Silent Parade

1

Glancing up at the wall clock, he saw that there were only twenty minutes to go until ten o’clock. Think I’ll call it a night. Yutaro Namiki looked around the restaurant. It was almost empty — only a couple middle-aged women were left. When they came in, one of them had said something about how nice it was to be back. Yutaro Namiki sneaked a peek at her. The woman was certainly not one of their regulars. He had a vague sense that he recognized her but he could just be imagining things.

Right about then, the woman announced that she wanted to pay her check. “Coming,” called out Machiko, Yutaro’s wife, who was standing beside him, washing dishes.

Yutaro heard the woman say, “Thank you. That was quite delicious.”

“Thank you for coming,” Machiko replied. “I hope you’ll come again.”

“I’m sure we’ll be back soon. Actually, I’ve been here before. It was quite a long time ago — maybe five or six years ago.”

“Oh, really?”

“There was this amazingly pretty waitress. We ended up chatting and she told me she was the owner’s daughter. I seem to remember that she was still in high school. Is she well?”

Yutaro was busy in the kitchen, putting away the knives, but his hand stopped in midair. He knew that hearing his wife’s response to the offhand inquiry would only cause him pain, but he couldn’t help straining to listen.

“That was my daughter. She’s doing fine.” Machiko sounded perfectly relaxed. She was keeping her feelings well hidden.

“Oh, good. Does she still live at home?”

“No, she’s moved out.”

“Really? She seemed such a well-adjusted kid. Not like mine. They’re getting older but they still look to us for everything. I’m getting sick and tired of it.”

“Oh, I don’t know. That has its own charms.”

“‘Lucky the house with a child to spoil,’ you mean?”

“Exactly.”

He heard Machiko and the woman heading for the exit. There was a rattling sound as someone pulled the sliding door open. “Thank you very much. Good night,” he heard his wife say.

Putting down the knife he was holding, Yutaro walked around the counter and out into the restaurant. Machiko had taken down the noren curtain over the front door and just come back inside.

Their eyes met and she cocked her head slightly. “Something wrong?”

“No. I just couldn’t help overhearing.” Yutaro scratched the back of his head. “You really kept your cool. I know it can’t be easy.”

“It’s no big deal. I’ve been dealing with customers for years. That’s the business we’re in, after all.”

“I know, but still...”

Machiko leaned the curtain pole up against the wall and turned to her husband. A petite woman with a small face, she’d always had a penetrating gaze, even as a young woman. It was hard not to flinch when she made eye contact.

“Haven’t you accepted it yet?”

“Accepted what?”

“The fact that Saori has gone. I’ve come to terms with it. Since you spend all your time in the kitchen, you may not realize it, but people talking about Saori the way that woman did — it happens all the time. It’s the same for Natsumi. She never makes a fuss about it because she’s come to terms with it, too.”

Natsumi was the younger of the Namikis’ two daughters. She was a sophomore in college and helped out at the restaurant when she had the time.

Yutaro stood there, saying nothing.

“Look, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with you holding on like you do. I’m just saying that you don’t need to worry about me.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Can you tidy up the kitchen? There’s something I’ve got to do upstairs.” Machiko pointed up at the ceiling. The family lived on the second floor above the restaurant.

“Sure, no problem.”

“See you later, then.” Machiko started climbing the stairs in the back corner of the restaurant.

Yutaro shook his head feebly. He wasn’t in the mood to go straight back to work, so he pulled up a chair and sat down. He could feel his back rounding into a slouch. Women are so much stronger than us! It was something he felt acutely now — and had felt countless times in the past.

Saori had been their firstborn. A big-eyed baby with glowing pink skin. Yutaro had long been convinced that he wanted his first child to be a boy, but that particular prejudice evaporated the instant Saori was born. She was the apple of his eye. No, she was more than that: He was ready to lay down his life for her.

Machiko was an integral part of running Namiki-ya, as their restaurant was called, so the restaurant became Saori’s nursery. When the restaurant was busy, the regulars would often pick up Saori and bounce her on their knees.

Saori had been a healthy child and adored by everybody. All sorts of people from the neighborhood would greet her on her way to kindergarten. She would always return their greetings in her piping voice. Yutaro felt a surge of pride every time someone congratulated him on Saori’s good manners.

Saori had been popular at elementary school and junior high school. When her homeroom teacher came to visit Machiko, she had said that “what made Ms. Namiki special was that she was nice to everyone, cheerful, and never made a fuss even when things got difficult.”

Saori’s test scores were not that good, but neither Yutaro nor Machiko were overly concerned. Saori was basically a serious and kind person who almost never caused them any grief or worry. She was also a lovely big sister who liked taking care of Natsumi, who was three years her junior.

Outside of school, Saori had one shining talent: She could sing. She’d liked singing as a very young child, but as the years went on, she started to display signs of exceptional talent. No matter how difficult a song was, she only needed to hear it once to memorize it, and she was never out of tune. That was when Yutaro first heard the phrase perfect pitch. Saori, people told him, had it.

Saori got to display her talent at the neighborhood street festival that was held every autumn. While the main event was a grand parade with costumes and floats, there was also a singing contest, which the locals all looked forward to. Saori first took part as a fourth grader when her rendition of “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song of the movie Titanic, had amazed the audience. It was the first time he had seen his daughter really perform.

After that she was roped into performing at every autumn festival, becoming something of a local celebrity. The singing contest always attracted a good crowd, with plenty of people there specifically to hear Saori.

As she got older, Saori started helping out in the restaurant during the summer holidays.

Some of the more cynical customers would ask her what she was doing, helping out in a fusty old place like Namiki-ya. Didn’t she know that a beautiful girl like her could make a lot of money working in a hostess club in central Tokyo? Even her parents had to admit that she had grown into a beautiful woman. She was like a flower in bloom; her presence alone was enough to transform and brighten the atmosphere of the restaurant. She attracted more and more customers to the place as people associated Namiki-ya with her.

When Saori was about fourteen, a man named Naoki Niikura came to the restaurant. His family, who were very well-off, were well-known in the neighborhood. As a young man, he had attempted a career as a musician, he explained. While that never quite panned out, he had plenty of connections in the music business. He switched his focus to the business side and now he owned several music studios in central Tokyo and was always looking for fresh talent. He went on to list a few of the singers he had discovered.

“Your daughter has what it takes to be a professional singer. I’d like you to let me manage her,” Naoki Niikura said to Yutaro and Machiko.

Although Yutaro was aware that Saori enjoyed singing, the idea of her becoming a professional singer had never occurred to him. The offer came as something of a bolt from the blue. He was rather flummoxed and Machiko, his wife, seemed to feel the same way.

After he left, the two of them discussed Niikura’s proposal. They both wanted Saori to have a “normal” life, but they agreed that they should ask Saori her opinion.

As soon as Saori heard Niikura’s proposal, she announced that she would love to take a stab at becoming a pro. She had kept her ambitions to herself because she thought her parents would be opposed to the idea.

If it was what she wanted, then that was the end of the matter. As far as Yutaro was concerned, they should encourage her to follow her dream, and they agreed to let Niikura manage her. If it didn’t work out, then it didn’t work out. They could regroup when the time came. Even if Saori failed to break through, the experience would stand her in good stead for whatever she decided to do next.

Natsumi, their younger daughter, was thrilled. Just the thought of Saori performing in front of a big audience was enough to get her excited.

Saori started taking lessons from Niikura while continuing to attend high school. Luckily for the family, her tuition was completely free of charge.

“Oh, don’t worry about paying me for the lessons. After we’ve launched Saori’s career and she’s become a big star, I’ll just charge her a hefty management fee,” was what Naoki Niikura said whenever the subject of money came up. A fan of John Lennon, Naoki cultivated the same trademark look: long, lank hair and little pebble glasses. He was a warm, good-natured soul and not in the least snobbish about his privileged background.

He was, however, a stern taskmaster. “I do my best in the lessons, but Mr. Niikura never says anything nice about me,” Saori often grumbled. Niikura wasn’t shy about setting strict rules for his protégée, either. “You don’t need that smartphone of yours. It will just get in the way of your singing career,” was a warning he never tired of giving her. Hearing that convinced Yutaro that he had made the right decision in putting his daughter into Niikura’s hands. Niikura was telling her the same home truths he believed himself.

Saori eventually graduated from high school.

“I think now’s the right time to get Saori to sing for this producer guy I know,” Niikura announced cheerfully, when he turned up at the restaurant just after the turn of the year. Saori was nineteen years old at the time.

It was just two weeks later that it happened. Saori went out in the early evening and didn’t come home even as it got later and later. Becoming increasingly anxious, her parents made repeated calls to her cell phone. No one picked up.

The Namikis contacted everyone they could think of, starting with the Niikuras, but no one had any idea where their daughter was. By the time it was after midnight, they could no longer bear the anxiety and contacted the police.

The police moved into action the next morning. They initiated a neighborhood-wide search and reviewed the footage from all the local security cameras.

CCTV footage from a camera outside the local convenience store showed Saori walking along the street. She was alone and holding her phone up to her ear, suggesting that she was talking to somebody.

The police got her call history from the cell phone company. At the time of the footage, no outgoing call was being made from Saori’s phone. In other words, Saori had received a call from someone else. Unfortunately, her cell phone company didn’t charge for incoming calls and didn’t keep a record of them.

Worried that Saori might have been the victim of foul play, the police did everything they could; they even dragged all the local rivers.

They didn’t find Saori. It was as if she had vanished in a puff of smoke.

Yutaro, Machiko, and Natsumi put up missing person flyers around the neighborhood. Other local shopkeepers and the regular patrons of Namiki-ya also pitched in. But all their efforts came to nothing.

The stress was too much for Machiko. She had a breakdown and took to her bed. Natsumi’s eyes were swollen from crying day in, day out, and she began skipping school. Knowing what was happening, none of their regular patrons grumbled about the increasing frequency with which the restaurant was closed.

Eventually, the police asked the family to provide an item containing their daughter’s DNA. They must want it so that they can do DNA analysis when an unidentified body turns up was what the family assumed. All three of them felt as if they had been flung down into a deep, dark hole.

They heard nothing more from the police after that. Yutaro was increasingly unsure how he should feel about that. If the police called now, it would be because they found her body. At this point, his daughter had to be dead. As much as he didn’t want to hear that, he desperately wanted them to find her body so that he could lay her to rest with all the proper rites.

The month before last had marked three years since Saori’s disappearance. Even though he knew he was wasting his time, Yutaro had handed out leaflets on the anniversary of her disappearance, appealing to the public for information, just as he had done the year before, and the year before that. As expected, they yielded no results. No matter. The act itself had become almost a ritual by now.

Yutaro consulted his watch. It was half past ten. Had he been daydreaming for so long? He pulled himself to his feet and shook himself to wake up. Perhaps he, too, should come to terms with what had happened. If he fell into a funk every time he thought about Saori, he would never get his life back.

He was heading to the kitchen when the restaurant telephone rang. Who could be calling at this time of night?

He picked up the receiver. “Good evening, Namiki-ya restaurant,” he said.

“Am I speaking to a Mr. Yutaro Namiki?” inquired a soft male voice.

“That’s right. Who is this?”

“I’m with the Shizuoka Prefectural Police,” the man said.

2

He took a deep breath, then knocked on the meeting room door.

“Who’s there?” barked a gruff voice.

“It’s Kusanagi.”

“Come in.”

He opened the door, ducked his head in greeting, then looked up. Director Mamiya was sitting on the far side of the big table. He had his jacket off and his shirtsleeves rolled up. The table was littered with documents and files.

Kusanagi was feeling nervous but it had nothing to do with Mamiya, the former chief of his team, and everything to do with the man who was standing by the window with his back to him. Kusanagi recognized him by his extraordinary head of slicked-back silver hair.

Mamiya looked over Kusanagi’s shoulder and grinned. “I see you’ve brought your shadow along with you.”

“She was the only person who was free.” Kusanagi grimaced. Kaoru Utsumi, one of the detectives on his team, was standing behind him looking rather uncomfortable.

“I know that your hands must be full with that robbery-murder case and I apologize for calling you in like this.” Mamiya waved his palm at the seat across from him. “Come on. Sit.”

“Yes, sir,” Kusanagi said, but found himself unable to pull out a chair. He was still staring at the man by the window.

“Commissioner,” said Mamiya, slightly raising his voice. “Chief Inspector Kusanagi is here.”

The silver-haired figure swung around and lowered himself into a nearby chair without uttering a word. It was Tatara, Mamiya’s predecessor, who had just been promoted to commissioner of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

With a look, Mamiya indicated for Kusanagi to sit down. He pulled out a chair. His female companion, however, stayed on her feet.

“Detective Utsumi, why not grab a seat, too?” Tatara finally broke his silence, with a voice so deep that Kusanagi could feel it rumble in his guts.

“Oh, I’m fine here, I don’t—”

“This will probably take a while,” Mamiya interrupted. “If you insist on standing, all you’ll do is make the rest of us uncomfortable. Sit down.”

“Yes, sir.” Utsumi sat down beside her superior officer.

“Okay,” said Mamiya, looking directly at Kusanagi. “Chief Inspector, we know that you and your team are busy with another case. Still, there’s a case we want you — you, specifically — and your team to handle.”

Kusanagi tensed. This had to be something major. Normally, when a crime occurred, it automatically became the responsibility of whichever team was on duty at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department headquarters. Approaching a team that was already part of an active investigation was highly unusual.

“I’ll explain why we chose you later. First, just listen.”

Mamiya picked up the file closest to him on the desk and launched in.

“Two weeks ago, there was a fire in a small town in Shizuoka prefecture. The fire destroyed one of those so-called trash houses — a house so overflowing with junk that it becomes a local landmark and eyesore. The cause of the fire remains unknown. It was speculated that one of the neighbors, fed up with all the mess, started it; that, however, wasn’t why it has become a big news story.

“After the fire was extinguished, an inspection of the ruined building turned up human remains. There were, in fact, two bodies. Neither of which were recently deceased.

“One of the bodies appeared to belong to the old woman who had lived alone in the filthy house; the identity of the other one was a mystery.

“Based on the height of the corpse and the accessories that had survived the fire, the Shizuoka Prefectural Police guessed that the body might be that of a young woman. They sent out an inquiry to the regional police forces all around Japan and they got one promising response: information about a young woman who had gone missing three years ago in Kikuno, a suburb of Tokyo. Because the cross pendant that she had been wearing at the time of her disappearance bore a resemblance to one found in the ashes of the building, they conducted a DNA test. The upshot was that the young woman in the fire and the young woman from Kikuno were unquestionably the same person. There was, however, no connection whatsoever between the girl and the burned-down house. According to the girl’s family, she never even set foot in Shizuoka prefecture when she was alive.”

Mamiya placed a document with a photograph clipped to it on the desk in front of Kusanagi. It listed the girl’s name, address, date of birth, and other details.

“The young woman’s name is Saori Namiki. She was nineteen years old when she went missing.”

Kusanagi picked up the document. The photograph showed a teenage girl smiling as she held up two fingers in the V peace sign. Her eyes were big and bright, her chin elegantly sculpted, and her lips a little on the fleshy, sensuous side.

“She’s very pretty,” Utsumi murmured, as she scrutinized the picture. “Looks like a singer from a girl group.”

“You’re right on the money there.” Mamiya shot a grave look at Utsumi. “Apparently, she was trying to become a professional singer.”

Kusanagi gave a grunt of surprise. From what Mamiya had said, he could tell that this case was going to be a tricky one. Why wouldn’t the bosses ever give him something nice and easy?

“What about the other set of bones?” Kusanagi asked. “How sure are we that they belonged to the house’s occupant?”

“They compared the DNA from the bones with DNA found on clothing and other items retrieved from the burned house. The answer is a definite yes. The people living nearby said that none of them had seen the occupant of the house for six years. Since she didn’t have regular social contact with any of them, none of them gave it a second thought. According to the family register in the local municipal office, six years ago, she was already north of eighty. The Shizuoka Prefectural Police are sure that she died of natural causes, probably not long after she was last seen. She was old and she died alone — one of those ‘lonely deaths’ you hear about nowadays.”

“Six years ago?” Kusanagi jabbed a finger at the photograph of the teenage girl. “Meaning that the old woman had nothing to do with the death of our aspiring singer here?”

“It seems not, no.”

“Do we have a cause of death for Saori Namiki?”

Mamiya sucked air through his closed teeth with a hissing sound.

“An examination of the bones established depressed skull fracture as the cause of death.” Mamiya solemnly crossed his arms on his chest before going on. “We don’t know how the skull was fractured. All we know is that doesn’t seem to have been caused by the fire.”

“So what you’re saying,” said Kusanagi, looking hard at his superior, “is that we currently have no evidence that she was murdered.”

“For now at least, no,” said Mamiya, glancing at Tatara beside him.

“I know what you’re thinking: that you’re being landed with a lousy and rather problematic case.” Tatara’s eyes glinted behind his metal-rimmed glasses. To the casual observer, he looked sophisticated, even gentlemanly. Back when he was much younger and working the street, though, he was known as a tough guy with a hair-trigger temper.

“No, I... uhm... I don’t—”

“Don’t try and give me the runaround. It’s written all over your face.” Tatara smiled maliciously. “If we assume that we are dealing with murder here, then the crime has to have taken place a little over three years ago. Finding witnesses will be all but impossible. Ditto with the physical evidence. On top of that, the place where the body was concealed has been almost completely destroyed by fire. How are you supposed to conduct a serious investigation in circumstances like that? I really don’t know. Whoever gets put in charge will have drawn the shortest of short straws; they’ll have every right to feel pissed off.”

