“We’ll check on his whereabouts at regular intervals, but, no, we don’t think he merits round-the-clock surveillance. We see no risk of him destroying evidence or trying to escape.”
“Right.”
The decision seemed reasonable enough to Kusanagi. It was hard to believe that Hasunuma would make a blunder at this late stage. The normal practice in a case like the Saori Namiki murder was to arrest the suspect on a different charge, keep him in detention, and interview him until you got a confession. With a person like Hasunuma, however — someone who didn’t object to being locked up for long periods and was capable of remaining silent — it wasn’t going to work.
“I just wanted to keep you in the loop, sir,” said Muto, then hung up. Kusanagi put down his phone. He felt bitter, fed up. Overcome with a sense of his own powerlessness, he didn’t have the energy to get to his feet.
Kusanagi had approached the prosecutor immediately after Hasunuma’s release to ask what kind of evidence he needed to indict Hasunuma.
The prosecutor said they needed a minimum of two things to proceed to indictment. First, they needed proof that the victim hadn’t died an accidental or natural death. Second, they needed incontrovertible proof that Hasunuma — and no one else — had committed the crime. Even then, precedent suggested that the chances of him being found not guilty were extremely high.
“What makes this case so damn awkward is the fact that we can’t argue in court that Hasunuma transported Saori’s body to Shizuoka, because the only basis we have for that claim is N-System data, not eyewitness testimony.”
There was nothing Kusanagi could say. Currently, the police had an unspoken rule that they would never put forward data from N-System as evidence in court. Doing so would compel them to go on record with details of how N-System worked and where its surveillance points were located. The policy of the National Police Agency had been to keep that information secret.
Even though the prosecutor had set a high bar, Kusanagi was determined to find evidence that met his conditions. He wanted to show the Namiki family that he’d meant what he said about never giving up.
Despite trying everything he could think of, he’d failed to turn up the evidence needed. All the forensic medicine experts he’d spoken to had told him, given the state of the skeletal remains, determining the cause of death was impossible. He needed to solve that impossible problem before he could make a single step of progress.
At the same time, other criminals were out there committing equally atrocious crimes on an almost daily basis. The reality was that he couldn’t keep obsessing over this case forever. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Kusanagi’s team was assigned a new robbery-murder in eastern Tokyo.
Fortunately, the investigation was going well. An acquaintance of the victim had confessed to the crime in the most matter-of-fact way. They then found a kitchen knife with traces of the victim’s blood on it exactly where the acquaintance told them he had disposed of it. They were steadily assembling everything they needed to send the case to the prosecutor. With this case, at least, the prosecutor would have nothing to complain about.
Nonetheless, Kanichi Hasunuma was always in the back of his mind. On the one hand, it seemed as if the moment to solve the case had already passed; on the other hand, he couldn’t allow it to end like this.
12
The warehouse was near a small river, away from the residential part of town. There was a hut next to the warehouse. This, apparently, was the former office.
Sitting in the passenger seat, Naoki Niikura held the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus. The lights were off and there was something inside blocking the window, so he couldn’t see inside.
“See anything?” asked Shusaku Tojima from the driver’s seat.
“No. Nothing.” Naoki Niikura lowered the binoculars. “Is he really in there?”
“He should be,” Tojima replied. “I saw him walking out of there yesterday.”
Tojima started the car and Niikura stared at the window of the hut as they drove past the warehouse. He still couldn’t tell if there was anyone inside.
They went to a nearby diner and sat at a table in the back, far away from the other customers.
“I had to pull out all the stops to find that place. There’s a guy of around seventy who lives in there by himself,” Tojima said.
“And is he in there with him?”
“Yes,” Tojima replied, speaking softly. “Hasunuma’s living there now.”
Niikura shook his head listlessly. “I just can’t believe it.”
“Disgusting, isn’t it?”
“I could understand if he’d gone into hiding, but to return to the place where he committed a murder — it just beggars belief, the brazenness of it. What’s wrong with the man?” Niikura clenched his right hand into a fist and thumped the table.
Tojima had called Niikura earlier that afternoon and told him that Hasunuma was back in Kikuno. Niikura and Tojima had met indirectly through Saori, when Yutaro Namiki had invited Tojima to one of her performances. Since then, the two men always said hello when they bumped into each other at the restaurant.
“Like I told you on the phone, Hasunuma showed up at Namiki-ya last week.”
“Shocked is too weak a word for what I feel,” said Naoki, sighing heavily. “I’m just glad I wasn’t there. In my fury, God only knows what I might have done. I just can’t understand what the guy’s—”
“It’s harassment, pure and simple,” said Tojima, with venom in his voice. “The man was arrested based on the testimony of local residents, especially everyone at Namiki-ya. He holds a serious grudge against us for that and he’s rubbing our noses in the fact that he’s been released.”
“That’s outrageous.”
“The police are hopeless. I don’t care about insufficient evidence or whatever it is — they should never have let someone like him back out on the streets. They should just lock him up and throw away the key.”
“I agree, but that isn’t going to happen, is it?”
Tojima nodded. There was a sour expression on his face.
“I don’t think we should expect too much of the police. Apparently, their hands are tied. That doesn’t mean we have to accept the way things are. When I think about Yutaro — no, when I think about how everyone at Namiki-ya must be feeling, it’s just unbearable. Do you know what I mean?”
“Of course, I do,” Naoki said warmly. “What the Namiki family must be going through! It makes me mad. If I could get away with it, I’d finish off that bastard myself.”
“I’m sure you would.” Tojima was nodding his head vigorously up and down. That was exactly the kind of response he wanted. “You discovered her abilities, you trained her, you were making a professional singer of her. You’ve got plenty to hate the guy for. And it’s because I know how you feel—” Tojima quickly looked around, then resumed, his voice slightly lower than before. “Because I know how you feel, that I wanted to talk to you about this plan of mine.”
“Plan?” Niikura drew himself upright in his seat. “What plan is that?”
Tojima once again glanced around the diner to check that no one was in earshot, then leaned over the table.
“We can’t expect anything from the police. The courts won’t punish the guy. The way I see it, the only option we’ve got left is for us to do it ourselves.”
The proposal was so unexpected that Niikura gave a start of surprise. “Do it...? Do what?”
“Punish the guy. Him. Kanichi Hasunuma.” There was a purposeful gleam in Tojima’s eye. Obviously, he was serious.