The Informer Page 11

  “Very well, sir,” Ishida said, rising to his feet. “I think the next step for you is to carry out the official inspection of the scene. I’ll take you there myself.”

  At the Ogino house preparations for the pre-funeral wake had begun. People were moving about busily in the damp at­mosphere of the darkened rooms. But the visitors’ room re­mained quiet. Until the completion of the official inspection by the State Prosecutor the police had ordered that it be left untouched.

  The blood stain had been left on the carpet, and the white powder used by the fingerprint experts was still visible here and there. But otherwise there was no suggestion of the tragedy which had taken place there the night before. During his time as a prosecutor Kirishima had seen far more dramatic murder scenes.

  Listening to Ishida’s comments, he tried to reconstruct the situation in the room at the time the body was discovered, but he wasn’t very successful. Naturally, the police had done all there was to be done—there was no likelihood of any new discovery.

  As they came out of the room, the secretary, Toshiyuki Fu­jita, greeted them in the hallway.

  “The family appreciates your efforts,” he said. “You are wel­come to occupy the upstairs study for your work—it has a more congenial atmosphere.”

  Ishida said, “Thank you. I think the State Prosecutor will have some questions to ask.”

  They walked up the steps and into the study. Kirishima took an armchair and looked around the room. Toshiko Murozaki brought in the tea.

  “My sister will be here shortly,” she said.

  As soon as she was out of the room, Inspector Ishida began to question Fujita.

  “Mr. Fujita, what do you think of all this?”

  “Well, I must say I was terribly shocked. This is the last thing I would’ve expected. I’m completely mystified—that’s all I can say.”

  “I hope you don’t mind if I come straight to the point,” Ishida said flatly. “Would you know anybody who might’ve had a motive to kill Mr. Ogino?”

  “No, I’ve no idea at all. He had some business rivals with conflicting interests, of course, but I wouldn’t call that a mo­tive for murder.”

  “D’you know of anybody in the company who has missed promotion or had some other reason to hate Mr. Ogino?”

  “Well, there were naturally occasions when some people re­sented Mr. Ogino’s decisions on promotions, but I don’t think anybody would’ve been crazy enough to murder him for it. Usually Mr. Ogino was very fair in the matter of promotions, and I’m sure the staff preferred to depend on him rather than on any of the other executive directors. If ill feeling over pro­motions were ever allowed to become a motive for murder, soon there won’t be enough executives to go round.”

  Ishida slowly began to scratch his ear. “Mr. Fujita, we’ll keep this strictly to ourselves, of course, but would you know if Mr. Ogino has ever had any woman problems?”

  “Not as far as I know. There were some girls in nightclubs and bars he was friendly with from time to time, but he never got himself deeply involved with any of them, so far as I know.”

  “What about the relationship between him and his wife?”

  “Look, I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t his private secretary. I’m a member of the secretarial staff—I was assigned to him only during business hours. I know nothing about his family life.”

  “But wouldn’t there have been occasions when you talked about such things? He must’ve said something to you about his wife sometime?”

  “Even if their relationship had been strained—and I don’t think it was—Mr. Ogino would’ve been the last person to mention it to anybody. Anyway, he had a reputation for being one of the most doting husbands in the company.”

  Fujita’s answers were smooth and faultless, like the answers of a Cabinet Minister in the Diet, but they had no substance at all. Kirishima thought Ishida would have a hard time with him.

  “Well,” Ishida said, “I’ll ask you about yesterday then. Did you notice any change in Mr. Ogino’s behaviour yesterday?”

  “No, nothing in particular.”

  “No indication that he’s been worried about something?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, I did have a feeling he was concerned about something, but I naturally thought it had to do with the new product the company is to announce soon. I can’t give you any details about this, you understand—it’s top secret so far as the company is concerned—but I’m sure it has nothing to do with this murder case.”

  “Would you please tell us all you know about Mr. Ogino’s movements, yesterday?”

  “Yes, sure. As usual, he arrived at head office just before nine o’clock in the morning. At half past ten he went into the board room to attend an executive meeting. At the meeting quite a heated argument developed, and this lasted for a while, but it was all about company business. There was certainly no personal antagonism involved. The meeting finished just before twelve, and he went out for lunch somewhere. He was back by one, and then he went out to the factory to have a conference with Dr. Nishiwaki. He returned to head office just after four and spent the next hour or so looking through some papers. He left the office shortly after five o’clock.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ishida nodded. “Now, you made a phone call to his house at eight o’clock last night. That’s right, isn’t it? What was your business?”

  “Well . . .” Fujita studied his fingernails for a few moments, then looked up at Ishida with an earnest face. “Will you keep this to yourselves, please? We’ve been negotiating with an agent concerning some bridging finance, and I was going to get a call from this man at half past seven, but—”

  “It was something like a temporary loan against a promissory note?”

  “Well, you can interpret it that way if you like,” Fujita said with a thin smile. “I can’t tell you any more about it—but any­way, I made a report to Mr. Ogino at eight o’clock, asking for directions.”

