“Suzuka,” Sari said, shooting a quick glance at the TV. “You know Keigo Masuo, right, who goes to Seinan University? Do you know how to get in touch with him?”

“Keigo?” Suzuka said, guardedly. “Why do you ask?”

“Yoshino went to stay over at his place, but isn’t answering her cell. Do you know his number?”

Suzuka listened, expressionless. “I don’t really know him, but my friend sort of does.”

“Would he know how to get in touch with Keigo?”

“Gee, I don’t know…”

Sari was pretty sure she wasn’t going to get any help from her.

Mako was listening to their conversation. “Well, it’s time for me to get going,” she said and closed the lid of the cardboard box. Just then the TV showed an interview with the old man who had first discovered the body. Several people in the office were watching and burst out laughing. The old man had exceedingly long nose hairs. The laughter broke the tension in the room and the office’s normal, peaceful atmosphere returned.

“I noticed that the rope tying down the load on the back of my truck had broken,” the old man was explaining, “so I stopped right at that curve over there. I got out and happened to glance over the edge of the cliff and saw something stuck in a tree. When I looked more closely… I couldn’t believe my eyes.”

That same morning, Suzuka Nakamachi arrived at the coffee shop in the Mitsukoshi department store just after ten a.m. She had an appointment with a client, the first contract she’d managed to land in some time. Though the premiums for the new account were neglible, the client had promised he’d introduce her to his cousin and his wife, which could mean more business for her.

They were scheduled to meet at ten-thirty, so she had a little time. Suzuka decided to phone a friend, a guy named Yosuke Tsuchiura, who attended Seinan Gakuin University. She was hoping to use this opportunity to get closer to Keigo. She’d liked him for some time.

Yosuke and Suzuka were both from Saitama Prefecture and had been classmates in high school. After Yosuke graduated he decided to attend a private university in Fukuoka, where he had no relatives or any connections, and his friends were surprised. Why Fukuoka of all places? they asked him. “If I’m going to go to college,” Yosuke explained, “I’d like to go someplace where I don’t know anybody.” Suzuka alone found the idea appealing.

After she graduated from a junior college outside Tokyo, she felt exhausted trying to find a job there and she suddenly recalled his words. She wasn’t chasing after him, but two years after Yosuke moved to Fukuoka, so did she. They saw each other fairly often, and though their relationship wasn’t totally platonic, they didn’t consider themselves a couple.

Yosuke must have still been asleep when she called. “Ah-hello?” he answered sleepily, a bit annoyed.

“You’re still sleeping?”

“Suzuka? What time is it?”

“It’s after ten. Don’t you have classes today?”

Yosuke gradually woke up. She quickly apologized for waking him, and turned to the real reason for her call. “There’s a guy named Keigo Masuo a year ahead of you in school, right?”

“Keigo?”

“You know-when we were drinking in that bar in Tenjin, you pointed him out.”

“Oh, Keigo. Right.”

“Do you know his phone number?”

“His phone number?”

Suzuka could detect a hint of jealousy, and it gave her a tiny thrill.

“One of my co-workers is supposedly going out with him, and she’s been out of touch since yesterday. So I was wondering if you could tell me how to contact him.” Suzuka tried to make it sound straightforward.

“No, I don’t know his number. He’s a year above me and he’s not really the kind of guy who hangs out with someone like me,” Yosuke said, self-deprecatingly.

“So you don’t know his number?’

“No, I don’t… Oh-wait a sec. You know, I think I heard some rumor about him a couple of days ago. They said he’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yeah. The word’s going around that he hasn’t been in his apartment the last few days, and apparently didn’t go back home to see his parents, either.”

“So what happened? He just vanished?”

“I think he’s off on a trip by himself. His folks run an inn in Yufuin so he’s got to be loaded, right?”

Yosuke was so casual about it that Suzuka started to find his explanation plausible. Keigo had gone off on a trip.

“The thing is, though, one of the girls at work was supposed to meet him yesterday in our neighborhood.”

“Yesterday? Then maybe it’s just a rumor after all, about him disappearing,” Yosuke said. “He must still be there, at his place.”

Suzuka could picture them-Yoshino and Keigo-making out on his bed.

The truth was, Suzuka had fallen in love with Keigo the moment she first saw him in the bar in Tenjin, but the more she’d heard about him from Yosuke and his friends, the more she felt he was out of her league. When Suzuka had heard Sari and Mako, in the courtyard at their apartment building, talking about how Yoshino and Keigo were going out, she frankly didn’t buy it. Everything she’d heard about Keigo indicated that he led a flamboyant life-he was the best-known guy in his college and he was dating a local newscaster. Could a man like this really be going out with someone like Yoshino who was-among the girls at their building-at best only slightly above average?

After finishing her morning rounds collecting premiums from her main clients, Sari anxiously hurried back to the Hakata branch office. She’d e-mailed Yoshino several times while making her rounds, with no response, and on her breaks she’d called Yoshino’s cell, which immediately went to voice mail. She knew this could mean anything but still, ever since Sari had seen the morning TV report on the murder at Mitsuse Pass, she’d felt uneasy.

As soon as she got back to the Hakata branch, she phoned Yoshino’s office. Please, let her be there, she prayed, at the same time feeling she wouldn’t be. Her finger shook as she dialed.

The middle-aged woman who answered the phone gave her the same message as in the morning: Yoshino wasn’t at work.

“She was going to go directly to see clients this morning and be here by eleven. It, uh, doesn’t look like she’s back yet, though.”

Sari hung up and glanced around the office, empty during lunch hour. The section chief was gone, the tag on his desk turned over to indicate that he was out. The instant Sari saw this she thought, That’s it. I’ll call the Tenjin branch one more time and get Yoshino’s parents’ phone number.

Just then, from the TV in the next room, she heard the beginning of another report on the discovery at Mitsuse Pass. Drawn by the sound, Sari drifted into the reception area. No one else was there to turn around at the click of her high heels on the floor.

The reporter, a helicopter above him droning over the valley where the body had been discovered, was listing the characteristics of the dead woman.

“Sari…”

Sari turned. She’d been so engrossed in the scene on TV she hadn’t noticed Mako.

“Have you heard from Yoshino?” Mako asked. She looked more plaintive than worried.

Sari shook her head. “Take a look,” she said, and pointed to the screen.

The scene changed from the deep valley to an illustration of the characteristics of the dead woman. The physical description matched Yoshino, as did the hairstyle and clothes she’d been wearing when they’d said goodbye to her last night.

Sari took Mako’s hand and tugged her away from the TV. Mako had been too scared to watch the TV at her own office after the morning meeting, and before she knew it, she’d come over to Sari’s branch.

“Shouldn’t we let somebody know?” Sari said.

“But who would we tell?” Mako asked forlornly.