The play continued up on the stage. From the well-finished stage sets and props, it looked as though opening night was just around the corner.
In between scenes, the stagehands changed the sets. They performed their task fast and efficiently. It occurred to Uesugi that the actors weren’t the only ones who needed practice to get their jobs right.
Uesugi recognized one of the people busily moving things around: it was Koki Kiyose. He had a towel wrapped around his head and was wearing a sleeveless running shirt. His bare shoulders glistened with sweat.
“Isn’t that fellow in the play?” muttered Uesugi. Kaga put his finger to his lips to shush him.
The play was set in England a long time ago. It had a relatively small cast, and the main character was an old man. He, it turned out, was a celebrated detective, now retired, who was recalling his past cases as he looked back over his life.
The two detectives ended up watching the play all the way through. Despite having arrived when it was about halfway through, Uesugi enjoyed it. It was poignant and touching.
“Not bad, eh?” commented Kaga.
“S’pose not,” Uesugi rejoined, although he had actually liked it a lot better than that.
What bothered him was the fact that Koki Kiyose came out for a bow only at the final curtain. In this play, the kid was a full-time stagehand rather than an actor, Uesugi realized.
Just then, Koki Kiyose ran over to them shouting a greeting. He unwound the towel from his head, revealing hair sodden with sweat. He bowed deeply to Kaga.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for us, Detective. I say that on behalf of my mother, too.”
“Don’t mention it. We’re just doing our jobs, right?”
Kaga turned to Uesugi for confirmation. Uesugi nodded.
“I’m sure things will be tough, but good luck to you.”
“Thank you.”
“You weren’t acting today?”
“No. I won’t be performing for a while yet,” Koki replied crisply. There was a determined look in his eyes.
“Because of what happened?” Uesugi asked, with a touch of hesitancy.
“My mother’s murder was the trigger. I had to step down from the lead role because I couldn’t concentrate. I think it was all for the best, in a way; I wasn’t ready. I plan to resume acting when I’ve done some work on myself, built up my confidence.
“I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll say good-bye,” Koki said, returning backstage.
“Shall we go?” Kaga suggested.
“You brought me all the way here just to meet that spoiled brat?”
Kaga blinked with surprise. “Did he look like a spoiled brat to you?”
“I guess not.” Uesugi rubbed his chin. “There was something different about him.”
“You bet there was.”
“How come?”
“I’ll tell you later. Bear with me a bit. It won’t take long.”
The next place Kaga took Uesugi was a pastry shop in Kodenmacho. It had a café area at the back, where the two men sat down. Although the place was clearly proud of its cakes, Uesugi, like Kaga, ordered a simple iced coffee.
“Surely this place is—”
“That’s right. Mineko Mitsui was here just before she was murdered.” Kaga directed a meaningful glance toward the counter. “You see the sales clerk there? She’s the one who told us about the phone call Ms. Mitsui got.”
“So it was you who located this place? No wonder my bosses didn’t say anything about it. How on earth did you do it?”
“There’s something else I want to tell you first. Let me take things in the proper order.” Kaga took a long swig of his iced coffee, as if getting ready for a long speech.
He began with something that had happened at a rice cracker shop. It involved an insurance salesman who became a suspect when he concocted a fake alibi for the police.
The next episode, which was about an old-style ryotei restaurant, was connected to the single wasabi-spiked snack cake discovered in Mineko Mitsui’s apartment. That was followed by stories involving a china shop Mineko Mitsui frequented; the proprietor of a clock shop whom she knew only by sight; then a friend of hers who was a translator. Although none of the individual stories had a direct link to the murder, Uesugi was kicking himself as he listened to Kaga. The precinct detective had looked into things that the rest of them had all dismissed as insignificant, keeping at it until he got to the truth, regardless of whether there was a connection to the murder or not.
Kaga finally got around to the pastry shop they were in. Uesugi was startled when the name of Koki Kiyose came up in this context. Kaga explained how Mineko Mitsui had made the mistake of assuming that the pregnant girl who worked there was the girlfriend of her son.
“That’s the girl there,” said Kaga, rolling his eyes at the girl behind the counter. Sure enough, her belly was somewhat swollen.
“Let me guess how this particular story goes: Ms. Mitsui was so thrilled that her son was about to become a father that she moved to be closer to him. Since, however, he was an aspiring actor, her precious boy didn’t have a proper full-time job or salary to go with it. The idea of claiming compensation from her ex-husband came out of her desire to help him out?” Uesugi sighed. “No wonder he seemed different today.”
“That’s not the only thing that affected him.”
Kaga then launched into another story — the most surprising one so far, thought Uesugi. Yuri Miyamoto, who was widely believed to be Naohiro Kiyose’s mistress, was in fact his daughter.
“Keep that under your hat, please. The two of them haven’t gone public yet about their relationship,” Kaga said.
Uesugi was shaking his head in amazement.
“I can’t believe that so many other things were going on in the background of this case. Anyway, if that’s not enough to inspire the son to get serious about life, nothing will. He must have learned not to take his parents for granted.”
“You’ve put your finger on it, Uesugi.” Kaga leaned toward him. “Doing this job, this is something I think about a lot. When a terrible crime like murder is committed, of course we need to catch the person who did it. But we also need to follow through until we’ve figured out why the crime happened in the first place. Unless we can identify the cause, there’s nothing to stop someone else from making the same mistake. Learning the truth can teach us all sorts of valuable lessons. Look at Koki Kiyose: he learned his lesson, and he changed as a result. Can you think of anyone else who would be better off changing?”
Uesugi was using his straw to stir his iced coffee. His hand came to a complete stop. He looked Kaga in the eye.
“What are you trying to say?”
“I think you know what I’m getting at. Kishida is hiding something from us. Why aren’t you working harder to get him to come clean?”
Uesugi looked down at his hands. “I still don’t get what you’re saying.”
“Maybe you sympathize with Kishida? But are you satisfied with the way things are now? Seriously, are you?”
“You listen to me.” Leaning forward slightly, Uesugi glared at Kaga. “If there’s something you want to say, why don’t you just come out and say it.”
“Okay then, here goes.” Kaga’s face darkened, and his eyes gleamed with an intensity Uesugi had not seen before. “You’re the only person who’s capable of getting Kishida to open up. So why don’t you? Make him tell us the truth.”
The bastard! Uesugi realized that Kaga must know all about him. He wouldn’t be speaking to him like this unless he knew about the unspeakably foolish mistake he had made three years before.