The officers are back. There is a new one. He is older, bigger, looks tough. His name badge says “Suzuki” (bell tree).
“We are investigating the murder of a young, innocent woman.”
Not so innocent. “I know, but I didn’t do it. I could never have done that to Lily.”
“You know what’s strange about you?”
I meet his stare. Go ahead.
“It’s interesting. Normally when a corpse turns up, the friends and family of the victim are determined to believe that it cannot be the body of their loved one. Until formal identification takes place, they will not accept what may be obvious to everyone else. And sometimes even then they do not accept it. In your case, though, there seems to be an unstinting willingness to believe that the body found in Tokyo Bay belonged to your friend, Lily Bridges. Strange.”
I don’t understand him.
“The body wasn’t Lily’s?”
“No, it was not. And yet you were so sure.”
He doesn’t know my track record, the number of corpses scattered through my life, and that this next one seemed natural enough, inevitable even. I wasn’t surprised when I read the newspapers. As soon as her boss had reported her missing, I knew Lily was dead. I don’t mention this, though. It could be used in evidence against me. Found guilty. The accidental serial killer. The serial accidental killer.
“Then whose was it?”
“We don’t know. It’s not identifiable. The newspapers were a bit carried away when they made their assumption that it was Lily Bridges. Of course, it suited you to believe that. Anyone can see you could not have chopped up a whole body in a different part of Tokyo in so little time.”
“Besides that, I didn’t even want to.”
“But you see, the body of your friend was found last night, in an unused shed behind the petrol station, just a couple of minutes from your home.”
I’m beginning to see his point.
“She was strangled.”
What is the stench around me? Is it the decaying flesh of the severed pieces found in the bay? Is it the smell of the shed, in the shadow of my own home, where Lily’s cold body was encased? No, it is the smell of my own vomit.
The police are too professional to let my mishap loosen their glare. I raise my watery eyes apologetically but there is more to come. My friend—the glass of water friend—hands me a metal wastepaper bin just in time and snatches his arm away, though not fast enough to avoid a little splashing.
And I am empty.