Shibata held the open magazine in front of her as she strolled past the station, reading with a wrinkled brow the astrological predictions for her birthday. "An ideal time for great fortune in love. The person of your destiny is certain to appear. This is your greatest chance for romance!" An involuntary smile fired by faith brightened her excited face while she spoke to herself as though nothing but the magazine existed. "Ah, it hasn't happened yet. The direction is north?" She lowered the periodical and squinted out past the solemn faces that ambled past her on the sidewalk. "North, north, north," she breathed to herself, spinning around with fervor to each opposing direction. "North, north," she repeated, stopping before a fountain to retrieve a compass from her tote bag. Finally, she smiled with dreamy rapture, having located the proper direction and moving determinedly to it. "This way," she pointed. "The person of my destiny. Before the day is through. The man of my destiny..."

She got only a few paces before stopping dead in her tracks, for there in the distance was the Metropolitan Police Headquarters. Her discomposure tightened her face, but she resolved to continue forward. "The man of my destiny," she repeated. "The man of my destiny..."

The next day, against a backdrop of Taniguchi's professionally reserved complaining on the telephone, Nonomura sat reading the same magazine. "The greatest disaster of your life will befall you," said his horoscope. The assistant section chief frowned as he lowered the periodical of dire prophecy. "The greatest disaster of my life..."

On the alotted space in front of him on the desk cluster, Mayama was scrunched toward the countertop, delicately constructing a miniature skyscraper out of matchsticks. His earnest effort had stacked the structure nearly a hand's length high before Aya came hauling a goliath stack of thick binders, which she heaved down in front of him, demolishing his matchstick architecture. He shot her a dirty look. "Sorry," she sighed shortly, pushing herself up from the pile. "Hey, where's Shibata?"

"Don't ask me," said Mayama irritably.

"Ah, she had an unexcused absence yesterday," Kondoh interjected, leaning in the direction of the clock on the opposite wall. "She seems to be missing today, as well. She'll be already five hours late as it is."

"Well, then?" Aya said to Mayama, putting a pouty face in front of him as if expecting him to know something.

"I don't fuckin' know," he said.

Nonomura began to tell them to concern themselves with their own affairs, but his decree was cut short by a sudden eruption from Taniguchi. "This is bullshit! Quit jerking me around, I'm not here for my damn health!" he growled into the telephone, followed shortly by, "Oh--! Excuse me--" He stood, but the line had already gone dead. "Hello? Dammit..."

"What happened?" Nonomura asked.

"All I got was the damn run around from these people," Taniguchi said.

"They'll be going through public relations to make a complaint to the heads of First Department right about now," Kondoh supposed from behind his computer monitor.

"I'd send a letter to the editor, if it was me," said Aya.

"In the end, it could just create problems for the chief," said Mayama, holding a cigarette beside his face.

As Taniguchi apologized, at the other end of the room, someone had entered unnoticed.

Nonomura told Taniguchi he ought to be more careful, and the latter seated himself in his usual position opposite Kondoh. Kondoh himself changed the subject with a quiet and tentative suggestion. "Shouldn't we have called Miss Shibata?"

"Yeah, we better," Mayama nodded, "For all we know she could be dying somewhere."

"That's not likely," chuckled Nonomura.

Aya shifted a little in the vaguely ominous atmosphere. "Yeah, well, I'd better go call her anyway," she said, scratching her head and removing a cell phone from her breast pocket.

Meanwhile, a shaggy head was moving in between the bookshelves.

As soon as Aya had dialed the number, the light reverberation of another telephone sounded from somewhere in the office. The men turned their heads inquisitively while Aya held the receiver to her face. "Ah...hello?"

A low moan echoed throughout the library as Shibata emerged from behind the bookshelves.

She shuffled forward, looking numb and beaten. "What the hell do ya think you're doing, kid?" Aya said, holding her phone and slipping her free arm around Shibata's.

"Aya," Shibata moaned.

"Huh."

"I'll never fall in love, ever in my life," Shibata cried, slumping onto the sofa in tearful despondence.

"Hah?"

"Yesterday was the end of my youth," Shibata told her, removing the magazine with the English title My Birthday from her bag and holding the pages up for display. She ripped the magazine apart with lachrymose vigour. "Goodbye, my destiny..." she grimaced. "...My husband..."

"Eh, Shibata!" came Nonomura's voice from behind.

Shibata jumped to her feet to face him, stoic in her dejection. "I'll make a fresh start from today onward," she promised. "I'll never be late again!" Her oily hair hung limp from her bowed head, and when she rose she thrust a large crustacean at her chief. "I brought you a souvenir."

"Uh, a hair crab?" Nonomura accepted the strange creature with befuddlement.

"Yes," Shibata said softly, just before the policewoman in the doorway suddenly made her presence known. "Entering!" All heads turned toward her before she continued. "Has come for a consultation regarding a case from October of the year before last."

"Year before last?" said Mayama to Kondoh, who looked at him questioningly. Nonomura left the crustacean on his desk and invited in the client, a wrathful woman who promptly stormed through the door in enraged insistence. "How long do I have to wait!" she shouted. "Haven't you found my husband yet!?"

"Uh oh, it's the psycho bitch," said Kondoh at the desk cluster. Taniguchi flinched similarly, turning away as he winced, "Not again." Aya politely excused herself and tiptoed out past the enraged client, leaving the Keizoku department to fend for itself. Shibata stood with hands clasped behind her back, and her face free of anticipation or judgement.

"We are presently in the midst of work on that case," Nonomura explained to the woman as they stood at the sofas.

"That," said the woman, "is what you said last month. You were supposed to have a hold on it this month!"

"Excuse me, but what is the case?" Shibata asked.

The woman raked Shibata with her incensed eyes. "What the hell're you?"

"Er...I'm Shibata."

The woman looked over Shibata from head to toe. "Field trip?"

"I'm a detective!" Shibata beamed.

Mayama, Kondoh, and especially Taniguchi, looked on with unpleasant expressions as the upset client continued her diatribe. "Word is going around that he might have been murdered. So it must be that he's been murdered or will be!"

"But, there's no evidence indicating that he has been murdered," Nonomura objected, wringing his hands while Shibata shadowed his movements beside him. "No one has discovered a corpse, first off..."

