7. Chance or Design?

1

‘Very sorry to bother you. I just have a few questions to ask – on rather a strange subject,’ began Mihara.

‘Of course. Please, ask away.’ Yasuda offered him one of the cigarettes that were left out on the table for guests, before taking one for himself and lighting both with his lighter. Yasuda had a calm, easy manner. He must have been around forty, with round, rosy cheeks, slightly curly hair and large, friendly eyes. He seemed to glow with all the confidence of a successful businessman.

‘Well, it’s in relation to the double suicide involving Kenichi Sayama, the assistant section chief at Ministry X. I’m sure you’ve seen it in the papers.’

Yasuda nodded emphatically as he puffed on his cigarette. ‘Oh, I didn’t just see it in the papers. I knew Mr Sayama personally – we did business together. My company supplies machinery to Ministry X, you see.’

Mihara hadn’t realized that Yasuda’s company was connected to the ministry.

‘Such a shame, isn’t it? Mr Sayama was a good man, a real professional. I never would have thought him the type to get involved in a love suicide,’ said Yasuda. His words seemed laden with genuine feeling.

‘Yes. About Mr Sayama …’ began Mihara. He reached into his pocket and then, after some hesitation, decided not to pull out his notebook. ‘A waitress at the Koyuki restaurant told me you saw him boarding a train with a woman at Tokyo station.’

‘Indeed I did,’ said Yasuda, leaning forward. ‘It was early evening, and I was on my way to Kamakura. The waitresses from the Koyuki came to see me off. That was when I saw Mr Sayama and Toki on the platform opposite, about to board the express. I pointed them out to the waitresses. I knew both of them separately, so it came as quite a surprise. I never would have suspected they were intimate like that. I remember thinking to myself: it really is a small world.’ Yasuda was squinting slightly, perhaps because of the cigarette smoke. ‘Little did I know they were off to meet their deaths. All very sad, really. Just goes to show that romance is best enjoyed in moderation, don’t you think?’ Yasuda flashed a charming smile.

‘Mr Sayama never visited the Koyuki, then?’ asked Mihara.

‘No, I don’t think so. I often take clients there, but never Mr Sayama. People start to talk if you go around inviting government officials to dinner.’ He laughed. ‘And I’m not just saying that because you’re with the police. The ministry is in hot water these days, what with the bribery scandal and everything.’

‘It’s been suggested that Mr Sayama committed suicide to take the heat off his superiors. Do you think Toki could have gone along with the suicide out of sympathy?’

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ replied Yasuda. His expression seemed to imply that such speculation was Mihara’s job, not his. ‘But it did surprise me that the two of them were involved with each other. I had no idea!’

‘Did you know Toki well, then?’

‘Well, she usually served my room at the restaurant, so yes, you could say I knew her quite well. Not in the way you might be thinking, though. Our relationship ended at the door of the Koyuki. So I suppose you could say I knew her without really knowing her. After all, I didn’t even realize she was Sayama’s mistress.’

Mihara had one more question, an important one. ‘Do you often go to Kamakura?’

Yasuda smiled, briefly showing his teeth. ‘Well, yes. My wife lives there.’

‘Your wife?’

‘She has tuberculosis, you see. We’ve been living separately for a while now. I’ve rented her a house in Gokuraku-ji, with an elderly maid to look after her. I drop by to see her about once a week.’

‘You must worry about her.’

Yasuda bowed slightly to thank him for his concern. Mihara felt there was something else he should ask but couldn’t put his finger on what it might be.

‘Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you like this,’ he said, getting to his feet.

Yasuda also rose from his seat. ‘Not at all. I’m not sure how helpful I’ve been, but if there’s anything else I can do, please don’t hesitate,’ he said, his round eyes narrowing as he smiled again.

Outside, the weather was fine. As he walked along the street, Mihara thought: Yasuda knew about that four-minute interval. He must have discovered it during his frequent trips to see his wife in Kamakura. Or at least, that has to be a possibility …

2

Back at the office, Mihara went to see Inspector Kasai. He was there not to make a formal report but simply to explain his theory of the four-minute interval, believing it might be of interest. He also mentioned his meeting with Yasuda.

Kasai was even more intrigued than he’d expected. ‘Sounds like quite the discovery,’ he said, clasping his hands together on the desk. ‘That completely passed us by, didn’t it?’

