Chapter 206 - Truth and Reality 129 {157 Solo} (372-374 What Awaited Nishida and Yoshimura After They Turned Back to Engaru)
"What do you mean? That self-denial?"
Nishida asked after switching his gaze to the windshield for a moment, but he had already anticipated what Yoshimura wanted to say.
"Until now, we've been fighting while wavering, because the police didn't conduct the investigation seriously, using Oshima's pressure as an excuse, right... We should have finally reached this point by rebelling against the fact that we didn't take the actions we should have and covered it up with inner-circle logic. Naturally, the act of making him turn himself in is also, so to speak, an act to lighten the crime of the 'insider' Boss, and it's not a commendable act, and it could be called inner-circle logic. But even so, a few days is a range that's somehow permissible, a conclusion that both the Section Chief Assistant and I reached after a painful decision, right? But looking at that last behavior of the Boss, I can only think we're clearly being mocked! There's no need to be that considerate, and that would be exactly getting completely immersed in the very center of typical inner-circle logic, wouldn't it? We should clearly tell the Boss 'two days at most.' And if he still doesn't turn himself in, we should have the Engaru Station get an arrest warrant and arrest him, not us!"
Just as Nishida had read, Yoshimura apparently couldn't stand Nishida's indecisive attitude toward the Boss earlier. Nishida also had a feeling at that time that he wanted to yell at the Boss, "How can I wait that long!", but considering the Boss's feelings about what Yoshimura had told him, he had even lost the will to reprimand him for words and actions that made him wonder if he was really reflecting.
Naturally, Yoshimura probably had similar thoughts, even though he had "hurled" them at the Boss himself. Even so, it was clear that he wasn't satisfied with Nishida's decision when they left, and he was now venting that dissatisfaction.
Since the victim Isaka is a Kitami resident, Nishida and the others have investigative authority, but Engaru, where the suspect Boss is, also has investigative authority, and the proposal to have an "outsider" arrest him—was it Yoshimura's form of "severe punishment" for the Boss, or was it a thought that while it was a sanction for the Boss, he didn't want to get his own hands dirty? Nishida didn't know. However, even if the latter intention existed, it was clear that Yoshimura intended to make the Boss take responsibility in a heavier form.
"Hmm..."
To Nishida, who groaned with his eyes closed—
"I don't want to say such things to the Boss either! But, it's just like the lyrics of 'Jinsei Gekijo' that just played, 'If duty is discarded, this world is darkness,' just like those lyrics, we have to follow the minimum protocol... After all, we're police officers!"
He stopped speaking after saying that.
Nishida, who was "ruminating" on that statement in his brain, opened his eyes and—
"Follow protocol... Um, I understand. Let's go back!"
Without much time passing, he turned back to Yoshimura and gave instructions quickly. That was because he was conscious of a break from his previous state of mind.
"Understood."
Yoshimura also didn't say anything unnecessary, and to return to Engaru, he pulled the car into the parking lot of a shop on the opposite lane and then changed direction to the opposite way.
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Returning to the Boss's house in about 20 minutes, they entered the unlocked entrance, and—
"Boss! I have a bit of a continuation of the story from earlier!"
Nishida called out in a loud voice, but there was no sign of the Boss coming out at all. Yoshimura went to check Yusen, thinking he might be at the shop.
Nishida was waiting inside the entrance, but as soon as Yoshimura returned—
"He's not at the shop either. The shop was also unlocked."
He reported.
"Maybe he went to buy ingredients..."
To Nishida, who muttered that—
"No way... he didn't run away, did he?"
Yoshimura said with his eyes wide open.
"No, there's no way that's it..."
Nishida replied with a half-smile, but a bad premonition suddenly crossed his mind.
In the series of investigations so far, Hamana, who was the chairman of Kitami Kyoritsu Hospital, committed suicide in '95 out of distress over being made to participate in the murder plan of former assemblyman Matsushima without knowing it, and Oshima Kaiji's secretary Nakagawa had attempted suicide this summer. In both cases, there was almost no fault or malice on the police side, and they were strictly tragic events. Especially Hamana's suicide led to the investigation falling into confusion as a result, but it was normally possible to push those off as "the other party's responsibility."
However, if the Boss chose death himself this time, it wouldn't be like that. Since they had encouraged him to turn himself in and hadn't secured his person even though it was originally an "arrest case," this would be a complete failure on the police side—no, a failure of Nishida himself, who was in a responsible position.
Of course, as long as there is no fear of "destruction of evidence" or "flight," there is originally no need to arrest, but as a practical matter, at the point where he took the option of leaving a person who admitted to a crime above a certain level without having them report to the police, there is no way to deny that Nishida bears a great deal of responsibility. Of course, considering the insolent attitude the Boss showed at the end, he might not choose suicide by common sense, but it was also true that that attitude remained strangely as a sense of incongruity for Nishida.
