The studio was hushed. The only sound was of the hotline phones ringing. Everyone was holding their breath, watching Tagawa.
“Of course I'll keep my promise,” the voice replied.
The noisy ringing of the phones abruptly stopped. In the silence, Tagawa rose stiffly and, fussing over the mic attached to his shirt, walked out from behind the screen and stood before the camera, revealing himself in the flesh to viewers in living rooms all around the country.
“Son of a bitch!” sputtered Shoji in amazement, his mug of coffee suspended halfway to his mouth. “That's him? Really?”
Mr. T stood on the stage and identified himself as Kazuyoshi Tagawa speaking in his own natural voice, surprisingly resonant. He was tall and thin with a bony frame, dressed in jeans and a shirt. His hair was messy, making him look four or five years younger than his twenty-five.
“What an irresponsible-looking face!” Shoji went on. “Although that's a common look these days.”
Shigeko was seated on the sofa beside Shoji, her legs crossed and a lit cigarette between her fingers, glaring at the guy on the screen. Her teeth were clenched, although she wasn't aware of that.
Shinichi had just come back from work and was sitting at their kitchen table eating his dinner, but now sat with his chopsticks suspended midair, staring at the TV. “He really did it,” he muttered. “He really did show himself.”
“I wonder what the police'll have to say about it? I wonder if they're watching?” Shoji spoke to Shinichi, since Shigeko was absorbed in the TV and had her scary face on.
“Anyway, while they had this guy on the real culprit called in, so it just goes to show the police were after the wrong guy.”
“It was probably staged from the start.”
Shoji's voice was so loud that Shigeko picked up the remote controller and turned the volume up.
There was a moment of silence after Tagawa nervously introduced himself, prompting the anchor to say, “Hello? Are you still on the line?
“Yes, I'm here,” the voice answered.
“As you can see, Mr. Tagawa has kept his side of the bargain.”
“So he has. Young, isn't he?”
Shigeko narrowed her eyes against the cigarette smoke. Actually, she'd assumed the caller was pretty young, too.
“Thank you, Mr. Tagawa,” the voice said. “But it's not enough to just give your name, is it?”
“What do you mean?” asked the anchor, as Tagawa stood rigid with tension.
“You've got a previous conviction, haven't you? Aren't you going to tell us about that? Where, when, and what you did? You've been telling us how you were falsely convicted, so I don't suppose you'll mind telling us about what happened.”
“But that─”
“If it's hard for Mr. Tagawa to talk about it, then it's fine if you tell us.” The voice laughed. “I won't object if you give an easy-to-follow explanation for all your viewers.”
“But that wasn't part of the deal. Before you said it was enough for Mr. Tagawa to appear before the cameras, didn't you?”
Back in the meeting room at Bokuto Police Station, the detectives were making fun of this latest development on the program.
“I'd be delighted to fill them in on what he did.”
“Yeah, I'm sure the viewers wouldn't mind hearing about it either.”
Takegami, though, sat resting his chin on his hands scowling at the screen. The first caller had been angry. Presumes to ride on someone else's fame─that was the phrase he'd used. It was an odd way to put it, but it had succinctly expressed how angry he was and why. But the caller who was taunting Tagawa now as he stood there before the TV cameras didn't sound at all angry. And it didn't feel as though he was just trying to rub salt in the wound either─it sounded like he had some other purpose in mind.
In the studio, the anchor and the caller were still haggling between them while Tagawa grew steadily paler. It was true that he'd been ranting all this time how his previous conviction had been a setup, but now he wasn't in a hurry to give any details about it. Perhaps he'd been given legal advice since the first program─maybe warned that if he said too much, he'd be digging his own grave.
Just then, the meeting room door opened and someone came in. He reached through the throng of people crowded around the TV and tapped Takegami on the shoulder.
“Gami.” Takegami turned to see Akitsu. His eyes looked tense, his thick eyebrows drawn into a straight line. “Can you come a moment? There's a phone call.”
