Hidden Nexus (17 page)

Monday 3rd January 7:30am

Inspector Saito looked up at the building before him. It was familiar enough, one that he had been in a thousand times and yet he hesitated at its entrance. It had been almost three months since he had stepped through its doors. He had, of course, been suspended and in a way that only the 'system' knew, the time that it had taken for them to gather the relevant facts, to review and hear his case had been stretched out beyond that which was believable. Suffice it to say he had been going almost mad with impatience while the cogs within the ‘system’ slowly turned. The situation at times had not looked good but Saito’s position had been consistent and clear. Eventually they saw to it that he would be cleared of any charge but be that as it may the whole process had taken over three months to complete.

Needless to say it was with an element of trepidation that he entered HQ that Monday morning. In all his adult working life he’d never so much had more than a week off at one time, never mind three months.

Despite his impatience he had not been idle. Every cloud had a silver lining and so it was that he had applied himself to the permanent mystery in his life – the disappearance of his wife and children over seven years ago, a mystery that he had come nowhere near to solving.

They had left Yokohama during the Golden Week holiday intending to go on a hiking trip to Kamikochi in the North Alps but had never returned. He'd searched in vain for them, spent every spare moment treading and re-treading their intended route, even treading and re-treading their possible unintended routes. But to no avail. They were meant to head out to the
Kappabashi
, the Kappa Bridge, a wooden suspension bridge and symbol of the mountain resort. It was a superb scenic area with deep forests of Japanese larch all around. The Kappa Bridge trek was a popular one for Saito and his family.

But he wasn't even certain that they'd made it to the mountain resort of Kamikochi.
Had they been abducted on the way? Had they wandered off the track? Had she simply just left him, taking the kids, with the whole hiking thing being just a ruse? He didn't know. Probably would never know, although he vowed never to give up until he had found out the truth about their disappearance.

The whole tragedy had effectively destroyed his life, although he did his best not to show it, but undeniably it had robbed him - of humour, of energy, but most importantly of hope. He had attempted to carry on as normal, but inside he was an empty, broken man. He knew he was often more distracted, distant and depressed. He couldn't help it. He knew that his drinking had exponentially increased since that day. And every dead body he found reminded him of his own loss.

The massacre and the mystery - was this all life had to offer?

He had travelled once more to Kamikochi, but this time stopped to focus the attention of his research in the city of Matsumoto. This picturesque castle town nestled in the gateway to the Japanese Alps and boasted a surprisingly metropolitan atmosphere whilst at the same time clinging to its history, mainly on account of the impressive black structure that stood proudly in its centre - the 400 year old
castle
. In spring, the cherry blossoms complemented beautifully its sloping black roof.

He knew that his family would have had to change trains in Matsumoto which was why he had decided to spend some time in the city. If truth be told he didn’t find much. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for. If nothing else his visit served to place another layer of memories on top of his previous visits - another layer which deadened the stabbing pain that he had first experienced at re-visiting favourite places where keen family memories were incessant in crowding into his mind. Now all he recalled were his previous solo visits which although sad and lonely came nowhere near to the initial pain at those first troubled searches. But as before, as with every occasion before, he found nothing, heard nothing and had no eureka moment where a flood of ideas or lines of enquiry flowed freely into his mind.

Once more he found himself back up at the
Kappabashi
throwing sticks into the cold water and watching them float effortlessly downstream. Sometimes he wondered if he wanted to become that stick – to float in freedom, without guile or worry, in essence, to retire. But he was too set in his ways to change his life now. It was only the job that really kept him sane, however maddening the various cases that were presented to him might be. His suspension had only really served to underline his belief that his place was back at work, behind his desk, behind the case, behind the thinking. In the final analysis it was only the briefest of flirtations with the idea of retiring. It was never really going to happen. Not yet anyway.

Monday 3rd January 8:30am

Sergeant Mori sat in the paper strewn office with his head in his hands.

His suspicions directed him towards the need to interview the management and staff of Niigata Kyubin, but with Sakamoto intent in his one-tracked detaining of Yamada he had little motivation to pursue
his own course of action. In addition his slight indiscretion in questioning Eri Yamada’s parents and Hideki Yamada’s work colleagues and the subsequent delay in his bringing in of Yamada to the station was something that he
did
now regret. Not only had he disobeyed a direct order but he now admitted that he may have inadvertently opened a window of opportunity that presented the chance for Yamada to possibly cover his tracks.