"Hey, Yoshimura! We're going (in)!"
At the point where Nishida spoke with an unusually serious face, Yoshimura—
"Eh? No way..."
He replied with a joking expression after sensing the meaning, but in a few seconds he immediately became serious, kicked off his shoes roughly, and went into the room before Nishida.
Within a minute of the two starting to "search" the room separately, Yoshimura's voice—"Ah! Hey, Boss! Boss! Pull yourself together! Nishida-san, the bath! The bath!"—reached Nishida's ears. Nishida didn't have a grasp of the house's structure, so he was momentarily delayed, but he soon reached the bathroom.
Then, into his field of vision came the bathtub filled with reddish water, and Yoshimura strongly shaking the limp Boss who was leaning against the bathtub. A kitchen knife was lying on the floor.
At the same time, Nishida was struck by a sense of despair similar to when he was told by Section Chief Sawai that Kitamura had been shot and killed at the hospital, and he almost fell into a state fitting both expressions of his vision going dark and his blood draining. But before he could stop functioning, he—
"Stop the bleeding with this!"
He took his handkerchief out of his suit pocket and handed it to Yoshimura. Then—
"Breathing? Pulse?"
He checked in succession. At those words, Yoshimura also regained his composure, and while stopping the bleeding, he checked.
"He still has both breath and pulse somehow!"
He answered.
"I see! There's hope... Alright! Instead of calling an ambulance, let's just carry him to the Kosei Hospital in the car!"
While giving instructions, he recognized that the handkerchief wasn't enough to stop the bleeding, so he picked up a hand towel that was nearby, handed it to Yoshimura, and had him stop the bleeding. The handkerchief returned from Yoshimura was completely stained with fresh blood, telling of the large amount of blood loss along with the color of the water in the bathtub.
After applying the new dressing, the two of them held the Boss's shoulders and legs from front and back respectively and carried him to the back seat of the car. Then, with Yoshimura driving, they sped through the familiar streets of Engaru toward the Engaru Kosei Hospital (Author's Note: Fictional name) with the siren blaring.
During this time, Nishida was thinking back on the Boss's attitude when they left. He was convinced that it wasn't defiance, but an act to make Nishida and the others misunderstand that he "wasn't reflecting." He probably thought instantly to make Nishida and the others give him a punishment beyond turning himself in. And because that wasn't accepted, he handed down the heaviest punishment himself, beyond what the law stipulates. That must have been it. If it hadn't been for Yoshimura's persuasion, they would have returned to Kitami, and the Boss's life would have surely ended as it was.
While thinking about such things, they arrived at the hospital in a few minutes and rushed to the emergency entrance where ambulances directly enter.
It was different from an ambulance's, but at the sound of the siren, two female nurses (Author's Note: Since 2002, the terms for nurse have been unified to 'kangoshi') came outside to see what was going on, and when they confirmed the appearance of the unmarked police car, they seemed to be discussing something.
Yoshimura in the driver's seat jumped out as soon as he stopped the engine and pulled the handbrake, shouting "It's an emergency patient with heavy blood loss, so give him a transfusion immediately!" while showing his police badge. Then, as if sensing it wasn't an ordinary matter, they went inside the door once and then brought out a stretcher. Nishida and Yoshimura carried the Boss's body out of the car as if embracing him, and with the help of two veteran nurses, they put him on the stretcher and carried him into the hospital.
They immediately entered the treatment room, and a veteran-looking doctor, who had probably been resting in another room and received the contact, came in while putting on his white coat.
"Please tell me what happened."
He asked Nishida and Yoshimura in a calm tone that seemed very used to it.
"He tried to commit suicide by cutting his wrist. It seems he's lost a lot of blood. I don't know how long it's been, but it hasn't been seven minutes since we found him. We stopped the bleeding as soon as we found him."
Nishida replied quickly while showing his police badge.
That said, the nurses had already finished checking the Boss's blood type in preparation for a transfusion, and even without waiting for the doctor's judgment, the plan for the transfusion was ready.
"Anyway, I'm going to treat him now, so you two please wait outside for the time being. Since you're from the police, it doesn't seem necessary to ask for the circumstances from here one by one."
The doctor told the two that and began to give instructions to the nurses, such as checking vitals again.
Nishida and Yoshimura went out into the hallway, and—
"You don't know the family's contact information, do you?"
Nishida first confirmed in his restlessness.
"He has a son in Asahikawa, and a daughter is married in Takinoue town, but I don't know the contact information."
