‘What?’
‘Your hands. They’re small.’
She looked down at her hands, but her head was filled with thoughts of another girl’s hands on his cock, a girl he was comparing her to, a girl who could make him come.
His penis had already gone soft in her palm.
And so Noriko had been worried for several days when Akiyoshi said something wholly unexpected.
He wanted to know if she could get some cyanide.
‘It’s for a novel,’ he said. ‘I might as well do something if I’m just loafing around, so I figured I’d write a mystery. Anyway, I want to use cyanide in the novel, but I’ve never seen any and I was just wondering if you could get some. I’m sure they have some lying around in a big hospital like yours.’
‘Well, I’d have to check, I’m not sure,’ she said, trying and failing to imagine Akiyoshi writing a novel. In fact, she knew that the pharmacy did have some potassium cyanide in special storage. It wasn’t for medicinal use, of course. Being a university hospital they had all kinds of poisons as part of their research collection. But only a select few at the hospital were even allowed near special storage.
‘You just have to see it?’
‘I just want to borrow it for a little.’
‘I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. This is cyanide we’re talking about.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I haven’t figured out what I want to do with it yet. I have to see it first. Get some, if you can. Of course, if you can’t, or you don’t want to, I won’t force you. I have another route.’
‘What kind of route?’
‘I have connections to a number of companies through my last job. I’m pretty sure one of them can get me some cyanide.’
Noriko was ready to put her foot down and refuse, but the mention of other routes gave her pause. What if someone untrustworthy gave it to him? What if something happened?
She sighed and shook her head. This is a bad idea.
It was mid-August when she placed the small bottle of potassium cyanide in front of him.
‘Promise me you aren’t going to use this.’
‘Absolutely. You have nothing to worry about,’ Akiyoshi said, picking up the bottle.
‘Leave the lid on. You can look at it through the glass.’
He didn’t answer. He seemed transfixed by the colourless powder inside the bottle. ‘How much of this do you have to take for a lethal dose?’
‘Two hundred to three hundred milligrams.’
‘How am I supposed to tell how much that is just by looking at it?’
‘Just picture a quarter-teaspoon or so.’
‘Sounds potent. It dissolves in water, right?’
‘It’ll dissolve, but if you’re thinking of having someone put it in a glass of juice or something, you’d probably need more than a quarter-teaspoon.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because the victim would notice something strange on the first sip. It’s very bitter, they say. Not that I’ve ever tasted any.’
‘So you’d have to put enough in so they died on the first gulp? If it tastes so bad, wouldn’t the victim just spit it out.’
‘It has an unusual smell, too, so someone with a good nose might notice before they even take a sip.’
‘Smells like almonds, right?’
‘Yeah, but not the almond you’re thinking of. It smells like the almond fruit. The nuts we eat are the seeds.’
‘I think I read a book where someone dissolved cyanide in a solution then painted the back of a stamp with it…’
Noriko shook her head and laughed. ‘That’s not very realistic. You’d need a lot more solution than that to reach a lethal dose.’
‘How about mixing it in with lipstick?’
‘That wouldn’t make for a lethal dose, either. First of all, cyanide is highly alkaline, so it would make the skin sore. Also, that method wouldn’t get the cyanide into the stomach, so there wouldn’t be any toxicity.’
‘How so?’
‘Cyanide by itself is an inert substance. It has to get in the stomach in order to react with the acid there before it forms cyanide gas. That’s what poisons you.’
‘So you could poison someone with just the gas, right?’
‘Sure, but it’s difficult to pull off. For one thing, the killer might accidentally kill themselves. Cyanide gas can be absorbed through the skin, too, so it takes more precautions than just holding your breath.’
‘No kidding. Guess I’d better give this some thought,’ Akiyoshi said.
In fact, he spent the next two days sitting in front of his computer, thinking.
‘Let’s say you have access to the victim’s home – the bathroom, specifically,’ he said during dinner one night. ‘You could sneak into their house before they came home, throw some potassium cyanide and sulphuric acid into the toilet, and close the lid. You’d have time to get out of there before killing yourself, right?’
‘I would think so,’ Noriko said.
