“You can call me, er… Mr. F,” Feng Bujue added.
“You mother…” Tachibana cursed as he stalked toward Feng Bujue. From the way he acted, it seemed like he was about to deliver some physical punishment. Doctor Watanabe held the officer back as he turned to ask Feng Bujue, “Mr. F, do you know where Officer Yamada’s body is buried?”
“No clue,” Feng Bujue answered. “I have no idea who Yamada is, but I have a broad guess of what has happened.”
“Is that so? Then, Mr. F, does Hirata know of your existence?” Watanabe asked.
“Before this… he shouldn’t have known of my presence… but now, I’m not sure,” Feng Bujue replied. “I only have fleeting memories of the crimes Hirata committed, so would you allow me to ask you some questions, Doctor Watanabe?”
“Doc! The b*stard is again trying to fool us! He’s making this disorder up to escape the judgement of law!”
“Discerning whether our patient is faking a mental illness or not is my job, officer,” Watanabe said placatingly. “Please have faith in me and let me do my job.”
“Tsk…” Tachibana wandered out of Feng Bujue’s sight and stood in the back corner. Then, Feng Bujue heard him light a cigarette.
Watanabe sighed and asked Feng Bujue, “What are your questions?”
“Hmm… Have I been looking at recordings?” Feng Bujue asked.
“Yes,” Watanabe answered.
“Why was I looking at recordings?”
Watanabe looked into Feng Bujue’s eyes. He paused to arrange his thoughts before answering, “After you… no, after Hirata-san was captured, he presented a severe case of hallucination. He insisted that he had not killed anyone.”
The doctor paused momentarily. “He told the police that the only thing he killed was a monster.”
“So, you’re here to assess whether Hirata really suffer from a mental breakdown or not?” Feng Bujue asked.
“Yes.”
“What are the videos that I was shown?”
“Those were taken with the help of the police. They are reconstructions of the vital moments,” Watanabe replied.
“You showed me them in reverse?” Feng Bujue asked.
Watanabe was startled. “Yes, the reversing of the event has been shown to help awaken the memory…”
Before he finished, Feng Bujue interrupted him. “Do you mind showing me the videos in chronological order?”
Watanabe shared a look with Tachibana. The latter was still at the height of his fury, so he merely nodded. Watanabe walked to the table and pressed a few buttons on the projector. The pictures started to move again.
“Doctor, do you mind removing this tape. At least allow me the freedom of blinking,” Feng Bujue requested.
“Sure,” Watanabe agreed. He did not want to do that in the beginning anyway. It was because whenever they showed the videos the Hirata earlier, the latter would keep struggling and screaming while screwing his eyes shut, so it was Officer Tachibana who came up with this ’ingenious’ idea.
Feng Bujue arranged the thoughts in his mind, but he needed more evidence to support his supposition. The video started playing again. The pictures were shown in black and white. There was no audio to the recording. Other than the creaking of the projector, there was no other sound. Then again, no other sound was needed.
The content of the recording was very simple and actually very short. They showed only a few important snippets of the event to help the crazed Hirata remember details of his supposed crimes. The actors were all people from law enforcement, and it was Doctor Watanabe who acted as the cameraman.
The first part of the recording was at Hirata’s company. The camera began by showing Hirata’s desk. Then, the camera moved to the stairwell, where a man and woman pretended to be kissing. Finally, the camera moved to the toilet, where two men smoked and chatted.
“This part of the video was reconstructed with the testimony from two of Hirata’s co-workers.” Watanabe provided the explanation. “They said that Hirata overheard their conversation in the toilet that day, and that might have been the trigger of his murders.”
Feng Bujue focused on the recording, and he nodded in agreement. The second part started soon after, and it was the most crucial part.
The camera first panned around the western manor and focused on the address on the gate—Rokubancho, No. 4-5. The front of the manor was a large garden. The next scene moved inside the manor, the spacious living room, and the stairs that led to the second floor. The third scene happened inside the room where Feng Bujue encountered the monster. The sequence of events that happened here was: an officer who acted in the role of Hirata gripped a fake pistol and burst into the room. A female officer who acted as Haruko was lying in bed. The other officer played the manager. When he saw the man walk in with the gun, he scurried up in bed in a panic. As he mumbled something, he walked around the bed, trying to grab at the gun. Then, the actor who played Hirata in the recording opened fire and shot the man.
“That was basically how the crime went down, and there were no witnesses…” Watanabe turned to look at Feng Bujue. “The testimony given by Hirata-san cannot be used, so we could only hazard a guess at the sequence of events based on our assessment of the crime scene.”
“By the way, the name of the victim is…” Feng Bujue asked.
“Fukui Shinichiro.” Officer Tachibana’s throaty growl came from the back. “He was your immediate superior at the company.”
The recording soon reached the third part, and it showed the officer who acted as Hirata asking for directions from a random person on the road.
“According to the witness,” Watanabe explained, “that day, Hirata approached her to ask for directions to San-chome. Initially, everything was fine, but suddenly, Hirata showed signs of a panic attack. It’s my professional opinion that Hirata’s mental state then was already collapsing. He had not only forgotten his own address but had started to suffer from hallucinations.”
The recording then showed a long house. Hirata’s actor walked into it and closed the door. Then, an officer bent down to knock on the door.
“Hirata’s neighbor, an old lady heard Hirata yelling through the night,” Watanabe added, “so she decided to go knock on his door to check up on him, but Hirata said that it wasn’t him who was yelling.
“However, the old lady saw something strange through the gap, and she quickly returned to call the police.
“When the police arrived, they discovered Haruko’s body hanging from the roof beam while Hirata sipped tea at the table calmly. The police also found the gun assigned to Officer Yamada that had disappeared not too long ago.”
The recording ended then, and the room fell into a temporary silence. It was Tachibana who broke the silence. “So, Mr. F, are you satisfied now? Quickly give us the location of Yamada and admit your crimes.
“Or… are you going to pretend that you’ve lost your memory again and are now actually Mr. A or Mr. B?”
Feng Bujue ignored him as he fell into deep thought. After five whole minutes, he asked, “What date is it today?”