A Quiet Place (17 page)

Even so, Asai was not completely at peace. From time to time it would hit him that he was a murderer, a realization that made him break out in a sweat – not from any crisis of conscience, but out of the sheer terror of being found out. It resembled the fear of being pushed off a high cliff, and it sometimes made him want to shout out loud. It would strike him unexpectedly like an attack of stomach cramps. And then, just like stomach cramps, once the pain had passed he would forget it completely and return to his everyday life. He was never haunted by the ghost of Konosuke Kubo.

Things continued this way until mid-November.

One day in November, a representative from the Life Affairs Division of the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives turned up at the ministry. He brought with him a request for Asai to give a series of lectures on the food manufacturing industry.

“Where's it going to be?”

“The southern part of Nagano Prefecture. There's a farming village near Suwa that wants to put more emphasis on food manufacturing. They sent the request through the cooperative's Nagano branch. They specifically asked for the ‘veteran Mr Asai'. There were some other lectures or
workshops you gave before in other prefectures which were very well-received. It seems word has reached the people in Nagano, and they're insisting that the ministry send you.”

Asai refused on the spot. Normally, with an assignment of this kind, he would ask for a couple of days to think it over, then politely turn down the offer.

“I've got a lot to do in the office at the moment. I really haven't got the time to go out to the countryside.”

“That's fine. It doesn't have to be right away,” the rep explained.

“I don't think I can get away for a while. It's not looking very promising.”

There was absolutely no way that Asai could go to that part of Nagano Prefecture. What if he met the two men who had given him a lift in their car the night of the murder? The middle-aged man in the woollen jacket – the driver – was definitely on the board of the local agricultural cooperative. He'd mentioned they were on the way home from a meeting about the rice acreage reduction policy. He could well be one of the members who wanted to solve their farming community's financial problems by turning to the food manufacturing industry. If Asai went to Suwa, he might find himself face to face with the two men. He was sure they'd attend that sort of event. They might even be among the organizers.

That night on the road in Fujimi, he'd been wearing his dark glasses as a precaution, and it had been dark, so they probably hadn't got a good look at his face. But if they saw him again, it might reawaken some memory. And they'd had a short conversation while he was sitting in the back seat. They might well recognize his voice. And, even
if they didn't recall his face, there could be some other physical characteristic of his that had left an impression in their minds. The safest move was to refuse. There was no need to put himself in a dangerous situation if it could be avoided.

“That's very disappointing. Is there really no way you can make it?”

“No, not this time.” Asai knew he was being brusque.

“Please look at it from my point of view. Last time, you agreed to go to Yamanashi Prefecture, just next door. How am I going to explain to the Nagano members that you won't visit their prefecture? They're going to ask why you'll go to Yamanashi but not to Nagano.”

It was true that he had given a series of lectures in Yamanashi at the start of autumn that year. Now he wished he hadn't. But that was before he'd smashed Konosuke Kubo's skull with three rocks at the foot of the Yatsugatake mountain ridge. Obviously, it hadn't been a premeditated act. If it had been, then he would never have gone to Yamanashi first.

He knew he needed to come up with an alternative.

“I'll find somebody to go in my place.”

“They really want it to be you. They heard so much about the good advice you gave the people in Yamanashi. I'm here at the request of the Nagano prefectural cooperative, you know. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to give them the message.”

“I'm sorry, but I just can't.”

17

Asai checked the papers every day to see if there was any news about the case. He only had one newspaper delivered to his home, so he would check out the three other national dailies when he got to work.

For the next three weeks, there was nothing new on the subject, although there was plenty of coverage of new crimes. The papers seemed to be full of nothing else. It was as if there was no space available for any reporter who had decided to stick with a story – and perhaps none of them had the patience to see a story to its conclusion anyway. Clearly the editors believed that their readers needed a new story every day to hold their interest.

The Kubo case was now a thing of the past, thought Asai, or at least it was on its way to being. Like so many other murder cases, it would end up buried in some old file and forgotten.

Until now, he had been living in fear of the unseen investigation going on in Fujimi and had immersed himself in his work as a way to forget, but now he felt the pressure relax a little. He was able to get back to normal and breathe more freely. He felt the energy return to his body.

There was definitely no call to go visiting Nagano Prefecture at a time like this. Back on the highway in
Nagano he had made the smart decision not to go back to retrieve the hair-oil bottle, and it was the same deal now – it really wouldn't do to court danger by returning to the scene of the crime. He was glad that he'd turned down the cooperative's invitation. There were other people in the office perfectly capable of giving that lecture.

And then one day in the ministry cafeteria he happened to pick up a weekly news magazine that someone had left lying on a chair and began to flick through its pages. He glanced at a column entitled “News Follow-up”, and his heart lurched in his chest.

The Yatsugatake Murder Mystery is widely rumoured to have been a cult killing committed by the local hippy commune, but recent information has come to light that has set the investigation task force looking in a different direction.

