Hidden Nexus (22 page)

‘Don’t you think that all this might be just a case of an opportunist attack, a mugging, for example?’ suggested
Junsa
Saito.

‘Unfortunately not,’ replied Sergeant Mori. ‘My very first thought when I saw the body of Yamada Eri was just that, but neither her laptop, phone, money or cards were stolen and if memory serves me correctly she had been carrying quite a lot of cash. No! I don’t think this was a mugging unfortunately – not that if it was, it would help us catch the perpetrator.’

‘Muggers don’t usually strangle and murder, either!’ added Inspector Saito.

Junsa
Saito felt a little disheartened by this swift put-down by her new colleagues. She had no time to dwell on her feelings however, as Inspector Saito was swift to issue their new instructions.

‘There are still so many things that we need to check out – mainly at Niigata Kyubin so
Junsa
, can you and Mori go back there and see if you can find anything in Yamada Eri’s computer or paper files to suggest that she was working on anything sensitive. You’re looking for motive. In addition, ask around a lot more about what her last day was like. Apparently she spent the entirety of it in her office but at some point she had sex with someone.’ He blushed slightly as he said this last line, although he didn’t know why.

Junsa
Saito held him with her light brown eyes making him feel even more uncomfortable. She was hanging onto his every word. ‘She wasn’t raped at the scene, then?’ she asked.

‘Apparently not,’ interrupted Sergeant Mori again. ‘All her clothing was intact – skirt, tights, knickers and so on. Her coat was also still fully buttoned. She definitely did have sex that day but the evidence suggests that this was some time before she died and not at the murder scene.’

‘We also need to find out with whom that was with,’ continued the Inspector. ‘I doubt it was Takeda, but put the squeeze on him a bit more. This time make him know that we know that he is lying. It may well be that you will turn up something of more importance – particularly her lover, if indeed that is the right description. Meanwhile I’m off to a YBP shareholders’ meeting which luckily for us is happening today. I need to see the lie of the land as far as they are concerned and I might be able to find out why that merger fell through. So? Any questions?’

‘Only one concerning accommodation,’ mentioned Mori. ‘It’ll be a waste of time if you,’ he turned to
Junsa
Saito, ‘have to travel down from north Tokyo every day, but the station house is fully occupied.’

‘You can bunk down with me, if you want,’ said Inspector Saito without looking up.

‘What?’ Mori looked at his boss with a look of astonishment written all over his face.
Junsa
Saito remained expressionless.

‘You can stay with me!’ Saito this time looked and addressed
Junsa
Saito. ‘We’re only talking for a few days, aren’t we? And anyway we’re short of time, so like you say Mori, it would help to maximise what time we do have.’

‘Are you sure?’ said
Junsa
Saito politely.

‘I wouldn’t say if I wasn’t sure – I have rooms that are empty. It’s no problem. No problem at all.’

Mori shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t convinced. Everything he knew about his superior indicated that Inspector Saito preferred to be alone and he preferred to keep his private self, private. Mori himself had only entered Saito’s house on very few occasions, experiencing each time the customary qualm of semi-apprehension as if he were trespassing within the inner sanctum of a temple's grounds. But if his boss was opening up it had nothing to do with him. It solved a problem after all. He gave
Junsa
Saito a look which said ‘
good luck’.

Junsa
Saito looked awkwardly back.

‘So, what time do you want to meet back here?’

Saito glanced at his watch. ‘About six!’ He then quickly left, once again failing to pick up his gloves and scarf.

‘Are you really ok with that arrangement?’ asked Mori as he and
Junsa
Saito walked down to the parking bay.

‘It’s fine. It’s convenient.’

Mori gave her a look that suggested that it probably wasn’t fine even if it might be convenient.

‘No, really, it
is
fine, I like Inspector Saito. He’s soothing.’

Mori raised an eyebrow. He’d never heard Saito described in such a way. He opened the car and they got inside.

