The Informer Page 13

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’ve very little to do with civil juris­diction, that’s probably why I knew nothing about your father’s illness. I hope he’ll get better.”

  “Thank you very much . . . By the way, have you come here in connection with Ogino’s death?”

  He must’ve been expecting this visit, Kirishima thought. “Yes, exactly, but I thought he was your father’s client. Are you familiar with the family’s affairs yourself?”

  “Yes, of course. Ogino’s father and my father had been per­sonal friends for many years. Because of this, I knew young Ogino fairly well, though I hadn’t met him for quite a while.”

  “I see.” Kirishima took a chair in Kurahashi’s room.

  An office girl brought in a pitcher of iced tea and some cups on a tray.

  Offering the tea, Kurahashi said, “It isn’t permitted to offer wine to prosecutors, is it? Remember the time we were arguing about tea with a drop of whisky in it? Well, this is pure tea, guaranteed, so don’t worry about it.” He laughed coarsely at his joke. “And what is it you wanted to know?”

  “Well,” Kirishima said, “to begin with, would you mind giv­ing me a rough idea of his estate? I wouldn’t expect you to pro­duce accurate figures, you understand. I presume most of his property would’ve been left to him by his late father?”

  “That is essentially correct. But on paper, Ogino owned a fair amount of property before his father’s death. Some real es­tate was registered in his name, and he held quite a lot of shares, too. His father’s stock investments were very widely spread, and he often bought and sold shares in his son’s name. It’s quite common for a man who plays the stock market in a big way to trade in the name of various members of his family to escape some of the tax on his earnings.”

  “But so far as the real estate is concerned, it’d be looked upon as a gift before death and treated as part of the legacy. Isn’t that right?”

  “No. In Ogino’s case it was very cleverly handled. On paper, Ogino traded in stocks himself and kept buying real estate with the profits. This, of course, is the classic way of reducing succes­sion duty, which becomes extremely high over a certain figure.”

  “But weren’t these earlier manipulations taken into account at the time the father’s will was being executed?”

  “No, not at all. Since the real estate registered in Ogino’s name wasn’t in the form of a gift before death, it presented no legal problem. The estate was dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the will, and even these provisions favoured Ogino to a great extent. His father must’ve been determined to secure for Ogino a controlling interest in the company so that he could follow in his footsteps, so to speak.”

  “I see,” Kirishima said. “Could you give me a brief outline of the provisions of the will?”

  “Well, omitting the small bequests, the heirs were the two children—Ogino and his sister—and the father’s younger brother, Yusaku, the current president of the company. These were the only three inheritors. The provision dealing with Yusaku was that if at the time of the father’s death the son was still under thirty, he’d get a portion of the Shichiyo Chemical Company shares. This was a convenient device for maintain­ing the family’s controlling interest in the company. When the father died Ogino was still a student, so this provision applied. The rest of the estate was divided between the two children, and Ogino was favoured as much as the law allowed.”

  “In that case would Ogino’s sister, Sadako, have been much disadvantaged? When there are two children, each has a mini­mum legal entitlement of one quarter of the estate.”

  Kurahashi raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps her share was slightly larger than that.”

  “But if we consider those substantial assets of Ogino that weren’t treated as gifts before death, then Sadako’s portion of the father’s true estate must be much less than a quarter?”

  “This is true. However, when Sadako got married to Dr. Nishiwaki, Ogino gave her some Shichiyo shares as a wedding present. As you probably know, Dr. Nishiwaki is a distin­guished scientist employed by the same company. That makes the underlying purpose of the gift pretty obvious, I think.”

  Kirishima thought for a moment. “About how much would Ogino’s property be worth at present?”

  “That I couldn’t tell you offhand, not even approximately,” Kurahashi said. “The value of real estate changes so much year by year. But as a very rough guess, I’d say his property would be worth some hundreds of millions of yen, everything included.”

