Nocturne of Remembrance (17 page)

Mikoshiba focused on one particular item in the attachment. The hint he’d gotten the previous day had a good chance of being related to the locale.

“I am going on a business trip, right now.”

“Right now,” Yoko repeated his words with a sigh.

She was quite familiar with how her despotic employer went about his work, and Mikoshiba wasn’t about to let her complain. “Decide on your own what you can do while I am away. Let me know if you have any problems.”

“Your destination?”

“Kobe. Well, I might have to visit her natal home, too. Not sure when I will be back at the office.”

Saying just that, Mikoshiba started to prepare for the trip. Yoko seemed to have some questions, but as her boss proceeded with his preparations without uttering a word, she made a resigned face and let out a sigh.

—
1
—

“Akiko Tsuda. Visitor.”

At the sound of the prison guard’s voice, Akiko twisted her upper body.

“Your family is here.”

When she asked, he replied that it was her father-in-law and Rinko.

She simultaneously did and did not want to see them, but her body moved on its own and followed the guard, from the cell, through the inorganic hallway, to the meeting room, where Yozo and Rinko were already sitting on the other side of the acrylic panel. This was her first time seeing Rinko since being transferred to the Tokyo Detention Center, and her heart certainly filled with emotion.

A mother’s feelings interfered with enduring her current predicament. For a moment, Akiko felt mad at Yozo for allowing Rinko to accompany him.

Seeing her mother, Rinko approached the acrylic panel and nearly pressed her face against it. “Mommy!”

Hearing Rinko’s voice for the first time in a while shook Akiko’s resolve. She bore it and sat down.

“You seem to have lost a bit of weight, Akiko.”

Yozo was peering at her with concern. She didn’t mind being seen without makeup, but not wanting to betray that her heart was about to break, she spontaneously tilted down her head. “The food here isn’t very high in calories … Um, how is Miyuki?”

“She’s still staying shut up in her room, it seems. Apparently she takes three meals a day, though in small portions. Physically there’s
nothing to worry about.”

“I make her food, Mommy.”

If Rinko did, then at best the dishes were microwaved, but that was several notches better than Miyuki not putting anything in her stomach at all.

“Is there anything you want us to get for you? Food? Pastry? We can’t bring anything directly, but I was told that we can buy things for you at the store here.”

Within these walls, food wasn’t as hard to come by as fresh underwear, but she’d already purchased some at her own expense. She wouldn’t hang on her father-in-law for such a thing in the first place. “There isn’t anything in particular that I want. I’d be obliged if you just took care of Miyuki and Rinko.”

“Whaaa? I’m the one who’s taking care of big sis,” Rinko objected and pursed her lips. It was her signature gesture, which only made being cut off from her by an acrylic panel seem terribly unreal.

“By the way, regarding the new lawyer Mikoshiba.” The name that came out of Yozo’s mouth immediately got Akiko’s attention. “He seems entirely different from the previous sensei. He’s so committed that he even came to my house. How did you find him, Akiko?”

“I didn’t find him. There was apparently an agreement between Mikoshiba-sensei and the previous attorney Horai-sensei … I only signed the papers approving it.”

“Huh. So it wasn’t some connection you had.”

“I didn’t know him.”

Yozo knitted his eyebrows at Akiko’s reply. “Well, he isn’t after money. What you or I could afford in legal fees is a mere pittance for him. So I asked him what kind of payment he was expecting, and he answered that he’s doing it for the publicity.”

“Yes, he said the same thing to me.”

“But I don’t get it. True, this case got major coverage in the papers and on TV, but after the first trial’s verdict, there’ve been other big cases and it’s hardly being picked up now. I can’t imagine how taking
on the case at this point wins him any publicity.”

Yozo was quite right, and Akiko sank into thought. She still couldn’t forget her first impression of him in the meeting room. His tenacious, calculating eyes—no man with such eyes would toil out of compassion or charity. He had to have some other objective.

“Did he ask you for anything other than fees?” asked Yozo.

“Nothing in particular. He did say, though, that while I could tell any lie to the police or the prosecution, I needed to tell him the truth.”

