Inspector Imanishi Investigates

TWO Kameda

Imanishi Eitaro returned home at about six o’clock that evening.

“You’re home awfully early,” his wife greeted him with surprise.

“I’m not early. I have to go on a business trip. I’m leaving tonight, right away.”

Imanishi flipped off his shoes and walked into the sitting room.

“Where are you going?”

“To the northeast, near Akita,” was all he said. Yoshiko was close-mouthed, but there was no guarantee that she might not let something slip out about her husband’s whereabouts. Imanishi was very cautious.

“What time is your train?”

“It leaves Ueno Station at nine p.m.”

“Does this mean that you’ve discovered who the murderer is?” she asked.

“Nothing like that. We haven’t even found a suspect.”

“Then is it a stakeout?”

“No, it’s not.” Imanishi became slightly irritated.

“I’m glad, then,” Yoshiko said.

“What are you glad about?”

“I’d be worried if you were going on a stakeout or if you were picking up a suspect. If it’s just an investigation, it’s not dangerous, so I feel relieved,” she answered.

Actually, Imanishi himself felt at ease about this trip. All he had to do was to go to the Kameda area and make some inquiries. But if he didn’t come up with results, he would lose face at investigation headquarters.

“Who will be going with you?”

Detectives never traveled alone. They were always paired up with a partner.

“I’ll be going with Yoshimura,” Imanishi answered.

“Oh, Yoshimura-san, the young man who came by last year at New Year’s. Will he be coming here?”

“No. We’re getting on the train separately.”

Imanishi reached Ueno Station at 8:40 p.m. The limited express train bound for Akita was already at the platform. Imanishi took a stealthy glance around. He didn’t see anyone who looked like a newspaper reporter. He continued to be cautious, going to the kiosk on the platform to buy a pack of cigarettes rather than entering the train right away. Yoshimura was nowhere to be seen. He smoked one of the cigarettes from the pack he had bought.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. “Hey, Imanishi-san.”

Imanishi turned around in surprise. Yamashita, a reporter, was smiling at him.

“Where are you going so late at night?”

“I have a bit of business in Niigata,” Imanishi answered.

“Niigata?”

It might have been his imagination, but to Imanishi it looked as though Yamashita’s eyes glittered.

“Did something happen in Niigata?”

“No, nothing.”

“That’s strange. You’re busy with that railroad yard murder, aren’t you? For you to be going off to Niigata sounds fishy to me.”

“There’s nothing fishy about it,” Imanishi retorted, acting annoyed. “My wife’s family lives in Niigata. Her father died, so I’m on my way there. I just got the telegram.”

“Oh, really? My sympathies,” Yamashita said. “But I don’t see your wife anywhere.”

Imanishi recovered his composure. “The telegram came about noon. So my wife went on ahead. I’m on my way now because I had some things to do first.”

“What are you doing wandering around a place like this?” Imanishi asked Yamashita in return.

“I’m here to meet someone arriving from Niigata.”

“Well, that’s nice of you,” Imanishi said. He waved good-bye and started walking slowly down the platform.

When Imanishi finally turned around, he could no longer see the newspaper reporter. He breathed a sigh of relief. Still taking precautions, he hid in the crowd and then jumped on the last car of the train. It was nearly full. Imanishi entered the second car. It was also packed. He moved to the next car, and spied Yoshimura who was saving a seat for him with his suitcase.

“Did you get caught by a reporter?” Imanishi asked.

“No, I was all right.”

When the train’s departure bell rang Imanishi breathed another sigh of relief.

“Have you ever been to the Tohoku region?” he asked.

“No, never.”

“It’s the first time for me, too. Say, Yoshimura, wouldn’t you like to take a relaxing trip with your family? We always take these trips for work, with no pleasure involved.”

“Unlike you, I don’t have a wife.” Yoshimura laughed. “I think it’s more fun to travel alone. Any kind of trip is fine with me.”

“I suppose so.”

“You discovered Kameda, Imanishi-san. If we find out something, it’ll be a gold star for you.”

“I don’t know if my theory is correct. I might get criticized by the chief for spouting off and making them waste money on this trip.”

