now looking me straight in the eyes.
Oh. Did she already know my name?
Maybe she was planning to intimidate me by demonstrating that, but then again, I wasn't too sure. Her intentions - aside from wanting to keep yesterday's incident under wraps - were completely unknown to me.
"And you are?" I asked, confused.
She smiled with a confident air, as if she had expected me to ask the question, then responded with another observation.
"You are 29 years old, right-handed, and currently work at the Tokuma publishing house. You live on the outskirts of the city but don't usually take public transportation, as it's more convenient for you to drive to work, since there's parking for employees." She said in one breath, while still staring at me with her blue-gray eyes.
This annoyed me slightly, because in the end, she hadn't answered my question at all.
She seemed to have stopped talking, only to gauge my reaction to her little deduction.
But as usual, I didn't particularly show that I was surprised or worried.
"Now you're probably wondering why I've been doing so much research on you, right?" She added mischievously, resting her cheek in the palm of her right hand.
Yes. I did wonder why, indeed, she had bothered to look up my identity and personal information. However, I was more interested in something else.
"How do you know so much about me?" I asked again.
It was quite surprising that she knew rather innocuous - but all the more difficult to know - details . So I was rather curious.
And this time, she answered my question straightforwardly.
"I went through your stuff last night." She answered with a predatory smile on her face. "I found your identity papers, but also multiple parking tickets. But no public transportation membership card."
Oh. So that's what had happened. She had searched my car to find out who I was.
"Which suggested that you drive more than you take transportation, given the multiple trips to and from this parking lot," she continued to explain. "As for your phone number, I called myself to register it. Pretty easy, isn't it?"
Easy? Finding things that reflected someone's personal life was easy. But knowing how to interpret them correctly, that was already much trickier. And yet, she had managed without the slightest hesitation or error to deduce my daily life. With what? A few scraps of paper.
"But don't worry, I put everything back exactly where it belongs," she said, stopping to smile. "I'm not so rude as to disturb someone's things without tidying them up afterwards."
That was considerate of her. A good intention totally wasted on someone like me, though. However, with what she had just revealed to me, the obvious was now forming in my mind. It was her, who had...
"You moved my car..." I realized aloud.
"Correct." She replied with a slight smile, fixing me with a scrutinizing look.
She seemed to appreciate my quick wit.
That's usually what people ended up noticing, about me. I may have been socially inept, but in return, I was quite logical and analytical. Maybe even too precise, as sometimes the decisions I made - or the reasons behind them - were totally misunderstood by those around me.
However, a question was now crossing my mind. If she was going to contact me again, why would she go through all the trouble of moving my car and putting me in it?
She could have waited until I woke up again to talk to me.
However, she preferred to use a roundabout way and to blackmail me...
"What? Did you expect me to deduce all this on the spot, as soon as you came in here? You have to stop watching TV, dude..." She added with a smile.
Now she almost seemed to be bragging and laughing at me at the same time.
"That's invasion of privacy," I replied in turn, without being fazed.
This immediately made her lose the smile she had been so happy to show me.
"And if I understand correctly, it was you who parked my car on the side of the road," I added. "So we can add assault and injury - since you knocked me unconscious - and kidnapping to your list of offenses."
"I think I have less to worry about than someone who hit and killed a person with their car..." She replied bitingly.
"Having 'killed' someone is only a crime if the person actually dies..." I pointed out.
She seemed to realize that her comment was backfiring on her, and that made her a little more upset.
"Eh... You're really annoying, in your own way," she said with a disappointed look. "But you're also a really weird guy... In a pleasantly weird way."
"I'm weird?" I repeated. "Yet you're the one who had no head attached to the rest of your body yesterday... And who blackmailed me into coming here."
What's worse, she understood that I was absolutely sure of what I had witnessed the day before, with my affirmation. And that didn't worry her at all.
She slapped the top of the kotatsu violently with the palm of her hand, causing the bowl of fruit and the coffee pot to clatter on the spot.
"That's really a good one!" She exclaimed before starting to laugh without being able to stop.
What now? What had I said that was so funny to her?
Then, after she calmed down, she looked serious again, and this time it seemed to me that the air in the room had suddenly cooled down all around us.
"Do you realize the situation you are in, Nijima-kun?" She asked me with a sharp look.
She stood up suddenly, and started walking towards the room's entrance door.
"If I blackmailed you to come and meet me here, it's obviously because I want to silence you..." She continued while standing in front of the wooden door.
I heard then a metallic click, which made me understand that she had just locked the door which represented with the window behind me the only possible exits.
And, while remaining facing the door, she said:
"You don't think I'm going to let you leave so easily, do you?"