Chapter 86 - Name and Reality 9 {Combined 17/18} (38–39, 40–41: Return from Iwate; Takeshita Forced to Correct Article)
"Well, for now, I just want you to listen. I'm currently in Iwate for the investigation, and that 'Abe' from before... it might not be the surname Abe. It might be a word in the local dialect meaning 'Let's go.'"
"Let's go!?"
From Sudo's perspective, it must have sounded like a completely non-sequitur statement, but for Nishida, he had used the English phrase because simply saying "ikimashou" wouldn't distinguish between "let's go" and "let's live." Left with no choice, Nishida carefully explained the circumstances leading up to his call.
"I see. I hadn't even considered anything other than a surname, but it's true that 'Hurry up and abe together' makes sense even as dialect, and if 'my bad habit came out' refers to his accent surfacing, the logic holds up..."
Sudo finally showed agreement with Nishida's theory.
"Until now, we've obsessed over the name Abe and ultimately failed to find a convincing match. But if we filter the list for people from Iwate, something might turn up."
"True, since we've come this far, it's worth a try. The problem is how much to narrow it down... Listing every single person in the Aoi-ikka lineage from the start would be too inefficient."
While agreeing with Nishida's idea, Sudo offered a slight complaint regarding the logistics.
"I can't say for sure how far to go from this end, but considering they committed a major crime together, is it likely they were complete strangers? Wouldn't it be reasonable to narrow the scope to those with some degree of prior relationship, just like before?"
"Umu. Even if they didn't just meet on the spot right before the incident, having someone commit a crime of this magnitude together after only meeting a few days prior carries significant risk... At the very least, they should have been able to speak via phone before coming to Kitami with Kagami, or preferably, have had direct personal acquaintance. And from there, we smoke out those from Iwate. That's the plan, then."
"From my end, investigating that area is difficult given the volume of information. Can I leave that entirely to you?"
When Nishida made the inquiry, Sudo replied,
"Understood... I have no objection to handling that part. However, since it involves birthplaces, it might not be something I can pull from the database instantly. Give me about a few days to a week for the first report."
He approved this point readily.
"OK. I'm counting on you. Oh, by the way, the idea that 'Abe' is a general Iwate dialect is just something I heard from a civilian, so it might be better to confirm with a researcher familiar with Iwate dialects first."
"A researcher? That sounds like a pain... Well, as you say, I'll check it just in case."
Sudo sounded understandably reluctant about that part.
(Author's Note: Since 'Let's go' = Abeha in Yamagata Prefecture and 'Let's go' = Abe in Miyagi Prefecture, the accurate fact is that this usage isn't limited to Iwate. While I will keep the focus on Iwate for the novel's setting, I will acknowledge this as a factual matter.)
When Nishida finished the conversation, Sasaki and Oikawa, who had already returned, asked,
"Are you finished?"
"My apologies. I was just handling some administrative business."
"Yes, we heard from Yoshimura-san."
"I see."
While Nishida had been absorbed in the conversation, Yoshimura had apparently explained to them that it was a call regarding investigative duties.
"Well then, since your call is finished, is it alright to head out?"
At Oikawa's question, Yoshimura interrupted, ignoring the other man's words.
"But man, these are delicious."
It was his impression of the unusual karintou, offered just as he stood up to leave, popping one into his mouth.
Oikawa could only manage a polite smile.
"Ah, they are tasty; I like them too. Well then, shall we depart after Yoshimura-san finishes eating...?"
It was a minor miracle that a man as gluttonous as Yoshimura hadn't touched them until now, but Nishida felt that if Yoshimura hadn't noticed the "Abe" hidden in the conversation, they might have continued making a terrible mistake. In that sense, Nishida felt that Yoshimura was, as always, a man who possessed a certain kind of luck. Of course, it wasn't yet certain that the meaning of "Abe" was truly the dialect, but it was a fact that Nishida already felt something akin to conviction.
