“Well, you could start with that brown-noser, Kanai.”
“He’s got that wife. I’d be too afraid.”
“Afraid? Of Kanai’s wife? What are you on about? If she says anything to you, I’ll get her husband to start drafting his letter of resignation.”
“But when I think that I’ll have to come face to face with Eiko again tomorrow…”
“You can ignore her. Just nod your head and pretend she’s a turnip or something. You’ve seen me. I bow and scrape to Hamamoto, but while I’m doing it I’m thinking ‘What a moron’. He’s valuable to me in my business, so I kowtow to him. That’s the way of the world.”
“I understand. So then, when we leave this place, how about taking a little trip to Sapporo City? If you buy me something nice, I’m sure it’ll put me in a better mood.”
This was rather a leap of logic, but President Kikuoka nodded effusively.
“Let’s do it. Visit Sapporo and get something for my Kumi. Anything you like!”
“Really? Wonderful!”
Kumi put one arm around Kikuoka’s thick neck and gently pressed her lips to his. It seemed she was in the mood after all.
“Well now, Kumi, you are adorable. You and that crazy Eiko are like chalk and cheese.”
“Hey! Don’t compare me to her.”
“You’re right,” he chuckled. “Probably best not to.”
Right then there was a knock at the door. Kumi leapt from Kikuoka’s lap with lightning speed, and Kikuoka grabbed for a patently dull-looking business magazine. Both displayed impressive speed and agility. Right on the third knock, the door burst open with such force that the visitor must have put all their weight behind it.
The door of Room 14 had been fitted with a much more elaborate lock than most of the other rooms in the main building, but despite his being there with his secretary, it wasn’t Kikuoka’s company office, and accordingly he hadn’t locked the door behind him.
Eiko had realized quite a while earlier that Kumi wasn’t in the salon or up in Room 1, and had a very good idea where she might find her. Ms Hamamoto had the strict idea in her head that no one should behave in a morally corrupt manner in her house (she never stopped to consider that technically this was her father’s house).
Therefore as she opened the door, her eyes went straight to the bed. However, its sole occupant was Kikuoka, sitting upright, deeply absorbed in a business magazine. Kumi was standing by the wall, apparently fascinated by a painting of a yacht.
The magazine wasn’t upside-down as such, but Kikuoka couldn’t be finding it easy to read. He’d previously let slip that he couldn’t see any letters close up without his reading glasses, and he didn’t appear to be wearing them right now.
Kikuoka looked up from his magazine as if he had just now noticed Eiko (although it made no sense that he wouldn’t have looked up the moment the door opened).
“Oh, Ms Hamamoto!” he said cordially, giving himself away by being anxious to speak before she did. “We’ve just been sorting out my schedule. Lots of things to do.”
There wasn’t a single document or appointment diary on the table, the company president was busy reading a magazine and his secretary was staring at a painting on the wall. There was no indication that anyone was doing any scheduling.
“I was just stopping by to see if you needed anything,” said Eiko.
“Need anything? Oh, no. How could anyone be dissatisfied with a wonderful room like this? And it’s my second time here.”
“Yes, but some of our guests are here for the first time.”
“What? Oh, I see! This young lady. Oh, don’t worry. I’ve explained everything she needs to know.”
“Have you plenty of hot water?” Eiko asked.
“Hot water? Yes, I believe so.”
“And how was it in Room 1?” she said, turning to Kumi.
“What? Oh, me?”
“There’s no one else here from Room 1.”
“There was hot water.”
“Good. So is your meeting done?”
“It’s over.”
“Then please don’t let me stop you from getting to bed. You can go to sleep anytime—in Room 1.”
Kumi was speechless.
“Kumi, I was just saying, wasn’t I, that you ought to go to bed early… I’m sorry, Ms Hamamoto, she’s afraid of sleeping alone now after that incident. You know how she saw a strange man at her window last night, you can imagine how scared she must be. She’s still so young, so very childlike.”
Kikuoka laughed.
Eiko didn’t appreciate this explanation at all. However young Kumi might be, she was only about the same age as Eiko herself—maybe there was a year between them at most.
“So you needed your father to read you a bedtime story?”
Kumi turned and glared at Eiko. But she was only able to hold it for a few moments before suddenly dashing for the doorway, slipping past the mistress of the house and scurrying off down the corridor, footsteps echoing behind her. Eiko smiled sweetly.
“If she’s got that much energy, then she’ll be fine sleeping alone.”
She left the room, closing the door behind her.
SCENE 3
Room 9, Mr and Mrs Kanai’s Bedroom
“Hey, Hatsue, come and see! The blizzard’s getting heavier, and I think I can just about make out something that looks like an ice floe.”
They’d left behind the busy salon and come up to their quiet room on the north side of the house, but now the sound of the wind and the rattling of the window frame seemed much louder than before. It was a full-on blizzard. And all of a sudden, Michio Kanai’s usual demeanour had changed. He seemed to have developed a backbone.
“Now this is what you call a snowstorm! It’s really desolate. We’ve come all the way to the farthest north point—the Okhotsk Sea. How about that? Face to face with the wildest that Mother Nature can bring. This is awesome. Makes you feel like a real man.”
He continued to peer out of the window.
“The view from this room is great. Doesn’t matter if it’s clear or snowing. I think it’ll be even better tomorrow morning. Can’t wait… Hey, aren’t you going to look?”
His wife had flopped down on the bed and just answered in a tone that said she couldn’t be bothered,
“I don’t want to see.”
“Are you sleepy already?”
Hatsue didn’t reply. It wasn’t that she was especially sleepy.
“I don’t know—that Ueda,” he went on. “Somehow now that he’s been killed I can’t help feeling that he was a decent bloke—you know. When he was alive, I always found him kind of awkward—a bit slow on the uptake…”
Kanai had completely misunderstood the reason for his wife’s depressed mood.
“I’m going to make sure the room’s tightly closed, because there could be a stone-cold killer in this house right now, hiding there in the midst of everyone. This has turned into a right dangerous mess. We wouldn’t have come if we’d known all this was going to happen. But I do think we need to take care. Those detectives kept repeating ‘lock up’ and ‘secure your room’. We should be careful too. Did you lock the door?”
“I just can’t stand that woman. She gets worse every time I see her.”
Hatsue’s comment took her husband completely by surprise. He was struck dumb for a moment, but his expression quickly became irritated. If Eiko had been there in the room, in one evening alone she would have seen a whole variety of faces of Michio Kanai she’d never seen before.
“What now? You’re not starting that again, are you?… Oh! You mean the director’s new squeeze? No one can ever stand his secretaries.”
Hatsue looked amazed.
“I’m not talking about his little piece of arm candy. I’m talking about that bitch, Eiko!”