‘If I were she, I might not have. I would’ve expected them to find a bottle with poison in it on the scene. But Mr Mashiba used all of the poisoned water in the bottle when he made his coffee. Then, while he was waiting for the water to boil, he washed the bottle clean. And because she didn’t expect that, she tried to stay one step ahead of the police by suggesting that the killer had poisoned the bottled water. When you think of it that way, it all makes sense.’
Yukawa nodded, pushing his glasses up with the tip of his finger. ‘There is a certain logic to it.’
‘I understand there are a lot of problems with the theory, but nothing that keeps it from being a real possibility.’
‘I agree. Still, I wonder if there’s a way to prove your hypothesis.’
‘There isn’t, unfortunately,’ Utsumi said, chewing her lip.
Yukawa removed the pot from the coffeemaker. He poured the coffee into two mugs and offered one to Utsumi.
She thanked him and accepted the mug.
‘You two aren’t in cahoots, are you?’ Yukawa said abruptly.
‘Huh?’ Utsumi blinked.
‘You and Kusanagi. You aren’t working together to drag me into this, are you?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because the two of you are doing such a good job at piquing my intellectual curiosity, even though I’d decided not to get involved in another police investigation. And you even threw in a tantalizing dash of spice to seal the deaclass="underline" the prospect of seeing whether Kusanagi finds true love.’ Yukawa chuckled and sipped his coffee, savouring every drop.
FIFTEEN
The tea shop and café ‘Kuzay’ was located on the first floor of an office building in Odenmacho, a corner of the Nihonbashi district in eastern Tokyo. Not far from Suitengu Avenue and its rows of bustling financial institutions, it was the perfect spot for an office lady’s lunchtime outing.
Kusanagi walked in through the glass doors and up to the sales counter. He had heard that the store stocked over fifty varieties of tea, and sure enough, there they were, all individually labelled and sorted into neat rows. Behind the counter was a little tea room. Even at the relatively quiet hour of four in the afternoon, he saw a few customers scattered around the café, sipping tea and reading newspapers. One or two were dressed in company uniforms. Male customers were definitely in the minority.
A diminutive waitress in white approached. ‘Just one of you?’ she asked with a plainly artificial smile. Kusanagi guessed he didn’t have the look of the regular clientele.
He nodded and the waitress showed him to a table against the wall, her smile still intact.
The menu was a long list of teas, none of which Kusanagi had even heard of before yesterday. He now had a passing familiarity with several of the varieties and had even sampled a few. This was his fourth tea shop so far.
He called over the waitress and ordered a chai. He knew from a conversation at one of the previous cafés that it was made by steeping Assam tea leaves in milk, and had decided that he rather liked this combination. He could stand having another cup.
‘I was wondering,’ Kusanagi said to the waitress, pulling out his business card and showing it to her, ‘if it might be possible for me to speak with the manager briefly?’
One look at the card and the waitress’s smile evaporated. Kusanagi hastily waved his hand. ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious,’ he said. ‘I just need to ask about one of your customers.’
‘I’ll go and ask.’
‘Thanks.’ Kusanagi was about to ask whether it was all right for him to smoke when he spotted the no smoking sign on the opposite wall.
He took another look around the tea room. The atmosphere was quiet and pleasantly relaxed. There was enough space between the tables that two people on a date wouldn’t have to worry about other patrons overhearing a conversation. He could picture Yoshitaka Mashiba coming to a place like this. Nonetheless, Kusanagi kept his expectations low. The other three tea rooms he’d already visited were practically carbon-copy versions of this one.
Moments later, a woman wearing a black vest over a white shirt was standing by the detective’s table, a nervous look on her face. She wasn’t wearing much make-up, and her hair was tied in a knot at the back of her head. Kusanagi guessed she was in her mid-thirties.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Hi.’ Kusanagi smiled. ‘Detective Kusanagi with the Metropolitan Police. I’m sorry, your name was?’
‘Hamada.’
‘Thanks for coming out to talk with me. I promise not to take up too much of your time. Please, sit down.’ Kusanagi indicated the chair across from him as he pulled out a photograph of Yoshitaka from inside his jacket. ‘I was wondering if you ever saw this man at your establishment? This pertains to an ongoing investigation, but if he came here, it would have been about two years ago.’
Mrs Hamada took the photo from him and looked at it for a while before shrugging. ‘He looks familiar, but I can’t say for sure. We have a lot of customers here, and I don’t make a habit of staring at them.’
It was the same answer he had got at the other three places.
‘Right. I’m guessing he came here with a woman …’ Kusanagi added, on the off chance that it might help.
She smiled and shrugged again. ‘We have a lot of couples here,’ she said, laying the picture back down on the table.
Kusanagi nodded and smiled again, a little thinly. He wasn’t exactly disappointed – he hadn’t expected much more. But the constant dead ends were getting a little tiresome.
‘Was that all you wanted to know?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
The manager stood and walked away just as the waitress arrived with Kusanagi’s tea. She was about to set it down on the table when she noticed the photograph and her hand stopped.
‘Oh, sorry.’ Kusanagi picked up the picture.
The waitress stood there, cup and saucer still in hand, looking at him. She blinked.
‘Yes?’ Kusanagi prompted her.
‘Is that the customer you came to ask about?’ she asked with apparent reluctance.
Kusanagi’s eyes widened, and he turned the photograph towards her so she could get a better look. ‘You know him?’
‘Yes – only as a customer, though.’
Now the manager returned; she’d been hovering nearby, and she had overheard the conversation. ‘Really?’ she asked the waitress. ‘You know him?’
‘I’m pretty sure it’s him,’ the waitress said. ‘He came in several times.’ Though there was still some hesitation in her voice, the girl seemed confident in her memory.
‘Do you mind if I speak with her a moment?’ Kusanagi asked Mrs Hamada.
‘Yes, of course,’ the manager quickly replied, turning to greet a newly arrived customer.
Kusanagi invited the waitress to sit down across from him. ‘When did you see this man?’ he asked.
‘I think the first time was about three years ago. I had just started working here, and I didn’t know all the teas yet. He got impatient with me. That’s why I remember him.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘No, he always came with his wife.’
‘His wife? What did she look like?’
‘Pretty, with long hair. I thought she might not be entirely Japanese – maybe Eurasian?’
Not Ayane Mashiba then, Kusanagi thought. Ayane was pretty, but there was no mistaking her for anything other than pure Japanese. In any case, three years ago was well before Mashiba had met her.
‘How old did she look?’
‘Oh, early thirties. Maybe a little older.’