Kusanagi looked down at the table and said nothing. Tatara had summed up the situation perfectly.

“However—” the commissioner went on. “Kusanagi, look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Kusanagi turned toward Tatara and looked into his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“I absolutely insist that you — by which I mean you, Director Mamiya, and you, Chief Inspector Kusanagi — work this case.”

“‘This case’ being what exactly...?” said Mamiya.

Tatara stared back at Mamiya and gave a crisp nod.

“The old woman who lived in the trash-infested house wasn’t completely without family. She actually had a son. If anyone was going to sneak into her house after her death, the chances are that it was him.”

Mamiya leaned forward in his chair.

“Do we know where the son is?”

“He renewed his driver’s license a couple of years ago. The address on it is in Edogawa Ward, and he’s still living there. Before moving there, though, he had an apartment in the south of Kikuno. Around a mile from the victim’s house, as the crow flies. One day, he suddenly quits his job at a junk removal and recycling company and moves out of his apartment. That was right after Saori Namiki vanished.”

Kusanagi heaved a sigh of relief. Finally, a glimmer of light.

Mamiya picked up another sheet of paper, which he deposited in front of Kusanagi. “This is the man. Take a good look at him.”

It was an enlarged photocopy of a driver’s license. Kusanagi gave a start the moment he saw the man’s face. He’d seen him somewhere before... No, that was wrong. He’d actually met him face-to-face. When he caught sight of the name on the license, Kusanagi’s heart skipped a beat. He felt hot all over.

The typewritten name was Kanichi Hasunuma.

Kusanagi’s eyes opened wide and he looked from one to the other in turn. “Is it... that Hasunuma?”

“Yes, it is. It’s that Hasunuma,” Mamiya replied solemnly. “The defendant in the Yuna Motohashi case.”

So many thoughts flooded into Kusanagi’s mind that he was left quite speechless. He could feel one of his cheeks twitching uncontrollably.

He took a second look at the photograph. Hasunuma was older than when their paths had last crossed, but the coldness behind the eyes was exactly the same.

“Let me refresh your memory about another important matter.” Mamiya showed him another photograph. “This is the trash house that was destroyed in the fire. Someone from the local municipality took this picture a few years ago. Look familiar to you?”

Kusanagi picked up the picture. At first, all he could see was an enormous heap of garbage. When he looked carefully, however, he managed to detect the outline of a roof and something resembling a small front gate.

Kusanagi burrowed deep into his memory. A sudden realization hit him.

“It was Shizuoka prefecture, wasn’t it? Are you telling me... that this is the house where we seized that refrigerator?”

“Indeed I am.” Mamiya was jabbing a finger at Kusanagi’s face. “You went to this house with me. The two of us. Nineteen years ago. Of course, it wasn’t completely buried in trash back then.”

“It’s the same house?”

“I imagine you’ve finally realized why I want you and your team to handle this case, Chief Inspector Kusanagi,” Tatara said. “I’ve already made my position known to the heads of CID and Homicide — or would you prefer that I put someone else in charge?”

“No, sir.” Kusanagi clenched his hands into fists on the tabletop. “I completely understand. Please put me in charge of the case.”

Tatara nodded rather smugly.

“Sorry,” Utsumi broke in, “but I’m a little lost. What was the Yuna Motohashi case?”

“I’ll bring you up to speed later,” said Kusanagi.

Tatara had apparently said all he was going to say. Without a further word, Tatara rose to his feet. Kusanagi and Utsumi jumped to their feet and stood at attention. The commissioner stalked out of the room with long strides. Mamiya was following in his wake, when he stopped abruptly and turned back to them.

“We’re setting up a joint investigation task force with Shizuoka Prefectural Police at the Kikuno Police Station. Turn over your current case and let others tie up any remaining loose ends. What I want you to do is to switch over to this investigation as fast as you can.”

“Yes, sir,” Kusanagi said with great emphasis.

As the door slammed shut behind Mamiya, Kusanagi swung around to Utsumi. “Contact everyone on the team. Tell them to assemble at TMPD headquarters right now.”

“Yes, sir.”

3

Yuna Motohashi went missing twenty-three years ago. She was twelve years old at the time. She went out one afternoon to meet a friend in the local park. The park was near her house and was along the route the local students would walk to school. Because of this, Yuna’s mother wasn’t concerned about her. When dinnertime came and Yuna was still not home, her mother went to the park to fetch her. Yuna, however, was nowhere to be seen. When the mother went to the friend’s house to ask after her daughter, the friend said they had parted hours ago.

Starting to feel uneasy, the mother contacted her husband. The two of them visited every place they thought Yuna might be. When that yielded no results, they reported her as missing to the police.

Given the circumstances, the police immediately launched a full-scale search but they found no clues to the missing girl’s whereabouts. In those days there were far fewer security cameras and CCTV than there are now.

The only significant lead they uncovered was a statement from someone who had seen a girl who resembled Yuna walking alongside a man dressed in pale-blue work overalls. Because the witness — a housewife — had only seen them from behind, she had no idea what the man looked like. She described him as being of average height, neither fat nor thin; she hadn’t noticed anything peculiar about the girl’s appearance or behavior.

The workers at the factory, which Seiji Motohashi, Yuna’s father, owned and managed, all wore a uniform of that color. When they showed a set of the company overalls to the housewife, she confirmed that yes, they were similar to the ones she had seen the man wearing.

The factory had a staff of around thirty. Investigators visited and interviewed them all. The majority allowed the investigators to look around their apartments. Those who refused seemed to have plausible reasons for doing so and gave no grounds for suspicion.

Kanichi Hasunuma was one of the factory’s employees. He was thirty years old and lived alone. According to the investigation notes, a detective had visited Hasunuma three days after Yuna went missing and inspected his apartment. Nothing suspicious had been found.

Despite everyone’s efforts, Yuna wasn’t found. The case remained open and was classified as ongoing, but without any leads, the police had to move on. One month after Yuna went missing, her mother committed suicide. In her note, she apologized to Yuna and to her husband. She also blamed herself for letting the girl out to play too late. Convinced that her daughter was dead, she’d lost all hope.

About four years later, the case took an unexpected turn. A hiker trekking deep in the mountains to the west of Tokyo reported seeing what looked like human bones. The local police hurried to the site and exhumed a number of dismembered bones. Careful analysis confirmed that they were definitely human and, based on size and length, belonged to a child.

Since the skull was still intact, the crime laboratory was able to produce a possible likeness. When they sent the facial reconstruction to regional police forces all over Japan, word came back that it might be Yuna Motohashi. DNA test results confirmed their suspicions.

An investigation task force was established and it was Tatara who headed the team, with Mamiya as his second-in-command. At the time, Kusanagi was an up-and-coming young detective recently assigned to the Homicide Division.

Outside of the dismembered body itself, there was an almost complete lack of clues. There was one unusual thing about Yuna’s remains: not only had the bones been dismembered, chopped up, and buried, the body had been burned first. The focus of the investigation therefore shifted to finding places near the last sighting of Yuna Motohashi where it was possible to cremate a body. An incinerator seemed the most plausible solution. Not only did the police carefully check all the incinerators in the neighborhood, they also took a second look at workers at the Motohashi factory to see if any of them lived close to an incinerator.

It was then that Kusanagi set his sights on Kanichi Hasunuma. Hasunuma had by now quit his job at the Motohashi factory, but the HR department still had his résumé on file. It revealed that he had previously worked at a company specializing in personal and industrial waste disposal, and that firm had multiple incinerators.

When Kusanagi interviewed Hasunuma’s former boss, he learned one noteworthy piece of information. Four years ago, Hasunuma had phoned the man; he had something he needed to dispose of, he said. Could he possibly use one of the company’s incinerators that weekend? When the boss inquired what exactly he was planning to burn, Hasunuma had explained that he had a number of dead animals that he intended to cremate. He hinted that he’d set himself up as a sort of pet undertaker for friends and neighbors to earn a little cash on the side. Since the company was used to cremating dead dogs and cats along with regular household rubbish, his boss gave his okay, as long as Hasunuma left the place nice and tidy.

When Kusanagi checked the precise dates, he found that Hasunuma’s use of the incinerator coincided with Yuna Motohashi’s disappearance. It was at this point that Kanichi Hasunuma became the prime suspect.

Kusanagi immediately started investigating Hasunuma’s past. Many of the details of his life were fuzzy. All Kusanagi managed to ascertain was that Hasunuma had been born in Shizuoka prefecture and that he changed jobs frequently.

When Mamiya announced that he wanted to have a face-to-face meeting with the guy, Kusanagi asked if he could tag along, and the two detectives went directly to his apartment to interview him.

Hasunuma had small, narrow eyes and a blank, inexpressive face. The skin of his sunken cheeks barely moved even when he spoke.

Mamiya got the ball rolling by asking Hasunuma for the names of the people whose pets he had disposed of at the incinerator. With a list of names, it would be easy for them to check whether his pet-undertaker story was true or not.

Hasunuma, however, said that he couldn’t give them any names “because he had promised the owners confidentiality.”

Mamiya followed up by asking what kind of animals the pets were, how many of them there were, and how much he had charged his friends. Hasunuma answered none of these questions, either. “Is it a crime if I refuse to reply?” he finally asked. Kusanagi could still remember the tone of his voice: quiet and utterly devoid of emotion.

Hasunuma’s refusal to cooperate only deepened their suspicions. In addition, he was of middling height and neither fat nor thin — exactly as the eyewitness had described the man she’d seen walking with the murdered girl.

What followed was a series of misfires. They spoke to a wide range of people — starting with Seiji Motohashi, the abducted girl’s father — in an effort to establish a link between Hasunuma and Yuna. But apart from the fact that Yuna was the daughter of the owner of the factory where Hasunuma worked, they turned up nothing. Nor was there any history of bad blood between Hasunuma and his employer.

As all this was going on, one particular photograph from the case file caught Kusanagi’s attention. The detective who had visited Hasunuma four years earlier had taken one of the interior of his apartment.

While Mamiya interviewed Hasunuma, Kusanagi was looking over the place rather than listening to their conversation. Kusanagi wanted to see if there was anywhere one could easily hide a body. After all, Hasunuma must have hidden the body somewhere before getting access to the incinerator. Somewhere the original detective wouldn’t have thought to inspect.

Hasunuma’s apartment was modest: just two small rooms with a tiny kitchen area. The only places one could conceivably hide a body were the futon cupboard and inside the ceiling. But what caught Kusanagi’s attention was the refrigerator. It was small, like the minifridges you see in hotel rooms.

The refrigerator in the photograph from four years ago had been bigger, he remembered. Although not quite as large as a standard family refrigerator, it had been at least waist-high.

Sometime over the past four years, Hasunuma had replaced his refrigerator. Why had he done so?

Assuming that Hasunuma had burned the body in the incinerator, then in the interim he would have had to keep the body in his apartment. The best way to retard decomposition was to put the body in a refrigerator. Then, once he had buried Yuna’s incinerated remains deep in the mountains, he would have gotten rid of the refrigerator itself. That would make sense.

If this hypothesis was right, then the original refrigerator should contain some trace of the girl’s body.

Back at headquarters, Kusanagi showed the photograph to Mamiya and Tatara and explained his theory. While they both agreed that the young detective might be onto something, their faces hardly lit up. Locating the refrigerator was clearly going to be a challenge; for all they knew, it might no longer exist.

The three men tried to imagine what Hasunuma would have done with the refrigerator. He would be keen to dispose of it discreetly. Hasunuma probably couldn’t have carted the refrigerator out on his own. It was too big. He would need someone to help him.

Hasunuma didn’t have an extensive circle of friends. One of the few they came up with was one of his mahjong buddies who was also the owner of a minitruck.

The truck owner admitted it the instant they confronted him. Around four years ago, he had helped Hasunuma transport his old refrigerator, he said. They had taken it to the Hasunuma family home. Hasunuma had told him that he was going to give his old refrigerator to his mother.

Kusanagi and Mamiya promptly went to check out the place. Yoshie, Hasunuma’s mother, was short and stooped and looked considerably older than she really was. As soon as she realized that the two unfamiliar men who had suddenly appeared on her doorstep were from the police, she was gripped by fear. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” she kept muttering, as if chanting a magic spell.

Yoshie Hasunuma’s jaw dropped when Mamiya said that they only wanted to ask her a few questions about a refrigerator. She didn’t seem to know what they were talking about. Understanding only dawned when Mamiya continued, “We believe your son brought you a refrigerator around four years ago.”

“That thing? Never used it. He just came and dumped it on me. It just gets in the way,” she replied, the furrows on her brow deepening.

“Where is it?” they asked.

“In the tatami room at the back of the house,” she said, leading them inside. Kusanagi was dumbfounded: The place was about as far as you could get from a traditional serene Japanese room; it was more like a storeroom crammed from floor to ceiling with stuff. Right at the back of it all was a refrigerator. And it was definitely the one from the photograph.

They immediately impounded it and sent the refrigerator to the crime lab for analysis. Minute flecks of blood and pieces of flesh were found, and using DNA analysis, it was determined that Yuna Motohashi was the source of both. When the news was announced, the whole investigation task force broke into a cheer.

Kusanagi wanted to beat his chest and say, Look at me. A newbie in Homicide and I’ve already got a scalp on my belt.

Things, however, didn’t develop as expected.

Kanichi Hasunuma denied any involvement in the crime.

When they pressed him about blood and tissue residue from Yuna Motohashi being found in his refrigerator, he simply said, “No idea how it got there.” When they pressed him about his reasons for getting a new refrigerator, he simply said that the other one had gotten old.

Tatara went ahead and ordered Hasunuma’s arrest, despite his stonewalling. They were confident that with him in custody, extracting a confession would only be a matter of time.

Normally, they would have arrested him on several charges, including the unlawful disposal of a corpse or for mutilating a dead body, while they tried to get a confession. But not in this case. The statute of limitations, which was three years for both crimes, had already run out. The only charge they could arrest him on was murder.

But Hasunuma didn’t capitulate or confess. No matter how much they blustered and threatened, he refused to say anything.

“Do whatever it takes. Just get me the evidence I need,” thundered Tatara. His subordinates redoubled their efforts.

Through diligent sleuthing, Kusanagi and his colleagues turned up several new pieces of evidence suggestive of Hasunuma’s guilt. For instance, Hasunuma had rented a car two days after making use of the industrial incinerator. The distance on the odometer was almost exactly equivalent to the return trip from his home to the place where the remains had been found. When they searched Hasunuma’s apartment, the investigators discovered an old shovel wrapped up in newspaper. Analysis of the soil stuck to the shovel’s blade revealed that it had the same characteristics as the soil where the bones had been found.

They found more new information. But all of it was circumstantial evidence, no single piece of it providing decisive confirmation of Hasunuma’s guilt.

Some members of the task force suggested a compromise. How about getting Hasunuma to accept a charge of manslaughter — or even the lighter charge of involuntary manslaughter — instead of murder?

The idea infuriated Tatara, who was violently opposed to offering deals to criminals. He rejected it out of hand. “The fact that Hasunuma refuses to say anything is tantamount to an admission of guilt. We’ve absolutely got to indict him on a murder charge,” Tatara said.

In the end, they sent the case to the public prosecutor without managing to find a single piece of conclusive physical evidence. It was up to the prosecutor’s office to decide what to do next.

The prosecutor decided to go for an indictment. They probably assumed that the sheer volume of circumstantial evidence guaranteed that he would be convicted.

But the trial didn’t go as expected.

On his first day in court, Hasunuma denied the charges. His denials were the first and last words of any significance that he uttered throughout the trial. Thereafter, he stayed resolutely silent. Whatever the prosecutor asked him, his only response was: “I have nothing to say.”

As the trial went on, Kusanagi began to hear whisperings that Hasunuma might be found innocent.

I just can’t believe it, Kusanagi thought. Sure, the evidence is circumstantial, but with so much of it, you can’t tell me there isn’t enough to convict.

The trial focused on two issues. First, was Yuna Motohashi’s death the result of murder? And second, could a charge of murder be proven through the accumulation of circumstantial evidence, even though neither the motive nor the method of the murder was known?

Hasunuma had burned the girl’s corpse and buried what was left. Any normal person could see that he must have murdered her — but that wasn’t, apparently, how the justice system operated. If there was even the tiniest possibility that Hasunuma hadn’t killed the girl, then the murder charge would no longer stand up.

The day when the verdict was announced was bitterly cold. Kusanagi was at a local police station when he heard the outcome.

The verdict? Not guilty.

4

Kusanagi shook his head as he contemplated the burned-out ruin. “Hard to believe this was once a house.”

“Very hard, sir,” said Detective Utsumi, who was standing beside him.

The place looked less like a burned-out house than a refuse incineration plant. A vast jumble of wood, metal, and plastic had been charred and fused together. The fire probably released not only a cloud of filthy smoke but also a lot of toxic gas. Kusanagi pitied the firefighters who been sent in to extinguish the blaze.

Kusanagi and Utsumi came to inspect the site along with the prefectural police before he took control of the joint investigation task force.

“I’ve driven by this place more times than I can count. Unless you knew, you’d never have guessed that there was a house behind all the garbage.” The speaker was Detective Ueno. He was there as their guide. He looked young — he was probably in his early thirties — and was built like an ox.

“Was it that bad?” Kusanagi asked.