Afterward, guided by Sasaki and Oikawa, they went to see Sanno-iwa in the northern part of Taro Bay. Nishida was taken aback when he realized they were going on foot rather than by car, but the distance wasn't actually that far via the promenade. The Sanno-iwa that soon came into view was indeed an imposing rock; Sasaki told them it was 50 meters high. The strange rock formation standing tall by the coast was reminiscent of "Ganbo-iwa" from Nishida's days working at the Engaru Station. Of course, the difference was that this was on the coast while Engaru was inland.
Sanno-iwa Reference: http://amby.but.jp/kitatoho/tarou.htm
Ganbo-iwa Reference: http://pucchi.net/hokkaido/trippoint/ganbouiwa.php
"What a magnificent sight!"
Nishida let out a cry of admiration as he looked up from below.
"The lower part of the striped pattern is a Cretaceous stratum. It dates back roughly a hundred million years."
Even hearing Sasaki's explanation, the two of them didn't quite grasp the scale, but Nishida remarked,
"In our hometown, we have natural rock formations like Sounkyo and Ganbo-iwa, but a rock this thick towering this high from the sea surface... even in Hokkaido, there are almost... no, probably none like it."
"Indeed, there aren't many places in Japan where a massive block of rock stands this high from the sea surface."
Sasaki spoke with a hint of pride.
After spending time strolling around with the two guides, the four of them climbed to the top of the seawall on their way back to the town office. There were stairs, but they chose to walk up the slope like a mountain trail. Atop the seawall was a small path wide enough for a single car, similar to a river levee. However, because it was 10 meters high, the view of the Sanriku sea from above was quite excellent, even under the cloudy sky. It was a bit of a shame the temperature was low, but fortunately, the wind wasn't very strong, so the perceived temperature didn't drop any further.
"From Taro Station to the office, I couldn't see the sea well because of the sea 'wall,' but looking from up here, it feels like I can see quite far."
Yoshimura said, looking truly refreshed as he stretched his arms toward the sky.
"Thanks to this seawall, we can live in peace. During the Chilean earthquake, when a great tsunami came from the other side of the planet, while other municipalities around Sanriku suffered damage, this seawall completely shut out the tsunami. It was constructed with a long-term perspective dating back to before the war; though public works are often criticized lately, this is a classic example of one that truly benefits the residents."
Perhaps conscious of the frequent modern criticism of "public works," Nishida felt that Sasaki, as a town official, emphasized the word "benefits."
In any case, as Yoshimura said, there was the obvious difference between before and after visiting the office, and before and after climbing the seawall, but the difference in the scenery reflected in their eyes seemed to symbolize the change in the situation Nishida and his partner were in. The "wall" from before they visited the office had now turned into a high vantage point with a clear view. To Nishida, it felt strangely consistent with the state of the investigation.
Afterward, they headed directly to Taro Station without returning to the office. At the station, Sasaki and Oikawa each gave them a bag of those karintou as a souvenir. Seeing them off until the very end, Nishida and Yoshimura returned to Miyako Station via the Sanriku Railway Kita-Riasu Line. They then had lunch in front of Miyako Station.
During that time, their conversation was dominated by the new development regarding the "Abe" remark left on Kitamura's tape. For the past seven years, they had taken the meaning of Abe to be a surname, and simultaneously, the investigation had stalled, hitting a wall. However, if that culprit's remark was a word born from the accent of his birthplace, the situation was clearly different. While it depended on Sudo's investigation, there was no doubt that a new hope had appeared.
Then, they boarded the intercity bus from Miyako Station bound for Morioka Station. Right after departing, Nishida finally told Yoshimura what had been on his mind.
"But man, how did you notice the Abe thing from that remark? I was focused on tasting those weirdly shaped karintou. That's too impressive for a glutton like you!"
"Nah, normally I'd be focused on the food, but the girl who brought the karintou was a real beauty, so I was distracted by her. Plus, she was busty, so my eyes were completely glued there. Then I saw her name tag said Oikawa or something. Despite that, I heard the word Abe twice in their conversation. It felt strangely out of place. To be honest, I didn't really understand the content of the conversation itself, so there was a possibility that a third party named Abe was involved... but I thought it was better to ask just in case..."