Seeing Kasai’s excitement, Mihara took from his pocket the diagram he’d made of the movements of trains at platforms 13, 14 and 15 between 5.57 and 6.01. He handed it to Kasai, who inspected it carefully.

‘I see. Yes, that all makes sense. You know, this is very good work,’ he said, looking up at Mihara.

It’s not me you should be praising, thought Mihara, it’s Inspector Torigai of the Fukuoka Police. Without that hint from the veteran detective, he would never have discovered any of this.

‘The question now is whether these four-minute witnesses were there on that platform by chance or design.’

Four-minute witnesses. Chance or design. Mihara had to admire the chief’s way with words. Kasai asked him to run through the details again, then wrote down the following.

1. Yasuda invited the two waitresses from the Koyuki out to an early meal, and thereby got them to accompany him to Tokyo station.
2. Yasuda kept looking at his watch, even when they were eating at the restaurant.
3. They arrived at platform 13 just in time for the four-minute interval.
4. It was Yasuda who spotted Sayama and Toki, before pointing them out to the waitresses.

Once Kasai had finished writing, he studied the piece of paper carefully, tapping his pencil against his cheek like a schoolboy.

‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment. ‘There’s no way this happened by chance. Yasuda must have planned the whole thing.’ Kasai had an excited glint in his eyes.

‘Sir, this changes things, doesn’t it?’

‘It does.’ Kasai’s reply seemed almost automatic, but then he closed his eyes as if to think. After a moment, he called out to a nearby detective: ‘Listen – Ministry X buys machinery from a company owned by Tatsuo Yasuda. Find out how deep their relationship goes, would you?’

‘Understood,’ said the detective, taking the name down in a notebook as he left.

‘Now, let’s see …’ Kasai looked back over his notes carefully, then lit a cigarette. ‘If Yasuda did plan the whole thing, the next question is why.’

People only laid plans they expected to benefit from. What did Yasuda stand to gain by creating witnesses to Sayama and Toki’s departure?

‘He needed a third party to witness the scene,’ suggested Mihara, after some thought.

‘A third party?’

‘Yes. It wouldn’t do for Yasuda alone to see them. There had to be someone else.’

‘Are you saying Yasuda wasn’t a third party to all this?’

‘That would be the implication,’ replied Mihara, with a look that said that in fact it was all but certain. Kasai seemed lost in thought.

‘Let’s run through this again,’ said the chief eventually. ‘Sayama and Toki committed suicide near Hakata. They left Tokyo on an express train. Yasuda arranged for two women to see them boarding the train together, creating these third-party witnesses you mentioned. Hmm, this doesn’t make sense …’

Mihara knew what Kasai was getting at. If the pair in question were planning to commit suicide together anyway, it seemed pointless to create witnesses to their departure. Did this mean, then, that Yasuda had something to do with the suicide? If so, what? Mihara was asking himself the same questions.

‘In any case, there’s more to this than meets the eye.’

‘Indeed,’ replied Kasai, nodding. ‘When you gather the facts, they all point to Yasuda having planned this. But the motive is missing. Every plan needs a motive but, right now, it’s not clear what Yasuda was trying to achieve.’

‘We just need to work out why he thought this plan necessary in the first place,’ said Mihara.

‘You’re right,’ replied Kasai. The two men looked at each other excitedly. ‘Any idea why Yasuda would deliberately aim for that four-minute interval when the Asakaze is visible from platform 13? If all he wanted was to show them the train, couldn’t he just have taken them straight to platform 15?’ he asked, as if testing Mihara.

‘That part I’ve figured out. Platform 15 is only for long-distance trains, so taking them there would have seemed too deliberate. Far more natural for him to say he was going to Kamakura and show them the train from platform 13. The reason he took such care over the four-minute interval was precisely because he wanted everything to seem entirely unplanned.’

Kasai smiled, which meant he agreed. ‘Ah, by the way, we’ve heard from the guard who was on the Asakaze on the fourteenth of January.’

‘Oh?’ said Mihara, leaning forward.

‘Unfortunately, he doesn’t remember any empty seats. Says it’s too long ago to recall. Fat lot of use, wasn’t he! If only he’d remembered, we’d know where Toki got off that train.’