Takegami hurried out of the room. Akitsu strode back down the corridor and shoved open an instruction room door with his shoulder.
“What kind of phone call?”
“Some information about Tagawa. Someone who lives in Vela Okawa Park, a condo on the west side of the park.”
Several people were gathered around a desk at the end of the room where Detective Inoue from Squad Four was on the phone. At his side stood Captain Kanzaki, who nodded at Takegami, beckoning him over.
“It's a thirty-year-old housewife. Name is Yoko Kirino,” Akitsu told him, handing him a monitoring headset. “She's saying that her daughter was almost snatched by a young man in a car, and that's him─Tagawa─no doubt about it.”
Yoshio was sitting at his office desk with the Rolodex open at the name cards given to him by various detectives on the case. Among those from the Tofu Makers Association committee members, the soybean wholesale reps, the staff at the health center, and the liaison people at the credit bank, they stood out like hard metallic flecks in rock. One of them was for Takegami, who had scribbled his direct line down in ballpoint pen, telling him to feel free to call at any time.
The Arima Team detectives were still staking out the apartment next door. He could tell them about it, but they were all a bit too young and he didn't feel comfortable about confiding something so important to them. It would be easier to talk to Takegami. He was young enough to be Yoshio's son, but still he felt more at ease with him. Maybe it was because he felt something rigorous in his approach.
What Yoshio was debating with himself was whether or not to inform them that the caller had changed. The voice that was now talking to the anchor and Tagawa was not the same person who had called a number of times to taunt Yoshio and deliberately try to rip his heart out. Something was different. He couldn't place his finger on what exactly it was, but he was sure. The caller had switched. The guy had angrily hung up when the commercial break had come on, and had then called back. That's when the switch had taken place. There was no doubt about it.
But would they believe him? They might flatly dismiss the idea. You're just imagining things, Mr. Arima. We didn't notice anything of the sort. But if he was right, it would mean there was more than one culprit, at least two of them. This information would change everything, and probably take the investigation in a completely different direction.
Should I call? Should I talk to Takegami?
Yoko Kirino's voice was shaking and verging on the hysterical. Inoue was doing his best to soothe her and eke out information, but she kept repeating the same things over and over.
“It's okay, Mrs. Kirino, please relax. Let me recap to make sure I've got this right─tell me if I've mistaken anything,” Inoue said. “Your eldest daughter, she's called Maiko, right? She's in the fourth grade at elementary school, so that makes her, what─nine years old? So in early June, Maiko went with a friend to play in Okawa Park, and on the way back a young man tried to talk to her. Am I right so far?”
“Yes, that's right,” Kirino said quickly. “She went to practice riding her bike. She was the only one in her class who couldn't ride yet. She was okay with training wheels, though. So her friend was teaching her, but they quarreled and the friend went home before her. She was on her own in the park until past five o'clock. Even though I'd told her to be home before five.”
“Okay, Mrs. Kirino, I unders
tand. Try not to get upset now. So Maiko was on her way home when this man talked to her?” She had been pushing her bike, so the young man had come up to her and offered to help because it looked heavy. “You'd always taught Maiko not to talk to strangers, so she immediately ran away and came home, right?”
“Yes, that's right. But the man followed her, so she ran as fast as she could, all the way home.”
“Do you remember which day in June it was?”
“Uh, which day ... sorry, it's too long ago.”
“But it was definitely near the beginning of June, right? So what happened the second time?”
“It was two or three days later, I think, Maiko said she wanted to practice riding her bike, but I was worried about her so I went with her. Her sister Hiroko is only two, so I carried her with me. Anyway, come evening─it must have been around five-thirty I guess, it was time to go home so we were walking toward the gate when Hiroko needed to use the park restroom. It's right next to the gate, so I told Maiko to wait there for us, but when we came out all I could see was her bike. She wasn't anywhere in sight.”