“There’s only one way for him to get any publicity from accepting the case as he says. That is to win it for you.” Yozo was gazing at Akiko pensively. “Right now our side stands to lose, but if the appeal trial results in a reversed decision, the case will be back in the spotlight. That would grant him his so-called publicity.”

“A reversed decision …”

“Not just a reduced sentence. If what he seeks is publicity, he will go all out to get a not-guilty verdict.”

A not-guilty verdict. Akiko wondered if it was some kind of joke, but Yozo’s eyes were dead serious. She also knew that her father-in-law wasn’t the kind of person to spout baseless conjecture. “You believe in that attorney?” she asked.

“There isn’t a lot that I gained from all those years as a schoolteacher, but thanks to working at the Board of Education, the Teachers’ Union, the PTA, and such, I did develop an eye for people. Akiko, that lawyer is outrageously capable. Putting aside his nature, his skills as a lawyer are worth believing in.”

“I believe in Mikoshiba-sensei, too,” Rinko said with obvious pleasure.

“How do you know?” Akiko asked her daughter.

“No matter what, that sensei never treats me like a kid. He doesn’t lie.”

Rinko’s words caught Akiko off guard.

Her daughter was still very young, but oddly clever. She immediately grasped the character of anyone that she met, for instance.
Perhaps her sharpness when it came to people had skipped a generation from Yozo.

While that father-in-law and daughter said that they trusted the man, Akiko, on the contrary, was wary of him. And she knew exactly why.

All three of them understood that he was an excellent lawyer. Yozo and Rinko, who had nothing to hide, accordingly had faith in him, while Akiko, who was concealing a certain fact, only felt trepidation. It made absolute sense.

That was the thing with intelligence; the sharper it was, the more it threatened to become double-edged. Akiko wasn’t sure yet if Mikoshiba’s smarts would serve her as a knight’s sword or as the grim reaper’s scythe.

“Mommy.”

“Yes?”

“Mikoshiba-sensei is a good person.”

“Even if we can’t say that for sure,” her grandfather seconded, “under the circumstances we have no choice but to rely on him. Let’s bet on that man, Akiko.”

“Yes …”

Yozo wasn’t convinced by his daughter-in-law, who could only nod, and looked at her suspiciously again. “There isn’t anything that you are hiding from me, is there?”

“Why would I …”

“You seem rather cautious about Mikoshiba-sensei. Isn’t that because you’re keeping something from him and me?”

Yozo’s penetrating look pierced right through her. Akiko felt like he was seeing through to the bottom of her heart and instinctively looked down. Her father-in-law’s robust intuition put her on pins and needles. Come to think of it, he’d been like that ever since she’d gotten married. He’d catch on to Shingo’s behavior time and again without having witnessed it directly. Maybe that was to be expected from a father, but it had more to do with his keenness regarding people. Hiding
something from him took one heck of a poker face.

What Mikoshiba didn’t know, her father-in-law must not, either. This was a secret she could share with no one.

“Oh right, Mommy. Mikoshiba-sensei said the same thing. That you’re hiding something.”

She knew it—she had to watch out when it came to that man. From just a little prep and their exchange at the trial, he’d realized what it was that she was bearing.

“I probably seem that way to you, Father, because I’m not that familiar with him yet. I’m not hiding anything.”

“I do hope so.”

“Mikoshiba-sensei even came to our house, Mommy.”

“To the house?”

“Because he took me back home. He also said hi to Miyuki and looked around the house.”

Anxiety instantly swirled in Akiko’s head. Her attorney, who was supposed to be her only ally in court, felt like a worse threat than the police. She asked her daughter, “Did he say anything in particular when he looked around?”

“You know, he said that he could tell that Daddy was the odd one out.”

“And then?”

“I told him that nobody went into Daddy’s room because it was his workplace.”

“He didn’t say anything else?”

“Uhm. He asked Yoko in his office to get Mommy’s family regi-something something.”

“The family register …”

That was unexpected. Was Mikoshiba prying into her past?

As far as she could tell, her past and the case weren’t directly related. Why on earth was he looking into it?

