4. The Man from Tokyo

1

Torigai was standing in front of the fruit shop at Kashii station.

‘Can I ask you something?’

The shopkeeper, a man of about forty who was busy polishing an apple, turned to look at him. Shopkeepers weren’t always the most helpful people when questioned in this way, but when Torigai added that he was with the police, the man became more attentive.

‘How late do you stay open in the evening?’ asked Torigai.

‘I close around eleven.’

‘In that case, would you be able to see the passengers when they come out of the station at around nine thirty?’

‘Nine thirty? Definitely. There’s a train that gets in from Hakata at twenty-five past. The shop isn’t very busy at that time of night, so I keep a lookout for potential customers.’

‘I see. Then I wonder if, around that time on the evening of the twentieth of January, you might have spotted a man of around thirty, wearing Western clothes, and a woman of around twenty-five in a kimono and winter coat?’

‘The twentieth, you say? Hmm …’

The shopkeeper nodded thoughtfully, but Torigai realized that the question might be difficult to answer. The twentieth was quite some time ago, and the shopkeeper probably wouldn’t remember the exact date. He decided to change tack.

‘Did you hear about that double suicide on the beach near here?’

‘You mean the bodies they found that morning? Yes. People talked about them. It was in the papers, too.’

‘That’s right. They found them on the morning of the twenty-first, so the twentieth would have been the night before. Ringing any bells?’

‘Ah!’ The shopkeeper slapped his thigh through the thick apron he was wearing, which was printed with the shop’s name. ‘If it was the night before, then yes. I did see a couple like that.’

‘You did?’ Torigai’s eyes lit up.

‘That’s right. I remember because the next day there was all the fuss about the bodies on the beach. There were only ten or so people on the nine twenty-five that evening. That train is never that busy, you see. And among them was a couple just like you described, a man in Western clothes and a woman in a kimono. I thought they might be the type to buy some fruit, so I kept a pretty close eye on them.’

‘And did they buy anything?’

‘No, they just hurried past and disappeared down the road towards the Nishitetsu station. I was a bit disappointed. And then, the next morning, there was all that commotion about the double suicide! I did wonder if it could have been them.’

‘Do you remember their faces?’

Torigai looked intently at the shopkeeper, who was rubbing his chin as he tried to think.

‘Well, they were pretty far away, so they were just these two dark figures against the bright lights of the station. I couldn’t really make out their faces. The newspaper had a photo of the man who committed suicide, but I couldn’t be sure it was the same person.’

‘I see,’ said Torigai, his shoulders drooping slightly. ‘What about their clothes?’

‘I don’t really remember those either. I just saw them walking off in that direction, and the only thing I can recall is that the man was wearing an overcoat and the woman a kimono.’

‘You weren’t able to make out the kimono’s pattern?’

‘Not at all, I’m afraid!’ replied the shopkeeper with an apologetic smile. Torigai felt a little discouraged.

A customer was in the shop, looking at the oranges. He seemed to be listening in on their conversation.

‘When you say they were walking towards the Nishitetsu station – that’s the same direction as the beach, isn’t it?’ asked Torigai.

‘That’s right. That road takes you all the way to the beach.’

Torigai thanked him and left the shop. This could all be useful information, he thought as he walked. His instincts had proved correct. Standing in front of the station, he had thought the fruit seller might have spotted something, and he had been right. It was a shame the shopkeeper hadn’t seen their faces, but Torigai felt sure the pair in question had been Sayama and Toki. They had arrived that night on the 9.24 from Hakata. In that case, they would have boarded the train in Hakata at around 9.10.

It had been just after eight when Sayama received Toki’s phone call and hurried out of the inn. In that case, where had the two met, and what had they done in the hour or so before boarding the train at Hakata? This would be difficult, if not impossible, to discover. In a city as big as Fukuoka, there would be simply no way of knowing where to start.

As Torigai walked towards the Nishitetsu station, lost in these thoughts, someone called out to him from behind.

‘Excuse me!’

Torigai turned around and saw a young man who looked like he might be an office worker approaching with a bashful smile.

‘Are you with the police?’

‘I am.’ Torigai saw that the man was holding a bag of oranges and realized that he was the customer who had been in the shop.

2

‘I was buying some oranges and I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation,’ said the young man. ‘That couple you were talking about – I saw them too, at around nine thirty on the night of the twentieth of January.’