Yoko had shouted her daughter's name. There were few people left in the park, and the paths and the woods were perfectly hushed. “I was scared and kept searching for Maiko, calling her name. Then she came running back from the direction of the gate. She was white as a ghost and crying. She clung onto me, and told me that a stranger had tried to get her to go into his car. She said it was the same man as before. She had a cut over her right eyebrow, which was bleeding. When I asked her how she got it, she said the man had pulled her by the hand and when she shook it off to run away, he hit her on the face. He hit Maiko on the face with the back of his hand, can you believe it? He was wearing a ring, and that's what cut her. She remembered it was silver.”
She was appalled and thought about reporting it to the local police box, but in the end decided to go home and tell her husband about it. But he'd just told her off for being so careless, and her mother-in-law, too, had angrily said not to tell anyone about anything so shameful. A daughter being targeted by a pervert was proof of the mother's negligence, apparently.
“Things being the way they were I've been keeping it to myself all this time, but after that Maiko stopped going out to play, and I've been so worried that I've been picking her up from school and always keeping my eye on her. I haven't been able to sleep properly at night. But my husband and his mother just criticize me and don't care about how I feel at all.”
She hadn't been back to the park since then, and hadn't seen any sign of the strange man. However, at the beginning of July there had been a couple of anonymous calls to the house, and a neighbor had warned her that a young man had been peering into the windows of her home, so she had become quite neurotic about it.
“Our condo is on the first floor, and I've always been careful about hanging laundry out and never hang out underwear, but after that I stopped going out on the veranda at all.”
“So things have been like that ever since?” asked Inoue.
“Yes. Since the beginning of the summer break Maiko has at last started going outside to play, but she won't go anywhere on her own. I wouldn't let her, anyway.”
“I see. And then you were watching the TV just now, and realized that the man who had tried to take Maiko was Kazuyoshi Tagawa, is that right?”
“It was Maiko who knew.”
“When she saw his face?”
“No, before that─it was when she saw his ring. He was wearing a silver ring, right? Maiko saw that, and started crying, and told me it was that man.”
Steadying his headphones with his hand, Takegami turned to Inoue and nodded at him.
“And then, when he showed his face there was no doubting it. Maiko clung to me terrified, and refused to let go.”
“Is Maiko there with you now?”
“No, I'm alone right now. I had to come out to the public phone opposite our house. If I tried calling from home, my mother-in-law would cut me off.
“I understand, Mrs. Kirino.”
Captain Kanzaki was nodding to urge him along. Confirming this, Inoue quickly said, “Thank you for letting us know about this, it's really very important. You don't need to worry anymore. We'll come over to your house and take a proper statement from you, and show you some photos, is that okay?”
“Um, but … but my husband and his mother will be furious with me.”
“Don't worry about them. We'll explain the situation to them and clear up their misunderstanding. It's not your or Maiko's fault that Maiko was targeted. We'll also take steps to ensure that you and your daughter can go about your lives without having to worry. So as soon as we finish this call, we'll be right over, okay? My name is Isao Inoue, of the Tokyo MPD. I'll be coming with a couple of colleagues. We're coming right away, so please wait for us.”
“Er, will you be coming in a squad car? That would be …”
“No, no, we'll come in an unmarked car. No one will notice us, don't worry.”
As Inoue replaced the receiver, Takegami took off his headphones.
“Let's prepare photos of Tagawa and a copy of this TV program,” Captain Kanzaki said, standing up. “And photos of his car rentals.”
“So we finally found out why he rents cars,” said Akitsu, striking his fists together in frustration. “But how come this is the first we've heard of anything like this? We've been to that apartment house any number of times, questioning residents, but nothing ever pointed to this.”
“Her mother-in-law sounds like a real witch.”
Many people were afraid to get involved and were more concerned about what others would think, so kept their mouths shut even when questioned. Especially in cases like this, where a mother-in-law had blamed the mother of the child being targeted by a pervert─a timid daughter-in-law would never be able to defend herself in that kind of situation.
