Chapter 4: Thinking from Another's Perspective

On the afternoon of December 16, Tea Immortal called on Miura's parents.

Miura's father, Miura Akira, was the director of Hokkaido's largest hospital and a prominent local figure. He received Tea Immortal in person.

Grief over the loss of his son had kept him awake all night. The silver at his temples, the heavy bags beneath his eyes, and his haggard expression made a man not yet fifty look sixty.

But in the presence of royalty, Akira still took care to show due humility and obedience. His experience and position naturally brought him into contact with members of high society. He knew their temperaments well. As long as he still had breath in his body, he had best do everything he could to meet their demands. Otherwise...

“You have my deepest sympathy.” After a few brief pleasantries, Tea Immortal prepared to get to the point. “To find your son's killer, I need to ask you a few questions.”

“I shall tell you everything I know, without reservation,” Akira replied respectfully.

Tea Immortal knew, however, that getting him to disclose everything would be difficult. “Mr. Miura, do you know what has become of Suzuki Kiyoko's family?”

At the name Suzuki, Akira reacted as though he had been pumped full of stimulants. Blood rushed to his head, turning his pale face crimson in an instant, and his eyes filled with fear and shock.

Tea Immortal watched his expression change without betraying anything himself. His courteous tone became distinctly unfriendly. “Oh... so that's your reaction. You didn't expect me to uncover this, did you? You've seriously underestimated HL's capabilities.”

“Your Highness... you... what are you say—” Akira stammered.

Tea Immortal took the opportunity to sip his tea. “There's no point playing dumb now. Please answer my question.”

Akira swallowed and tried to calm himself. “After the Suzuki family left Hokkaido, I never heard from them again. It's... it's been over a year. Could it be...”

“Don't worry. Suzuki didn't kill your son.” Tea Immortal now had his answer. It seemed Akira really did not know what had happened to the Suzuki family. He continued, “Suzuki Kiyoko is dead. On December 8 last year, she stabbed her parents to death, then turned on the gas and burned down her home.”

“Then... does this have anything to do with Kazuya's death?” Akira asked.

“Whether it's connected is my concern. You don't need to ask questions. Keep listening. If I have a question, I'll stop and ask you.” Tea Immortal continued, “Last September, Miura-kun began his first year of high school and met Suzuki Kiyoko, a girl in his class. On September 4, certain things happened that caused Suzuki to miss school the following day. The day after that, a large sum was transferred into her family's bank account. For a family like the Suzukis, it would have been a fortune.

“A week later, the Suzuki family moved away from Hokkaido. Further investigation showed that Suzuki Kiyoko hadn't transferred schools. She had taken a leave of absence. After moving to Okinawa, she seems to have hardly appeared in public at all. There were records of her parents purchasing medication for depression, but those soon stopped as well. Then, three months later, a fire burned everything to the ground.”

Tea Immortal sipped his tea. “That leads me to the following assumption about the root cause of this tragedy. On September 4, Miura-kun committed a fairly serious crime. Since he had already turned sixteen, he was very likely facing around seven years in prison. As a father, you knew that if you let matters take their course, your son's education, prospects, and life might all be ruined at a stroke. So you gave Suzuki Kiyoko's parents money to keep them from going to the police, to make them keep their mouths shut and let the matter drop. Has anything I've said so far been inaccurate?”

Akira hung his head like a criminal on trial. “No... none of it is inaccurate.”

Tea Immortal gave a cold smile. “Good. Confirmation from someone directly involved shows that this simple deduction hasn't gone astray.”

By this point, Tea Immortal had deduced why Miura had killed Matsuo and confirmed the key clue to how Tian Yi had manipulated events.

“My next question. Knowing your son as you do, would he kill to cover up a crime if the conditions were right?” Tea Immortal asked.

The question immediately gave Akira another bad feeling. Had his son's crime from a year ago come to light? Had he tried to silence someone, only to be killed himself?

Seeing him hesitate, Tea Immortal added, “By ‘the conditions were right,’ I mean that a clever method would allow him to evade punishment after committing the crime. With that assurance, would Miura-kun, given his personality, take the risk?”

Akira was drenched in sweat. He struggled with himself for a long time before answering with a mixture of anger and helplessness. “Must you force a father to answer a question like that?”

Tea Immortal sipped his tea. “There's no need now. I already know your answer.” He was well versed in the techniques of psychological warfare. As the saying went, when surrounding an army, leave an opening. Corner someone completely, and they were bound to turn on you. He had not yet pushed that far.

“One last question. Where is it?” Tea Immortal set down his tea and looked Akira straight in the eyes.

“What do you mean...” Akira could barely hide his panic, and his body trembled slightly.

“Miura-kun was killed on the twelfth, and you heard the news that evening. Today is the sixteenth. Roughly three days have passed in between. Your wife, being a mere woman, must have been beside herself with grief, unable to control her emotions. Even now, I can hear her faint sobbing from a room on the second floor.

“During those three days, as his father, you must have entered your son's room. Whether out of instinct or deduction, you must have searched for something, trying to find an explanation for his death.

“And you must have found something. I believe you've already examined its contents but didn't understand their significance, so you didn't destroy it. Naturally, given those contents, you couldn't possibly have handed it over to the police of your own accord.

“Only when I spoke of ‘the right conditions’ just now would you have understood what that thing was for...”

Tea Immortal spoke in a tone that allowed no argument. “Now... please hand it over.”