The two of them chatted for a while. It was hard to sleep. The lights from the scattered houses flowed past the dark window. They couldn’t see the scenery, but it seemed that they could already smell the Tohoku region.

Daylight came. It was 6:30 when they reached Sakata. Imanishi woke early. Beside him Yoshimura was still asleep, leaning against the seat back with his arms crossed. After changing trains at Honjo they arrived at Kameda. It was close to ten o’clock.

The station was empty. The houses in front of the station were all old but built in a sturdy manner. A mountain rose up behind the town. The eaves of the houses were very deep in this area of heavy snowfalls. For Imanishi and Yoshimura this sight was unusual.

They went to a restaurant in front of the station. Only two or three customers were inside, and half of the space was taken by a souvenir shop. The second floor was an inn.

Imanishi ordered some noodles. They ate sitting side by side.

“Imanishi-san, this may sound strange, but I wonder how you feel about it,” Yoshimura said, wolfing down his tempura over rice. “We go on various business trips like this. And afterward, rather than the scenery or problems I might have encountered, what I remember is the food. Our expense allowance is so small we can only afford rice with curry, or some meat on top of a bowl of rice, food you can get anywhere. Yet the flavoring is always different. It’s the taste of each location that I remember first.”

“Is that so?” Imanishi said, sipping his noodles. “After all, you’re young. I prefer to remember the scenery.”

Yoshimura said, his chopsticks stilled for a moment, “I hear that you write poetry. That’s why you focus on scenery. Will you add to your haiku collection on this trip?”

“My poems aren’t any good.” Imanishi laughed in self-deprecation.

“By the way, what shall we do? Should we go to the police station right after we eat?”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

“Isn’t it strange? We’re here because you happened to look at the supplement in your wife’s magazine. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have seen this place. One’s life can be changed by a chance happening,” Yoshimura said, pouring himself some tea. He’d polished off his bowl of rice leaving not a single grain behind.

The Iwaki police station was housed in an old building.

They entered and Imanishi presented his name card at the reception desk. A policeman looked at the card and led them into the station chief’s room immediately.

The chief was seated, looking over some documents, but he stood up as soon as he saw the two visitors. He seemed to know who they were even before he had seen their cards.

“Please. Please, sit down.”

The heavy-set chief smiled at the visitors and had two chairs brought for them.

“I’m Imanishi Eitaro of the Homicide Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Agency.”

“Yoshimura Hiroshi from the same division.”

“I appreciate your coming here,” the station chief said, urging them to be seated.

Imanishi offered their thanks for the cooperation they had already received.

“Not at all. I didn’t know if it would be of any help, but I thought I should report the matter, just in case.”

A young staff member of the police station brought in some tea.

“You must have had a tiring trip,” the chief said, offering them the cigarettes on the table. “Did you come to this station directly?”

“No, we got off at Ugo Kameda to see what the area was like. Then we took a bus here.”

“You’re the first visitors we’ve had at this station who have come from the Tokyo police,” the station chief said. “We’ve heard the outline of the case you are concerned with. But would you mind giving me more details?”

Imanishi gave an account of the investigation into the Kamata railroad yard murder case.

The chief listened intently. Then he started to explain. “Kameda was a castle town in the olden days. It was a small domain of about twenty thousand koku. You must have seen that three sides of the town are surrounded by mountains. There is very little land that can be cultivated, so the main products of this area are dried noodles and cloth. This cloth is called Kameda weave, and it was valued up until before the war. Now there isn’t that much production. Every year more and more young people leave town.”

The station chief was using the words of standard Japanese, but his accent was thick.

“That’s why practically everyone would know a person who was a native of Kameda. I had my men go around with the photograph of the victim sent by your headquarters; it doesn’t seem that the person is from this area. But…” he paused, and then continued, “about a week ago, a strange man appeared in the town of Kameda.”

“When you say strange, in what way?” Imanishi asked.

“At first glance he seemed to be a laborer, wearing an old, worn-out suit, a man of about thirty or forty. He wasn’t considered strange from the beginning, but when your inquiry came and we checked out the Kameda area, people recalled that a stranger had been around.”

“I see.”