On the desk was a small LCD TV with its antenna extended and tuned into the same program that Takegami had been watching. While Inoue had been on the phone the sound had been turned down, but now someone turned it back up again.
The caller had hung up, and the discussion between the invited guests was just beginning. Tagawa was now out from behind the screen and was seated next to the anchor, his face flushed. The hotline phones were ringing off the hook, and a female assistant had a pile of faxes sent in by viewers that she now delivered to the moderator.
“You stinking pervert!” Akitsu cursed Tagawa on TV. “Just you wait until I get my hands on you.”
Takegami looked away from the TV and caught Captain Kanzaki's eye. At that moment he knew that the captain was having the same vague misgivings that had just occurred to him. It was a hair-raising thought─the sort of thing he hesitated to put into coherent words. Had the caller known what Tagawa was up to around Okawa Park? Could that be why he'd been so determined to out Tagawa on the program? Maybe he'd been hoping that Tagawa's victims─and there had probably been others as well as little Maiko Kirino─would recognize him and report him. Hadn't he betted on that possibility and contrived to have Tagawa exposed on TV?
As the detectives leaped into action, Takegami took the opportunity to voice his thoughts quietly to the Captain. “Or maybe I'm just imagining it?”
“It's too soon to say,” Captain Kanzaki shook his head. “It's dangerous to make a snap judgment. Coincidences do happen.”
“Gami, get me the latest map would you?” Akitsu's voice boomed across the room as he made hasty preparations to go out.
Takegami took the tape of the phone conversation they'd had just now out of the recorder and went toward the door.
“Time to prepare a search warrant on Tagawa's apartment, too.” The corners of Captain Kanzaki's mouth curled up into a faint smile. “Let's ask him to accompany us voluntarily to the police station. He's the big hero now. He can't run or hide anymore.”
&n
bsp; After the HBS special ended, Yoshio remained seated by the phone thinking. The Rolodex was still open so he could phone at any moment, but he just couldn't make up his mind to place the call.
Then Kida called him from home to ask if he'd been watching it.
“What a comedy. But yes, I watched it all the way through.”
“Are you okay, Boss?”
“Sure, I'm okay.”
“I was so mad it spoiled my dinner.” Kida sounded drunk.
“I'm sorry to make you worry too, Taka.”
“You don't need to apologize for anything, Boss. What would you do that for?” He was beginning to sound argumentative. “You shouldn't, you know. You're the victim. Ever since that awful thing happened to Mari-chan, your life has been in pieces. But still you don't get angry and just keep saying you're sorry. Even though you haven't done anything wrong.”
Now he was just going on and on, his voice thick with emotion. After listening to him grumble for a while, Yoshio suddenly wondered if he'd realized, too. “Taka, did you notice anything strange while watching that program?” he asked.
“Strange?”
“It's just that the guy hung up when the ads cut in, right? Before and after─that weird voice─I got the feeling it was a different person.”
Kida didn't get it. “What do you mean?”
“You spoke to the guy on the phone once too, Taka. Didn't you think the caller in the second part of the program, the guy who was talking directly to Tagawa, was someone else, not the guy you spoke to that time?”
“Really? I didn't get that feeling. Boss, are you really sure?”
“I can't say. I'm wondering whether I should tell the police or not.”
“What if it was a different person?” mumbled Kida. “Is that a problem? Oh, I see─you mean the guy who called the program was a fake?”
“No, not exactly.”
Kida never could hold his liquor and he didn't even like drinking much, but now he was so drunk he was slurring his words. Maybe he just hadn't been able watch that program sober. Maybe I'd have been better off drunk too, Yoshio thought. Ever since Mariko had disappeared, though, he'd been off the bottle. At first he'd decided to swear off liquor until she came home, but since she had returned as a pile of bones, his goal had changed. There was now just one reason: his health. To extend his life even by just one day.
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