Byakuyakou The Novel ~ Chapter 1
Higashi-osaka, Osaka prefecture, 13 October 1973
Kirihara Yousuke, 52 years old... murdered... Prime suspects are his wife, his pawnshop employee, his lover and his lover's boyfriend... But then the lover's boyfriend died because of a traffic accident and the lover, Nishimoto Fumiyo, died because of a gas accident in the house... suspecting the gas accident as a suicide, Nishimoto Fumiyo has become the number one prime suspect of the murder case. But in the end, the case never get to be completely solved...
While Kirihara's son, Ryoji and Nishimoto's daughter, Yukiho, kept on living their own path, bearing the titles as the victim's son and the murderer's daughter, respectively. Each chapter tells the story of how, ironically, Ryoji living in the dark path and Yukiho living in light path.
So, are Ryoji and Yukiho really total strangers to each other?
Byakuyakou (Midnight Sun Journey), published in 1999, written by Higashino Keigo, Japan's #1 mystery novel writer in the 21st century.
I am currently reading the novel and I will summarize this novel per chapter.
I am currently on Chapter 8 out of 13 chapters.
Each chapter is told from different characters' point of views. So it's like each chapter has different main character. But there is one link that connects them together. Those various characters are people who has interactions with Kirihara Ryoji and Karasawa Yukiho.
Ryoji's plot and Yukiho's plot might seem totally not related, but there are hints here and there which connects and would make the readers pondering, does Ryoji and Yukiho know each other? In the end, we can only keep guessing about it, but these chapters never told the story from Ryoji and Yukiho's points of views so we'd never know, probably until the end.
Chapter 1 opens with Sasagaki, the police detective, being called to a certain crime scene on his off-day. He was actually planning to read Matsumoto Seicho novel on that day, but now he has to postpone it again.
The victim is Kirihara Yousuke, 52 years old, murdered about 13 to 24 hours before, and he was killed by something long and sharp, like a knife but not a knife. There was no sign of struggle at all, so the killer must be an acquaintance and the victim was caught off-guard.
They started interrogation with people around the victim. Kirihara is a pawnshop owner, as they were investigating Kirihara's trace on the murder day, they found out Kirihara was passing by an area where one of his customer, Nishimoto Fumiyo, lives. He was buying a pudding cake in that area.
They realized Nishimoto has never paid her loan back to Kirihara. And so Sasagaki and his young partner, Koga, visited Nishimoto's apartement. Sasagaki knocked the door, a little girl responsed from inside, "Yes, who is it?", "Is your mother here?", "....... who is it?", "We're police, we need to ask a few questions to your mother,", the girl opened the door with the chain still locked and showed her face from the 10 centimetres wide opened door, "My mother is not home yet,", "She went shopping?", "No, she's working,", "What time does she usually come home?", "Very soon, I think,", "Okay then, we'll wait here,", the girl nod and closed the door. Sasagaki said to Koga, "Such a mature girl, huh", Koga agreed. Suddenly the door is opened wide, the girl asked, "Can you please show it to me?", "It?", "Your badge,", "Ahh, here you go," he showed her his badge. After the girl observed the photo on the badge with Sasagaki's face in turn, she opened the door wider, "Please come in,", Sasagaki was a bit surprised, "oh, no... we'll wait outside,", the girl shook her head, "If you stand there, the neighbours would think strangely, instead,".
Waiting inside, Sasagaki saw the girl reading a book titled, "Gone with The Wind". Sasagaki and Koga talked about the movie for a bit, but Sasagaki haven't watched it. He continue to observe the little girl, she must be a 5th or 6th grade elementary student. She has a beautiful face, but somehow has a deep dark-looking almond eyes. She has this elegant aura that when he was about to ask her name, he called her, "Ojousan(young lady),". Usually, he'd call little girls with "Ojouchan", but he felt like "Ojouchan" doesn't suit this little girl. Her name is Yukiho. With yuki-snow, and inaho-rice's ho characters. Sasagaki thinks it's a lovely name. Then, Sasagaki observed the house, he saw a cake box with "Harmony" label on it in the trash can. When she turned to Yukiho, his eyes met hers, who was apparently staring at him, but as their eyes met, Yukiho immediately look back to her book. Sasagaki knew the girl must be looking at the cake box too. This confirms that Kirihara must have come to this place.
