Starting with TV, the issue was how the press would cover it, I thought. They wouldn’t accept just being used. They probably had a hunch that this wasn’t exactly a missing person case. First, they would try to find out more about the Katsuragi household. It was a matter of time before Katsutoshi Katsuragi’s womanizing ways came to light. Once they learned that Juri wasn’t his current wife’s daughter, the daytime shows would have a field day. The stations would compete at the art of dishing out gossip without angering a leading corporate sponsor.
No—
Was that story true in the first place? The person who’d shared it with me was herself a fake. Yet, for a quick lie, it was well crafted. Irregular blood ties, a complex human tapestry—
It was then that a certain hypothesis came to me.
Chapter 19
That afternoon, I went to Akasaka, to a café facing out toward Sotobori Street. About ten minutes past two, I saw Daisuke Yuguchi’s fat figure on the other side of the glass door. Yuguchi spotted me right away, waved his hand, and entered.
“Sorry for making you wait.”
“No, thanks for agreeing to see me on such short notice.”
Yuguchi worked at a TV station right nearby. He had graduated after me from the same college, but we had also worked together just once.
He ordered coffee, so I ordered a refill of mine.
After some small talk, I started on the issue at hand. “So, about the favor I asked for on the phone, did you find out anything?”
As soon as I said that, Yuguchi frowned. “It looks like my station is hard at it. But the Katsuragis and the police both have their guards up, and we haven’t dug up anything concrete.”
“But it’s not like all your info gets broadcast. Aren’t there some bits you just haven’t reported yet?”
If you know anything about the Juri Katsuragi case, please tell me, I had asked of him. Yuguchi hadn’t suspected me at all when I said I needed to know all I could in advance about whatever happened to the family of the EVP of our biggest client, Nissei Auto.
“The guys at the top of the news division might have heard something, but nothing’s come down to the lower ranks. Umm, you know the basics of the situation, right, Mr. Sakuma?” Yuguchi said as he pulled out a note.
“I know the gist of it. But just in case, do tell me what’s happened so far.”
“That’s fine. Umm, first, Juri went missing when…”
Yuguchi started reading his note out loud. There was nothing new in it, but I continued to feign interest. “How about a kidnapping? Could it be one?”
“It’s hard to say, but I doubt it,” Yuguchi replied rather confidently.
“Meaning?”
“This is just between me and you.” After looking around, he leaned towards me. “According to the press club guys, the Metropolitan Police Department’s abductions unit hasn’t mobilized. If it were a kidnapping, the investigation would have started when Juri was abducted about ten days ago, so there’s no way the press club guys wouldn’t have caught on. The MPD is definitely acting now, but it doesn’t seem like there are detectives at the Katsuragi residence keeping watch, for instance.”
“The MPD’s abductions unit didn’t act when she went missing? Are you sure?”
“Yes, that’s what’s being said.”
It felt like something was toppling over in my head. The MPD hadn’t acted? There was no way. This was a child of the Katsuragi family who had been kidnapped, so in fact it wasn’t inconceivable for them to have mobilized their investigative capacities on a massive scale. That couldn’t have avoided the notice of reporters covering the MPD.
If what Yuguchi was saying was true, there was only one possibility I could think of. Just as Katsutoshi Katsuragi had insisted, he hadn’t contacted the police. He’d done so only after paying the ransom. Yet Juri hadn’t come home, and he hadn’t been able to endure it any longer. It really seemed that way.
Why hadn’t he contacted the police? Was it because he thought that Juri would be in danger if he did and the kidnappers found out?
“The whole thing is a mystery,” Yuguchi continued. “According to our guys, Mr. Katsuragi reported it to the police only a few days ago. Everyone’s wondering why he didn’t do so immediately after she went missing.”
“And Mr. Katsuragi hasn’t given an explanation.”
Yuguchi thrust his bottom lip forward and shook his head. “No explanations, and he’s turned down all requests for interviews. The official statement is that there’s no need to talk about anything beyond what’s been reported.”
I growled and crossed my arms. Why hadn’t Katsutoshi Katsuragi sought any help from the police for the kidnapping? Did he believe he could just pay the ransom and get his daughter back? Did he decide that telling the police could wait until it was over?
I shook my head in my mind. There was no way. I didn’t think Katsutoshi Katsuragi, of all people, would succumb to threats. He was confident when it came to games. In a battle of wits with the culprit, he wouldn’t have thrown in the towel from the outset.
There was something here. And that thing had everything to do with Juri being a fake.
“Did you get any info on the Katsuragi family?”
“Oh, that wasn’t very difficult. They’d already looked into it.” Yuguchi pulled out a new note and placed it in front of me.
It had a list of names: Katsutoshi Katsuragi, wife Fumiko, elder daughter Juri, younger daughter Chiharu.
“He has another daughter?” I asked innocuously, glancing at the note.
“It seems that way. She attends a private high school. She’s a senior, I heard.”
“Senior…I wonder which school.”
“It was definitely—” Yuguchi gave the school’s name. It was a high school affiliated with a famous women’s college.
Asking just about Chiharu Katsuragi would have been strange, so I inquired about Juri and the wife as well. But Yuguchi didn’t have many details. I knew more than he did.
“The wife and younger sister must be so worried that Juri has gone missing,” I said.
“Apparently, the younger sister was quite shocked. She’s been bedridden since her sister went missing.”
“Bedridden? Chiharu?”
“Yes. Some of the press barged in on Chiharu’s high school to get her to talk about her family. But Chiharu had taken a sick day. She’s been taking time off for ten days now, so she must actually be sick rather than avoiding the press.”
I tried my best to keep a straight face, with Yuguchi there. I felt incredibly thirsty, so I finished my glass of water.
“Can I have this?” I reached my hand toward the note.
“Go ahead. But it must be really difficult for all of you, Mr. Sakuma. For a case like this to occur right before the Nissei Automobile new car campaign.”
“It does feel like a bad break.” I didn’t tell him I’d been taken off the project. I didn’t have any reason to.
I thanked him for doing this when he was busy, took the receipt, and stood up.
Exiting the café and hailing a cab, I gave my company’s address. As the car went out, I pulled out the note Yuguchi had just given me. Gazing at it, I changed my mind.
“Excuse me, driver, I have a change of destination. Please go to Meguro.”
“Meguro? Where in Meguro?”
I gave the name of a particular women’s high school. It seemed the driver knew it.
Naturally, it was the one Chiharu Katsuragi attended.
—
When the school was about a hundred feet away, I got out of the taxi. It seemed it was already past the final bell, and I saw gaggles of students heading home.
There was a small bookstore, so pretending to peruse a magazine, I kept an eye out for a high school girl I might talk to. The world saw this academy as a place for rich kids, but many had dyed hair and makeup done in the style of popular artists and didn’t seem any different from other girls their age. The school must have loosened its regulations.