by Yasuo Uchida
A cold wind was blowing across his skin, moist with perspiration. While the world below was still saying a lingering farewell to summer, Togakushi was already signaling the arrival of an early, merciless winter. After the passage of an all too brief autumn, the long season of pure white would settle in. He imagined the two who would be sleeping under that blanket of white, and envied them their long sleep after the fleeting instant of a human life.
Taki and Keiichi seemed to have kept the police on wild goose chases to the very end. Since Keiichi had abandoned his station wagon at Upper Kusugawa, the police had assumed that he and Taki must be headed for the vicinity of Maple's Cave, and therefore had confined their search to that area. The torrential rain of the preceding night had rendered the police dogs' noses useless, and it apparently never once occurred to the human trackers that the fugitives might have gone off in the opposite direction, far to the north, into the virgin forest all the way on the other side of West Peak.
Tachibana had spent two days keeping an eye on police movements from an inn in Kurohime Township, right next to Togakushi, but across the prefectural border into Niigata, where he figured the Nagano police were less likely to get him. They would almost certainly have been looking for him at his apartment in Tokyo. If they did find him, he was not planning to hide anything except his knowledge of Taki and Keiichi's whereabouts. Still, he wanted to be alone for a while.
Several parties of climbers passed behind him as he sat on the rock. Some of them made polite greetings, but he did not respond—until he heard someone come up, stop behind him, and just stand there. Feeling eyes on his back, he finally turned around.
"Miss Noya!" he gulped.
It was indeed Yuko Noya, standing there with slightly flushed, rose-colored cheeks which reminded him of a wax doll. In a sport shirt and knee-length jeans, she was not dressed for mountain climbing. Her black hair blowing in the wind, she made a queer impression on him.
In contrast to his own astonishment, she almost seemed to have been expecting to meet him there. Taking her time, she came around the rock and sat down next to him, so close that he could feel the warmth of her body.
"What are you doing here?!" he exclaimed. And yet, he had the weird feeling he already knew the answer to that all too obvious question.
"Somehow, I just felt the urge to come, the feeling I would find someone here." She fixed her gaze on the same part of the virgin forest he was looking at.
"Did the police come?" he asked, after a pause.
"Yes. An inspector named Takemura or something. He asked about grandfather, and about you, too, Professor."
"Oh yes, the Inspector." He could see Takemura's face. The man might not look like much, but he was not someone to get careless around. Tachibana knew that sooner or later he would have to face Takemura, but the thought actually gave him a queer feeling of nostalgia.
"But it must have been terrible for you and your family, having the police there," he said.
"Oh no, it wasn't so bad. Mother was very businesslike about the whole thing. I guess somebody must have done something pretty terrible, but the police and the news really weren't saying anything too clear about it. I had the feeling everybody was trying to cover something up."
Tachibana had gotten the same feeling. In the reporting of Shishido's murder, neither newspapers nor television had said a thing that approached the heart of the case. They had not even mentioned that there were any suspects. Something must be holding up the works.
"So, do you know where your grandfather is?" he asked.
"No, but..." She hesitated. He waited patiently for her to go on. "It wasn't my grandfather I was expecting to find. It was someone else."
"Me, you mean?" asked Tachibana, smiling at her.
"Yes, I guess. But why here? That's what I don't understand." Her lustrous black eyes were fixed on a point in the vast canyon below, as if drawn there.
Tachibana could only wonder. He had good reason for being here, but what could it have been that made her come too? Their meeting could not be explained as coincidence. Could it have something to do with her grandmother? Perhaps Yuko had inherited Taki's uncanny powers. The inspiration of the demoness.
Overwhelmed by a feeling of tenderness, he knew that his remaining mission in life must be to do everything he could for this girl.
"Well, shall we go?" he said, standing up and holding out his hand to her.
"Yes," she replied, obediently taking hold of his hand, her black eyes smiling at him as he helped her up.
—THE END—