Hidden Nexus (18 page)

If the suspect was a woman, if youngish and
moderately attractive
then it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that Saito would find himself becoming
moderately attracted
– at least for a few weeks until his latent melancholy found a way from out beneath the stone - it was never far away.

‘I think you're right,’ said Inspector Saito eventually. ‘There’s neither motive nor evidence for detaining Yamada. Not even his inability to recall his visit to the convenience store really adds up to much. I think you can discount that. No, from what you say I don’t think you need to be holding Yamada, at all. It’s quite clear to me from what you’ve told me that he had nothing to do with it.’

Any further thought or explanations were interrupted by Deguchi knocking on the door. He bowed when he saw Inspector Saito back in his usual seat

‘Welcome back sir.’

‘I’m glad to be back.’

‘I need a word with Mori, if you don’t mind, sir.’

‘Come on Deguchi. Spit it out man. What is it?’ interrupted Mori.

‘It’s Yamada, sir.’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s just confessed, sir.’

Monday 3rd January 9:00am

Sergeant Mori hastily left the
office leaving Inspector Saito alone to his thoughts. It felt strange to be back and Saito experienced a mix of emotions similar to when he’d first been a freshman just one day out of training - alone and lost in a mysterious building. It seemed strange to see other people
rushing off
and leaving him superfluous in the case and it was peculiar not to be thinking about anything - anything at all. The view out of the door through to the outer office was familiar and yet one he no longer recognised. Officers hurried past the door, some noting that he was present and bowing, others not noticing at all. Saito felt quite redundant and quite abandoned.

He had half an hour till he was due to report to the Chief Super and so with nothing else to do, to fill the time, he opted to read through Mori’s report on The Yamada case. Together with what Mori had already told him it didn’t take too long till he felt as if he was fairly quickly up to speed with things. Mori had returned, only briefly, leaving a copy of Yamada's statement for Saito to, unofficially, browse through. He was pleased that Mori had taken the time out to include him – it touched him more than he expected.

Despite Hideki Yamada’s willingness to confess Inspector Saito had severe doubts as to the veracity of his statement. Like Mori he struggled to locate a suitable motive and there were a number of things that, quite simply, didn’t add up – most notably the fact that Yamada’s green suit was impeccably clean and the fact that his tie was also in pristine condition. This was definitely not the murder weapon that Yamada had insisted on saying it was. He’d also stated that he’d murdered his wife on account of his discovery of her affair with Kubota. Well that was all a load of nonsense for a start - albeit it was quite possible that she was indeed having an affair with someone as yet unknown.

Saito was all too aware of several reasons why Yamada might have been prone to confess, the most common of which was that he had capitulated in order to escape the stresses of confinement. His confession would have been given in the belief that an implied reward such as being allowed to sleep, eat or go home would soon be given. Linked to this were some classic forms of psychology relating to conformity, compliance, and obedience where despite Yamada knowing that he was innocent his perception had been that the short-term benefits of confession outweighed the long-term costs - a loss of reputation, conviction, and incarceration. A skilled
interrogator could dangle this kind of incentive in exchange for compliance and confession and Saito knew all too well that Sakamoto was highly accomplished
in these approaches. Although Yamada had been detained for just three days he’d been submitted to some pretty intensive questioning and although this couldn’t amount to anything approaching coercive interrogation it was still cause enough for someone to desire release.

Secondly there was a growing amount of evidence that suspects came to believe they committed a crime through a state of confusion where they developed a profound distrust of their own memory that rendered them vulnerable to manipulation from external cues, usually a fingerprint, blood or hair sample, eyewitness identification, or failed polygraph - even if that presentation was false.
Many actual suspects had stated that the reason they had confessed was that they perceived themselves to be trapped by the weight of evidence against them. In such a situation, an authority figure would claim a privileged insight into the individual’s past, and with the individual being isolated from others they would be in a heightened state of malleability and Saito had noted the classic use of the false affidavit relating to the affair which, put together with actual, incontrovertible evidence of semen could conceivably have lead Yamada to become confused, to doubt himself and to therefore make a false confession.

