5. Behold the Terrible Flame 6
Tokyo Detention House
Mr. Tetsuto Mando
The coolness is deepening day by day, and before I knew it, the season has arrived where I cannot be without a jacket. I have heard that there is no heating installed in your cell. Mr. Mando, how is your health? Please take care of yourself and be sure not to catch a cold.
Now then. Some time has passed since then, and it has been a long time, but I have taken up my pen, which I am not used to, because there was something I wanted to report to you in earnest.
I am used to writing reports, papers, and medical charts, but I rarely send personal letters, so I am at a loss as to how to write this. If the content sounds a bit like a psychiatrist's, please take it as the ramblings of a poor woman who has dedicated half her life to her profession.
Looking back calmly now, I think I was being danced in the palm of your hand from the very beginning. I suppose the actors were different to begin with. You are a much higher-level player than I am.
If there is such a thing as a natural talent for manipulating people, you must be a genius at it. You pulled it off so brilliantly.
That day. When you suddenly brought up dissociative identity disorder, I had the soil to believe it. As a psychiatrist, I knew of the disorder, and in fact, I had sometimes wondered before if there were patients I had diagnosed in the past who might have had this illness that I had overlooked and misdiagnosed. Even if it were a misdiagnosis, there is no established therapy for dissociative identity disorder yet, so I don't think the result would have been much different.
I listened to the audio data of your interviews from the beginning again. This time, without being chased by time, and removing as much prejudice as possible.
It finally dawned on my foolish self that you had been laying the groundwork skillfully from the first interview, and that you had been imprinting one conclusion on me, one by one. I also vaguely understand why you brought it up at that timing.
For you, Hori-kun was an uncertain factor, wasn't he?
From the beginning, he had diagnosed you with a personality disorder. He seemed to think so consistently, almost without wavering. I believe he was convinced that all five incidents, including the attempted ones, were your crimes. Even without hard evidence.
It was too dangerous to bring up dissociative identity disorder in front of someone like him. Within the medical knowledge you possessed, it was doubtful whether you could perform well enough to convince him on the spot. You probably gained knowledge about this disorder from fiction in movies and novels, and from books and the internet available to the general public.
Hori-kun took one look at the Baum test you drew and commented that it was "too perfect." I insisted that it was a new, original case precisely because it was too perfect, but thinking about it now, what do I think? Coincidentally, as you said about the Rorschach test, inkblots can be interpreted in any number of ways. I wonder if you knew that I would bring up my own arbitrary logic and defend you well.
Speaking of knowing, that was the same, wasn't it? I wonder if you predicted that I would come for an additional interview that day. That day, just before the transfer. You remember what happened that day, don't you? That thing, which was meant for you to move your pieces, drove me completely mad. With the carrot you dangled so nastily in front of my nose, I think I ran even better than you expected.
Was even the fact that I didn't take Hori-kun to the interview part of your plan? If so, from where were you manipulating me? If you mean to say that a professional in the mental health field was hypnotized, that is laughable.
The setting that the first one I met was "Ted" was also a good strategy to confuse me well. Human impressions are fixed to some extent at the first meeting. That's what we call prejudice. But this also became certain proof that Ted was your performance. You called me Ritsuko once while in the state of Tetsuto Mando that you claim to be, didn't you? I only gave you my full name once at our first meeting. I didn't even give you a business card. There was no need. And that was definitely before I gave you a copy of the appraisal report. Because at that point, I had only written a few lines.
Therefore, "Tetsuto Mando" should not know the full name of the appraiser.
Careless, aren't you? And I, who noticed that you called my name, but did not notice that carelessness. I was too foolish and arrogant. As you said, I am truly a "slow-witted fool." I am clearly aware of it now.
It's not that I didn't think there were monsters in people's hearts. I just became convinced that if there were monsters, I would be able to tell.
I have met people called serial killers in both America and Japan. But I didn't really understand them. I regret that now. There should have been a bell on your neck. Yet, I couldn't hear the sound. Drowned out by the phantom campanella you played, I couldn't hear the bell that warned of danger. As I thought, it's laughable.
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