Yoshimura said in a voice that seemed about to fade away, sounding apologetic, but—
"I see. I guess I'll just have to go around asking the neighbors... Besides, we left the house wide open, and I'll have to ask someone to watch it. I'll go back and do it by myself now, so you stay here."
He instructed, and after receiving the keys, he returned to the car alone and went back to the Boss's house.
When he asked a middle-aged woman who seemed to be the wife of the neighboring Takahashi family to "please watch the house because the Boss was rushed to the hospital with a sudden illness," she readily accepted, and furthermore, she told him the contact information for the Boss's daughter, "Miyo," one of his two children. He figured Takinoue was clearly closer than Asahikawa where the son was, and there was a much higher possibility she could rush over immediately compared to the son who was probably at work.
Before making the call, Nishida hesitated about how to explain the Boss's "condition," but he made up his mind to speak honestly about the circumstances. Naturally, it would be a bolt from the blue for the daughter, but it was also a confession of a "failure" for Nishida and the others, and it was a painful choice for both. However, he also thought it couldn't be helped to try to cover it up now. Since he had received a contact from Yoshimura on his mobile just before saying "he survived through the treatment," that point alone was a great salvation...
As expected, the daughter who identified herself as Miyo was surprised to hear the story and was speechless toward the end, but at the stage where she got in touch with her husband, who said he worked at the town hall, she promised to head here by car, so Nishida thanked the woman who was watching the house again and returned to the hospital.
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"How is the situation? Has anything changed?"
Returning to the hospital, he called out from a distance the moment he saw Yoshimura sitting on a long bench in the hallway in front of the treatment room in a hunched-over state.
"His life is not in danger, but they say the possibility of aftereffects like consciousness disorders remaining can't be denied..."
Yoshimura answered weakly, only raising his face a little.
"In other words, he hasn't regained consciousness?"
"Yes."
"I contacted the daughter, hasn't she come?"
Nishida said in succession while checking his watch, but since it wasn't even 5:00 PM yet and not even 30 minutes had passed since that call, there was no way she had come.
"She hasn't come."
Before Yoshimura said that, he was half-mocking himself for still lacking composure.
Even after waiting for about 30 minutes after that, he didn't regain consciousness, but since the daughter Miyo arrived just then, Nishida and the others introduced themselves for the time being, and after immediately conveying the Boss's situation again, they explained the circumstances of this time in detail and apologized.
As a daughter, she was first worried about the Boss's body rather than the crime or circumstances her father had committed, so it wasn't a situation where the conversation could expand further. The three of them waited for the attending physician to come out in an unsettled state of mind in the hallway, and he finally came out after 6:00 PM.
"He has somehow regained consciousness. To be honest, in the situation when he came here, he was in a fairly dangerous state due to the large amount of blood loss, but with the transfusion and the treatment of the wound, somehow... At the moment, he seems to understand about himself, and although I can't say anything for sure, no disabilities have appeared. For the time being, a short visit is possible."
The attending physician gave the report and explanation to the three.
As soon as the talk was over, the daughter first rushed into the treatment room, but Nishida and Yoshimura were hesitant about what to do, as they were the ones who had driven him to the suicide attempt in a sense. However, considering the circumstances, they couldn't just not see his face, and after entering the room, without knowing what kind of face to make, they quietly approached the bedside.
Miyo was already talking to her father in a half-crying state, but only the words "What kind of stupid thing are you doing, Dad?" could be clearly heard. The Boss seemed to reply weakly, "I'm sorry for being alive...", but since he was wearing an oxygen mask, Nishida wasn't confident if he had heard it correctly.
Meanwhile, the Boss, confirming that Nishida and Yoshimura had entered his field of vision—
"It seems... you two... brought me in... It would have been... better... as it was."
He probably spoke. To that, Yoshimura—
"I told you to turn yourself in, but I didn't say a word about dying..."
He said softly while gently placing his hand near the Boss's knee, which was hidden by the quilt.
Nishida also continued—
"We don't matter, but please stop doing anything that makes your daughter worry... I've already told (Miyo) everything, so you don't need to say anything. For now, getting your health back is the first priority..."
After conveying that, he urged Yoshimura to go outside once.
"I have to return to Kitami first, but Yoshimura, you stay here a bit longer. I'll return by JR, so I'll leave the car, use that to come back."
When instructed by Nishida in the hallway—
"Is that okay?"
Yoshimura confirmed as if peering in, so Nishida nodded silently.
"Understood. Then I'll do that for now. ...But, it's because I blamed the Boss too much out of emotion that this happened..."
Yoshimura made an expression of regret, blinking his eyes.