  “I see. And coming to the present position now—what will happen to Ogino’s estate?”

  “As far as I know, he hasn’t made a will. This is quite natural for a man of his age and good health. If they had a child, then it might’ve been different.”

  “Then it’ll be a case of apportionment under Section 900, won’t it? His widow will get two-thirds and his sister one-third?”

  “Yes, that’s right. The only thing is . . .” Kurahashi stopped half way through the sentence and kept looking at Kirishima, scratching the back of his head, as if unable to make up his mind. “Well,” he said, “as a lawyer, that’s all I should tell you. But perhaps I may add the suggestion that those two women won’t be the only ones to profit from Ogino’s death.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “As you know, my father is legal adviser to the Shichiyo Chemical Company, and I’ve practically taken over from him. So I’ve a fairly intimate knowledge of that company, and I must say that ever since the former president’s death, the relation­ship between various members of the board has been anything but harmonious. And now that Shoichi Ogino is dead, a dras­tic change in the prevailing power balance is inevitable. Previ­ously it was taken for granted that sooner or later the current president would hand over the baton to Ogino, but now his sudden disappearance from the scene has created fresh oppor­tunities for quite a few other people. Naturally, I’m not sug­gesting for a moment that the prevailing rivalry within the company had anything to do with Ogino’s murder. But I do feel that the sooner the company is cured of its ailment—even if this requires surgical intervention—the better it will be for everybody concerned.”

  Kirishima realised that Kurahashi’s words were loaded with innuendoes. Among other things, they meant this: “As legal adviser to the Shichiyo Chemical Company I can’t tell you any more, but if you come and see me again without bringing your damned clerk along, I may be able to go a bit further.”

  “I see,” Kirishima said. “Thank you very much for your co­operation.” He bowed and stood up.

  “You’re welcome, Mr. Prosecutor,” Kurahashi said with a meaningful grin and saw Kirishima and his clerk to the door.

  9

  That evening Kirishima visited his fiancée, Kyoko Tatsuta.

  She looked concerned as she greeted him at the front door. “Haven’t you had dinner yet? I’ll fix something for you in a hurry. Have a beer while you wait.”

  Kyoko brought in a bottle of beer from the kitchen and poured for him as if she were a newly wedded wife. Actually, they would have been married for more than a year now if things had worked out as planned. The unexpected death of her father—also a lawyer—had forced the postponement of the wedding till next autumn. Already they had been engaged for nearly three years.

  “Aaah . . . beautiful . . .” Kirishima looked up from his beer. “But what’s that worried look on your face?”

  “Perhaps nothing important,” Kyoko said, holding her glass with both hands. “I saw in the paper that Shoichi Ogino was murdered last night. Are you going to handle it?”

  “Yes, but what’s that got to do with you?”

  “The widow’s sister, Toshiko Murozaki, is one of my friends. Remember when we went for a walk in Shinjuku Gardens?”

  “About a month ago?”

  “Yes. And on our way home a young woman ran across
the street to talk to me? That was Toshiko Murozaki.”

  Kirishima put a hand on his forehand trying to recall the in­cident. Whenever he was dealing with criminals, faces firmly registered in his mind. But on that particular occasion he had been completely relaxed in Kyoko’s company, and now he was quite unable to identify the woman they had met near the gar­dens as the sister of Ogino’s widow.

  “No, I still can’t recall it clearly, and I did meet her briefly at the victim’s house today. Mind, I had a feeling I’d seen her somewhere before, only I never thought of that meeting near the gardens.”

  “Well, that’s not very surprising. Women often look entirely different when in a state of shock, and I’m sure she would’ve been severely shocked by the death of her brother-in-law.”

  “Mmmm.” Kirishima drank his beer.

  “Saburo,” she said, frowning, “if you can’t remember meet­ing Toshiko at Shinjuku Gardens, you won’t recall a man wait­ing for her on the other side of the street.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “And this is the thing that bothers me.”

