When the detective had asked me to be her eyes, ears and mouth, I didn't expect to have to go directly to a list of pre-established questions to specific people.
But that's what I found myself doing, after a long call punctuated by cuts and crackles. I had to mark, on a notepad with the colors of the boarding house and found in my own room, a list of subjects that I had to talk about; sorted by people and dictated by Miss Hiraoka. She had repeated several times some of the important points for which I absolutely had to be vigilant; especially towards the reactions and attitudes of the people I would interview.
"Should I report their facial expressions and general gestures?" Had I asked for confirmation.
"That's why I accepted you as my assistant, isn't it?" She had said, certainly with an amused chuckle. "Your ability to observe people in detail can be very useful, especially when several suspects are in the same place."
I had then heard a small laugh, and she had added with a playful tone:
"You're better than a lie detector, Nijima-kun, so I expect great things from you!"
Maybe it was her way of encouraging me, or on the contrary, pressuring me to do my best.
"And then... Be careful, Iwao." She had added in a more serious tone.
She had then hung up, leaving me alone in this boarding house in the middle of the mountainous area still in the grip of bad weather.
Her last words, sounding more like a warning than a banal greeting to end the call, made me feel something.
It was a tenuous feeling, but it was alarming enough to make me realize that she was there. I was not someone who felt fear, or at least felt it intensely. I could be surprised, like everyone else, when someone suddenly screamed, a door was slammed shut, or someone suddenly grabbed my arm. It was a kind of instinctive and innate reaction that I could not control.
However, I was always in control of what people might describe not as a fearful reaction, but a fearful feeling. Note the difference; and by control, of course, I meant that I was not feeling anything in particular; remaining true to my apathetic self.
Yet the detective's last words had managed to churn my stomach. Was it fear? Was it concern? Or was it something else?
I was having a hard time understanding what was happening to me, and even harder, I was having a hard time understanding what I could see in others. So it was essential that someone explain to me what I was missing.
The detective was, in short, like a decoder that allowed me to understand the expressions I was missing; but what did I bring to the table? Was I just a source of entertainment for her, or should I be wary and find out if there was anything else involved in being her assistant?
At the time, I hadn't thought about that; and this lack of perspective would play many tricks on me in the immediate or distant future, starting with the task the detective had given me.
"I suspect you were involved in Yazawa-san's death, and I would like to talk to you about it," I said with a straight face.
The young singer, who had just opened the door of his room to me, looked at me with wide eyes, as if I had set the place on fire.
"You suspect me? And then what?" He said to me with an outraged look.
"You're a suspect in my eyes, so I want to ask you some questions."
"No way," he replied curtly.
The singer slammed the door in my face.
Perhaps I had been a little too direct in my approach... It wasn't the first time nor the last that I would be called insensitive and abrupt; and the people who would do so were not entirely wrong.
Having met with a first failure, I headed for the room of Mr. Sakai, the producer of the show. This was the second person I had to interview, and thinking about how to rephrase my first approach to be less abrupt, I knocked gently on his door.
I heard someone moving around the room, and a few seconds later, the man with the strict, dry face appeared in the doorway.
"The guy from the publishing company? What do you want?" He asked with furrowed brows.
"I saw you arguing with Yazawa-san and Ishibashi-san, and I'd like to ask you about that..." I began.
"And what for? It was a private discussion." Mr. Sakai answered me curtly.
"I'm trying to find out if something serious happened between the three of you..." I continued without being intimidated by his boorish attitude.
"Do you think you are the police or what?" Mister Sakai scoffed. "It was personal, so I have nothing to say to you.
With that, he closed his door as well, leaving me alone in the second floor hallway.
I probably hadn't had the right words, again, and I felt that the other people I needed to talk to were also likely to react the same way.
Perhaps I should tell the detective that I was unable to gather the information she needed?
Taking my cell phone out of my pocket, I checked the status of the phone network: there was enough signal for me to at least send a text message, and opening the instant messaging application, I selected Miss Hiraoka as the recipient and started writing a beginning of a greeting before stopping abruptly.
Would she be disappointed to learn that I couldn't manage on my own?
"What are you doing?" Asked a male voice.