"For your information, my husband has been missing and unaccounted for. There's a band of hooligans coming to push us around quite a lot, and one of my husband's friends already wound up in the river!"

"Hmm, then it may be that he could be murdered," Nonomura admitted, with less sympathy than the woman was expecting. "Hm?"

The woman slammed her open hand on the table, and quickly shook the pain out of her hand as she stood up to glower with rage at Nonomura.

"I'm sorry," said Nonomura.

"I'm sorry," echoed Shibata.

"Well! Isn't this where the main branch told me to go?!"

"Did they say that?"

"Why the hell isn't anyone investigating? Is that too much to ask?!"

"Er, I don't believe the department for the investigation has been instituted as of yet," said Shibata.

"Well! Aren't you going to get on the investigation, right now!"

"Yes," Shibata nodded.

Nonomura frantically attempted to remain noncommittal. "Uh-er-the data is now being sorted and distributed as we speak--"

"I'm going to make a public complaint on television," the woman declared with an emphatic nod. "Absolutely!" With a harsh flip of the chin, she stormed out. Nonomura scurried after her in a vain attempt to dissuade her. She only flipped her bobbed head around once more, to affirm that she was quite serious, before she was gone for good.

Nonomura helplessly watched her spectre disappear. "The most serious disaster of my life," he ruminated.

"As bad as this?" asked Mayama from the desk cluster.

Nonomura and Shibata took a cab to that woman's apartment that evening. As they sat in the back, Nonomura instructing the driver to turn left at the next traffic light and such, Shibata made an observation that struck Nonomura as extremely inappropriate. "Ahmm..."

"Hm?" he grunted.

"What does 'chinko' mean?" she asked, using a slang term for the penis.

Nonomura intoned Shibata's name in a rather remprimanding tone.

"Over there," she said, pointing out the window. There atop a building was a red neon sign with a gap before the bold katakana that spelled out CHINKO.

"Oh, that," Nonomura explained, chuckling slightly, "That's a sign for Pachinko, but the 'pa' is broken."

"Ah, what a surprise!" Shibata cried, then slumped to the side. "Here I thought it was a man's thing."

"Shibata!"

The apartment building where the woman lived was a contemporary structure with red brick trim that was vaguely distinguishable in the glow of the outdoor lamps that fought the darkness. "Here it is," said Nonomura.

"Looks like she's not in," said Shibata, pressing her face to the door as if attempting to peer through the peephole.

Nonomura checked the mailbox next to the door. "Well, for now," he said, removing a business card from his wallet, "Just to let her know we've come, I'll leave my card." He scrawled a short apology alongside the characters that decorated the face of the card in a vertical column.

Several days later, he scratched off a set of threes on his lottery ticket and shook it excitedly at his underlings in the basement office. "I won!" he exclaimed with glee. "I won I won I won!"

"How much did you win?" asked Taniguchi, rising from his desk.

"Three thousand yen," said Nonomura.

Mayama snickered and returned to his book. Taniguchi uttered a puzzled falsetto grunt.

"It's not a question of the amount," Nonomura said, getting up to stand before the desk cluster with the ticket in one hand and the ill-prophetic magazine in the other. "It's a question of the pattern."

"What pattern?" asked Kondoh.

"If the most serious disaster of my life is coming as predicted," Nonomura said, holding up the magazine, "I wouldn't have the good fortune of winning even three thousand," he said, indicating the lottery ticket. "In other words, this is a sign that my luck is changing."

"The pattern...?" Shibata mused, slowly turning her head to look at Mayama sitting opposite her. "Of course." A faint, dreamy smile at the grouchy man with his face in his book began to spread over Shibata's face.

Then the phone rang, and Nonomura answered with a jubilant grin. "Maybe I won a hundred million yen this time. Hello?" But his elation quickly fell away upon hearing the voice on the other end. "Ah, Administrator Saotome?"

"Turn on your television," Saotome told him brusquely. "Channel six, channel six!"

The angry woman who had come to the basement office several days ago was there on the screen, holding a tissue to her weeping face, behind superimposed characters which read "Psychic Abilities Special." As the host discussed the woman's great problem, everyone in Keizoku's basement office scooted toward the television to watch the afternoon talk show. Nonomura's face was set in an expression of sour shock.

"I went to the police, but they were no help at all," the woman wept. "I had a terrible experience. The other day, their business card was just thrown into my mailbox."

"This one?" said the host's assistant, displaying a king-sized replica of Nonomura's business card and handwritten message.

"Yes," the weeping woman continued, "This is from the Second Chapter of investigations, who therefore are supposed to specialize in complicated cases, but actually..."

Shibata, sitting very close to the screen, pressed her lips together, nearly chewing them. Kondoh gaped at Nonomura, who clutched the telephone receiver with a dreadful face. Taniguchi shook his head, grimacing, and Mayama, behind the desk, smirked in utter amazement.

"Hello?" Nonomura said to Saotome.

"What the hell kind of treatment did you give her?" Saotome demanded, as the television in the background continued to broadcast an account of how terribly the woman had been treated.

"We'll go to TTS, right away," said Nonomura.

In the TTS studio, the host welcomed his guest. "Joining us now is renowned psychic Master Saginuma Hijiri, whom we believe can use his spiritual abilities to seek out Mrs Aoi's husband. Master Saginuma, welcome."

The studio audience applauded as the lights were lowered and the psychic made his dramatic entrance, accompanined by a grandiose music score and a theatrical column of smoke that spilled over him and flooded the studio. The young man seated himself with weighty silence.

"Master Saginuma, can you search for this woman's husband?" the host asked.

"Yes," said the young psychic. He was presented with a photograph of the gentleman named Aoi, and he took it earnestly in his manicured hands. He held his fist gently to his forehead, and then opened his hand to spread his palm before the photograph, closing his eyes hard in concentration. All light bulbs in the studio burst, sprinkling tiny shards of glass onto staff and audience alike.

"Amazing!" said Shibata, captivated by the spectacle on her portable TV set as she and Mayama traversed by taxi toward the studio.

Mayama sniggered. "That shit is fake. Don't you know that? It's fake." The host continued, amazed by the force of Saginuma's supernatural powers, and Mayama scoffed. "Supernatural powers, my ass."

"But there are all kinds of things in the world that reason cannot explain!" Shibata blurted out defensively, with surprising force.

"Oh? I'm surprised you actually believe in that, that supernatural stuff."

