‘The new CEO has already moved in. I’m sorry he’s out today, or he’d want to greet you personally.’
‘No worries. Glad to hear you’ve got a new CEO.’
‘Yes. We got the office ready right after the funeral. Everything work-related we left in place, but all of Mr Mashiba’s personal effects we moved here. We were planning on sending them to his home, and we haven’t thrown anything out. That was the advice of Mr Ikai, our legal counsel.’
Ms Yamamoto spoke without a hint of a smile. Her tone was guarded, as if she was choosing each word with care. The message was clear: Our CEO’s death had nothing to do with the company, so why should you suspect us of destroying evidence?
Tan cardboard boxes of varying sizes had been stacked inside the meeting room. In addition, Kusanagi spotted some golf clubs, a trophy, and a mechanical foot massager. No paintings in sight.
‘Can we take a look through this?’ Kusanagi asked.
‘Of course, take your time. I can bring you something to drink, if you’d like. Any preferences?’
‘No, that’s fine. I appreciate it.’
‘Very well,’ Ms Yamamoto said. She left the room with a steely look on her face.
Kishitani watched the door close and shrugged. ‘Not a very warm welcome, was it?’
‘Do you get a lot of warm welcomes usually, Detective? Just be thankful she’s letting us in here.’
‘You’d think she’d be a little more eager to help resolve this case as quickly as possible, for the company’s sake if nothing else. Or, I don’t know, she could at least smile a little. She was like a robot.’
‘As far as the company’s concerned, as long as the news-worthiness of the investigation erodes quickly, they don’t care whether it’s solved or not. Our very presence in the building is the problem. Just picture trying to rally behind your new CEO, only to have to deal with the police again. Would you be smiling if you were her? Anyway, enough chitchat.’ Kusanagi slipped on a pair of latex gloves. ‘Let’s get going.’
Kusanagi was actually looking forward to the day’s task. Any semblance of progress was enough to distract him from his main concern: that all they had to go on was a suggestion that one of Yoshitaka’s exes might have been a painter. They didn’t even know what kind of paintings she might have done.
‘I don’t think we can say she was an artist just because she carried around a sketchbook,’ Kishitani opined, opening the nearest box. ‘She could be a fashion designer, or even a comic book artist.’
‘True enough,’ Kusanagi admitted. ‘Just keep all the possibilities in your head while we go through this stuff. Maybe she’s in furniture or architecture. You think of those?’
‘Right,’ Kishitani muttered.
‘I’ve got to say, you don’t sound very enthusiastic.’
The junior detective gave Kusanagi a sorrowful look. ‘It’s not about enthusiasm. It’s just, I don’t get it. We haven’t found a single shred of evidence suggesting that anyone other than Hiromi Wakayama came to the Mashiba house on the day of the murder.’
‘I know that. But can we say for sure that no one else was there?’
‘Well …’
‘If no one did come, how did the killer get the poison into the kettle? Tell me that.’
Kishitani glared at Kusanagi in silence.
‘You can’t, right?’ Kusanagi continued. ‘Of course you can’t. Not even Yukawa, the great Detective Galileo, has a clue. That’s because the answer is too simple. There wasn’t any trick. The killer got into the house, poisoned the kettle, and left. That’s all. And I think I’ve already explained why we can’t find any evidence of who it might have been.’
‘Because it was someone Mr Mashiba didn’t want anyone else to know about, so the visit was a secret.’
‘You have been paying attention. And when a man wants to conceal who he’s been meeting with, our first step is to check for women. That’s Investigation 101. Anything wrong with what I’m saying?’
‘Nope.’ Kishitani shook his head.
‘Then if you’re down with the programme, let’s get back to work. We’re not made of time here.’
Kishitani nodded and turned back to his cardboard box in silence.
Kusanagi sighed inwardly. What are you so worked up about? he asked himself. He knew he shouldn’t let something like a simple question from his partner get under his skin, but somehow it had released a wave of irritation.
The problem, he realized, was that he’d begun to wonder whether there was any point at all to what they were doing. He was growing increasingly uncertain that checking into Yoshitaka Mashiba’s past relationships would turn up anything useful.
This kind of uncertainty was typical of most investigations. A detective who worried about hitting dead ends should consider a change of profession. But at the same time, he knew that his present unease stemmed from a different concern altogether.
He was afraid that if they didn’t find anything, they would be forced to turn to Ayane Mashiba as the last suspect. He didn’t care what Utsumi and Kishitani thought. Kusanagi was worried about what would happen when he started suspecting her.
He was acutely aware of the sensation he felt whenever he was in her presence – a kind of high-strung tension, like a knife pointed at his own throat. It was a challenge, an insistence to focus on that moment alone. It was also a feeling of immediacy that made the blood rise to his face, and tugged at his heart. But when he wondered what it meant, a picture came into his mind that made him even more uneasy.
Kusanagi had met plenty of good, admirable people who’d been turned into murderers by circumstance. There was something about them he always seemed to sense, an aura that they shared. Somehow, their transgression freed them from the confines of a mortal existence, allowing them to perceive the great truths of the universe. At the same time, it meant they had one foot in forbidden territory. They straddled the line between sanity and madness.
This was what Kusanagi felt when he was near Ayane. He could try to deny it, but his sixth sense as a detective knew better. So I’m investigating dead ends in order to silence my own doubts. Kusanagi shook his head. It was his knowledge of his own wilful stupidity that had brought on his irritation.
An hour passed. They had found nothing suggesting any painters – or anyone in a profession requiring a sketchbook, for that matter. Nearly all the things inside the boxes were gifts or commemorative knickknacks of one kind or another.
‘What do you think this is?’ Kishitani held up a small stuffed toy. At first glance, it resembled a beetroot, complete with green leaves on top.
‘It’s a beetroot.’
‘Yes! But it’s also an alien.’
‘How so?’
‘Look at this,’ Kishitani said, placing the beetroot leaf-side down on the table. Kusanagi noticed there was something like a face on the upper white tip, and if you thought of the leaves as legs, it did resemble one of those jellyfishlike aliens from the cartoons.
‘Incredible,’ Kusanagi deadpanned.
‘There’s an instruction card,’ the junior detective went on. ‘Our friend here is Beetron from the Planet Beetilex. Look at the copyright – it was made by Mashiba’s company.’
‘Okay, I’ll bite. Why are you showing me this?’
‘Wouldn’t the person who designed this have used a sketchbook?’
Kusanagi blinked and looked at the toy more closely. ‘Huh. Definitely a possibility.’
‘Let’s ask the friendly Ms Yamamoto,’ Kishitani said, standing.
The PR director arrived shortly after and nodded when she looked at the toy. ‘Yes, we did have that made a while ago. It’s the mascot for an online anime we produced.’