Tatsuhiko Seshima. Tsuge recognised the name; it belonged to a detective who had worked in Theft.
He was fifty. A kind, sociable man, these traits had eventually brought him down when he’d ended up sleeping with the wife of a man he’d sent to prison for larceny. He’d been expelled from the force as a result. Thirteen years had passed since. He’d jumped from one job to another before finally landing himself a role as ‘strategist’ in Ukai’s electoral committee. Many of the political parties were firm believers in the benefits of having someone from the force on the payroll. They saw it as a kind of insurance. Yet the last election had shown just how little protection this afforded. Seshima had lost his job and currently worked as a salesman for an import-car dealer.
Having learned this much about the man’s background, Tsuge left to pay the man a visit in City I. They’d already spoken on the phone. When he’d told Seshima he wanted to talk about Ukai, the man had invited him to make the trip over.
His home was nicer than expected. A handsome woman in her forties, perhaps the larcenist’s wife, came in gracefully with a tray of tea. Tsuge realised he was nervous as he sat on the couch, knowing he needed to be cautious. Seshima might have been police, once, but he was a civilian now. There was no telling where the information might end up if he let it slip that he was out for something to pin on Ukai.
‘I warned them not to, you know. But Toyama was panicking, kept saying we’d lose the election unless we did something. That’s when they started throwing money around.’ Assuming Tsuge was there to discuss the events of the past, Seshima began to give him the lowdown.
‘Ukai knew about the bribes, of course.’
‘Ukai? Not at all. He was kept in the dark about the whole thing.’
The defensive tone came as a surprise. Seshima had been fired from his role in the committee so Tsuge had naturally assumed he’d hold a grudge. That didn’t seem to be the case.
‘He might not look it, you know, but the man’s a coward. He was shaking when Second Division came through the door. I was, too, mind.’ Seshima’s lips approximated a smile, but it fell short of reaching his eyes.
‘I’ll bet he really hates the force.’
‘Ukai? I don’t think so. Now, I can’t comment on what goes on inside that head of his, but I’ve never heard him criticise the police. Not once.’
‘Hmm.’
There was silence as Tsuge considered this. Seshima muttered something, a name.
‘Who?’
‘Junichi Yamane. I don’t suppose you know what he’s busy with these days? I heard he’d switched to First Division.’
Of course. Seshima would want to catch up on news regarding his old colleagues in Criminal Investigations. Tsuge decided he would humour him for a while. He didn’t know much about current investigations, nor did he recognise the majority of names the man gave him, but he managed nonetheless to satisfy his curiosity with a few inconsequential snippets of information. Tsuge felt himself relax. At least a part of Seshima still considered himself to be an officer of the law.
‘There’s something else I’d like to ask, if you don’t mind?’
‘Sure.’
‘Do you know of anything that might compromise Ukai’s position?’
‘Compromise his position?’ Seshima looked up.
‘I need to find something I can pin on him. It’s a matter of urgency.’
‘Why? What happened?’
‘He’s planning to take revenge, for the election.’
‘No way. He’s too much of a coward to do something like that.’
‘He’s already made his intentions very clear.’
With this, Seshima’s certainty seemed to waver. He seemed to weigh something up before he opened his mouth to speak again.
‘There is, I suppose, a woman . . .’
Tsuge’s mind worked hard during the drive back. Kinue Taiyo. Works at a nightclub. Ukai had been involved with the woman for three years, and this despite the fact that his wife had passed away only a year ago. Still, it didn’t seem like it was enough. It could still be rationalised as a relationship between two consenting adults. The one sticking point, perhaps, was the fact that the woman was a worker at a nightclub. Even then, it seemed to fall short as a countermeasure, regardless of how he tried to present it.
There was something else that had caught his attention – Seshima’s assessment of Ukai’s personality. Tsuge’s impression, after half a year of working with the man, was of someone who was difficult but practical. Yet he’d come across as headstrong and obstinate since declaring his intention to attack. And Seshima had described the man as a coward. None of the descriptions seemed to match. It was as though Ukai were in possession of three separate personalities. There was no doubt that he had suffered at the hands of the police. Yet Seshima had argued that the man lacked nerve, that he would never position himself against the Prefectural HQ. The latter, at least, seemed to tally with Tsuge’s own impression. Not once had he seen in Ukai anything to suggest that the man harboured a grudge. And yet he had declared his intention to attack. And now, some four years on from the election.
Tsuge lit a cigarette.
He crushed two, then three, stubs in the car’s built-in ashtray. The cabinet meeting was only three days away. Time was growing short, and he’d learned nothing of Ukai’s true intentions, or about the nature of the explosive in his possession. The question. The captain being forced to apologise. The numbers on the digital clock seemed, in that moment, like those on the timer of a bomb.