The Informer Read online

  “The Shigeo Segawa I knew wasn’t a shameless man with a rotten soul. But he’s dead now. You must be his ghost. Are you? Then vanish—get out of my sight!”

  7

  It was at 10:43 p.m. on June 11 that the police first learnt about Shoichi Ogino’s death. His wife rang on the emer­gency line and gave an account of her discovery of the body in a panic-stricken voice. The police immediately moved into routine action. Answering the call of radio control, a patrol car rushed to the house and confirmed the presence of a corpse there. Acting on this, Chief Detective Shirasaka, of the Sugi-nami police station, went to the scene and carried out prelimi­nary investigations after putting a police guard on the house.

  A little later Inspector Ishida and other members of the homi­cide squad arrived from police headquarters. Ishida was a vet­eran with more than twenty years’ experience as a detective. He was well known in the force for his ability. Under his control the investigation got under way smoothly and efficiently.

  The body of Shoichi Ogino was found inside the door of the downstairs visitors’ room. About one metre beyond it lay a bronze eagle from the display shelves. Some blood stains were found on it. The immediate cause of death was strangulation, but first there had been a blow to the back of the head.

  The estimated time of death was nine o’clock the same eve­ning. The exact time would have been difficult to fix, even after a post mortem.

  On the table in the visitors’ room was a bottle of beer, bot­tles of whisky and wine, and plates of hors d’oeuvres. There were traces of eating and drinking. There was no broken glass, no sign of violent struggle. A file of documents was lying open on the sofa, but it wasn’t clear if this had anything to do with the incident.

  Observing the scene, Inspector Ishida thought this wasn’t a case of robbery ending in murder, and the killer would be some­one who’d been known to the victim. The murder weapon—the belt of the kimono worn by the victim—was still around the neck.

  Chief Detective Shirasaka and other police agreed with Inspector Ishida’s opinion. Routine inquiries in the neigh­bourhood the following day produced no evidence to change their view.

  On the other hand, the detective who had been looking through the upstairs study discovered something unusual. On the desk he found a cassette from which a fair length of film had been pulled out. The exposed portion was naturally ruined and no clue could be obtained from it. Inspector Ishida didn’t know whether this film had any significance.

  Usually a police investigation into a murder began with the establishment of the victim’s identity and his movements on the day and immediately prior to his death. So far as these two points were concerned, Inspector Ishida had an easy job this time.

  The victim’s wife, Eiko Ogino, was badly shocked and was confined to bed under sedation. Even so, from her early ac­count on the phone and from the subsequent statements of rel­atives the police were able to piece together a number of essential facts.

  Toshiko Murozaki, Mrs. Ogino’s half sister, was pale and red-eyed, but she could answer Inspector Ishida’s questions fairly calmly.

  “Around six o’clock this evening, while I was here visiting my sister, she received a phone call from my brother-in-law. He told her he’d have a guest tonight and asked her to prepare some hors d’oeuvres in a hurry. That was the content of the telephone call, I think.”

  “D’you have any idea who that guest was? Mrs. Ogino told us she didn’t catch the name on the phone.”

  “No, I wouldn’t know—I didn’t speak to Mr. Ogino on the phone. But according to my sister, he said he wanted to enjoy a relaxed evening with his friend and didn’t want us around. He suggested we go to visit our relatives at Ookayama. We have an uncle there who has developed kidney trouble on top of his high blood pressure. He is a fairly old man, and we’d been talk­ing about visiting him for some time.”

  “I see. And did you go?”

  “My sister did, but I didn’t. I had to go to Haneda Airport by half past seven to see off a friend who’s going to France. I left the visit to my uncle for some other time.”

  “Do you know the address of your uncle?”

  “Yes. He is Shinichiro Murozaki, and he lives at 127, Ookayama, Meguro-ku.”

  “Uh-huh. And what time did you leave this house?”

  “My brother-in-law arrived home about half past six, and we left soon after that. On my way I changed from my sister’s taxi to another to go to Haneda Airport.”

