Although Inspector Megure was not particularly skilled at deduction, he had been a police officer for many years and considered himself very good at observing suspects.
So ever since he handed those emails to Hashimoto Maya, he had been secretly watching the suspicious man's expression.
—He had expected to see the resentment of someone being blackmailed, the satisfaction of a blackmailer's death, and so on. Yet after staring for quite a while, to the point where flowers were practically about to bloom on Hashimoto Maya's face from his gaze, Inspector Megure still failed to find the emotions he was looking for.
Instead, he only saw some shock and lingering fear.
Inspector Megure: "..." Lingering fear?
Hashimoto Maya came back to his senses and quickly composed his expression, revealing an awkward smile. "Since that plot of land was reclaimed from the sea, I'd never dealt with a place like that before. I didn't actually know the exact price of the land... I never expected him to try to scam me out of so much."
Hearing this, Inspector Megure suddenly understood where that lingering fear came from. "If he'd asked for that price, would you really have paid it?"
Hashimoto Maya nodded with lingering fear. He had come within a hair's breadth of being the one hanging there by the neck and swaying in the air.
Inspector Megure: "..." What a sucker. Foreigners really were easy to fool.
Fortunately, that man had failed to scam him. But thinking about it, Inspector Megure's attitude toward this unfortunate fellow softened a little. Could it be that Hashimoto Maya really was not the killer?
Still, they had to investigate what needed investigating. They could not let him off just because he had nearly been fleeced.
Officer Takagi and the junior officers had been running errands