‘He reminds me of my father,’ continued
Junsa
Saito after they had got going.

‘You’re joking, right?’

‘No. No – not really.’

Mori thought about asking her more about her father but decided against it. ‘I have to admit I was surprised when he made the offer. He’s a very private man and despite all the years of working together I can’t say that I know that much about him. Except one thing - you do know he lost his wife and children, don’t you?’

Junsa
Saito looked back at him in shock ‘What really? How?’

‘
That’s the point. He doesn’t know – not exactly
.
One version is that she just upped and left him, the other is that they were murdered. Another possibility is that they were abducted.’

‘When did all this happen?’

‘About seven years ago. Apparently, and understandably, he hasn’t been the same man since.’ He looked across at her with a sympathetic look on his face.

‘How terrible! Maybe it’s his sadness that I can feel.’

‘Does sadness soothe you?’

She didn’t reply and instead sat silently for a while, thinking. ‘And he has no clue about what happened?’

‘None what-so-ever and I think it undermines his confidence in himself as a detective. No-one ever says anything but I know there are those who have used it against him – Sakamoto for instance.’

‘The less I know of the local politics, the better! I have my own battles to fight.’

‘Sure.’ Mori gave her an understanding look.

They returned to sit in their own silence with their own thoughts.

Mori had worked with many people over the years but he couldn’t recall ever having sat next to one so young as
Junsa
Saito – he couldn’t recall ever having worked with a female
Junsa
before, but that not-withstanding it hadn’t taken him long to form a positive impression of her. She possessed a focussed simplicity but more importantly there was no side to her. He felt immediately that he could trust his thoughts to her, however stupid, and be confident that they would be treated with respect. He was also confident that they could spark up an effective working relationship over the next few days.

As they drove silently through the streets Mori also reflected that he was much happier with the direction the case was taking and his role within it.
He was always much more content when engaged in
rolling up his sleeves, gathering evidence – doing the donkey work, some might say, and then from a solid base of facts, when he felt comfortable, he could start to build a case. And so it was that he felt immensely pleased that gathering evidence was precisely what he was setting out to do.
  

He only wished his head cold would start to shows signs of running its course. He still felt groggy from the medicine he’d taken the night before and despite the re-vitalisation of the case his movements and thinking were still slow and stiff. Overall though, he felt much more positive.

Junsa
Saito also sat with positive thoughts rippling through her mind. Sergeant Mori had a gentle demeanour about him and she was pleased that with both Inspector Saito and Sergeant Mori there was none of the macho arrogance that seemed to be perpetually on display with other colleagues that she’d had the displeasure to meet. She placed Mori in his mid-thirties. Obviously he was much older than her but she wondered if he was married. He didn’t look married. She didn’t think any wife would send her husband out as unshaven as Mori was and she was sure that his shirt was un-ironed. She didn’t usually act on her cupidic impulses but as she snatched the occasional glance in Mori’s direction she knew that already she had become deeply attracted to him. She smiled warmly to herself and her whole body silently, girlishly giggled at the pleasant thought of getting to know him better.

Monday 3rd January 2:35pm

Mori pulled in, once again, to the Niigata Kyubin compound and with little fuss or obstruction they were directed into Eri Yamada’s office. It was neat, tidy and small.

‘Are you any good with computers?’ Mori nodded towards the rather ancient looking PC on the desk.

‘Not bad.’

‘Okay, I’ll leave you to get with that while I talk to a few of the staff. Call me if you need anything.’

