‘Oh, she used to come here all the time. I only remember her because she borrowed so many books.’
‘Did she come alone?’
‘Yes, always.’ Then she frowned. ‘Wait, well, no, sometimes she would come with a boy. A classmate, maybe? They looked about the same age.’
Sasagaki quickly pulled out another photograph, this one of the Kiriharas. He pointed his finger at Ryo. ‘Was that the boy?’
The librarian squinted through her glasses. ‘Well, that looks a bit like him, sure. It’s hard to say for certain, though.’
‘Were they always together?’
‘Not always. Just sometimes. They would often come looking for the same book. And I remember they would play by cutting paper.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The boy would make these shapes out of paper with scissors and show them to her. I remember having to talk to them because I didn’t want little pieces of paper everywhere. But, I’m sorry, I really can’t say for sure whether it’s the boy in this picture.’
She’d given him proof enough. He remembered the paper cut-out he’d seen in Ryo’s room.
So Yukiho and Ryo were meeting at the library. They had known each other at the time of the murder. That was enough to turn everything on its head. Sasagaki made a complete about-face in his thinking on the investigation.
Ryo could have easily navigated the ducts, and he already had a witness in the same class who said Ryo often joined in their games. According to the witness, Ryo knew his way around the abandoned building better than any of them.
That left Ryo’s alibi. At the time of Yosuke Kirihara’s death, Ryo had purportedly been with his mother, Yaeko, and the shop manager, Matsuura. But there was good reason to suspect they might be protecting him – a possibility no one on the task force had yet explored.
The only problem was motive.
What could bring a son to murder his own father? It had happened before in the history of the world, of course, but it wasn’t commonplace. It would require a pretty compelling backstory and Sasagaki couldn’t think of any that applied to Yosuke Kirihara and his son. The investigation hadn’t uncovered any rift between the two. On the contrary, all the testimonies they had received made it seem like Yosuke Kirihara had genuinely cared for his son, and his son had loved him in return.
Sasagaki continued making the rounds and asking questions, but he had begun to seriously entertain the notion that it was all in his head. When you wander in the dark too long, you start to see things that aren’t really there.
‘I knew all too well that if I told anyone my Ryo theory, they’d think I was off my rocker and I would’ve got pulled off the case on the spot and probably given a nice long vacation,’ Sasagaki said with a chuckle. He sounded as if he was only half-joking.
‘So you couldn’t find a motive?’ Kazunari asked.
The detective shook his head. ‘Nothing at the time. It was too much of a reach to think that Ryo had killed his father just because he wanted the money.’
‘By “at the time” I take it you mean you found something later?’ Kazunari said, leaning forward, but Sasagaki waved him back with his hands.
‘Be patient, I’ll get there. Just let me tell it in order. Basically, my own little private investigation fell apart at that point, but I kept tabs on Ryo and Yukiho. Not that I was on stakeout, mind you, but I made a point of asking around every once in a while to see how they were coming along, what schools they were going to, trying to keep a general picture forming in my head. I was sure I’d find the two of them together at some point.’
‘Did you?’
Sasagaki gave a long sigh. ‘It took a long time. No matter which way you looked at it, they were complete strangers.’
‘But something happened?’
‘In their last year of middle school.’ Sasagaki stuck a finger into his box of cigarettes to find it empty. Kazunari opened the crystal case of cigarettes on the table. It was filled to the brim. Sasagaki nodded in thanks and took one.
‘Does this have anything to do with the attack on Yukiho’s classmate?’ Kazunari asked as he lit Sasagaki’s cigarette for him.
The detective looked at him. ‘You know about that?’
‘I heard about it from Mr Imaeda.’
Kazunari told the detective what Imaeda had told him, about the middle-school rape, and Yukiho being the one who discovered the victim. He added his own experience when he was in college and mentioned that Imaeda had suspected the connection might be Yukiho.
‘He was a good private eye, then. I’m surprised he went that deep. Yes, that was the incident in question. Of course, I was looking at it from a slightly different angle from Mr Imaeda. The perpetrator was never caught, you see, but there was a suspect – another kid in the same grade. Except, he had an alibi and was cleared of suspicion. The problem was who the suspect was and whose testimony gave him an alibi.’ Sasagaki breathed out a stream of silky smoke. The cigarettes were much more expensive-tasting than the ones he smoked. ‘The suspect’s name was Fumihiko Kikuchi, the older brother of the kid who found the pawnbroker’s body. And the person to give the testimony establishing his alibi was none other than Ryo Kirihara.’
