The novel is brought up to the present, where a freelance illustrator and avid fan of mysteries, Kazumi Ishioka, is teaching his friend, the astrologer Kiyoshi Mitarai, about the Zodiac Murders; Mitarai had been approached by a client who claimed to have new evidence about the murders. This evidence is revealed to be a secret confession by a policeman involved in the investigation of the murder of Kazue. Just before she was murdered, he had in fact gone with her to her house and had sex with her. Afterwards, an anonymous letter arrived, which claimed to be from one of the many secret agencies in pre-war Japan like the Nakano School. The sender threatens to reveal his tryst with Kazue, which would make him the prime suspect if ever discovered. In exchange for their silence, he would carry out a task for them: take the dead mutilated bodies of six young women to different places in Japan and bury them as specified.