The body of Konosuke Kubo (38), manager of the General Affairs section at R-Textiles, located in Kyobashi, Chuo Ward, Tokyo, was discovered murdered on a country road on the Fujimi plateau in Nagano Prefecture, the morning of Sunday 26 October of this year. The crime appeared to have been committed some time the previous evening. The murderer first threw sulphuric acid in the victim's face then broke his skull with three separate rocks, in what was an exceedingly brutal killing. Mr Kubo met his tragic fate while on his way from Tokyo to visit his wife at the Fujimi Plateau Sanatorium. As nothing was stolen from the victim and it was believed that he had no enemies, the crime was dubbed a “gratuitous murder”, and suspicion fell upon the hippy commune.

There was much talk of this being the Japanese version of the Charles Manson murders, but in subsequent investigations the police established that the hippies had nothing to do with the case. There had at one time been a considerable number of hippy communes in the Yatsugatake area, but, possibly because this lifestyle has recently fallen out of fashion, most of them moved away around the autumn and in fact hardly any hippies remain.

The latest information obtained by the task force was that around 9.30 p.m. on the evening of 25 October, a lone man was seen walking on the prefectural highway in the vicinity of the sanatorium by two members of the local agricultural cooperative, Mr Akiharu Kido (40) and Mr Jiro Haruta (23). It seems that Mr Kido and Mr Haruta gave the man a lift, dropping him off in front of Fujimi station. The man in question appeared to be around forty years old, but as it was dark and he was wearing tinted glasses, the two witnesses didn't get a good look at him. In the course of a conversation that took place in the car, the man claimed to have visited the sanatorium. However, according to police inquiries, no visitors left the sanatorium around that hour. The part of the highway where the man was picked up was very near to the junction with the country road on which the victim was discovered, and the police are currently investigating whether this event could have any connection with the crime.

In the car, the man said he was taking the train back to Tokyo that evening. The victim, Mr Kubo, was also from Tokyo, so it is possible that the man was an acquaintance
of his who had travelled with him to Fujimi, and that he was Mr Kubo's killer. Thus the “gratuitous murder” might well turn out to be a grudge killing after all, and the task force is now thoroughly reinvestigating all of Mr Kubo's professional and personal relationships.

Recently, the press had stopped bothering to publish follow-up reports in the dailies, leaving the weekly news magazines to publish longer articles that covered such cases in more detail. Asai looked at the date on the front page. It was already a week old. He never usually bothered reading this kind of magazine, so this was the first he'd heard of any new developments.

All of his fears came rushing back. Of course; the two men who'd picked him up from the highway had reported it to the police after all. That secure feeling of distance between the killing and himself was gone. It was back before his eyes, in lurid colour.

Leaving his lunch untouched on the table, he gulped down a full glass of water. He had to compose himself, to consider the content of this article calmly. He had to work out whether the information it contained meant he was in imminent danger.

The two men had said that they couldn't clearly see the face of the forty-year-old man because he was wearing dark glasses. That was exactly what he'd supposed, so wearing the glasses had worked. The article hadn't mentioned it, but one reason they hadn't been able to see his face properly was that he'd been deliberately looking down at the floor the whole time. He had engineered it so they couldn't see his face. He wasn't surprised that they hadn't
any particular impression of his features, and he was sure there wouldn't be enough for the police to put together an identikit.

It also said in the article that the suspect had told them he was taking the Tokyo train from Fujimi station. To be precise, it was the driver of the vehicle who had mentioned it, assuming that Asai was travelling back to Tokyo. Asai had done nothing but murmur in agreement, and then the older man – Akiharu Kido, member of the agricultural cooperative, according to the magazine – had begun discussing Tokyo train times with the younger Jiro Haruta.

At the time Asai had regretted not telling them he was taking a train in the opposite direction. He'd even been on the point of changing his story, but had decided that being from Tokyo wasn't enough to be identified. The article mentioned that the police believed the suspect was an acquaintance of Konosuke Kubo's from Tokyo, and that they were re-interviewing everyone who knew him. Thanks to the business with the train, Asai had briefly worried that he was in danger. However, he was sure that no matter who the police questioned about Kubo's connections, his name would never come up. No one knew about him. They were going to end up in the same place as before, unable to discover any motive for the murder.

In conclusion: no, he wasn't in any immediate danger after all. At first glance, the article had chilled him to the bone, but now he realized it was nothing. He felt calm again.

Three or four days later, the delegate from the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives came to visit Asai once more.

“Mr Asai, I let the Nagano Prefectural branch know that you couldn't make it. Yesterday they got back to me and said they were dead set on it being you who gives the lectures. Is there any way you can make it work?”

Asai gave the delegate a stern look.

“Didn't you manage to find anyone to go in my place?”

“No. I tried to negotiate it with the Nagano people, but they didn't want anyone else.” The rep simpered a little. “They said it absolutely had to be you.”