A third factor concerned the use of minimization where interrogators trained in the skill minimized the crime through a process of providing moral justification or face-saving excuses for the crime, making a confession seem like an expedient means of escape. Interrogators were trained to suggest to suspects that their actions were spontaneous, accidental, provoked, peer pressured or otherwise justifiable by external factors.

Saito had to smile at the accuracy of Mori’s report where he had been quite careful to note Sakamoto's approach.
 
In most cases he knew Mori would have applauded this approach, typically in cases where there was a weight of circumstantial evidence but nothing actually conclusive. On these occasions, Mori too, had employed every trick in the book. It was clear to Saito however, that Mori felt utterly uncomfortable in the present situation with Yamada and he was increasingly coming to agree with him.

Undoubtedly the intensity of time spent in custody, the suggestion of a lover, the supposition that it was understandable, that a crime of passion was somehow excusable, that he had time and motive - all this had been done to manoeuvre Yamada into a state of being that was no longer based on reality and Saito increasingly began to suspect that Yamada
had
indeed been coerced in some way.

It was not, after all, surprising that he'd confessed.

Monday 3rd January 9:30am

‘Filing! You’re putting me onto filing!’ groaned Inspector Saito looking unbelievingly into the eyes of the Chief Superintendant.

‘It’s either that or foot-slogging under Sakamoto and Mori and I know which one I’d rather choose and if I’m any judge of you, I know which one
you
would rather choose as well. And anyway, it’s an important task and will bring you up to speed with what we’ve been doing these past few months.’

‘Well, yes, you’re right there.’ Saito was barely appeased and allowed his darkened expression to reveal his inner feelings.

‘I never get this trouble with Sakamoto, you know,’ grumbled the Chief Super. ‘I instruct him what to do, he bows, and he's quickly on his way. There’s no back-chat with him a
nd
he plays it entirely by the book. Need I remind you that I expect the same from you!’

Saito allowed the Chief Super to lecture him some more before he girded himself to respond. It was difficult for him to conceal his severe disappointment at the involvement of Sakamoto in his absence even though it was largely inevitable and completely beyond his control. ‘I can’t believe you’ve let Sakamoto have the run of the place,’ he eventually muttered, thinking that his words had fallen harmlessly to the floor.

The Chief Super looked up quizzically. ‘He’s not exactly having the run of place, as you put it, and anyway, why? What have you got against Sakamoto?’

But Saito didn’t really know. All he did know was that he felt deeply uncomfortable.

‘He gets results!’ continued the Chief Super.

‘Confessions, don’t you mean!’

‘Yes, well… But rather that, than have you running around on wild goose-chases, not logging your destination and becoming a suspect in your own murder case!’

‘But Sakamoto, sir, he’s a-’

‘He’s a what?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

Saito looked down glumly at his fingers.

‘Look Saito. I want a team approach here, don’t forget that. We all work together. I shouldn’t need to remind you. I don’t need any more bad press for the section. The whole episode was embarrassing for everyone. Not just you, you know. We had Tokyo all over us for weeks thanks to you.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I do apologise for all that.’ He bowed once more to the Chief Super.

‘Look.’ The Chief Superintendant ever so slightly changed his tone to one that was a few degrees milder. ‘Are you sure you really want to come back? Retirement is only round the corner, you know. I’ve been checking up on my own pension. It’s a good time to get out.’

‘Really, sir? Are you trying to get rid of me?’

‘No, no, not at all - you’re a very good Inspector-’

‘It’s just that you don’t want me putting my head above the parapet.’

‘Exactly!’

‘You want me to be an asset not a liability and a team player, part of the group, part-’

‘-I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

The Chief Super was pleased at the reaction he was getting from Inspector Saito noting, with relief, that a stake that stuck out of the ground eventually had to get hammered down whatever its stubborn resistance. Like everyone else over the past few months he’d had plenty of time to consider the actions and general approach of one of his most senior men. It had been well-noted that Saito was a loner, unorthodox and some said contaminated by his sabbatical year taken ten years ago when he’d been in America. That experience had altered Saito’s perceptions completely. Since that time he was even less of a team player, even more likely to challenge the cosy, unspoken, democracy of the group and certainly quite clear that he no longer wanted to resort to physical threats or forced confessions.

