Only when he had stuffed the memo in his pocket did Ikai look over at Kusanagi, who was sitting on a nearby sofa. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’
‘No problem. You seem pretty busy.’
‘It’s all details, really. Yes, we lost our CEO, but from the way they’re acting, you’d think all of our section directors had their heads cut off. I always had misgivings about Mashiba’s one-man-show style of management. I only wish we’d done something about it sooner,’ Ikai concluded as he joined Kusanagi on the sofa.
‘Will you continue as CEO?’
The lawyer waved the suggestion away. ‘I’m not fit for management. I’m a firm believer that everyone is born to do a specific job, and me – I’m at my best pulling the strings behind the scenes. I will happily leave that big desk to someone else.’ Ikai looked the detective in the eye. ‘Don’t think I killed Mashiba to take over his company, because, believe me, I don’t want it.’
Kusanagi’s eyes widened and Ikai laughed. ‘I’m sorry, that was a joke. Not very funny, I’m afraid. I’ve been too busy to let it sink in that he’s gone.’
‘I’m sorry to take up more of your time,’ Kusanagi said.
‘Don’t be. I’m interested in how the investigation is proceeding. Any new developments?’
‘Some things are coming into focus, I guess you could say. In particular, the route by which the poison got into the coffee.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘Were you aware that Mr Mashiba was excessively health conscious to the point of not drinking tap water?’
Ikai raised an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t call that excessive. I don’t drink tap water, either. Haven’t for years.’
‘Oh?’ Kusanagi asked. Rich people. ‘Any particular reason?’
‘Not really, now that you mention it,’ Ikai said, his gaze wandering back to the desk. ‘I can’t even remember when I stopped. It wasn’t that tap water tastes bad. Maybe I’m the victim of some bottled water company’s advertising campaign? But once you fall into a pattern …’ He looked sharply back up. ‘The water was poisoned?’
‘We don’t have a definitive answer yet, but it’s a possibility. Did you drink any mineral water when you visited the Mashibas on Friday night?’
‘We did. Quite a bit of it. Poisoned water, huh?’
‘We’ve been led to understand that Mr Mashiba used bottled water when he made coffee. Were you aware of this?’
‘I suppose so.’ Ikai nodded. ‘So that’s how the poison got into the grounds.’
‘The question is: when exactly did the killer poison the water? I was wondering if you could think of anyone who might’ve visited the Mashibas over the weekend, possibly in secret?’
Ikai shot the detective a sharp look. ‘In secret?’
‘Yes. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to identify any visitors. But it’s probable that someone did visit during those two days – perhaps even with Mr Mashiba’s knowledge.’
‘You’re asking me if another woman came to see him while his wife was away?’
‘That’s one possibility, yes.’
Ikai uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. ‘Let’s be frank, Detective. I understand that you have to keep some aspects of your investigation a secret – I’m not new to criminal inquiries. So I assure you, anything you say stays here. In return, I won’t hold anything back.’
Kusanagi raised an eybrow and remained silent.
Ikai leaned back on the sofa. ‘You’ve found out that Mashiba had a lover.’
The detective kept his expression neutral. ‘How much do you know?’ he asked.
‘He confessed to me about a month ago. Said he was thinking about making a “change in partners”. It occurred to me he might already have someone on the side.’ A gleam came into the man’s eyes. ‘Surely you have the resources to figure out something as obvious as that. Which you have, which is why you’re here talking to me. Isn’t it?’
Kusanagi chuckled. ‘Well, yes. Mr Mashiba was seeing someone.’
‘I won’t ask who it was, though one obvious candidate comes to mind.’
‘You noticed something?’
‘It was simply a process of elimination. Mashiba wasn’t the type to hit on girls at a bar. And he was a firm believer in keeping business and romance separate. Which would leave only one woman conveniently available.’ Ikai shook his head. ‘I still have trouble believing it. Better not tell my wife!’
‘We have it from the woman in question that she visited the Mashibas’ house on the weekend he died. What we need to determine is whether he was seeing anyone else.’