  “Bothers you?”

  “Yes. You see, I noticed the man she’d left on the other side, and since she’d congratulated me on our forthcoming mar­riage, hopefully I asked her if he was her boyfriend. But Toshiko laughed and said, ‘No, that’s the man my sister likes.’ Well, I was quite astounded. I thought her sister was the wife of a distinguished man—how could she talk about her like that?”

  “It does sound rather strange,” Kirishima said, folding his arms. “It sounds as if Mrs. Ogino was having a clandestine af­fair with some man, and her sister knew about it.”

  “Well, if Toshiko’s remark is taken as a joke, then it’s noth­ing. But my impression at the time was that she’d just let the truth slip out in her usual careless way.”

  “Hmm. If this’d happened two or three years ago, you would’ve forgotten all about it . . .” Kirishima’s mind was rac­ing now.

  A married woman involved in an illicit love affair—that wasn’t so unusual these days, he thought. In itself, it was of no concern to a prosecutor. But once it was linked with murder, it became a very different matter. The plain fact was that Eiko Ogino, a young childless widow, had become free to marry again. On top of this, she was going to inherit more than half her dead husband’s large property.

  The man—her lover—couldn’t help rejoicing even if he’d had nothing to do with the husband’s death . . . But hadn’t he? The possibility that he had must be considered. There’d been quite a few cases where an immoral love affair was sufficient in­ducement to commit murder. And if the prospect of getting hold of a large amount of money was added, the motive be­came very much stronger . . .

  Kirishima decided he’d immediately order the police to es­tablish the identity of the man supposed to be Mrs. Ogino’s lover.

  “What’s going on in your mind?” Kyoko asked. “Suddenly you’ve made such a frightful face.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “I know I promised you never to bring the face of the prosecutor into your home.”

  That night Segawa once more walked through the front gate of the Ogino house to attend the pre-funeral wake. It was a hard thing for him to do. Ogino’s bitter words of condemnation were still in his ears, and he couldn’t forget the tension and fear he’d experienced while being questioned by Inspector Ishida.

  But much as he abhorred the idea, he had to go through with it. If he didn’t show his face at the wake service, he’d only arouse more suspicion. To turn up was even more important now that Sakai had told him not to give up the paramizol assignment.

  At the front door he could hardly control the tremor in his calves.

  The mere fact he was the last person to see Ogino alive would be enough to make everybody stare at him, he thought miserably. And should somebody question him persistently about last night’s events, he was just as likely to slip up some­where, hard as he might try to keep his story straight.

  In his present nervous state he had very little self-confidence left. He was also afraid of facing Eiko. Last night she had been in bed under sedation, and he’d managed to avoid a painful meeting, but he couldn’t expect to be so lucky this time. If they had to meet, he’d prefer to face her alone, but he couldn’t hope for that either. If they did that, and the police found out about it, both would be finished.

  He was let into the house by Fujita, the secretary. After a brief greeting Fujita showed him inside where two Japanese-style rooms had been opened into one for the wake service. Be­cause of the tragic nature of Ogino’s death, only the closest relatives and friends had come, but even so there were quite a few people about.

  A Buddhist monk was chanting the sutra. Just behind him Eiko was squatting on a cushion, her head held low. Segawa could only see her back, and he was quite a distance from her. He thought he saw her shoulders tremble every now and then.

  The man on Eiko’s right must be Yusaku Ogino, the victim’s uncle. On her left were Sadako and Dr. Nishiwaki. There were some familiar faces also in the other rows—Toshiko, Kazumi Yamaguchi, Shozo Ogushi, and from Ogino’s company, manag­ing director Kurosaka and technical director Okamura. Far be­hind in the corner, Setsuko Kondo was wiping her face with a handkerchief. Segawa had to shift his eyes from her quickly—the cushion under him began to feel like a mat of needles.