  “By that time your brother-in-law would’ve been with his guest?”

  “No. As far as I know, he was supposed to come later.”

  “And what did you do next?”

  “I went to my flat straight from the airport. I live at Hakusanso Apartments, about a kilometre from here, at 3-304, Koenji, Suginami-ku. For me it’s very conveniently located and—”

  “What time did you hear about this incident?”

  “A few minutes after ten, I think. I can’t recall it exactly be­cause I was so upset—I’ve never been so shocked in my life.”

  Inspector Ishida thought this was quite likely. When he had finished questioning her, he rang Keiko Murozaki at Ooka­yama. She confirmed the statements of the two sisters. Eiko had arrived at her home just before seven and stayed till after half past nine, talking.

  The next problem was the identity of Ogino’s guest, Inspec­tor Ishida thought. Even if he wasn’t a suspect himself, he might have seen the killer when he was leaving the house. This guest would be a very important witness, no doubt. He might well come forward after reading the news in the morn­ing. Ogino’s secretary might also be able to provide a clue.

  Detective Tokunaga poked his head into the study which was being used for interviewing people. “Chief,” he said, “we’ve identified the guest.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A man called Shigeo Segawa—former classmate of the victim.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Remember Mrs. Ogino telling you she’d rung her sister and also a Kazumi Yamaguchi—some friend of hers—immediately after she’d rung the police? Well, apparently this Segawa is a friend of Yamaguchi, and he had a date with her after leaving here. When Yamaguchi got the phone call, she told Segawa, and they immediately came over here to express their sympa­thy. That’s his story, anyway.”

  “Then he’s here right now?”

  “Yes. He’s talking to Mrs. Ogino’s sister downstairs. Would you like me to bring him up?”

  “Yes, please. We may be lucky this time.”

  Inspector Ishida managed to have a smoke for the first time since he had arrived at the house. He had half finished his ciga­rette when Shigeo Segawa came in.

  His face was pale, and both his hands were trembling slightly, but there was nothing unusual about that, Ishida thought. Most people who had to face a dead body became pale and shaky. Even when a man had been bed-ridden for a long time and everybody around him was prepared for his death, once he died and the people had a look at the corpse, they didn’t feel too good. But when it came to violent death, with the body left in the original position, they usually got really shaken up un­less they were used to such a sight.

  Ishida asked Segawa to take a chair and exchanged a few words with him out of courtesy. Then he went straight to the point.

  “What time did you come to this house?”

  “Let me see. We arranged it for seven o’clock, so it would’ve been around that time.”

  “And what time did you leave?”

  “It must’ve been just after seven thirty. We’d just started drinking when there was a phone call, and then he told me somebody was coming to see him on urgent business. My own business wasn’t so important. In any case, we’d just about com­pleted it to the extent that I said I’d give his offer further con­sideration. So I thought I’d better leave right then, and I did.”

>   “Would you mind telling us what sort of business you were discussing with him?”

  “It was about his reply to a request I’d made some days ago to handle his company’s products as an agent. There were so many conditions attached, I decided to think about it a bit longer before signing the contract. This was the kind of busi­ness he normally would’ve conducted in his office. I think it was an expression of friendship on his part to ask me to come to his home.”

  “Mm-hm. And did the other visitor arrive before you left the house?”

  “No, he didn’t. I think he was somebody from Ogino’s com­pany, but I didn’t hear his name. It was none of my business, anyway.”

  “By the way, were you in the visitors’ room all the time?”

  “Let me see. I think I’d been to the toilet once . . .” Segawa turned his head and looked at the carpet, thinking.

  Up to this point Ishida had no doubts about him, but now he started wondering. He had no particular reason—it was just a hunch. His sixth sense, developed over many years of police work, told him there was something secretive about the man. Perhaps he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  “. . . Oh, yes, I did come up here, briefly.” Segawa slowly shifted his eyes back to the inspector. “After we’d completed our business, we started talking about some old school friends, and then decided to give them a ring. Ogino was going to come up here to get the phone numbers from the graduates’ list, and then he said he hadn’t shown me his new house yet, so I came up with him.”

