… There’s no point in blaming yourself. You couldn’t have forseen it. It’s not as if you neglected to give that possibility a single thought even though it had been staring at you in the face. The possibility didn’t even enter your mind…
*She stopped, some sort of distress or regret flashing on her face for a few moments.*
I feel… the corpse was not responsible for the fire. Culprits wouldn’t exactly return to a scene where they know a fire will start at. They must have approached the fire afterwards for some reason. And if, they happened to be an assailant of Hattori-kun… who ended up unconscious a couple blocks away from the fire…
Hakuba couldn’t be sure, but it almost sounded as if the girl were blaming him. At least, making him partially responsible. Had she meant to sound sarcastic, or was that his own insecurity making him think that? The half-brit wasn’t certain. So he drank more tea.
After a moment, he lowered the cup again and nodded to her.
“And now with no recollection of what happened…"
There were a lot of things about this case that bothered him, aside from being all about Hattori and partially about the argument that they’d had. Things weren’t adding up.
"May I ask how you came to be on this case, Kirigiri-san? Specifically – if you know why Hattori-san asked you for your help…”