Kazunari gaped.
‘Curious, right?’ Sasagaki said. ‘I found it hard to brush off as mere coincidence.’
‘But what does it mean?’
‘Well, I only heard about the rape a year after it happened, from Fumihiko Kikuchi himself. I had followed up with the family concerning the previous case a few times, so I knew both of the Kikuchi brothers pretty well. It was on one of those visits when we got to talking and he brought it up.
‘To sum it up, when the rape happened, Fumihiko had been watching a movie. He didn’t have any proof at first, but then Ryo Kirihara came to his rescue. There was a small bookshop across the street from the movie theatre and Ryo said he had been there with another friend and just happened to see Fumihiko going into the theatre. The officer taking the testimony checked it out with a friend, too, and decided it was true.’
‘So he was let go.’
‘He was. Fumihiko thought he just got lucky. But then, a little while later, he got a call from Ryo telling him he’d better be grateful and not to think about doing anything rash.’
‘What did he mean by that?’
‘Fumihiko had recently come into possession of a certain photograph that he thought showed Ryo’s mom and an employee at the pawnshop having an affair. He said he’d shown it to Ryo.’
‘So the wife and the assistant were a thing?’
‘Seems like it.’ Sasagaki tapped off his ash into the ashtray. ‘Ryo made Fumihiko give him the photograph and promise not to go sniffing around about his father’s murder any more.’
‘They made a deal?’
‘So it seemed, but the more he thought about it, the less Fumihiko thought it was so simple. Which is why he told me about it.’
Sasagaki remembered the teenager’s face, covered with pimples.
‘What wasn’t simple about it?’
‘He started wondering if it hadn’t all been a set-up.’ The cigarette had burned short between Sasagaki’s fingers but he took another drag. ‘See, the reason Fumihiko was a suspect in the first place was they found a keychain that belonged to him at the scene of the crime. But according to him, he had never been there before and the keychain wasn’t one that could have easily fallen off his bag.’
‘So Ryo stole the keychain and left it at the scene?’
‘That’s what Fumihiko thought might have happened. Which would peg Ryo as our middle-school rapist. He could have spotted Fumihiko with his friend at the movie theatre, then gone straight to the scene and done the deed. Then all he had to do was plant the fake evidence.’
‘But did Kirihara know that Fumihiko was going to go to the movies that day?’ Kazunari asked the obvious question.
‘That’s the problem right there,’ Sasagaki said, lifting a finger. ‘Fumihiko says he never to
ld Kirihara about his plans.’
‘Then the set-up would have been impossible.’
‘Agreed, and that’s where Fumihiko’s line of conjecture hit a dead end.’ But I still think he had something to do with it, Fumihiko had told him, a chagrined look on his face.
‘Still, it piqued my interest enough that I checked the records on the rape incident, which is when I found out about Yukiho’s involvement. That sent me back to Fumihiko with a few more questions.’
‘Like what?’
‘Mostly about how he came to go to the movies that day. It turns out the tickets were a gift – Fumihiko’s mother was working at a cake shop at the time and one of her customers gave them to her. But it gets better: the tickets were for Rocky, which Fumihiko had expressed interest in several times, and they were only good for that day. He would have to go to the movies that night, or miss his chance.’
Kazunari shook his head with disbelief. ‘Did you find out who the customer was who gave her the tickets?’
‘I didn’t get a name. But Fumihiko remembered his mom telling him it was a girl, around the same age as him, well-dressed.’
‘Yukiho.’
Sasagaki gave him a grim smile. ‘If we assume that Yukiho and Ryo pinned the rape incident on Fumihiko to keep his mouth shut about Ryo’s mother’s affair, everything falls into place. Though the collateral damage – Miss Fujimura in this case – seems exceedingly cruel.’
‘I agree it’s cruel, but the choice of the Fujimura girl might not have been entirely random.’
Sasagaki raised an eyebrow. ‘How so?’
‘They may have had reason to target her – this is something Mr Imaeda told me.’
The private eye had told Kazunari that the girl who was attacked had been Yukiho’s rival in class, but that following the incident she had become a subservient member of Yukiho’s clique.
‘I hadn’t heard any of that,’ Sasagaki said with a grimace. ‘So they were killing two birds with one stone.’ He looked up at Kazunari. ‘I hate to even suggest this, but there’s a possibility that what happened to your friend in college wasn’t entirely coincidental either.’