‘You saw them too?’ Torigai’s eyes widened. Looking around, he spotted what looked like a small café and invited the rather hesitant man to follow him there. Then, sipping a black, sugary liquid that he had been assured was coffee, he looked intently at the young man.

‘Tell me what you saw.’

‘Well, I’m not sure how much use this will be,’ said the man, scratching his head. ‘It’s just that I overheard you talking in the shop and thought I should mention it, just in case.’

‘I appreciate it. Please, go ahead.’

‘I live around here, but I commute to an office in Hakata,’ he began. ‘On the night before they found the bodies – the night of the twentieth, that is – I also saw two people who might have been the couple from the suicide. They arrived at Nishitetsu Kashii station at 9.35.’

‘Just a moment,’ said Torigai, holding up a hand to interrupt. ‘You mean they arrived on the Nishitetsu line, not the main line?’

‘Yes, on the train that leaves Keirinjō-mae at 9.27. It gets here eight minutes later.’

Keirinjō-mae was in Hakozaki, east of Hakata. Hakozaki had been the site of an important battle during the Mongol invasion, and there were even remains of a fort dating from that era. Nearby flowed the Tatara river, and Hakata bay could be seen through the pine trees.

‘I see. And did you see them on the train?’

‘No, not on the train. The train had two carriages. I was in the rear one. There weren’t many passengers, so if they’d been in my carriage I would have noticed them. They must have been in the front one.’

‘So where did you see them?’

‘I’d gone through the ticket gate and was walking home. I’d been drinking in Hakata and was a little tipsy, so I was walking quite slowly. A few passengers from my train had already overtaken me. They were all locals, and I knew them by sight. But there was also this couple I didn’t recognize, walking past me at a brisk pace. The man was wearing an overcoat, and the woman a kimono beneath a winter coat. They headed off down the deserted road that leads to the beach. At the time, I paid no attention and turned down the side road that takes me home, but the next morning there was that incident at the beach. The papers said they died around ten o’clock that night, and that’s when I realized it could well have been them.’

‘Did you see their faces?’

‘As I said, they overtook me and were walking quite quickly, so I only saw them from behind.’

‘What about the colour of the man’s coat, or the pattern on the woman’s kimono?’

‘I couldn’t see that either. The lighting is pretty dim on this street and, like I said, I was a little tipsy. I did hear the woman say something, though.’

‘You did?’ Torigai’s eyes gleamed. ‘What did she say?’

‘Just as they walked past, she said to the man: What a lonely place.’

‘What a lonely place …’ Torigai repeated in a murmur. ‘And what did the man reply?’

‘He didn’t say anything. The two of them just kept on walking.’

‘Was there anything distinctive about the woman’s voice?’

‘Well, I’d say it was pleasant-sounding. And she spoke in standard Japanese rather than the Hakata dialect. People round here don’t talk like that. She sounded like she was from Tokyo.’

Torigai took a cigarette from a crumpled packet and lit it. The pale smoke drifted into the air while he thought about what to ask next.

‘That train you were on – was it definitely the 9.35 into Nishitetsu Kashii?’

‘Yes, I’m sure of it. Even when I’m out late drinking in Hakata, I always make sure to get that one home.’

Torigai paused and thought some more. What if the couple that had walked past this office worker were in fact the same couple the fruit seller had seen getting off at the mainline station? The office worker hadn’t actually seen them on board the Nishitetsu train. He’d simply assumed they had been, because they overtook him just after he left the station. The mainline train arrived at 9.24, and the Nishitetsu train at 9.35 – a gap of eleven minutes. The two stations were about five hundred metres apart, and if you got off at the mainline station and headed towards the beach, the road took you past the Nishitetsu station. If it was the same couple, then both the route and the timing seemed to add up.

‘Well, that’s all I have to tell you,’ said the good-natured office worker. As he made to leave, he looked at Torigai, who was still lost in his thoughts. ‘I just thought I should mention it, seeing as I heard you asking questions in the shop.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Torigai. He asked for the young man’s name and address, then gave a small bow in thanks. Just hearing about that remark by the woman was enough to leave him feeling that their conversation had been worthwhile.

By the time he left the café, it was completely dark.

3

What a lonely place.

The woman’s words, as relayed by the office worker, echoed in Torigai’s ears. It was as though he himself had overheard them.

From this short phrase he deduced three things:

1. The woman spoke standard Japanese, so she couldn’t have been a local. No one from Fukuoka, or even the wider Kyushu region, talked that way. In the local Hakata dialect, for example, the phrase would have sounded completely different.
2. What she said implied that this was her first time in the area.
3. Therefore, she had not been seeking the man’s agreement but rather conveying her initial impression of the place, as if to someone who already knew it well. The fact that the man had not answered, instead pressing silently ahead, seemed to support this idea.

