hen Matsumiya finished delivering his report, Ishigaki nodded.

“The Nihonbashi Seven Lucky Gods pilgrimage circuit? That’s an

interesting angle you’ve come up with.”

“It came to light by pure chance while we were looking for

eyewitnesses who had seen Fuyuki Yashima.”

Ishigaki snorted. “I’m not so sure about it being a matter of chance—”

He shifted his gaze from Matsumiya to Kaga, then back again to

Matsumiya. “Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. We now know why the

victim was in the Nihonbashi district. If he did arrange to meet Yashima,

then it would make sense for him to choose a café in the same part of town.

“Good job,” Ishigaki added as an afterthought.

“The next question is why Aoyagi was doing the Seven Lucky Gods

pilgrimage.”

Ishigaki gave a dismissive wave of the hand.

“That’s not something you need to worry about. It’s got nothing to do

with our case. Aoyagi’s son’s got his university entrance exams next year

and he was probably praying for him to pass or something.”

“According to his wife, the victim wasn’t a very religious man—” At

that point, Matsumiya felt a poke in his side. It was Kaga, jabbing him with

his elbow. Don’t tell him any more than you already have, his eyes said.

Let’s get out of here.

“I’m not a religious man either, but I’m always praying for

something,” Ishigaki said. “A lower uric acid count, or for my daughter not

to go out with idiots—stuff like that. People are capricious creatures. They

can suddenly get serious about religion when it suits them to do so. It’s important to look into the victim’s background, but don’t get too caught up

by the small stuff.”

If we were talking about once, fine. But I don’t think doing the Seven

Lucky Gods pilgrimage circuit repeatedly can be put down to caprice.

Matsumiya swallowed his objection and meekly sat down.

“Okay, how are we doing with the murder weapon?” Ishigaki ran his

eye over the group of investigators around him.

Sakagami raised his hand to shoulder height.

“We’ve managed to contact around ninety percent of the people who

bought the same brand of knife online. That includes people our

investigators couldn’t meet with personally because they live far away. We

got the ones who still had their knives to take a photo and email it to us.

Some no longer had them in their possession. In most of those cases, they

had either lost the knives or damaged them and thrown them away.

Anyway, we couldn’t get any statements that linked these knives to

Yashima.”

Ishigaki scowled and groaned loudly.

“Same old story, then. Zero results. Can’t someone clear up the

mystery of how the perpetrator procured the weapon?”

“Is that really a problem? Does it actually matter that much?”

Kobayashi said. “The knife isn’t an unusual model. Yashima could well

have bought it himself at an outdoor gear shop. There’s nothing strange

about the store clerks failing to remember a customer.”

“The way things are now, we have zero physical evidence. Not even a

statement from someone that the knife belonged to Yashima.”

“Shall I have another word with Kaori Nakahara?”

“That’s certainly an option.” Ishigaki frowned pensively, then jerked

his head abruptly to one side as if to clear his thoughts. “We’re certainly not

going to solve anything by sitting around here looking miserable. Let’s call

it a day. Good night.”

“Good night,” replied a few of the investigators. The meeting broke

up.

A phone started ringing in the far corner of the room. The detective

closest by picked it up. There was a short exchange, during which his face

went pale; he turned to look at Ishigaki. “Chief, it’s the officer on duty at

the hospital.” There was a note of urgency in his voice.

A sense of foreboding flooded Matsumiya. “What’s happened?”

Ishigaki asked.

“Fuyuki Yashima died without ever regaining consciousness,”

answered the detective.

When Ishigaki announced that someone would need to go to the hospital to

verify Yashima’s death, Matsumiya volunteered. Kaga caught up with him

as he left the room. “I’ll come with you.”

Matsumiya sighed as they walked along side by side.

“So now we won’t be able to get the truth directly from Yashima.”

“The higher-ups will definitely see the case as being in the bag now.

As far as they’re concerned, all that needs to be done is to send the

paperwork to the Public Prosecutor’s Office under ‘suspect deceased.’ The

lack of evidence won’t matter anymore. The case won’t even go to

prosecution. Even if Yashima didn’t actually do it, dead men tell no tales.

Nobody’s going to complain.”

“And the mysteries remain more or less unsolved. Including why

Aoyagi was doing the Seven Lucky Gods circuit. Perhaps that counts as

good police work—”

“It’s not good,” Kaga shot back brusquely. “It’s no use to anybody to

close a case in such a half-assed way. I’m going to do whatever it takes to

get to the truth.” Although his voice was barely more than a murmur, it was

full of determination.

When the taxi reached the hospital, they were surprised to see a gaggle

of TV reporters outside. Someone at the hospital must be leaking

information. As Matsumiya went inside, he was wondering how the media

was planning to spin Yashima’s death.

In the waiting room, a man in a white coat stood talking to a

uniformed cop. The doctor was the one responsible for Yashima, the same

one Matsumiya had met on his first visit. He nodded a greeting.

“A regrettable outcome,” the doctor said. He was quite calm.

“He took a sudden turn for the worse?” Matsumiya said.

The doctor nodded.

“We suspect that the hematoma became acute. He did well to last as

long as he did, given the severity of the cerebral contusion.”

“That’s thanks to your hard work. Where is the body?”

“Go to the nurses’ station on the third floor. They’ll have moved him

from the ICU to another room. Oh yes, that girl—you know who I mean—

got here a minute ago. The girlfriend.”

“Thank you,” Matsumiya said.

He and Kaga left the waiting room and took the elevator up to the

third floor. He had located the nurses’ station and was about to ask where

Yashima had been moved to when Kaga called out to him. Matsumiya

turned around and Kaga jerked his chin down the corridor. Kaori Nakahara

was sitting on a couch halfway down, hunched forward and with a towel

draped over her face.

With no idea what he was going to say, Matsumiya made to walk

toward her. Before he could take a step, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Tonight at least, we should leave her be,” Kaga said. “We’ve verified

that Yashima is dead. From what the doctor told us, there’s nothing

suspicious about it. Surely that’s good enough? Leave the woman alone.”

Matsumiya nodded wordlessly.

Before getting back into the elevator, Matsumiya took another look at

Kaori Nakahara. There was something dangling off the handle of the bag

that was beside her on the couch. It hadn’t been there last time.

Squinting, Matsumiya realized that it was an amulet. The girl must

have picked it up at a shrine when she was praying for Fuyuki Yashima’s

recovery. What if it was one of the Seven Lucky Gods of Nihonbashi!

Kaga’s right, thought Matsumiya. No one will get closure or comfort if

the case ends like this. Not the Aoyagi family and not Kaori Nakahara—