The Girl Who Was the Little Bird

By MORI Hiroshi

One night a man hit by a car was taken to Shimaoka Hospital, when the head of the hospital was murdered and the guy disappeared. A little bird, the only clue of the missing suspect, later flew away from a window. Then, a mysterious girl showed up in front of a doctor, the son of the victim, and said, "I was the little bird." If she were the bird witnessing the murder, what could she know?

This is the MORI Mystery, Japanese mystery legend. Finally, the world meets Dr. MORI, Hiroshi, one of the most popular novelists in Japan.

This work was first published in 1999 by Kodansha and translated in 2013 for The BBB: Breakthrough Bandwagon Books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312583542

Book preview

The Girl Who Was the Little Bird

The Girl Who Was the Little Bird

Originally written in Japanese by MORI, Hiroshi

Translated by Ryusui Seiryoin

Cover illustration by Polka D

Cover design by Tanya

This work was first published in Japan in 1999.

Japanese edition copyright © 1999 MORI, Hiroshi / Kodansha

English edition copyright © 2013 MORI, Hiroshi / The BBB: Breakthrough Bandwagon Books

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-312-58354-2

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When his father suddenly died, Kiyofumi Shimaoka resigned from a university hospital position and married in haste. He was 34 and was to take his father’s place as the head of Shimaoka Hospital. His wife was Ayako, an experienced nurse already working there. As many couples do, they had fallen in love under somewhat mysterious circumstances, but felt their love was idyllic. At the time, they were young and thought about getting married. But Kiyofumi’s parents were strongly opposed at during the time, so they waited.

Later, because of Kiyofumi’s job at the university hospital, he had to live far from Ayako. And in the meantime, his mother fell ill and died. Several years later, his father died, too. Even so, for Kiyofumi and Ayako, getting married turned out not to be simple or easy.

Indeed, we find few simple stories in this world.

As it turned out, Kiyofumi and Ayako were actually separated for ten years. The sweet memories from their youthful love (back then, he actually felt them as bitter memories) were fairly weathered, and Kiyofumi felt it a miracle that both of them were still single. But at the same time, if he had to sum it up into one phrase … well … it was too late. On the surface, their relationship seemed stable, but underneath, they both felt uncomfortable and bitterly embarrassed. They were always ill at ease with one another and only a warped sense remained between them. Even so, Kiyofumi understood that they might try to fill the faint void that had appeared as a fault in life making drastic changes to their lives. At least, that’s how Kiyofumi tried to think of it.

***

All this was complicated by public attention toward them because, in fact, Hideo Shimaoka, Kiyofumi’s father, had been murdered.

Close to the end of the year, in the dead of night, a man was taken by an ambulance to Shimaoka Hospital, which Hideo headed. The man, picked up from where he lay on a road, was dead drunk. His head was slightly injured, and he