In short, the man had been to the area before, whereas it was the woman’s first time. The woman had a Tokyo accent and had spoken these words shortly before the presumed time of their suicide – anything from thirty minutes to an hour and a half beforehand, depending on whether they had died closer to ten or eleven o’clock. It therefore seemed highly likely to Torigai that the fruit seller and the office worker had both spotted the couple who had committed suicide.

Of course, there was still reason to be cautious. Hakata alone would be home to several thousand people who were originally from Tokyo, and the fact that this couple had been walking near the beach that night might have been a complete coincidence, with no relation to the double suicide. But Torigai decided not to get too caught up in such thoughts. For now, he would assume they were indeed the suicidal lovers.

A cold wind was blowing, and the banners outside the shops fluttered forlornly. Stars glittered in sharp relief against the black sky.

Torigai made his way back to the mainline station. When he got there, he looked at his watch. It was old but kept good time.

He abruptly began walking, as if he had pushed the button on a timer. Hunched over with his hands in his pockets, he made his way briskly back towards the Nishitetsu station, his coat flapping in the wind.

When he reached the well-lit station, he checked his watch. It had taken him less than six minutes to get from the mainline station to this one.

Torigai thought for a moment. Then, glancing at his watch again, he set off back to the main station. This time, he slowed his pace slightly, judging his speed by the sound of his footsteps.

Back at the main station, he checked how long it had taken. Just over six minutes.

He set off once again. This time, he ambled along slowly, studying the houses on either side of the road as if out for a leisurely stroll. When he got to the Nishitetsu station, he saw that it had taken him around eight minutes.

From these three experiments, Torigai concluded that walking normally from the mainline station to the Nishitetsu station would take someone between six and seven minutes.

The couple the fruit seller had seen coming out of the mainline station had been on the 9.24. Meanwhile, the office worker had seen a couple walking from the Nishitetsu station, together with the passengers from the 9.35. An interval of eleven minutes. If these two sightings were indeed of one and the same couple, it had taken them eleven whole minutes to get from one station to the other.

What could this mean? It had taken them eleven minutes to walk a distance that, even walking at a very slow pace, had taken him only eight.

Then he remembered that the office worker had said they had walked past at a ‘brisk pace’.

If they were walking that fast, it should have taken them barely five minutes. Two explanations for the eleven-minute gap seemed plausible to Torigai:

1. The couple had needed to stop on the way – to buy something, for example.
2. The fruit seller and the office worker had in fact spotted two separate couples.

Number one seemed plausible enough, while number two would render the discrepancy in timings irrelevant. Now that he thought about it, nothing proved that both sightings had been of the same couple. Their only common features were that the man wore an overcoat and the woman a kimono. No one had seen their faces or noticed the kimono’s pattern.

In which case, thought Torigai, the pair spotted by the office worker near the Nishitetsu station must have been Sayama and Toki. The woman’s remark was enough to convince him of this.

But he still couldn’t be entirely sure that the couple seen at the mainline station were not the same two individuals. Theory number one seemed just as plausible. Torigai couldn’t quite shake the idea that the two couples were the same.

In the end, he returned to his home in Hakata without reaching a satisfactory conclusion.

Two days later, when he came into the station in the morning, two telegrams were waiting on his desk.

The first read:

KENICHI OFTEN VISITED HAKATA ON BUSINESS

And the second:

HIDEKO HAD NEVER BEEN TO HAKATA

They were replies to the telegrams he had sent from Kashii station. The first was from Sayama’s brother, the bank manager, while the second was from Toki’s mother, Mrs Kuwayama.

It was just as he’d guessed: Sayama had been familiar with the area through his business trips, whereas Toki had come to Hakata for the first time.

A scene formed in Torigai’s mind: the dark silhouette of a man, silently and briskly leading a woman to the beach, and the woman saying: What a lonely place.

4

That morning, Torigai finished some work at the office. Then he took a tram to Hakozaki and walked from there to Keirinjō-mae. The Nishitetsu line ran from this station all the way to the port of Tsuyazaki on the north coast, passing through Kashii along the way.

It was a sunny day, and unusually warm for winter. Torigai headed to the stationmaster’s office, where he showed his police ID.