She had once heard from someone that, as a general rule, only you or your family had access to the family register, but that lawyers
were an exception and could obtain it, too. It wasn’t something that she could fight and prevent, but she felt inordinately anxious about Mikoshiba getting his hands on a copy.

“Anyway,” Yozo said, “it’s still a long ways to the appeal trial’s verdict. Take care of yourself so your will doesn’t flag before the end. And I’ll try to drop by regularly, too.”

“Thank you very much,” Akiko said, bowing her head deeply.

Though they were family, Akiko had murdered the man’s son. She couldn’t be grateful enough to Yozo for being so considerate towards her when by all rights she should have been his sworn enemy.

When the visitation time was almost over, Rinko pressed both hands against the panel and said, “It’ll be fine, Mommy. You have me and Grandpa and Mikoshiba-sensei on your side.”

More than Rinko’s words, Akiko was captivated by how tiny those hands were.

Even after she bid the two of them farewell and returned to her one-person cell, she couldn’t put out of her head the fact that Mikoshiba was checking her family register. She’d thought carefully about this case, and testified circumspectly too, in her own way. Thanks to the detectives and prosecutor in charge asking the same questions over and over again, she could even trace over the facts as if they had been arranged on a timetable. It meant that her statements in court had become her own weapon.

Yet that man, Reiji Mikoshiba, was digging up a spot she hadn’t even thought of, like some hound that was on to a scent that humans couldn’t detect.

But what was it that his nose had sniffed out?

Without being able to completely kill her unease, Akiko leaned against the wall of her cell. She’d never imagined feeling such awe and fear for her own lawyer.

A connection between the case and her past—there couldn’t possibly be any. But if Mikoshiba was looking into it, there was probably some piece there that Akiko, herself, had missed.

She had an inexhaustible amount of time to think about it. Might as well go slowly back into her memory. She’d at least try to remember to the point where images and voices from her past coalesced.

On the deepest level of her memory was a red-leather school backpack, so it was probably something that had happened when she entered elementary school. She could not go back any further than that. It was as if a jet-black wall blocked her thoughts. Most likely that was the limit of her memory.

She learned later in her life that she had been born in Fukuoka City. Her place of birth was also on her certificate of residence when she obtained it to take her employment exam, but she had absolutely no recollection of that part of her life.

“This is your new home.”

Akiko’s mother took her very young hand and went into their new apartment. Inside, her father was in the midst of unpacking their things.

The apartment’s layout was a so-called 3LDK, composed of two bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. The bedrooms were only about a hundred square feet each, so the place wasn’t very large. Even so, it was spacious enough for little Akiko and her parents.

“A new life in a new home,” Akiko’s mother said as if she’d just been exorcised. From her demeanor, it was more or less clear that their prior life hadn’t been ideal.

Akiko, too, felt liberated and said, “I hope I can make friends quickly.”

Akiko’s father stopped unpacking and put his hand on her hand. He tousled her hair with his thick fingers, and it felt good somehow.

The new life that her mother spoke of was not in the least bit metaphorical. Akiko’s parents had jobs waiting for them in this new world. Her father would manage a restaurant chain’s local branch, and her mother would work in childcare like before.

“You’ll have to stay home alone in the beginning, but be patient,
Akiko. It will take me and Mom a while to get used to our new jobs.”

“Okay.”

Although Akiko was a bit anxious about it, she could only nod back since her father looked so sorry. Still, she didn’t look up for a long time because she didn’t want him to see her face.

Both of her parents left home early for work and came back late. It was past 8 p.m. when her mother finally got home, and her father often only came home after she was in bed. Thus, once Akiko got back from elementary school, she was alone at home for four hours.

It would be a lie to say that she hadn’t felt lonely. She had just changed schools, did not have any friends, knew none of the neighbors, and on top of it everyone spoke in the unfamiliar Kansai dialect. Inevitably, her sense of isolation only mounted. She felt like she’d been left behind in a foreign country.

She was also continuously assailed by a sense that something was missing. She felt as though someone had always stayed by her side before. She didn’t know who it was, and the person’s name and relationship to her were both unclear, but there had definitely been someone. At the point where Akiko’s memories began, however, there wasn’t a peep of the person, which was just bewildering.