I tried standing up, but my body wouldn’t obey me. I stumbled and slid off the sofa. The table corner struck my side, but it didn’t hurt.
“I just did as I was told. I don’t know what happens afterwards. Because Papa will take care of everything.”
Chiharu stood up. It seemed she’d just been pretending to drink the wine.
I was starting to lose consciousness. Everything before me was growing hazy.
I couldn’t blank out. If I did, they’d continue with their plan. In other words, they’d kill me and make it look like a suicide. Would the motive be that I couldn’t endure the weight of my crime? Or maybe I’d seen the writing on the wall and thought that my arrest was a matter of time.
“…Wait,” I squeezed out. “Listen to me. It’s best…if you listen.”
I couldn’t tell where Chiharu was. I wasn’t even sure if she’d heard me. Even so, I focused all my nerves into my throat.
“The computer. My automobile park…file…”
I tried moving my mouth, but the commands from my brain didn’t reach it. I realized that my voice was failing me. Perhaps it was my sense of hearing. But really, it made no difference. It was as though darkness were enfolding my brain. I tasted what it was like to hurtle down an incredibly deep hole. This might be my last sensation ever, I thought.
—
I felt suffocated as though something were sitting on my chest. I wondered if I’d had a terrible nightmare. My face was hot. Yet I felt chilly below my neck. No, “cold” was more like it. I realized I’d broken out into an intense cold sweat.
I had my eyes closed. I was relieved that I could still sense that. I’d somehow not been killed yet. I opened my eyes. It was blurry, but I could see something. It was extremely dim.
Slowly, my vision came back. It was my room as I remembered it. It seemed I was lying on the sofa. I tried moving my body and winced. A terrible urge to vomit and a headache descended upon me. It had such an impact that I nearly passed out again.
But after exhaling and inhaling repeatedly, the nausea and headache subsided a bit. I slowly raised myself halfway up. The vessels behind my ears were throbbing.
“It seems you’re conscious,” a voice came. A man’s voice.
I tried looking around with just my eyes. I was feeling too sluggish even to move my neck.
Soon, the silhouette of a person appeared in the corner of my vision. The person sat down on a chair across from me. It was Katsutoshi Katsuragi.
I fixed myself into a sitting position on the sofa. My body was still unsteady. If he tried to attack me, I didn’t think I could defend myself adequately. But Katsutoshi Katsuragi didn’t seem to care as he leisurely crossed his legs and lit a cigarette.
He was wearing a double-breasted suit. That gave me more peace of mind. If he intended to kill me, he would have dressed down in order to keep a low profile.
“The main actor finally makes his appearance,” I said, my own voice sounding muffled to me. “Or should I say the mastermind in the shadows.”
“Thanks for looking after my daughter,” Katsutoshi Katsuragi said. His tone was calm.
I looked around. “Did your dear girl go home?”
“I sent her on ahead so my better half wouldn’t get worried.”
“It seems your wife is also an accomplice.”
Without responding to that, Katsutoshi Katsuragi stared at me. “I believe you’ve heard the gist of it from my daughter. I intended to explain it to you myself, but she said she had to see you one last time.”
“I’m glad I got to see her, too. I don’t know if it will be the last time, though.”
“I should first thank you for your trouble. I’m not being sarcastic. I believe you’ve already heard it from my daughter, but you did extremely well. I could even say perfectly. Was that method for obtaining the ransom your original idea? Or did you borrow a page from some piece of detective fiction?”
“I thought of it.”
“I see. It was impressive.” He slowly breathed out cigarette smoke. He looked at me from behind the drifting screen. “However, it’s not as though there aren’t parts that I must find fault with. Partway through, you started instructing me in English, but a policeman or two might have been quite fluent in it. I can’t give you a perfect score on that.”
“I knew that you’re also conversant in French, and I can speak a bit of it. But I decided against it because it would narrow down the criminal profile. In today’s Japan, millions speak English, but not so for French. It was a conclusion I came to after weighing their respective risks.”
“Ah, then let’s agree to disagree.” Katsutoshi Katsuragi didn’t seem to my mind my objection.
“Your own plan was impressive, too. It relied on your daughter’s star turn, but I admire how you buried and planted so many things in advance amidst all the constraints.”
“Come on, it’s nothing compared to operating a business. This time I just needed to fool you, but leading a company requires fooling countless people—employees, consumers,” the executive vice president averred with a straight face. He took a drag from his cigarette. “By the way, it seems you asked my daughter a question.”
“Yes, about what you plan to do with me.”
Katsutoshi Katsuragi grinned and dropped his cigarette ash into the ashtray. He uncrossed his legs and nodded, pleased.
“Even if the whole plan went well, our family couldn’t have peace of mind. Because there is one person who knows our whole secret. Shunsuke Sakuma—what to do about him. We could make it seem like he’d committed suicide and have the police believe that he’d kidnapped Juri Katsuragi. The final polish. You inferred that my blueprints involved your demise.”
“Was I wrong?”
“I won’t say you were. It would be a lie to say that I never considered it. But dear Sakuma. I’m not that simplistic. I’m a little miffed that you thought so. Not that I don’t understand your point of view. Your perfect plan ends up being your trap; anybody would feel insecure. That’s why you thought to arrange a means to protect yourself. Well, you really were the man I hoped you were.” Katsutoshi Katsuragi cast his eyes behind me. My computer sat there. I could hear the fan, so it seemed to be on.
“Did you see the file?”
“I did, of course.”
The words I’d spoken to Chiharu the moment before I lost consciousness hadn’t been uttered in vain.
“When I heard from Chiharu that there was some kind of file, I made light of it, thinking it couldn’t be anything serious. I assumed what would be in there was a text document describing the truth of the incident along with a warning that the data would make its way to the police in the event of your death.”
“Wouldn’t even that give you pause?”
“Why? All I’d need to do is deny it. If we intended to kill you, we wouldn’t be hindered by such a trifle. I would simply assert that the kidnapper had made up a story before committing suicide. Whom do you think the police would believe?”
I didn’t answer, to indicate that I had no desire to refute him. With a satisfied smile, Katsutoshi Katsuragi took his time putting out his cigarette in the ashtray.
“But you weren’t that incompetent. There was a letter about the truth of the incident just as I had predicted, but also another file. Even I was amazed by that. Or maybe I should say I was floored.”
“To confess, it was a fluke,” I came clear. “I didn’t think at the time that it would serve such a purpose.”
“Brilliant people are like that. Without even meaning to, they gather materials to reinforce their position. You can’t teach that sensibility.”
I flashed a wry smile. I hadn’t foreseen being praised by this man in such a manner.