The young policeman nodded.

“The garden was packed with piles of random trash: broken TVs and radios, bits of furniture, mattresses, quilts, you name it. Plus, bundles of newspapers and books — hundreds of the damn things. My guess is that people took to dumping their trash here rather than having it hauled away.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Utsumi asked.

“Search me.” Ueno tilted his head to one side. “When we interviewed the local people, they told us it had been in that state for a decade or so before the fire. The woman wasn’t interested in getting on with her neighbors: When they complained about the smell, she simply ignored them. When the municipal authorities offered to help her dispose of the stuff, if it was all proving a bit too much for her, she sent them packing. ‘This is my property and I don’t feel like throwing it away. Just leave me in peace.’”

Listening to Detective Ueno’s explanation, Kusanagi tried to recall the face of Yoshie Hasunuma from nineteen years before. She was something of an oddball even then but had only become more idiosyncratic with the passing of time, apparently. He wondered if her son’s arrest might have had something to do with it.

“According to the report, no one remembers seeing Yoshie Hasunuma for roughly six years. Didn’t anyone think that was odd?” Kusanagi asked.

“They discussed it, but it never went much beyond, ‘You don’t see that Mrs. Hasunuma around much lately.’ I imagine no one wanted to get involved.”

“What about the utilities: the water and the electricity?”

“The bills were all paid on time. The old woman’s bank account remained open and the charges were automatically deducted. Since she wasn’t actually using any water or electricity, the charges were minimal.”

“And her pension? Was that still being paid?”

“It seems it was. That’s why her account never ran out of money.”

“What about payments into or out of any other accounts?”

“We’re looking into that right now,” Ueno said.

Placing his hands on his hips, Kusanagi took another look at the site of the burned-out house.

“The report said that the two bodies were found in different places.”

“That’s right. The first set of remains was found in the tatami room on the first floor. Bundled up in a burned-up quilt. They found the second body under where the floor would have been.”

“And that was Saori Namiki?”

“Correct.”

Kusanagi was convinced that Yoshie Hasunuma had died from natural causes six years ago. Someone else hid Saori Namiki’s corpse beneath the floor three years after that.

“How much do we know about Yoshie Hasunuma’s family?” Kusanagi asked.

Ueno frowned.

“Very little, to be honest. There were some distant relatives, but she doesn’t seem to have been in touch with them. She had lost her husband some twenty-five years before she died. Her family basically consisted of a single son, Kanichi Hasunuma. He was actually her husband’s son by a previous marriage, not her biological son. Yoshie was his stepmother.”

“This isn’t the house where Kanichi Hasunuma was born and raised, then?”

“No, it’s not.” Ueno pulled out a small notebook. “The Hasunumas moved here thirty-five years ago. When the family came here, Kanichi Hasunuma moved out on his own.”

Kusanagi reflexively clicked his tongue. “I see...”

The Shizuoka Prefectural Police had recently called Kanichi Hasunuma in for an interview. In the transcript, Hasunuma claimed that he had neither contacted nor seen his stepmother for years; that he knew nothing about all the trash around the house; and that the house itself had nothing to do with him. He also stated that he had no idea where the bodies in it had come from. Although the fact that he deigned to answer their questions at all was a slight improvement over his last police interview nineteen years ago, there was little change in his overall uncooperative demeanor.

Kusanagi got Ueno to drop them off at the station, where they caught the next bullet train for Tokyo. Sitting beside Utsumi, Kusanagi swallowed a mouthful of can coffee.

“Can we assume that Hasunuma is the person who hid Saori Namiki’s corpse in the trash house?” Detective Utsumi asked him.

“Probably, yes. For starters, Yoshie Hasunuma died six years ago, and her body was wrapped up in a quilt. Whoever hid Saori Namiki’s body must have known that. They must have thought, ‘Look at this place. Three years, and no one even suspects the old lady’s dead. This place is perfect for hiding a body.’ And why didn’t that person report Yoshie Hasunuma’s death, even though they knew about it?”

Utsumi cocked her head slightly. “Presumably because it worked out better for them to have people think she was still alive.”

“Precisely. Can you think of a reason why?”

Utsumi frowned. “Maybe her pension?” she said tentatively.

Kusanagi grunted. The girl was sharp.

“I think so, too. The scheme was to pretend that she was still alive to get continued access to her pension. There’s only one person who could cook up something like that: someone who knew where Mrs. Hasunuma had her bank accounts and what the PIN numbers for them were — it’s got to be Kanichi Hasunuma, her stepson.”

“So he was stealing her pension benefits.”

“The fact that the place was a trash house proved an unexpected boon when it came to concealing her body. We can’t be sure until the prefectural police have checked Yoshie Hasunuma’s bank statements, but I’m pretty sure about the pension thing.”

Utsumi blinked and nodded gravely.

“As a theory, it makes plenty of sense. The first thing we have to do, then, is to prove that Hasunuma hid Saori’s body.”

“Yes. For starters.”

That was only the starting point. Kusanagi was determined not to repeat the mistakes of nineteen years ago. They had to prove Hasunuma was involved in Saori Namiki’s death.

Kusanagi glanced out of the train window as he sipped his coffee. He didn’t even notice the view; all he could see was the distant past.

The profound sense of defeat he felt then hadn’t weakened with the passing years.

The defendant is found not guilty—

The verdict had turned the whole world on its head for the young detective.

Ultimately, Kusanagi just couldn’t accept it. He read through the text of the ruling over and over again. The judge stated that the likelihood of Hasunuma being involved in the death of Yuna Motohashi was extremely high. Despite that, none of the abundant circumstantial evidence was sufficient to confirm the defendant’s intention to kill. Other than a certain number of adult videos in the defendant’s apartment, there was no solid basis for the argument that Hasunuma had first sexually assaulted Yuna Motohashi, then murdered her when she fought back. The judge dismissed this argument, which he characterized as “unconvincing.”

Kusanagi’s memories of the press conference given by Seiji Motohashi, Yuna’s father, after the publication of the verdict, were also crystal clear. Despite his best efforts to stay composed in front of the television cameras, he had been unable to prevent his voice from cracking and his body trembling with rage.

“I never imagined that the court would find Hasunuma not guilty. What does it mean? That anyone can get away with anything, provided they remain silent? I just can’t accept that. I intend to keep fighting. Whatever it takes, I want the prosecutor and the police to uncover the truth and bring my daughter’s killer to justice.”

Sure enough, the prosecutor appealed. However, when the court of appeals published its ruling, it only served to plunge the victim’s family deeper into despair.

The appeals court judge used even more forceful language than his predecessor. “There is a very strong probability indeed that the defendant caused the death of Yuna Motohashi.” He said that it was hard to see the new evidence put forward by the prosecutor as “constituting adequate proof that the defendant intentionally caused the death of the victim.” He dismissed the appeal and handed down another not-guilty verdict.

There was considerable public interest in how the prosecutor would respond to this second setback. In the end, however, the prosecutor’s office decided against an appeal to the supreme court, because a detailed analysis of the verdict showed that it was in line with both precedent and the constitution, meaning they had no grounds for a fresh appeal. The look of frustration on the deputy chief prosecutor’s face when he made the announcement was something Kusanagi would never forget.

“The biggest mistake that was made nineteen years ago was to believe that Hasunuma would break and confess,” said Kusanagi, still gazing out the train window. “It’s not fair to blame the people heading the investigation for thinking like that. Biological evidence was found proving that a body had been in the refrigerator. No one could reasonably expect anyone to be able to talk their way out of that.”

“I agree, sir.”

“It turned out, however, that there was another escape route,” sighed Kusanagi.

“You mean remaining silent?”

Kusanagi gave a curt nod, then finished off the last of his coffee. As he crushed the empty can in his fist, he chewed his lip.

“Not many people knew about the right to remain silent in those days. Most defendants still felt that if they were asked a question, they were obliged to give some sort of answer. Hasunuma, however, just kept his mouth shut. It didn’t matter whether they were asking him questions about the case or simply making chitchat; he was completely unresponsive. And he maintained the same attitude throughout his two trials. I feel a bit odd saying this, but I was sort of impressed by his strength of character.”

“I wonder if he’ll use the same technique this time.”

“If he’s guilty, I’m sure he will.”

Utsumi pulled out her phone. She must have gotten a call. “Excuse me one second, sir.” She stood up and walked off along the aisle between the seats.

Kusanagi stuffed the empty can into the seat-back pocket in front of him, and, after glancing over his shoulder to check there was no one sitting behind him, he reclined his seat and half closed his eyes. But with the case preying on his mind, he knew there was little chance of falling asleep.

One of the problems they were facing was the same one as nineteen years ago: Arresting Hasunuma for the unlawful disposal of a body was impossible. It was three years and two months since Saori Namiki had disappeared, and the statute of limitations had already expired.

So what sort of evidence would they need to assemble to arrest Hasunuma for murder? The child’s bones in the house had included a caved-in skull. This suggested that the killing had involved a violent blow with an instrument of some kind. If they searched Hasunuma’s apartment and found the murder weapon, they’d be home and dry—

“Chief,” he heard Utsumi saying, “are you taking a nap?”

Kusanagi opened his eyes. “Who was it on the phone?”

“It was Inspector Kishitani. The deputy commander of local police asked him to confirm the overall thrust of the Saori Namiki investigation.”

Inspector Kishitani and the rest of the TMPD team were already at the joint task force headquarters, sharing information with the local detectives.

“Okay. Tell them that we will go straight to the investigation headquarters in Kikuno as soon as we get back to Tokyo.”

“I guessed you’d say that, so that’s what I said we’d do,” said Utsumi matter-of-factly, dropping into her seat.

“Kikuno, huh? It’s part of Tokyo, but I know hardly anything — no, scratch that — I know absolutely nothing about the place.”

Kusanagi knew that Kikuno was somewhere in the west of Tokyo. He had driven through it, but never got out of the car to look around.

“From what I can see, it’s pretty nondescript,” said Utsumi, looking it up on her phone. “Hang on a second. There is one thing the place is famous for: its parade.”

“Parade?”

Utsumi started tapping away on her phone.

“Here we go. This is it: the Kikuno Story Parade.”

She held up the phone. On it was a photograph of someone dressed as Momotaro, the Peach Boy, with other people in ogre costumes.

“What is it? Some kind of fancy-dress parade?”

“Apparently, it used to be called the ‘Kikuno High Street Autumn Parade.’ Then it opened itself up to cosplay enthusiasts from all around Japan so they could take part. When that wasn’t exciting enough, they turned it into a team competition.”

“A team competition?”

“A group of people get dressed up and re-create a scene from a famous story. That might mean something like a man and a woman dressing up as Urashima Taro and Princess Otohime and having a feast, while their teammates, togged out in sea bream and flounder costumes, dance around them.”

“Sounds difficult to do while marching in a parade.”

“There’s a variety of gimmicks. Some of the teams use floats, apparently. There seem to be all sorts of rules about what you can and can’t do, if you’re using a large set.”

“You said people come from all over Japan? So is it a big event?”

“They get so many applications they have to hold an elimination round. All the teams are asked to send in a homemade video; the executive committee uses them to make their selections. It says here that nearly one hundred videos were submitted last year and that the overall level was so high, they struggled to whittle down the numbers.”

“From what you’re telling me, it sounds like a major event.”

“A friend of mine goes every year. She says it gets bigger every year.”

“When’s it held?”

“October.”

“I see.”

Kusanagi was relieved. That was more than six months from now, so there shouldn’t be a problem. They should be finished with the investigation by then.

“Oh, that reminds me,” piped up Utsumi as she put her phone away. “Isn’t our mutual friend in Kikuno right now?”

“Our mutual friend?”

“Professor Yukawa. He sent me an email at the end of last year.”

It had been a long time since Kusanagi last heard that name. Manabu Yukawa was a friend of his from his university days. Although he was a physicist, Yukawa possessed extraordinary powers of deduction, and Kusanagi had sought his help with more than a few investigations. They hadn’t seen each other for several years now.

“Didn’t Yukawa go to America? I haven’t heard from him since he left Japan.”

“He came back last year. That’s what the email he sent me was about. I thought he’d have contacted you, too.”

“Not a word. Guy’s got no manners.”

“He probably thought he didn’t need to email you because I’d tell you he was back. That’s how his mind works; he’s a rationalist.”

“He’s lazy, you mean. Anyway, what’s he doing in Kikuno?”

“He said that he was going to be working for a new research institute that had just opened up there. He didn’t say what kind of research he’d be doing.”

Probably thought you wouldn’t understand his explanation. Kusanagi suddenly remembered Yukawa’s habit of pushing his spectacles higher up on his nose with the tip of one finger.

“So he’s in Kikuno, eh...?”

Kusanagi decided to contact Yukawa once he’d cleared up this case. Hell, it would be fun: to hear what he had to say about life in America as they drank their whiskey and sodas (made, of course, with high-end whiskey). The only problem was what it would take to sort out this challenging case.

5

The day after the joint investigation task force was set up, Kusanagi decided to go to Namiki-ya and meet with the family. Since the local police force had all the records related to Saori Namiki’s disappearance, Kusanagi had a general grasp of the case; as the officer in charge of the investigation, however, he wanted to speak directly to the girl’s family. He had Kaoru Utsumi arrange the meeting and join him.

Namiki-ya was located on Kikuno Avenue, one of the streets on the route of the area’s annual parade. The restaurant was an unpretentious place, with a traditional exterior sheathed in vertical wooden slats. Inside, there were four tables for six, and two tables for four. Kusanagi and Utsumi were sitting on one side of one of the six-person tables in the middle of the restaurant, with the three members of the Namiki family on the other side: Yutaro, the father; Machiko, the mother; and the surviving daughter, Natsumi.

With his high forehead and elegantly arched eyebrows, Yutaro Namiki looked like a stand-up guy. On the thin side, he sat bolt upright in his chair and radiated a quiet dignity. His wife, Machiko, was a beautiful woman with strikingly large eyes. Kusanagi recalled the pictures he had seen of Saori Namiki. She had obviously taken after her mother. The features of Natsumi, the sister, were nice and regular, but she was of a different type to her mother and elder sister.

“We’ve got no idea what’s going on. Is there any chance you could fill us in?” Yutaro asked, before he had even put Kusanagi’s business card down on the table. “The Shizuoka Prefectural Police called us out of the blue. They said they believed they’d found the remains of our daughter and wanted to do a DNA test. We told them that we provided a sample when Saori disappeared and gave our consent for them to proceed. They got back to us a few days later saying that it was a match and we should come collect her remains. We went, of course, but we’re baffled. We had never heard of the place. That’s what we want to know: Why in God’s name was Saori’s body found all the way out there in Shizuoka?”

Kusanagi nodded twice, slowly and deeply.

“I understand how you must be feeling. For our part, we’re very conscious that this case comes with a lot of questions. And our investigation will address precisely that point: Why was the body found where it was?”

“Saori...,” began Machiko Namiki. “She was murdered, wasn’t she?” Her voice was faint and had a slight quaver.

“That is a possibility,” replied Kusanagi in a somber tone. “I hope that our investigation will uncover the truth of what happened.”

Machiko’s eyebrows shot up.

“What else could it be, if not murder? You’re not seriously going to tell me that — what? — she went to some stranger’s house in Shizuoka, got sick, and died there?” She was speaking with such fervor that spittle was flying from her lips.

“Come on,” Yutaro chided her. “Calm down.”

Machiko glared at her husband, then silently dropped her eyes. She was breathing so hard that her shoulders were heaving.

“You’re quite right, Mrs. Namiki.” Kusanagi did his best to sound conciliatory. “The circumstances suggest with a high level of possibility that Saori was the victim of some sort of crime. That’s why I would like to ask you whether you noticed anything unusual before your daughter went missing. Did she get any strange phone calls? Did you see anyone suspicious hanging around the house?”

The couple looked at each other. Yutaro then turned to Kusanagi and tilted his head to one side.

“The police asked us the same questions when she went missing. Nothing came to mind then, either. We saw no sign of her associating with bad people; she seemed to be living a completely normal, ordinary life...”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

Machiko frowned thoughtfully, then looked over at Natsumi, who was sitting beside her.

“My sister asked me to keep it a secret,” began Natsumi, speaking with reluctance, “but she was actually going out with one of the restaurant customers.

“His name was Tomoya Takagaki,” Natsumi said. “He was a little older than Saori, about five years, and he had some sort of an office job. Saori was convinced that our parents would disapprove of her dating a customer, so she didn’t tell anyone about it, except me.”

“Does he still come to the restaurant?”

“Oh, I don’t think he’s been here for about a year now. He used to pop in from time to time after Saori went missing.”

“Do you happen to have his contact details?”

Machiko glanced over at her daughter.

“I can tell you where he works,” said Natsumi. It turned out to be a printing company, not far from the station, four stops along the line.

“Was there anyone else with whom Saori was especially close? Male, female, it doesn’t matter.”

“I can think of several people: school friends and the like. She had an address book. Shall I fetch it for you?” Machiko replied, getting to her feet.

“You can get it for us another time. There is something I would like you all to take a look at now,” said Kusanagi, giving Utsumi a meaningful look.

The female detective slid a photograph out of her bag and laid it flat on the table. It was actually an enlarged color copy of the driver’s license photo for Kanichi Hasunuma. The three members of the Namiki family all craned forward for a closer look.

Machiko was the first to react. She gasped and her big eyes widened further.

“Does the picture mean anything to you?” Kusanagi asked.