“This man stayed at Asahiya, an inn in Kameda. This inn is an old house, and well regarded in this area. It’s not strange that he stayed in that inn, but it seems odd that a laborer would stay in such an inn.”

“Yes, I see.”

“The inn at first refused to accept him. They didn’t want him spending the night because of the way he looked. But the man said that he had enough money and would pay in advance. The innkeeper agreed to let him stay because they didn’t have any other guests at the time. Of course, they didn’t give him one of their good rooms.”

“What kinds of things happened?”

“Well, that’s about all. Nothing happened in particular. He paid the inn for his lodging in advance as promised. He even gave a five-hundred-yen tip to the chambermaid. There aren’t many people around here who would give such a tip to a maid. The innkeeper regretted having given him a bad room.”

“What did he do at the inn?”

“He arrived in the evening. After supper, he said he was tired and went to sleep without even taking a bath. That made the people think that he was quite odd.”

“Did anything else happen?”

“Something strange? Well, this is what happened. The man slept until after ten o’clock, and called a maid to ask how late the inn kept its doors open. When the maid answered that they were up until one o’clock, he said he had something to do and went out, wearing the inn’s wooden clogs.”

“He went out after ten o’clock at night?”

“That’s right,” the station chief answered. “He returned to the inn just after one a.m.”

He continued, “I forgot to mention this, but this man arrived with a shoulder bag. He left that bag at the inn when he went out. In this area all the houses close up early in the evening. So we can’t figure out what this man was doing when he went out from after ten until one o’clock. It wouldn’t be strange at all if he had gone out like that in a big city, but in our area, this is considered to be strange.”

“I suppose so. And when he came back, was there anything changed about this man’s behavior?”

“There wasn’t anything. It didn’t seem that he had gone drinking, and he seemed to behave the same as before he left. When the maid asked where he had gone, he told her that he had gone to run an errand. But no one runs errands after ten at night.”

“I see. I suppose there is a record of his registration?”

“Yes, there is. We could have seized it, but since we knew you were coming, we’ve left it at the inn.”

“Thank you very much. Was there anything else that was strange?”

“That was all at the inn. The man left just after eight in the morning. When she served him breakfast, the maid asked him where he was going. He said he was getting on the train for Aomori.”

“What was the address he listed on the inn registration?”

“It’s listed as Mito City in Ibaragi Prefecture.”

“So he’s from Mito.”

“So it says on the inn registration. When the maid said Mito must be a nice place, he spoke about its famous sights. So it seems that he wasn’t completely unfamiliar with Mito.”

“What about his occupation?”

“According to the inn registration, he put down company employee. But they didn’t learn which firm he worked for.”

“So, it seems that what was strange was his leaving the inn for three hours late at night?”

“Yes. But if that were the only thing, I wouldn’t have asked you to come all this way. There were a few other things that seemed unusual.”

“Yes, and what were those?”

“One was that this man was seen loitering in front of a dried noodle shop.”

“What is a dried noodle shop?”

“As I just explained, Kameda is famous for the dried noodles it produces. Rows of noodles are hung to dry next to the noodle-makers’ houses. It was at such a house that this man appeared.”

“What did he do when he appeared in front of this dried noodle shop?”

“Well, it wasn’t as if he did anything. He just stood there, in front of the place where they dry their noodles,” the station chief answered, with a strained smile.

“He just stood there?”

“Yes. He did nothing but stand there for twenty minutes or so, gazing at the noodles hung to dry.”

“Hm.”

“The shop owners were a bit concerned about this unkempt fellow standing in front of their drying area. But he went away after a while. That’s about all there is to tell. But I thought it might be of some interest to you.”

“It certainly is interesting,” Imanishi nodded deeply. “I assume that the man who stayed in the inn and the man watching the noodles were the same person?”

“I think so. There’s also something else.” The station chief gave a little laugh.

“What is that?”

“There is a river that runs through the town of Kameda. It’s called Koromogawa. A man thought to be this same person was seen lying on the bank of this river at noontime.”

“Just a minute,” Imanishi interrupted. “Was that the day after he had stayed at the inn?”

“No, not the day after. It was the day he went to the inn. As I told you, he got to the inn in the evening, so this was noon of that day.”