Junsa
Saito turned to face the computer screen and inputted the username and password that she’d been given. As per the nature of the room Eri Yamada obviously was equally as tidy as far as her e-filing went. For the moment
Junsa
Saito ignored these files and instead checked out her e-mail and e-calendar. Both were surprisingly limited which she found strange. From what she'd been told there was also precious little of this information type on her phone, too. She opened the desk drawer to see if there was a diary – there wasn’t one that she could see. She then scanned the rest of the room. Nothing immediately jumped out at her. She found this all quite unusual. Either Eri Yamada wasn’t in the habit of attending meetings or the meetings she did attend, she’d been instructed to keep a secret. Next
Junsa
Saito looked more closely at the kind of e-mail Eri Yamada received. There were quite a few relating to various reports that were needed or information that was requested but none that appeared to refer to anything that she deemed to be crucial or sensitive or secret. Neither did the e-mails refer to any meetings. She wondered if the PC might have been tampered with in some way. The lack of any e-information was frankly unbelievable in her opinion. Finally she glanced over the small bookcase to the side of the desk but it housed nothing more than a series of legal tomes and case study reports which were quite enough of a deterrent to prevent her from looking any further but it was then that she spotted a book-mark ribbon – just a centimetre, poking out from behind the final book in the case. She eased her finger behind it and then with a feeling of elation felt the definite outline of a slim-line appointment diary. Seconds later she had removed one or two of the legal books and had the diary in her hand. Immediately however, her elation dissolved into disappointment as she quickly realised that it was for the previous year and her frustration grew as she flicked through one blank page after another, but then as she approached the month of December a whole series of notes were written down. She stared at the cryptic hand, which stuck to using only the Hiragana script. She read:-

Tuesday 7
^th
J
,
j
–
ˆ
–
w
1700
 

Wednesday 15
^th
u
–
r
1600

Thursday 30
^th
J
,

–
W
1830

---------------------------------------------

Tuesday 7
^th
O, Na –Yo –Pu 1700
 

Wednesday 15
^th
Fu –Hi 1600

Thursday 12
^th
O, Wa –Shi 1830

---------------------------------------------

She sat down scratching her head and then decided to search out Mori to get his opinion. It was the sort of thing that required a sharper mind than hers.

She found him sitting with one of the legal clerks.

He looked up as she approached. ‘I’ve had a brief chat with, er… Miyagi san and now I’m with-’

‘Arai. Arai Haruko,’ said the young woman in front of them.

Junsa
Saito gave a short bow and then sat down beside them both.

‘We’re trying to get a picture of Yamada san's final movements. Do you know much of what she was doing last Thursday?’ asked Mori turning back to face Haruko Arai.

‘She was in her office all day,’ answered Haruko, falling into line with what everyone else had told them.

‘Do you know what time she left the office?’

‘She was still here when I left.’

‘And what time was that?’

‘After seven.’

Sergeant Mori scratched his head. ‘And according to you she never left her office between arriving in the morning at about nine and leaving after seven.’

‘That’s right.’ Haruko Arai smiled innocently back at them.

Mori looked at
Junsa
Saito who looked disbelievingly back at him. He was getting increasingly irritated and increasingly angry and his cold wasn’t helping to lighten his mood.

‘Okay, there’s no other way of putting this, but the time has come for answers. We have clear evidence that Eri Yamada had sex sometime on the day she died. Now unless she sneaked someone into that small room and was fucked over her office table without anyone out here noticing I’d like to hear about it.’

Both
Junsa
Saito and Haruko Arai looked back in surprise at the sudden graphic outburst.

‘Well?’

‘I, I er… don’t know.’

‘You need to tell us,’ said
Junsa
Saito gently.

Haruko Arai looked confused and lost. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘Okay,’ said Mori. ‘I’ve had enough of this! Let’s get Takeda here.’ He stood up quickly, gruffly thanked Haruko Arai for her time and then marched across into Takeda’s office.

‘Let’s get one thing straight!’ he started, poking his finger into the chest of a startled looking Takeda. ‘We can take every file and every folder out of this office. We can confiscate every computer. We can be crawling all over you for the next few weeks until we get the right answers. We can publicly drag this company through the dirt. Do you understand? Now I’m going to ask you a simple question and I expect a straight answer, not the pack of lies you and your staff have been spinning us so far. Now! Eri Yamada had sex with someone on Thursday, but according to everyone here she worked until late, saw no-one that day and then went straight home when she was cold bloodedly murdered. She was fully clothed when we found her. Something doesn’t add up and it’s time for answers!’