"It's true that what Yoshimura revealed was a hard story for the Boss, I think. However, you only told the facts, and it's because the Boss understood why you said such things that he handed down this severe punishment to himself... How he takes it is up to the Boss, and I think it's just that this was the conclusion of the originally good-natured Boss."
Nishida tried to comfort him like that.
"However, that attitude of the Boss was precisely because he was taking it seriously... He must have thought that just turning himself in wouldn't be forgiven."
Yoshimura also understood the meaning of that behavior of the Boss.
"When the Boss suddenly said he would postpone turning himself in significantly, that insolent attitude, which was quite different from his reaction to Yoshimura's confession until then—certainly, looking back now, it must have been an act precisely because he wished for us to arrest him instead of turning himself in... However, I tried to make him turn himself in as it was, as if ignoring that attitude of the Boss. ...That was just the story of a stance of running away, not wanting to arrest an acquaintance, and the Boss, for whom that wasn't granted, dared to try to hand down the heaviest punishment to himself, so my responsibility is greater than Yoshimura's."
To Nishida, who added that—
"Regardless of the Section Chief Assistant's responsibility, I should have noticed the strangeness of that behavior of the Boss too."
Yoshimura also spoke while hunched over.
"No, all responsibility lies with me as the superior. In the first place, if Yoshimura hadn't insisted on 'returning' at Ikutahara, the Boss would almost certainly not have been saved... At that point, you could rather be called a lifesaver for the Boss."
"That was just by chance, 'Jinsei Gekijo' played on the radio, and the lyrics of the part 'If duty is discarded, this world is darkness' resonated strangely in my heart. If those lyrics hadn't appealed to me, I think I would have returned to Kitami as it was, even while holding dissatisfaction with the decision."
Yoshimura confessed to Nishida again the reason why he changed his mind.
"I see... You were saying something like that earlier too, but is it thanks to Murata Hideo... Along with that old man playing 'Jinsei Gekijo' on a radio-cassette player, we have a connection with 'Jinsei Gekijo.'"
Nishida smiled weakly while patting Yoshimura's shoulder, but—
"But you know... I don't know what will happen from here on, but it's also true that the reason I don't need to take responsibility immediately now is thanks to you and 'Jinsei Gekijo.' What Yoshimura saved wasn't just the Boss's life... Well then, I'll head back first! I'll be waiting at the investigation headquarters until you return."
Nishida conveyed that, then slowly turned his back to Yoshimura and headed for the exit.
If the Boss had died as he was, even if the circumstances of the incident hadn't come out in the open, Nishida would have taken responsibility himself and made the decision to quit the police. He doesn't know what will happen from here on depending on the moves of the Boss and his family. However, the fact that he escaped "instant death" was precisely the wise decision and persuasion of his subordinate, and the help of Murata Hideo's "Jinsei Gekijo"—that was an undeniable fact.
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Arriving at Engaru Station on foot, Nishida had come without checking the timetable, but he was relieved to learn that the Okhotsk No. 5 from Sapporo to Abashiri would arrive at Engaru Station shortly. Depending on the situation, he had also considered the option of returning with Yoshimura after all. If that happened, it would be a bit awkward, but since he needed to return as soon as possible, he couldn't be particular about his pride.
As the arrival time of Okhotsk No. 5 at Engaru approached and the ticket gate opened and he went out onto the platform, Nishida noticed that he had seen Ganbo-iwa for the first time today from the platform. Even though he said he saw it, it was only to the extent of identifying the faint form of Ganbo-iwa floating in the dark night from under the fluorescent lights of the platform...
Today, when he came from Kitami, when he returned to Kitami, when he turned back from Ikutahara, when he carried the Boss to the hospital, when he returned to the Boss's house once, and when he returned to the hospital, and furthermore, when he came from the hospital to the station, he should have had many opportunities to see Ganbo-iwa. However, in every scene, he was thinking about other things or didn't have the composure to pay attention to his surroundings, and he had completely forgotten about Ganbo-iwa.
The other day, while looking at Ganbo-iwa from the platform of Engaru Station on his way back from Sapporo, he had imagined what kind of feelings he would have when looking at Ganbo-iwa when he revisited Engaru to either question or arrest the Boss. But in reality, he hadn't even had that composure until now. And now, looking at Ganbo-iwa standing in the dark night for the first time today, he was thinking that he had never imagined the other day that he would be looking at it in such a state of mind.
In the midst of such thoughts, when he suddenly thrust his hand into his suit pocket, he felt a damp, unpleasant object and pulled it out. Then, the handkerchief he had used to stop the bleeding at the first stage came out. After receiving it from Yoshimura, he had unconsciously put it back in his pocket. Looking at the handkerchief, which had already begun to turn reddish-brown, Nishida looked at Ganbo-iwa once and then quietly put it away again.
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