"Can't I?" she murmured.

In the studio, the psychic finally opened his eyes, laying the photograph down in front of him. "Master Saginuma, have you sensed something?" asked the host.

Saginuma placed his hands together gravely. "Dressed in yellow clothing," he said. "I see her husband."

Mrs Aoi sighed anxiously as the psychic rose from the table and began to walk out of the studio. TTS staff armed with cameras followed closely behind. "Master Saginuma has begun to stir," the host announced, "He seems to have discovered Mr Aoi's whereabouts..."

Mayama was asleep in the back of the taxi, as Shibata continued to stare with engagement at her tiny screen. "We now go to Miss Takanashi, reporting from just outside our studio. Miss Takanashi--!"

The psychic donned his overcoat as he marched out into the parking lot. "Takanashi here. Master Saginuma has directed us to our mobilization arrangement. Ah, he is now on his way," the reporter said, as the psychic and the two men from the television station moved past her. "I believe he would like us to depart with him at this time."

Saginuma opened the back doors of the TTS van and climbed inside.

Shibata twisted in her seat abruptly, whipping Mayama in the neck with the television antenna. "Should we go to the studio or follow the relay van??"

Mayama pushed the antenna away from his dozing face. "Studio."

Shibata turned back to her screen for an instant, then back to smack Mayama in the cheek with the antenna, insisting, "What if he finds the dead body?"

"That is not going to happen," said Mayama, pushing the antenna aside once more. Shibata stared at him with wide eyes for only a second before returning to engrossment in the program.

Saginuma, whose face was like stone, sat in the van beside the reporter Takanashi, surrounded by cameras and video screens. "Warehouse... no... a white... I see a white building... It's here." He suddenly opened his eyes and forced his way into the front seat. "To the east!"

"Master Saginuma, could you have found the missing Mr Aoi?" the host asked from the studio.

The air was split by the distant helicopter's propeller overhead as Saginuma flung the van's doors open and marched toward the building. "Something will happen... if we don't stop..."

"Master Saginuma seems to have sensed something else!" Takanashi narrated, following the psychic into the lobby with the rest of the crew. The psychic stopped in the stairwell, looked down and then up as far as he could see, pronouncing that they should move upward.

"He indeed seems to have indicated we should go upstairs..." said the reporter's voice on Shibata's television. Shibata grabbed Mayama's shoulder and jostled him awake.

A cacophony of footsteps followed Saginuma up the stairwell. "Tenth... tenth floor," Miss Takanashi was panting as they raced through an upstairs corridor. "We have come to the tenth floor. Master Saginuma, are you alright? Sir!" The psychic had come to a stop in the middle of the hallway, and held his head back. He turned to his left, and opened the door to an empty, spacious room. "Sir, what's wrong?" asked Takanashi, holding out the microphone.

"Someone now..." Saginuma intoned breathlessly.

"Eh?"

The psychic closed his eyes and held his head back again with trembling lips. He opened his eyes. "Someone has been murdered."

"Just now, you say?" cried Miss Takanashi's voice on Shibata's television. Mayama nodded, turning his tired head away. "That shit is fake, it's fake."

"Sir, what are you sensing?" the reporter implored urgently. "What did you see?"

"Second floor?" the psychic wondered.

"Second floor. The second floor of this building?"

"Downstairs--hurry--!" Saginuma said. His body collapsed in a senseless heap on the sleek floor. Takanashi called out to him, but the spontaneous decision was made to hurry to the second floor, and the psychic had to be left lying unconscious in the empty room as the crew raced back downstairs. They had no keys for the downstairs rooms, and would need to secure them from the building management. "What could have happened behind the door to this room?" Miss Takanashi's voice continued.

"What should we do?" said Shibata.

Mayama made the decision to change course. "Driver, to Heiwajima," he instructed.

In the building, the TTS crew had finally obtained the needed key. "With permission from company management, we have opened the room," Miss Takanashi narrated as they stepped inside. "We are now entering. This room looks as if it's undergoing interior renovations..."

"Hey! Look, over there!" one of the men shouted. Miss Takanashi's narration disintegrated into a flurry of sqeaking incoherencies as the camera panned over to a yellow-clad body lying face down in a river of blood. "Camera, over there! Someone's bleeding, looks wounded, possibly dead..."

In the studio, Mrs Aoi began to shriek.

Shibata slowly turned away from the television to face Mayama. He glanced at her and raised his eyebrows, then frowned slightly as he looked away.

Shibata's footfalls clonked on the hard floor as she held the portable television in her hands, staring at Saginuma's face. "I see the murder weapon," the psychic said as the two detectives made their way up the first flight of stairs. "A spanner, a thing the shape of a wrench. Somewhere in this room..."

"Here, here, it's over here!" one of the crew shouted as the detectives opened the doors to the origin of the broadcast. There on the tiny screen were the reporter and the psychic, holding a monkey wrench wrapped in cloth. "It is there," said Miss Takanashi's voice in the speaker, doubled by her voice in the room. "Once again, the prediction is correct. We're just about out of time now. This will bring our broadcast to a timely close."

"Ah-ah-it's the same--" Shibata stammered, pointing to her television as she caught site of the crew. Mayama switched her television off and headed into the crime scene.

"The police have just now arrived," Miss Takanashi announced.

Mayama held out his tiny police notebook as he marched across the floor. "Clear away, please. Let's keep the crime scene intact." He stopped before the body and slipped white gloves over his hands. Shibata greeted everyone and excused herself, attempting to hurry past the crew, but Miss Takanashi stopped her. "Ah, excuse me."

"Yes?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm Shibata."

"And, what might you be?"

"What do you think I am? Please try to guess."

Saginuma smiled. "You're a detective," he said immediately.

"Incredible!" Shibata exclaimed in amazement. "How did you know that?!"

"I can tell you're something like that," Saginuma grinned.

"Are you really a detective?" Miss Takanashi asked.

"Ah-yes-I'll show you my police notebook," Shibata said, squatting down and laying her television on the floor to rummage through her tote bag. "Uhm, er..."

Shibata's image was broadcast live to the Keizoku office as she announced that she seemed to have misplaced her police notebook. Nonomura frowned as he stood before the monitor. "That is all," said the reporter. "From the actual site of the murder of Mr Aoi, this is Takanashi signing off."