‘I don’t know,’ said Takeda slowly. 'I genuinely don’t know.'

Mori slammed his hand hard on the table and thrust his face into Takeda’s in the most threatening way he could muster.
Junsa
Saito looked at him in surprise for a second time in quick succession. She wondered whether she ought to intervene, but opted against it. Sergeant Mori was not so gentle, after all, it appeared.

‘Now!’ Mori grabbed Takeda’s shirt. ‘One last chance otherwise we’ll take you down to the station and you can have a week’s vacation at the government’s expense. I want the truth!’

‘I don’t-’

Mori raised his hand to slap the man.

‘No don’t!’ cried out
Junsa
Saito.

‘Okay, okay, she left at about five to meet the boss, but I swear, after that I don’t know what happened. None of us do. We were just told to stick to the story. For the good of the company - we were ordered.’

‘Right!’ Mori sat back down in his seat. ‘Now at least we are getting somewhere but I think I need to have a chat with your boss, don’t you?’

Takeda appeared even more flustered at this suggestion, wiped his hands on his trousers, not for the first time, but relented all the same and lead Mori and
Junsa
Saito up to the top floor to the office of the senior man.

‘One last thing, sir. What were
your
actual movements last Thursday?’

‘What me?’

‘Yes, you, sir. You look entirely like the kind of snivelling little creep that would have the hots for a colleague. Who’s to say
you
didn’t murder her out of an insatiable jealousy?’

‘You must be mad!’

‘Not as mad as you might think, sir, particularly if you keep giving me the run around.’

‘Well actually it was like I told you this morning.’ Takeda looked up with a smug look on his face.

‘Very well, sir. And I suppose there are other people who can verify your whereabouts?’

He looked uncomfortable – not for the first time. ‘No, not really. When I got home my wife was out and my kids were at
Juku
(night school). But I swear, I had nothing to do with it, I- I…’

‘Thank you, sir. We’ll bear in mind what you have told us. We'll bear in mind that you have no reliable alibi! Now if you don’t mind I want to see what you boss has to say about all this.'

Takeda was quick to disappear once the detectives had been ushered inside Kenji Ozawa’s office.

Ozawa got up from behind his desk and graciously offered Mori and
Junsa
Saito a seat. Mori’s immediate impression of the man in front of him was negative – perhaps driven more by his ill-temper and the perpetual obstructions that he’d had to overcome ever since setting foot in the place not half an hour before.

Junsa
Saito’s first thought was that the man looked strong and obdurate and not your typical company chief exec. If she’d described Inspector Saito as soothing then this man could be described as sour. Certainly the look on his face gave every impression that he was most displeased to have the two of them in his office despite the politeness of their initial exchanges.

‘
I hear you have a problem,’ he stated bluntly.

‘It won’t be me that has the problem if we continue to meet with any more obstacles in this investigation. Frankly I’m amazed that a member of your own staff has been murdered, a member of staff who I believe you worked closely with over the past couple of weeks and nobody – nobody seems the remotest bit helpful, least of all you! Have you no compassion at all?’

Ozawa smiled. ‘Her death was untimely - I have to admit.’

‘Untimely! What kind of statement is that?’

‘Look – Inspector!-’

‘Sergeant!’

‘Sergeant. Look – may I have a private word with you?’

Mori nodded to
Junsa
Saito who without question left the room immediately.

‘Believe me Sergeant, our obstruction as you put it, is entirely honourable, and I might add
frankly
, that if you were so earnest in your pursuit of the truth then I’m surprised that you didn’t call on us earlier. But that is by the by. I
can
give you precise times about Yamada san’s movements on Thursday but there needs to be some sensitivity in terms of
who
we were with - it’s commercially sensitive. I hope you understand.’ He smiled obsequiously in Mori's general direction.