Nocturne of Remembrance (22 page)

“The court is now in session.”

When everyone sat back down, Sanjo immediately turned toward Mikoshiba.

“Attorney for the defendant. Starting right where we left off, you claimed that the accused’s deed was an instance of legitimate self-defense. Among the requisites for that assertion, you were to establish by today the imminence of danger. How did that go?”

Misaki chuckled inwardly. Sanjo was being pretty mean. He seemed to remember the moment when Mikoshiba had fallen silent for the first time during the previous session. Was the judge trying to trip up the defense before it could start arguing at its own pace?

But Mikoshiba’s face was expressionless as he looked back at Sanjo. “In order to prove that, at this time we submit Defense Evidence No. 4.
Because it was prepared just before the session, we could not distribute it beforehand.”

The courtroom clerk handed over the A4-size documents supplied by Mikoshiba to the judges and Misaki.

Another sneak attack
. Misaki looked at Defense Evidence No. 4 with disgust. These were copies of Akiko Tsuda’s medical charts, as well as Rinko’s.

“These are the clinical records of the victim’s family until right before the incident. Both mother and child were taken care of by Dr. Tomoi, who practices in their area.”

Akiko had a questioning look on her face. It seemed that Mikoshiba had submitted the evidence without telling her.

“The period of care was about one year and three months, from October 2009 to January 2011. What I would like you to confirm is the timing and nature of the exams. As you see, the defendant made five, and the younger daughter, Rinko, two visits. All of them were for external trauma. The injured areas varied from cheek, shoulder, side, to shin, but have in common that they were bruised. The defense would like to ask the defendant some questions regarding these facts.”

“You may proceed.”

When Mikoshiba turned to Akiko, she looked surprised and squirmed in her seat. Seeing that, Misaki again had a strange impression. Mikoshiba seemed to be antagonizing his own client as well.

“Defendant. These seven injuries required from at least five days to three weeks to heal completely. Every one of them was from a blow severe enough to leave a bruise. All of these were made by the victim, Shingo, weren’t they?”

“… That’s right.”

I see. So this is how he is going to try to prove it
, observed Misaki.

“The blunt trauma ranged from leaving scars on the skin to impacting bone. If an injury required three weeks to heal completely, it was serious. To use simple math, you endured significant violence once every two months.” Turning to Sanjo again, Mikoshiba continued, “We
might as well say that they were victims of sustained violence. In the previous argument, the prosecution denied the possibility of imminent danger because there was no violence just prior to the incident. But it was chronic, and the defendant and her children would have always been in fear.”

Misaki immediately raised his hand. “Your honor. The defense is replacing fact with inference.”

“It isn’t inference. Any violence grievously scars a person’s body and mind. Unless the memory is deleted completely, it will turn to fear.”

“Defense, please continue.”

“They may not have been beaten just before the incident, but if they were living side by side with fear, then we could say that the defendant resisted the victim to protect herself and her children from imminent danger. Of course, the defendant did go for a box cutter, a weapon. But as in the cases of abuse, it is very doubtful that the defendant could counter the force facing her by merely putting up her fists. As a frail woman she could not help grabbing a knife.”

“Your honor.”

“Yes, prosecutor.”

“The defense’s statement is leading the accused to misrecognize the facts,” Misaki began his rebuttal, his copy of the charts in hand. “The latest clinical record is dated January 12th. The incident occurred on May 5th. In other words, four full months had elapsed since the last instance of violence. The defense holds that the accused was exposed to chronic fear, but we can hardly conclude that it was sustained given a blank of four months. Therefore, his assertion that the crime committed by the accused was in defense against imminent danger is far-fetched.”

Misaki glanced at his opponent’s face, but as he feared, the refutation didn’t seem to be paining Mikoshiba any more than a mosquito bite. It wasn’t clear if he was tolerating a crosscut or if he’d accounted for this level of rebuttal.

Whether or not she felt menaced after the violence had ceased for four months was hard to say. Any judgment as to her action’s basis in imminent danger entirely depended on how it appeared objectively. Misaki flattered himself, however, that he had at least succeeded in offsetting Mikoshiba’s assertion.

