Nilou's Stage Requirements
There were three suspects in total, and Barbara could almost certainly be ruled out.
From Mizuno Ai's testimony earlier, she had only been a little jealous of Nilou, without any real malice, and Xia Yu didn't think she seemed like the type to do something like that either.
That left Murata Yoko, who Xia Yu considered the most suspicious of the three.
After listening to Murata Yoko's account, Hattori Heiji's eyes flickered. He turned toward her and pressed on. "You said you saw that the practice room was empty and left. There's hardly anything in there to block the view—one glance tells you whether anyone's inside. So how do the security cameras show you spending five minutes in the practice room? That means you were doing something in there besides looking for someone. What was it?"
Murata Yoko squirmed uncomfortably under Hattori Heiji's sharp gaze. She stammered out an answer. "I-I was feeling a bit down at the time, and I was worried it would affect my work afterward. The practice room was empty, so I stayed a little longer to pull myself together."
"I see." Hattori Heiji nodded, then exchanged a thoughtful glance with Conan.
"I'd like to ask you something, Miss Murata," Ayaka said, stepping forward, her voice soft and gentle. "What was this dispute with Nilou over the stage arrangements about? What did Nilou request, and why did you feel it was too strict to carry out?"
Murata Yoko frowned slightly and answered, "Miss Nilou wanted more flowers arranged on the stage. She said it had something to do with the dance she performs."
Ayumi looked puzzled. "That sounds like a really simple request to me. Flowers on the stage would look beautiful just hearing about it—why couldn't it be done?"
Murata Yoko glanced down at Ayumi, who had cut in, and paused for a moment before explaining with visible difficulty. "It's not that it was hard to arrange. The problem is that Miss Nilou had far too many demands about those flowers.
"And some of the varieties she wanted don't bloom this time of year. She wouldn't listen when I told her that—she just insisted I prepare everything exactly as she asked, saying she had a way to make the flowers bloom within two days.
"To be honest, I didn't really believe her. So all this time I'd been negotiating with her, trying to get her to change to different flowers—at the very least, to pick something that wasn't impossible to bloom right now.
"But Miss Nilou kept insisting she could do it, and so..."
"I see. So is it actually possible to change when a flower blooms?" Mitsuhiko looked up and asked curiously.
"It can be done, but normally it requires treating the plants well in advance. Controlling the blooming period with only a day or two of lead time like this? That, I've never heard of." Amuro Tooru stroked his chin, furrowing his brow slightly in thought before answering. His eyes betrayed a trace of bewilderment, as if the very idea of manipulating a flowering period on such short notice struck him as astonishing.
At his words, Murata Yoko nodded in agreement. "See? That's exactly what I said—it's obviously impossible. But Miss Nilou just kept insisting, saying it was the only way to get the perfect stage effect. Good enough should have been good enough, but no—she just had to keep making trouble for me..."
As she spoke, she shook her head helplessly, and by the end her voice had grown quieter, as if she'd realized she shouldn't be complaining like this.
"By the way, speaking of which—where is this Miss Nilou?" Hattori Heiji said. "Didn't they say she wasn't hurt? Why isn't she at the scene?" It was only now, with Murata Yoko's conflict with Nilou laid out before him, that he realized the central figure of the entire case had yet to make an appearance. He furrowed his brow and looked questioningly at the officer beside him.
"Ah, Miss Nilou said a friend was coming to see her, and she went to go meet them." The officer blinked, scratched his head, and seemed a little uncertain as he continued, "So after asking her the necessary questions, we let her go meet her friend."
Seeing Hattori's brow slowly darken, he hurriedly added, "Don't worry, Hattori—Miss Nilou said she'd be right back at the scene."
Hattori Heiji muttered inwardly: this was a critical window right after the incident—how could they let a witness just wander off? But he also understood that this wasn't the moment to press the issue, so for now he set his doubts aside and waited for Nilou to return.
The officer then looked toward the third suspect, clearly trying to change the subject. "Let's go ahead and question the last suspect, shall we?"
Hattori Heiji shook his head helplessly. With the main party absent, any questions he had would simply have to wait until Nilou came back. He turned his attention to the final suspect instead—none other than Xia Yu's other friend, Barbara.