It was late in the morning when Emiko finally woke up in her bed. She lazily stretched herself in all directions, unexpectedly realizing that she had slept almost 24 hours without changing her travel clothes. She slowly stood up, rubbing her eyes, and took fresh clothes and a towel out of the open suitcase, then she went to the bathroom. After taking a warm shower and fully awake, she decided to lock the room and go to the shop for the food... and some information.
She has rested, so now is the time to start her investigation.
****
In a shop on the next street, the girl stocked up on food for the next day, and then headed to the newsstand. There were newspapers with week news on a rack, so she began reading one after another.
'I need some clue... anything...' she thought, flipping through the pages of the first newspaper she had picked up. 'The case with my brother is quite high-profile now, so the newspaper article should also be large...' She put down the first newspaper and picked up another, from two days ago. 'Nothing here either... It's been five months since then, they must have written something else about it somewhere... Unless my brother- Ah!'
On the front page of the newspaper from three days ago, there was a photo of Kenzo Tenma, along with a comprehensive description. Emiko read the lines carefully, but only one sentence caught her full attention.
"(...) A serial killer of middle-aged marriages made his another move in Verden, where the bodies of another childless couple, the Springer family, were found. (...)"
'Verden...?' Emiko walked to the side of the sidewalk where she didn't disturb passers-by and took the map out of her backpack, then started looking for the indicated place on the map. 'Verden... Verden... Ah. It's on west. Oh man... far away from here...' The girl put her thumb on her bottom lip and thought for a moment. According to the map, Verden was about 350 kilometers from Berlin, slightly northwest. 'Taxi is definitely out of the question, and I don't know if the trains go there, because the city doesn't seem to be large. How much would a ticket cost me at all...? Hmm...' Emiko closed her eyes and used all her senses to find a solution. It took a while and finally...
"...Hitch-hike!" She unexpectedly exclaimed aloud, causing the closest passersby to glance in her direction. She covered her mouth with her hand and hid her face behind the open map. 'I have to calm down. Yes. Peace of mind is the most important thing...' She thought a bit ashamed, then took a few deep breaths and put the map in her backpack. She then found an empty seat in the park, which was quite close to the main street, where she had a breakfast outdoors.
After she had eaten her meal, she headed straight back for the hostel. There, she packed her things, handed over the key on the reception desk, and with the suitcase in hand, she headed for the main route to Verden. She decided that even if she didn't find a hitch, she would go there on her own feet. If it had been for something else, she wouldn't have gone that far, but this time it was about her beloved brother Kenzo. Emiko knew that she wouldn't give up until she had solved this puzzle to the end.
****
Two hours later, she was about 8 kilometers out of town, but she didn't find any transport yet. Although several cars had passed her earlier, none of them stopped to pick up the hitchhiker. Emiko sat down on the railing by the road to rest for a while, as the temperature was quite high that day. She grabbed the water bottle and drank a few sips, then looked up at the sky where she couldn't see even a single cloud.
'Give me at least a little one cloud... Sky-san, please... Gosh, it's hot...' She started fanning herself with the folded map and looking at the road in front of her. 'There should be more trees on these roads, definitely...' She turned her head the other way, where she came from. 'I have the impression that I didn't walk even ten kilometers from the city border. I can't stay here for a long time, because when the night finds me in the middle of nowhere...' She sighed loudly and left the railing to continue walking. But just as she began to take her first steps, she heard the whir of an engine in the distance. She quickly started looking both ways.
'Please, go towards Verden and take me with you, please, please...' After a while, she noticed a passenger car... going in the opposite direction, which passed her in the other lane and headed for Berlin. 'Wonderful...' she thought a little irritated and began to walk on.
The heat was getting milder as time passed, as the afternoon was slowly coming to an end, giving way to the evening.
The girl was already almost 25 kilometers from Berlin, when she suddenly saw that the delivery truck that had overtaken her a moment earlier, stopped a dozen meters away. As she approached it, the passenger door swung open and she saw a short, older man sitting on the other side of the driver's seat.
"How about a lift? Lady, it's dangerous to walk like that at night." Emiko looked at him with hope in her eyes.
"Which way are you going, sir?"
"Bremen." At these words, she scratched her head.
"Is it somewhere around Verden?"
"You're a tourist?" The man smiled. "Yes, I'm going through the Verden. On my way, I promised to give potatoes from the farm to my daughter, because she lives there. What, give you a lift?"
"If it doesn't bother you, sir..."
"Get in... Ah. I can put this suitcase in the trunk."