Machiko picked up the photograph, scrutinized it closely, then nodded.

“I recognize him. I recognize this man,” she said and handed the photograph to her husband.

Yutaro looked grim. There was an extraordinary intensity in his eyes as he contemplated the picture.

“Yeah, I remember him. It’s that fellow.” He spat the words.

“Who is he?” Natsumi asked innocently. Unlike her parents, she didn’t seem to recognize the man.

“He used to come here a lot. Always on his own and always grumpy... He was a weirdo.” Machiko thrust the picture back at Kusanagi. “So, was it him? Did he murder our Saori?”

“We don’t yet know. All I can say is that we think he may have a connection to the case.” Kusanagi reached out and took the photograph from Machiko’s hand. He held it up so that both the parents could see it. “Clearly, neither of you have very positive feelings toward this man. Did you have some sort of run-in with him?”

“Not exactly a run-in.” Machiko looked to her husband for support.

“We banned him,” Yutaro said.

“You mean, from the restaurant?”

“Yes,” Yutaro said. “The way he behaved — it was intolerable.”

“Why? What did he do?”

“He kept trying to get Saori to pour his drinks for him.”

“Pour his drinks?”

“That’s right.” Yutaro pulled his chin into his neck with an air of distaste. “We’re a small restaurant, so we have lots of regular customers who are more like family friends, really. Saori was very relaxed and comfortable with people like that; she was happy to top off their glasses from the bottle on their table.” Yutaro paused briefly, glared at the photograph in Kusanagi’s hands, then went on. “When he saw her doing that for other people, he was like, ‘Come on, give me a top-off. Oh and come here and sit down next to me.’ He was a customer, so Saori reluctantly did what he asked. And then it went on, the same thing, gradually getting worse and worse. What he said to her, how he treated her, it was uncomfortable... inappropriate. In the end, I had to take a stand. ‘We’re a restaurant, not a hostess bar. We don’t like the way you’re carrying on, so please leave and don’t come back again.’ If I remember right, I didn’t charge him for that final evening.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No, he left without a word.”

“What about after that?”

“After that?” said Yutaro, twisting around to face his wife. “He didn’t come back, did he?”

“No, he never came back.” Machiko shook her head.

“And roughly when did these incidents take place?”

“When would it have been?” Yutaro cocked his head to one side. “Oh, yes. The first time he asked Saori to pour his drinks for him was the day of the big local parade. It went on for more than a month afterward... So that would take us to December, a little over three years ago, I guess.”

“Not long before Saori disappeared,” whispered Natsumi.

“Thank you.” Kusanagi handed the photograph back to Utsumi.

“Who is that guy?” asked Yutaro. His voice had an edge to it. “He came here often enough, but I never knew the first thing about him.”

Kusanagi gave him a conciliatory smile. “I’m very sorry. I can’t share any information with you yet.”

“Can’t you at least tell us his name?” Machiko had a beseeching look in her eyes.

“Please, try and understand. The investigation is only just getting underway. I promise to be back in touch as soon as we have anything to tell you.”

Kusanagi glanced over at Utsumi, then got to his feet and faced the Namikis.

“Thank you all for your help today. We are completely committed to finding out what happened. I sincerely hope that we can count on your support. Thank you and goodbye.” As he said this, he gave a deep bow. Beside him, Detective Utsumi did the same thing.

None of the three members of the Namiki family said so much as a word.

6

He adjusted the color balance, closed his eyes, waited a few seconds, then opened them again and looked back at the computer monitor. Without doing a conscious “self-reboot” like this, he found it hard to judge whether the design had improved or not.

Not bad, thought Tomoya Takagaki, examining his own handiwork. The image on the monitor was of a room in a rather upscale retirement home. Tomoya was selecting photographs for the retirement home’s brochure and the client had asked him to make sure the whole thing felt bright and cheerful.

Tomoya was wondering how to enhance the sunlight streaming in through the window, when the phone on his desk lit up with an incoming call. He picked up; it was the woman at reception.

“Mr. Takagaki, I have a lady here who says she wants to see you. A Ms. Utsumi.”

“Ms. Utsumi? Where’s she from?”

“She says she’s from the Kikuno shopping district.”

“From Kikuno?”

He knew Kikuno well. Recently, however, he had been giving the shopping district a wide berth. He had his reasons.

“What do you want me to do? I can tell her you’re too busy to see her.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m on my way down.” Curious to know what she’s here for, Tomoya got to his feet.

Waiting for him in the reception area was a woman in a black pantsuit with long hair tied back. She was in her early thirties, possibly a bit older.

“Mr. Takagaki?” she inquired, walking toward him.

“Yes, that’s me,” he said. The woman drew a step closer. She glanced discreetly back at the reception desk, then extracted something from the inside pocket of her jacket. “This is who I am,” she said, deliberately keeping her voice low.

He didn’t immediately grasp what she was showing him. It was only after a few seconds that he realized it was a police badge. Tomoya blinked and stared into her face.

The woman looked straight back at him. He thought he detected a hint of confrontation in her eyes. “It would be nice if we could find a quiet place to talk.”

“There’s a meeting room. Would that be all right? It’s a bit on the small side.”

“Thank you. That’ll be fine.”

Tomoya was relieved. Her courteous manner suggested that she wasn’t going to accuse him of committing a crime. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had anything to do with the police. Pulling out her business card, the woman introduced herself formally. She was Kaoru Utsumi from the Homicide Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department.

“I know you must be busy, so let’s get straight down to business. I believe you know this woman?”

As she said this, she produced a photograph. Tomoya swallowed at the sight of it. He hadn’t forgotten that face — couldn’t have forgotten it even if he had wanted to.

“It’s... uh... Saori Namiki,” he replied, gazing at the photograph. In it, Saori was smiling and making the peace sign.

“What was the nature of your relationship?”

He swallowed again, then said: “We were going out together. That is... three years ago we were. What is it, Sergeant Utsumi? Are you here to tell me that Saori has...?”

Tomoya couldn’t finish his question.

Utsumi frowned slightly and gave a gentle nod.

“Saori’s body was recently discovered in a burned-out house in Shizuoka prefecture.”

“In Shizuoka?”

“However, we believe that she actually died a long time ago. Perhaps immediately after she went missing.”

It was a physical sensation, as if part of his body had hollowed out and vanished. That’s it. She’s dead.

In his heart, he had always thought so. Still, to be told like this was a big shock.

Tomoya caught his breath, then he looked at Utsumi. “Why Shizuoka?”

“We don’t yet know. It’s one of the things we are currently looking into. Can you shed any light on the subject, Mr. Takagaki? When Saori was alive, for example, did she ever mention Shizuoka to you?”

“Never.” Tomoya spoke with conviction. “I don’t think she’d ever even been there.”

“Her parents told me exactly the same thing,” said Utsumi, nodding. Then she gave Tomoya a piercing look. “How close was your relationship with Saori?”

“How close? I suppose I’d say our relationship was, you know, normal,” replied Tomoya, scratching his head. “To call it ‘official’ sounds a bit weird, but the first time we officially went out on a date was around the time Saori graduated high school. I was in my second year at work, I’d got a handle on my job, and I was just starting to have a bit more time for myself outside my job. Until then, I just talked to her when I went to Namiki-ya for dinner, so we were hardly close.”

“And how often did you go out together?”

“Once every week or two, I guess. We were both quite busy.”

“Where did you go on these dates, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“We mostly went into the center of Tokyo. We didn’t do anything special, just wandered around, went shopping, stuff like that.”

Tomoya wondered if Utsumi was expecting him to reveal whether or not their relationship was physical. Sure, she was the police, but did she have the right to intrude on a person’s privacy like that?

But Utsumi didn’t ask any more intrusive questions. Instead, she switched her focus to the big issue. “Could you tell me in as much detail as you can about the time when Saori went missing?” she asked.

Tomoya dug into his memory.

“I only found out she was missing several days after it happened. It was funny, I was sending her texts, which I could see weren’t being read; she wasn’t picking up my calls, either. I thought I’d drop into Namiki-ya on my way home from work, and I found the place closed. I realized something serious must have happened. That was when Natsumi contacted me and I finally found out what was going on.”

“Did the police ever contact you?”

“No, they didn’t. Natsumi was the only one who knew about my relationship with Saori, and I guess she didn’t mention it to the police. Later on, she told me that she didn’t want me to get caught up in all the trouble.”

Talking about it brought back vivid memories.

Tomoya often went to Namiki-ya after being told about Saori’s disappearance. But the place was always closed. Although he was desperate to know what was going on, he kept telling himself that Saori’s family were suffering even more than he was himself.

“I’m going to ask you point-blank.” Utsumi looked him in the eye. “Can you think of any reason for Saori Namiki to disappear?”

Tomoya shook his head in puzzlement.

“I really have no idea. I mean, how should I know? She just disappeared one day — and then she stayed missing.”

“We believe it is highly likely that Saori Namiki was the victim of some sort of crime. What’s your opinion? Do you agree?”

“Of course, I do.” Now Tomoya’s head was bobbing up and down. “I think somebody murdered her.”

“And have you any idea who that somebody might be?” Utsumi asked, her gaze intense.

A thought flitted through his mind. It was the matter of a moment, but enough to perceptibly delay his answer. “No, no idea,” he said.

“You paused for a moment there,” Utsumi said. “Are you quite sure you didn’t think of something?”

“No, I... uh...,” mumbled Tomoya incoherently.

“Mr. Takagaki,” said Utsumi, smiling and speaking more gently. “There’s only me here and I’m not even taking notes. If there’s something you want to say, you should go ahead and say it. You don’t need to tie yourself in knots worrying about sharing what may be nothing more than a groundless hunch with the police. It’s our job to extract the truth by sifting through a jumble of information. Please, work with me here.” She bowed curtly.

Tomoya’s lips were dry. He licked them. The woman was disquietingly perceptive. She seemed to know exactly what he was thinking.

“I’ve no real grounds for what I’m about to say. It’s just a feeling.”

“That’s not a problem.” Utsumi lifted her face. He noticed the gleam in her almond-shaped eyes.

Tomoya coughed once, then began to speak.

“I think it started in the autumn of the year Saori graduated high school. I remember her telling me about this creepy guy who’d started coming to Namiki-ya. He was always ogling her, getting her to pour his beer for him, stuff like that. Apparently, he used to come in late, which is why I hadn’t met him. Anyway, there was this one time when I did end up staying later than usual and he turned up. Just like Saori had told me, he made her fill his glass; he even tried to force her to sit down next to him. On that occasion, Saori managed to come up with some excuse and fled upstairs. It didn’t make any difference, though; the guy kept on coming to the restaurant after that. I was worried, but Saori told me everything was fine. In the end, her father threw the fellow out and he did stop coming. But...”

He hesitated.

“But what?” Utsumi had no intention of letting Tomoya off the hook.

“But Saori told me she used to bump into the guy in the street now and then. There were several occasions when suddenly he was right there, right next to her. One time, when he got too close, she just took off and ran.”

“Did he run after her?”

“I don’t know. Saori said she might be imagining things.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about this man? His name, perhaps? His job?”

Tomoya shook his head. “I don’t know anything about him. He was a Namiki-ya customer, but where he lived, I’ve no idea.”

“This is the first time you’ve mentioned him to the police?”

“Yes, it is. I mean... this happened a little while before Saori went missing. I didn’t speak to the police at the time and I didn’t make the connection right away. It was months later, as I was mulling things over, that it occurred to me that perhaps the guy had something to do with her disappearance...”

Utsumi sat in silence for a while, then she opened her bag.

“Is the man here?” she asked, arranging five photographs on the table. They all looked like pictures from driver’s licenses or mug shots.

Tomoya gave a start when he looked at the picture second from the end on the left. He remembered those sunken cheeks, those deep, dark eyes.

“This is him.” Tomoya jabbed a finger at the picture.

“Is it, now?” The woman’s expression was quite blank. With quick, deft movements, she replaced the photographs in her bag.

“I was right, then. It is him, isn’t it?” Tomoya said. “If you’re walking around with a picture of the guy, that’s got to mean the police have got their eye on him. Are you going to arrest him?”

Utsumi gave him a bland smile. “We’re pursuing multiple lines of inquiry. This man is by no means our only suspect.”

“Okay, but... can’t you at least tell me his name? Who is he?”

“I am very sorry, Mr. Takagaki. Sharing that information with you at this point wouldn’t help our investigation.”

“It wouldn’t hurt it, though, would it?”

“If you mentioned his name to someone else and the information got out there, there’s every chance that it could impact negatively on our investigation.”

“I won’t tell a soul. I promise.”

“It’s less risky if I simply don’t tell you. I hope you can understand our position on this.”

Tomoya bit his lip at the brush-off. He felt thwarted; at the same time, the detective had a valid point.

Utsumi looked down at her watch.

“You’ve been most helpful. I really appreciate it.” She rose to her feet and gave him a little nod of gratitude.

Tomoya accompanied her to the lobby to see her out, then returned to his desk. Concentrating on his work proved almost impossible. Before he was even aware of what he was doing, he had his smartphone out and had started scouring the internet. Inputting “Saori Namiki” produced no results. That suggested that the police hadn’t yet released her name to the media.

Putting his phone aside, Tomoya leaned back in his chair and absentmindedly contemplated his desk. It was the same desk they had given him when he had joined the firm. The memories from that time came back to him.

April, five years ago. That was when he had first eaten his dinner at Namiki-ya. He lived with his mother, Rie, who was a nurse. She had had a night shift that night. She had always made Tomoya’s dinner before she headed out to the hospital, but now that he had a job of his own, Tomoya had decided that he ought to start feeding himself. Not only was Namiki-ya conveniently situated halfway between the station and his house, it looked like a nice place, and he had always fancied trying it out.

On the evening of the first visit, Saori was working at the restaurant. With her small face and big eyes, she looked more like a show business personality than a waitress and Tomoya couldn’t help noticing her. What he found most attractive about her was the expressiveness of her face. He was delighted when she treated him — a first-time visitor — with as much friendliness as a regular.

It didn’t take long for Tomoya to become a regular. In no time at all, he was going to Namiki-ya once a week. Even when his mother wasn’t on the night shift, he would text her to say that he was going to grab a bite on the way home from work and would go to Namiki-ya. Although the food was undeniably good, his real goal was to see Saori.

Tomoya was in no hurry to tell Saori how he felt about her. What guarantee was there that Saori felt the same way about him? As his visits to the restaurant became more frequent, he began to get the sense that she liked him; at the same time, he worried that he might be reading into the situation what he wanted to be true.

From listening to Saori’s mother chatting with the customers, he had learned that Saori didn’t have a boyfriend. He was also aware that there were quite a few people who went to the restaurant specifically to see her. The presence of other young male customers put him on edge, since he was convinced that they must have her in their sights, too. The fact that Saori was equally nice to all of them made him uneasy.

Before Tomoya knew it, almost a year had gone by. One evening in March, he deliberately went to Namiki-ya at a time when he knew it would be empty and presented Saori with a gift “to celebrate her graduation.” It was a golden hair slide in the shape of a butterfly.

Saori’s eyes lit up and she immediately put it on. Since there was no mirror at hand, Tomoya took a picture of the back of her head with his phone to show her what the slide looked like.

“Oh, it’s so cute!” Saori gushed when she saw it. Tomoya was sure her reaction was genuine. “I want to go out with this on just as soon as I can. Where shall I go?” she said, tugging at the clasp. She looked straight at Tomoya. “What about you, Mr. Takagaki? Will you take me out somewhere?”

Tomoya was shocked. That was the last thing he had expected her to say.

“Uhm, shall we go and see a movie?”

Saori was less than delighted with Tomoya’s hasty suggestion. What would be the point of going somewhere dark?

That was how they ended up going to Tokyo Disneyland for their first date. Every time Saori came across a mirror, she would turn around and look at her reflection with the hair slide and comment on how nice it looked.

They started to go out on a regular basis after that. The more time they spent together, the more Tomoya grew to like Saori. She was a gentle, thoughtful person.

He told no one that they were going out except for his mother, Rie. She promptly declared that she would like to meet Saori, so Tomoya brought her home with him. Rie took to her at first sight. “A beautiful girl like that is way out of your league,” she even said to her son.

Saori was only nineteen but she had ambitions. She was with a producer and wanted to become a professional singer. Tomoya felt duty bound to help her make her dreams come true.

But all that had been taken away from him in an instant. The three years since Saori had disappeared had been a living hell. Internally, he was a writhing mass of pain and anguish. He had continued going to Namiki-ya for a while with the hope of hearing some news about Saori, but eventually he stopped. The reason was simple: He had given up hope.

7

Two detectives came to Naoki Niikura’s house: Inspector Kishitani of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and a junior detective from the Kikuno Police Station. Kishitani was a man of forty or so with an intelligent face and a mild manner.

Naoki Niikura had expected the police to show up at some point. Yutaro Namiki had phoned him that Saori had been found.

Inspector Kishitani’s questions focused on three areas: Could the Niikuras tell him anything about what was going on with Saori at the time of her disappearance? Did they know anything about her personal relationships? And finally, did they have any ideas about why she might have been targeted?

Naoki was eager to provide as much information as he could. However, he had no answers for them. Ultimately, all he could muster was a furrowed brow and a head tilted quizzically to one side. It was pathetic, but that was the reality of it. Had he known anything useful, he would have shared it with the police three years ago.

Kishitani and the junior detective nonetheless thanked Naoki and his wife for their help, as they got to their feet at the end of the interview. As Naoki accompanied them back to the doorstep, he felt acutely conscious of his own powerlessness.