When her mother, Fumiyo, came home, she seem shocked to see police there and looked very nervous. As Sasagaki observed her, she find Fumiyo a beauty... the cold type of beauty and Yukiho looks exactly like her. Sasagaki is sure this woman must be the type that man would fall for in first sight. His suspicion that this woman is Kirihara's lover is raising. Especially, when Fumiyo said Kirihara didn't come there on the murder day, but Yukiho immediately corrected her, "He came desho? He brought the pudding cake for us,". Fumiyo then replied, "Ahh, right. He did came," looking nervous. Apparently Kirihara went there, right before the murder happened. After Kirihara left, Fumiyo went shopping in the supermarket, while Yukiho has not come home yet from school, she was in the library.
Later, Sasagaki found two people who witnessed Fumiyo went shopping and sit around the park during the murder time. So she has strong alibi.
But another witness came, a old lady said she came to the pawnshop around the murder time, but no one came out. Meanwhile, Kirihara's wife, Yaeko and the pawnshop employee, Matsuura Isamu, said they were at the house, running the pawnshop. The customer said she left, and then came back about an hour later, but still no one came out although she pressed the buzzer.
The police immediately came to Kirihara's house and interrogated Yaeko and Matsuura once again. Koga took Yaeko to a cafe for interrogation and Sasagaki interrogated Matsuura in the house. Matsuura said he was in the storeroom so he couldn't hear the buzzer while Yaeko and her son, Ryoji, were in the living room watching TV, they might have ignored the buzzer. Sasagaki didn't believe this, but apparently Matsuura's testimony matched Yaeko's, although they were interrogated separately.
Sasagaki then went upstairs to check on Kirihara's son, Ryoji. He saw the boy before and Sasagaki was quite intrigued by how dark his eyes are and also his expressionless face. He went inside Ryoji's room and the boy immediately said, "I don't know anything,". Sasagaki observed the room and saw a cutting paper art hang on the wall. He is amazed to know this is the boy's work. Sasagaki asked him about what they were doing during that certain time, and apparently his testimony matched Matsuura and Yaeko's.
When everything seem to be a dead-end, they found out a new fact. Nishimoto Fumiyo has a boyfriend, Terasaki. They interrogated him too and he didn't have a strong alibi at all. And so he become the prime suspect. But few days later, he died because of a traffic accident.
In the last part of the chapter, the main character becomes Tagawa (not Sasagaki), the landlord of Nishimoto's apartement building. He was just reading a sports paper, and Higashino Keigo took almost two pages to describe how Tagawa feel so dissapointed that the GIANTS has lost and other things about baseball. I find this amusing^^ Higashino must be a big fan of baseball.
Suddenly a little girl knocked on the window. She is Nishimoto Yukiho asking his help to open the door to her apartement, she forgot to bring the keys today, and her mother is probably went out.
When Tagawa opened the door, he felt a strong smell of gas, and found Nishimoto Yukiho's body lying on the table.... not breathing.
"Is she dead?"..... "Is my mother dead?" Yukiho asked sounding like she's about to cry.
~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~@~
Chapter 1 ended in quite a cliffhanger...
Differences of the original novel and the TBS drama that kinda surprised me:
1. The novel started from the year 1973. Sasagaki, the police detective, mentioned about how Japan is running out of oil since the 4th Arab-Israeli war started that month, means the murder happened in October 1973. The TBS drama started from the year 1991.
Since the novel was published in 1999, I thought the murder would happen, at least, in the 1980s. I didn't expect Higashino-sensei chose a period further in the past.
I was kinda hoping the movie adaptation with Horikita Maki would have setting in 1973, but apparently just like in the drama, it would have a 1990s setting.
2. The novel sets in the Osaka prefecture, Higashiosaka city and all of the characters speaks in Kansai dialect including the leading characters, Ryoji and Yukiho. It's such a revelation for me, because I tend to associate Kansai-ben with comedy shows and anything cheerful and bright. It is quite a contrast to see Kansai-ben in a dark murder mystery story^^ This part is very interesting for me. And I found out Higashino-sensei was born in Osaka, so he's a Kansai-jin, it's not a wonder, then. But were all of his novels written in Kansai-ben? I've read Ryusei no Kizuna novel, but no... that one was definitely not in Kansai-ben.
Too bad the drama didn't stay true to the Kansai-ben part, should've been more interesting.
Yukiho's beauty is the cold and elegant type. It immediately reminds me of Kitagawa Keiko. Later in another chapter, it was described that Yukiho's face look exactly like a French doll/mannequin, if only she has bigger eyes. "This is definitely Kitagawa Keiko!" I thought. Plus, Kitagawa Keiko was born in Kobe! She originally speak in Kansai-ben! In appearance terms, Yukiho should've been perfect for her. But then, I wonder if she is capable of acting the role?^^;
Too bad, Fukuda Mayuko, the child actress in the drama, doesn't have that beauty, she's just mediocre. But her acting was excellent though. I guess for child actors, acting skill is more important than looks^^