I looked up, and in front of me, in the corridor, I saw that Mister Nakatsuki had just joined me. I hadn't heard him approach, despite his impressive build, and I wondered if it was because I was too focused on my message being written, or if the man was just being very quiet when he walked.
"Nakatsuki-san," I said without any visible surprise on my face.
"Still talking with your girlfriend?" He said, pointing with a nod to the phone in my hands.
I wasn't sure how to respond to that, so I nodded. After all, the misunderstanding about my relationship with the detective had not been cleared up with my co-workers; and I myself found this situation rather advantageous.
"Then why do you look so worried to me? Did you have a fight with her?" He asked me.
Me, worried? Was it a habit of his to give me expressions that I didn't have?
"Let me guess: you did something wrong, but you don't know what? He said to me with a sympathetic look.
That... summed up the situation pretty well. Although we were certainly thinking of two very different things.
"I need to ask questions, but it's harder than expected..." I explained.
"Ask questions? About what and to whom?" Mr. Nakatsuki wondered.
I wasn't sure if I could trust him completely, but being in the big living room at the time of the murder, he could only be innocent. The question was whether he could keep a secret...
"If I tell you the truth, will you be able to keep your mouth shut?" I asked him with an even more inexpressive look than usual.
"You... You're scaring me," he replied, raising his hands in front of him. "I don't want to get involved in anything shady, huh."
In turn, I raised a hand to him, and with the most reassuring look I wanted to take - opening my eyes wide to minimize the dark circles under my eyes, and raising my eyebrows - I said:
"Really nothing fishy." I insisted as I moved closer to him.
Which obviously didn't reassure him as much as I would have liked, because he raised an eyebrow and pouted.
Then, seeing that I continued to look him straight in the eye and that I really needed help, he lowered his hands and sighed, relaxing his shoulders.
"Your girlfriend asked you for something, and you can't say no, right?" He said to me with eyes full of pity.
Again, he wasn't entirely wrong, just as he wasn't entirely right. However, this was good enough for me, and deferring to him, I showed him the torn sheets of paper from the notepad where I had written the questions to be asked.
"What is this?" He asked me with a puzzled look. "It looks like... the kind of questions you'd see in a police investigation story..."
"That's exactly what it is," I said, not hesitating for a moment.
Mr. Nakatsuki looked up from the sheets of paper he had in his hand, and grinned.
"Nah, you're playing a joke on me and these actually are notes that an author left for you, right?" He laughed, patting my shoulder with one hand.
"Absolutely not." I said with a very serious look on my face, my eyes glued straight into his.
This had the effect of stopping my colleague in his tracks, his hand remaining suspended a few centimeters above my still sore shoulder. He pursed his lips together while moving his head back without moving the rest of his body.
"You're not kidding me? Are these really the questions you want to ask them?" He asked me in a small voice, looking stunned.
I nodded my head, and suddenly found myself getting smacked on the top of my head by the same little sheets of paper.
"Have you gone completely mad or what?!" He exclaimed. "What's with all the crappy questions?!"
Bringing the sheets back to him, he began to read them aloud.
" 'Did you kill the owner?', 'Do you hate X person?'? That's still okay. But 'Have you ever seen a dead body?', 'Have you ever committed a crime?' and 'If you could kill anyone here, who would you kill?' Do you want to get hit or what?!"
"You've already hit me," I said, bringing my hand to my skull.
"What, this?" He asked, holding up the sheets of paper in front of me. "That was nothing! If you're asking those questions with your usual bluntness, no wonder you're almost getting doors in your face!"
"Did you... Did you see that?" I asked, lowering my head.
His expression softened, taking on a more sympathetic air to replace the bemused look he'd had until now; and he handed me my notes so I could retrieve them.
"Y-Yeah..." He merely said, scratching the back of his head with embarrassment.
"Actually, I hadn't even asked those questions," I revealed with an inexpressive face.
He looked surprised again, but took it easy and put on an expression as neutral as mine.
"I think that my help will not be too much..." he said confidently. He said confidently.
I nodded, and the storm rumbled in the distance, making the whole building shake and the glass panes of the windows vibrate. This did not fail to make Mr. Nakatsuki jump, in spite of the brave air he had exhibited a few seconds before.