Possibly forever.
Kanichi Hasunuma was released.
9
The Kikuno train station was an elegant little four-story structure. He passed through the turnstile and emerged into a shopping mall. The coffee shop was right in front of him.
Kusanagi went in and looked around. The person he was looking for was over by the window, reading a magazine. There was already a cup of coffee on the table in front of him.
Kusanagi wandered over and looked down at his old friend. “Hey.”
Manabu Yukawa looked up. A smile played around his lips. “How many years has it been?”
“Four. You could at least have got in touch when you got back to Japan.” Kusanagi dropped into the chair opposite.
“I told Kaoru Utsumi.”
“Well, she didn’t tell me.”
“I’m not here to listen to your gripes about the indolence of your subordinates.”
An ironic smile flashed across Kusanagi’s face. “Always ready with a wisecrack. Nothing changes.”
When the waitress brought him a glass of water, he ordered a coffee. Then he cast an appraising look at his old friend.
Yukawa was hard and lean rather than thin. No change there. Subtle though they were, there were definite hints of gray in his hair.
“You look well,” said Kusanagi. “How was America?”
Yukawa shrugged and picked up his cup.
“Stimulating enough, I would say. My research went well, so all in all, it wasn’t bad.”
“Utsumi told me you’re a full professor now.”
Yukawa extracted a business card from the inside pocket of his jacket and placed it flat on the table in front of Kusanagi. “My contact details have changed.”
Kusanagi picked up the card. Sure enough, Yukawa’s job title was now professor.
“Congratulations,” Kusanagi said.
Yukawa radiated indifference as he tipped his head slightly to one side. “Nothing to congratulate me about.”
“Oh, come off it. Surely it means there’s no one above you to stop you doing what you want.”
“Even when I was an associate professor, my superiors didn’t restrict my activities much. I had the freedom to research whatever I was interested in. It doesn’t work like that when you’re a full professor. Whatever you want to do, you always have to think about this.” Yukawa made a ring with his thumb and forefinger, the Japanese sign for money. “My main job now is to find sponsors. I make presentations about the value of our research and then solicit donations from them. I’m no longer a researcher myself; I’m more like a producer.”
“That’s what you’re doing, is it? Doesn’t seem very you.”
“Whatever the field, the old generation always has to make way for the new. The time has come for me to help smooth the path for the next generation. I’ve got to accept that reality and deal with it,” Yukawa said somewhat sardonically, then looked over at Kusanagi. “I imagine things have changed for you, too?”
“Utsumi told you?”
“No, I’m just guessing.”
Now Kusanagi produced his business card. Yukawa took it and raised an eyebrow.
“Dare I hope that means one more trustworthy chief inspector at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department?”
“Nice of you to say so, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who think I’m useless.”
Kusanagi’s coffee arrived. He added milk, stirred it, and drank a mouthful.
“You look a bit glum.” Yukawa looked at him appraisingly with his scientist’s eyes. “Oh, that reminds me, something in your email has been bugging me. You said you wanted to see me, if I had the time, because you had some ‘unpleasant business’ that was going to take you to the Kikuno shopping district?”
“Something exasperating has happened.” Kusanagi shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a frustrating and, frankly, rather pitiful story.”
“Has your investigation hit rough waters?”
“Not so much hit rough waters as run aground.”
“That sounds interesting.” Yukawa leaned forward, put his hands on the table, and laced his fingers together. “I’m happy to listen, if you’re prepared to share the details with a civilian.”
“You are? I couldn’t tell just any old civilian, but you, you’re different.” Kusanagi frowned, interrupting himself and waving his right hand, palm outward, in a dismissive gesture. “No, I really shouldn’t. Here we are, meeting after such a long time. Why talk about my miserable police work? Tell me what you got up to in America. I want to know.”
“Research. That’s all I did over there. Do you really want to hear about whether the magnetic monopole search connects to the grand unified theory? Do you?”
Kusanagi grimaced. “You can’t have only done research. What about your days off?”
“I took it easy,” Yukawa replied tartly. “I rested so I could fully concentrate on my research when the working week started again. I was over in the States for a fixed period of time; I didn’t want to waste even a single day.”
Kusanagi suddenly felt tired. Yukawa’s manner was lighthearted enough, but he was probably being serious. Kusanagi had trouble imagining his friend playing a round of golf or going out for a drive in his free time.
“What’s the problem? Tell me your troubles. Tell me everything that’s gone wrong with this investigation.” Yukawa raised his hands high and drew them toward himself in a grand gesture of solicitation.
“America’s changed you. You used to say that police investigations didn’t interest you.”
“That was only because every time you came to me with one, it always involved a really convoluted problem. Someone’s head had suddenly spontaneously combusted. A dodgy cult leader had attacked someone using his telekinetic powers. Stuff like that. You’d always come running to me to work out how it had been done. I don’t think I need to worry about that this time, though.”
Kusanagi gave a derisive snort.
“Oh, I get it. You’re quite happy to hear about my case, provided you can just stay on the sidelines. Fine. Well, I don’t know if you’ll enjoy this story.” Kusanagi ran his eye swiftly around the café. The other customers didn’t appear to have any interest in them.
Kusanagi began by giving an overview of the case. A girl who had gone missing a little over three years ago had recently been found dead; they had arrested the man they believed responsible for her death; and he had been released because the prosecutor declined to indict him — technically a deferment of dispensation.
“That’s got to be annoying for the police. Still, someone being released due to lack of evidence — that has to be pretty rare?”
“It is. It’s very rare indeed,” said Kusanagi. “If the suspect was a normal person, the prosecutors would probably have gone after him hard — but that’s not what happened.”
Yukawa jerked his chin and used the tip of one finger to adjust his spectacles on his nose. It was a habit, an unconscious gesture he made when something aroused his interest.
“What makes the defendant so abnormal?”
“He’s a silent man.”
“A silent man?”
“It’s a long story. It goes back about twenty years.”
Kusanagi then gave Yukawa a brief account of the Yuna Motohashi murder case, before going into the details of the two trials.
Yukawa couldn’t suppress a groan.
“So the defendant was found not guilty, even though you had assembled all that circumstantial evidence. It sounds unreasonable — but in a way that’s what the court system is all about. What’s the connection between that case and the present case?”
“Believe it or not, but the suspect is the same.”