The Adventure of the Lover's Leap

I'll be there for you

(When the rains stars to pour)

"I'll be there for you" (The Rembrandts)

 
I do like travelling by train! Love just sitting in a train and see the scenery slide by while you do whatever you want to do.

A while back, I reviewed Shimada Souji's Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin, the second novel in his series starring the police detective Yoshiki Takeshi. The series was initially conceived as a so-called travel mystery, a subgenre that focuses on, obviously, travel. Most strongly associated with trains and brilliantly fabricated alibis that make full use of complex railway schedules, other characteristics of the subgenre include the stories often being set in popular tourist destination/region outside the capital Tokyo and involving references to local habits, folklore and legends. The third novel in the series, Kita no Yuuzuru 2/3 no Satsujin ("The Northern Yuzuru 2/3 Murder", 1985), however, changes things a bit. The story starts with a phone call to Yoshiki by his divorced wife Michiko in the final days of December. They went their seperate ways five years ago, and Michiko had moved to the city of Kushiro in the northern island of Hokkaido. Michiko seems to regret having made the call, though she's glad she got to hear Yoshiki's voice once again. She explains she's in Tokyo now, but leaving right away on the Yuzuru Sleeper Express that evening. Yoshiki manages to reach the station in time to catch a glimpse of Michiko as the train leaves to the north. The following day however, the body of a dead woman is found in a sleeping compartment in the Yuzuru. Another day passes, when on the final day of the year Yoshiki hears the description of the victim and her belongings, and instantly realizes it must be Michiko. He races to the Aomori Police Station, but while some of the belongings do belong to Michiko, the murdered woman turns out to be someone else completely.

Yoshiki is glad his ex-wife is not dead, but also realizes this puts Michiko in a very dangerous spot, for what is her connection to that murder? He decides to look for her and travels to Kushiro, but he is shocked to learn that Michiko's been wanted by the police there for over a week now. Two bodies were discovered in Michiko's apartment in the Mitsuya Residential Area and as Michiko herself has not been seen since (save for her phone call to Yoshiki in Tokyo), it's no wonder the police suspects she killed those two women. The victims were also living in the Mitsuya Residential Area, but strangely enough, the murder seems to have impossible traits. While Michiko lives on the top floor of Tower 1, nobody had seen the women (who live in the other two towers) enter Tower 1 that night, with the caretaker and other witnesses having been next to the single front door all night and swearing nobody having entered the building. No unaccounted footprints were found in the snow covering the whole premise either. Also, it appears strange things have been happening here for some time now. Earlier that year, a young resident was suddenly slugged to death by an unknown assaillant in the fog, but despite several witnesses surrounding the crime site, no killer was found. On the night of the murders in Michiko's apartment odd happenings occured too: ghostly cries could be heard coming from the Night-Crying Rock on the premises, where in an ancient past two women committed suicide, and a student even made a photograph of a ghostly suit of armor that night. Yoshiki knows his ex-wife is innocent of the crime and that the only way to save her is to figure out who did kill the women and more importantly how, but how do all these ghostly stories tie in to the solution?

Okay, so we don't really have a travel mystery story this time, at least not one that focuses strongly on trains (like Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin), though we do see a lot of Hokkaido in this novel. But the main mystery revolves of course around the impossible murder in Michiko's apartment: the statements of the witnesses make it impossible for the victims to have entered the crime site in the first place, and yet the murders happened. By the way, like in the previous novel, Yoshiki basically guesses who the real murderer is fairly early on in the novel (mostly based on instinct rather than facts), but of course, the murderer is completely protected by the impossibility of the crime (as well as Michiko's disappearance, which makes her the perfect scapegoat for the police), so for Yoshiki, the challenge lies in figuring out how the murder was committed. Though I have to point out that this novel sure takes it time to tell its story. Some readers will definitely enjoy how this novel explores Yoshiki's inner thoughts as he reminisces on his previous, married life and how he and Michiko eventually grew apart even though they never did, but things can get a bit melodramatic here. Yoshiki is desperate to save his ex-wife this time and is willing to put his work and everything at stake to get her out of this mess, but it does make some segments feel more like filler than actually necessary.

So while Yoshiki has set his eyes on the murderer very early on based on nothing but instinct, prejudice and hopeful wishing, he still has to solve the problem of how the two women managed to get inside Michiko's apartment unseen. Tower 1 has only one front entrance, and the caretaker's room is immediately next to the door. That evening, he had a group of students over to play mahjong, and none of them saw the victims enter the building (and both victims had been seen earlier that day near their own homes). Yoshiki's suspects were also seen in their respective apartments in the Mitsuya Residential Area around the time of the murder. So how did murderer and victims all get inside Michiko's room, at the top floor of the building? And how do all the ghost stories tie in to the case, about a crying rock and a ghostly suit of armor? The solution would probably have made more of an impression on me if err, Shimada hadn't already spoiled it to me earlier: the problem of the apartment room in Kita no Yuuzuru 2/3 no Satsujin basically features the exact same fundamental idea as a different short story by Shimada which I had read already, so it was very easy for me to guess how the trick was pulled off.

I guess that is also partially the reason why I thought this book felt lengthy, as I pretty much knew what the solution would be and had already seen it in (far) shorter form from the same author. Sure, the details are different, but there's no denying that both stories are simply variants of the same idea. The way it's expanded upon with the ghost stories is pretty entertaining though, as it sure adds to the atmosphere. In general, I'd say that this type of idea works much beter in Shimada's Mitarai Kiyoshi series, as Mitarai's more used to handling these kinds of utterly ridiculous, yet highly entertaining tricks, but I assume Shimada decided to allow the "realism" parameters of the Yoshiki Takeshi series to go down a bit with this novel. I do like the basic idea though, even if it's completely nuts. But that's Shimada at his best. I didn't like the way Shimada wrote the bridge from Yoshiki being utterly puzzled to suddenly figuring the whole thing out though. Because he basically got a free hint in the form of a dream. Which, to be fair, was partially based on what he had (unconsciously) seen (and the reader had unconsciously read about), but the most important nudge was coming from the author Shimada, not from Yoshiki's own thinking. Like I wrote earlier in a piece, I think there should always be a logical reason why a detective can't solve a crime until a certain point in a story (for example, because an important fact hasn't been uncovered yet at that point in time), but this novel is an example of what I don't like to see.

So I am a bit divided on Kita no Yuuzuru 2/3 no Satsujin. Not a big fan of the very melodramatic tone with the story focusing on Yoshiki coping with the way he broke up with his ex-wife Michiko, while I have to admit I'm also disappointed the main idea of this novel is basically the same as a different short story by Shimada (and it's not camouflaged enough to be considered a clever variant). I guess the novel is a good 'bridge' between the more fantastical Mitarai Kiyoshi series and the more realistic Yoshiki Takeshi series. At least, I have only read one other Yoshiki novel, but I am going to assume that Shimada decided to play the game more bombastically after this third novel, following the more realistic first two novels. I will probably read the first Yoshiki Takeshi novel first before I decide whether I'll read more of this series.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『北の夕鶴2/3の殺人』