Chapter 44: Invitation from the Investigation Division

Inspector Megure of the First Investigation Division never expected a falling accident to conclude so simply.

It took five minutes for Sugiura Sōsetsu to examine the corpse and half an hour for the police precinct to conduct its investigation. A case originally projected to consume an entire afternoon in Minato Ward was swiftly wrapped up, leaving only identification and cleanup procedures remaining.

Naturally, the bigwigs of the First Investigation Division had no intention of handling such trivialities; the aftermath would undoubtedly be followed up by the local precinct.

Initially, when Megure learned that this young man charged ten thousand yen per corpse viewing, costing the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department over three hundred thousand yen a month in autopsy fees alone, he had thought it was far too easy a living.

Now, it seemed that a great reputation was never undeserved; the man had every right to earn that money!

If the forensic experts in the Forensics Department possessed even a fraction of this level of competence, the Metropolitan Police Department would never have to worry about unsolved cases!

As Inspector Megure was deep in thought, the president of the real estate development company hurried over in tears, bowing deeply to Sugiura Sōsetsu. "Thank you! Forensic Doctor!"

"It's nothing. I merely wished to bring the truth to light." Sugiura's expression turned somewhat peculiar at that moment. His emotions fluctuated uncertainly, a trace of anger and helplessness briefly flashing across his brow. Shaking his head, the forensic doctor reached out to pat the president's arm. "Next time, make sure you don't withhold your employees' wages!"

The wish the jumper had hoped to fulfill was not this; his true grievance was "I want to take another gamble," but Sugiura simply chose to ignore him.

"I definitely won't next time!" The real estate president expressed his gratitude once more, seizing the opportunity to present a business card. "If you ever require interior renovation, please do me the honor—I'll give you a discount!"

And so the matter came to an end.

"Wrap up the operation!" The cohort of suits from the First Investigation Division had watched Sugiura Sōsetsu's performance from start to finish. With no need for further investigation or cleanup duties, they climbed back into their vehicles to prepare for departure.

"Sugiura-kun, what are your plans for the rest of the day?" Intent on cultivating a deeper connection with such a formidable talent—establishing a good relationship with someone this impressive was paramount—Inspector Megure took the initiative to ask.

"My plans? You'll have to ask your Metropolitan Police Department about that." Sugiura blinked. "Because of today's summons by the District Public Prosecutors Office, the hospital recorded this as an official outing. I should be completely free for the rest of the day."

Completely free?

Standing beside Sugiura, Ikeda Eirina suddenly realized that aside from him, she was completely free as well!

It was only three o'clock in the afternoon. In that case, wouldn't it mean...

Hehe~ This fellow's remaining time belonged entirely to her.

Ikeda Eirina was already calculating what she should do with Sugiura next. Ideally, they could find a quiet little shop to sit down and have him walk through the case details for her once more. There were certain aspects she still hadn't fully grasped—for instance, why accidental deaths always involved leaning the upper body forward; was it somehow harder to fall if one leaned the lower body instead?

She disliked the First Investigation Division because absolutely no one spoke to her, everyone acting as if she didn't exist. The local precincts were even worse.

They only needed him, while completely ignoring me!

A pang of sorrow pierced Eirina's heart. These people had no idea how crucial she was to him.

None of them had any idea!

"That's perfect. We're heading over to Fuji TV to investigate an incident next. Would Sugiura-kun care to join us?" Inspector Megure glanced left and right before leaning in to lower his voice. "Sudo mentioned previously that you're quite fond of the actress Shirakawa Mai, aren't you? She happens to be at the television station today!"

"Oh? You don't say?" Sure enough, Sugiura's interest was piqued.

"???" Ikeda Eirina widened her eyes in astonishment.

"Fuji TV anchorwoman Mariko Hironaka, a graduate of Keio University, has gone missing," Inspector Megure whispered. "This isn't normally the sort of case that falls to our First Investigation Division, but Fuji TV is a vital partner of the Metropolitan Police Department. Section Chief Mikasa instructed us to swing by and take a look on our way. Would you care to come along? If you accompany us, we can designate you as an investigative assistant. With an identification badge, Sugiura-kun, you'll be able to wander freely around the station, and you might even get to meet Shirakawa Mai-san!"

"This..." Sugiura's eyes lit up. "Then I'll have to trouble the First Division."

"Ha, no trouble at all, no trouble." Seeing that Sugiura had taken the bait, Inspector Megure triumphantly patted him on the shoulder. "If anything, we should be thanking you."

Sugiura boarded the First Investigation Division's vehicle, leaving Ikeda Eirina stranded and dumbfounded in place.

The tall beauty stared in a daze as Sugiura was so easily persuaded to get into the car by Megure's mention of his beloved senior Mai. All of her carefully crafted plans for the afternoon instantly evaporated, and she found it difficult to describe the taste left in her heart.