He and his wife went back into the living room. Two cups of green tea, which the detectives hadn’t touched, stood on the coffee table in the middle of the room.

“Shall I make us some coffee?” Rumi asked, as she tidied away the detectives’ cups.

“That would be nice. I’d love a cup.” Naoki dropped down onto the sofa. He sighed as he picked up the business card that Kishitani had left for him.

If the Niikuras hadn’t been able to provide the police with any worthwhile information, they also hadn’t been able to extract anything worthwhile from them, either. The police hadn’t even told them where in Shizuoka Saori’s remains had been found.

The only concrete thing that came out of their meeting was the photograph they were shown to see if they recognized the man. Yutaro Namiki had said something about being shown a photo by the police. It was probably of the same person. According to Yutaro, the man in the photo had been a regular customer and had treated Saori outrageously. Naoki, however, had never met the man and knew nothing about him.

Was he responsible for Saori’s murder? He certainly looked wicked enough. Maybe he tried to assault her and when she resisted, he killed her. If so, it was just too senseless.

It had been a long time since Naoki had met anyone with the raw natural talent of Saori Namiki.

He had heard all the chitter-chatter about the brilliant girl singer from the Kikuno shopping district. So many people wanted to hear her perform that the annual singing contest was always packed. Naoki, however, refused to take the rumors seriously. It’s just some stupid local singing competition. Along comes some girl who can sing a little better than the average, and all the adults get carried away. Big deal!

But at some point a friend in the music business pulled him aside, showed him a brochure, and said, “You really should give this girl a listen.” The brochure was for the annual festival of the local high school, which included a performance by the school band with the local “girl genius” on vocals.

Since Naoki’s schedule was clear that day, he decided to go and take his wife, Rumi, along with him. Their expectations were rock-bottom. They steeled themselves to endure a series of cheesy rock covers.

They couldn’t have been more wrong. Saori Namiki and the band played jazz and blues, and they performed a few standards as well as songs that only the most committed music fans would be familiar with. Saori had a distinctive voice with a deep timbre reminiscent of a woodwind instrument. She also had an extraordinary musical instinct. She seemed to grasp the meaning of each song at the deepest level. Her abilities far outstripped those of any normal high school girl.

Without intending to, the Niikuras stayed through until the end of the concert.

Naoki and Rumi were in a state of excitement. They both felt the same way: Leaving that extraordinary talent undeveloped was simply not an option.

As soon as they could, they went to Saori’s house to meet her parents. Although the Namikis knew that their daughter was talented, it had never occurred to them that she could turn professional. It was only when Naoki started making the case with audible passion in his voice that they finally seemed able to treat the issue as a real-world problem. They would ask Saori how she felt, they said.

Our daughter wants to give it a go. The Niikuras were overjoyed when Yutaro Namiki called back the next day with the news.

And that was how Naoki Niikura secured Saori Namiki. She was a diamond, but still a diamond in the rough; she would need polishing if she was really going to shine. Using his network of contacts, Naoki found Saori a top-notch voice trainer. The Niikuras had a soundproof room in their mansion and Naoki arranged for her to take lessons there.

I’m going to do whatever it takes to make Saori’s talent blossom, he thought. The girl could be a star in Japan — no, a worldwide superstar. I’m going to throw everything I’ve got at this.

The Niikuras were all doctors, going back generations. The family owned several hospitals, which Naoki’s two older brothers managed. At university, Niikura was accepted into the medical program. The plan had always been for him to become a doctor, too, but the direction of his life changed when he started playing in a band. Naoki had always liked music; he had started taking piano lessons at age five and gone on to develop an interest in composition at junior high school. His secret dream had always been to become a musician rather than a doctor.

Naoki’s family and friends were all opposed when he announced his decision to drop out of school, but when they saw how committed he was to his music, more and more of them began to come around to his side. His two brothers were particularly supportive, telling him not to worry; they would look after the family hospitals so he could do what he loved. It was thanks to his brothers’ generosity that Naoki also managed to avoid any financial hardship.

At a relatively early stage, however, Naoki realized that he didn’t have any great talents of his own. Instead, the idea of scouting and training up young talent started to appeal more. Running a music school and a clutch of rehearsal studios would give him the opportunity to do that. He had already discovered several successful artists over the years. Saori, however, was in a completely different league.

Saori’s progress was rapid. At the rate she was going, she could easily make her mark in the music world on a global scale. Then, just when his belief in her had reached its peak, the unthinkable happened. His most precious treasure disappeared.

Even in his worst nightmares, Naoki had never imagined such a scenario. Had she been involved in an accident or just fallen sick, he might have been better able to come to terms with his loss. What, though, was he supposed to do when she just vanished one day? When he heard the news of her disappearance, he raged against the Namikis, all the time knowing it was unfair. Why didn’t they keep a closer eye on their daughter?

Saori’s disappearance upended Naoki’s whole existence. He lost his enthusiasm for life and spent his days in a stupor. He became an empty shell of a man.

A fragrant aroma brought Naoki back to himself. Rumi was in the room with a tray laden with coffee cups.

“Black, right?”

“Please.” Stretching out a hand, he took a cup. He took a swig, but the flavor hardly registered. Even his taste buds had dulled. Thoughts of Saori monopolized all his faculties.

“Hey,” said Rumi. “Do you think the man in the photo is the killer?”

“Don’t know... but it seems probable.”

“He’ll get the death sentence if he is.”

Naoki cocked his head.

“Don’t be too sure about that. Murdering one person isn’t always enough to get you the death sentence.”

“Seriously?” Rumi’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Definitely. The sentence is more like ten-something years in jail, I think.” Naoki put his cup down and gazed off into space. “If I could get away with it, though, I’d kill the guy myself.”

8

A week had passed since the establishment of the task force. Director Mamiya, who had just received an update from Detective Kusanagi, was looking gloomy. And no wonder. They had uncovered next to nothing.

“As things stand, this pension thing is our only angle of attack,” Mamiya said. He was sitting down and leafing through a written report.

“Whether he was stealing from her pension or not, we still need to prove that Hasunuma used to visit his stepmother’s house,” said Kusanagi, who was standing in front of him.

“Any results from canvassing the neighborhood?”

“So far, nothing.”

Mamiya scowled and groaned.

Over the past week, the joint investigation task force had been looking for evidence that Kanichi Hasunuma had visited his stepmother over the past six years. If they could find even a single instance of him having done so, Mamiya and Kusanagi believed they could use that to prove that he knew his stepmother was dead.

The Shizuoka Prefectural Police had found something important: Someone had been using an ATM card to periodically withdraw money from her bank account. In fact, just recently, almost all the money in the account had been withdrawn at an ATM in central Tokyo. When they reviewed the security-camera footage, they found a man who resembled Hasunuma. Perhaps, when he heard about his stepmother’s body being found, he’d decided to withdraw all the money he could before the account was frozen.

This was what Kusanagi had been hoping for. If they could find evidence suggesting that Hasunuma knew his stepmother was dead all along, then they could arrest him on a charge of fraud.

Even though a large number of detectives were interviewing people, so far they had nothing to show for their pains.

They had looked into arresting Hasunuma for illegal disposal of a dead body. Here, too, they confronted the same problem: They couldn’t indict him unless they could prove that he had actually been to the house. The statute of limitations was another stumbling block.

“Has Hasunuma made a move?” Mamiya asked.

“No. Same old, same old.”

They had been keeping Hasunuma under twenty-four-hour surveillance ever since the two bodies had been found. Unfortunately, his visit to the ATM happened before the team was in place. According to the surveillance team, Hasunuma spent most of his time in his Edogawa Ward apartment, with occasional forays outside to shop or to play pachinko. The scrap iron merchant where he had been working until a month before had gone bust, leaving him with no visible source of income.

Frustratingly, Hasunuma knew full well that he was being watched.

Mamiya crossed his arms and sighed heavily. “I don’t think we’re yet at the stage when we can ask him to voluntarily present himself at the station.”

“He’d probably claim that the body we found in his stepmother’s house has nothing to do with him.”

“Probably would,” grunted Mamiya sourly. “Thanks for the update. Keep at it.”

Kusanagi went back to his desk. He was looking through some files when Inspector Kishitani came rushing over.

“Chief, I’ve figured out what vehicle Hasunuma was making the most frequent use of three years ago. It was his employer’s minivan.” Kishitani presented Kusanagi with a printout of a small white van. “It was the same make as this.”

Kusanagi took the piece of paper, had a look, and grunted approvingly.

If Hasunuma had moved Saori Namiki’s body, then it would have required a vehicle to do so.

“At the time, Hasunuma was the only person using this vehicle; none of the other employees did. I went through the company’s vehicle use log.”

“Good work.” Kusanagi looked at the printout of the van with renewed interest.

“We found something else interesting,” Kishitani said.

“What?”

“The last known sighting of Saori Namiki on the security camera of a convenience store. We looked through the footage very carefully.” Kishitani placed two printouts on Kusanagi’s desk. One showed Saori Namiki walking along the street with her phone held up to her ear. The other a white minivan.

“Wha—? Is that...?” Kusanagi looked at the time stamp. The interval between the two pictures was less than one minute.

“This minivan drives by almost immediately after Saori Namiki has passed the convenience store. It’s not much of a stretch to assume it was following her.”

“Got the license number of the van?”

“Sure, we do.”

“Check it against the N-System data. Liaise with the Shizuoka Prefectural Police.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Kishitani, his tone buoyant. “Oh, and there’s one more thing.” He raised his index finger. “One of the recycling company employees told me something interesting: Over the last three years, Hasunuma would occasionally call him but the calls always came from pay phones.”

“From pay phones?”

“And they were always about the same thing. Hasunuma would ask whether the police had been there. That was his biggest worry. The calls were frequent in the first few months, he said, but they gradually tailed off, and he hasn’t heard from him in the last year.”

Kusanagi grunted his acknowledgement of Kishitani’s hard work.

“Hasunuma probably wanted to check that he wasn’t a suspect in the Saori Namiki missing-person case. He didn’t update his details on the official residents’ register for a while after moving out of his apartment. He was probably being careful, taking steps to prepare for the police coming after him. That would also explain why he used pay phones. When he decided that the coast was clear, he updated his entry in the residents’ register, and got his driving license renewed.”

“I think you’re right, sir,” Kishitani said.

It was yet another piece of evidence that made the cloud of suspicion surrounding Hasunuma even darker. But it, too, was only circumstantial.

Soon after that, the search results from N-System came back. A little over three years ago, the white minivan of Hasunuma’s employer had departed Kikuno, got onto the expressway at the nearest interchange and headed toward Shizuoka; about two hours later it reappeared, driving in the opposite direction. The timing corresponded perfectly with Saori Namiki’s disappearance.

Kusanagi decided it was time to order a search of Hasunuma’s apartment and to get him to come to the station for an interview.

Kusanagi chose to conduct the interview himself.

The Hasunuma sitting across from him in the interview room today was considerably thinner than the Hasunuma of nineteen years ago. His cheeks were hollower, his face more wrinkled, and his eyes sunk deeper into their sockets. Only the deadness of his eyes and the blank, inexpressive quality of the face were the same.

Hasunuma didn’t react when Kusanagi introduced himself. He’s probably forgotten all about that low-ranking detective from nineteen years ago, Kusanagi thought.

He felt a degree of relief when Hasunuma volunteered his name and his address when he asked for them. Hasunuma wasn’t going to opt for the silent route right from the get-go.

Kusanagi decided to play his first card. “Is this you?” he asked, placing a printout in front of Hasunuma. It was a photograph showing him withdrawing money from an ATM.

Hasunuma shot him a cold glance. “I don’t know,” he said in a flat voice.

“A sum of money was withdrawn from the bank account of Yoshie Hasunuma on this day. Now, if this person is not you, that would mean that someone has stolen your stepmother’s cash card and managed to find out what her PIN number is. We would have to investigate this as a case of theft and we would, of course, have to ask you, as a member of the victim’s family, to help us with our inquiries. Would you be prepared to help us?”

Hasunuma looked directly at Kusanagi. He noticed how much white was visible under his irises. Hasunuma sniffed loudly, pulled his wallet out of his jacket, and extracted a card from it. A cash card. He placed it on the table.

“May I have a look?”

Hasunuma slowly closed his eyes to indicate yes.

The name YOSHIE HASUNUMA was embossed on the card. It was one of the old-fashioned ATM cards without a built-in fingerprint reader.

“Why are you in possession of this card?” Kusanagi asked, handing it back.

“Oh, I have my reasons.” Hasunuma took the card.

“Those reasons being?”

Hasunuma gave a modest shrug. “It’s private. I’d rather not say.”

“In your interview with Shizuoka Prefectural Police, you stated that you hadn’t been in contact with or seen Yoshie Hasunuma, your stepmother, for many years. When was the last time you saw her?”

“It’s so long ago, I’ve forgotten.”

“A rough date will be fine.”

“I wouldn’t want to say anything vague or imprecise.” Hasunuma pressed his lips together. Kusanagi got the impression he was stifling a laugh.

Now he’s starting to show his true colors. Kusanagi steeled himself.

Kusanagi shifted to a different angle of attack.

“Where were you living three years ago?”

Hasunuma tilted his head to one side. “I can’t remember. I’m always drifting from one place to another.”

“You were renting an apartment in south Kikuno in Kikuno City. There are records of these things.”

“There are?” Hasunuma was completely impassive.

“Why did you move out?”

“I dunno. Can’t remember.”

“You also quit your job. Why? Did you have a reason for that? Something serious?”

“Uhm, no,” said Hasunuma listlessly. “I really don’t remember. I mean, whatever. I’m always changing jobs.”

Whatever the question, apparently his strategy was to play dumb.

“What did you do for dinner in those days? Cook at home? Eat out?”

“Me? Sometimes fixed my own meals, sometimes went out, I guess.”

“Did you ever go to a local eatery called Namiki-ya?”

The shadow of a grin appeared on Hasunuma’s lips.

“Oh, I went to all sorts of places. I can’t remember them all.”

“The daughter of the couple who run the restaurant was called Saori Namiki. She’s the girl whose body was found in your stepmother’s house after it burned down. Does that bring anything to mind?”

Slowly shutting his eyes, Hasunuma started to shake his head robotically from side to side. “No. I have nothing to say.”

Kusanagi glowered at Hasunuma whose face was as blank as a Noh mask. He sat there limp, immobile, and indifferent.

“A little over three years ago, you used one of the company minivans to drive from your apartment to the house of your stepmother, Yoshie Hasunuma, and back, didn’t you? The journey was recorded on the N-System.”

This was a partial bluff on Kusanagi’s part. They hadn’t yet checked the journey to that precise level of detail.

Nothing changed in Hasunuma’s expression. “I don’t recall,” he replied flatly. Something in his manner suggested that he found the whole idea of making such a claim based on N-System data faintly ridiculous.

That’ll do for today, Kusanagi thought to himself.

“I think we’re good. Thank you for coming in.”

Getting languidly to his feet, Hasunuma headed to the door, which the junior detective, who had been taking notes during the interview, was holding open for him. He stopped halfway and looked back at Kusanagi.

“How’s this going to play out, Detective Kusanagi?” He was almost smiling.

“I’m sorry?”

“Mamiya — wasn’t that his name? I bet he’s quite the big shot, too, now, eh?”

The snide remark left Kusanagi speechless.

So Hasunuma did remember. He had known all along that his interviewer was the junior detective who had visited him in his apartment nineteen years ago.

With a final sneer, Hasunuma left the room.

About two weeks after this interview, an important development took place. Among the articles seized during the search of Hasunuma’s apartment were his work overalls from when he worked at the recycling company. Even though the overalls appeared to have been washed, there were faint traces of what looked like blood.

The overalls were immediately sent to the crime lab. Both the blood type and the DNA turned out to be a match for Saori Namiki.

Should they arrest Kanichi Hasunuma? Kusanagi discussed it with Director Mamiya and Commissioner Tatara. The whole situation was strikingly similar to what had happened nineteen years ago. They could prove that Hasunuma had handled and unlawfully disposed of Saori Namiki’s corpse; but proving that he had killed her was a different matter entirely. They had no direct, physical evidence.

After talking it over, the three men concluded that going ahead was a viable option. This time the body had a depressed skull fracture. That was different from nineteen years ago when specifying the cause of death had been impossible to determine. Someone had struck Saori with sufficient force to stave in the cranium; one couldn’t argue that there was no intent to kill.

The moment they arrested Hasunuma, he started behaving exactly as he had nineteen years before. Throughout his time in detention, he remained resolutely silent. Apparently, he did the same thing when questioned by the prosecutor.

Kusanagi and the rest of his team were not surprised. It was what they had anticipated. They had arrested Hasunuma on the assumption that he could still be indicted even if they didn’t manage to get him to confess.

The prosecutor took a different view of the matter. Just before the end of the legal detention period, when they had to charge him or release him, the prosecutor reached his decision: They would defer prosecution until there was more evidence.

Possibly forever.

Kanichi Hasunuma was released.

9

The Kikuno train station was an elegant little four-story structure. He passed through the turnstile and emerged into a shopping mall. The coffee shop was right in front of him.

Kusanagi went in and looked around. The person he was looking for was over by the window, reading a magazine. There was already a cup of coffee on the table in front of him.

Kusanagi wandered over and looked down at his old friend. “Hey.”

Manabu Yukawa looked up. A smile played around his lips. “How many years has it been?”