“I understand. Please go on.”

“Well, there isn’t much except that this man was lying at the edge of the river. But there aren’t any men around here who can take things easy like that. There’s a road at the top of the levee. A local person who was walking on that road thought it was a strange place for a man to be taking a nap. He thought the man was a drifter.”

“I see.”

“No one said anything about this. It’s just that my men heard about it when they made their inquiries. When they asked if there were any unusual goings-on, they were told about this incident.”

“That means that this man was lying about in the grass around noon. That night he left the inn after ten and returned at about one o’clock… This does seem to be strange behavior.”

“You think so, too?” The station chief seemed relieved.

“Napping on the bank of the river during the day and leaving the inn in the middle of the night, that doesn’t sound like a normal person, does it?”

“If you think he may have been a burglar, I thought of that, too. But there weren’t any thefts reported around that date.” The station chief continued, “If there had been any actual loss reported… but there was nothing, so it’s hard to figure him out.”

“Was that the only day that the man was seen wandering about?” Imanishi asked.

“Yes, that’s the only day. Imanishi-san, don’t you think there’s some connection to the case you were asking about?”

“Let me see,” Imanishi said and smiled. “Let us look around the town a bit.”

“I’ll have one of my men show you around.”

“Please don’t bother. If you could just direct us, we’ll go ourselves.”

Imanishi and Yoshimura got on the bus for Kameda. The passengers were all from that locality. Their accents were so strong that it was hard for the outsiders to make out their meaning.

Soon the row of houses ended, and the bus drove along a road through the fields. The warm season came to this area much later than to Tokyo. The color of the new green leaves of the hillside was beautiful.

They got off at the bus stop as instructed and went to the Asahiya inn. The station chief had said it was an old established house, and it looked it. The gabled entry seemed forbidding.

Imanishi presented his police identification to the maid who came to the doorway. The innkeeper, a man in his forties, appeared.

“I’ve come from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police,” Imanishi said. The innkeeper invited them to enter, but Imanishi preferred not to go inside. The maid brought seat cushions and some tea to the entryway.

Imanishi described what he had heard from the Iwaki police chief.

“Yes, we certainly had such a guest,” the innkeeper nodded.

“Can you tell me about him in more detail?” Imanishi asked.

The innkeeper agreed and recounted his version, which was no different from what they had heard from the station chief.

“I understand you have the guest register?” Imanishi asked.

“We do,” the innkeeper nodded.

“Could you show it to me?”

“Yes, certainly.”

The innkeeper asked the maid to bring the guest register. It was in the form of separate sheets of paper, each like a bill.

The entry the innkeeper showed them read:

“Hashimoto Chusuke, Number xx, xx town, Mito City, Ibaragi Prefecture.”

It was inscribed in a very poor hand, as if a grade schooler had written it. But this was not unnatural, since the man had seemed to be a laborer. Imanishi stared at the characters.

Imanishi asked what the man had looked like. About thirty years old, tall with a medium build, his face on the long side, and his hair short and unparted. His skin had been rather dark, but his nose was straight and his features even. The innkeeper said he had kept his face averted and had not met anyone’s eyes even when he spoke. That was why the maids’ memories were vague.

Asked about the way he spoke, the innkeeper responded that the man did not have a Tohoku accent. His speech was close to standard Japanese and his voice was low. The general impression was that he had seemed to be a gloomy sort, and terribly tired. Everyone agreed on this point. He’d had neither a travel bag nor a suitcase, only the kind of shoulder bag people had used during the war with all his belongings in it.

The two detectives visited the dried noodle shop. Next to it, bamboo poles were set with noodles draped from them. This made the noodles appear like white waterfalls when the sun shone on them.

The woman of the house came out and showed them a narrow pathway about two hundred yards from the drying area, between the grass lots, that led to the main road. In this section of town the spaces between the houses were wide and overgrown with grass. The man in question had hung around this lot, squatting and standing, for about thirty minutes.

Imanishi and Yoshimura walked until they reached a wide river that flowed from the surrounding mountains. The grass grew tall on its banks. A farm woman walked along carrying a hoe on the opposite bank of the river.

