About three months after Ryo left, she got into a serious relationship with a man in the import trade. He took away her loneliness. He let her be the woman she wanted to be.
They lived together for two years. When the split came, it was because he had to return to his other family. He was married, with a house in Sakai City to the south.
She saw other men after that but broke up with them. Now she was alone. It was easier this way, except for the lonely times. On those nights she would think of Ryo, except she forbade herself to want to see him. She knew she didn’t have the right.
Sasagaki put a Seven Stars in his mouth. Yaeko quickly produced a disposable lighter and lit it.
‘You know how many years it’s been since your husband was killed?’ Sasagaki asked, blowing out a stream of smoke.
‘About twenty, I guess.’
‘Nineteen to be exact. That’s quite some time.’
‘It is. I’m an old woman, and you’re retired.’
‘I was wondering if you might have anything you wanted to say, given how long ago it was.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Something you couldn’t say back then, but you could say now.’
A faint smile came to Yaeko’s lips and she took a cigarette of her own. Lighting it, she blew smoke towards the dark stained ceiling.
‘Still the same, after all these years. I’m not hiding a thing, detective.’
‘Oh? That’s funny, because there’re so many things that don’t quite match up.’
‘You’re still on that case? You have the patience of a saint,’ Yaeko said, leaning on the shelves behind her, cigarette between her fingers. The faint sound of music drifted in from somewhere.
‘The day it happened, you said you were at the shop with Matsuura and Ryo. Was that the truth?’
‘It was,’ Yaeko said, flicking ash into her ashtray. ‘I thought you already looked into that one.’
‘I did. But the only testimony I was able to really corroborate was Matsuura’s alibi.’
‘You mean to say that I killed him?’ Yaeko blew smoke from her nose.
‘No, I think you were there too. What I suspect is that there weren’t three of you there. It was just you and Matsuura. Right?’
‘What are you getting at, detective?’
‘You and Matsuura had a thing,’ Sasagaki said, draining his glass. Yaeko tried to fill it again, but he stopped her and filled it himself. ‘You don’t have to hide that any more, it was so long ago. Nobody cares but me.’
‘Why do you care?’
‘I just want to know what happened. Right around when your husband was murdered, someone came to your shop and found the door locked. Matsuura says he was back in the storeroom, and you were watching television with Ryo. But that’s not the truth, is it. The truth is, you were in the back, in bed with Matsuura.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I’ll call that a yes,’ Sasagaki said, grinning a little as he drank.
Yaeko sucked harder on her cigarette. She watched the smoke hang in the air and let her mind wander.
She hadn’t ever really loved Matsuura. It was just something to break the monotony. She had begun to get worried at one point that she might stop being a woman altogether. Which was why she’d readily agreed when Matsuura came on to her.
‘And your son was on the floor above?’ Sasagaki asked.
‘What?’
‘Ryo. You and Matsuura were in the back. He was on the floor above, right? That’s why you locked the door upstairs, so he wouldn’t barge in on you?’
‘The lock?’ Yaeko said vacantly, then she nodded. ‘Oh, right. There was a lock on those stairs. You really are a detective, aren’t you? Good memory.’
‘So, Ryo was upstairs. But in order to hide your thing with Matsuura, you said he was with you. Right?’
‘If that’s what you want to think happened, then fine. What do I care?’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Shall I open another bottle?’
‘By all means.’ Sasagaki drank the fresh beer with some peanuts. Yaeko joined him. For a while, the two drank in silence.
Yaeko’s mind was tracing back across the years. It was just as Sasagaki said. The day it happened, she and Matsuura were right in the middle of it. Ryo was upstairs. The door at the bottom of the staircase was locked.
It had been Matsuura’s idea to tell the police that Ryo was with them when they came asking after their alibis. He said that would head them off before they got their noses in any place they shouldn’t be. They agreed to say that Yaeko had been watching television with Ryo – a science fiction show for kids. Ryo had a magazine he was reading that explained all about the show, which Yaeko read, just in case the detectives asked her about it.
‘I wonder what’s going to happen to Miyazaki?’ Sasagaki said abruptly.
‘Sorry? Miyazaki?’
‘Tsutomu Miyazaki.’
‘Oh.’
Yaeko brushed back her long hair. She felt some clinging to her hand and looked to see one white hair caught around her middle finger. She brushed it off on to the floor so that Sasagaki wouldn’t see. ‘They’ll give him the death penalty, won’t they?’
‘I read an article about the case a few days ago in the newspaper. They say his grandpa died three months before he did what he did. Apparently, that’s what broke him.’
‘I’m not sure that excuses murder,’ Yaeko said, lighting a new cigarette.
Between 1988 and 1989, a serial killer had abducted and killed four young girls in Tokyo and Saitama prefecture. It was all over the news. The defence was trying to plead insanity, but Yaeko was pretty sure that wouldn’t hold.
‘I wish you’d told me sooner,’ Sasagaki muttered.
‘Told you about what?’
‘About your late husband’s predilections.’
‘Oh,’ Yaeko said, trying to smile, but only succeeding in making her face go tense in a weird way.
So that’s why he brought up Miyazaki.
‘What good would that have done you?’ she asked.
‘What good? If I’d heard about that at the time of the investigation, it would have turned things around completely.’
‘You don’t say,’ Yaeko said, blowing out smoke. ‘Well, that’s too bad, I guess.’
‘Not that you could’ve said anything at the time.’
‘No, I couldn’t have.’
‘Yeah.’ Sasagaki said, putting a hand to his forehead. ‘And now here we are, nineteen years later.’
Yaeko wanted to ask him what he meant, but she held back. Whatever the detective was thinking deep down inside, she didn’t want to know.
Another silence followed. They had got the second bottle of beer down to about one third full when Sasagaki stood. ‘Guess I’ll be heading home.’
‘Thanks for coming out in the cold. Don’t be a stranger.’
‘I won’t,’ Sasagaki said, paying the bill, putting on his coat, and wrapping his brown scarf around his neck. ‘Oh, and I’m a little early, but happy New Year.’
‘Happy New Year,’ Yaeko said, with a smile.
Sasagaki grabbed the handle on the old sliding door, but before he opened it, he turned. ‘Was he really upstairs?’
‘Who?’
‘Ryo. Was he really upstairs that day?’
‘What are you talking about?’
Sasagaki shook his head and smiled. ‘It’s nothing. Next time.’ He opened the door and stepped outside.
Yaeko stared at the door for a while before sitting down. She had goosebumps on the back of her neck, and not because of the cold air that had come streaming into the bar.
Sounds like Ryo’s heading out again. Matsuura’s words came back to her across the years. He was right there, on top of her, a bead of sweat running down his temple.