“Four. You could at least have got in touch when you got back to Japan.” Kusanagi dropped into the chair opposite.

“I told Kaoru Utsumi.”

“Well, she didn’t tell me.”

“I’m not here to listen to your gripes about the indolence of your subordinates.”

An ironic smile flashed across Kusanagi’s face. “Always ready with a wisecrack. Nothing changes.”

When the waitress brought him a glass of water, he ordered a coffee. Then he cast an appraising look at his old friend.

Yukawa was hard and lean rather than thin. No change there. Subtle though they were, there were definite hints of gray in his hair.

“You look well,” said Kusanagi. “How was America?”

Yukawa shrugged and picked up his cup.

“Stimulating enough, I would say. My research went well, so all in all, it wasn’t bad.”

“Utsumi told me you’re a full professor now.”

Yukawa extracted a business card from the inside pocket of his jacket and placed it flat on the table in front of Kusanagi. “My contact details have changed.”

Kusanagi picked up the card. Sure enough, Yukawa’s job title was now professor.

“Congratulations,” Kusanagi said.

Yukawa radiated indifference as he tipped his head slightly to one side. “Nothing to congratulate me about.”

“Oh, come off it. Surely it means there’s no one above you to stop you doing what you want.”

“Even when I was an associate professor, my superiors didn’t restrict my activities much. I had the freedom to research whatever I was interested in. It doesn’t work like that when you’re a full professor. Whatever you want to do, you always have to think about this.” Yukawa made a ring with his thumb and forefinger, the Japanese sign for money. “My main job now is to find sponsors. I make presentations about the value of our research and then solicit donations from them. I’m no longer a researcher myself; I’m more like a producer.”

“That’s what you’re doing, is it? Doesn’t seem very you.”

“Whatever the field, the old generation always has to make way for the new. The time has come for me to help smooth the path for the next generation. I’ve got to accept that reality and deal with it,” Yukawa said somewhat sardonically, then looked over at Kusanagi. “I imagine things have changed for you, too?”

“Utsumi told you?”

“No, I’m just guessing.”

Now Kusanagi produced his business card. Yukawa took it and raised an eyebrow.

“Dare I hope that means one more trustworthy chief inspector at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department?”

“Nice of you to say so, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who think I’m useless.”

Kusanagi’s coffee arrived. He added milk, stirred it, and drank a mouthful.

“You look a bit glum.” Yukawa looked at him appraisingly with his scientist’s eyes. “Oh, that reminds me, something in your email has been bugging me. You said you wanted to see me, if I had the time, because you had some ‘unpleasant business’ that was going to take you to the Kikuno shopping district?”

“Something exasperating has happened.” Kusanagi shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a frustrating and, frankly, rather pitiful story.”

“Has your investigation hit rough waters?”

“Not so much hit rough waters as run aground.”

“That sounds interesting.” Yukawa leaned forward, put his hands on the table, and laced his fingers together. “I’m happy to listen, if you’re prepared to share the details with a civilian.”

“You are? I couldn’t tell just any old civilian, but you, you’re different.” Kusanagi frowned, interrupting himself and waving his right hand, palm outward, in a dismissive gesture. “No, I really shouldn’t. Here we are, meeting after such a long time. Why talk about my miserable police work? Tell me what you got up to in America. I want to know.”

“Research. That’s all I did over there. Do you really want to hear about whether the magnetic monopole search connects to the grand unified theory? Do you?”

Kusanagi grimaced. “You can’t have only done research. What about your days off?”

“I took it easy,” Yukawa replied tartly. “I rested so I could fully concentrate on my research when the working week started again. I was over in the States for a fixed period of time; I didn’t want to waste even a single day.”

Kusanagi suddenly felt tired. Yukawa’s manner was lighthearted enough, but he was probably being serious. Kusanagi had trouble imagining his friend playing a round of golf or going out for a drive in his free time.

“What’s the problem? Tell me your troubles. Tell me everything that’s gone wrong with this investigation.” Yukawa raised his hands high and drew them toward himself in a grand gesture of solicitation.

“America’s changed you. You used to say that police investigations didn’t interest you.”

“That was only because every time you came to me with one, it always involved a really convoluted problem. Someone’s head had suddenly spontaneously combusted. A dodgy cult leader had attacked someone using his telekinetic powers. Stuff like that. You’d always come running to me to work out how it had been done. I don’t think I need to worry about that this time, though.”

Kusanagi gave a derisive snort.

“Oh, I get it. You’re quite happy to hear about my case, provided you can just stay on the sidelines. Fine. Well, I don’t know if you’ll enjoy this story.” Kusanagi ran his eye swiftly around the café. The other customers didn’t appear to have any interest in them.

Kusanagi began by giving an overview of the case. A girl who had gone missing a little over three years ago had recently been found dead; they had arrested the man they believed responsible for her death; and he had been released because the prosecutor declined to indict him — technically a deferment of dispensation.

“That’s got to be annoying for the police. Still, someone being released due to lack of evidence — that has to be pretty rare?”

“It is. It’s very rare indeed,” said Kusanagi. “If the suspect was a normal person, the prosecutors would probably have gone after him hard — but that’s not what happened.”

Yukawa jerked his chin and used the tip of one finger to adjust his spectacles on his nose. It was a habit, an unconscious gesture he made when something aroused his interest.

“What makes the defendant so abnormal?”

“He’s a silent man.”

“A silent man?”

“It’s a long story. It goes back about twenty years.”

Kusanagi then gave Yukawa a brief account of the Yuna Motohashi murder case, before going into the details of the two trials.

Yukawa couldn’t suppress a groan.

“So the defendant was found not guilty, even though you had assembled all that circumstantial evidence. It sounds unreasonable — but in a way that’s what the court system is all about. What’s the connection between that case and the present case?”

“Believe it or not, but the suspect is the same.”

Yukawa’s temples twitched.

“Now, that is interesting. Hence you describing him as ‘the silent man.’”

“And the case I’m working on now has several striking similarities to the Yuna Motohashi case. The fact that the statute of limitations has expired for unlawful disposal and mutilation of a corpse; the fact that there is no physical evidence that he committed the murder. The only difference this time is the presence of the depressed skull fracture. We have pinpointed that as the cause of death, which in turn leads to the method of killing...”

“But the prosecutor didn’t see it like that?”

Kusanagi pulled a face and nodded his head.

“He apparently thought that still wasn’t enough. The depression of the skull was all very well, he said, but one couldn’t tell whether she had been struck with a weapon or if the injury was the result of some kind of accident. Worse yet, he said, one couldn’t even be certain that it was the cause of death.”

“When you put it like that, I suppose he’s right.”

“With any other suspect, I don’t think the prosecutor would have thought twice about indicting him. But from what I heard, Hasunuma was completely relaxed when the prosecutor questioned him.”

“Because he was confident that he could win the case just by keeping his mouth shut.”

“Correct.”

“But he would still be kept in detention until the trial was over. Surely he wouldn’t want that?”

“That guy probably just sees detention as another chance to make money.”

“Make money?” Yukawa frowned dubiously. “What do you mean?”

“After he was found not guilty in the Yuna Motohashi trial, he immediately claimed police reparations and trial costs. I heard he got over ten million yen all told.”

“Impressive. The guy’s got guts.” Yukawa let his eyes wander around the room for a moment, then he pointed a finger at Kusanagi. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like he’s got a pretty high IQ.”

“You’re right about that. The police had investigated Kanichi Hasunuma in considerable detail. He was an only child; his parents were divorced when he was ten, with his father getting custody. When he was thirteen, his father remarried, and Yoshie became his stepmother. Around then, he began hanging out with a bad crowd and his behavior became problematic. He left home immediately after graduating high school. In fact, his father kicked him out of the house, sick of the embarrassment he was causing the family. The father worked” — Kusanagi paused a moment — “as a police officer.”

Yukawa jerked upright in his chair. “Ha! This is getting more interesting by the minute.”

“It’s hard not to think that his dislike of his father translated into a generalized animosity toward the police.”

“That interpretation strikes me as a little oversentimental. I’d argue that he probably saw what his father was doing and made up his mind to do the polar opposite.”

“You mean he took his father as an example of what not to do? What aspect of him in particular?”

Yukawa tilted his head to an angle. “It wasn’t his father who provided him with something to react against; I think it was the suspects his father dealt with. Think about those days: back then, the police were free to do whatever they wanted. They could arrest someone based solely on circumstantial evidence, then coerce a confession out of them. They would just wear the suspect down and as soon as he’d signed a written statement cooked up for him, it was game over. Confessions nearly always resulted in a guilty verdict. If we assume that the father was in the habit of bragging about this rather convenient system at home, then what do you think the son, his captive audience, made of it?”

Kusanagi saw what Yukawa was getting at. “That if you did something wrong and were unlucky enough to be caught, confessing was absolutely the worst thing you could do.”

“Put it another way: that provided you didn’t confess, you stood a chance of winning. I think that’s the lesson he learned.”

Kusanagi rested his chin on his hands and sighed. “I hadn’t thought about it like that...”

“If I’m right, then it’s the Japanese police force that’s the begetter of this monster Hasunuma.”

Yukawa’s face wore an expression of studied neutrality. Kusanagi scowled at him.

“Sometimes you do come up with the most unwelcome ideas.”

“Come on, I said it was only a theory. There’s no reason to get upset.” Yukawa glanced at his watch and gulped down what was left of his coffee. “Time for me to get back to work. I’m glad I got to hear about this interesting case. I’d like to hear more. Next time, let’s make sure we have more time.”

“Do you come to Kikuno every day?” Kusanagi asked.

“Two or three days a week, usually.”

“You commute?”

“As a rule, yes. Sometimes I stay the night here. There’s a place to sleep on campus. We’re pretty far from central Tokyo.”

As Yukawa reached for the bill, Kusanagi managed to swoop in and grab it. “Today’s on me. You’ve had me over for coffee in your office often enough.”

“Only instant coffee. And served in a rather unsightly mug, too! You should come over for another sometime,” said Yukawa, getting to his feet. “Right, I’ll say goodbye.”

He must have remembered something, as he promptly sat back down again.

“There’s one crucial thing I forgot to ask. That ‘unpleasant business’ you mentioned earlier — what was it? I presume that’s the reason you got in touch with me?”

“Yes,” Kusanagi said. He knew his face had fallen. “I have to go and see the victim’s family and explain to them why the suspect was released. It’s not something I would normally handle myself, but there’s nothing normal about this case.”

“You’re going to see the family? A restaurant in the Kikuno shopping district, you said. What’s the place’s name?”

“Namiki-ya,” said Kusanagi, after a moment’s hesitation. He was dealing with Yukawa here; making a fuss about invasion of privacy would be stupid.

“Have you eaten there?”

“No, I haven’t,” said Kusanagi. “But it’s a nice, unpretentious place. Very friendly.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” Yukawa got back to his feet. “See you around,” he said and headed for the exit.

Kusanagi reached for his cup. The small amount of coffee left in it had gone cold, so he waved at the waitress and ordered a fresh cup.

He then took out his notebook and reviewed a number of details. He could already see the Namikis and the repressed rage on their faces in his mind’s eye. What happened? Why weren’t you able to indict Hasunuma despite all the evidence you had? They were definitely going to give him a hard time and would have trouble accepting the outcome. No surprise there; he couldn’t accept it himself. That’s why he had prepared a little speech.

Hard though it is, you must do your best not to lose hope. I assure you, we have no intention of backing off.

10

She slid open the lattice door and went outside to slot the noren curtain into position. After raining all day, the weather had cleared up. It felt nice: a crisp breeze and no sticky, oppressive heat.

I wonder if autumn proper is finally here, thought Natsumi Namiki. Although it was nearly October, they were still getting plenty of humid days; it annoyed her that she couldn’t switch to her autumn wardrobe.

She went back into the restaurant. She was busy setting the tables when there was the rattle of the front door being pushed open.

A face like a craggy piece of rock appeared. Natsumi knew its owner well. He wore industrial overalls over a shirt and tie.

“Oh, Mr. Tojima.” Natsumi’s eyes sparkled. “What’s up? Why are you here so early today?”

“You know how it is. Things happen.” Shusaku Tojima pulled out a chair at a four-person table near the door.

Natsumi darted toward the back of the restaurant. “Dad, Mr. Tojima’s here,” she yelled in the direction of the kitchen.

“Shusaku?” Yutaro Namiki looked up from his cooking. “How come?”

“I think something happened.”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry. It wasn’t anything serious.” Tojima was waving his hand from side to side in an extravagant gesture of depreciation. “You don’t need to pass on everything I tell you to your dad, Natsumi. The important thing is to bring me a bottle of beer.”

“Coming right up,” said Natsumi, taking a bottle out of the refrigerator.

“What was the problem, then?” Yutaro Namiki shouted from the kitchen.

“Oh, nothing serious.” Toshima waved his hand again. “A piece of machinery was acting up. We couldn’t do our jobs, so I closed up shop early.”

“Acting up?”

“One of the food freezers. It broke down.”

“A freezer? Again? Didn’t you tell me about one of the employees getting injured when one of your freezers broke down a few months ago?”

“It was a different freezer this time. We got in touch with the manufacturer; they said they can’t do anything till tomorrow. It’s a disaster. This is a busy time of year for us.”

Yutaro liked to describe Tojima as his “best bad friend.” Smoking, drinking, betting — the two of them had done all sorts of “bad” things together, going all the way back to elementary school. In high school, they had regularly ditched school to go to pachinko parlors.

Like Yutaro Namiki, Tojima had also taken over the family business. In his case, it was a food-processing business.

Tojima was in the habit of dropping into Namiki-ya for a bottled beer and a snack on his way back from work. He typically showed up at around eight o’clock.

Natsumi brought the beer, a glass, and an appetizer to Tojima’s table.

“As long as it’s only from time to time, it may be good for you. Overworking’s unhealthy.” Natsumi poured Tojima his beer.

Tojima grinned as he picked up his glass.

“Natsumi, my dear, only you would say that. My wife is more like, ‘You said you were busy, so what are you coming home for?’”

Natsumi laughed.

“She’s not joking. She’s deadly serious. I ask you, is that how a woman should treat her lord and master?” Tojima picked up a piece of the burdock root with his chopsticks. He caught sight of something and his eyes focused. “Ah, I see the poster’s ready.”

Natsumi turned to the wall behind her. “Yes, Ms. Maya delivered it yesterday.”

On the wall was an advertising poster for the local autumn festival, which was due to take place any day now. It was a photograph from the previous year’s parade showing a cluster of people dressed up as characters from fairy tales and children’s stories marching cheerfully along the street. The Kikuno Story Parade was now a popular event, and people traveled a long way to see it.

Ms. Maya was Maya Miyazawa. She was the daughter of the family who owned Miyazawa Books, Kikuno’s biggest and best bookstore. She was a director of the local neighborhood association and the chair of the parade’s executive committee.

“I can’t believe it’s been a year. Time really does fly,” said Tojima solemnly.

“I’m excited about it. Apparently, they’ve come up with a new gimmick specially for this year. The preparations are even more difficult than usual, Maya says.”

“Are you lending a hand, Natsumi?”

“Maya asked me to come and help, but only when I have the time for it. Last year, I was doing face painting for the kids, stuff like that.”

“You just help out? You don’t take part in the parade?”

While most of the participants in the parade were cosplayers from all around Japan who had gone through the official application process, a team from the Kikuno shopping district had the automatic right to take part. Last year, they had performed a tableau from the tale of Princess Kaguya. They had done a great job re-creating different scenes from the story: the princess being discovered inside a shining stalk of bamboo as a baby; the five princes who come to ask her for her hand in marriage; and her climbing into the moon envoy’s palanquin to leave Earth for good. Much to their relief, they were awarded third place. Since they represented the host district, everyone involved was determined to place in at least the top five.

“I’m not so keen on performance,” Natsumi said.

“Why not? You’d enjoy it. You young people have got to take part. Besides, Natsumi, we need a pretty girl like you to boost the beauty quotient. There was this fantastic performance some years ago. There was this enormous conch shell and halfway through the parade, it opens up and out pop all these mermaids. It was sensational—” Suddenly, Tojima broke off. He froze, his mouth hanging open and eyes darting to and fro. He realized he’d said something quite unpardonable.

Thank goodness for that, Natsumi thought. She had been wondering how to get Tojima to shut up. Pretending not to have noticed anything, she applied herself to rearranging the bottles in the refrigerator. When she glanced back at Tojima, he was drinking his beer and looking rather shamefaced.

A moment later, there was the sound of footsteps on the staircase and Machiko appeared in the restaurant.

“Oh, good evening, Mr. Tojima. You’re here early.”

“Yes, I knocked off early. A man’s got to play hooky now and again.”

“Well, you just relax now,” Machiko said, and headed for the kitchen. Looking at her as she walked off, Natsumi wondered whether her mother had overheard Tojima from the top of the stairs. She had probably waited for him to stop talking before coming down.

Natsumi had very clear memories of the parade Tojima had been talking about. It was the parade of four years ago. Natsumi, too, had been surprised when the mermaids suddenly emerged from inside the shell.

Saori had been so beautiful that Natsumi could hardly recognize her own sister.

A little before half past six, there was a clattering sound as the door opened and a customer stepped in. Even though Natsumi had her back to the door, she had a pretty good idea of who it was. There was one customer who always came at this particular time on this particular day of the week.

She turned around to see the person she’d expected settling down at the end of an empty six-person table.