“Imanishi-san,” Yoshimura asked, “what do you think? Is it your feeling that this man is the one who was with the victim at the bar in Kamata?”

“I can’t say either way. But there is something strange about this fellow.”

“There’s nothing definite, though, is there?” Yoshimura looked disappointed. “The name he used in the inn register is an alias, of course?” Yoshimura asked.

“Of course.”

Imanishi stated this so definitely that Yoshimura took the bait. “How can you tell?”

“You saw the penmanship on that register, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. It was very poor writing.”

“Of course it was poor, since he wrote it with his left hand on purpose.” Imanishi fished his notebook out of his pocket and took out the carefully folded sheet from the inn register. “Look at this closely. See, there’s no flow in the writing at all. No one writes such awkward characters. Remember what the maid said at the inn? He didn’t fill in the register in front of the maid. She brought the register and left it in the room. When she came back later, it was filled in. The guest filled it in using his left hand to hide his handwriting while the maid was out of the room. So we can assume that the name and address are false.”

“But where did this fellow go from ten at night to one o’clock in the morning?” Yoshimura asked. “From his behavior during the day, he didn’t seem to have any pressing business.”

“That’s it. I was just thinking about that myself.” Imanishi stood in the grass with both his hands stuck into the pockets of his slacks. Ripples spread in the river in front of his eyes. The sun shone on the mountains and cast deep shadows.

“This is a strange trip. The results are kind of disappointing, aren’t they? Imanishi-san, what shall we do now?” Yoshimura asked.

“Since we don’t have any more leads, shall we go home?”

“Don’t we have to find out where else the man went?”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to. He was probably here in Kameda for only that one day.”

“Then what did he come here for?”

“I can’t tell. Though he seemed like a drifting laborer, there’s no evidence that he came to ask for work. But maybe we should make inquiries in the nearby towns just to be sure. After all, we’ve come all this way. Come on, cheer up,” Imanishi said, looking at Yoshimura’s dejected face.

The following afternoon, Imanishi and Yoshimura visited the office of the Iwaki police chief once again.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” Imanishi said.

“You’re very welcome. Were you able to discover anything?”

“Thanks to you we were able to get a concrete picture of what went on. It seems that the man didn’t make an appearance in any other villages. Just Kameda. He must have gotten on a train at Kameda Station and gone to another area.”

“I see. That’s too bad. But it seems strange that he got off the train only at Kameda.”

“That’s true. So maybe this incident holds some promise.”

The two detectives chatted for a while with the station chief. After an appropriate length of time they took their leave.

They walked toward the train station by the deep eaved houses of the snow country.

They entered the small station and found the train schedule displayed above the wicket. The two men looked up to read the schedule.

At that moment they heard a commotion behind them. When Imanishi turned around, he saw four young men with suitcases surrounded by several men who looked like newspaper reporters. Some had cameras and were taking photographs.

Imanishi gazed at the four, wondering why the local newsmen were making a fuss over them. He could tell at first glance that the four were not from this region, that they had come from Tokyo. Although they were dressed casually, a closer look revealed that each item of their clothing had been carefully chosen. They were “casually fashionable.” They wore their hair rather long, and seemed to be around thirty years of age. The youngest of the four men had a pale face and thin eyebrows, and was wearing a gray suit with the collar of his black sports shirt out. He was saying, “I think it will be some time before Japan will be able to launch a rocket.”

“What are they?” Yoshimura asked Imanishi.

Imanishi had no idea who they might be. They seemed to him to be awfully young to have attained such importance.

The local people waiting for the train in the waiting room of this lonely country station were also watching this group. Some young girls went up to the four men and stuck out a notebook. One of the men took out a pen and wrote in it. The girl bowed and went to the next young man. He also scribbled something with a pen. It was clear that the girl was asking for their autographs.

“Could they be movie stars?” Yoshimura asked.

“I have no idea.”

“But I don’t recognize their faces, and what they’re saying doesn’t fit.” Yoshimura pondered.

“I can’t recognize the faces of the new movie actors,” Imanishi stated. “They keep creating more and more new stars. Young girls know a lot more about that kind of thing.”