Nonomura turned off the television and looked crushed. Taniguchi and Kondoh turned away and silently moved back to their desks. Then Kondoh exclaimed, "There it is!" having suddenly observed Shibata's notebook resting idly on the desk. "She didn't have it with her."

"Big trouble," Taniguchi rasped as Nonomura squinted at the forgotten object. The telephone began to ring, and the assistant section chief looked over at it. "The worst disaster of my life," he uttered, letting the ringing continue. "My horoscope was right, after all."

Shibata dropped to all fours beside Mr. Aoi's corpse. "He's already gone," she pronounced, peering at his head. "Cause of death..."

Mayama smacked the back of her head with a pair of white gloves. "Hey, put these on."

"Right, thank you," she said, slipping the loose gloves over her hands. "Er, death was caused by bludgeoning. He was hit from directly in front. His skin is still warm," she said, placing a gloved palm on the victim's face. "That means he was killed not long ago. Within the past ten minutes."

Mayama stood above her with his hands in his coat pockets. "Hey, ya don't gotta paw him all over."

"Oh. Sorry," said Shibata. She raised herself up a bit and extended a hand toward the window, on the sill of which sat a black overcoat. "Er, he was killed near the window," said Shibata, then picking up the cell phone that lay next to the body. "He was killed while he was using the telephone." She thumbed the buttons to produce a record of incoming calls. "Three thirty. His body was discovered at exactly three-forty. That proves he was killed within that ten-minute interval."

Mayama looked at his wristwatch, and Shibata did the same. "There's no error."

Mayama turned his back, and Shibata stood to observe any further details. She grabbed the coat at the window, and began to frantically dig through the pockets. "Taxi receipt," she said, procuring a scrap of paper. "He came here by taxi." She was looking closely at the time of 2.20 PM when the door suddenly opened and Hayashida showed his pointy face. "What the hell are you doing here without permission!"

"Uh, let's get outta here, Shibata," said Mayama quickly, "It's the good ol' boys. Let's go."

Shibata got in a few syllables of anxious uncertainty before Saotome was in the room. "You two again?" he said sourly. Shibata greeted him, but he began to raise an angry finger at Mayama, until the latter indicated the television crew. At that point, Saotome changed modes and lowered his head to Mayama.

"Thank you for your work."

"Thank you, sir," Mayama bowed back.

Saotome stepped over to see the corpse with Shibata standing beside it. "Have you found anything?"

"Nothing yet," she said.

Hayashida marched toward the televison crew and ordered them not to do any more filming, to cooperate and so on; and he directed one of the uniformed policemen to move them away. The crew was fairly forcibly pushed back, and the psychic left standing against one of the pillars.

"Mr Saginuma, we'd like your assistance as well," Saotome told him.

"Yes sir," said Saginuma. He took a few steps toward the center of the room, his sharp eyes darting about, and he knitted his brow. "I see the killer."

The staff of TTS stirred and turned around, and were allowed to remain.

Saginuma faced away from everyone. "While we are on our way to the tenth floor, the killer is... in the room with Mr Aoi... entered with a pass key... drawing near unnoticed to Mr Aoi, engrossed in his telephone conversation. Then, he calls out to Mr Aoi, who turns around, and is struck dead. Then, he throws aside the murder weapon, and, once again, with the pass key, makes his escape."

Mayama stood nearby, smirking. Saotome asked after the culprit.

"Appears to work for Yajiuma," said the psychic. "Wearing yellow clothing. A man."

"Go investigate Yajiuma," Hayashida ordered, sending Nagao and another underling. "A guy in yellow!"

Shibata stepped toward Saginuma, excusing herself, as Hayashida yelled at her to go away. She requested just a moment with the psychic, and stood before him. "Er, when you spoke of the colour of clothing the victim was wearing, Mr Saginuma, you said he was wearing yellow. You said that you could see Mr Aoi wearing yellow clothing."

"Right," Saginuma grunted.

"Did you really see him with your psychic ability?"

"Yeah."

"If that's so, then you couldn't have seen Mr Aoi wearing yellow clothing."

Saginuma looked at the dead body and smiled with bemused incredulity. "Is that not a yellow shirt?"

"Yes, while the victim was working, it was those clothes, something like a supermarket uniform, that you saw during your clairvoyance on television."

"That's right."

"If I'm not mistaken, that was approximately fifteen minutes or so following the start of the program. That would make it 2.15 PM."

"What's your point?"

"The victim was still in a taxi, on his way to get here. He must've been in quite a hurry," Shibata supposed. "Wearing a supermarket uniform just like this when he boarded the taxi," she said, turning back toward Saginuma with narrow eyes. "Wasn't it that someone was threatening him?"

"Well," Saginuma said offhandedly, "That much, even I wouldn't know."

"Please look at this," Shibata said, unveiling the rumpled taxi receipt. "The victim made his arrival here at 2.20 PM, and had acquired a taxi receipt. This receipt, that black coat," she said, jogging over to the windowsill and bringing the coat back to Saginuma. "Here it is, here, we discovered it in the pocket of this black coat. This belonged to Mr Aoi. In short, at the time you performed your clairvoyance on Mr Aoi, he was not in fact wearing a yellow uniform, but this black coat. How did you determine that Mr Aoi, who was wearing a black coat, was wearing yellow clothing? You had knowledge of the victim in advance, didn't you? You knew that he was a supermarket manager, and that he would be wearing a yellow uniform when he came here, didn't you?"

"The image I see with clairvoiance is sometimes different from that which you see with your eyes. I was able to see the clothing underneath that coat."

Mayama was visibly amused. "Yeah, 'course, that's exactly how it works," he grinned.

"Can you see through clothing as if it's transparent?" Shibata asked, staring at Saginuma's chest. "That's really good."

"What are you trying to say?"

"What do you think I'm trying to say?"

"That you think it was I who killed Mr Aoi."

"You got it."

"You made the estimation of the time of death yourself," said Saginuma. "Between three-thirty and three-forty."

Shibata nodded.

"From two o'clock to three-fifty-five today, I was on television the entire time. He was killed within that time. I'm not the killer, and you've got millions of people in front of their TV's to prove it."

"That's not true."

"What?"

"You collapsed on the tenth floor. In the interim between three-twenty-five and the time that the body was discovered at three-forty-five, there were no cameras on you."