Hearing that, Nishida was appalled and half-exasperated to find that his initial "concern" about Yoshimura had been exactly right.
"What, so that's what it was after all... Sigh, I wasted my praise!"
Nishida said this, then took an eye mask from his bag, reclined his seat, and began to sulk-sleep.
"Oh? Section Chief, are you mad?"
Nishida didn't react to Yoshimura's words and remained in his sulking-sleep position. Needless to say, Yoshimura's achievement this time was not at a level that would be shaken by such a thing, and Nishida was more satisfied with the result than he was disappointed in his subordinate's pathetic nature, but he stayed silent for the sake of future discipline.
They arrived at Morioka Station in about two hours and immediately transferred to the bus for Hanamaki Airport. By the time the plane from Hanamaki Airport touched down at New Chitose Airport, it was already dusk.
From the airport, they debated whether to enter Sapporo via JR or highway bus, but since JR was faster, they took the train. However, neither of them rode all the way to Sapporo Station; they transferred to the Sapporo Municipal Subway Tozai Line at Shin-Sapporo Station and headed for their respective family homes.
Nishida got off at Maruyama Koen Station, while Yoshimura rode further to Nijuyonken Station. Since it was slightly off the peak of the evening rush, the subway and the bus from Maruyama Koen weren't that crowded, but he certainly felt the larger number of people compared to Kitami.
At home, his wife Yuka was waiting with dinner ready. His daughter Mika was in her adolescence, a difficult age. She just gave a blunt "Welcome back" and went straight to her room. Knowing it was useless to react to every attitude of a rebellious daughter, Nishida devoted himself to listening to his wife's complaints over a drink.
Apparently, women have a special ability to relieve stress just by having someone listen to them. Men, on the other hand, don't get stress relief just from being heard. In fact, mostly meaningless chatter can sometimes even become a source of stress.
After playing the listener for a while, he looked through today's Doho morning edition before checking the evening paper. Needless to say, he first looked for Takeshita's article. Today's article was a chronological explanation of the situation on the day the mine accident occurred, from morning until the moment of the explosion.
According to the schedule, the series was to run until Sunday, as mentioned in Monday's article, so there would be two more parts: Saturday and Sunday, May 26th, the anniversary of the accident.
The next day, Saturday, May 25th. Nishida and Yoshimura, having met at Sapporo Station, were about to board the Okhotsk No. 3 bound for Abashiri. Perhaps due to fatigue, Nishida had slept soundly until after 8:00 AM when his wife woke him, so he had hurriedly wolfed down breakfast to make it in time. Consequently, he had no time to read the newspaper and bought it at the station before boarding the limited express.
Being Saturday, the train was more crowded than on weekdays, but Yoshimura, perhaps still lacking sleep, surrendered himself to the comfortable, rhythmic vibrations of the rails and dozed off occasionally. Nishida read the newspaper, trying not to make noise when turning the pages so as not to disturb Yoshimura's sleep.
The content of Takeshita's article, the penultimate installment, was about the possibility that there might have been one mysterious victim in addition to the 112 officially announced victims.
For the demolition work, blasting technicians had been called from the "Kitano-o Gold Mine" in Ikutahara and the "Konomai Gold Mine" in Mombetsu. The article began by explaining that while the Kitano-o technician, who was scheduled to arrive in the afternoon just before the demolition, escaped harm, the Konomai technician, who had been there since the morning, was caught right in the middle of it.
The problem was the content that followed. At the gruesome explosion site where the beach was stained with fresh blood and filled with screams of agony, most of the bodies caught in the blast were naturally not in a recognizable state, making individual identification extremely difficult. The death toll might have simply been based on people who were known to be at the scene and never appeared afterward.
On the other hand, among those present, it was said that one member of the four-man Konomai technician group actually remained missing after the accident. The article suggested that perhaps the death toll was not the official record of 112, but rather 113.