Natsumi took him a cool towel to wipe his hands. “Good evening.”

“Good evening,” said the man, smiling and nodding. He had on a pair of rimless glasses. With his lean, hard physique, he looked younger than his fortysomething years.

“Would you like a beer to start?”

“Sure. And the usual after that.”

“The takiawase. Very good.”

Natsumi went back to the kitchen to relay his order. Then, she placed a bottle of beer, a glass, and an appetizer plate on a tray, and took it all back to where the customer was waiting.

He had taken off his jacket and was reading a magazine. There were some gorgeous 3D patterns on the page he was looking at. “Oh, they’re lovely,” gushed Natsumi as she put the beer bottle and the glass on the table.

“Aren’t they just?” The man looked rather pleased with himself as he held the magazine out for Natsumi to look at. “What do you think these are?”

“They look like pieces of paper folded into complicated shapes.”

“Good guess. It’s origami. The idea is to take one large sheet of paper and fold it with maximum efficiency into the smallest possible shape. It’s important that the process not just of folding it up but of opening it back out should be as simple as possible. Why do you think that is? The materials you’re looking at here are not paper; they’re solar panels for use in outer space. You load them onto a rocket in their folded-up state, shoot them into space, and then unfold and make use of them there. The Japanese art of origami inspired this technology.” After delivering this enthusiastic speech, the man looked at Natsumi to gauge her reaction.

Pressing the tray flat against her chest, Natsumi gave a dutiful smile. “Is this what you’re researching at the university, Professor?”

The man frowned, then pushed the bridge of his glasses higher up on his nose using the tip of one finger.

“Sadly, what I’m doing is neither as elegant nor as attractive.” With a sigh, he shut the magazine and crammed it into the bag beside him. “I get asked that a lot: What practical benefits does your research have? Will it make my life more convenient? Is it as cool as smartphones?” He picked up his beer bottle and filled his glass. “Unfortunately, I can’t really provide a satisfactory answer to questions like that. Science is just one word, but it can mean a multitude of things. Most academic research will never have even the smallest impact on the lives of the majority. The research I’m doing probably falls into that camp.” He raised his glass, took a swig of beer, and used his free hand to wipe the froth off his lips. “If you’re still curious, I’m quite happy to tell you about my research theme.”

“I think I’ll take a rain check.”

“That’s probably better for both of us! Now, I have a question of my own. Can anyone go to that event?” he asked, pointing at the poster on the restaurant wall.

“The parade? Of course, they can. The only thing is, there’s such a crush of people that you won’t see very much if you’re standing toward the back.”

“Aren’t there any seats?”

“Some, but they’re only for the parade organizers and special guests. You can get one if you’ve got the right connections.”

“Connections? Well, that’s no good to me.”

“In that case, you need to get up early and secure a good spot. If you’re interested, just let me know. I can show you a good place.”

“Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind.” The man nodded several times. “Good to know. Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it. Enjoy,” said Natsumi, and left him.

The customer in question was Manabu Yukawa, a physics professor.

He had first visited the restaurant in early May at the end of the Golden Week holiday. It had been around seven o’clock, when the restaurant was at its most crowded, so there were no empty tables. When Natsumi had inquired if he would be okay sharing a table, he said he was fine with that, so she had asked a couple of the regulars who were sitting at a six-person table if Yukawa could join them.

Many of the Namiki-ya regulars felt so at home there that they were quite uninhibited. The two men at the table were like that. They chatted with each other for a while, but eventually they found themselves unable to ignore the stranger sitting by himself at their table. Finding some pretext, they started peppering him with questions: Did he live nearby? What was his job?

Natsumi looked on nervously. She was worried that they might rub this first-time customer the wrong way.

The man wasn’t in the least put out. He was explaining in an easygoing way that he taught physics at Teito University and came to Kikuno several times a week to work out of the new research facility here. He went on to ask the two regulars to give him their recommendations from the menu.

With food as the topic of conversation, the regulars were completely in their element and they started to lecture him, almost spluttering with enthusiasm. If he was looking for a snack to go with a drink, then the regular omelet was good, but the omelet in broth was even better; he should definitely order the yakitori chicken skewers with both plain salt and tare sauce; not to try the restaurant’s vegetable takiawase would be the height of folly. Far from getting annoyed, the man nodded along, noting down their comments and ordering several of their recommendations. He ordered a few other dishes of his own choosing and nodded contentedly as he munched through them all.

The two regulars were clearly delighted and, as was only to be expected, introduced themselves. Natsumi had overheard that exchange, too.

Since that day, Yukawa had made repeated visits to Namiki-ya. He invariably came by himself, so he often ended up sharing a table. The regulars would always engage him in conversation and, as far as Natsumi could judge, Yukawa enjoyed the whole experience.

After several months, Yukawa had joined the ranks of Namiki-ya regulars. Customers who knew him called him simply “Professor.” Natsumi had recently started doing so herself.

At a certain point, Yukawa had begun arriving a little before six. He must have realized that the place tended to fill up after six and decided to get there early to secure his favorite spot.

That certainly held true this evening. By a little after six o’clock, the customers appeared in waves, almost as if they had coordinated their arrivals.

Then, just a little after half past six—

Natsumi heard the clatter of the front door opening. She said an automatic, “Good evening,” then looked over to the restaurant entrance.

A man was standing there. A chill ran down Natsumi’s spine the moment she saw him. There was something odd about him. He was wearing a black windbreaker with the hood up. He was probably in his fifties, but perhaps because of his sunburn, his face appeared unusually lined. His black eyes were deep-set and his cheeks hollow.

I’ve seen that face before somewhere. No sooner had Natsumi thought that than she remembered him. She felt paralyzed. She had no idea what to do.

It’s... It’s...

It was the man from the photograph. The photograph that Chief Inspector Kusanagi had shown them. It was the man her father had banned from the restaurant several years ago. It wasn’t long after that Saori had gone missing. Chief Inspector Kusanagi had arrested him on suspicion of murder. That was when Natsumi and her parents had first heard the name Kanichi Hasunuma.

What was that man doing here?

Hasunuma turned to Natsumi. His face was expressionless. After looking slowly around the restaurant, he pointed to a nearby table. “All right if I sit myself down here?”

It was a six-person table. Yukawa was sitting at one end of it.

“Be my guest,” replied the professor, who was eating sashimi with one hand while holding a magazine with the other. He didn’t seem particularly interested. He must have assumed that the newcomer was just an ordinary customer with whom he would share his table, the way he always did.

Hasunuma pulled out a chair and sat down. His hood was still up. He turned to Natsumi and brusquely ordered a beer.

“Yes, sir,” Natsumi replied. Her mind had gone blank and she was quite unable to think straight. She mechanically opened the refrigerated cabinet and extracted a bottle of beer.

She was walking toward the kitchen to pick up an appetizer for the new customer, when she stopped in her tracks. Yutaro had a savage expression on his face. Machiko was standing right behind him. They were both glaring out into the restaurant.

“What should I do, Dad?” asked Natsumi quietly.

Yutaro said nothing. He came out of the kitchen, tore off his half apron, and marched over to Hasunuma.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, looming over Hasunuma. He was obviously struggling to keep his emotions in check.

Hasunuma’s shoulders twitched. “This is a restaurant, right? You serve food and drink here,” he said, cocking his head and giving Natsumi a look. “So where’s my beer, then?”

“There’s no beer for you here,” Yutaro said. “No food, either. Go on, get out.”

Hasunuma raised his chin and glared up at Yutaro.

“Hey, you.” Tojima, who was seated some distance away and had been quiet up to that point, was pointing a finger at Hasunuma. “I thought something was upsetting Natsumi. Now I see that it was you. You’ve got some nerve, showing your face in here.”

“Shut up, Shusaku,” barked Yutaro, swiveling around briefly before turning back to Hasunuma. “I don’t know why you’re here, but you’re not welcome.”

“Oh yeah?” Hasunuma scratched one side of his nose. “Why not?”

“It’s pretty darn obvious: You’re bothering our other customers. Come on, scram.” Turning smartly on his heel, Yutaro headed back to the kitchen.

“I think you’ve got your wires crossed, Mr. Namiki.”

Yutaro stopped in his tracks. “My wires crossed?”

“Yeah,” said Hasunuma, his jaw hanging open. “I don’t know what you all think, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m the victim here. I was treated like a criminal because of you all. I lost my job. I lost my credibility. How are you going to make that good?”

“Treated like a criminal? You’re guilty. I know you are.”

Hasunuma emitted a derisive snort.

“If I’m guilty, how come I’m here and not in jail?”

“It’s only a matter of time,” Yutaro said. “The police haven’t given up yet. It won’t be long before they come and rearrest you.”

“I wonder...” A smile played about Hasunuma’s lips. “Anyway, you haven’t answered my question. How do you plan to compensate me for what I suffered?”

“Compensate you? What d’you mean?”

“I’m talking about financial damages. You’re the guy who shopped me to the police, aren’t you? You cooked up a bunch of half-truths to get me arrested. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I just told the police the truth.”

“Bullshit. I know exactly what you told the police. And I’ll tell you why: because of what they asked me in my interrogation. That is why I’ve got every justification in the world to be here. I want to negotiate my compensation with you.”

Yutaro took a step forward. Thinking her father was about to take a swing at Hasunuma, Natsumi held her breath.

“If that’s what this is about, then come back when the restaurant’s closed,” said Yutaro. His voice was soft but full of suppressed rage.

“I’ll come here whenever I want to. But for today at least” — Hasunuma got to his feet — “I’ll do you a favor and leave. Besides, you probably need a while to adjust your attitude. Just remember one thing, though: I’m not being indicted. The prosecutor is talking some crap about ‘deferment of dispensation’; basically what that means is I’m off the hook, scot-free. You’ve got no grounds for bad-mouthing me; no grounds for kicking me out of this restaurant. I’m the victim here; I’m the injured party who was falsely accused by you all. What I deserve from you is pity.”

After this brazen declaration, Hasunuma looked around the restaurant. The customers’ faces expressed a combination of perplexity, shock, and distaste. Hasunuma’s mouth twisted into a smug smile, and he left the restaurant, roughly pulling the door shut behind him.

“Machiko,” Yutaro shouted. “Bring me salt. A whole bag of the stuff.”

Machiko came out of the kitchen, holding a plastic bag of salt with both hands. “Give that here,” said Yutaro, grabbing it from her. He headed for the door, which he slid open before starting to scatter fistfuls of salt in the street.

11

Kusanagi was at the Fukagawa Police Station when he got the news. It came via a phone call from Inspector Muto at Kikuno Police Station who was in charge of the continuing investigation into the unnatural death of Saori Namiki.

“Chief Inspector, I know that you’re working on another case and must be extremely busy. Still, I felt I had to let you know about this.” Muto spoke in a subdued tone.

Kanichi Hasunuma had moved out of his apartment in the Edogawa Ward the previous day, Muto said. The reason was simple enough: His lease had run up.

“We knew the cutoff date was imminent, so we asked the landlord if he planned to renew the lease. Having heard about this case, he wasn’t wild about having someone who’d been arrested for murder staying in his building. He cooked up some plausible excuse for not rolling over the tenancy agreement and we watched Hasunuma after he moved out to see where he went.”

Hasunuma, Muto went on, had made a beeline for Kikuno. That was already startling enough, but from Kikuno station he went straight to Namiki-ya.

“Hasunuma? Went to Namiki-ya? What the hell for?”

“He didn’t stay long. One of our investigators went into the place to find out what had happened. He spoke to Yutaro Namiki and some of the customers. Apparently, Hasunuma was raging about the way he’d been treated as a criminal and is set on getting compensation from Namiki. The term he used was ‘damages.’”

“Damages...”

It was absurd. Kusanagi had never heard anything like it. But given the kind of man Hasunuma was, it sounded like something he would try. He’d won reparations from the police in the Yuna Motohashi case. Since he hadn’t even been indicted this time, perhaps he was planning to extort money from the people whose cooperation had led to his arrest instead.

“And his final destination? Do you know where it was?”

“We do. It’s a warehouse. It belongs to the recycling company where he used to work.”

“A warehouse?”

“Not exactly. It’s a small office that’s part of a warehouse. The warehouse itself is hardly used anymore, so the company converted the office into a living space four years ago and one of the company employees now lives there. He’s particularly close to Hasunuma and is someone that our investigators have spoken to multiple times. Hasunuma was in touch with him from time to time after he stopped working at the place.”

Kusanagi burrowed into his memory. This must be the fellow Hasunuma used to call from pay phones to check whether the police were showing any interest in him.

“The man’s name is Masumura; he’s around seventy,” Muto continued. “I sent an investigator to the recycling company today. He spoke to Masumura who confirmed that Hasunuma had called him a few days ago. He asked if he could stay at his place while he looked for a new place to live.”

“Masumura said yes?”

“No reason to turn him down, he said. We had put a watch on the place last night. It was quite the party. They must have been celebrating their reunion — they were up till all hours drinking.”

Kusanagi sighed. If there was someone who could be friends with a monster like Hasunuma, then it really was true that it took all types to make a world.

“I made a few inquiries about this Masumura fellow. He’s been inside.” Muto had lowered his voice. “Manslaughter. Forty-plus years ago.”

Kusanagi emitted a noncommittal grunt. They sounded like birds of a feather.

“How are you planning to proceed with the continuing investigation?”

Kusanagi’s question elicited a pained groan.

“The only thing we can do is gather eyewitness testimony. Honestly, I feel like we’ve already done everything we can.”

“Will you maintain surveillance on Hasunuma?”

“We’ll check on his whereabouts at regular intervals, but, no, we don’t think he merits round-the-clock surveillance. We see no risk of him destroying evidence or trying to escape.”

“Right.”

The decision seemed reasonable enough to Kusanagi. It was hard to believe that Hasunuma would make a blunder at this late stage. The normal practice in a case like the Saori Namiki murder was to arrest the suspect on a different charge, keep him in detention, and interview him until you got a confession. With a person like Hasunuma, however — someone who didn’t object to being locked up for long periods and was capable of remaining silent — it wasn’t going to work.

“I just wanted to keep you in the loop, sir,” said Muto, then hung up. Kusanagi put down his phone. He felt bitter, fed up. Overcome with a sense of his own powerlessness, he didn’t have the energy to get to his feet.

Kusanagi had approached the prosecutor immediately after Hasunuma’s release to ask what kind of evidence he needed to indict Hasunuma.

The prosecutor said they needed a minimum of two things to proceed to indictment. First, they needed proof that the victim hadn’t died an accidental or natural death. Second, they needed incontrovertible proof that Hasunuma — and no one else — had committed the crime. Even then, precedent suggested that the chances of him being found not guilty were extremely high.

“What makes this case so damn awkward is the fact that we can’t argue in court that Hasunuma transported Saori’s body to Shizuoka, because the only basis we have for that claim is N-System data, not eyewitness testimony.”

There was nothing Kusanagi could say. Currently, the police had an unspoken rule that they would never put forward data from N-System as evidence in court. Doing so would compel them to go on record with details of how N-System worked and where its surveillance points were located. The policy of the National Police Agency had been to keep that information secret.

Even though the prosecutor had set a high bar, Kusanagi was determined to find evidence that met his conditions. He wanted to show the Namiki family that he’d meant what he said about never giving up.

Despite trying everything he could think of, he’d failed to turn up the evidence needed. All the forensic medicine experts he’d spoken to had told him, given the state of the skeletal remains, determining the cause of death was impossible. He needed to solve that impossible problem before he could make a single step of progress.

At the same time, other criminals were out there committing equally atrocious crimes on an almost daily basis. The reality was that he couldn’t keep obsessing over this case forever. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Kusanagi’s team was assigned a new robbery-murder in eastern Tokyo.

Fortunately, the investigation was going well. An acquaintance of the victim had confessed to the crime in the most matter-of-fact way. They then found a kitchen knife with traces of the victim’s blood on it exactly where the acquaintance told them he had disposed of it. They were steadily assembling everything they needed to send the case to the prosecutor. With this case, at least, the prosecutor would have nothing to complain about.

Nonetheless, Kanichi Hasunuma was always in the back of his mind. On the one hand, it seemed as if the moment to solve the case had already passed; on the other hand, he couldn’t allow it to end like this.

12

The warehouse was near a small river, away from the residential part of town. There was a hut next to the warehouse. This, apparently, was the former office.

Sitting in the passenger seat, Naoki Niikura held the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus. The lights were off and there was something inside blocking the window, so he couldn’t see inside.

“See anything?” asked Shusaku Tojima from the driver’s seat.

“No. Nothing.” Naoki Niikura lowered the binoculars. “Is he really in there?”

“He should be,” Tojima replied. “I saw him walking out of there yesterday.”

Tojima started the car and Niikura stared at the window of the hut as they drove past the warehouse. He still couldn’t tell if there was anyone inside.

They went to a nearby diner and sat at a table in the back, far away from the other customers.

“I had to pull out all the stops to find that place. There’s a guy of around seventy who lives in there by himself,” Tojima said.

“And is he in there with him?”

“Yes,” Tojima replied, speaking softly. “Hasunuma’s living there now.”

Niikura shook his head listlessly. “I just can’t believe it.”

“Disgusting, isn’t it?”

“I could understand if he’d gone into hiding, but to return to the place where he committed a murder — it just beggars belief, the brazenness of it. What’s wrong with the man?” Niikura clenched his right hand into a fist and thumped the table.