"Uh, there was a camera on," interjected a heavy-set man from the TTS crew.

"Eh?"

The rotund cameraman stepped forward. "We actually took the relay cameras with us, but we'd set up a digital camera just in case something were to happen. We thought that in case something happened to Mr Saginuma, we'd secretly leave the digital camera running. Here, I'll play it back."

There on the screen was Saginuma reeling on the floor and struggling to his feet. Shibata's face became despondent as the footage was played back to Saginuma's satisfaction. Mayama scratched his uncertain head with one finger, and Hayashida and Saotome stared hard at the image of the psychic staggering up and blotting out the camera's field of vision for only a moment before staggering away. "This is Mr Saginuma at the time when the rest of us were going down to the second floor," the cameraman explained.

"We've apprehended a possible suspect, wearing yellow in accordance with the prediction," announced Nagao, as he hauled in a tall and indignant man.

"You got the wrong guy!" the man protested in Nagao's grip. "I only came here because I was worried about what I saw on TV!"

"He was a colleague of the victim," Nagao explained.

Saginuma tossed his head back, then lowered it to gaze into the space before him and make another proclamation. "He has a key in his pocket," he said, making Shibata's eyes widen. Hayashida shoved her aside to search the suspect's jacket until he found a keychain. "Among those is the key to that door," Saginuma pronounced.

Hayashida promptly tested the keys, and found one that he declared was indeed a match to the door.

"I didn't do it!" the suspect protested.

"We'll just compare your fingerprints to the ones on the wrench, and find out for ourselves!"

"We'll listen you your explanation later," Saotome told the man. "Take him away." Hayashida and Nagao each took an arm of the struggling man, and Shibata watched with utter stupefaction.

"What the hell's going on!?" the suspect shouted. "I didn't do it!"

Saginuma laughed. "When are you police ever gonna learn how to treat people. You treat the person who comes to consult you like dirt, and on top of all that, when someone tries to help you, you accuse him of murder. You've sure got a lot of nerve!"

Shibata was crushed. Her apology came out in a whisper as she bowed deeply to the enraged psychic.

Saginuma thrust his cocked head into the video camera and snarled, "Let it be known on television exactly what happened here!"

Shibata apologized vigourously and repeatedly, bowing again to Saginuma as he stormed out of the room, and to Saotome.

"That's why you ought to stay the hell out of this!" Saotome thundered. Shibata bowed until her face seemed to touch her knees, choking on her tears as she apologized.

The cameras flashed on Saginuma from a distance as he left the building. Shibata hurried after him, calling out and stopping him just before a patrol car. When Saginuma turned around to face her, she began her apology. "I'm sorry about what I said a short time ago," she bowed. "The real detectives do excellent work, but I'm still in training. I'm terribly sorry!"

The psychic was unperturbed. "Me too," he said. "I just flew into a rage back there," he said. "I didn't mean what I said. It's not anybody's fault." He then laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. "I can see your future. Your hopes will be realized. You'll have that which you want most."

Shibata lapsed into a rapt and dreamy smile. "A husband?"

"Heh?" said Saginuma.

Shibata giggled faintly, and the psychic chuckled back. Then someone came out of nowhere and collided with Shibata, knocking her to the ground.

Sometime after the sun had gone down, Shibata and Mayama were headed toward an intersection in Heiwajima. Mayama coughed and looked at his watch. "Ugh. It's past six now. Catch you later, okay?"

"But, shouldn't we go back and report to the chief?" Shibata asked as she walked morosely.

Mayama grinned. "I don't think we have to, I think it's already been transmitted."

Shibata sighed with dejection and looked at the ground. Then she looked up with eyes stung by the wind and found that that familiar neon sign had been repaired, blaring PACHINKO in those same bold katakana. She issued a long, nonplussed grunt.

"What?" said Mayama, trying to find whatever it was she was seeing.

Shibata shook her head. "Uh, er, nothing."

Mayama patted her shoulder. "Well, catch you later, okay," he said, hurrying over the crosswalk to the other side of the intersection. Shibata gave him a deep bow and a formal goodbye, thanking him, before returing her gaze for an instant to the repaired pachinko sign.

The television news was warbling on about the tension between civilians and police, after the police had displayed their incompetence prior to the arrest of an employee at Yajiuma. The faces of Saotome and Nagao were shown onscreen, taking the suspect into custody, when Shibata stepped into the warm glow of the basement office after hours.

Nonomura turned off the television. He brightened his glum expression when he noticed Shibata lurking in the corridor, and welcomed her inside. She bowed and made her formal apology, but he motioned her over to the sofa with a big warm smile. "Aah, you did good work. Everything's all been straightened out, after a fashion."

"Chief, aren't you at all angry about what happened?" she asked as she seated herself.

"Naah, it's my duty to take the blame for this kind of thing. Don't you worry, don't you worry," he said with a dismissive wave.

"But--"

"In the old days, I used to make mistakes just like this all the time. Then my chief said to me, 'I'll take the responsibility, you can only commit yourself to finding the truth, that's why we're detectives.' He did his best to protect us," Nonomura recalled with sentimental admiration. "That was your departed father."

"My father?" said Shibata.

Nonomura nodded. "Ah, let's not get all glum here," he said, resuming his air of joviality as he slipped his scarf around his neck, paying no mind to the tears welled up in Shibata's eyes. "Well, we'll continue this investigation tomorrow. Thanks for your efforts."

The smiling assistant section chief got his coat and made his exit from the office, with Shibata lowering her dark, misty eyes as she remained on the sofa.

By the time Nonomura had reached the subway entrance across the street from headquarters, he was languishing helplessly in the unforgiving winter night. His cell phone rang.

"Hello? Ah, it's me. I'm in it deep. What'll I do? Ha? You saw it on the news?" He paused, listening for a moment, and grunted affirmatively. "Okay, okay--we'll do that..."

Meanwhile, in the dimly-lit interrogation cell, Hayashida slammed his palm hard against the open data file spread on the table in front of him. "Your goddamn fingerprints were on the murder weapon!"

The yellow-jacketed suspect, the man named Mishiro, recoiled at Hayashida's words. "That's ridiculous, how can you say that?"

"What was your motive, huh? Money?" Hayashida demanded, grabbing the man's lapel.