“Does the defense have further opinions on the matter?”

“No, your honor.”

Clinging to the point might have hurt him, but Mikoshiba’s response was magisterially lean. Misaki felt like tipping his hat to his enemy.

But so much for your agility on the attack. Now let’s see you defend
.

Misaki raised his hand. “Your honor. I would like to summon a witness for the prosecution.”

“Proceed.”

Since the application for the witness had been approved, the defense already knew. Misaki was sticking to orthodox methods for his part.

A man entered led by a courtroom officer.

He walked with a slight stoop that seemed to be his habit. His expression didn’t betray any nervousness, but his ordinary mid-thirties salaryman air rendered his ease with the setting rather suspicious. Misaki would have certainly found it odd, too, if he hadn’t known the man’s line of work.

The witness’s company had come up in the course of an investigation into Shingo Tsuda’s loan relationships conducted by the Setagaya Station at Misaki’s bidding.

Misaki confronted the man. “Witness, please state your name and occupation.”

“Toshihiko Aoyagi. I am engaged in the financial services business at Tokyo Mortgage.”

“The financial services business—what kind of financial services do you offer?”

“Collateral loans for real estate and securities.”

“In the case of a collateral loan, the amount per person must be quite substantial.”

“Yes. The average per account is about thirty million yen.”

“What kind of relationship did you have with the victim in the case under trial?”

“Mr. Shingo Tsuda was a client that I handled.”

“So your company lent money to the victim. How much?”

“The figure was sixty million yen,” Aoyagi replied in a monotone.

The atmosphere in the courtroom turned just a little tense. Even Mikoshiba’s eyebrows seemed to have risen a fraction. A debt burden of over sixty million yen in the victim’s name was precious ammunition for the prosecution.

“Sixty million yen. I recall that the victim had been unemployed since his termination three years prior. Do you lend such large sums to the jobless?”

“No. He presented himself to us not as unemployed but as a day trader. And the product was a securities investment loan. As long as there is collateral, a client’s income level is only of secondary concern in our screening process,” Aoyagi answered, unperturbed, though he was addressing a prosecutor of all people.

Credit loaners looked at the loanee, while collateral loaners looked at the collateral—but listening to Aoyagi, even that old piece of wisdom began to sound fishy. Ideally, financial services lent sums that could be recovered, regardless of the type of loan, but financial institutions including banks still tended to overestimate a customer’s repayment capacity. Ironically, this tendency had only grown worse after revisions to the Lending Control Act effectively tightened the pool of potential clients. Collateral loans being excluded from the cap on total lending was a big factor, but in a nutshell, lenders were scrambling for slices of a smaller pie.

“Would you give us a detailed explanation of these securities investment loans?” Misaki, who of course didn’t need to be enlightened, nevertheless asked the witness in order to shed the court’s light on a
hidden part of the Tsudas.

“First, we ask the client to submit collateral securities. If their value is ten million yen, we appraise it at eighty percent, or eight million yen, and offer a loan up to five times the amount, or forty million yen. The loan will be used entirely for securities investments, and the purchased securities also stay in our keeping as collateral. If they are sold when the stock price is higher than the purchase price, the marginal gain redounds to the client.”

“That is to say, the purchased securities become collateral as is, the lender has security, and the client can invest five times the actual funds to earn a fivefold return … Is that the logic?”

“Just as you said.”

“But we have heard that the securities investments made by the victim were bankrupt. Apparently, most of the securities he had were not sellable. It is obviously difficult to recoup sixty million yen from such a client.”

“That isn’t true. There was the possibility of a price increase of the securities we held as collateral.” Having lent a so-called day trader of ambiguous social standing and means a sum that no ordinary salaried worker could repay seemed not to shame Aoyagi even a little.

The man’s barefaced impudence ruffled Misaki’s ethical sensibilities at every turn. “But once the appraised value dipped below the loan amount, recouping the total sum was impossible, wasn’t it?”

“Not true, Mr. Tsuda had real estate.”

“Please share the details.”

