Who will ever believe you? Who in the world will ever believe you?

The only thing there was the dark mountain pass. There weren’t any other witnesses. There’s nobody to testify that I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything! He could picture himself trying to explain things to his grandmother. Himself, shouting out, I didn’t do anything! to the people surrounding him. He recalled his voice when he was a child at the ferryboat dock, explaining, My mom will be coming back! His voice when nobody believed him.

Yuichi grabbed Yoshino’s shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!”

As she pushed him away, her arm hit Yuichi’s ear. Pain shot through him as if he’d been struck by a metal rod. Instinctively, he grabbed her arm. As she struggled to get away, he pushed her down until he was sitting on top of her on the chilly pavement. Yoshino’s face in the moonlight was twisted in anger.

“I didn’t do anything.”

He held down her shoulders. In a voice at once pained and snarling, she shouted back, “Who’s ever going to believe you! You murderer! Help!” Yoshino’s screams shook the trees in the pass. Every time she screamed, Yuichi’s body trembled in fright. If someone ever heard these lies of hers…

“But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.”

Yuichi shut his eyes. He was desperately pressing down on her throat, so frightened he couldn’t help it. No one could ever hear these lies she was spouting. He had to kill these lies quickly or else the truth itself would die. And the thought terrified him.

Several squid-fishing boats were tied up at the wharf. The lines that tied them up were slack, and schools of small fish swam up from the bottom of their hulls. A moment ago, a little girl had pedaled her tricycle over to where Mitsuyo and Yuichi stood on the wharf, then pedaled back to where her mother was at one of the stands.

Mitsuyo and Yuichi had left the restaurant without finishing their meal. By the time Yuichi had finished his story, the squirming legs of the freshly prepared squid on the platter had gone limp. Fortunately, no other guests had come into the second-floor dining hall. The middle-aged waitress, however, had checked in on them a few times.

When he finished speaking, Yuichi had simply said, “I’m sorry,” in a small voice. Mitsuyo was silent and he went on. “I’m turning myself in now,” he said.

Mitsuyo nodded, her mind blank.

Just then, the waitress came over and asked, “You’re not that fond of sashimi, then?”

“It’s not that,” Mitsuyo lied. “I’m just not feeling very well.”

Mitsuyo stood up and Yuichi looked at her, resigned. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. Yuichi was amazed; he had expected her to leave him there. When they apologized to the waitress for leaving all the food, she said, “It’s okay. It’s on the house.”

They left the restaurant and walked along the wharf where the boats were anchored. Without really realizing it, they were heading toward the parking lot. On one level, Mitsuyo knew she was going to get into his car, the car of a man who’d murdered someone, but as she walked along the cold, windswept wharf, there seemed to be nowhere else to go. She was amazed at herself for having listened to him to the end, without screaming, without getting up and running away. What he told her had been too overwhelming, so overwhelming that her mind wouldn’t function.

As they came to the end of the wharf, Mitsuyo stopped and looked down at all the garbage bobbing up against the wharf.

“I’m going to go to the police right now.”

Staring down at the flotsam, Mitsuyo nodded.

“I’m really sorry. I never meant to cause any problems for you, Mitsuyo…”

Mitsuyo nodded again before he’d finished. The little girl on her tricycle was pedaling over to them again. A pink ribbon tied to the handlebars looked about to rip off in the cold, stiff wind.

The girl pedaled between them and started back to her mother at the squid stall. Mitsuyo watched her, pedaling furiously away.

“Forgive me,” Yuichi said, bowing to her and heading off alone to the parking lot. His back looked as if it had shrunk one whole size. As if he would break down in tears if she touched him.

“Which police station are you going to?” Mitsuyo called out.

Yuichi turned around. “I don’t know. I guess if we go into Karatsu there must be a station somewhere,” he said.

What do you care? part of her mentally shouted. Get out of here as quick as you can. But she also felt terribly frustrated. She had to say something.

“Don’t leave me here alone,” Mitsuyo said. “If you leave me here by myself, what’ll I do? I’ll go with you, to the police. We can go together.”

A blast of wind from the sea blew her words away. Yuichi stared at her intently. And then, without a word, he started walking away again.

“Wait!” Mitsuyo shouted, and Yuichi halted.

“I can’t let you do that. You’ll get in trouble,” he said without turning around.

“I already am in trouble!” she shouted. A middle-aged woman cleaning squid on the other side of the road shot them a glance.

Without replying Yuichi set off again and Mitsuyo ran after him. She’d wanted to say something, but not that.

When he reached the parking lot Yuichi stopped, and clenched his fists as his shoulders shook.

“Why did things turn out like this?” he moaned.

The sound of Yuichi’s crying drowned out the slap of the waves against the breakwaters. Mitsuyo walked around in front of him and took his tightly clenched fists in her hands.

“Let’s go to the police,” she said. “We’ll go together… You’re scared, aren’t you? To go alone? I’ll go with you. If we’re together… if we’re together I know you can make it.”

Yuichi’s hands trembled in hers. He nodded again and again. “Yeah… yeah…” he said, and she could feel him trembling, and feel each nod.

It was past two p.m. when it started to get cloudy. After he heard the detective’s explanation, Yoshio Ishibashi had run out of his shop, walked the three minutes to the parking lot where he rented a space, and got in his car. Where he was headed, though, he had no idea.

The Fukuoka college student wasn’t the murderer after all. Instead, it was some man she’d met on an online dating site. That’s what the police had told him, but he still wasn’t convinced. He wasn’t even convinced that his daughter had been part of all this. It had to be some kind of mistake. Somebody, for whatever motive, must be out to get them.

Yoshino is still alive somewhere, he told himself. Waiting for me to come and rescue her… but I don’t know where she is. Everybody I ask keeps telling me she’s dead.

He drove aimlessly. He knew these streets well, but through his tears Kurume looked like a place he’d never seen before.

His car was one that Yoshino had picked out, back when she’d just entered high school. He’d told her he didn’t want any bright colors, but she kept insisting he had to get a red car. “Red is so cute!” she’d said. He finally compromised, buying a light-green compact.

The day the car was delivered, they took a picture of the three of them posed in front of it. Yoshino was overjoyed, and no matter how much Yoshio tried to persuade her, she wouldn’t allow him to remove the plastic protective sheets over the seats.

He drove aimlessly for hours around Kurume. He just wanted to see Yoshino. He wanted to know where she was. He could hear her voice, calling out for help, but where his daughter was, he had no idea.

Before he knew it, he was heading toward Mitsuse Pass. He drove out of Kurume onto the highway, crossed the river, and suddenly realized he was driving down a road through the fields in the Saga plains. Before him lay the mountains of the Sefuri range.

The weather started to cloud up right about the time he stopped at a gas station. He went to the restroom as they were filling up his gas tank, and from the small window he saw the dark rain clouds moving in over the mountains. The clouds spread out until they hid the peak of the pass and began to approach the plain where Yoshio was.