"Of course, here. And... thank you for your help, sir." Emiko smiled friendly towards him. The man got out of the car and opened the back door.
"You can thank me after. Now go in and fasten your seat belts."
In this way, after the next four hours, Emiko found herself safely in the place where her real journey began - Verden.
****
Luckily enough for Emiko, the man who gave her a lift to the city didn't let her leave at once, but took her to his daughter's house, where Emiko was offered to stay the night.
"Take her for the night or even a few days, because she has come a long way today and is probably already tired." The man said to his daughter, winking at her. The girl agreed, because although she was already an adult working woman, she still hadn't married and lived alone. She also said in advance that she wouldn't accept the accommodation fee from the younger woman, even though Emiko strongly opposed it. Eventually they came to an agreement - the accommodation didn't cover the cost of food. Young Tenma felt that this was a fairer solution. She didn't want to rely so much on the goodness of others - there were things she had decided five months before coming to this country. When asked about her identity, she introduced herself as... Emilie Himmel. She knew that by hiding the truth about herself, she would have better options in the future.
During breakfast the next day, Emiko heard quite interesting words from the lady of the house.
"I wish I was a student too; I miss these three months of vacation... A summer trip across the country like yours must be an interesting experience... Which city are you from, if I may ask?" Emiko was surprised, chewing her portion.
'She thinks I'm from Germany...? That I'm... German? Oh gosh...' She swallowed her bite slowly while wondering what to say. For the first time in her life, she felt truly grateful for her non-Asian beauty.
She chose one of the safer options, though at the same time she was afraid that she might not answer the next, more detailed questions. Worse, it might turn out that the place she had indicated was familiar to the young woman in front of her, which made her feel a bit insecure.
"From a small town in the east." She replied calmly, then took another bite of her sandwich.
"Oh, I understand." Older girl nodded her head. "It's quite a long route you've already traveled..." Emiko breathed quietly with relief. Fortunately, the woman didn't pursue this topic further. "I'm working a second shift this week, so I'll leave you spare keys for you to come and go whenever you want. As I mentioned before, you can stay here as long as you need to. You can even go out in the middle of the night as long as you'll be quiet." She smiled at her as she stood up and headed the empty cup towards the sink. "Young people like a little fun, I know it too well. At the same time you understand, I already work and unfortunately I have to sleep good at night..." For a moment she turned her head towards Emiko with an apologetic smile; it was obvious that she herself would gladly sneak out somewhere on a night trip full of adventures.
"Don't worry Iris, as soon as you sleep, I'll be tiptoeing during this time." Emiko answered her with a slight smile.
"Oh don't exaggerate too much..." Iris said seriously, then both laughed.
By far her newly met older friend was a nice person. Emiko regretted that when she was a child she hadn't met such a girl in her hometown, because they would certainly have become good friends.
After breakfast, Emiko (aka Emilie) traveled to town to locate the murdered couple's home. First, she found a store to check if anything new had happened. She flipped through the pages of a newspaper leaning against the counter by the cash register, but apart from a note that the Springer's killer was still undiscovered, nothing else was written there. The clerk sitting behind the counter was smoking a cigarette, browsing some news in one of the newspapers, from time to time glancing at Emiko and two other customers in the store. The girl was a bit disappointed, because Verden, although it was not particularly big town, seemed huge in the context of finding only one home among them all.
'Maybe I should start with the abandoned houses? Since they lived alone, it means that no one lives in it now...' She tried to formulate a sensible plan in her head. Of course, it could take a long time to locate uninhabited houses across town. 'If at least I found someone who is better acquainted with this case... But on the other hand, I cannot reveal that I need this address, because they would ask me for what purpose I need it... Or maybe...' Emiko holding the newspaper in her hands, although her eyes were focused on the lines of text, she was really looking at the empty space in front of her. '...maybe I should stand in different parts of town with a page open to this article and pretend I'm reading? It is possible that there will be a friend or a neighbor who will say something more about it on his own initiative? Or maybe I should pretend to be a journalist or a student from the psychology department writing a thesis on this topic... '
"Can I help you with something?" Shopkeeper's voice snapped out Emiko of the labyrinth of her thoughts.
"Oh yeah. I'll take today's newspaper." The man got up from his seat and went to the cash register to accept the payment.
After leaving the store, she walked along the nearest streets, looking for abandoned houses, or those that would seem abandoned, while being careful not to get lost - after all, she didn't know the city at all.