‘So now the intended victim comes home. They go into the bathroom. Unbeknownst to them, a chemical reaction is taking place inside their toilet, creating a large amount of cyanide gas. They open the lid, the gas comes billowing out, and the victim breathes it in – how’s that sound?’
Noriko gave it some thought, then agreed it would probably work.
‘It’s just a novel, so that’s probably good enough. If you started getting into specifics, you’d never get through the scene.’
Akiyoshi didn’t seem satisfied with that. Setting down his chopsticks, he pulled out a notepad and pen.
‘I don’t like doing things in half measures. If there’s a problem with this scenario, I want you to tell me. That’s why I’m coming to you with this.’
Noriko felt like she’d been slapped in the face. She sat back down. ‘It’s not that there’s a problem with it. I think the method you describe could work fine. It’s just that, in reality, it might not work one hundred per cent of the time.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because a closed toilet lid doesn’t form a perfect seal. The cyanide gas would fill the toilet bowl, then start to leak. It might even leak out through the bathroom door, in which case the intended victim might notice something was off before they even went in. Actually, “notice” isn’t the right word. If they breathed in a little bit of the gas, they might show signs of poisoning. Of course, if it was enough to kill them, I suppose that would be all right…’
‘But the leaked gas might not be enough to prove lethal, is what you’re saying?’
‘If the killer got unlucky, yes.’
‘No, you’re totally right, it’s not a fail-safe plan,’ Akiyoshi said, folding his arms across his chest. ‘You’d need to do something to get a better seal on the toilet.’
‘Well, it might be enough to just run the fan,’ she said.
‘The fan in the bathroom?’
‘Assuming the victim lives in an apartment that has one of those. That would be enough to siphon off the gas that leaked and keep it from going outside the bathroom door.’
Akiyoshi thought in silence for a bit, then looked up at Noriko.
‘Good. I’ll go with that. Thanks for the help.’
‘Good luck with the novel,’ Noriko said, glowing. Any worries she’d had when he first asked her to get the cyanide had since faded, replaced by the elation she felt at his gratitude.
A week later she came home from work to find Akiyoshi gone. She thought maybe he’d gone drinking somewhere, but he didn’t come home, even after the trains had stopped, and there was no call. She started to worry, realising that if something had happened to him, she’d have no way to find him. She didn’t know any of his friends, and she couldn’t even think of a place he might have gone. The only Akiyoshi she knew was the one who sat in her back room, staring at the computer.
It was close to dawn when he finally came back. Noriko was still up. She hadn’t taken off her make-up. She hadn’t even eaten.
br /> ‘Where were you?’ she asked almost as soon as he stepped through the door.
‘Doing research for my novel. Sorry, there weren’t any payphones around or I would’ve called.’
‘I was worried!’
Akiyoshi was wearing jeans and a grimy white T-shirt. He set down a duffel bag by the computer and took off his shirt. His skin was gleaming with sweat.
‘I gotta take a shower.’
‘Well, hold on a second, I’ll draw a bath.’
‘The shower’s fine,’ he said, carrying his T-shirt in his hand as he walked towards the bathroom.
Back at the door, Noriko straightened his sneakers and noticed they were incredibly dirty. It was as though he’d been walking through the mountains all night.
She had a feeling that Akiyoshi would never tell her where he had been, and there was something about him that made it difficult for her to ask. She was sure of one thing, though: he hadn’t been doing research for his novel.
A thought occurred to her. She could hear the shower running. Moving quickly, she went into the back room and opened the duffel bag.
On top were several file folders, like you might get in a filing cabinet. She pulled out the largest one, only to find it empty. All the other folders were empty, too, without any markings or writing, save for one that had a single sticker across the top that read IMAEDA DETECTIVE AGENCY.
Why would Akiyoshi have a file from a detective agency – an empty file at that? Maybe he took out whatever was inside?
She checked the rest of the bag. When she saw what was at the very bottom, she held her breath. It was the bottle of potassium cyanide.
Gingerly, she picked it out. It contained white powder, but only half as much as there had been when she gave it to him.
Her chest tightened and she felt sick to her stomach. Her heart pounded in her ears.
She heard the shower stop. Quickly she put the bottle and the folders back in the bag and zipped it shut.