  “I see. And was Mr. Ogino’s voice the same as usual?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Was there anything to suggest he had a guest with him—Mr. Segawa, or anyone else?”

  “He sounded as if he’d had a few drinks, but his words were quite clear. No, he wasn’t drunk. Anyway, he had a reputation for being able to hold his liquor. In fact, he often complained he couldn’t get drunk.”

  “Aah? . . . Well now, just for the record, would you mind telling us about our own movements last night? This is only a formality, you understand.”

  “Yes, I understand,” Fujita said smoothly. “Well, I stayed back at the office waiting for the call from the agent till after seven. When there was no call, I left the office briefly to have something to eat at a tonkatsu bar, and after that I made con­tact with Mr. Ogino. Quite a number of people would’ve seen me up to that time.”

  “What about after?”

  “I’ve no alibi, I’m afraid. It was an awkward part of the eve­ning, just after eight o’clock . . . I just walked the streets for a while . . . had a game of pachinko . . . It was about eleven o’clock when I got back to my home near Gakugei University.”

  “Were you on your own throughout that time?”

  “Yes, I was alone.”

  Ishida nodded without a word and looked at Kirishima.

  “Tell me this,” Kirishima said, turning to Fujita. “Was that loan important enough to jeopardise the company’s financial position, or even its existence?”

  “Oh, no. It wasn’t a big problem at all, nor a problem that needed immediate solution. But as you know, money has been extremely tight lately, and it’s not so easy to arrange loans through the banks. That’s why there have been occasions when we’ve had to resort to this type of short-term finance.”

  “Did the agent give you a definite yes or no?”

  Fujita blinked a couple of times. “As a matter of f
act, his an­swer was neither yes, nor no. He wanted us to wait for another day or two. If there’d been a definite answer one way or the other, I would’ve probably gone to Mr. Ogino’s home to give him a personal report. In that case, I might’ve bumped into the killer.”

  Fujita’s words sounded like a challenge. It was as if he had read some special meaning into Kirishima’s questions and was trying to forestall any further questions.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fujita,” Kirishima said. “You can go now. We may have to ask for your help again, later.”

  Just then the door of the study opened quietly and Eiko Ogino appeared in black mourning clothes. Ishida thought she must’ve been listening on the other side of the door.

  Her pale skin contrasted strongly with the blackness of her dress and made her look really pitiable.

  “I’m sorry—I’m late,” she said.

  Her weak, dull voice had a curious effect on Kirishima—and he felt he would remember it for a long time. She had given up all hope, he thought vaguely. Her despair was far be­yond the sorrow one could expect from a woman who had lost her husband.

  At first Ishida’s questioning was over the same ground he had already covered in a few minutes the night before. Then gradually his questions became harsher as they began to touch some of the important points.

  “I fully appreciate how you feel, madam,” he said piously, “but we must ask you to give us all the details of your arrival home last night. To solve this crime, we must have this infor­mation . . . When you arrived home, was the front door locked? Please answer that first.”

  “The door was locked. I used my key to open it.”

  “It’s a patent lock, isn’t it—the type that has a button in the centre of the door knob? Pressing the button and closing the door is all that’s required?”

  This was a rhetorical question asked purely for Kirishima’s benefit.

  She said, “Yes.”

  “Now, before you opened the door with your own key, didn’t you ring the chime first to call your husband?”

  “Yes, I rang the chime.”

  “And when nobody came to the door, didn’t you think it was strange?”

  “No. I thought he might’ve been having a nap after the drinks, or he might’ve decided drinking at home wasn’t so good and gone out with his guest to have some more drinks else­where. I thought of these alternatives.”

  “I see. This was quite natural. You didn’t see the light in the visitors’ room through the windows?”

  “Yes, I did. But my husband was quite careless about such things. It wasn’t unusual for him to forget to switch off the lights.”

  “Mmm. And what was the first thing you did after entering the house?”

  “I called out to my husband and opened the door to the visi­tors’ room. And I found . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “You went into the visitors’ room. You did that first because you thought your husband might be having a nap in there. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “My husband was lying there. There was blood around his head, and I nearly fainted.”

  “Wait a minute, please. Did you rush to him and touch his body then?”

  “I can’t recall the details. I think I touched him somewhere. I found some blood on my hands.” Her voice began to quiver. “Just looking at him—it was obvious he was already dead.”

  “Did you phone the police straight away?”

  “I don’t know if it was straight away or not. I can’t remem­ber . . . I might’ve fainted, or sat on a chair for a while . . .”

  “After the police, you also rang your sister at her home, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you rang your friend, Miss Yamaguchi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Since you rang your friend, wouldn’t it have been natural also to ring your uncle, and Dr. Nishiwaki?”

  “Yes, I suppose so, but I was so upset at the time, I just didn’t . . .”

  “Then what was the reason for remembering Miss Yama­guchi, especially?”

  “Oh, I suppose it was just force of habit.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Well, ever since our school days, whenever I had some trouble, I used to ring her and tell her about it. Maybe on this occasion—after this terrible shock—maybe this old habit took hold again.”

