Chapter 60
Metropolitan Police Department, Senior Superintendent’s Office.
Snow fell in winter. A snow-white Tokyo was wrapped in silver. The sunlight reflected off the snow, creating a dazzling white light that, if looked at for too long, could make one feel blind.
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima pulled his gaze away from the window and continued with his work.
Ring, ring, ring!
The phone rang as if it were a death knell. Senior Superintendent Yoshijima picked up his phone and saw that the caller was his wife.
Normally, his wife wouldn’t disturb him during work hours. Had something happened for her to suddenly call? He answered the phone with a sense of doubt.
“Anata!” his wife’s voice, tinged with a sob, came through the phone. “Echiri is missing!”
(T/N: “Anata” is an intimate term for “you,” often used by wives for their husbands.)
“What?!”
The man shot up. The lack of blood supply from the sudden movement made his head spin and his vision go black. He had to brace himself on the desk to keep from falling.
…
“Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s daughter, Echiri, is missing?”
Inspector Megure had just been feeling relieved that he hadn’t received a call from his old friend Mouri today, thinking he might be able to get off work on time, when he suddenly heard this terrible news.
Yoshijima Echiri, 10 years old, a student at Teitan Elementary School. She came from a well-off family. Her father was a Senior Superintendent at the Metropolitan Police Department, and her mother was a painter.
She had been learning to paint with her mother since she was young. During the winter vacation at Teitan Elementary, while the other students were either forming a Junior Detective League and frequenting crime scenes or having fun and running wild, Yoshijima Echiri was often taken by her mother to paint outdoors or practice sketching in a studio.
“I asked Echiri to paint at home today. I went out to buy groceries to make her something nice. When I came back, Echiri was gone.”
Mrs. Yoshijima wiped her tears and cried. “Echiri is a very well-behaved child. She would never go out alone.”
“But your daughter is already 10 years old,” Mouri Kogoro said, picking up Edogawa Conan, who had insisted on coming to the police station. “This little squirt is in the first grade and he dares to run around at crime scenes.”
Edogawa Conan gave him a half-lidded look. Hey, hey, don’t use me as a bad example.
Mrs. Yoshijima was very firm. “My daughter would never go out by herself.”
“That’s right. Echiri is very obedient and considerate of her parents. She would never disappear without a word,” Senior Superintendent Yoshijima said, his eyes bloodshot. “Her sudden disappearance must be… she must have been kidnapped.”
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s voice was filled with pain. The police officers present all had angry expressions.
The job of a police officer carried the risk of malicious retaliation from criminals. Criminals especially liked to retaliate against family members. There was nothing more heartbreaking than having your own child tortured by a criminal you had arrested.
Inspector Megure: “Have either of you received any message from the kidnapper?”
Kidnapping is just the first step. The long and drawn-out torture that follows is the kidnapper’s favorite part.
First, a photo of the child, then a video, slowly toying with the parents’ hearts, giving them despair yet leaving a small glimmer of hope, and then demanding a high ransom, completely crushing the originally happy family and dragging them into the abyss.
“Not yet,” the couple shook their heads.
No news from the kidnapper was not a good thing. The police needed a breakthrough to find the missing child. Whether it was tracking the kidnapper’s signal or probing with negotiations, they needed the kidnapper to provide a means of contact first.
Officer Sato first persuaded Mrs. Yoshijima to rest. The mother’s nerves were stretched too tight. Inspector Megure, on the other hand, asked Senior Superintendent Yoshijima to recall, “Have you offended anyone recently?”
Edogawa Conan: “Mr. Yoshijima is a Senior Superintendent. He probably hasn’t been on the front lines arresting criminals for a long time. The kidnapper is unlikely to be an ordinary perpetrator.”
A well-reasoned child’s voice echoed in the room. Senior Superintendent Yoshijima had a surprised expression. “Little boy, how did you get in here?”
This sentence alone was enough to prove that Senior Superintendent Yoshijima had indeed not been involved in front-line case-solving for a long time. He dared to question the red side’s external brain, the one true god!
What does a Senior Superintendent know about solving cases!
Not a single person in the First Division responded to Senior Superintendent Yoshijima’s question. Officer Takagi trotted over and closed the meeting room door, firmly interpreting the supreme principle of “Conan is a part of the Metropolitan Police Department family.”
Inspector Megure: “Conan, what do you think?”
“The kidnapper’s focus is probably on Mr. Yoshijima’s identity as a ‘Senior Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Department’,” the great detective deduced. “Besides revenge, kidnapping Miss Echiri could also be a threat.”
“Mr. Yoshijima,” Edogawa Conan pushed up his glasses, a glint of white light flashing across the lenses. “Have you received anything like a threatening letter?”
Senior Superintendent Yoshijima was taken aback, his face suddenly turning pale.
Edogawa Conan was about to ask more when his phone suddenly rang. He glanced at the caller and rushed to the door. “Sorry, I have to take this call.”
He ran into the police station’s bathroom and answered the phone in a stall. “Mr. Amuro?”
“Since you’re calling,” Edogawa Conan’s face was grim, “the one who kidnapped Yoshijima Echiri and is threatening Senior Superintendent Yoshijima must be—”
The Black Organization.
Furuya Rei: “Just as Public Security has planted moles in the organization, the organization has never given up on inserting its own people into the police.”
Coercion and enticement, using any means necessary.
“We have to rescue Yoshijima Echiri,” Furuya said grimly. “This case will be taken over by Public Security.”