“Tell them that I have things to do; I can't just rearrange my schedule to suit everyone. Please tell them ‘no'.”

“You're sure there's no way…?”

“Absolutely sure. There are plenty of other people at my level who are just as capable of delivering lectures.”

“Well, actually, there aren't. We've looked into it, and you're really the only one, Mr Asai. The Nagano cooperative believes you're the ideal candidate.”

“Now come on, I don't need you to pressure me too! I told you, I can't.”

“I'm in a bit of a fix here. Your advice was so well-received in Yamanashi. If you could just pop over to their neighbours and give them a helping hand too —”

“I'm really busy here at the ministry. I can't go on any business trips right now, and that's the end of it,” said Asai. His tone was harsh.

“So when do you think you'll be able to get away?”

Asai struggled to come up with a response.

“I mean, when do you think things will be a little less busy at work?”

“I couldn't tell you. I just can't go. Turn them down, please.” Asai waved his hand frantically in front of his face in an unmistakable gesture of refusal.

It was out of the question for him to go to southern Nagano Prefecture. In fact, not only the south; the whole of the prefecture could be risky. If the lectures were organized by the prefectural branch of the cooperative, then members from anywhere in the region were free to attend.

Akiharu Kido and Jiro Haruta… He had to memorize those names. Especially Kido – he was the older man and likely to be an influential figure in the Fujimi branch. He could show up anywhere, anytime. Asai was going to have to be vigilant.

For the next ten days, there was nothing in particular to worry Asai. The delegate from the Central Union didn't show his face again. As there was no more talk of finding a replacement for him, Asai assumed that the union had sent some sort of technical expert from the agricultural experiment station. It made more sense than sending a bureaucrat like himself. Technology ought to be the domain of the experts.

And then a letter arrived from Kobe, from the president of Yagishita Ham. The first part of the letter laid out the problems facing farmers in Tottori Prefecture. It continued:

There, as elsewhere in the country, interest is moving away from the cultivation of rice, and towards the modern food-manufacturing industry. There are plans under way for a week-long conference on these techniques, sponsored by the union of agricultural cooperatives. They're
hoping to invite some professors from agricultural universities in Tokyo as speakers, along with engineers from some of the biggest companies in the business. They've also asked me if I could get you to come along for just a couple of days. I guess it's because they've heard that you and I are on good terms.

The vice-chairman of the prefectural branch and I have been friends for a while. He's a very good type. He says that your attendance, Mr Asai, as assistant division chief at the Ministry of Agriculture, would lend his conference prestige and encourage more people to attend. He's hoping to have a chance to show you around while you're there. He'd like to take you to Daisen-Oki National Park and the Tottori sand dunes, as well as the famous radium hot springs at Misaki. I know that you're busy, so I hope that this request is not too troublesome…

Yagishita added that he really hoped Asai could fulfil the vice-chairman's request.

The approach came from his old friend Yagishita, and Asai didn't want to put him in an awkward position. He'd never been to Tottori Prefecture, and the thought of being shown around the famous tourist spots was very appealing. To be honest, he wasn't all that busy at work right now.

But there was a problem. If he accepted the trip to Tottori, then the Nagano people would be on to him again. Asai couldn't justify going to Tottori after turning down Nagano. He'd already been asked why he'd been willing to visit Yamanashi but not the neighbouring Nagano. If he were to go all the way to Tottori now, which was much
further afield, there would be huge protests from the Nagano agricultural cooperative.

Yagishita had written that the attendance of the ministry's assistant division chief would add prestige to the conference. So that was it; that was why Nagano Prefecture was also insisting so strongly that he attend their events.

It was flattering to realize that people thought of him that way, but right now it was a compliment Asai could have done without. He realized that although people in rural areas might complain a lot about political interference, they still had a lot of respect for central government authority.

Yagishita called him on the phone.

“I got your reply to my letter,” he began in his trademark gravelly voice. “I understand that you're very busy at the moment, but the Tottori people are desperate to have you come. Is there nothing you can do?”

“I'm sorry,” Asai replied curtly. He knew that Yagishita could be very persistent, so he made his reply as unambiguous as possible.

“It's not for quite a while yet.”

“It's still not going to be possible. The end of the year's coming up, and I just can't make any trips out of the city right now.”

“That's quite a problem.”

“I'm sorry to cause you trouble, but it can't be helped. If some of the professors from Tokyo attend, won't that be enough?”

“Seems that's not going to satisfy them. The Tottori people have heard so many good things about Mr Asai from the Ministry of Agriculture.”

“You can tell me that all you like, but nothing's going to change my mind.”

“There's nothing I can do?”

“Nothing.”

“You don't seem to be in the best of moods today. I'll call back another time.”

“You can call me as many times as you want, but the answer will still be no. It's got nothing to do with my mood. Please tell the people in Tottori it's no use asking.”

“All right, all right. Anyhow… I've got a few things to do in Tokyo, so —”