White continued, her voice calm:
“Do you remember his face clearly?
Was there anything distinctive on him any accessory or object?”
Milio thought slowly, trying to recall that day:
“It’s a little hard to describe, but if I saw his face again I would definitely recognise him.
On his right wrist he wore a white rubber band with blue lettering… Andrea E.
Gar, something like that.
I can’t remember exactly.
Maybe it was a girlfriend’s name.”
White neither agreed nor disagreed at once.
She spoke as if explaining a mathematical formula:
“Not every time a boy writes someone’s name on a rubber band means he is in love.
There used to be a trend where close female friends would also write each other’s names on rubber bands.”
Tristan started, and asked:
“You mean that medical student liked men?
Usually, when a man becomes close friends with women without any romantic interest, it can only mean that.”
White gave a slight nod, as if confirming that the last piece of the puzzle had finally locked into place.
Her voice was low and even—unhurried, yet it pricked the air like a needle:
“Yes.
The fact that he threw himself into the river already shows he was carrying the cracks of depression.
Then Mark saved him… and they may have met a few more times afterwards.
Mark was the kind of person who could never turn his back on someone who was sinking.
Just one word of encouragement from him… would have been enough for that man to misunderstand everything.”
She paused.
Her eyes lowered for a moment before she continued:
“Erotomania.
The delusional belief that one is loved.
For someone already on the edge of collapse, Mark’s failure to reciprocate… was enough for that feeling to twist into hatred.
And the rest… you already know.”
Knight and Thomas stared at White, stunned.
The preliminary deductions she had made earlier matched this medical student perfectly.
White leaned forward and pulled her smartphone from her pocket.
She searched for the logos of medical schools near West Tower University.
Five minutes later, an old emblem appeared.
Ignaz Semmelweis University of Medicine.
A logo used two years earlier.
Milio sat up straight, his eyes brightening:
“Yes.
That’s the one.”
Larxus suddenly came alert, the memory striking him like a slap:
“One day Mark said to me: ‘What would you do if someone who wasn’t a girl confessed to you?’ His face looked really uncomfortable at the time.
I joked back: ‘If it wasn’t a girl, was it a cat or a dog confessing that made you pull that face?’ He said: ‘I was just kidding, bro.’ But his smile looked forced.”