Free Nocturne of Remembrance by Shichiri Nakayama

women would have done the samething if they were in my position. Perhaps this might sound callous, but Shingo was the entire cause of the murder. Of course, I regret killing him and am sorry for him, but I think that I’m the victim here, too.
    The above transcript was read aloud to and reviewed by the subject who, finding no errors, affixed a signature and thumbprint.
    Lieutenant Yasuo Kamiyama, Judicial Police, Setagaya Police Station (stamp)
    The impression that reading this imparted to Mikoshiba was still Akiko’s selfishness. While she testified to the fact that the victim, her husband, had been heinous, her own lack of affection and delusionary absorption with the future were so conspicuous that it was hard to feel compassion. If the deposition were published in the local news section of a daily, very possibly it would elicit more antipathy than sympathy from the majority of housewives.
    There were as many women with down-and-out husbands as there were stars in the heavens. The same probably went for women who’d had fists raised against them in a quarrel. And devouring newspaper ads to save even a little money on food was something that most housewives did anyway. As for wishing to escape to someplace other than here, didn’t the vast majority of people?
    Yet everybody put up with such things. With all their discontent and grumbling, and amidst agonized sighs, they went on living today as they did yesterday. From the viewpoint of such people, Akiko would invariably seem short-circuited.
    It wasn’t clear whether it was the prosecution’s wiliness or Lieutenant Kamiyama’s intent, but the deposition was constructed so that the reader got an uncomfortable feeling about Akiko even though she was giving voice to her own misfortune. An example of that was placing her self-excusing remark at the end. It seemed like the facts were being laid out cool-headedly, but Akiko’s words had been rearranged out of order to minimize any room for sympathy and to leave a badimpression.
    There was another factor that couldn’t be overlooked: Akiko’s physical appearance. Her looks were only mediocre, maybe a bit below average, a woman visibly ground down by everyday life—
    The world cast an almost cruelly severe eye upon such defendants. The retributive urge came into play far more than for an immoral but good-looking woman committing the same crime. Moreover, women showed that tendency more than men. At Akiko’s first trial, there had been two men and four women on the jury, and it couldn’t be denied that the ratio had worked against her.
    In any case, her testimony fully admitted to the crime. In that sense, there was nothing the defense could try. The knife used as the murder weapon had been found indeed, left in a corner of the bathroom, and the only fingerprints detected were those of Akiko. Moreover, according to the investigators who had rushed to the scene and taken Akiko into custody, her face had borne no signs of an attack. In other words, contrary to her testimony, they held that it wasn’t violent treatment by the victim that had led her to commit the crime.
    Mikoshiba reached out to the second deposition. It was the testimony of the victim’s father, who had discovered the dead body.
    Deposition
    Current residence: X-X-X Taishido, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo
    Occupation: District Welfare Officer
    Name: Yozo Tsuda; DOB March 25, 1941 (70 years old)
    At the Setagaya Station on May 22, 2011, the above-listed person freely provided the following testimony.
    1. I serve as a welfare officer in the Taishido district. Prior to that, I was an elementary school teacher, but I retired five years ago and have since been working as a welfare officer. My wife has already passed away, and my only blood relations are my sons, Shingo and Takahiro, who both managed to start their own families, such as they were. I am currently living with mysecond son and his family and am enjoying a fairly carefree life. Shingo’s house was