The officers pulled up chairs to the dinner table, and introduced themselves. Then Chief Inspector Ushikoshi spoke.
“Bit of a weird place, this.”
His tone was excessively casual. Although his younger colleague, Detective Sergeant Ozaki, seemed rather quick-witted, Ushikoshi came across as a more simple, matter-of-fact type. From first impressions, there didn’t seem to be much difference between him and the Wakkanai police inspector, Okuma.
“It takes a while to get used to this floor,” continued Ushikoshi. “You feel as if you’re going to take a tumble.”
Young Ozaki looked scornfully around the salon, but said nothing. His senior colleague turned to address the assembled residents of the Ice Floe Mansion and their guests. He didn’t get up from his seat.
“All right then, everyone, we’ve introduced ourselves to you. Or rather, I should say that we are police officers and therefore some of the most boring people on this planet. Apart from our names, there’s not much more to tell about us. That being the case, I think it’s about time you all did us the honour of introducing yourselves. If possible, we would like to hear where you usually reside, what kind of work you are employed in and what brings you here to this mansion. Any more details, such as what your relationship was to the deceased man, I will be asking you later when I interview you all individually, so there’s no need to cover that right now.”
Just as Detective Chief Inspector Ushikoshi had said, there was nothing interesting at all about the three detectives. Not in their clothing, nor their manner of talking, which, although polite, suggested that no scene of carnage would ever perturb them in the slightest; their facial expressions slightly intimidated the assembled guests and left them a little tongue-tied. Each gave their own faltering self-introduction, which Ushikoshi occasionally interrupted with a politely phrased question, but he took no notes.
When everyone had finished, Ushikoshi addressed them all in a manner which suggested that now this was what he had really wanted to say all along.
“Right, I’m sorry to have to say this, but it has to be said sooner or later. From what I understand, the victim, Kazuya Ueda, is not from around here. Yesterday was only the second time in his life that he had visited this mansion, or had even set foot on the island of Hokkaido. Which means that it would be very difficult to imagine that he has friends or acquaintances in this area, and certainly, no one who might have paid him a visit last night.
“So was it a robbery? It doesn’t look like it. His wallet containing 246,000 yen was in a relatively accessible spot in the inside pocket of his jacket, but it wasn’t touched.
“The strangest aspect of this case is his bedroom door, which was locked from the inside. Let’s imagine that a complete stranger knocked on his bedroom door: it’s extremely unlikely that he would have opened it just like that. And even if he had opened it and let a stranger in, there would have been some sort of a struggle and voices would have been raised. But there was no evidence of a struggle in the room. What’s more, Mr Ueda was ex-military, and therefore physically much stronger than the average person. There’s no way he would have been overpowered so easily.
“Which leads me to suspect that the murderer must have been known to, or even close to, the victim. But as I said earlier, Mr Ueda had no friends living in this area.
“What we have been able to ascertain from talking to you, and from our own preliminary investigations, is that Kazuya Ueda was born in Okayama Prefecture and grew up in Osaka. At the age of twenty-five he enlisted in the Ground Self-Defence Forces, was based in Tokyo and Gotemba for a while, but was discharged three years later. At the age of twenty-nine he joined Kikuoka Bearings, and was thirty years old when he died. Ever since his time in the Self-Defence Forces, he was the unsociable type, and doesn’t appear to have any close friends. A man like Ueda is extremely unlikely to have friends or acquaintances up here in Hokkaido. We also believe it unlikely that someone from the Tokyo or Osaka areas would come all the way up here just to pay him a visit. In conclusion, there are no people in Kazuya Ueda’s close circle besides the people in this room right now.”
Everyone exchanged uneasy glances.
“Now it would be different if this were Sapporo or Tokyo, or another major city, but if a stranger were to turn up in this remote location, someone would be bound to notice him or her. Down in the village there’s only one inn. And perhaps because of the season, last night they didn’t have a single guest.
“And then there is one more huge problem with this case: the matter of the footprints. Normally, this isn’t the kind of thing that police officers talk about with the average person, but on this occasion I think it’s called for. I’m referring to the fact that Kazuya Ueda’s time of death has been established: last night between midnight and half past. Sometime between 12 and 12.30, the killer stuck a knife in Ueda’s heart. In other words, he or she must have been in Ueda’s room somewhere in those thirty minutes. Unfortunately for this killer, the snow stopped around 11.30 last night. So it was no longer snowing when the murder was committed. And yet, there are no footprints in the snow belonging to the killer; neither arriving nor leaving the scene of the crime.
“I believe you already know that room can only be accessed from the outside of the mansion. If the killer had been there in that room—Room 10, is it?—at the time of Mr Ueda’s death, then at the very least there should have been footprints leaving the room. If not, then Mr Ueda must have somehow stabbed himself in the heart, but there is nothing to suggest that this was a suicide. But it still remains that there were no footprints. And that’s a huge problem.
“Allow me to amend that slightly. Don’t imagine that we, the investigators, are stumped by the lack of footprints or the locked room. Footprints can be swept away by a broom, for example. There are many ways this trick could be pulled off. The locked room even more so. Crime fiction has already shown us a myriad of solutions.
“And yet, if there was an intruder from the outside, he would have had to continue erasing his footprints from the door of Room 10 all the way down the hill as far as the village. That’s no simple task. And no matter how scrupulously he erased them, there would be some trace somewhere in the snow. Our expert went through the area with a fine-tooth comb, but came up with absolutely nothing. Since 11.30 last night, it hasn’t snowed at all. And whether between Room 10 and the village at the foot of the hill or any other corner of the grounds, there is absolutely no sign of footprints, or a clever attempt to cover some up.
“I think you understand what I’m trying to say. I hate to put it so bluntly, but with the exception of the windows for now, access to Room 10 can only have been gained from the three doors on the ground floor of this building: the front entrance, the French windows from the salon or the service entrance from the kitchen.”
Everyone in the room took this as a declaration of war.
“But on the other hand…”
It was Sasaki who had made himself spokesman to try to disprove the police’s theory.
“Did you find any evidence of footprints being erased between any of those three entrances and Room 10?”
It was a good question.
“Well, for a start, between the salon door and Room 10, there was a whole jumble of footprints, so it was impossible to tell. I can say that the chances that footprints had been erased from either of the other two entrances, or from under any of the windows is very slim. We investigated, and the snow appears to be undisturbed.”