…
The snow had piled up to a person’s ankles. One had to wear thick boots when going out. The wind, laced with snowflakes, could turn a person into Santa Claus if they weren’t careful.
Fan An opened her door one second, and was blown back into her apartment by the hallway wind the next. She once again regretted leaving her beloved winter-survival artifact next door.
“Should I knock on the door to get it?” the dark-haired girl hesitated.
On one hand, her ex-boyfriend. On the other, her robber’s mask. A difficult choice.
Knock, knock, knock.
The girl stood at her neighbor’s door, her hands in her pockets, and raised a hand to knock.
My hat probably hasn’t been thrown away… right?
But it was also normal to clean up the traces left by an ex-girlfriend after a breakup. Fan An’s beloved robber’s mask might have already reached the garbage disposal station and been thrown into an incinerator!
Miss An: No—
She pounded on the door, but there was no answer from inside.
“Is he not home?” Fan An lowered her hand.
He probably wasn’t deliberately not opening the door for her. After all, if she knocked a little longer, the door would collapse.
“If I climb over the balcony… no, Hiro locked the balcony door,” Fan An said, disappointed, giving up on the evil idea of illegal entry.
Another day without her winter-survival artifact. The girl sighed and put on a mask, a woolly hat, and earmuffs, and walked out into the snowy wind.
Winter is a good season for tracking and anti-tracking.
The streets were full of suspicious people wrapped up tightly, making it impossible to distinguish between stalkers, paparazzi, and a female celebrity out alone.
The girl strolled past the station, her expression natural. A few young people were gathered by a station billboard, excitedly taking photos. On the poster, a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl watched her pass by.
“When was this poster taken?” Fan An was lost in thought.
It seemed that one day, in the middle of filming, she had been dragged to a photo studio by Director Yuko and the photographer. The flash had gone off non-stop, and she had kept hearing “raise your hand, lower your hand, turn left, turn right.”
Fan An, who was spinning in circles like a top, was speechless. “…”
She had looked mournfully at the blond young man standing beside her. Not only had he not comforted her, but he had also raised his phone. “An’an, look at me.”
She had turned her head. Click.
“Your girlfriend is working overtime and you’re watching a show. How excessive—I’ll forgive you for watching from the sidelines if you make it your lock screen.”
After the shoot, the girl had run over to protest.
Furuya had smiled and showed her his lock screen wallpaper. He had changed it the moment he had taken the photo.
The photographer and Director Yuko had been discussing which photo to use for the poster. After looking at them all, they had actually chosen Furuya’s lock screen.
“Although the camera equipment and lighting are a bit lacking, how should I put it? I just feel like this one is more heart-fluttering,” the photographer had said, rubbing his chin.
The person taking the photo and the person being photographed were looking at each other through the lens. The female lead’s ink-black eyes were tinged with a genuine smile.
“Sorry, this is a private collection,” Furuya had said, shaking his head. “For the poster, it’s better to use a professional’s work.”
Fan An didn’t have the habit of saving her own photos. She looked at the poster at the station and thought of her ex-boyfriend’s lock screen. “He’s probably already changed it… right?”
Has he also deleted the photo?
The girl looked down and unlocked her phone. Her desktop wallpaper was still the cat waiter.
Should I change it?
Fan An stuffed her phone back into her pocket. As she was wandering through the mall, thinking about changing her lock screen, the heating in the mall made her feel stuffy. The girl pulled down her mask a little to breathe.
With her current popularity and fame, pulling down her mask in public was a bit risky. Fan An deliberately lowered her head. At most, only a child who was at her waist height could see her face.
A child probably wouldn’t recognize her. She wasn’t a host of a children’s show, nor had she ever acted in the kids’ favorite magical girl show. Whenever Fan An made a move, it was a one-stop service of murder, arson, robbery, and crime.
Parents probably wouldn’t bring their children when they were watching dramas. Safe.
Fan An, who had lowered her head to breathe, met a pair of sparkling eyes.
A little girl of about 10 was staring at her, her eyes as bright as light bulbs.
Miss An calmly put on her mask, pretending to be just an ordinary passerby of Beika Town, and walked away with a swagger.
“What are you looking at?” the mother, holding the little girl’s hand, asked gently.
“Mom, I want a new dress,” the little girl said, tugging on her mother’s hand and walking towards the children’s clothing section. “I want a beautiful princess dress.”
The moment the sales associate in the children’s clothing section saw the mother and daughter, she came over to greet them. “Would you like to see our new Alice series of princess dresses? They’re very popular. The stock in Yokohama has been completely bought out.”
The mother picked out a few dresses and held them up to the little girl. “Try them all on.”
A ten-year-old child could already change her own clothes. The little girl obediently took the dresses and followed the sales associate to the dressing room.
“Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom,” the little girl said to the sales associate with a shy expression. “Wait a moment, I’ll be back soon!”
Before the sales associate could say anything, the little girl had slipped into the racks of clothes in the children’s clothing section and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Looking at the several expensive princess dresses in her hand and the commission she could get, the sales associate waited patiently.
Running away from the children’s clothing section, the little girl’s expression immediately changed. She looked around anxiously.
Although she had only seen her for a moment, it was definitely that person. The person she watched on TV every day, her favorite person.
“Sister!”
The dark-haired girl was hugged around the waist by a suddenly appearing little girl. She hugged her tightly, her arms trembling with force, like a drowning person clinging to a lifeline.
“Help me,” Yoshijima Echiri said. “That person is not my mother!”