"You're wrong!" Mishiro shouted, tearing Hayashida's hand away. Nagao came at the suspect from behind and slammed the side of his face into the table, flipping over a full ashtray and letting stale cigarettes leap across the wood.

"I have an appointment," protested the corpulent cameraman. Mayama had accosted him outside the TTS building, and was keeping up his brisk pace in very close proximity. "Hey, listen, did Saginuma know about Aoi beforehand, or what?"

"Only the name and face! Even we didn't know anything but that!" The roly-poly man tried to run away, but his heavy legs proved no match for Mayama's lean stride.

"Na, na, na, don't run away, dude," Mayama grinned, grabbing the shoulder of the man's jacket and bringing him to a slowdown. "Look, there's a lot of shit that goes down behind the scenes, right? Give it to me straight, didn't you guys get the scoop on Aoi behind the scenes?"

"There's nobody these days who would do that!" the cameraman whined. "If we were faking it there'd be big trouble! Even the police didn't know where Mr Aoi was, right? And we're just ameteurs!" He then broke into a rapid gallop, and this time Mayama did not try to follow him.

"First year of the ballyhoo about the psychic kid," Aya read eagerly from the laminated pages of articles open under her hand. She lay on her stomach on her bed, making a rambling summary to Shibata, who was presently sprawled out in a similar position on the floor, going through the digital camera footage over and over again. She seemed to be only vaguely aware of Aya's monologue about Saginuma. Eight years of going through getting called a fake on variety shows, Aya continued, and the suicide of his older brother with his related hundred million yen in liabilities. Saginuma had determined by clairvoyance that it was murder, and hit the mark. Aya said something about eating all his life, and wondered if psychics had to pay taxes. "Dude, izzat the evidence tape?" she finally asked.

"Yes."

"You mean that's the original?" Aya slid down beside Shibata on the floor. "You didn't just go snag that shit, what the hell are you thinkin'?!"

"Oh no, I'm sorry, what do I do?"

"I guess after we dub a copy we can just go return the original tomorrow."

"Right," Shibata nodded. She stared severely at the footage for another moment before looking up from the tiny screen she held. "Chinko," she said simply.

"What?" murmured Aya.

"The chinko," Shibata said, grinning like an idiot.

"Oh, shit. You're losin' it."

In a public cafeteria by daylight, Saginuma had just concluded an interview, and was exchanging mutual thanks with the reporter, when Mayama strolled in, cigarette in hand. He flashed his palm and smiled amiably as he approached the table at which the psychic sat. "What is it?" Saginuma asked as the detective sat down.

"Wow, you're a big star all of a sudden, huh?"

"Everyone's been good to me," Saginuma admitted with a self-deprecating chuckle.

"That's good," said Mayama thoughtfully, holding his cigarette in front of his chin. "For the past eight years they been saying you're a big fraud. Even today they're saying it."

"Well, I'm not a fraud," said Saginuma.

"Come on," said Mayama, unraveling a particularly scathing newspaper article that had suffered in his coat pocket. "Look, they already found you out."

Saginuma placed a hand on Mayama's cuff and closed his eyes for an instant in concentration, before opening them to gaze forebodingly into Mayama's own. "You're going to commit murder," he pronounced ominously. "Have you already done it? You fulfill the propecy."

"Humph," snickered Mayama. "If it came right down to it, I guess even I could do it." He closed his eyes and cocked his head toward Saginuma, mocking him. Then he opened his eyes and looked at the psychic flatly. "It was you that murdered Aoi."

"No, it wasn't," came Saginuma's complacent denial.

Mayama smiled and rose, wadding up the old newspaper clipping. "Well, thanks for your time."

"No problem," Saginuma mumbled, watching the detective walk away.

Mayama opened the door to the room in which Aoi had died, and stepped in to hear Shibata's unintelligible mumbling from the other side of the great expanse of floor. Mayama sighed and thrust his hands into his coat pockets. "Ya can't just go wherever ya damn well please, problem child!"

Shibata was lying on her stomach with the side of her face pressed to the floor, and came out of her stupor when she heard Mayama's voice. "Uhhh, Mr Mayama," she rasped.

"Ya can't just sleep all day!" he rebuked her. "You got the Chief worried sick."

"Agh-oh-is it already morning?" Shibata fumbled to read her watch in the shadows.

"It's already evening," Mayama deadpanned, going over to where the sunlight cascaded in through the vinyl-covered windows.

"Unghh, I forgot about sleep and just passed out," Shibata groaned as she raised herself to a sitting position.

"That is sleeping," said Mayama.

Shibata groggily launched into a continuation of the systematic analysis she had presumably begun while still fully conscious. "Saginuma Hijiri killed his victim in advance, and then--"

Mayama sat beside her and interrupted her monologue. "Hey. How come you take this case so damn seriously?"

Shibata blinked and pursed her lips pensively. "I've got someone counting on me now," she said at length. "I've got to take it seriously."

"Hm?"

" 'The responsibility is mine. You can commit yourself to finding the truth. That's what being a detective is.' That's what the Chief told me." Shibata turned her face away and stared out meditatively at nothing in particular. "With the Chief counting on me like that, there's no way I can let him down."

Mayama looked thoughtfully into Shibata's tired face, then smiled with understanding, and perhaps a bit ill at ease. Shibata smiled back faintly and got up. She took a few steps and turned to face the window. "Hah? Don't you think that's strange?" she said, pointing to the one uncovered window. "Why do you suppose there's no vinyl covering in only that place?"

"For ventilation, ventilation," Mayama speculated.

"Of course," said Shibata. Mayama paced leisurely back and forth as Shibata spoke. "The victim was near this window, conversing on his cell phone, and while doing so was struck with the wrench from directly opposite him. And killed!" She fell to the floor with a dramatic thud.

Mayama gazed at his strange colleague. She had her face pressed to the floor once more, and the images began to flash through her sleep-deprived head. The record of incoming calls on Aoi's cell phone. The position of Aoi's body at the window. The gap in the vinyl covering. The staggering of Saginuma on film. The broken pachinko sign.

Shibata lifted her face from the floor in sudden realization.

"Mayama, really," said Hayashida, standing with arms akimbo beside stern-faced Saotome and Nagao, and Saginuma with his back to everyone. "You put too damn much faith in this trainee. She was wrong before, and I'll be damned if she's not wrong this time."

