Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 9 - Chapter 3.01

  Witch and ancestor

After we left the police station, Natsunagi and I went straight to see Marie, the erstwhile Parasol Witch.

Vampires weren’t the only problem we had. For the past several weeks, Natsunagi and I had been investigating the village Marie had asked us to find. We’d finally come up with a hypothesis, so today, for the first time in a little while, we’d made contact with our client.

“I’m sorry I can’t offer much in the way of hospitality,” Marie apologized playfully with a wink.

“Oh, no! The coffee’s really good.” Natsunagi smiled and picked up her cup.

Marie had invited us to her apartment, and Natsunagi and I were sitting on the sofa.

“You don’t have much furniture, do you?”

There was no TV, or even any knickknacks. There wasn’t much of anything, really; it was like those minimalist apartments I sometimes saw in magazines.

“A necessity, sadly, as I’ve been traveling from place to place in search of my hometown.”

“Right. Well, I get how you feel; I used to live like that, too.”

Marie was probably only staying in Japan temporarily.

“I’ve thought this for a while now, Kimizuka, but you almost never speak politely, even to people older than you,” Natsunagi pointed out, having heard my back-and-forth with Marie.

“Nah. I even talk to Ms. Fuubi like an equal about half the time. Half-assed politeness and being solicitous just create psychological distance.”

“Is currying favor with older women your strong suit or something?”

“Yeah, I’m waiting for an older heroine to show up.”

“Well, I wouldn’t let someone like that in.”

“Exactly what kind of authority does the detective have, huh?”

We joked around as we savored our coffee, but then Natsunagi set her cup on its saucer, signaling that it was time for us to get down to business. “About your request…” She took several documents out of her bag and showed them to Marie.

“…! The village in these photos…”

Marie’s eyes widened when she saw the pictures printed on the documents.

The photos showed a rural landscape and buildings with characteristic white walls. They looked exactly like the painting of the village Marie had shown us when we’d first met her.

“The village in these photos is inhabited by a certain ethnic minority. It isn’t the only one, either; it seems little villages and towns like this exist all over the world.” Natsunagi went on, explaining their similarities. “All the people who live there have very fair skin, and the women have red eyes. Just like you, Marie.”

At that, Marie looked down at her body.

Red eyes and pale skin. At first, I’d noticed that it was a combination of Natsunagi’s and Siesta’s distinguishing traits, but apparently, that was how Marie’s people typically looked.

“I’d like you to take a look at this.” I held out another old photograph. It was a little blurry, but it showed a young woman. She also had red eyes and fair skin, and she looked a lot like Marie. The photo had been taken a long time ago in secret by a scholar researching ethnology.

“Is she my ancestor…?” Marie murmured, her eyes on the photo. “But how did you find this place?”

Natsunagi and I looked at each other, then nodded. As the detective, Natsunagi explained. “Our first approach was to look at it from the angle of racial discrimination.”

Marie’s shoulders flinched slightly.

Last month, we’d found that burned-down village in Scandinavia. I’d asked around the area, but for some reason, none of the locals would talk about it. They’d said they knew nothing about that village.

At first, I’d thought they were reluctant to talk because the incident had been so horrific, but then another possibility had occurred to me: Maybe the people who’d lived in that village had been persecuted by their neighbors all along.

In other words, that was the real reason why the adults had told Rill not to go near that village when she was a child. Racial discrimination remained a problem all over the world.

If these villages were scattered around the globe, there had to be scholars who were researching them. Natsunagi and I had painstakingly translated and read ethnology and cultural anthropology papers from a wide range of different countries. The results of that were these documents and this hypothesis.

“There are still a lot of unknowns about this tribe, such as where they originally came from and how many of them exist now…and we still don’t know which country your village is in yet.”

“We’ve found several possibilities, though: islands in the North Atlantic, northern Alaska, and the mountains of central Germany. You should be able to check them one by one. If you need us to, we can help…” But just as I started to make my offer, Marie doubled over coughing.

Natsunagi ran to her and rubbed her back. The coughing fit went on for a while, and when it finally stopped, the handkerchief Marie had been holding to her mouth was spotted with blood.

“Marie!”

Natsunagi already had her phone out, but Marie shook her head, stopping her. It took a minute, but her breathing eventually calmed down, and her expression softened. “I’m sorry to worry you. It’s been like this all the time lately. I can’t even drink alcohol, which I adore. It’s awful,” she said with a tight smile.

“—But didn’t you sing at another restaurant just the other day?”

“Yes, it started a few days after that. I’ve hardly been able to keep my promise to Yui…even though she has the musical to prepare for, and the opening ceremony for the international expo is coming up fast.”

“I’m sure Saikawa understands. Never mind that now—have you been to the hospital?”

“I have, and they prescribed some medicine. My condition comes and goes, though. It’s just a little worse than normal right now.”

Natsunagi urged her to rest, and Marie thanked her with a smile. “Still, I really am glad that I came to you with my request. Do you think you could keep working on it a little longer?”

She probably meant she wanted us to investigate all the villages that could be her hometown, as I’d been about to offer.

“Are you sure?” I blurted out. If the truth about her hometown was what we suspected it might be, did she still want to know? She didn’t remember it now, but she might have been discriminated against her whole life. Would being aware of that really be a good thing?

“Yes, of course.” Marie nodded firmly. “Even if I turn out to be a real witch who’s been persecuted, I brought this request to the detective because I want to know the truth.”

Natsunagi swallowed slightly, then turned to look at me.

After hesitating for a moment, I nodded. “All right. I promise we’ll find the truth for you.”

Sometimes detectives really do have to lay things out in red and black, I thought, reminded by the color of Marie’s eyes.