“Both, and neither. My original destination was ahead of here. When I noticed you were following me, I had the taxi driver let me off a little early, because I wanted to bring you to this place.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why did you want to take me here?” Kusanagi asked, quickly scanning the area with his eyes.
“This is where I was when I last talked to Ishigami. I told him something then. I told him there was no such thing in this world as a useless cog, and that even a cog may decide how it is to be used.”
“Excuse me? A cog?”
“Yes. After that, I tried asking him several questions I had about the case. He was pretty much ‘No comment’ about the whole thing, except that after we parted, he came up with his own answer. That answer was to turn himself in.”
“So you’re saying that he resigned himself to his fate after hearing what you told him?”
“ ‘Resignation’… I suppose you could call it that. For him, it was more like playing his last trump card. One he had been preparing assiduously for some time.”
“So what was it you told him?”
“Just what I said, that thing about the cog.”
“No, after that. You said you asked him questions. That’s what I wanted to know.”
A quiet smile came to Yukawa’s face and he shook his head slowly. “That’s not the important part.”
“It’s not?”
“The important part is the bit about cogs. That’s when he decided to turn himself in.”
Kusanagi sighed loudly. “You were checking out the newspapers at the university library, right? What were you looking for?”
“Did Tokiwa tell you that? I’m surprised you’ve taken such an interest in my daily goings-on.”
“Hey, it wasn’t by choice. You wouldn’t tell me anything yourself.”
“It’s okay, I don’t mind. It’s your job, after all. Feel free to investigate me all you like.”
Kusanagi stared at Yukawa intently for a moment, then lowered his eyes. “Yukawa, please. Stop talking in riddles. You know something. Tell me what it is. Ishigami didn’t murder that man, did he? If that’s true, then why would he say he did? You don’t want an old friend getting locked up for a murder he didn’t commit, do you?”
“Look up.”
Kusanagi looked back up. He breathed in sharply. The physicist’s face was twisted with grief; he pressed one hand to his forehead and squeezed his eyes closed.
“Of course I don’t want him to be accused of murder. I just don’t see any way out of it. I wish none of this had happened.”
“What’s got you all worked up? Why don’t you just tell me? C’mon, we’re friends.”
Yukawa opened his eyes again, his face still severe. “Yes. You’re my friend, but you’re also a detective.”
Kusanagi didn’t know what to say to that. For the first time in the many years he had known Yukawa, he felt a wall between them. Here his friend was showing him pain he had never shown before, and Kusanagi was entirely unable to ask him why.
“I’m going to Yasuko Hanaoka’s,” Yukawa said. “Want to come with me?”
“Can I?”
“I don’t care. Just, I’d prefer it if you kept quiet.”
“Fine.”
Yukawa spun around and began to walk back toward the bridge. Kusanagi followed after him. Apparently, Yukawa’s initial destination had been the lunch shop, Benten-tei. Once again, Kusanagi found himself burning with questions he wanted to ask, yet unable to say a word. They walked in silence.
Just before Kiyosu Bridge, Yukawa climbed the steps to the road. Kusanagi followed and found Yukawa waiting for him at the top.
“See that office building?” The physicist pointed to the building closest to them. “See the glass doors at the entrance?”
Kusanagi looked and saw the two of them reflected in the doors. “Yeah. What about them?”
“When I visited Ishigami right after the murder, I saw the two of us reflected like this in these doors. Actually, I didn’t notice at first. It was Ishigami who brought it to my attention. Until that moment, I hadn’t even considered the possibility he might be involved with the case. I was just happy to be reunited with an old competitor.”
“So you started to suspect him when you saw your two reflections?”
“It was what he said. ‘How have you managed to stay so young, Yukawa? You still have a full head of hair! How different we two are!’—Then he ran his fingers over his own head. It surprised me. Ishigami had never been the type to worry about physical appearances. He had always been of the opinion that a man’s value was not determined by such things, and he’d never wanted to live a life where such things could be a concern. Yet here he was, worried about his thinning hair. Something about which he could do nothing. That was when I realized he was in a position where he suddenly did have to worry about his own appearance—in other words, he was in love. Yet why would he suddenly come out and reveal such a thing, here, in this place?”
Kusanagi understood. “Because he was about to see the girl of his dreams.”
Yukawa nodded. “My thoughts exactly. I started thinking that this woman working at the lunch shop, his neighbor, whose ex-husband had so recently been killed, was the object of his affections. Which raised an important question: what was his relationship to the case? If he was so taken with this woman, he would have to be worried about it, yet he was playing the part of a disinterested observer to a T. Or perhaps I was assuming too much and he wasn’t in love at all. That’s why I got together with him again and accompanied him to the lunch shop. I thought I might see something in his expression that would reveal him. And as chance would have it, we ran into someone entirely unexpected at the shop—an acquaintance of Yasuko Hanaoka.”
“Kudo,” Kusanagi said. “He’s dating her.”
“So it seems. And when I saw Ishigami’s face as he watched this Kudo fellow and her talking—” Yukawa narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “That did it. I knew at that moment that Ishigami was infatuated with her. I could see jealousy written all over his face.”
“But that raises another question, doesn’t it?”
“It does. There was only one way to explain the resulting contradiction.”
“Ishigami was involved with the case—so that’s why you started to suspect him.” Kusanagi glanced back at the glass doors. “You scare me sometimes, you know. I’m sure Ishigami never suspected such a tiny imperfection in his performance would become a fatal flaw.”
“He’s a unique man. And even after all those years, my memory of him as he was back then is still vivid. If it weren’t, I’m sure I wouldn’t have have noticed a thing.”
“His bad luck,” Kusanagi said, starting toward the road. He stopped when he noticed that Yukawa wasn’t following him. “I thought you were going to Benten-tei?”
Eyes downcast, Yukawa came toward him. “I have to ask you to do something I normally wouldn’t ask. I don’t think you’ll like it.”
Kusanagi chuckled. “That depends on what it is.”
“Do you think you can forget you’re a detective, just for a moment?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“There’s something I need to tell you, but you my friend, not you the detective. And I can’t have you telling anyone else, ever. Not your police chief, not your friends, not even your family. Can you promise me this?”
Kusanagi saw a terrible urgency in the eyes behind the wire-frame glasses. He could tell that Yukawa felt forced into making a decision he wasn’t ready to make.
He wanted to say, “It depends on what you tell me.” But Kusanagi swallowed his words. If he said that, Yukawa would never look at him as a friend again.
“Fine. I promise.”
EIGHTEEN