Tojima had called Niikura earlier that afternoon and told him that Hasunuma was back in Kikuno. Niikura and Tojima had met indirectly through Saori, when Yutaro Namiki had invited Tojima to one of her performances. Since then, the two men always said hello when they bumped into each other at the restaurant.

“Like I told you on the phone, Hasunuma showed up at Namiki-ya last week.”

“Shocked is too weak a word for what I feel,” said Naoki, sighing heavily. “I’m just glad I wasn’t there. In my fury, God only knows what I might have done. I just can’t understand what the guy’s—”

“It’s harassment, pure and simple,” said Tojima, with venom in his voice. “The man was arrested based on the testimony of local residents, especially everyone at Namiki-ya. He holds a serious grudge against us for that and he’s rubbing our noses in the fact that he’s been released.”

“That’s outrageous.”

“The police are hopeless. I don’t care about insufficient evidence or whatever it is — they should never have let someone like him back out on the streets. They should just lock him up and throw away the key.”

“I agree, but that isn’t going to happen, is it?”

Tojima nodded. There was a sour expression on his face.

“I don’t think we should expect too much of the police. Apparently, their hands are tied. That doesn’t mean we have to accept the way things are. When I think about Yutaro — no, when I think about how everyone at Namiki-ya must be feeling, it’s just unbearable. Do you know what I mean?”

“Of course, I do,” Naoki said warmly. “What the Namiki family must be going through! It makes me mad. If I could get away with it, I’d finish off that bastard myself.”

“I’m sure you would.” Tojima was nodding his head vigorously up and down. That was exactly the kind of response he wanted. “You discovered her abilities, you trained her, you were making a professional singer of her. You’ve got plenty to hate the guy for. And it’s because I know how you feel—” Tojima quickly looked around, then resumed, his voice slightly lower than before. “Because I know how you feel, that I wanted to talk to you about this plan of mine.”

“Plan?” Niikura drew himself upright in his seat. “What plan is that?”

Tojima once again glanced around the diner to check that no one was in earshot, then leaned over the table.

“We can’t expect anything from the police. The courts won’t punish the guy. The way I see it, the only option we’ve got left is for us to do it ourselves.”

The proposal was so unexpected that Niikura gave a start of surprise. “Do it...? Do what?”

“Punish the guy. Him. Kanichi Hasunuma.” There was a purposeful gleam in Tojima’s eye. Obviously, he was serious.

Niikura was at a momentary loss for words. He reached for his glass and gulped down some water.

“Punish him...? What sort of punishment?”

“A punishment befitting his crime,” said Tojima. “It wasn’t actually me who came up with this plan. You can probably guess who did.”

“Was it... Yutaro?”

Tojima nodded a couple of times.

“Yutaro and me are childhood friends, friends through thick and thin. We played together, we got up to all sorts of mischief together, and when we got found out, we got hauled over the coals together. That’s the kind of friendship we have.” As he reminisced, the scowl on Tojima’s face briefly softened. “When my best friend said that he wanted a once-in-a-lifetime favor, how could I turn my back on him? Especially, when it involved Saori’s murder.”

Naoki took another swig of water. He still had some coffee in his cup, but his mouth was too parched for that. He needed something else.

“I, uh, find it hard to believe... that Namiki...” Naoki struggled to find the right words. “You’re saying he wants retribution... that he wants to avenge his daughter’s death?”

“It’s only natural for a father to feel that way. I’ve got two kids of my own. If something like that happened to them, I know I’d feel the same.”

“Well, uh...” Niikura wasn’t sure how to respond. He knew he ought to disagree, but that wasn’t what he really felt. He made a first step toward agreeing. “I can understand that.”

“Of course, you can. I mean just now, you said something about wanting to finish the bastard off yourself.”

“No, but—” Niikura put out a hand as if to restrain Tojima. “I also said, ‘If I could get away with it.’ Vendettas aren’t allowed in today’s society.”

“Are you just going to give up then?” Tojima’s eyes seemed to be staring directly into Naoki’s heart. “Are you willing to sit by and let that scumbag get away with this?”

Naoki clenched his right hand and thumped the table a second time.

“It’s maddening. Of course, I don’t want to. The thing is, it’s simply not realistic. I don’t know what you’ve got in mind, but you can be damn sure that if anything happens to Hasunuma, the police will be all over it. Just because the guy deserves to die doesn’t mean the police won’t investigate his death. And Namiki and his family would be the logical suspects. But—” Niikura’s eyes widened suddenly as he stumbled onto the answer to his own half-finished question. “Oh, I get it. If he can avenge his daughter’s death, Yutaro doesn’t mind being arrested. And he won’t tell on anyone who helps him. He’s that committed. Am I right?”

Tojima frowned and placed a finger to his lips. “You’re talking too loudly.”

“Sorry.” Naoki placed his hand over his mouth. He hadn’t realized how loud he was being.

“Mr. Niikura,” said Tojima quietly, drawing himself upright. “You’ve got it exactly right. Yutaro Namiki has made up his mind to go ahead with it. He told me, ‘If it comes to that, I’m not afraid to go to jail.’”

“And it may very well come to that.”

“Hold on a minute. I haven’t finished yet. Like I told you, Yutaro and me are tight, tight since childhood. Do you seriously think I’d be prepared to let someone I’ve known my whole life go to jail?”

Niikura was confused.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“That Yutaro won’t get arrested. Not him, and not anyone else, either. And we’re going to teach that Hasunuma a serious lesson. We’ve come up with a plan and we want you to be part of it. Let me be clear about one thing: that even if the whole scheme is uncovered, you won’t be charged with a crime.”

“Is that possible?”

“It is — provided we all work together.”

There was a sly glint in Tojima’s eyes.

13

As he read the text message, Tomoya Takagaki felt slightly dazed. This must be some kind of joke, he thought. Then, when he saw who it was from, he realized that it wasn’t.

The sender was Natsumi Namiki. They had exchanged contact details six months ago, when Tomoya had visited Namiki-ya for the first time in ages.

He went there after Detective Sergeant Utsumi had told him about Saori’s body being found. He hadn’t seen any of the Namiki family for around a year at that point. When he wished them good evening and again expressed his condolences, he couldn’t hold back his tears. Saori’s parents wept, too.

Tomoya had started going to Namiki-ya again. Every time he went, he would ask the family how the investigation was coming along, but they never had any news to share. Even though Chief Inspector Kusanagi often came to see them, all he said was the boilerplate: “We are doing all we can to arrest the person responsible.”

The police, however, did notify the family when Kanichi Hasunuma was arrested. When Tomoya got a text from Natsumi telling him the news, his grip tightened on his phone, while his other hand bunched into a fist. Finally, he thought. Finally! Now we can learn the truth, and Saori will be avenged.

That evening, Tomoya went straight to Namiki-ya from work. The place was heaving; many of the regulars were there, including Naoki Niikura, Saori’s mentor. There was general jubilation at Hasunuma’s arrest. The Namikis wept tears of joy and Tomoya wept with them. As the tears coursed down his cheeks, it struck home that he’d not been able to forget Saori.

The way things developed after that wasn’t at all what Tomoya had expected.

He was wondering what was going on with the case, when he got the shocking message from Natsumi. Hasunuma has been released! How could that even be possible?

Tomoya called Natsumi immediately. “We’ve no idea,” she said. Detective Kusanagi had come to Namiki-ya to explain that the prosecutor had decided that there was insufficient evidence to indict.

“Do you seriously expect us to buy that?” Namiki had snapped at Kusanagi. “Are you just giving up?” Kusanagi had protested that, far from giving up, the police intended to work closely with the prosecutor to collect the necessary evidence.

Several months had passed since then and Kusanagi’s promise still remained unfulfilled. So what were the police doing? Tomoya was ignorant about what was going on and Natsumi stopped texting him.

Tomoya eventually tried texting her. How have you all been? Is everyone at Namiki-ya well? was all his message said.

It took Natsumi a while to text him back and when she did, he was horrified. Hasunuma showed up at Namiki-ya about ten days ago, Natsumi said. It was such a shock that they closed the restaurant for several days. They only reopened three days ago.

From the moment he read her text, Tomoya was incapable of focusing on his work. Why had Hasunuma gone to Namiki-ya? What was he planning to do?

As soon as it was quitting time, Tomoya collected his stuff and left the office. Hurrying to the station, he called Rie, his mother, to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

“Has something happened?” Rie asked anxiously.

“Sort of.”

“Saori?”

“Yeah.”

“What? Did they finally charge the guy?”

“If only. No, he’s turned up in Kikuno again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know much. I’ll tell you more when I get home.” Tomoya ended the call and started walking even faster.

He’d discussed the case with his mother after Saori’s body had been discovered. She’d been delighted at the news of Hasunuma’s arrest and indignant at his release.

Recently, though, her attitude had begun to change. She started saying things like, “Hasn’t the time come to put this behind you?” and “It doesn’t matter. Nothing will bring Saori back to life.”

All she wanted was for Tomoya to forget about this gruesome episode as fast as he could and find himself another girl.

Though it probably was the right thing to do, Tomoya couldn’t bring himself to take even the first step down that road. His feelings for Saori were worth more than that.

It wasn’t yet six by the time he got to Namiki-ya. He assumed the restaurant would be empty, so he got a surprise when he slid open the door. Every single table was occupied.

As Tomoya stood there waiting, Natsumi bustled up from the back. “Oh, hi. Sorry. This group here will be leaving any minute.”

“Excuse us,” said a woman sitting at a table in the middle of the restaurant. Tomoya had met her a few times in the restaurant. It was Maya Miyazawa. She ran the biggest bookshop in the neighborhood. She was tall, quite muscular, and she exuded an air of reliability, like everyone’s dependable big sister.

Maya Miyazawa had a notebook open on the table in front of her. It took Tomoya a minute to realize that all the fifteen or so people in the restaurant were facing her. Then the penny dropped. Of course, it was a preparatory meeting for the annual parade! Maya Miyazawa was in charge of the local team this year.

A couple of people sitting at a four-person table moved up and offered Tomoya a seat. Grateful for their kindness, he sat down.

“Here’s a final checklist,” said Miyazawa, rising to her feet with a notebook in her hand. “Group A should finalize the costumes and the props. Group B are responsible for editing the music and checking the sound equipment. Group C, I want you to coordinate the final rehearsal and check the giant inflatable. That’s everything, I think. Any questions?”

“People keep asking me what the theme of our performance will be this year,” said a young man in a bandanna. “Are we supposed to keep it secret until the big day?”

“Absolutely, you must,” said Maya Miyazawa. “I say the same thing every year: Surprise is a big part of the entertainment. Please remember that. Anything else?”

There was silence. “Okay, then,” said Maya Miyazawa, shutting her notebook. “That’s enough for today. Only a few days until the big day. Let’s do a great job, everyone.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the cheerful reply, as the whole group started getting to their feet.

Natsumi brought a cold towel to Tomoya. “Sorry for the delay.”

“No problem. Tell me, is it really true? That Hasunuma came here?”

Natsumi’s face clouded over instantly. She gave a curt nod.

“What does the guy think he’s even doing?” chimed in Maya Miyazawa, as she got ready to leave. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard. That man is guilty, plain and simple. And still he shows up here — I mean, what was that all about?”

“He said he wanted us to pay him damages and that he’d keep coming until he got them.”

Tomoya was confused. “Damages?”

“He was like, ‘It’s your fault that I was treated like a common criminal, so I want compensation.’”

“What sort of nonsense is that?” Maya Miyazawa spat out the words. “Is the bastard completely crazy? And what about the police?”

“A detective showed up a few minutes after Hasunuma left here. That probably means they’ve got him under surveillance. He asked us if Hasunuma had caused any trouble.”

“I heard he’s still in the neighborhood,” said the young man in the bandanna.

“Seriously?” Maya Miyazawa’s eyes bulged in their sockets.

“There’s stuff on social media. A friend told me.”

Maya Miyazawa clicked her tongue. “I wonder how long he’s planning to stay here in Kikuno. And do you think he’s serious about that damages thing?”

The young man with the bandanna twisted his neck awkwardly as if to say, Don’t ask me.

Tomoya got to his feet, cleared his throat, and looked across at the young man with the bandanna.

“Did your friend know anything about where Hasunuma’s staying?”

The young man, starting to look a little out of his depth, shook his head. “No, the post he saw didn’t go into that much detail.”

“Natsumi!” someone shouted, before Tomoya could respond. It was Yutaro Namiki. He had emerged from the kitchen. “Natsumi, what are you doing? Have you taken Tomoya’s drink order?”

“Oh... I was just about to...”

“And we’re just about to get really busy. Now’s not the time to go dopey on me. I’m very sorry, Tomoya.” Yutaro Namiki nodded apologetically.

“No worries,” Tomoya said. He sat back down and looked up at Natsumi. “Could I possibly get a beer?”

“Coming up,” said Natsumi, heading for the back of the restaurant.

Maya Miyazawa turned to Yutaro. “If there’s anything we can do to help, Mr. Namiki, you only need to ask. If you want to keep Hasunuma away from here, I’m sure we can figure out a way to make that happen.”

With the merest hint of a smile, Yutaro whispered, “Thank you.”

“Right, we’ll be on our way,” said Maya Miyazawa.

She and her group left the restaurant.

Natsumi brought a tray with a bottle of beer, a glass, and an appetizer to Tomoya’s table. “If you don’t mind?” said Yutaro, sitting down across from Tomoya and pouring his beer for him. “Was it Natsumi who told you that Hasunuma had been here?”

“Yes, earlier today.”

Yutaro clicked his tongue disapprovingly and turned to confront his daughter. “You really shouldn’t bother people when they’re at work.”

“Yes, but—” Natsumi pouted and hung her head.

Yutaro turned back to Tomoya. “We’re all very grateful that you still care about our dear Saori. Still, you’ve got your own life and your own future to worry about. The time’s coming when you will need to move on.”

Tomoya put down the glass of beer he was carrying to his lips.

“Are you telling me to forget about Saori and what happened to her?”

“I don’t expect you’ll ever manage to forget her completely. I just think that holding on to her memory probably won’t be good for you in the long term. As a family, we can never get away from what happened to her. That’s enough victims for one tragedy. We don’t want our problems to bring other people down.”

“Problem? It’s not a problem,” replied Tomoya forcefully. “As Ms. Miyazawa said, I want to support you any way I can. I just can’t understand how that man was released.”

“I appreciate your kind words. As far as I’m concerned, knowing that you feel that way is enough for me. There is one thing I have to say to you. If you do decide to move on and put this whole sad business behind you, I won’t hold it against you. I know you’re not a cold- or hard-hearted man.”

“Put it behind me? What do you mean?”

“Nothing mysterious. Just what I said. Have a nice evening,” said Yutaro. He rose to his feet and headed back into the kitchen.

Tomoya watched him walk away with mixed feelings. He couldn’t understand what Yutaro was trying to say.

There was the clatter as the door slid open. A new customer had arrived. Tomoya looked up. It was Yukawa, though everyone just called him “professor.”

The professor recognized Tomoya and gave him a friendly nod.

Natsumi brought Yukawa a cool towel. “Good evening. Will you have the usual?”

“Yes, the usual. And a beer.”

“Coming up,” replied Natsumi, who went to the back of the restaurant.

As Tomoya ate his dinner by himself, he wondered why Yutaro had said what he said. He couldn’t help but feel there was some deeper meaning to his words.

Beside him, Yukawa was chatting away to Natsumi about the Kikuno parade. She reminded him that he would need to arrive at least an hour before it started to secure a good place.

Tomoya left the restaurant a little after seven. His emotions in turmoil, he dragged his feet as he walked.

He had barely taken more than a few steps, when someone hissed his name, “Takagaki.” He stopped and looked around.

“Over here,” came the voice for a second time.

It was coming from a sedan parked on the far side of the road. The person in the driver’s seat was Tojima, one of the regulars at Namiki-ya.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Got a moment? I need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“What do you think?” Tojima moistened his lips, shot a nervous glance back at Namiki-ya, then looked up at Tomoya. “It’s about Hasunuma. But only if you still feel something for Saori.”

Tomoya inhaled deeply. “I’m all ears.”

“Okay, slide in on the other side.”

Tomoya’s heart was pounding as he went around to the other side of the car.

It was nearly eleven o’clock by the time he got home. Rie, his mother, was sitting on the living room sofa watching television. The instant Tomoya appeared, she reached for the remote and switched it off. “You’re very late.”

“Yeah. Well, we had a lot to talk about.”

“What kind of thing?”

“You know, thing things. Lots of the regulars were there.”

“What’s going to happen with the guy who did it? What’s he doing here in Kikuno anyway?”

“I don’t know. But everyone’s furious about it.”

His mother shouted after him as he got up to go to his room.

“Remember, Saori’s not coming back.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Have you thought about not going to Namiki-ya anymore? You’re only bringing back painful memories.”

Tomoya left the living room without a word. Once in his own room, he tore off his suit and tie and lay down on his bed. He pondered his conversation with Tojima. What Tojima was proposing was nothing if not surprising. His mother would be violently opposed, if she ever heard about it. She’d beg him to stay well away.

Now he understood why Yutaro Namiki had spoken to him as he did. Namiki knew that Tojima was going to ask him for his help, and he was signaling to Tomoya that he was free to turn down the request, that he — Namiki — wouldn’t think any the less of him if he did so.

Tomoya, however, had given his answer to Tojima right then and there. He would love to be part of it.

He knew that if he missed this chance, he would regret it for the rest of his life.