But was it really feasible that Yamada had purchased a replica set of clothing and destroyed that which was incriminating?

He pushed this implausible but nevertheless troubling thought to the recess of his mind and instead concentrated on the important, but less demanding, task of writing up his notes which he’d not had time as yet to formally report on concerning the latest interviews with Yamada and his findings up at Yamada’s house – or rather his non-findings. He tapped away at his computer making more mistakes with his typing than he cared to admit, realising that his mind was really not on the task in hand – not one little bit.

Despite the variety of medicines and massages his head-cold was still streaming and for a fourth day in succession he faced the prospect of endlessly blowing his nose which was already pretty painful from its constant need of attention the days before. He had re-stocked his pile of tissue paper and was ready, once again, to concentrate.

He wondered how Inspector Saito would have approached the problem. They’d had their differences in the past and despite the palpable frostiness surrounding their final conversation Mori still held Saito in high regard. He knew that Saito’s approach was typically one based on intuition
and often wild speculation and while he knew he could never hope to match him in this regard nor fully agreed with this general approach, he wondered if he might give it a go now, for surely the key matter at hand was not just the means that Yamada may or may not have had at his disposal, but more importantly his motivation. But what could his motivation possibly have been?

What could anyone’s motivation possibly have been?

His mind was still not really accepting of the task ahead of him but nonetheless he allowed himself to consider several possibilities working on the assumption that most murders that took place within a marriage usually centred around love, or more realistically the lack of love, jealousy and mistrust.

Firstly he speculated that Yamada may have murdered his wife on account of a jealous rage – a jealous rage ignited through the discovery of an affair. There was the faintest evidence that Yamada had a temper - there had, after all, been flashes of anger displayed during their questioning, but Mori’s instincts
led him to believe that this was quite natural given the grief-stricken circumstances. From what he could determine of Yamada’s personality, which wasn’t much he had to admit, was that he didn’t come across as a jealous, angry or violent type. Yamada’s colleagues had confirmed as much and besides which Sakamoto had already played this card with his introduction of the fabricated Kubota and the factual evidence of semen in his dead wife’s body. This didn’t seem to have made much difference to Yamada’s countenance at all. He just didn’t seem the kind to submit to a jealous rage.

Not one that they’d yet uncovered, anyway.

Secondly Yamada may have murdered Eri as
he
was having an affair himself. Perhaps he’d asked for, but she’d refused, a divorce and murder was the only way to sever all ties with her. But again, as with scenario one, there was no evidence to suggest that he was having an affair. Yamada
had
been evasive about answering questions concerning his sex life. The most they could squeeze out of him was that their sex had been ‘the usual’. Beyond that Yamada had been reluctant to go. Perhaps this was entirely reasonable. Most people's sex lives could be described as functional and unremarkable, he guessed, and most people would be reluctant to disclose intimate detail concerning the frequency and nature of their love-making. And again, no-one at his work place had hinted to even the slightest piece of flirtatious action with any of the female staff. Yamada, it appeared, was a straight up and down sort of character – dependable, trustworthy and work-focussed. Mori as a consequence dismissed this scenario out of hand.

Thirdly could they have had an argument over the lack of children? Maybe she’d become pregnant and then aborted. It was a possibility. He’d known of cases where the male had sought revenge – a life for a life as it were, but this scenario, as with scenario one depended on violent undercurrents in Yamada and again, he thought this unlikely. It was still a possibility, however, and one worth checking.

Finally he considered any motives to do with money and he tapped his fingers on his lips as he poured over the potential of this new avenue. They’d not had chance to delve into bank accounts or the prospect of debt – not that this would necessarily lead a man to murder. Theft maybe, but not murder, and as he’d already discovered there was no money that would come to Hideki Yamada through inheritance or life insurance… Life insurance! He sat up abruptly in his chair. Could that be a possibility? Debt and Life Insurance!

Pleased at his musings, having stumbled upon at least two motives where previously he thought he could see none, he committed himself to check out bank accounts and insurance policies and perhaps even to call in at Eri Yamada’s local doctor, before he returned once more to his report writing. He was halfway through his final one and was busy correcting yet another error when the door opened and looking up he saw the familiar face of Inspector Saito looming over him.

‘What have you done to the office?’ Saito demanded - an unconventional a re-introduction as Mori could recall. He looked around wondering what the Inspector could be referring to. ‘Nothing… nothing at all,’ he finally said.