That “please” was no joke. It was enough to scare a man with a guilty conscience like Akira out of his wits.

...

After leaving Miura's home, Tea Immortal climbed back into the car. For the past few days, Major Shimaki had effectively served as the seventh prince's personal chauffeur and secretary, waiting on him hand and foot without daring to slack off in the slightest.

“Sir, what's that you're holding...?” Shimaki asked, noticing that Tea Immortal had brought something out of the house.

“A videotape,” Tea Immortal said. “This was the only reason I went to see Akira.”

Shimaki started the engine. “Weren't you going to ask him about the case?”

“Even a second-rate policeman could work out what happened to Suzuki. Whether he confirmed or denied it was irrelevant. As for Miura's character, I could have asked anyone. It was all to observe his reactions and put pressure on him so that he'd hand it over.”

Shimaki said, “There's no need to go to all that trouble to make a bastard like him cooperate.”

Tea Immortal said, “I know. The best approach would have been to walk in and tell him to hand it over, then break one of his legs if he said ‘no.’”

His tone did not sound like a joke. Apparently Tea Immortal really had considered it. But then he added, “Heh... Tian Yi would certainly have done that.” He suddenly laughed. All those years spent chasing Tian Yi's shadow had led him, without realizing it, to start imitating the man's way of thinking.

He promptly changed the subject. “Still, I can't say I learned nothing from Akira. Most of my earlier deductions received further confirmation.

“From the investigation Officer Jingniao left behind, there's no doubt Matsuo was murdered. Ikeda Nozomi was the first to discover the scene, shortly after Matsuo's death. Rather than report it, he chose to flee and tried to conceal the evidence that he'd been there. But he wasn't the killer. Someone else was.

“The real killer's motive posed a problem, but with Tian Yi involved, it becomes simple. He's a sinmonger. There are others in this world who consider themselves clever and work in the same trade, but all they sell are methods. Tian Yi supplies motives as well. The most frightening thing is that, piecing together all these years of investigation, I've found that the motives of those who died in Tian Yi's games weren't actually ‘created’ by him. The ‘sin’ was already there in their hearts.

“The inverted cross condemns the sinful.

“What Tian Yi does is like tearing the hypocrisy off people's faces, ripping away skin and flesh with it to expose all their sin and ugliness. Then their own filthy souls devour them, until they die of that sin in the ugliest, most fitting way.”

The weather outside the car was pleasant enough, but Tea Immortal's words were chilling. “Matsuo died by the inverted cross. His killer must also have been involved in Tian Yi's game. If it wasn't Ikeda Nozomi, it had to be either Ikeda Takeshi or Miura Kazuya, because the other three victims were already dead before Matsuo was killed.

“On the night of the tenth, Ikeda Takeshi stayed at an izakaya until very late. He had no time to commit the murder, so I could establish straightaway that the killer was Miura. The next question, then, was what motive Tian Yi had given him. Why would this high school student kill his teacher?

“The police had already investigated Matsuo very thoroughly. We have Jingniao to thank for that as well. Because he reached the scene so quickly, the case wasn't treated as a suicide, and the police did fairly meticulous work.

“Once I had a general idea of Matsuo's character, I turned my attention to Miura. Last night I went through his family's spending over the past three years and found that, over a year ago, Akira had transferred a large sum to a local family named Suzuki. They moved away afterward. Following that lead, I discovered the connection between Suzuki Kiyoko and Miura Kazuya, then retrieved the school records and deduced roughly what had happened.

“With something like that to hold over Miura, Tian Yi could easily have used it to bargain with him, demanding that he kill Matsuo. But on reflection, that didn't fit Tian Yi's style. He probably wouldn't directly ask someone to commit murder. Besides, it didn't fit the rule of dying through one's ‘sin.’

“Matsuo must have done something to bring his death upon himself.”

Shimaki caught on. “Could it have gone like this... Tian Yi told Matsuo what he had on Miura, which gave Miura a motive to kill Matsuo!”

“Exactly. That also explains why Matsuo died through his ‘sin.’ He must have tried to use this to blackmail Miura and brought disaster on himself.” Tea Immortal continued, “With the killer and motive established, all that remained was the method. Second Lieutenant Kuwabara's autopsy report noted suspicious details in the position and depth of the ligature marks, which tallied with Officer Jingniao's initial assessment. The police also concluded that it was murder staged as suicide. They were simply having some difficulty gathering evidence.

“Clearly, although the method wasn't flawless, it was by no means haphazard. It would be difficult for an ordinary high school student to manage something like that. Even if he had the nerve to commit the crime, he would struggle to carry it out that well.

“As I said, fortunately we know Tian Yi is involved in this case. So Miura's murder method was undoubtedly Tian Yi's work. He must have found some way to teach Miura everything, from the steps to follow and the tools he'd need to the details of cleaning up afterward.”

Tea Immortal absently patted the videotape beside his seat. “I'd expected a book, or a comic. We've found similar things before. Some were thrown away as rubbish; others were filed away. A videotape, though... this is the first.”

Shimaki stopped at a red light. “Why does this Tian Yi use books or videotapes instead of teaching people how to kill in person?”

Tea Immortal said, “I don't know. I can only speculate, but it's not hard to guess... Imagine a madman in a primary school classroom teaching children university-level material. He explains it two or three times, but none of the children understand. Then he can't help pulling out a machine gun and spraying the room...”