Subtitle: Return from London~Belladonna's Red Trap(ロンドンからの帰還〜ベラドンナの赤い罠)
Even while on death row, Asakura stirs up trouble. He first swallows multiple nails, which earns him a visit to the emergency room. Waking up post-surgery, he knocks out the lone guard outside his room, steals his cellphone, and uses it to call Sergeant Kaoru and tell him to come to the hospital. Asakura wants Inspector Ukyō to investigate and apprehend Hitomi Kogure(小暮 ひとみ), a murder suspect. Asakura's gut instincts told him that she poisoned Takuji Maruyama(丸山 卓司), a Tōa Pharmaceutical University(東亜薬科大学) Professor in 1998, but he could not prove it while he was a prosecutor. Hitomi had attended Asakura's sentencing, possibly to mock him.
At the end of the last season, the Tokumeigakari division was disbanded. Kaoru is now working as a proctor for the written portion of the driver's license test while Inspector Ukyō is in London. Although the inspector is currently unemployed, he is leading a busy life in London, visiting Alice's grave, leaning his ears close to platform 9 3/4 (of the Harry Potter fame), then tipping his hat to the statue of the most famous fictional detective.
Sergeant Kaoru finally gets in touch with Inspector Ukyō after ringing the phone six hundred thirty four times but loses his cool and decides not to mention anything about the case to the Inspector after the Inspector calls him a stupid idiot lacking common sense. The old lady who lives across from the Inspector's apartment complained to him that some had been incessantly making calls to his phone day and night. By the time Miwako convinces Kaoru to call Inspector Ukyō once more, he had already left his room.
Since Sergeant Kaoru is now working for the drivers' licence department, he can't get hold of Professor Maruyama's murder investigation files, but he was able to pull up HItomi's driver's licence information and find out that she is a graduate student at Tōa Pharmaceutical University(東亜薬科大学).
They want to hear more details about the case from Asakura, but because Asakura is on death row, he isn't allowed to have any visitors besides his relatives and the lawyer in charge of his case. Asakura doesn't have any living relatives and he constantly changed lawyers during his trial, making it difficult to ask any of those lawyers for that permission. So Sergeant Kaoru visits Kaori Mutō(武藤 かおり), a lawyer who defended Shigeru Kuroiwa (Season 1 Episode 8) to find out if there is a way for them to talk to Asakura. Kaori suggests a way - Sergeant Kaoru will bring charges against Asakura for beating up a prison officer and stealing his phone. Kaori will be Asakura's lawyer for this charge. During the interview, Kaori finds out from Asakura that an atropine-laced pill was included with nutritional supplementary pills the professor took every day.
Sergeant Kaoru takes a week off from his job at the Driver's Licence Office to investigate the case. Superintendent Kakuta drops by just before Sergeant Kaoru takes off to ask for a favor - the superintendent wants to get out of taking a short course after being caught for not wearing a seat belt. The sergeant declines.
The next morning, Sergeant Kaoru hides next to Hitomi's big mansion and follows her to the university. While observing her from a distance, Sergeant Kaoru is surprised to see a familiar face - Inspector Ukyō walks by then up to Hitomi and asks her if she could guide him to the university's medicinal botanical garden.
He then tells her that he is an amateur detective who wants to tackle a real-life murder mystery. He knows that atropine was used to kill Professor Maruyama. The inspector asks Hitomi if she could point out the plant that was used to kill the professor. Hitomi leads her to a patch of belladonnas.
He then gives an interesting explanation as to why he thinks a woman murdered Professor Maruyama. Belladonna belongs to a genus of plants called Atropa, named after Atropos. Atropos is the god of fate who determines when a person dies by cutting his or her string of life. Because Atropos is a goddess, whoever killed the professor must also be a woman. Hearing this, Hitomi says that it's the kind of explanation more fitting for a crime novel than a real life mystery.
After Hitomi leaves, Sergeant Kaoru sneaks out of his hiding place to surprise Inspector Ukyō. The inspector explains to the sergeant that Miwako sent him an email explaining the details from the case. After reading the email, the inspector came back to Japan to start investigating.
Miwako is also doing her own investigation, and she catches Hitomi on a date with a man much older than her, shopping together for his clothes. Miwako surreptitiously takes a few pictures of their date that she shares with the Tokumeigakari pair. Inspector Ukyō notices that in one of the pictures, he can see what appears to be a company emblem on the man. He calls and asks CSI Yonezawa's help to identify the company emblem. CSI Yonezawa finds out that the emblem is used at Trust International Trading Co. Ltd.