Of all the phrases he thought he would utter on Saito’s return, ‘Nothing… nothing at all.’ had not been top of the list. Over the past few months he’d wrestled with no little guilt concerning his role at Saito’s suspension. The whole episode had been prickly to say the least and the two had not spoken since the day in Saito’s house when Mori had given his boss the unwelcome news.

‘It looks different.’ Saito still seemed intent on discussing the state of the office.

‘Oh – you mean the new monitors.’ Mori pointed at the new flat screens. ‘I’d forgotten about them. They installed them about six weeks back and the hard drives have also been removed. It’s all ‘cloud technology’ now and remote access…’

‘Hmm…’ Saito appeared not to be listening any more.

‘Don’t you like it - the office?’

‘It’s fine, fine…’ Saito paused and still stood uneasily at the door as if he was afraid to enter such completely unfamiliar territory. ‘So how are you, anyway?’ He finally moved inside and towards his old desk.

‘Actually, sir, I’m glad you’re back. It’s good to see you.’ Mori stood up and bowed a long deep bow. Saito bowed in turn.

They settled back into their chairs and looked at each other over the top of their PC screens.

‘Busy then?’ asked Inspector Saito.

‘We’re busy alright, but I suppose you'd expect nothing less. You may have heard we're on the Yamada case – strangulation.’

‘Yes – I read about it. No real leads yet, it said, except maybe the husband.’

‘We’re holding him.’

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘If I’m honest, I don’t seem to be seeing eye-to-eye with Sakamoto. He’s convinced of his guilt.’

‘Sakamoto!’

‘Yes, he’s taken over what would have been your case-work in your absence.’

‘I pity you.’ Saito banged his hands on the arm rest of his old, black leather chair as if to reaffirm his authority – over the chair, at least. ‘Not that you were exactly seeing eye to eye with me a couple of months back.’

Mori grimaced. ‘I know, sir, but well…’ He gave Saito a look of embarrassed apology. ‘That’s all water under the bridge now and you know how it is, you never know what you’ve missed until it’s too late.’

‘Hmm… and Narase Ren, how is she? I hope you two are still an item.’

‘Still an item, sir, as you put it. In fact I’ve all but moved in with her. She’s got a much bigger place, not far from the station, too.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Saito let slip a rare smile. ‘I always knew you needed a good woman behind you. She’s not got you shaving, though, I note.’

Mori passed a hand over his stubble. ‘Oh this! I’ve got a heavy cold, that’s all. I couldn’t be bothered to shave this morning and anyway she’s down in Osaka at the moment.’

‘Now you mention it you don’t look so well – shaving apart. Sakamoto working you too hard?'

‘You know, I don’t know what feeling is worse – the cold or the medicine I’m taking. My mother gave me some Chinese stuff last night again. Both just seem to knock me out completely.’

They fell into a slight silence neither knowing how to proceed.

‘And you, sir, how are you?’

‘Fine, fine. You know.’

‘Not really, sir. That’s why I’m asking.’

‘I’m fine. It took me a while to adjust to not working, to get into a different pace of life, whilst at the same time having to account for my every action on that night in September. But I’m glad that’s all behind me now.’

‘I should have done more at the time-’

‘No, no. You were just doing your job. Don’t worry about it.’ Another silence quickly followed on the tail of the last. It was apparent that Saito wasn’t prepared to talk about it.

‘And Miyazawa Naoko?’ asked Mori.

‘Don’t ask.’

Inspector Saito didn’t want to talk about much, it appeared.

‘Okay, sir. I won’t.’

Mori returned to his typing wondering at what point his relationship with Saito had become so awkward. Early days though he consoled himself. The man was barely through the door.

‘So tell me more about this Yamada case? I take it that you don’t agree with our friend Sakamoto.’

Mori proceeded to tell Saito about his thoughts on the case or more particularly Inspector Sakamoto’s thoughts on the case.

‘I thought that was your style,’ said Saito when he'd finished. ‘Bringing in any old odd and sod and unrelentingly questioning them before you even have any evidence. Don’t tell me that my views are beginning to rub off on you.’

Mori ignored the comment. It was a constant cause of disagreement between the two men. ‘So what do you think?’ He was keen to get them into areas of agreement.

With men, and particularly husbands Saito usually appeared surprisingly sympathetic, especially if they were the kind of husband who worked all hours to earn a pittance. He was less forgiving for the powerful and the arrogant.