It was a poignant, heart-wrenching bitterness that seemed to seep straight from her bones and blood.

Having spent years as a police officer enduring isolation, Eirina was not one to easily bare her disappointment. Yet, seeing Sugiura decisively abandon the time they could have spent together in favor of his senior Mai still left her feeling deeply aggrieved and annoyed.

This fellow had begged her to teach him karate, and from time to time he would steal glances at her chest, legs, and feet—all things she had never refused. During their regular training sessions, their occasional close contact and lingering proximity were things she had silently condoned.

No man had ever dared to take such liberties with her, save for him.

Yet the cruelty of reality had mercilessly torn apart her illusions; perhaps she was not the only one in Sugiura's world.

It was true, of course—it was completely normal for him to know other women in Tokyo, and she had witnessed it more than once.

Ikeda Eirina felt as though she were suffocating.

What made it even more suffocating was that no one paid her the slightest heed.

From start to finish, not a single person from the First Investigation Division had spoken a word to her, while the local precinct treated her like thin air. Inspector Hada had called his subordinates to gather for departure, and when he walked over to apologize to Sugiura and Inspector Megure, he had deliberately walked a wide semicircle around her.

As the officers of the First Investigation Division boarded their vehicles one by one, no one called out to her. She seemed to have been forgotten entirely.

An inexplicable heaviness pressed down upon her shoulders, making respiration slightly labored.

Was it going to be like this again?

Eirina possessed a strong-willed personality; the more she encountered such situations, the more unwilling she was to lower her pride.

Amidst the constant stream of bustling personnel, she stubbornly stood alone in the center of the grounds.

Until a voice broke through the silence.

"Ikeda? What are you doing over there?" Sugiura poked his head out from the back seat. "Hurry up and get in. We're going to check out Fuji TV—it's a rare opportunity!"

"I..." Ikeda lowered her gaze, clenching her hands tightly.

"Come on, hurry." Sugiura pushed the car door open, half-coaxing and half-pulling the tall beauty into the vehicle. "I know you're free right now anyway, so let's go together. We're partners, after all."

Just like that, Ikeda Eirina allowed herself to be half-reluctantly pulled into the back seat by Sugiura. The junior officer from the First Investigation Division who had originally intended to take this vehicle immediately gave up and squeezed into another car instead.

I didn't ask for your help!

Eirina struggled to calm her turbulent emotions, but no matter what she did, she could not suppress her expression. The bitterness that had just settled and a fierce sense of satisfaction surged wildly from the depths of her heart.

This guy, why is it that he always manages to appear right when she needs help the most?

Yet, deep down, I actually wish you wouldn't go see that so-called Senior Mai. I would much rather—

Damn it, why is it that just hearing him call out to me makes me feel so happy and fulfilled?

Jerk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eirina mentally cursed Sugiura for his denseness while comfortably settling down right beside him.

There's no helping it now; I suppose I'll just have to accompany you on this little outing.

Inside the car, Inspector Megure caught sight of Eirina squeezing herself in through the rearview mirror and felt utterly speechless.

Why on earth did you invite her along? I only invited you, not her!

This woman is trouble, and I still want to keep my job in the First Investigation Division!

Yet, he could not afford to disregard Sugiura's face, so Megure had no choice but to silently acquiesce to the situation.

"So, Inspector Megure, anchorwoman Mariko Hironaka of Fuji TV has gone missing?" Sugiura remained curious about the disappearance case.

"Yes, her family filed a report stating that Mariko Hironaka hasn't been in touch with them since last Friday, and she hasn't replied to any messages over the weekend," Megure explained from the front passenger seat. "That's why our division is taking the opportunity to drop by the station for an inquiry."

"Wasn't anyone at her home?"

"She lives in a rented apartment outside."

After listening briefly, Sugiura lost much of his interest in the case.

For an adult living alone away from home, occasionally losing contact for a few days was entirely normal. Moreover, there was no corpse to examine, and judging by Megure's attitude, the police weren't taking it too seriously either; it was merely a routine investigation.

It was nothing major—that was the consensus shared by Inspector Megure, Sugiura Sōsetsu, and Ikeda Eirina.

"Speaking of which, Inspector Megure, could you describe to me how your First Investigation Division typically handles cases when they arise?" Sugiura seized the opportunity to initiate a conversation.

"Certainly."

Inspector Megure proceeded to outline the operational routine of the First Investigation Division.

Suppose a homicide occurred somewhere; how would the First Investigation Division proceed?

Following standard procedure, the division would split into three groups.

The first group would canvass the surrounding area, questioning every passerby and local resident, reviewing security camera footage, and searching for potential clues.

The second group would investigate the victim's interpersonal relationships, starting their inquiries from everyone who could possibly be linked to the case.

The third group would assemble personnel and, using the victim's location as the central point, radiate outward step by step to search for potential criminal traces and physical evidence. Naturally, the forensic personnel responsible for autopsies were included in this phase, and the body along with other physical evidence would be sent off for testing.