Of course, when he met Takeshita in Kitami, he had heard most of the general content of the reporting, so he should have known the gist of the article, but there were parts that had largely slipped from his memory.
"Hmm... Unlike now, there was no DNA testing, and there were hardly any dentists, so identification from dental records would have been tough. Even if they tried to match fingerprints left in their homes before they died, they wouldn't have had enough personnel. It must have been hard."
Nishida muttered such commonplace impressions to himself like a monologue, then moved his eyes to other articles.
After passing Asahikawa, Yoshimura woke up and said he wanted to read the newspaper, so Nishida handed it over and moved to the adjacent seat across the aisle, which happened to be empty, passing the time by looking at the scenery outside the window. After passing Kamikawa, the train continued through dense forests and mountainous areas far from human habitation.
After crossing the Joushi Signal Station, the summit of the Sekihoku Main Line and a passing point for up and down trains on the single track, the Okhotsk No. 3 proceeded down a gentle slope toward Engaru, weaving through the small settlement of Shirataki Village (as of 2002; now the Shirataki district of Engaru Town due to merger) and the river that seemed to carve through the cliffs.
And finally, as the train slid into Engaru Station, the direction of travel would reverse, so Nishida and Yoshimura each rotated their seats to face forward.
"I'm stepping out onto the platform for a bit!"
Calling out to Yoshimura, Nishida got off the carriage, taking advantage of the somewhat long stop. There was no particular reason to get off, but he felt like breathing the outside air and, perhaps influenced by the "Sanno-iwa" he saw yesterday, he wanted to look directly and carefully at Ganbo-iwa, which was clearly visible from the Engaru Station platform, rather than through a window.
When they left Sapporo, the coolness had been just right, but immediately after stepping out the door, he shivered slightly. The temperature was probably about the same as in Sanriku yesterday. It was chilly with just a suit jacket.
Even after transferring from Engaru Station, Nishida had passed through several times, but he hadn't gazed at Ganbo-iwa as intently as he did during his working days. Perhaps because of that, the view from the edge of the platform gave the impression of it being taller than he remembered. The natural "lookout" that the Ainu once used to scout for enemies was still there, unchanged from when Nishida used to see it daily. Before the flow of eternal natural time, seven years is but a fleeting moment. The fifteen-year statute of limitations for a murder case is likely not much different. However, for the current Nishida, even that moment was a time he could not afford to overlook.
Immersed in such thoughts, the few minutes of stopping time passed in a flash. He couldn't afford to be left behind, so as the direction changed, he jogged from what was the rear to what was now the lead carriage.
"Senior Staff, huh? You didn't buy anything? I was sure you were going to stock up on ekiben."
Yoshimura was surprised to see Nishida return empty-handed... or rather, he was clearly dissatisfied. Come to think of it, it was indeed past 1:00 PM, a perfect time for lunch.
"Ah, I messed up!"
He clicked his tongue reflexively, but it was too late. That said, he could buy something from the onboard sales, or since it wouldn't take even an hour to reach Kitami, he decided he could just wait until they got back.
"It's fine to wait until we get to Kitami, right?"
"Well, I'm not that hungry, so that's fine, but..."
Yoshimura said this, but his tone suggested he wasn't convinced. Afterward, the two of them got off at Kitami Station, finished lunch at a diner in front of the station, and went straight to the Kitami Regional HQ.
"Good work, everyone."
As soon as he entered the Violent Crimes Unit room, he exchanged greetings with colleagues and subordinates.
"How was Iwate?"
Since Team Leader Onga was off, Senior Staff Kusaka, who was on the same investigation team, was the first to speak up.
"Even though it's Honshu, it was actually quite cold. About the same as here today, I'd say."
"I see. Since it's northern Tohoku, I suppose that's not so strange."
"No, the first day felt pretty good, warm weather... it was a bit cloudy, but that's how it felt."