He’d become even odder after the disappearance of his wife and children – perhaps understandably.

Not that the Chief Super was fooled for one minute that a few ingratiating comments could mask over the real Inspector Saito. Still, it was pleasing, at least, to hear him say the right things even if these words would only be fleeting, before they disappeared into the ether.

Saito also sat thinking to himself. It was clear what the real subtext to all this was. ‘So you think you’re in line for promotion then, sir. Is that it?’ he guessed.

‘Pardon?’

‘Promotion, sir! There must be a promotion in the offing if you are even more bothered than usual about things in the section.’

‘Don’t be so damned impertinent. It’s none of your business, Saito. You attend to yours, and I’ll attend to mine.’

Silence fell across the room once more, but Saito was glad to have said his piece. Before his suspension he’d become increasingly frustrated with his Chief Super and even though it was going against the grain to be so forthright and to criticise not only colleagues but also superiors as well, Saito had considered it well worth the risk. But perhaps the Chief Super was right. Perhaps it was time to pick up his pension and leave the service. He’d attempted his own crack at reform. He’d tried to plough a righteous furrow even if his colleagues merely saw him as being a bit odd and a bit out of touch. Quite often Mori had accused him of not being Japanese. Occasionally this rebuke made him laugh, occasionally it gave him inner strength but deep down it disturbed him. At the end of the day he was Japanese whether he liked it or not and the deep groove of his upbringing dictated that it was unpleasant and shameful to be rejected by your peers. It was important to be in step with the group. It was important to be accepted.

He recalled the stick floating down the Azusa river underneath the
Kappabashi.
The simplicity of freedom! He considered asking about the details of retirement.

‘The Yamada case, sir?’ he asked instead.

‘What about it?’

‘Sakamoto’s got it all wrong!’

The Chief Super expressed a deep sigh. ‘And what do
you
know about it?’

‘I’ve been reading the case file – what there is of it anyway. The whole thing is completely half-baked. There’s not a shred of evidence that Yamada had anything to do with the murder of his wife and without an investigation of the other possible avenues it’s ridiculous to attempt to pin the whole thing on the husband.’

‘What other avenues? Sakamoto hasn’t mentioned anyone other than Yamada.’

‘Of course he hasn’t!’ Saito become more animated. ‘But I think it’s a mistake not to look into who she’d been sleeping with on the day she died or at least to piece together her final movements and build up a better picture of her life and activities. From what I can see we hardly know anything about our victim’s background. There are any amount of possible motives surrounding what may or may not have been going on at her work, for example-’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, I don’t know any specifics as such, sir, but it can’t be discounted and certainly not in the way that Sakamoto has approached this.’

The Chief Super stroked his chin. He was weighing up various factors. On the one hand he was unsure that he wanted to precipitate a situation where he had a split team, where his officers were competing against each other, sniping away, instead of being one cohesive unit. On the other he was loathe to expose the department to ridicule. If another case failed to be supported by the public prosecutor or failed to gain a conviction, what the press would have to say he didn’t want to think about and he was also all too aware that the tendency to rely on confession as the basis of prosecution was one that was being increasingly questioned by many different pressure groups across the land within and without the police force.

‘Okay, Saito. I’ll give you three days. If you can find anything to cast serious doubt on Yamada’s confession or uncover any worthwhile leads then…well…’

Saito was completely taken aback by the Chief Super’s about turn. He really must be going for a promotion, he thought. The action he had just condoned was completely unorthodox. He’d never known the like of it before. For the first time in a long time he allowed himself a prolonged smile.

‘Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.’

‘It’s not a question of letting me down,’ the Chief Super growled. ‘It’s a question of having a properly functioning section and… perhaps like you said, having a section that no longer entirely relies on confession. Perhaps it
is
time for a new broom.’

‘And the filing – what do you want me to do, about that?’

‘You need me to tell you?’

‘You’ve felt the
need
to tell me everything else, sir.’

‘Get out!’ barked the Chief Super finally losing his temper.

Inspector Saito quickly removed himself from the Chief Inspector’s office clutching his fist in victory. One last job and then possibly he might pack it all in.