‘You mean you’re wondering if he took advantage of his wife’s absence to invite over multiple lovers? What a Casanova!’ Ikai slapped his knee. ‘But I’d have to say, I really doubt it. Mashiba might’ve been a chain-smoker, but he wasn’t the type to smoke two cigarettes at once.’
‘By which you mean?’
‘He might’ve gone from one woman to the next, but he wasn’t a two-timer. I’m willing to bet that once he started seeing this new woman, he even neglected his “nightly duties” with his wife. In fact, I recall him once saying that sex “for pleasure’s sake” could wait until later.’
‘So he was mainly interested in procreation?’
‘Dedicated to it, you might say,’ Ikai said, his lips curling upward into a smile.
Sounds like his dedication paid off, Kusanagi thought. ‘Would you say having children was his primary reason for getting married?’
Ikai stretched out expansively. ‘Not even primary. It was his only reason. He’s been talking about having kids – and the sooner the better – since his bachelor days. It was all about finding the perfect mother for his children. And he did his research, earning a bit of a reputation as a playboy in the process, too. But believe me, he wasn’t playing around. He just wanted to be sure he got the right one.’
‘What about finding the perfect wife? Doesn’t that come first?’
Ikai shrugged. ‘I’m pretty sure he wasn’t actually that interested in a wife at all. “I need a woman who can bear me children,” he told me, “not some household manager or expensive trophy”.’
Kusanagi’s eyes widened. ‘Trophy …? I can imagine how most women would react to that.’
‘No kidding. Actually, that was what he said to me when I praised Ayane’s devotion to him. She was the perfect wife, you know. Utterly dedicated to him. Whenever he was home, she would sit there on the living room sofa, doing her patchwork, ready to serve if he needed anything. Not that he ever appreciated her. To him, a woman who couldn’t bear children was no more useful than a trophy on the wall – just taking up space.’
‘Nice. I take it Mr Mashiba wasn’t much of a feminist. Why was he so obsessed with having kids?’
‘I can’t say. I mean, I wanted kids, too, but I wasn’t pathological about it. Of course, once you actually have a kid, you can’t think of much else.’ Ikai allowed himself the warm smile of a new father; then his mouth straightened and he continued. ‘I would guess it had something to do with his upbringing.’
‘Really? What about it?’
‘Did you know that Mashiba didn’t have any family growing up?’
‘I heard. But tell me what you know.’
Ikai nodded. ‘Well, Mashiba’s parents divorced when he was an infant. The father got custody, but he was a real workaholic who was hardly ever home. So Mashiba was mostly raised by his grandmother. Then, tragedy struck. His grandmother died, followed by his father a short time later. His father was still in his twenties, but he developed something called a subarachnoid haemorrhage, and was gone in the blink of an eye. Mashiba was left all by himself. He got a decent inheritance, and he started working in his teens, so he didn’t want for much – but he pretty much missed out on what you’d call familial love.’
‘And he wanted to make up for that with kids of his own?’
‘He probably wanted someone close to him by blood – true kin. After all,’ Ikai
added coldly, ‘no matter how much you love your girlfriend or your wife, genetically she’s a total stranger.’
It occurred to Kusanagi that Ikai might share Mashiba’s outlook to some degree. Which made his take on the deceased’s psychology all the more convincing.
‘I heard the other day that you were there when Mr Mashiba met Ayane. At a party, was it?’
‘Yes. It was a social gathering for people from various different industries – a matchmaking shindig for successful professionals, really. I was already married, but Mashiba invited me along so I went with him. He said he was obliged to go because of a client. Of course, he ended up meeting his wife there. It just goes to show that you never know what life will bring. I suppose the timing was good, too.’
‘How’s that?’ Kusanagi asked.
A slight shadow passed over Ikai’s face. He said more than he intended, Kusagani thought.