“He contracted with us in April of 2008, and the Lehman Shock occurred in September of that year. The estimated value of his stock holdings depreciated sharply, and he needed to provide add-co.”

“Add-co?”

“To put it simply, the collateral value has to rise to correspond to the loan balance. In other words, to even things out, the client can either increase our security with additional collateral or decrease the loan balance.”

“How did the victim proceed?”

“Mr. Tsuda had no source of income other than stock trading. Fortunately, though, he had real estate in his name. At that time, his actual collateral value was 14,770,000 yen against a loan balance of 60,000,000 yen, so he was short a net amount of 45,230,000 yen. However, it could be secured to some extent by placing a mortgage on the real estate in his name.”

“To some extent?”

“He had a first mortgage on his home for his housing loan, so ours was a second mortgage. Based on the actual value of the real estate, the remaining amount after deduction of the first mortgage was only 15,000,000 yen. Thus, even if Mr. Tsuda disposed of all the securities and real estate, he would still owe over 30,000,000 yen as an unsecured loan.”

“Thirty million yen without collateral. That is a large amount. How did you intend to collect it?”

“The only way was to have the client pay little by little. The securities were not sellable in the absence of demand for them, and the real estate, which was his saving grace, can’t always be sold at the market price.”

“Did you urge him to make his payments?”

“Yes, of course. I tried to contact him many times via letter, telephone, email, etc.”

“You only tried? You couldn’t meet him?”

“Nope, not at all. There was simply no response to the letters and emails, and he wouldn’t come to the phone. I visited his home in frustration, but he had shut himself in his room and refused to take a single step outside. I was really at a loss.”

“So what did you do if you couldn’t meet him?”

“I had no choice but to leave a message with his wife and withdraw. We can’t make demands of somebody who is not a guarantor.”

“You couldn’t make demands because she wasn’t a guarantor, but you did inform the defendant of the debt?”

“Yes. And she said that she’d heard from him that he owed us a tidy sum.”

“How did the defendant react when you informed her?”

“Like any ordinary wife, she looked both harassed and embarrassed.”

“Your honor,” interrupted Mikoshiba. “The prosecution is trying to blend the facts with the witness’s impressions.”

“These aren’t impressions. It is a frank indication of the defendant’s attitude toward her husband’s debt and would have been an unprejudiced observation on the part of the witness, a third party.”

“The court approves of the questioning. Please continue.”

“Witness, what did the defendant say when you visited for the purpose of urging repayment?”

“Again, she was like any ordinary wife. She apologized that her husband wasn’t dependable. She said she’d repay us if she could, but was only a part-timer. They were struggling thanks to the loan on the house, but she would speak to her husband without fail so if we could wait just a little … That sort of thing.”

“Thank you very much. That will be enough,” Misaki concluded his questioning of Aoyagi. “Your honor, next, I would like to question the defendant.”

Misaki glanced at his opponent out of the corner of his vision. Mikoshiba’s face was still as emotionless as a Noh mask, but his eyes were alert. The guy had instantly figured out where this was going.

Feel free to fret
, Misaki chuckled.

From the previous session Misaki had a read on Mikoshiba’s defense strategy. It was to relativize Akiko’s murderous intent by painting Shingo’s behavior in as unfavorable a light as possible. But turning the victim into a villain could actually play into Misaki’s hands.

“Proceed.”

Misaki faced Akiko squarely. She kept her gaze lowered in the defendant’s seat and didn’t turn towards him, but he didn’t mind. “I’d like to ask the defendant. Is what the witness just said true in its entirety?”

“… it’s true.”

“Your husband borrowed a large amount of money and placed a double mortgage on the house. And you received requests for repayment from the lender almost every day. How did you feel about your husband? About your livelihood?”

Akiko stayed bent over and didn’t answer.

“If he was only undependable as a provider and did not interact much with family members, that was one thing. But taking out a mortgage on the house and messing with your livelihood made him nothing but a nuisance. In fact, for someone who, in the words of the defense from the previous hearing, more than fulfilled her responsibilities as a mother, he was a present threat that might ruin your children’s future. Isn’t that so? Defendant, please answer.”