‘You saw Yoshitaka Mashiba over the weekend, didn’t you …? When he was still alive.’
Hiromi put her hand to her forehead, her elbow on the table. Trying to find a way out of this one? Kusanagi was confident that she wouldn’t be able to slip free, no matter how much she squirmed.
She nodded, eyes following her hand down to the table. ‘Yes. I did. I’m sorry.’
‘You saw Mr Mashiba?’
A pause, then: ‘Yes.’
‘When?’
Her reply didn’t come immediately. She’s a sore loser, Kusanagi thought, growing irritated.
‘Do I have to answer that?’ Hiromi looked up again at the two detectives. ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with what happened. Isn’t this an invasion of privacy?’
She looked ready to cry, but there was also growing anger in her eyes, a sharpness to her words. Kusanagi remembered something another detective once told him: no matter how soft she may look, never underestimate the power of a cheating woman.
They didn’t have time to do this carefully. Kusanagi played his next card.
‘We know the cause of death,’ he said slowly. ‘Mr Mashiba was poisoned.’
Hiromi flinched. ‘What?’
‘Traces of poison were found in the coffee he was drinking when he died.’
Her eyes opened wide. ‘I don’t – that’s impossible!’
Kusanagi leaned slightly forward, staring her directly in the eye. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because …’
‘Because when you drank coffee with him earlier, nothing was wrong?’
She blinked, then, after a moment’s hesitation, slowly nodded.
‘You see our problem, Ms Wakayama. If Mr Mashiba put the poison in the cup himself, that’s one thing – it would either be suicide or an accident. But the possibility of either of those things is extremely low. We’re forced to consider a scenario in which someone intentionally poisoned Mr Mashiba’s coffee. Traces of the poison were also found in a used paper coffee filter. Our best guess at present is that someone mixed poison in with the ground coffee beans.’
Now considerably flustered, Hiromi shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Surely you can at least answer some of our questions? It is extremely important that we know exactly when you drank that coffee at the Mashiba household if we are going to be able to determine the time at which the coffee was poisoned. Well?’
Kusanagi straightened in his chair, staring evenly at the woman across the table, perfectly ready to sit there in silence as long as was necessary.
Hiromi covered her mouth with both hands. Her eyes wandered, unfocused. Then, abruptly, she said: ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Huh?’
‘It wasn’t me.’ Her voice was pleading. She shook her head. ‘I didn’t poison the coffee. Really. You have to believe me.’
Kusanagi and Utsumi exchanged glances.
Hiromi Wakayama was a suspect, of course, and their most likely suspect at that. She’d had plenty of opportunities to poison the coffee. If she was having an affair with Yoshitaka Mashiba, then it was fairly easy to imagine some rift between lovers providing the motivation. Poisoning him, then ‘discovering’ the body, could have been merely an attempt to camouflage her role.
At this stage, however, Kusanagi intended to avoid any preconceived notions, in order to get as unfiltered a story from her as possible. He had deliberately chosen not to say anything that might sound accusatory. All he had asked was when she had drunk that coffee with Yoshitaka Mashiba. So why was she claiming innocence all of a sudden? Was she, in fact, the guilty party? Had she just skipped ahead, anticipating where all this was leading?
‘We are not accusing you of poisoning him,’ Kusanagi said, with a gentle smile. ‘As I said, all we’re trying to do is establish the timing. If you met with Mr Mashiba and drank coffee, then can you tell us when that was, who made the coffee, and exactly how?’
A pained expression rose on Hiromi’s pale face. Kusanagi still couldn’t tell whether she was simply hesitant because she was unwilling to admit she was having an affair or whether it was something more than that.
‘Ms Wakayama?’ Utsumi put in abruptly.
Hiromi looked back up, startled.
‘We’ve already made certain assumptions about your relationship with Yoshitaka Mashiba,’ the younger detective continued, with all the indifference of a government official explaining how to fill out a form. ‘You can deny it if you like. At which point, we will have to start asking more questions in order to determine the truth. When we set our minds to it, we can usually bring the truth to light … but as part of that process, we have to talk to a lot of people. You understand?
‘I’d like you to give what I just said some thought. If you can be completely honest with us now, we may be able to be a bit more circumspect with our investigation. Say, for instance, if you wanted to tell us something that you’d rather we didn’t repeat to anyone else outside of our office.’
Utsumi glanced towards Kusanagi, nodding her head slightly.
Was that her idea of an apology for speaking out of turn? Kusanagi wondered.
Her advice seemed to have a remarkable effect on Hir -omi, however. Perhaps it was easier hearing it from a woman. She hung her head for a moment, then looked up again, blinked slowly, and took a breath. ‘You promise to keep it a secret?’
‘As long as it isn’t directly related to the case, we keep all personal information private. It’s standard procedure,’ Kusanagi explained.
Hiromi nodded. ‘Then … as you suspect, Mr Mashiba and I did have a … special relationship. That, and I visited him earlier over the weekend.’
‘Exactly when was this?’
‘Saturday night. A little after nine o’clock, I think.’
A rendezvous while the wife was away, then.
‘Had this been arranged in advance?’
‘No. He called me at work – I was teaching a patchwork class. He called right about when the class was finishing. He invited me over.’
‘So you went, and what happened next?’
Hiromi thought for a moment, then with growing determination, she looked back at Kusanagi. ‘I spent the night and left the next morning.’
Utsumi had begun taking notes. Kusanagi glanced at her but couldn’t read anything from her expression. She’s on to something, he thought, resolving to ask her about it later.
‘When did you drink coffee together?’
‘In the morning. I made it. Oh, but we also had coffee the night before.’
‘On Saturday night? So you had coffee twice?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you make the coffee the night before as well?’
‘No. Mr Mashiba had already made it when I arrived. He poured a cup for both of us,’ Hiromi continued, looking down at the table. ‘It was the first time I’d ever seen him make his own coffee. “It’s been a while,” he said.’
‘But you didn’t use saucers that evening?’ Utsumi asked, looking up from her notebook.
‘No,’ Hiromi confirmed.
‘But you made the coffee the next morning – yesterday morning?’ Kusanagi asked.
‘Mr Mashiba’s coffee was a little too strong, so he asked me to make it in the morning. He stood there watching me while I did it.’ She looked up at Utsumi. ‘We used saucers with our cups that time. Those were the ones in the sink.’
Kusanagi nodded. So far, her story was checking out. ‘Just to be certain, I should ask whether the coffee you drank on Saturday night and Sunday morning was made from the ground beans at his house?’
‘I think so. At least when I made it, I used the coffee in the refrigerator. I don’t know about the coffee Mr Mashiba drank on Saturday night. But I don’t see why he would’ve used anything different. There was plenty left.’