Once I was out of her building, I walked a couple of blocks and caught a taxi to my son and daughter-in-law’s place. I must have got there slightly before eight. We were supposed to be discussing the arrangements for the anniversary ceremony of my wife’s death, but I was so tense that even small talk was a struggle.
It was then that my five-year-old grandson discovered the top in my briefcase. My daughter-in-law asked me why I was carrying something like that around with me. Unable to improvise anything clever on the spot, I made up some lame story about having been given it by a friend and left the string for it at the office. In fact, the string was right there, burning a hole in my trouser pocket. It was just that I couldn’t bear the thought of my grandson playing with a piece of string that I had killed somebody with. I retrieved the top from him and promised to bring it back, along with the string, the next time I was there. I planned to pick up a suitable piece of string from somewhere.
I left my son and daughter-in-law’s place and headed for Shinbashi. I drank a few whiskies at a bar, one of my regular haunts. In part, that was to give myself an alibi. Since the body had already been discovered by then, it was useless in that regard. I didn’t know; I just imagined that I’d be better off being with other people than by myself. I got home late and burned the string.
The murder was big news the next day. Word of it even came to my office. I couldn’t face the idea of going looking for new string for the top. I wasn’t up to it; I spent the day cowering in terror, expecting a detective to show up with an arrest warrant at any moment.
The police contacted me for the first time on June the twelfth. They telephoned to say that they’d found my company’s number in Mineko’s list of recent incoming calls. They were nice enough and asked me what we had talked about.
I cooked up some story about her consulting me about her tax returns. Given Mineko’s postdivorce plans to work as a freelance translator, she’d need to start filing a tax return of her own. The detective I spoke to seemed to swallow my story.
The fact that the police seemed to buy my story gave my confidence a boost. That evening I went out looking for a string for the spinning top. I hadn’t the faintest idea where I could find one. Despite only needing the string, I figured I’d have to buy another top. Unable to think of any other neighborhoods likely to have shops selling old-fashioned spinning tops, I set off for Ningyocho again.
I didn’t feel comfortable going back to the shop where I’d stolen the top, so I walked around until I came across a shop that specialized in traditional handicrafts. It had these wooden spinning tops outside. There were three sizes: small, medium, and large. I had to look at all of them to see how they compared to the top I’d stolen, and eventually I settled on the small one. After leaving the shop, I pulled off the string and dumped the top in the trash outside a convenience store. I then went straight to my son and daughter-in-law’s place and presented my grandson with the old top and the new string that I’d just bought. I thought I had successfully covered all my traces.
In fact, I hadn’t shaken off the police. Far from it. I could sense their suspicions intensifying with every day that passed. The news that a detective had been around to my son and daughter-in-law’s place really frightened me. My time’s up, I thought.
It was when my daughter-in-law told me about a detective named Kaga giving her the right string for the top I’d given my grandson that I knew for sure that I wasn’t going to get away with it.
What I did to Mineko is unpardonable. I wasn’t myself when I did it. I should have come clean about embezzling the money and paid the price. Instead, in a misguided attempt to protect my good name, I killed an innocent woman. I am ready to take my punishment, no matter how harsh.
7
There were no major inconsistencies in Yosaku Kishida’s confession. The police, who used it as the basis for a reenactment of his movements at and in the environs of the crime scene, concluded that he could plausibly have done everything that he claimed to. Sure enough, when they investigated the accounts of Naohiro Kiyose’s shell company, they found thirty million yen missing and unaccounted for. On top of that, almost twenty million yen had been withdrawn from the account in the name of CEO Mineko Kiyose. Naohiro Kiyose himself was quite unaware that money was being siphoned off in this way. He had complete faith in his accountant, who had been his friend for thirty or so years.
Despite getting off to a slow start, it looked as though the Kodenmacho murder case was going to be neatly tied up. You could see the satisfaction in the faces of the captain and the other higher-ups in charge of the case.
Did they have all the backup proof they needed? Not quite. The single biggest issue that still needed to be resolved was what Kishida had done with the money he’d embezzled. In his statement, he claimed it had gone to paying off the debts of his business and large gambling losses. As far as the police could tell from going over its books, his company wasn’t actually doing that badly. Also, none of the people who knew Kishida well knew anything about his being a gambler.
Although the police pressed him repeatedly on this point, Kishida held to his story. If his company appeared to be in relatively good financial health, his cooking of the books explained that. As for the gambling, he’d been careful to indulge his habit only where he wouldn’t be seen by people who knew him.
As the days passed, the higher-ups began grumbling that enough was enough. The perpetrator of a homicide had provided them with a confession, and they had everything that they needed to indict him. Knowing where the embezzled money had gone was neither here nor there.
Although Uesugi had been leading the questioning when Kishida provided his confession, he took a step back from the case. He wasn’t the one who had cracked it; it was a local precinct detective who actually figured the whole thing out. Since openly admitting that would entail a division-wide loss of face for Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Division, Uesugi decided that staying away from the task force HQ was the best course.
A persistent, gentle rain was falling. Uesugi was walking down Amazake Alley, umbrella in hand, when his cell phone buzzed. He checked to see who was calling: it was Kaga.
“What d’you want?” he asked.
“Where are you?”
“Out. Taking a stroll.”
“If you’re anywhere near Ningyocho, could we get together briefly?”
“What the hell is it now?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you. I’ll be waiting by the subway station,” said Kaga tersely, then rang off.
When Uesugi got there, Kaga waved extravagantly to catch his eye. He then hailed a cab and ordered it to go to Asakusabashi.
“Where the hell are you taking me?”
“I want it to be a surprise. You’ll enjoy it more that way,” declared Kaga earnestly.
Uesugi guessed their destination just before they got there. He’d been there before: it was the performance space of the theater company that Koki Kiyose belonged to.
“What’d you bring me here for?”
“You might as well go inside.”
The actors were busy rehearsing in the cramped space. Several people turned to look at the two men as they walked in. Kaga nodded hello and, losing interest, the actors turned back to what they were doing.
Kaga pulled up a couple of folding chairs and set them side by side. Uesugi took the hint and sat down. Kaga did the same.