The House in Which Nightmares Dwell 6.3

[touchturnfly]

3

When the subject suddenly was brought up, Yasuhara straightened his back in a haste.

That's because he received a phone call with the request to do some shopping, which was the thing he had to do early in the morning, and bring along a map together with Takigawa, while simultaneously having to make a report.

Yasuhara impatiently opened the bag he had brought. He pulled out a notebook from the inside.

"Let me see, ... ... First of all, I leafed through the newspapers in the library and couldn't discover anything concerning the matter of the person who committed suicide. Of course, I also checked the obituary columns of the newspapers and ward information."

"As I thought... ..."

"Because it is also a possibility that the matter wasn't reported to the newspaper as a suicide, I tried to get information in the neighbourhood."

"Why?"

"Well," Yasuhara frowned before pushing up his glasses. "This neighbourhood is a district that was rapidly developed over the past twenty years. In a condition of a place that only used to have farms and fields, houses were erected and a town was created. The influx of people was intense. Place names and house numbers were often amended. -- Somehow, when examining the newspapers an unease around this issue remained, but let's put that aside. For that reason, I couldn't discover a person who lived around this place for generations."

"I see."

"Then eventually, though they didn't know how many years before that such a story had taken place, there was only one person who knew that a suicide had happened in this house."

Naru weakly smiled.

"Could they perhaps be Sasakura-san from next door?"

"You're correct. By the way, the Sasakura family -- the family of three, the middle school teacher Takeshi, his wife Kazumi and their son in senior high school, Masaru -- they came to live here in the house next door six years ago. Because of that, I tried to look for and ask the people who lived in this neighbourhood before that time, but not one of person knew about a suicide case."

Hirota leaned forward. On his mind Kazumi's unnatural behaviour had revived. In that situation the man, who had asked her like Kazumi told him, was Yasuhara.

"Is it perhaps possible that Sasakura was lying?"

Yasuhara nodded.

"It's very strange indeed."

"But, why?"

"Well, if I may say so. I heard something interesting concerning that matter at the real estate agent who mediates this house. The houses of this neighbourhood were mostly built at the time of the construction boom around Shōwa 47. They said that the site was narrow and that the buildings were not of a good standard either. In the recent years there was a frenzy of reselling and buying up plots of land and that's how the town steadily became reorganised. Both this house and the neighbouring houses were built at the time of the construction boom and were left behind in the frenzy."

"How is that--?"

"Around the construction boom of Shōwa 47, Tanaka Kakuei's plan to remodel the Japanese archipelago came out and was suddenly accelerated due to his inauguration as the Prime Minister. However, in the year 46 the Nixon Shock happened and in the year 48 the oil crisis occurred, so the state of the world was by no means in a good situation. Since there was a lack of materials and the state of affairs was bad, many of the buildings that were built in that period were quite crude. In that time there were problems such as sea sand being mixed into concrete and the corrosion of reinforcing bars."

"Hm... ..."

"You could say that the Sasakura house was no exception, and because of that it is thought that Sasakura-shi wants to rebuild the house. They have one son who is in senior high school and when he becomes independent he may want to have his own room. If you think about when this son marries in the future, it's possible they'll all live together. Unfortunately, it's too cramped."

"... ... I see."

"This house was for rent the whole time and the real estate agent in charge of the brokerage also did the intermediation of the leases. That real estate agent appears to have received numerous proposals from the Sasakura-shi to purchase the house. However, the owner never felt like putting it up for sale. It is said that the amount of money that Sasakura-shi presented was shockingly cheap," Yasuhara said, while watching Hirota's face. "On top of that the Sasakura household seems to be considerably strong-willed."

Hirota grimaced. He wondered if he was done with that strong-willingness.

"The owner and the real estate agent's impression were not very good. So when this house went on sale, they dared not to sell it to the Sasakura-shi."

Hirota opened his mouth.

"You sure did some great investigation on the internal circumstances."

Yasuhara cheerfully laughed.

"Wouldn't you say that I let the cat out of the bag just now? Carrying myself like that is my strong point."

Hirota was secretly at his wit's end. Why was the lot of this Shibuya Psychic Research so hard to deal with?

"... ... In other words, you're saying that the Sasakura are planning this in order to put this land up for sale?"

"Wouldn't that be a very likely possibility?" Naru interrupted. "Do you know what made the value of this house so cheap?"

"About that," Yasuhara leafed the notebook. "I couldn't clear it up at all. What the real estate agent said is the same as what Agawa-san said. It's only that, according to the people in the neighbourhood, the owner and his wife lived in this house for about two months."

Hirota inclined his head.

"I haven't heard of that, but I wonder if that's not possible?"

"There's more. -- According to the neighbours, this isn't a house what people would live in."

Hirota knit his eyebrows.

"I wonder if that's because there's a problem with the building."

"The real estate agent was very tight-lipped concerning this matter. Because of that, I tried with the contractor, but... ..."

"How in the world were you able to investigate all that within one or two days?"

"Oh no. Wasn't it obvious that I started moving as soon as the request came in? -- Let's leave that aside. It seems that this house has changed owners many times. The one who owned it the longest was a person named Takenaka, the previous owner. Takenaka has leased this house for 13 years, but in that time the real estate agent didn't change and the contractors didn't change either. According to the contractor, no person lived in this house."

"-- Why."

"There seemed to be various reasons. Only, there was one person who complained that "The house was strange", "There's something there", "Something appeared". There are numerous troubles with the house itself, such as rain leakage. The one in charge looked completely displeased."

"Does that mean that the Sasakura did that the whole time?"

"Well that's," Yasuhara made a difficult face. "According to the contractor, from the first time this was leased, he had heard that kind of talk. That was from thirteen years ago, so there's no link with the Sasakura-shi who moved here six years before."

"-- That can't be."

Yasuhara shrugged.

"What they said worries me. -- At any rate, I don't quite understand why they're so intense about this. There isn't much interaction with the neighbours and it doesn't look like a popular spot to live on. I can try to expand the investigation radius a little more," Yasuhara said before looking at Naru. "But perhaps, that is no longer necessary?"

"No," Naru murmured. He appeared to be deep in thought about something. "In any case, please continue."

"Roger."

---

Back to Chapter 6.2 | Forward to Chapter 6.4

Note
Yasuhara used the Japanese calendar system, which is based on the reigns of the emperors. For example, the year 2014 corresponds to Heisei 26. Heisei 26 is the 26th year of the reign of the current emperor.

The corresponding years and historical events discussed in the text are provided below.

Shōwa 46 / 1971: Nixon Shock
Shōwa 47 / 1972: Tanaka Kakuei and the "construction state".
Shōwa 48 / 1973: Oil crisis