"Want to wager your career on it?" said Mayama.

"Whaat?" said Hayashida, taking a few steps toward Mayama and Shibata.

"Never mind," said Saotome, causing Hayashida to defer. "Let's hear what she has to say."

"Right," Shibata began, "I'd like to explain the technique Mr Saginuma used in Mr Aoi's murder."

"The murderer is Mishiro," said an exasperated Saginuma.

"No, sir, Mishiro is innocent," said Shibata.

"But I did see it," said Saginuma, turning around. "Mishiro was indeed holding the key to this room."

"That is because you had threatened Mr Aoi, and he put that key on Mr Mishiro's keychain. You threatened to expose his whereabouts if he did not do so."

"That is plain nonsense. I can take you to court for slander."

"Er, at the time when the murder was committed," Shibata continued, undaunted, recreating the scene with her cell phone, "The victim was using his cell phone, like so. To whom in the world could he have been speaking?"

"That has absolutely nothing to do with anything," Saginuma said.

"May I continue? The victim was struck during his conversation, and dropped his telephone. The other party with whom he was conversing would naturally have suspected something. Furthermore, the whole story of Mr Aoi's murder was related on television. Any ordinary person would have made a report to the police as a matter of course. Was there any such report?" she asked Saotome.

"No," he replied.

"In that case," Shibata continued, "There is only one possibility for the identity of that party: the culprit in this murder. Do you follow me so far?"

"Yeah, but there's a pretty big flaw there," said Hayashida. "If the culprit was talking to him on the phone at the time, he would have approached from behind."

"Is that really so? Er, I'll be the victim Mr Aoi, and Mr Mayama will be the culprit. Er, the victim was speaking on the phone just like so, right?" Shibata walked toward the window. "Hello? Hey, Mayama, it's me, uh huh..."

"Hello," said Mayama into his pretend cell phone.

"Here it is," said Shibata. "If the person to whom he was speaking had approached from behind, the victim would have had to have become aware of his voice." She spun to face the others. "He turns around. He'd sense the intent to kill and run away." Shibata began to run herself, hiding behind a pillar. "And he struggles! 'Aaagh, oh no, please stop, please, stop it, noooo!'" Shibata swooned with a last dramatic guttural rasp.

"However," she resumed, "When the body was discovered, no evidence of any struggle was found. Essentially, that is the way it would have been had the culprit entered this room to perpetrate the murder. Are you with me so far?"

"Naturally, we had considered that ourselves," Saotome admitted.

"Then, one more thing. There is something unusual about this one place in this room. If all of us had conducted a meticulous investigation of the crime scene last night, perhaps we would have become aware of it."

"We certainly did think it was strange," said Saotome.

"A real, real long time back," said Hayashida.

"Huh? What's up?" wondered Mayama.

"Shibata," said Saotome, "Go ahead and show them."

"Ah, is it alright? Er, it is only this window from which the vinyl has been removed. In other words, this is the only window that can be opened. Why would the killer have done such a thing? Now, everyone, let us please go to the tenth floor."

Saginuma looked grim as Shibata led the way with Mayama close behind.

"Please have a look," Shibata cried in quick syllables, forcing herself to lean out the window and look downward despite her fear in order to hurry through her explanation, while Mayama held her back by her scarf. "You can see the only window open on the second floor, directly below us. It was from here that the killer struck the victim dead," she said, closing the window and catching her breath, then turning around to face Saginuma. "You had brought everyone here, and, before the camera, made your prediction that someone would be murdered on the second floor, and pretended to faint. The shocked television crew brought their cameras and unanimously hurried downstairs. Once you were alone, you placed a call to the victim, Mr Aoi, on your cell phone, telling him to look up out the window. At that instant, you let fall toward Mr Aoi's face the murder weapon, the wrench you had prepared in advance, attached to a rope. It was a direct hit.

"In that way, Mr Aoi then died inside that room. Whether or not that window would be open was a gamble, to be sure. But you won the gamble. Afterwards, you removed the wrench from the rope, and concealed it in your overcoat to bring it downstairs, where the television crew was waiting. There, you quietly and carefully placed the wrench in a corner of the room in order to falsify a prediction about the location of the murder weapon, which the crew then discovered. That is this murder case in its entirety."

"But it was even written in the newpaper that Mishiro's fingerprints were found on that wrench," said Saginuma.

"That wrench was the property of the supermarket," said Shibata. "One of the shop assistants remembered Mr Mishiro repairing his motorcycle, the tire of which had been punctured, three days before the incident. Because his fingerprints were left on it, someone later lifted it from it's location."

"You're talking nonesense again," said Saginuma.

"The evidence lies in that a wrench bearing no one's fingerprints was discovered among the supermarket's equipment. Curious, isn't it, that a wrench which had been used for repair should bear no fingerprints whatsoever. We investigated, and soon found out who had purchased that item."

"And," said Saginuma sarcastically, "It was me?"

"Yes," said Shibata.

Saginuma scoffed. "The video tape from the digital camera proves that I'm not the killer. That tape'll prove once and for all that your so-called reasoning is nothing but a damned fabrication."

Hayashida stepped forward with uncharacteristic humility. "Uh, Mr Saginuma, that's..."

"What's wrong?"

"We've made a terrible mistake. The tape you speak of has been lost." Hayashida thrust his torso into a deep bow.

"What?"

Shibata stepped forward and reached into her bag. "Ah, excuse me, I'm sorry, I have that tape."

"What!" thundered Hayashida.

"Ah, here," Shibata said, producing Aya's digital camera and inserting the tape.

Saginuma eagerly turned the camera on and stood close to Shibata as if to rub her nose in unquestionable evidence to his own innocence. "Look. At the time of the event, I collapsed just like you see here. This is the proof."

"No," said Shibata. "You did not collapse. This is the proof of that."

On the tiny screen, the grainy figure of Saginuma reeled, moving close to the field of vision and obscuring it. At the moment of obfuscation, the darkness of Saginuma's overcoat became that of Shibata's, and the young detective spun around to silently scream menacingly at the viewer.

"It is a technique often employed in television and film," Shibata explained. "But the gentleman who employed it here made himself suspect as the culprit. That day, after the televsion crew went downstairs to the second floor, you deliberately appeared to be rearing on the camera, moving your body close enough to it to obscure the field of vision. And then you stopped the tape and connected a film you had prepared beforehand. Having obscured the screen, you were able to do a careful job of editing. It was then that you placed your call to Mr Aoi by cellular phone, and murdered him from that window."

