Hidden Nexus (12 page)

Sakamoto looked down at the notes he had been scribbling and flicked back a few pages

‘So you got back home at about 9:00.’

‘I told you that…’

‘I want you to recount your time backwards this time – starting from when you got back home. And give me timings for when you think these events happened. Okay?’

Yamada gave him a quizzical look but relented anyway, ‘I got home about nine. That Samurai drama had just started – the one on NHK, but I only noticed that after I’d changed. I took the usual route home, I think-’

‘You think!’

‘I took the usual route home – it usually takes twenty minutes. I guess I must have left Kamioka station at about twenty to nine, but I can’t be sure. Before that I took the Tokaido line from Tokyo to Yokohama and the Keihin Kyuko to Kamioka. The commute usually takes about an hour. I left work at after seven and probably boarded the Tokaido about half past seven.’

‘What time did you take the Keihin Kyuko from Yokohama?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There’s quite a lot you don’t know, isn’t there?’ said Sakamoto firmly. ‘And this still leaves out about ten minutes. You can’t explain this.’

‘No.’

Sakamoto looked across to Mori with a satisfied grin on his face. Mori had listened intently as Yamada had recounted his journey. It was a common gambit they often used. Liars had a habit of coming up with inconsistencies when they were forced to recount backwards. Not so with Yamada. There were no inconsistencies in terms of his re-telling of his journey. To Mori’s mind this indicated that he was telling the truth. But it was strange that he’d made no attempt to make up the missing ten minutes of time. He did though know that Yamada had left his office at twenty past seven, as had been confirmed by his colleagues that morning.

‘How long does it take from your office to Tokyo station?’ asked Mori.

‘About ten minutes. It depends how fast I walk.’

‘We’ve been looking into your wife’s phone records,’ lied Sakamoto. ‘Do you know who Kubota Ryuhei is?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Your wife made quite a few calls to him.’

‘She is – she
was
a busy woman.’

‘Even at one-thirty in the morning!’

‘Like I said – she was a busy woman.’

‘She wasn’t having an affair, then?’

For a moment Hideki Yamada flinched and similar to the evening before a slight flash of anger flickered across his tired features.

‘I wouldn’t blame you,’ consoled Sakamoto.

‘What?’

‘I wouldn’t blame you – I mean, if you’d lost it. Quite often in cases like this the woman brings it on herself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She was having an affair! Isn’t that right? The phone records prove it and we can easily get this Kubota in and get him to confirm his sordid relationship with your wife. Just imagine it. I can. She’s having an affair right under your nose and you knew nothing about it. I can imagine how you’d feel. It would make me feel very angry, very angry indeed – disappointed, betrayed, angry, murderous!’ Sakamoto thumped the table as he uttered these last words.

Yamada visibly jumped.

Mori could spy anger behind his eyes, although he couldn’t determine whether this was aimed at Sakamoto or in agreement with what Sakamoto was saying.

‘That’ll do for now,’ continued Sakamoto. ‘We have Kubota to talk to and then we’ll come back and have another little chat. I’ll let you think.’
 
He smiled, got to his feet and exited the interview room.

Once out into the corridor Sakamoto turned to Mori.
‘Like I said – guilty,’ he stated firmly.

‘That’s fine, sir, but what’s your evidence?’

‘He has no firm alibi and by his own admission his journey home took longer than it should have, leaving him plenty of time to carry out the crime. All we need to do is find that tie and have it analysed and also check forensics for any trace evidence left at the scene. Simple!’ he said smiling and slapping Mori uncomfortably on the back. ‘When we confront him with the forensics watch him crumble. He’s put up a good act so far, I have to admit.’ And so saying he marched out of the room and into his own office.

Friday 31st December 11:40am

Kuroki Akira, night-watchman at Nippon Denki had finished his shift at precisely six in the morning, having started at ten the night before. It was not unusual for him to actually stare fixedly on the second hand of the clock as it ticked around to the twelve and it would be fair to say that time, as a consequence, inescapably dragged its heels. Come six, or sometimes, irritably a little after six, he’d perform the solemn duty, as he always did, of handing over the main keys to the Estates manager when he started his own day. It had been policy that no one man retain possession of the keys, nor to leave them hanging invitingly on a peg within a convenient office.