  “Mm-hm. Now, just for the record, could you tell us what you did after leaving this house?”

  “Well, I’m still single, and the evening with Ogino had been kind of interrupted, and I didn’t feel like going straight home. So I rang Miss Yamaguchi from a public box near the wine merchant, about a block away from here. She lives at Shimokitazawa on the Odakyu line, and we arranged to meet at Shinjuku. I got there by subway. I’d say it was about ten past eight when I met her.”

  “And then?”

  “We walked for a little while, and then went into a coffee shop at the east exit of Shinjuku Station. It was the Mammoth Café—in the basement, I think. Well, we stayed there for more than two hours. Then Miss Yamaguchi told me she had to write a letter in English, so I put her on the train. Then I had a drink on my own in the Kitahachi bar, at the west exit, before return­ing to my flat . . . At the entrance to the apartment house where I live I saw Miss Yamaguchi again, and she told me Ogino had been murdered. I sobered up in an instant, I can tell you, and then we hurried over here.”

  “I see,” Ishida said sympathetically, suppressing a yawn. If he was telling the truth, he thought, his alibi would be proved. And if he had something to hide, it might have nothing to do with this murder. “I know you must feel tired, and I hate to delay you any longer, but would you co-operate with us by giv­ing us your fingerprints downstairs?”

  “Yes, of course. I wish to assist you in any way I can. But please catch that murderer soon—I want to be able to sleep peacefully again.”

  Segawa wiped his damp forehead, stood up and bowed. His hand was on the door knob when Ishida called after him.

  “Mr. Segawa. I’m sorry—I forgot to ask you something. When you came into this study, did you see a film on this desk?”

  “A film?” Segawa asked vaguely. “There could’ve been one on it, but I’ve no clear recollection of it. I do remember seeing a camera somewhere . . . Why?”

  “It’s nothing important,” Ishida said evenly. “Well, thank you very much. You’ve been most helpful.”

  Segawa looked at Ishida with shining eyes, and Ishida thought there was something unusual in them.

  Next morning police headquarters ordered that the Ogino in­vestigation be conducted from Suginami police station, with Inspector Ishida in charge. And at the Criminal Affairs Divi­sion head office, the chief, Renji Sanada, asked State Prosecu­tor Saburo Kirishima to take control of the case.

  Inspector Ishida’s brief outline of the facts on the phone didn’t particularly arouse Kirishima’s interest. Being a prosecu­tor who worked at head office, to him a murder case was quite common, and he couldn’t see anything special in this one ei­ther, except perhaps that the victim was a young executive about his own age.

  In the afternoon he was driven to Suginami police station in a departmental car, accompanied by his clerk, Kitahara. They were met by Ishida—tall and full of fight. Now, there was a typical policeman for you, Kirishima thought as he returned Ishida’s greeting. He looked clever and tenacious and very sure of himself. He was not likely to let go easily once he’d got hold of something.

  Kirishima said, “Would you give me some of the details be­fore we go to have a look at the scene?”

  Ishida put a sketch in front of him, and then gave him a summary of last night’s investigations.

  “We received the post mortem report just a little while ago,” he said. “From this it appears certain the murder was commit­ted around nine o’clock. There were no fingerprints on the bronze statuette used to attack the victim from the rear, but we’ve collected quite a few prints from cutlery, glass, furniture and so on. As far as we can make out, they all belong to people who’ve been clearly identified—the victim, his wife, Toshiko Murozaki, and Shigeo Segawa.”

  “No strange prints suggesting a second visitor?”

  “No. All fingerprints belong to the four I’ve mentioned.”

  “What about the prints on the film found on the desk?”