Upon hearing this, Sugiura thought to himself that this aspect was pretty much universal across nations; investigative techniques and methods were largely similar everywhere.

One had to admit that public safety in Japan was relatively sound, but the actual crime-solving capabilities of the Japanese police were not particularly formidable.

"To put it frankly, right here in Tokyo, the clearance rate for all registered cases under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Department is under forty percent, and the vast majority of those consist of disappearances, petty thefts, fraud, and civil disputes," Megure remarked offhandedly. "The most incompetent of all is Kanagawa."

The absolute peak of uselessness among Japanese police forces resided in Kanagawa Prefecture, where scandals and criminal offenses worthy of national news headlines were exposed practically every year. These included police officers wearing their uniforms to commit telecom fraud, sleeping with high school girls (under Japanese law, adulthood is reached at eighteen, making relations between adults and minors illegal, though the legal age of marriage is sixteen, rendering marital relations lawful), groping female students on their commute, secretly filming under female customers' skirts in supermarkets, smearing semen on female passengers' bags on trains, being caught red-handed stealing tempura and bread from supermarkets, discovering a severely injured patient during patrol and leaving them at the police box until they died, crashing a police car into a streetcar, embezzling and taking kickbacks, and so on.

One could say they had transcended mere incompetence and entered the realm of the abstract.

Furthermore, Kanagawa Prefecture once held a distinct record—losing their service weapons four times in a single year. The most absurd instance involved an officer who lost his gun and remained entirely unaware of it, leaving a convenience store clerk to play with the small revolver for an entire morning before remembering to return it to the men in blue.

If one discounted the abstract prefecture of Kanagawa, the clearance rate for Japanese police was actually not very high. Crimes such as fraud and theft perpetually suffered from abysmal solution rates, while numerous cases were simply filed away as disappearances or hastily concluded as suicides.

That being the case, why hadn't Tokyo transformed into an East Asian Gotham City?

It was quite simple. First, the Japanese people placed immense value on the public morality of social cohesion, maintaining a longstanding habit of avoiding trouble for others. Combined with a respect for law and authority, a relatively homogeneous racial culture, and a society built heavily on personal connections, the baseline crime rate remained quite low.

Second, the overall caliber of the police officers was relatively high.

True, while police officers in regional branches and local precincts were often rather abstract in their conduct, whenever major crimes like homicides occurred, the Metropolitan Police Department handled them personally. And the elite officers of the Metropolitan Police Department exhibited a very high execution rate; for instance, clearance rates for murder, robbery, gambling, narcotics, and human trafficking cases handled directly by the headquarters all exceeded eighty percent.

However, relying solely on a small cadre of elite headquarters police bureaucrats to maintain social peace and stability was not a sustainable long-term solution, placing immense pressure on the standards of generational succession.

Sugiura grasped the underlying meaning behind Megure's words.

In short, ninety percent of the police officers in local precincts were useless trash, whereas the Metropolitan Police Department fared somewhat better, with only forty to fifty percent being useless.

"There are a few other reasons as well," Inspector Megure said with a bitter smile, shaking his head. "In the past, technological standards were lacking—we didn't have security cameras or DNA technology—but our jurisdiction and authority as the Metropolitan Police Department were vastly broader. Nowadays, surveillance and DNA forensic technologies have advanced, but our investigative powers have steadily diminished. There are many things we simply cannot do anymore, and torture is entirely out of the question. Often, we know full well who the culprit is, yet we are ultimately forced to let them go."

"Another factor is that the social status of police officers has declined. Back in the sixties and seventies, entering the police force was considered a prestigious and glorious path, and only true elites could secure positions within the Metropolitan Police Department. But as the economy improved later on, more career options opened up, and fewer people were willing to enter this profession. Social elites preferred to become lawyers, doctors, politicians, or businessmen. The caliber of incoming recruits has steadily deteriorated, leaving only the Metropolitan Police Department or places like Osaka Prefecture still able to attract career officers. Within the political arena, a police background has shifted from being a mark of distinction to something looked down upon."

The ranks had begun to grow a mixed bag of personnel, leading to a sharp decline in policing capabilities.

"Finally, society itself has changed," Megure voiced his own underlying anxieties.

Ever since the collapse of the economic bubble, society had grown increasingly indifferent and isolated. With the rise of commercialization, tracing items left at crime scenes through manufacturing and regional origins had become progressively more difficult, while the challenge of collecting and verifying evidence at crime scenes escalated steadily. On top of that, the demise of the traditional lifetime employment system made people increasingly reluctant to cooperate or step forward as witnesses.

Japanese police were most adept at solving homicides through personal networks and tracing physical evidence back to their sources; whenever they encountered other types of crime, they were frequently left completely in the dark.

"Sugiura-kun, our Metropolitan Police Department is in desperate need of a talent like you!"