He’d spent the early hours of the bitterly cold morning making his usual rounds. He’d never quite got used to the extreme quiet of the night shift and that particular morning the peace had been even more intense as if the falling snow acted as a dampener to snuff out all possibility of any sound echoing into the night.

It was a straight-forward trip home. He took the bus from just outside the factory gates and then the train to Byobugaura. Due to the time, his journey coincided with those starting work and so it involved squeezing into the gradually filling carriages, hoping that a seat would be available for him and attempting to read the morning paper encumbered by the backs and elbows of the passengers that accompanied him. He usually arrived home at just after seven.

He’d just about got used to the strangeness of this reverse life – with his evening being everyone else’s morning. He hadn’t always been a night watchman and had only taken the job after his wife had died. They’d had no kids and so it was just him rattling around on his own in an empty life. He’d needed something to do and despite retiring two years before, at the age of sixty four had opted to take up what had been termed ‘light duties’ with Nippon Denki.

One of the many annoying things he’d found, and now also grudgingly had to get used to, was that there was never anywhere to eat at this time in the morning – at least not of any great variety. The places that were open only catered for the morning appetite. He’d therefore got into the habit of buying things the evening before and re-heating them the next day. The other annoying thing was that there was also limited variety on the TV menu to-boot. All these little bothersome little things he had one by one had to get used to.

It was past eleven o’clock in the morning therefore before he finally got to bed and around quarter past before he finally dropped off into a restless slumber. He’d constantly tossed and turned and when he had ended flat on his back, open mouthed and snoring like a top class trombone player, he’d jerked himself rudely awake and found his mind had reverted back to notions concerning what he thought he had, or had not seen that night – it left a most unsettling feeling within him.

As he lay in bed, quite awake now, his mind attempted to recreate what he’d seen and tried to pull together the shadowy images that flitted temporarily onto the empty screens of his retina. It was all the more disturbing, precisely because he felt he
had,
he thought, seen something unusual.
Yet,
this ‘something’ continued to elude him, despite on several occasions, having it tantalisingly in his grasp before it fizzled away like light being caught within a black hole.

Friday 31st December 11:45am

For his part Hiro Watanabe had not wallowed in idle self-pity, wasteful introspection nor been tempted down the road of intoxicated release. He had been sharp to mobilise his team, what was left of it anyway, and had issued what he hoped was a well worded statement to every media outlet he could think of. He was unequivocal in his rebuttal of the allegations, declared that he had no knowledge of the kiss-and-tell woman in question – after all how could he? He had been with his wife during the time the woman had said they were having unbridled and passionate sex. The whole story was a pack of lies and he was considering taking legal advice to sue ‘
Nikkan Gendai
’ for making the tasteless assertions.

During the construction of this delicate barricade he did then wonder whether or not he had been too hasty in his sacking of Kinjo, after all the two of them had been together for longer than he could remember and without Kinjo’s ability at speech-writing and general organisation he might suffer in the long-run. Kinjo had been loyal when others had left the fold. Kinjo had been there during all the twists and turns in his political career. It felt wrong that he would be without him from now on in.

But then again Kinjo had been acting strangely recently – ever since the meeting with Hatoyama his mind had seemed elsewhere. It was undeniably
that
whole business that had caused the change in Kinjo’s behaviour, that and his possible double-dealing and courting of the Ryozo. On consideration it was entirely right that he had sacked Kinjo.

In terms of the woman though, he would have to take action. No-one crossed Hiro Watanabe and came out a winner. He would have to seek retribution, but that would be risky. If any harm came to her then suspicion would be bound to fall on him. No! Revenge, or at least some kind of action, would have to come, but how? How indeed!