The Tokumeigakari pair takes a picture of the man, goes over to the Trust International Trading Co. Ltd. building and asks two company employees walking outside the building who he is. They say that he is the senior managing director of the company, Junichirō Manabe(真鍋 淳一郎). The inspector manages to convince Manabe to talk to them by naming himself as Kogure.
Manabe tells them that Hitomi is just a friend he first met at a party. Manabe then receives a call on his cellphone and walks over to a set of stairs. Suddenly, he loses consciousness and falls down the stairs. The Tokumeigakari pair gets on the ambulance with Manabe. On their way to the hospital, Inspector Ukyō finds that Manabe was carrying around nutritional supplementary pills.
Even though Inspector Ukyō tells the ambulance crew that Manabe probably was poisoned with atropine, it's not enough to save Manabe. An autopsy reveals that Manabe was indeed poisoned with atropine. The other pills he carried around contained just vitamins B, C, and E. The Tokumeigakari pair runs into the Sōichi here. The Sōichi heard that the Tokumeigakari asked for an autopsy, and they rushed over to find out what was going on.
The Tokumeigakari pair then heads over to Hitomi's mansion. She denies knowing Manabe at first but admits that she was having an affair with him after Sergeant Kaoru shows her the pictures Miwako took of Manabe with Hitomi. She says that she met Manabe at a friendship organization for executives called Nanokakai(七日会).
There are pictures of Hitomi's father in her mansion and when the inspector asks about him, she tells the inspector that her father is a botanist who travels the world, leaving the residence for three to six months at a time. Her mother passed away years ago.
Moving into Hitomi's garden, the inspector points out the belladonna flowers blooming there and questions Hitomi why she wasn't curious how Manabe had died. She asked when and where he died, so it would have been natural if she had asked how he died as well.
However, without a concrete evidence the Tokumeigakari pair is forced to back off. While driving back, Inspector Ukyō notes that there were no pictures of Hitomi's mother at her residence.
They next visit the Nanokakai office to ask about Manabe. Although the organization holds a party every month, Manabe was busy and didn't always attend. Looking through the organization's member directory Inspector Ukyō finds an interesting name: Superintendent Supervisor Onoda.
The Tokumeigakari pair shows Superintendent Supervisor Onoda pictures of Manabe with Hitomi, but Onoda says he doesn't recognize them - there are over five hundred members in the Nanokakai, and not all members attending each time. There are also numerous companion women similar to Hitomi who attend the parties.
Onoda does mention something interesting - he is attending the funeral of another Nanokakai member, Akihiko Sagawa(佐川 昭彦), a fifty-two year old executive director of Japan Urban Constructive Development(日本アーバン建設) who was reported missing and found dead three months later. His body wasn't found for that long because none of his other family members knew about that mansion.
Visiting the police department that investigated Sagawa's death, Inspector Ukyō finds that Sagawa also had a case full of vitamin pills. The police analyzed the pills inside and determined that they were nutritional supplement pills for vitamins B, C, and E.
At Sagawa's funeral,Superintendent Supervisor Onoda notices that Hitomi also is attending his funeral. With three men close to Hitomi dead, two confirmed poisoned with atropine, the Tokumeigakari pair visits Hitomi's mansion, hoping to get her to confess to the three murders.
Can the Tokumeigakari pair finish the investigation Asakura started and apprehend the murderess?
We see the "Pill Eater" General Inspector Haruki Ōkōchi(大河内 春樹) for the first time at the end of this episode.
Characters appearing/mentioned in the story
Saitō(斉藤) - The prison officer who stayed outside of Asakura's hospital bed after his surgery. Asakura knocked him and and stole his cell phone.
Takuji Maruyama(丸山 卓司) - A biochemistry professor at Tōa Pharmaceutical University(東亜薬科大学) who specialized in natural products. He was poisoned by atropine and died as a result in 1998.
Hitomi Kogure(小暮 ひとみ) - Graduate student of pharmaceutical studies at Tōa Pharmaceutical University(東亜薬科大学).
Keisuke Kogure(小暮 啓介) - Hitomi's father and a botanist.
Akihiko Sagawa(佐川 昭彦) - 52 year old executive director of Japan Urban Constructive Development(日本アーバン建設). He was reported missing and found dead three months later in a mansion in Kanzakichō(神崎町). His death was initially ruled death by natural causes (disease).
Junichirō Manabe(真鍋 淳一郎) - Senior managing director of Trust International Trading Co. Ltd. He died from atropine poisoning while the Tokumeigakair pair was asking him questions.
Nakano(中野) - Inspector for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department who brings in Sergeant Kaoru for the disciplinary hearing.
Maeda(前田) - Inspector for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department who brings in Inspector Ukyō for the disciplinary hearing.