  The chanting of the sutra went on half-heartedly. At a wake service the atmosphere was always dull and gloomy, he thought, but this one was really dismal. For some reason he was re­minded of the Blood Pool at Beppu hot spring resort. If the steaming red pool suddenly turned cold, the effect wouldn’t be unlike the air he was breathing here.

  Offering the incense for the dead after the chanting of the sutra was the climax to his discomfort. It was a task each mourner had to perform in full view of the others, and it in­volved saying a few words to the bereaved relatives.

  As he made his offering, Ogino’s photograph on top of the coffin was smiling down at him, and he couldn’t look at it. Trembling, he imagined the lid of the coffin opening up and Ogino raising his blood-stained head and yelling out at him, “Vanish—get out of my sight!”

  He turned round on his knees according to custom, and putting both hands on the tatami, bowed deeply before Eiko. Their eyes met for just a moment. Her pale face was expres­sionless, but the deep pools of her eyes were full of emotion, and she shuddered as he began to speak.

  “I really can’t find words to express how I feel,” he muttered. “When I said goodbye to him last night, he was his normal self.”

  “Don’t say any more, please,” Eiko whispered and covered her face with her hands.

  Her words froze his heart. Did she mean she didn’t want to listen to his excuses? Did she mean she didn’t want to talk to him any more? Or was she only acting? Was she playing the part of the young widow tormented by the memory of her husband?

  Segawa shifted his eyes from Eiko to Sadako, and now he felt as if his body was going to turn into an icicle. Sadako’s eyes were glowering with hostility. This woman obviously suspected him of her brother’s murder.

  He quickly mumbled his way through the formal words of sympathy to the other chief mourners, and then got up to es­cape from that awful spot. He was grateful for the soft lighting because both his knees were shaking now. The scene with Sadako at the Café Takuto came back to him as if it had hap­pened only a few hours ago.

  Sadako suspected a love affair between him and Eiko, he thought, and sooner or later she was going to tell the police—nothing was more certain than that. He might be able to insist she was only guessing, but once the police got wise and started checking on their movements over the past couple of weeks, the truth would be uncovered for sure. Then the police would think he had a strong motive for killing Ogino . . . And he didn’t have the faintest idea of what was in Eiko’s mind. Me
et­ing her today only added to his worry.

  He went out into the hallway for a breath of fresh air. Some­body tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around and found himself staring into Shozo Ogushi’s face.

  “Fate is unpredictable,” Ogushi said slowly. “You met him only yesterday, didn’t you?”

  It might have been only Segawa’s present frame of mind, but he thought he could see suspicion in Ogushi’s eyes. “Well,” he said mournfully, “I left here too soon yesterday. If I’d stayed just a little longer, he might be alive today. I feel so helpless when I think of it.”

  “You mustn’t blame yourself. The best thing you can do is stop thinking about it. But if you must, well, you acted as any­body else would’ve under the circumstances. If I’d heard an­other guest was expected after me, I would’ve left, too, as a matter of courtesy. Not as if you had a fight with him and ran out on him in anger. No, you’re not responsible in any way.”

  “Thank you for saying so,” Segawa muttered and thought that Ogushi’s words, meant to comfort him, were the cruellest irony, although nobody but himself would realise it.

  He managed to get away from Ogushi but was immediately confronted by another unwanted friend.

  Setsuko Kondo was looking at him with tears in her eyes. “I still can’t quite believe he’s gone,” she said. “He was such a fine person. You must be terribly distressed losing a friend like him . . .

  He nodded and made a sad face, wondering if it was Ogino’s own idea to bring up the subject of marriage last night, or had he promised this girl to act as a go-between?

  “. . . Head office executives usually behave as if they lived in another world, but Mr. Ogino was different. He never played the big man and his door was always open to everybody. He was natural and kind and always prepared to listen to our personal problems.” Setsuko’s cheeks coloured as she hesitantly looked at Segawa. She acted like a young girl sensing romance for the first time.