‘What can I help you with?’ asked the corpulent, ruddy-faced stationmaster from behind his desk.

‘On the twentieth of January, a train on this line arrived at Kashii at 9.35 in the evening. What time would it have left here?’ asked Torigai.

‘Nine twenty-seven,’ replied the stationmaster, without even pausing to think.

‘I have something to ask the ticket inspector who was working at the gate that evening. Is he here now?’

‘One moment.’ The stationmaster asked his assistant to check the rota. The ticket inspector in question happened to be on duty, so the assistant went to fetch him.

‘Is this for a case?’ asked the stationmaster while they waited.

‘Yes, something like that,’ replied Torigai, taking a sip of the tea they had brought him.

‘Must be hard work.’

A young station employee walked in, stood in front of the stationmaster and saluted.

‘This is your man,’ said the stationmaster.

‘Sorry to bother you,’ said Torigai, turning to the young man. ‘You were checking tickets for the 9.27 on the twentieth, correct?’

‘Yes, I was on duty.’

‘Did you happen to see a man of around thirty wearing an overcoat, with a woman of around twenty-five in a kimono?’

‘Hmm …’ said the employee, blinking. ‘There would have been plenty of men wearing coats. Do you know what colour it might have been?’

‘A dark blue overcoat, and brown trousers. The woman would have been in a maroon kimono under a grey coat,’ replied Torigai, describing the clothes found on the bodies at the beach. The station employee looked off into space, as if thinking hard.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t remember. We usually just look at the tickets when we’re punching them – we don’t see passengers’ faces much, unless something out of the ordinary happens. Anyway, this is the first station on the line, so as soon as we open the ticket gates the passengers all pour on to the platform at once.’

‘Still, I imagine there weren’t too many of them at that time of day?’

‘That’s right. I’d say there were thirty or forty people here – around the same number as usual.’

‘Lots of women wear Western clothes these days – you don’t see many in kimonos any more. Doesn’t that jog your memory at all?’

‘I’m afraid it doesn’t.’

‘Please. Try to remember,’ insisted Torigai.

But, after tilting his head to one side to think, the station employee repeated that he just couldn’t recall. Then Torigai had another idea.

‘Well, when you were checking tickets for that train, maybe there were some other passengers you did recognize?’

‘Oh yes, there were a few.’

‘I see. In that case, could you tell me their names?’

‘Of course. There were three of them, if I remember correctly. I know them pretty well, so I can even tell you where they live.’

‘That would be very helpful.’

Torigai took down the names and addresses, thanked the two men, and left the stationmaster’s office. He had some legwork to do. The three addresses all lay along the Nishitetsu line. Torigai visited three stations in turn: Wajiro, Shingū and Fukuma.

The man in Wajiro told him the following:

‘There were two carriages; I was in the front one. I remember two women in grey coats. One was around forty, and the other must have been twenty-six or twenty-seven. But the people sitting next to them were all young office girls. I don’t remember any man in a dark blue coat.’

Torigai took a photo of Toki from his pocket and showed it to the man.

‘The younger woman. Could this have been her?’

‘No, that’s not her. Her features were completely different.’

The man in Shingū said he’d boarded the train at the rear.

‘A woman in a coat? I can’t say I remember. I think there might well have been, but I fell asleep straight away. I certainly didn’t see a man in a dark blue coat.’ Torigai showed the man photographs of both Toki and Sayama, but he didn’t recognize either of them.

The last of the three passengers, in Fukuma, said:

‘I was sitting at the rear. There was a woman in a winter coat. Yes, she must have been twenty-five or twenty-six.’

‘Was her coat grey?’

‘I don’t remember the colour, but winter coats often are, aren’t they? Yes, I think it probably was. She was chatting away to the man sitting next to her.’

‘A man? What did he look like?’ asked Torigai with excitement, but the reply was disappointing.

‘They appeared to be a couple, although he was quite a bit older – I would say in his forties. He was in a rather dishevelled kimono with Ōshima patterning.’

Again, Torigai took out the photos, but the man didn’t recognize Toki or Sayama, nor could he remember any dark blue overcoat. In the end, having failed to unearth any solid evidence that Sayama and Toki had been on the Nishitetsu train, Torigai returned to Hakata feeling dejected and exhausted.

When he arrived at the police station, the chief rose from his desk, as if he had been waiting for him. ‘Torigai!’ he called out. ‘There’s someone from the Tokyo Police here to see you.’

An unfamiliar young man in a suit was sitting next to the chief, a smile on his lips.