Nishida said this while handing out souvenirs to his subordinates. Calling them souvenirs was a bit of a stretch, as they were things he had hurriedly bought at Hanamaki Airport; it was debatable whether they could be called souvenirs in the true sense. However, considering that "Kamome no Tamago," a specialty of Ofunato, came from the city they had visited, he held an internal excuse that they were indeed local sweets, even if the place of purchase was different...
He thought after boarding the plane that he should have bought more of the "karintou" he received in Taro, rather than just the ones given to him. Since Nishida and Yoshimura had each left the one bag they received at their family homes, there were none left to give to their colleagues in Kitami.
Sunday, May 26th. On this day, the 60th anniversary of the "Yubetsu Mine Accident" that occurred on May 26, 1942 (Showa 17), the serialized articles by Takeshita and his team reached their final publication. Takeshita had been at the Mombetsu branch office since early morning. Today, he planned to cover the memorial ceremony itself along with Hamada. He had come to the branch partly to prepare for that. And he was checking their article in today's morning edition.
Today, the final day of the series, was a summary of how the accident from 60 years ago connected to the present, a fitting conclusion. Faced with the fact that an incident not widely known to the general public was fading further from memory, the piece concluded by considering how to pass it on across generations, including other events during the war. The article about today's memorial ceremony itself was scheduled to be published separately in tomorrow's morning edition.
While he felt he had summarized it well from Monday to Sunday, Takeshita also had some points of dissatisfaction. As a reporter, "fact-checking" should always be the "basic of basics" before reporting, but he felt that it was weak this time.
This was because, besides the incident not being very well-known to begin with, the wall of 60 years meant that testimonies and grasp of the facts were insufficient. Also, being a branch with few reporters, he had to write various other articles, which meant he couldn't concentrate solely on this one.
Even so, he felt uneasy about proceeding with the writing based mainly on information from Professor Ouchi of Kitami Seiyo University for such a significant article. After all, it wasn't information Professor Ouchi had investigated directly himself, but rather he had just inherited the results of the investigation done decades ago by his predecessor, Professor Takada.
Tossing the newspaper lightly onto the desk, Takeshita stood up from his chair and looked out at the Sea of Okhotsk from the office window. Although the temperature was quite low for the end of May, the weather was clear, and he could see far into the distance.
"The weather shouldn't be a problem."
As he walked to the window, he suddenly put his hand to his chin. When he washed his face in the morning, the stubble he should have shaved with his electric shaver pricked the pad of his thumb. Though he thought he had shaved properly, it seemed he had missed some.
"I guess a rush job on the shaving is no good either... I have to do it properly with a T-shaped razor..."
Takeshita muttered this, checking his chin by running his finger back and forth several times.
"Takeshita-san, shouldn't we head out soon?"
When Hamada prompted him, Takeshita replied,
"Right. Let's get going then,"
and slung his bag strap over his shoulder.
Monday, May 27th. Takeshita was off this day and was idly watching the midday news on commercial TV. However, he suddenly received a call on his mobile from Desk Kumada.
"Did some accident happen in the jurisdiction?"
He answered hurriedly, only to be immediately scolded.
"Hey, apparently a complaint about the serialized article came into the main office!"
"Eh—is it about my mine accident piece?"
"Yeah, of course it is!"
"I see... regarding what?"
"Explanations later! Anyway, come here right now! Got it!?"
Saying that unilaterally, the call was cut off.
"I guess my bad feeling was right..."
With a grimace, he immediately began preparing to go out. Fortunately, the branch office was only about a five-minute walk away. That was a help.
When he entered the room, Hamada was already standing in front of Desk Kumada's desk. Since he was working today, he must have been called in long ago.
"Hello."
After greeting the other reporters, he went before Kumada, and the Desk tapped a paper on the desk with his finger, prompting him to "take a good look." Receiving it, Takeshita took the paper in his hand. At a quick glance, it seemed to be from the City Editor at the main office.
"Well?"
Kumada asked suddenly, but Takeshita hadn't grasped the crucial problem yet.
"I haven't seen the contents yet."
"Read it quickly!"
Kumada's irritated voice echoed in the room.