When I open my eyes again, it is Kotori who is wearing the sunglasses. They look good on her, I can tell.
I take out the notebook from my jacket, which already has a pen in the middle of its pages, and prepare to write everything down.
I need you to do your thing, you know, find anything that our forensics guys can't find for themselves, are you up to it?
A smug smile comes across my face.
Oh? That's it? You know my services aren't free, right, my beloved little Kouhai?
Kotori, who had been quiet until now, blushes up to her ears knowing what I'm talking about. She pats me on the shoulder, perhaps to appease her embarrassment a little.
Of course she knows what I'm talking about.
At least to Kotori, I don't charge her money to do a job, she is my partner after all.
What I ask of him instead, is something much simpler to fulfil my needs.
And those of you who are thinking about sex, you have a dirty mind.
Even for a woman, Kotori is very unfeminine. She has a dirty vocabulary, not to mention she is not very dedicated to her personal care. So for assisting in any job she asks me to do, I may ask her in return for a date where she will dress as best she can to bring out her feminine proportions.
I like to tease her quite a bit by reminding her how beautiful she looks when she dresses properly as a woman.
─You're, you're an idiot... but if that's what you want in return, I guess I can do that....
─Depending on the difficulty of this case, I'm going to demand at least a day to see your entire loveliness.
─And what is the maximum?
─If you give me at least a week of attention by having your adorable way, I'm willing to find the bastard even if I have to lift the last stone there is in this city.
─ One week...?!?! A, ah... Well, your services are always perfect, so please don't disappoint me, Senpai!
Her words made me smile a little more, she can't even imagine how much joy she just brought me just by agreeing to meet any of my demands.
Well, that's enough flirting between us.
If I want to have my beloved girlfriend's undivided attention for seven days straight, I have to rack my brain to find every last piece of evidence that will lead me to the damn bastard who caused this.
So, I have to start asking the basic questions.
─Cause of death?
─It hasn't been determined yet, the coroner will tell us that.
I understand.
─So, what time was the body reported?
─At 6:21AM, it was reported by a student named Hoshizora Nanami who was walking her dog early in the morning.
─What did she say?
─It was convincing enough, she said she said she said goodbye to her mother and went for a walk with her dog, a dachshund. The timings match and from the attitude she had during our questioning of her, it felt like it was the first time she had ever looked at a dead body.
Oh, that's unfortunate.
I'm usually the first one to talk to those who find the body, and I try to be as sensitive as possible to the mental state of the person who found it.
This crime scene is pretty special, and everything looks like it's going to end up being a pain in the ass.
But!
I'm willing to do whatever it takes to unravel the truth, just so that way I can have my girlfriend's special service!
Ahem... anyway.
─Didn't anyone hear or see anything during the night?
─Absolutely nothing. For starters, no one lives near here, and those who do, reported that they didn't see anything strange around this area.
...
That's a problem.
─Security cameras in the vicinity?
─This location is perfectly calculated, there's nothing recording in this direction.
What about the identity of the body?
─Still unknown. No clothes, as you can see. His head was completely destroyed by what we believe was a saw weapon.
─Dental records?
─Ah... Right! Hey, you! The teeth are intact?!
Kotori seems to have noticed the detail she left out.
She moves inside the cordoned off area first, and I follow behind her as I continue to write down the details Kotori told me.
Note-taking is a very interesting part of a detective's life, as it allows me to organise the most important details about the case while I piece together a chronology of events.
Kotori on her own went and picked up a pair of surgical gloves.
Without any kind of disgust, she opens the corpse's jaw to reveal...
Two rows of perfectly arranged teeth.
─You're really cool, Kiyotaka-senpai. With this we might be able to do something.
─Check the disappearance reports too just in case... oh, and I'd also like you to take a look at the blood on the ground... this is too much blood.
What do you mean?
Kotori's expression seems to rise in surprise at what I said.
I look at the wounds inflicted on the corpse. They're all mortal wounds and all, however, the amount of blood and the distribution of it is a bit strange.
Besides... according to what he told me, this is too obvious.
─You know this crime didn't happen here, right?
─That was the first speculation we made, since the body was placed in too convenient a position, but why do you say it's too much blood?
That's simple.
A human doesn't have all this blood, that's obvious. If the body was moved from one place to another, it means it bled out on the way. Unlike animal blood, human blood takes a little longer to clot, but as you can see, the earth absorbed most of the blood here.
─ Aha, so what of it?
What about it?
It's simple.
The earth can't absorb the blood that fast. That means that what's here is blood diluted in water.
─That means the killer prepared the blood beforehand, right?
─Or in the worst case... he collected the victim's blood and used it to do this.
─I told you this case would interest you. Here.
Kotori extends to me... a police badge and a firearm.
I hesitate about receiving these things.
─I'm just a private detective... I don't need this.
─It's an order from the [Sergeant], she wants you to participate in this case as another member of the police.
─Why?
─If I tell you, I doubt you'll believe me, but....
Kotori's expression becomes complex.
She averts her gaze, I can see her biting her lip as she prepares to tell me something...
No, wait...
That can't be possible, that's... ridiculous...
Instinctively, I take a step back.
I don't want to believe it.
Kotori, tell me that... it's a joke...
─I'm sorry to have to involve you in this, but Kiyotaka-senpai, we need you to be a part of this case, since you're the one who has most of the information regarding the unsolved case from four years ago.
No...
─We believe that the one who did that series of murders four years ago, the person who massacred your entire family and psychologically tortured you without leaving a single trace of his identity, is the same one who is committing these crimes.
Kotori... she means it.
She knows better than anyone how difficult it is for me to consider reopening such a case which is what caused me to have serious mental and emotional problems.
I thought it was a part of my past that was already buried deep down.
But apparently.
I realise that my wounds have not yet fully healed. Just like Kotori's, who was involved in the same way as me in that case.
There would be no way... for me not to do this.
I had left that life in the past.
It was four long years without holding a gun.
I remember a little bit of the things I did before I got involved with law enforcement and the many people who perished because of these hands of mine.
It is simple.
Only Kotori has been told about it, about what I was doing before I became a policeman, and she can say for certain that my skills are without a doubt of the highest calibre.
─You agreed this in your retirement form, that in any circumstance where your skills are needed, you were to participate as a trained member of not only the police, but also the naval forces, air force and the military itself, plus, the [Sergeant] needs our best available man... I will not ask you to resume the activities that led you to be feared under countless nicknames. The [Sergeant] may want you to assassinate the bastard like [The White Death], but I need Homura Kiyotaka-senpai, the man I love and the best cop I know even now.
Without reproach, I take the police badge and the pistol.
I fasten the holster of the revolver around my waist, to make sure it won't come loose as I walk.
I keep the badge in the same jacket pocket as my notebook pocket.
I divert my thoughts to what happened four years ago and what I was doing even before that.
I'm thirty-nine now, I don't have to be so immature as to not be able to handle this.
─Well... let's get on with it guys, get the body to the coroner, we can't stay here any longer. Clear the area and lift the police tape, in the meantime, Lieutenant Yanagi and I will go for a tour of the headquarters.
Restitution of titles is a term I accepted when I decided to retire from the government forces to get involved in the world of a private detective.
I have been able to live in peace because of all the achievements I made along the tightrope that is my own life.
But well.
I'll tell you all about it another time.
For now, I'm only supposed to be the Homura Kiyotaka who was in the police force, I'm not requested as the person I was before that.
So... it's okay.
It's only going to be for a while, but I guess I can do what I'm asked to do.