‘He was seeing someone before he met Ayane,’ the lawyer said after a moment. ‘The party was right after they split up. I think having just hit a dead end gave him a sense of urgency. Maybe that’s what pushed him to actually seal the deal.’ He laid a finger to his lips. ‘Please don’t tell Ayane. Mashiba made me swear not to say anything.’
‘Do you know why he broke up with the other woman?’
Ikai shrugged. ‘We had an unspoken agreement not to get too involved in that sort of personal matter. If I had to guess, though, I’d say he probably found out the other girl didn’t want children, or couldn’t have them.’
‘But they weren’t married yet.’
‘At the risk of repeating myself, children were literally the most important thing to him. In fact, marriage after conception – the classic shotgun wedding – would probably have been preferable.’
So he switched to Ayane and then to Hiromi …
Kusanagi considered himself a good judge of people in all their varieties, but he was having trouble understanding Yoshitaka Mashiba. Ayane seemed like a loving woman, and certainly not a bad match for a man like Mashiba. Why couldn’t he have been happy just with her?
‘What sort of person was she, the girl Mashiba was seeing before?’
Ikai shrugged again. ‘I don’t really know. I never met her. Mashiba was a man who liked to keep secrets. He might have decided not to introduce her until he was sure he was going to marry her.’
‘Did the breakup go smoothly?’ Kusanagi asked.
‘Smoothly enough. Though we never talked about it at any length.’ Ikai looked at the detective quizzically. ‘You don’t think she might somehow be involved in his death?’
Kusanagi shook his head. ‘Nothing like that. We just need to know as much as possible about the victim.’
Ikai chuckled and waved a hand. ‘If you’re thinking that Mashiba might’ve invited his ex-girlfriend over, I’d say you’re barking up the wrong tree. I can say with total confidence that that’s not his style. Not at all.’
‘Because he never smoked two cigarettes at the same time, was it?’
‘Precisely.’ Ikai nodded.
‘I’ll take that into consideration.’ Kusanagi glanced at his watch, then rose to his feet. ‘Thanks for your time.’
Kusanagi was headed for the exit; but Ikai hurried past him, opened the door, and stood waiting beside it.
‘Er … Thanks.’
‘Detective Kusanagi,’ Ikai said, a serious look in his eyes. ‘I don’t mean to comment on the way you’re conducting your investigation, but there is one request I’d like to make if possible.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Mashiba didn’t exactly lead the life of a saint. Keep looking under stones and you’re sure to find some dirt. But if you want my opinion, I don’t think his death the other day has anything to do with his past. If you can, I’d rather you didn’t dig too deeply. It’s a sensitive time for the company.’
Worried about the company’s public image? ‘Even if we do dig something up, I promise we won’t go telling it to the press,’ Kusanagi said, then slipped out of the door.
He headed for the elevators, a sense of vague disgust towards the deceased growing inside him. So women were nothing more to him than baby factories! He was surprised at his own anger.
What if Mashiba had applied the same kind of thinking to everyone in his life? Were employees nothing more to him than gears to keep his company moving, consumers no more than targets for exploitation? It was easy to imagine how many casualties the man had left by the side of the road during his lifetime. It certainly wouldn’t be surprising if more than one person wanted him dead.
Of course, Hiromi Wakayama wasn’t entirely free from suspicion yet – though Ayane did have a point: there seemed to be no motive for her to kill the father of her unborn child. Yet based on what Kusanagi had just heard, it seemed dangerous to assume anything when it came to women and Yoshitaka Mashiba. The deceased intended to leave his wife and go to Hiromi, but only because she was pregnant, not necessarily because he loved her. Who knew what kind of selfish proposal he might’ve made to the girl and earned her hatred?
Still, as Utsumi had pointed out, it wouldn’t make much sense for the first one on the scene to leave traces of poison lying around if she had actually committed the murder. Kusanagi had no rebuttal to that argument; ‘maybe she just forgot’ wasn’t going to fly.
The detective decided to see what he could discover about the woman Mashiba was dating before he met Ayane. As he left the building, Kusanagi was contemplating where to begin.