After a while, the group of young men went through the gate, toward the train bound for Aomori, in the opposite direction from the way Imanishi and Yoshimura were headed. The newspaper reporters bowed their farewell and left the station.

“Shall I ask them?” Yoshimura said, his curiosity aroused.

“No, don’t bother,” Imanishi stopped him.

“But I’d like to know who they are.” Yoshimura approached the young girl with the autograph book.

He bent over and asked her something. The girl answered, blushing slightly. Yoshimura nodded and returned to where Imanishi was seated.

“I’ve got it,” he said, smiling self-consciously.

“Who were they?”

“They are intellectuals from Tokyo. They are members of the Nouveau group. They often appear in newspapers and magazines.”

“What is this Nouveau group?”

“You might say it’s made up of members of the younger generation who have progressive opinions: composers, academics, novelists, playwrights, musicians, filmmakers, journalists, poets – all types.”

“You’re really up on all this, aren’t you.”

“Well, I do read the papers and the magazines,” Yoshimura said, somewhat embarrassed.

“So those four are members of this group?”

“Yes. I just asked that girl. The one in the black shirt was Waga Eiryo, the composer. Next to him was the playwright Takebe Toyoichiro; then Sekigawa Shigeo, the critic; and the painter Katazawa Mutsuo.“

When he heard these names, Imanishi realized that they were vaguely familiar.

“Why did they come all the way out here?”

“She said that a university rocket research center is located here in Iwaki. They’re on their way back from taking a tour of the center.”

“A rocket research center in this backwater?”

“When she told me, I remembered that I’d read about it somewhere.”

“A strange location for such a modern facility.”

“It sure is. They’ve finished their tour and are going on to see Lake Towada before they go home. The local press was all over them because they’re mass media stars-opinion leaders. The spotlight of the new generation is on them.”

Imanishi was indifferent to them. The generation gap distanced him from this group. He yawned and said, “Have you found us a train?”

“Yes. There’s a limited express at seven forty-four p.m.”

“What time does it reach Ueno?”

“At six-forty tomorrow morning.”

“That early? Well, I guess it’s all right. We can go home and sleep a bit before reporting to headquarters,” Imanishi said, and then added, “There’s no need to hurry; we’re not going back with a breakthrough.”

“True. Imanishi-san, since we’ve come all this way, how about taking a look at the Japan Sea? We still have plenty of time.”

“You’re right. Let’s do it.”

Imanishi and Yoshimura walked toward the coast. The town gradually dwindled into a fishing village. Suddenly the air smelled of the sea. The beach stretched far along the shore. Not one island could be seen on the vast horizon. The setting sun created a sash of light across the sea.

“It’s really boundless, isn’t it?” Yoshimura gazed at the sea as he walked along the sand. “The color of the Japan Sea is so dark,” Yoshimura exclaimed. “The Pacific Ocean is much lighter. To me it looks like the color of this sea is more intense.”

“You’re right. This color matches the scenery of the Tohoku region.”

The two men gazed out at the sea for some time.

“Imanishi-san, have you come up with anything?”

“You mean a poem?”

“You’ve probably come up with about thirty already.”

“It’s not that easy.” Imanishi smiled ruefully.

A boy from the fishing village walked past them, carrying a large fish basket.

“Coming to a place like this makes you realize how hectic Tokyo is,” Yoshimura said.

“This is relaxing.”

“I suppose you’d feel washed clean if you spent several days in a place like this. I feel like our hearts are full of grime.”

“You’re quite poetic yourself,” Imanishi said, looking at Yoshimura.

“No, I’m not.”

“I can see why you know about that group of young men. You’ve been reading those kinds of books.”

“It’s not that I like them particularly. It’s just part of common knowledge.”

“What did you call them? Nouveau?”

“The Nouveau group. They are all very smart. They expect to be the leaders of the next generation.”

“I remember hearing about another such group from my uncle when I was a kid.”

“You mean the White Birch group.” Yoshimura seemed to know about that movement, too. “This group is more strongly individualistic. Mushanokoji and Arishima of the White Birch group turned out to be leaders, but most of them were pretty tame. Besides, the White Birch group limited itself to literature and art. These young intellectuals have political opinions as well.”