"That's a far damned stretch," Saginuma said indignantly. "If it's like you say, let's at least use the same video. But this is just a bunch of lies. Look at the truth for once. The general public hasn't even gone so far as you've gone. Out of some twisted hatred for the life of a psychic, you call me a fake and try to ruin me."

"I neither believe nor disbelieve in your psychic abilities," said Shibata, holding up the little videotape with a softness in her eyes. "But, this tape is a fake."

"That's ridiculous! Do you have any evidence at all to support that claim?"

"Just a moment," said Shibata, replacing the tape in the digital camera. "Only one of your predictions, Mr Saginuma, has hit the mark. I have obtained the thing I have sought. Chinko. That is the evidence that this video is a fake. Out the window, see?" She pointed to the image on the tiny screen. "There is the 'chinko' signboard. Please look, everyone." She yanked a gap open in the tin venetian blinds to display a rear view of the infamous sign. "Can everyone see it? Look, 'pachinko.' The broken character 'pa' had gone out. But, on the day of the incident, it had already been repaired."

Shibata jogged back over to Saginuma to show him the image on the camera once more. "Look, this way. Here, it reads 'pachinko.' But afterwards had suddenly become 'chinko.' At the instant the event took place, the sign read 'pachinko,' not 'chinko.' Therefore, this video is shown to be an edited falsification. This is the indubitable evidence for which I have wished." She blinked tenderly at Saginuma. "Would a self-styled psychic be faking it because real psychic ability would not secure him citizenship?"

"You're wrong. You're all wrong!" Saginuma shouted angrily. "You all just refuse to acknowledge it. It's been like this for eight years. I can't control the visions that come to me beyond my power. But I surely do see them. But people like call me a fake when I can't do the same thing endlessly. They want me to do more and more."

Saginuma recalled the jeering on the talk show, as a young man, the ruthless taunting that he was a fake. "And their demands slowly escalate. I'm forced to be a charlatan. And when I'm forced to disclose my own visions, they call me counterfeit, phony, a fake, with their vehement attacks. People like you can't recognize a master of faculties that surpass your own. Will you refuse to acknowledge it when you're all run down, one by one, driven to the wall and murdered. My brother died. You people murdered him." Shibata paled a bit at his words, but she stood her ground. "There's no pattern to the way people like you deprive a man of his life. This is revenge. This is my revenge."

"Revenge, huh," snickered Mayama at the window. "You think it's sweet. What you say, but you're the worthless man who, instead of labouring as hard as he can, wants sympathy for doing a little bit of work. And with the liabilities piling up, at that." Mayama got up off the windowsill and ambled over to Saginuma. "Wasn't it really you just wanted your money and fame back again? So you went and committed murder on public television." Mayama pursed his lips. "In the end, your speech to the stupid public was what nailed your ass."

Mayama walked away, and the psychic was left facing the other detectives. "Saginuma Hijiri, you are under arrest for first-degree homicide," said Saotome.

Hayashida had already locked the handcuffs on Saginuma and begun to drag him away, when Shibata called out to them just before they reached the door. "May I ask just one question?" She approached the captive Saginuma, and entreated, "How was it that you discovered Mr. Aoi's whereabouts?"

"I can at least see that much," Saginuma said, meeting Shibata's eyes. "That's what makes me a genuine psychic."

Hayashida and Nagao led the man away, and Shibata watched with solemn bewilderment.

Mayama was slouched by the door, and Saginuma managed as he moved by to shove his face in Mayama's and whisper a short, leaden prediction: "Today, you're going to kill the man you're after."

Mayama's scowl did not alter, even as Shibata, the last one in the room, approached him to ask what Saginuma had said. "Nothin' that concerns you," Mayama pronounced, heading out the door.

Shibata trudged toward home in the thick and cold darkness punctuated by the spots of streetlamps and the warm glow of the office windows that remained lit in the deepening night. From somewhere, a voice called out Shibata's name. She stopped short, uncertain, as Asakura emerged behind her. "Me?" she wondered. The young man had come out of nowhere, the wind tossing his long hair about his face. "Ah-Mr Asakura?"

"What a coincidence. What brings you to this place?" he asked.

"Oh, uh, I was just thinking of getting something to eat after such a long while."

"With whom?"

"No, no-one."

"But now's as good a while as any."

"Well, but it's been such a long while since I've eaten anything."

"You're an interesting person, Miss Shibata," Asakura smiled. "Why don't we eat together?"

Shibata protested meekly, but Asakura put his arm around her shoulder and led her to face the wind. "We'll have a great feast," he insisted. "Let's go. Let's go, let's go..." At the congeniality of his insistence, Shibata reluctantly went along.

Somewhere on a bridge looking over the city, Kee was waiting, lowering his cigarette and standing up straight to meet the shadow of the dark figure drawing near.

Meanwhile, Maiko sat at Asakura's kitchen table, waiting for him to return to his apartment. "He's so late," she said to herself, getting up to walk past the meal she had prepared, and look out the curtained window. She sighed impatiently, and looked over at the computer. She sat down on a whim, moved the mouse, and clicked on the OK to open an email that had just arrived for her tardy boyfriend. There she found, to her dismay, a full profile of her friend Shibata Jun.

A gloved hand shoved Kee by the chin, again and again, driving him backwards. "Wait, come on, stop," he protested against the volley of jostlings that forced him toward the wall. "I don't have anything else, nothing!"

The final thrust knocked him to the ground, and he landed on the small of his back. He looked up to find a loaded crossbow pointed at him, and he smiled for a second with pleading eyes. Then he cried out as one and the next arrows impaled his chest.

Kee's voice died to a gurgle as his throat and lungs filled with blood. "Why," coughed his quavering voice as he clutched the arrows embedded in him. "Why are you doing this..."

Traffic moved quietly along in the streets below as his breath faded and died.

When Mayama came, his glazed eyes blinked and stared with mad horror at Kee's dead body, and darted about with trepidation as he backed away.

The hushed tires of cars and buses moved over the night streets against the distant cacophony of sirens and jackhammers, as Mayama twisted his head culpably this way and that, staring in every direction as he staggered through the city.