Akiyoshi didn’t say anything as he came out of the bathroom. He just went over to sit by the window and stare outside. There was a hard, dark look to his face that Noriko had never seen before.
She could ask him where he’d been, and he’d probably tell her something, but she knew it would be a lie. What had he used the cyanide for? Just the thought was enough to make her stomach churn with fear.
When Akiyoshi came for her, it was swift. He practically tore off her clothes, taking her more roughly than he ever had before, like there was something he was trying to forget.
He wouldn’t orgasm, she knew, but he would keep fucking her until she did.
That morning, as the dawn light streamed in through the window, Noriko faked it for the first time.
The call came three days after Yasuharu had called him into the office to talk about Yukiho’s mother. Kazunari had just returned to his desk from a long meeting when the phone rang. A small light on the phone indicated the call was from an outside line.
The caller introduced himself as Sasagaki, with the Osaka police. Kazunari couldn’t recall ever talking to anyone with that name before, let alone a detective. From his voice he sounded like an older man, with a thick accent.
‘I got your name from a Mr Takamiya. Sorry to bother you at work like this,’ the man said, though from his tone he wasn’t sorry at all.
‘Can I ask what this is about?’ Kazunari asked, an edge creeping into his own voice.
‘I wanted to ask you some questions concerning a case we have under investigation. It should only take about thirty minutes, if you have the time.’
‘What investigation is this?’
‘It’s best if I talk to you in person about that.’
Kazunari’s interest was piqued. Whatever the case was, it must be important if the man was going to come all the way up to Tokyo to talk to him about it.
‘This also involves a Mr Imaeda – a private detective. I believe you’re acquainted with him?’
Kazunari’s grip on the phone tightened and his legs tensed, as though his body were getting ready to run. How did this man know about Imaeda – or more specifically, his connection to the private eye? He knew people in that line of work didn’t readily give up the names of their clients, not even when the police came calling.
A possibility occurred to him. ‘Has something happened to Mr Imaeda?’
‘I’d like to talk to you about that too,’ the detective said. ‘Can we meet?’ His voice sounded louder now, his question carrying the weight of a command.
‘Where are you calling from?’
‘Across the street. I can see a white building, about seven storeys high – that’s you, right?’
‘Right. Go in and tell the receptionist you’d like to speak with Kazunari Shinozuka in Planning and Management. They’ll be expecting you.’
‘Got it, be right over.’
‘I’ll be here.’
Kazunari hung up the phone, then picked the receiver back up again to call the receptionist and have them show Sasagaki to room seven. This was the room board members used whenever they had private visitors to the company.
Sasagaki seemed unusually fit for his age, with short-cropped hair that was peppered with white. The man had stood when Kazunari knocked on the door, and he was still standing. Despite the steamy weather outside, he was wearing a brown suit and a tie.
‘Thank you for seeing me,’ the detective said, holding out his business card.
When Kazunari looked down at it, he blinked. It seemed a little bare. There was only a name – Junzo Sasagaki – an address, and a phone number. The address was in Yao City, Osaka. No police department affiliation, or even a title.
‘I never put anything official on my business cards,’ the man explained with a smile that deepened the wrinkles on his face. ‘Somebody took one of my old cards once and went around pretending they were on the force.’
Kazunari listened in silence. It had never occurred to him to exploit a business card that way. He felt he was getting a glimpse of a world that operated by very different rules from his own.
‘I still carry this, though.’ Sasagaki reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his badge.
Kazunari took a look, then motioned with his hand to the sofa. ‘Please, have a seat.’
The detective nodded and sat down. He frowned a little when he bent his knees, revealing his age. No sooner had he sat down than a knock came at the door and one of the women from the office came in carrying a tray with two cups of tea. She set it down on the table, bowed, and left the room.
‘Quite the office you have,’ Sasagaki said, reaching out for his cup. ‘Impressive companies have impressive reception rooms.’
‘Thanks,’ Kazunari said, even though, in his opinion, this reception room was rather austere. Despite its special status, the sofa and table set were the exact same ones they used in every other meeting room. The only thing that set it apart was the soundproofing in the walls.
‘So,’ Kazunari began, looking up at the detective. ‘What’s this all about?’