“That’s the difference between the generations.” Imanishi had little interest, but thought he got the general idea.

“Shall we go back?” Yoshimura was starting to get bored. “Since I can’t sleep well on the train like you, I’d better get some rest now.”

The trains were not crowded. When they changed to a limited express in Honjo, the two detectives were able to sit together comfortably in the middle section of the third-class car.

As soon as they boarded, Yoshimura put his bags down and rushed off to buy their box lunches. Through the windows, passengers exchanged farewells with those who had come to see them off. Imanishi absentmindedly listened to their conversations in the local dialect which he couldn’t quite follow.

Presently, Yoshimura returned with box lunches and tea.

“Thank you, thank you,” Imanishi said as he accepted one of the little pots of tea.

“I’m starving. Shall we eat right away?”

“Let’s wait until the train leaves. It’ll be less frantic then.”

The lights on the platform were already lit. The station sign “Ugo Honjo” blurred along with the platform as the train pulled out, picking up speed. Then the lights of the town flashed past them. People stood at the crossings, waiting for the train to pass. Imanishi felt sad, wondering if he would ever visit this town again. The lights of Honjo ended, all they passed now were black mountains.

“Shall we eat?” Yoshimura opened his box lunch.

“You know, Yoshimura,” Imanishi said as he opened his box, “each time I eat one of these box lunches I’m reminded that it was my childhood dream to have one. It was almost impossible to get my mother to buy me one. They must have cost about thirty sen in those days.”

“Were they that cheap?” Yoshimura said, glancing at Imanishi.

He felt that he understood Imanishi better now. For a man of Imanishi’s origins, the young men they had seen at the station must have seemed very well-off, sons of wealthy families who had all been to college. Looking over at Imanishi, Yoshimura couldn’t help but compare those young men to his senior colleague, who had had a much harder life.

By the time Imanishi had finished eating, his spirits had improved. He poured some tea from the miniature teapot and drank it contentedly. He put the lid back on the box and carefully tied the string. Then he took out a cigarette he had cut in half and smoked as he relaxed. The pallor of fatigue could be seen under the stubble of his beard. When he had finished the cigarette, Imanishi rustled around in his coat pocket and took out his notebook. He looked at it, frowning in concentration. Yoshimura thought he must be studying the notes he had taken on the trip.

“Yoshimura, read this, would you?” Imanishi passed him the notebook with a sheepish chuckle.

Drying noodles-

flow among the young leaves-

and glisten

Trip to the north-

the sea a dark blue-

summer still young

“So, you reaped quite a harvest.” Yoshimura smiled and read the next haiku.

The grass springs back-

after a nap-

at Koromo River

“Ah, this is about that strange fellow,” Yoshimura said.

“You’re right.” Imanishi laughed self-consciously and turned toward the window.

Darkness flowed past the train, only an occasional light from a farmhouse drifting by in the lonely distance.

“Say, Imanishi-san,” Yoshimura said, “wouldn’t it be great if we could link the stranger to the suspect?”

“If we could do that, then our trip won’t have been a waste,” Imanishi agreed.

“It’ll be hard not to have a guilty conscience if we find out that there’s no connection to the case after we’ve come all this way, and spent all this time and money.”

“We can’t help that. If there’s no connection, then we’ll just have to ask the others to understand.”

“I suppose so, but it bothers me. While we’re relaxing on this train, the rest of the team is running around investigating as hard as they can. That makes me feel bad.”

“Yoshimura, this is also part of the work. You don’t have to feel bad about it.” Though he reassured the younger Yoshimura, Imanishi’s feelings of responsibility for this trip weighed heavily on him, too. Looking out the window dejectedly, Imanishi muttered to himself, “I wonder if they’ve found the shirt?”

Yoshimura overheard him and asked, “Shirt?”

“Yes, the shirt the murderer was wearing. It had to have gotten bloody. He couldn’t have continued wearing it, so he must have hidden it somewhere.”

“Suspects often hide such things in their houses, don’t they?”

“Most of the time that’s true. In this case, though, it seems that it might be different. What I mean, Yoshimura,” Imanishi continued, “is that if there were a lot of blood on the shirt, he couldn’t have worn it all the way home. He would have been afraid that people would notice.”