Fifteen minutes later Hiro Watanabe, after taking some pretty rapid decisions, walked down Ginza High street with the intensity of a man on a mission - his haste only diluted by his inability to make speedy headway through the shop-keepers shovelling the snow from the sidewalk and the subsequent piles of snow and slush which they created. Both were obstructing the pavement. He passed by the usually
shining,
upmarket shops barely wasting a first glance, never mind a second, at the numerous high-priced items displayed within their window fronts. He shuddered as he walked, despite wearing a long, thick woollen over-coat and he was looking forward to getting back into the warmth. He wasn’t an outdoors person, never had been, preferring the smoke-filled cordiality of the bars and meeting houses of the political class.

He did however, pause momentarily outside a Japanese paper shop and feigned interest in the multitude of colours and types of paper on show. He caught a brief whiff of the paper’s particular vibrant smell snaking out from within the interior. It was a smell he didn’t particularly like – a cross between dust and perfume. As casually as he could he looked up and down the street. There was no-one following him – of that he was sure, and there was no-one that he recognised. He only hoped that no-one had recognised
him
. He was after all an eminent politician now infamous for his extra marital affair.

At a fairly innocuous entrance he ducked to the left, tapped his shoes on the first step to loosen the snow from his soles, went up a flight of stairs to the first floor and entered a coffee shop, selecting an out-of-the-way table towards the back and the corner of the room. He quickly looked around and satisfied himself that it was free from prying eyes. No-one had so much as twitched an eye-lid as he’d entered. He took his seat, ordered a coffee, placed the flimsy, leather briefcase that he’d been carrying on the seat beside him and then waited.

He was desirous that this particular meeting should be executed with the minimum of fuss and with the minimum of time expended. It was precisely on occasions like this that he valued Kinjo’s involvement – it was precisely this kind of escapade that Kinjo was expert at concluding. But Kinjo was no longer available and he felt utterly unable to trust anyone else with this particular ‘mission’. It was therefore with high levels of discomfort that he sat as inconspicuously as he could, knowing that he’d been forced into a position that was entirely laden with risk and was somewhat beyond his field of experience. He chewed at his lip. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had to walk anywhere so used was he to being chauffeur driven and as for sitting alone in pokey little coffee shops - well, he couldn’t ever recall a time when he had. He was definitely out of his comfort zone.

Kinjo usually took care of all the dirty work.

He thought again about his former colleague and the many services that he had offered. He recalled, with only a residue of fondness now, the time when Kinjo had broken into the headquarters of a rival faction in order to delete an incriminating e-mail that a third party had sent or the occasion when Watanabe had been sleeping over at the Faction apartment with a young woman he’d picked up, only for his wife to burst unexpectedly upon the scene. Kinjo, who’d been in the room next door, had managed to substitute himself for Watanabe just in time, while Watanabe had hid in the futon cupboard. It was true that he had been indispensible over the years. Indispensible and trustworthy – until now! It made it all the more painful that he’d had to dispense with him and even more disagreeable to have to listen to his pitying whining as he’d finally exited the office, still asking for forgiveness.

None had been given.

Watanabe had been steadfast. Once the trust was gone you never got it back. Not with Watanabe.

His coffee arrived and he took a few tentative sips after which he poured in the cream. It was a peculiar ritual that he had adopted for a reason that he no longer knew. As he sat he examined the people around him but with no real intent. He was far too consumed in his own business and too obsessive about himself to be really, remotely interested in anybody else, particularly the average nobodies that frequented such a place as this. It was comfortably crowded and thankfully, he noted once again, none had eyes for him – at least so he thought. He glanced at his watch – it was five past twelve – past the designated time. He cursed to himself, wishing once again that Kinjo could have been on hand.

Eventually the person he’d been awaiting came in. They took great care not to recognise each other and the new arrival sat at a table that was in full view of Watanabe. As agreed they kept their back to him.

He took alternate sips of coffee and iced water and then after finishing about half his cup Watanabe stood up briskly and left the shop. The briefcase he had been carrying remained on the seat.

The other arrival, on seeing Watanabe leave, then changed seat to the table that Watanabe had just vacated, apologising to the waitress for any inconvenience. They then proceeded to drink their own coffee, accompanied by a hot pancake with whipped cream. Ten minutes later they too left the coffee shop with the leather briefcase securely tucked under their arm.

A transfer of money had just taken place or more succinctly put – a pay-off.