Ayane Mashiba’s eyes went wide. Kusanagi detected the wave of surprise in her pupils.
‘His ex-girlfriend?’
‘Another sensitive subject, I know.’ The detective bowed his head apologetically.
The two sat in the lounge of the hotel where Ayane was staying. Kusanagi had called her to arrange the meeting.
‘Does that have something to do with your inves -tigation?’
‘Well – we can’t say for certain yet. But because there’s a very high likelihood your husband was murdered, we need to track down everyone with a probable motive. We’re just covering all the bases.’
The rigid line of Ayane’s lips softened and a lonely smile came to her face. ‘Well, knowing my husband, I’m sure that the end of her relationship with him was as abrupt and inconsiderate as the end of mine.’
‘Er …’ Kusanagi hesitated. ‘It’s our understanding that your husband was … primarily searching for a woman to bear him children. Men like this have a tendency to focus too much on the goal at the expense of the partner. We wondered if a previous partner who’d also been spurned might still bear him some ill will.’
‘Like I do?’
‘I wasn’t suggesting that—’
‘No, it’s all right.’ Ayane took a careful breath. ‘What was the lady detective’s name? Ms Utsumi? I’m sure you heard from her that Hiromi was successful in fulfilling my late husband’s “goal”, as you put it. That’s why he chose her, and discarded me. I would be lying if I said I didn’t bear him ill will because of that.’
‘But it would have been impossible for you to commit the crime.’
‘You sound so sure.’
‘Nothing’s been found in any of the plastic water bottles, so it seems most likely that the poison was put directly into the water in the kettle. You couldn’t have done that. So … the only possible answer is that someone came over on Sunday and put the poison in the kettle. It’s unlikely that they entered without your husband’s knowledge, so we can assume whoever it was came by invitation. We checked his work contacts, and found no likely leads there. That leaves someone close to your husband, whom he invited over in secret – which suggests a very specific sort of relationship.’
‘A lover or former lover?’ She brushed aside her fringe. ‘Well, I’d love to help you, but I’m afraid he never spoke about such things to me. Not even once.’
‘Not even a suggestion? No detail is too small, Mrs Mashiba.’
She shrugged. ‘He was
n’t the kind of man who talked about his past. He was very circumspect in that regard. He even made a point of never going to any restaurants or bars he had frequented with previous girlfriends.’
‘I see,’ Kusanagi said, frowning inwardly. He’d been planning on following up by asking around at the restaurants the Mashibas had frequented.
Yoshitaka Mashiba certainly was a cautious man. They hadn’t caught so much as the scent of a woman other than Hiromi from any of the personal effects he’d left behind at his home and office. All of the numbers on his mobile phone were either work contacts or male friends. He hadn’t even entered Hiromi’s number.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help.’
‘There’s no need to apologize.’
‘But—’ Ayane broke off her next sentence when her phone rang in her handbag. She quickly took it out, then hesitated.
‘Do you mind if I answer it?’
‘Of course not,’ Kusanagi said.
‘Hello? Ayane speaking.’
She began the conversation calmly, but a moment later, her eyebrows twitched and she glanced tensely at Kusanagi. ‘Of course, I don’t mind. But what are you – oh, I see. All right. Thank you.’ She hung up the phone, then put her hand to her mouth, her lips forming an oh. ‘Maybe I should have mentioned you were here?’
‘Who was it?’
‘Detective Utsumi.’
‘What did she have to say?’
‘That she wanted to examine the kitchen again, and wondered if it would be all right to go inside the house. She said she wouldn’t be long.’
‘Reexamining the kitchen? What’s she up to?’ Kusanagi muttered, giving his chin a scratch.
‘Perhaps finding another way the poison could have got into the coffee?’
‘That would be the most obvious answer.’ Kusanagi looked at his watch, then reached for the bill on the table. ‘I think I’ll join her, if you don’t mind.’
‘Not at all,’ Ayane said. Then she looked up. ‘Actually, I have a request.’
‘Yes?’
‘I know this isn’t really your job as a detective, but …’