“But it was dark.”

“Yes, it was. But if the murderer’s house was far away he couldn’t have gotten on a train looking like that. Even if he took a taxi, the driver would have been suspicious.”

“He might have had his own car.”

“Yes, his own car. That could have been it. But I think there must have been some place where he changed his shirt.”

Outside the window, the darkness continued to pass by. Some of the passengers were already getting ready to go to sleep.

Yoshimura said, “Such a place would have to be the suspect’s hideout?”

“Probably,” Imanishi muttered. Looking into the darkness, he seemed to be thinking of something else. He pulled out another half cigarette and started smoking.

“Could this hideout be his lover’s place?”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“But if he went there to change his clothes, someone must have been living there. And it would still be impossible unless the suspect had a special relationship with that person.”

“That’s true.”

“If it’s not a lover, then it would have to be someone like a close friend or a brother.”

“Probably.” Imanishi didn’t have much to say. Being a veteran detective, he preferred to think things over on his own.

Yoshimura was assigned to the precinct where the murder had taken place and did not work with Imanishi on a daily basis. They had worked together once before when they were teamed up to investigate a murder. That time Imanishi had been sent out from the central division. Since then Yoshimura had held Imanishi in high regard. Whenever he came across a difficult case, he would ask Imanishi for advice. He had gotten to know Imanishi’s character and interests. He had even met his family.

It was not Detective Imanishi’s style to tell even his colleagues when he came across a good lead. He usually reported things directly to the head of the Homicide Division.

Section One of the Homicide Division was in charge of all murder cases. This section was divided into eight subsections, each with approximately eight detectives assigned to it. When an investigation headquarters was set up, one of these subsections was dispatched. Each of the eight detectives had his own role on the team. They worked under the direction of the chief inspector, but if one came across a good lead, he would follow it up on his own because each of them wanted to get ahead. Detectives did not always reveal everything they had up their sleeves at the investigation meetings.

Imanishi had come this far by being discreet. At a certain point in an investigation, he would become as silent as stone.

“Let’s go to sleep,” Imanishi said, stubbing out his cigarette.

Imanishi awoke. Pale light filtered into the train from around the edges of the window shade. Imanishi opened the shade a little.

Outside, mountains passed by in the milky whiteness, but these mountains looked different. He looked at his watch, it was four-thirty. Yoshimura was still asleep.

Imanishi wondered where they were. After a while, he saw a station go by. He read the name Shibukawa. He was smoking a cigarette when Yoshimura woke up.

The train descended from the mountains and ran along the plain. It became lighter outside. Imanishi opened the shade all the way. Here and there they could see an early rising farmer already out in the fields. The houses outside the window became clustered together as they approached Omiya.

“Yoshimura, could you please go get a newspaper?” Imanishi asked.

Yoshimura stood up and ran down the aisle to the platform. He returned to his seat just as the train was pulling out. Yoshimura had brought back three morning papers.

“Thank you.”

Imanishi immediately opened one of the papers to the city news section. New developments might have occurred in the case while they were gone, but there was nothing about the murder. He opened the other two newspapers and found nothing in either of them, to his relief. Imanishi turned back to the front page and started reading slowly. In thirty minutes they would reach Ueno Station. Most of the other passengers on the train were awake now, some already starting to get their bags together.

“Yoshimura, he’s one, isn’t he?” Imanishi prodded Yoshimura with his elbow and showed him a photograph in the cultural section of the paper.

Yoshimura leaned over and saw the title “Art in the New Age” and the author’s name, Sekigawa Shigeo.

“Yes, he’s one of the four men we saw at Iwaki Station,” Yoshimura said.

Imanishi stared at the picture. “He must be quite something to be writing for a paper like this. I can’t really understand what he’s trying to say in this piece, but I suppose he’s brilliant.”

“He must be.” Yoshimura was carefully reading the column in the paper that Imanishi had passed to him.

“Hey, we’re here.”

The train stopped at Ueno Station. Yoshimura glanced out the window and folded the paper.

“Yoshimura, just in case, let’s get off separately.”