For the first part of the day, she found nothing, even though she had come quite a long way. At lunchtime, she stopped at a little bar where she ate a nutritious meal and continued her journey. Due to the fact that the plan with reading the newspaper failed, she decided to ask people from the city, claiming to be a psychology student. She noticed between two tenement houses that she passed by that a woman stopped by the lawn, holding a dog on a leash, which was searching for something in the grass. She decided to approach her.
"My dearest God, what these poor young people are told to write in these universities..." The woman shook her head with worry written on her face.
"Do you know anything about this case?"
"Well, this old couple... The Springers... lived in a fairly large estate in the south of the city. They moved here because Mr. Springer was running for governor. They had no children, but from what I heard, they were good people. They ended so bad..."
"Do you know what street their house is on? I would like to learn more from someone in their neighborhood."
"As far as I know, this is at Andreaswall street... Rex, stop pulling!" She turned to her dog, who was trying to pull her away in a different direction.
"Andreaswall, right?" Emiko wrote the address in a small notebook. "Thank you very much for your help."
"Here you are. Goodbye." The woman turned and began to walk away, but then suddenly stopped and turned back to her. "I wish you good luck with writing this article. An unpleasant thing."
"Thank you." Emiko smiled at her and the woman started walking away again.
The girl, asking for directions from passers-by, managed to reach the place after some time. As soon as she was on Andreaswall, she began looking for some larger abandoned property, looking around at the houses she passed. Finally, she found it. It was really big house because it had two floors and a large front garden. Emiko leaned against the fence and started looking at the building. It was about four kilometers from her current accommodation, so less than an hour away. She decided to come back here in the evening when it gets dark and search the building.
'If there are many rooms, it is possible that one evening isn't enough for me to find out something...' she thought, looking questioningly at one of the windows on the second floor, because she remembered that the article had written about finding the bodies of a married couple over there. 'I'll start on the second floor, there should be the most clues.'
As she decided, she did so.
A few hours later, when the city fell asleep, Emiko set off on her journey. She left the apartment before Iris returned, taking a backpack with a map, a flashlight and a few other useful things. She knew that this incursion was completely illegal, and if someone had caught her there, would have called the police right away. It was the last thing she wanted.
She took a shortcut through the park and then wandered through empty streets. At the same time, she was absolutely careful, as there was always a risk that she might be accosted by some drunkard or thief, or another man who would take the opportunity to meet a young girl so late in the night when it is difficult to call for help.
Emiko finally got there. She silently slipped inside through the open glass at the back of the house and headed up the stairs to the second floor. She turned on the flashlight, pressed the handle of the first corridor door she saw, and stepped inside.
The room looked normal; at the same time it was clear that the Springers were a wealthy couple. Everywhere there were elaborate items of considerable value.
'...There's nothing here...' She thought, shining around the room and carefully examining the objects she passed. '...At least nothing abnormal. I'll go check another room.' She quietly stepped out into the hallway and gently closed the door behind her. She was shining a flashlight in front of her and at one point she noticed something that made her stop with her heart pounding.
There were two white drawed outlines of lying figures on the floor. Emiko swallowed loudly.
'This is the first time I'm in a place like this. It's not very pleasant... I didn't know them, but I feel a little sorry for them. They could live longer...' After a moment she breathed and headed towards the second door, but when she touched the handle, she felt something incredibly strange. Some unexplained cold... 'What's... going on...?' Concerned, she looked at the door, which... looked as normal as possible. She turned the knob and began to slowly open it...
When Emiko shone the flashlight, she saw another plain, tastefully decorated room. She walked slowly inside and began to look around. She noticed an open safe on one wall that was empty.
'These thieves have no conscience, rob the dead. Isn't it better to donate such money to charity? It would at least be able to help someone...' Emiko regretted for a moment that she hadn't been able to get here earlier. Surely she would have saved someone who really needed it with this money. So busy with her thoughts, she shone her flashlight a little higher and saw that on the wall to the left, above the fireplace, there was a picture of a young woman, but it was very twisted on the wall surface...
She picked up an armchair standing nearby, then set it by the fireplace and climbed onto it. After that, she removed the painting and carefully placed it on the shelf next to it, then looked at the wall again.
At this point, she felt incredibly weird, and the blood in her veins froze for one longer moment.
My dear doctor Tenma
Look at me! Look at me!
The Monster inside me has already grown this large!
Emiko, standing motionless and staring at the words written on the wall with a pounding heart, had no doubts that this message was directed to her brother, but...
'...who is the person who wrote this...?'
The investigation began to reveal new secrets to unravel; back then the young woman didn't yet know how much, especially this one thing, would affect her further life.