  Ishida threw Kirishima a quick glance and thought the prose­cutor didn’t waste any time putting his finger on the mark. “We’ve found the victim’s and Segawa’s prints on the cassette and on the film itself. Some of them are mixed and blurred, and the victim’s prints are superimposed over Segawa’s.”

  “Mmm.” Kirishima inclined his head slightly to one side. “Segawa told you he had no clear recollection of the film . . . Where were his fingerprints?”

  “On the upper part of the cassette, and at the end of the film which first leaves the cassette. These are the places most likely to be touched when a film is put into a camera. The rest of the film—the part that came out of the cassette later—bore only the victim’s prints.”

  “Yes, but isn’t it quite reasonable to assume that Segawa touched the cassette on the desk without noticing it? Had the film been half pulled out of the cassette, then he would’ve probably thought it was unusual and taken more notice of it.”

  “Yes, I’ve considered this possibility, and in any case, there’s no need for him to tell a lie about such a trifle. It’d be a differ­ent matter if the crime had been committed in the study.”

  “You haven’t found any evidence of the body having been moved after the murder?”

  “No. All available evidence suggests the crime was com­mitted in the visitors’ room. The blood on the carpet and the position of the wound on the head leave no doubt at all.”

  “Mm-hm . . . Go on.”

  “Since this morning we’ve been interviewing the neigh­bours, but we don’t expect much from this. The Ogino house has a fairly large garden around it—a slight noise from the visi­tors’ room wouldn’t reach the next-door neighbour, I’m afraid. And there are very few pedestrians in that particular residen­tial area after dark, so the chances of picking up a witness are very slim indeed.”

  “I see. Is there anything else?”

  “The victim’s secretary, Toshiyuki Fujita, gave him a phone call at eight o’clock. Ogino himself took the phone and sounded quite normal at the time. This further confirms our theory that the murder was committed around nine o’clock . . . That’s all we’ve got so far.”

  “Well, this is quite a good start, isn’t it?”

  “It might be too good,” Ishida said slowly as if talking to himself.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “I don’t k
now. For one thing, we had too many witnesses last night, I thought. Having Eiko Ogino and Toshiko Murozaki there—that was natural, but I didn’t expect Segawa to turn up again the same night with Kazumi Yamaguchi. Toshiko Murozaki’s alibi isn’t quite satisfactory, but Eiko Ogino’s is per­fect. We haven’t been able to confirm Segawa’s and Yamaguchi’s alibis as yet, but it seems Mrs. Ogino has managed to line up the most important witnesses . . .”

  This time it was Kirishima who stared at Ishida in surprise.

  “. . . Mrs. Ogino told us,” Ishida said calmly, “that after arriv­ing home and discovering her husband’s body, she made only three telephone calls. One was to the police—that was the natural thing to do. The next one was to her sister. She lives close to her, and they’d been together only a few hours earlier. So it was also natural for her to ask her sister to come over straight away. But then she rang Kazumi Yamaguchi, and I can’t see why she did that.”

  “Miss Yamaguchi has been one of Mrs. Ogino’s closest friends for a long time, hasn’t she?”

  “This is true, but there are many other people she should’ve advised urgently. What about her uncle at Ookayama? She’d only left him a little earlier. Or what about the victim’s uncle, Yusaku Ogino, the president of the company? What about the victim’s sister, Sadako Nishiwaki, and her husband? All these people come to mind immediately. Don’t you think it’s a bit strange she’d ignored them all, but gave Yamaguchi a ring?”

  Suddenly he changed his voice and said, “Well, it may be too soon to talk about these things . . . There seems to be a lot of trouble within the victim’s company, and we’ll have to look into that, too. At present we’re concentrating mainly on lining up all possible motives for the murder . . . Do you have any opinion, Mr. Prosecutor?”

  “No, I don’t have any particular opinion at the moment, ex­cept that you seem to have made quite a lot of progress in a sin­gle day. Please carry on, Inspector, as you are.” Kirishima felt obliged to say this. Being so young, he was a bit self-conscious about giving orders to this veteran police inspector.