  “I see,” Ishida said understandingly. “Usually a close friend is more reliable than relatives . . . By the way, did your husband tell you his guest that evening would be Mr. Segawa?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking very distressed.

  “And when you realised your husband had been murdered, didn’t you think Mr. Segawa might have—done it?”

  She shuddered, and the colour disappeared from her lips.

  “Mr. Segawa was my husband’s closest friend,” she said, al­most inaudibly. “I just couldn’t think that he might have . . .”

  Ishida was fixing her with unmoving eyes.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “would you have any other idea then?”

  “No, I haven’t . . . My husband wasn’t the type of man who’d be hated by anybody.”

  “The motive for murder isn’t always hatred,” Ishida mut­tered and turned a sarcastic face to Kirishima.

  “Mrs. Ogino,” Kirishima said gently, “who’s your legal adviser?”

  “Legal adviser?” Surprise was breaking through her distress. “I don’t know whether we have one or not. We’ve never had any business with lawyers, as far as I know.”

  “Your husband must’ve had a legal adviser to represent his interest in the settlement of his father’s will. But this would’ve taken place before you were married, so you mightn’t have heard about it, or might have forgotten it—or he might have asked the company’s legal adviser to do it for him.”

  “I vaguely remember one occasion, soon after we were mar­ried, when we went to pay our respects to a lawyer. I think he’d helped my husband some time previously. He was a Mr. Kurahashi, if I rightly remember.”

  The name was well known to Kirishima. Akito Kurahashi, now a lawyer and still a distant friend, had been two years his senior at the Judicial Training Institute. His father, Keizo Kura­hashi, was an acknowledged authority on a bankruptcy law.

  “Was it a Mr. Keizo Kurahashi?”

  “Keizo? . . . Yes, I think that’d be right. I remember, the man we went to see was absent, and we talked to his son, a young lawyer.”

  “I see,” Kirishima said. “Well, Mrs. Ogino, I’m sorry we had to keep you this long when you’re not feeling well. We won’t trouble you any further, thank you.”

  They proceeded to interview Yusaku Ogino and Dr. and Mrs. Nishiwaki, but the brief questioning produced nothing new. It mainly confirmed Fujita’s account of the victim’s move­ments on the day of his death.

  By now the number of people coming to the house to pay their respects was growing steadily, and Kirishima decided the atmosphere was no longer suitable for conducting an inquiry.

  After dropping Inspector Ishida at Suginami police station, he and his clerk, Kitahara, were heading back to head office in the departmental car.

  “This inspector seems pretty shrewd,” Kirishima said. “We may not be very busy until he actually turns up with the accused.”

  “D’you think so? Well, I don’t,” Kitahara said, screwing up his ruddy face.

  Kirishima glanced at him in surprise.

  “Why not? You think he won’t get his man, do you?”

  “Well, it’s like this. This inspector is the sort of chap who won’t ever stop once he’s got an objective fixed in his mind. But what if he’s heading in the wrong direction? What then? In my opinion, he’s doing just that.” He opened his eyes wide like a Kabuki
player and pointed a finger at himself. “This Garappachi—this Japanese Watson—hasn’t been eating his meals at the Criminal Affairs Division all these years for nothing. I think I could teach Sherlock Holmes’ man a thing or two, you know. It seems to me this inspector is jumping to conclusions. There’s a saying that a man of genius gets drowned in his own talent.”

  “You sound as if you expect him to make a mistake.”

  “For Garappachi, isn’t it only natural to expect some great action from his own boss?” Kitahara showed his white teeth in a grin. Then the old badger’s face became expressionless, and he said, as if making small talk, “Mr. Prosecutor, the Kurahashi legal office is around Yotsuya, isn’t it? It happens to be on our way to head office.”

  8

  After giving a detailed report on the previous night’s events, Segawa studied Sakai’s face with apprehension. He couldn’t help revealing the whole truth to him. Since his boss knew everything up to last night, any clumsy attempt to hide things from him now would do more harm than good, he thought. Anyway, it was most unlikely Sakai would tell the police that a member of his staff was in fact an industrial spy who had betrayed Ogino on his own instructions. If he did this—if he dropped a single word—then the world would really come to an end. Things were bad enough as they were.

  It was much wiser, Segawa thought, to take the risk and tell Sakai everything without leaving out a thing, and then ask for his help. Surely, Sakai wouldn’t want the police to know that Shinwa Trading Company was really an industrial espio­nage organisation. No, if his word was worth anything, Sakai wouldn’t leave him in the lurch.

  If it had been possible at all, Segawa would have liked to run to Sakai first thing in the morning to seek his advice, even if he had to drag him out of bed. But it had taken him all morning to go to Suginami police station and make a full statement. He had been allowed to leave without any trouble, of course, but he couldn’t get rid of the impression the police had been hov­ering around him with glowering eyes.

  As it happened, Sakai didn’t turn up at the office until after two o’clock in the afternoon. As soon as he appeared in the doorway, Segawa insisted he drop everything and go with him to the café they used for confidential discussions.