‘You think Yukiho planned that one too.’
‘I wouldn’t rule it out.’
‘Neither did Mr Imaeda. But why?’
‘Probably because she believed that rape was the surest way to break someone’s spirit.’
Kazunari shook his head. ‘That’s really something to say about a person, even Yukiho.’
‘I know. But if I’m right, this all leads us back to the motive in the murder of Ryo’s father.’
Kazunari’s eyes widened and he was about to say something when the phone on his desk began to ring. He swore under his breath and stood from his chair to get the phone. He answered the call in a hushed voice and quickly returned to the armchair. ‘Sorry about that.’
‘You OK for time?’
‘Yes, fine. That wasn’t a work call, actually. It was regarding an issue I’ve been looking into,’ Kazunari said, then after a moment’s hesitation, he added, ‘When you came in, you congratulated me on my promotion. Actually, this is more like a demotion.Are you familiar with the pharmaceutical company Yunix?’
‘I’ve heard the name.’
‘Well, something very strange started happening last year. Our company and Yunix are competitors in several areas and it came to light that some internal information from Shinozuka Pharmaceuticals was leaking out to their teams.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Someone inside Yunix informed us. Of course, the company denied everything.’ A thin smile rose on Kazunari’s face.
‘I suppose these things happen in research,’ the detective said. ‘But how does that relate to you?’
‘According to the informant, I was the one who leaked the information.’
Sasagaki’s eyes widened. ‘That doesn’t sound very likely.’
‘It shouldn’t, because it didn’t happen,’ Kazunari replied, shaking his head. ‘I had no idea what to make of it. Nor was the identity of the informant ever revealed. They only communicated via phone calls and mail. But the information leak was verifiable enough. When the guys in the lab saw the materials the informant sent them, they went blue in the face.’
‘But you didn’t leak that information.’
‘Of course not. Unfortunately, someone has made it look like I did.’
‘Any idea who?’
‘No,’ Kazunari replied immediately.
‘I see. Still, getting demoted over something like that seems a little harsh.’
‘The board members didn’t believe it was me either. But the company had to take some kind of action. And there were some who thought that because the trap was clearly set for me, that was reason enough to move me out of headquarters before more damage was done.’
Sasagaki listened, dumbfounded.
‘That, and one other thing,’ Kazunari said. ‘There’s at least one board member who would prefer to keep me at a distance.’
Sasagaki raised an eyebrow.
‘My cousin, Yasuharu.’
‘Ah…’ Sasagaki said.
‘It was a good chance for him to get the one naysayer to his marriage out of the picture. This assignment was supposed to be temporary – but one wonders how long they intend “temporary” to last.’
‘And you’re looking into this?’
A hard look came over Kazunari’s face. ‘I need to find out how the information leaked.’
‘Have you found anything yet?’
‘A little,’ Kazunari replied. ‘Whoever did it accessed our computers. We have a pretty advanced system, with both the network connecting computers internally and an external network allowing us to share data with other research facilities outside the company. That’s how the hacker got into our system.’
This was already straining Sasagaki’s understanding of computers but he listened attentively.
Kazunari smiled, noticing the look on the detective’s face. ‘It’s really not that complicated. Basically, the hacker used a phone line to get on to one of our internal computers. So far, I’ve determined the access came through computers at the Imperial University Hospital. In other words, the hacker first accessed the pharmacy system at Imperial University, then went from there into our system. But it’s been very difficult trying to figure out where he accessed the Imperial University system from.’
The name of the hospital sounded familiar to Sasagaki, but he couldn’t place it at first, until he remembered his recent conversation with Eri Sugawara about how a client at Imaeda’s office had been a pharmacist at the Imperial University Hospital.
‘Would a pharmacist at the hospital have access to those computers?’ he asked.
‘Yes, they would all have access,’ Kazunari explained. ‘Except, even though our computers are connected to these external networks, not all of our information is available through those channels. There are some walls put up here and there in the system, to protect sensitive material from getting out. Which means that our criminal would have a considerable amount of know-how. A pro.’
‘A professional hacker?’ Something was tugging at the back of Sasagaki’s mind. He knew at least one professional when it came to computers. He also wondered if there was a connection between whoever set a trap for Kazunari Shinozuka and the pharmacist from the Imperial University Hotel who had gone to Imaeda’s office. But it could well be a coincidence.