Keigo Higashino - Malice

“There were several things that struck me as odd when I read the confession you wrote following your arrest. It was possible to explain each away individually, but taken together, they gave me the impression there was something else at work in your account, Mr. Nonoguchi. There was an insincerity running through it that made me unable to simply accept what you’d written as the truth.

“That was when I found my first big clue. I was amazed that, given the number of times I’d met with you, I hadn’t noticed it before. It was staring me in the face the whole time.

“Mr. Nonoguchi, please hold out your right hand. Just your fingers will do. Note the pen callus on your middle finger. It’s quite thick.

“But that’s odd, isn’t it? You don’t write longhand, you use a word processor for your stories. You also used it for your reports and so forth you wrote back when you worked as a teacher. So why did you have such a large pen callus? Perhaps you’d like me to believe it’s not a pen callus. Then what is it? You don’t know? You can’t remember anything that could have caused that bump on your finger?

“Don’t worry about it too much. The only thing that’s important here is that, to me, it looked like a pen callus. And the only reason for someone who uses a word processor to have such a nice thick pen callus would be because he’d recently needed to write a very large quantity of material by hand.

“That got me thinking. And let me tell you, what I came up with sent a chill down my spine. If my new theory was correct, it meant that my investigation would take a full one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.

“I’ll cut to the chase: all those manuscripts found in your apartment were not written over the last couple of decades, they weren’t written back in high school or college, but instead they were written very recently, in great haste. Chilling, I know. Because that would mean that Mr. Hidaka hadn’t stolen your work, or stolen any ideas from those manuscripts at all.

“But a theory without proof isn’t enough. I needed some way to prove it, so I did some looking around.

“Mr. Nonoguchi, do you know a man by the name of Heikichi Tsujimura? You don’t? I didn’t think so.

“In your confession, you wrote that as children you and Kunihiko Hidaka used to go watch the neighborhood fireworks maker at work. You said that it was your memory of these occasions that formed the basis for your story A Circle of Fire, the very story on which Mr. Hidaka based his novel An Unburning Flame .

“That fireworks maker’s name was Mr. Tsujimura. Yes, of course you might’ve simply forgotten the name. That’s not important. I imagine that, had I been able to ask Kunihiko Hidaka if he remembered, it’s possible he might’ve forgotten, too.

“But Mr. Tsujimura—who, by the way, is still alive; over ninety and in a wheelchair, but sharp as a tack—hadn’t forgotten the boy who came to visit. One boy, not two. I showed him your middle-school yearbook and he pointed out the boy’s face right away: Kunihiko Hidaka.

“Oh, and when I showed him your face, he said he’d never seen you before.

“It was his testimony that removed my last remaining shred of doubt. Mr. Hidaka hadn’t stolen your work, hadn’t based any of his novels on your writings. All those manuscripts were stories and novels derived by you, closely based on his books. Then I started working backward from that fact, the fact that he didn’t plagiarize a word from you. If there was no plagiarism, then there was no blackmail, and if not blackmail, ultimately, no attempted murder.

“What are we to make, then, of your alleged relationship to Hatsumi Hidaka, the supposed motive for your attempted murder? Was there really an infidelity, as you claimed? Let’s review the evidence.

“First we have the apron, the necklace, and the travel documents found in your apartment. Next we have the photograph, discovered later, of Hatsumi, taken at what appears to be the Fuji River rest area. Not to mention the photo of Mount Fuji taken from the same spot.

“That’s it. There was nothing else. Nor were there any witnesses who could testify to seeing the two of you alone together, much less testify to a relationship between you.

“Of these, the travel documents could have been written up at any time, so they prove nothing. Furthermore, the necklace you claimed was a present for Hatsumi could’ve been for anyone, or no one at all. The apron, however, does appear to have been Hatsumi’s apron. As I told you before, we found a photograph of her wearing it.

“However, it would’ve been a rather simple task for you to steal an apron out of Hidaka’s house, possibly on one of those nights when he was out drinking with an editor or perhaps when you went to help him clean out his deceased wife’s belongings before he married Rie.

“On that same occasion, you could’ve stolen a photograph. Specifically, one that fulfilled the following conditions: it had to show Hatsumi standing alone, and there needed to be no other photographs showing Kunihiko in the same place. Another photograph showing something innocuous, like a view from the same place, would be the icing on the cake. The photograph meeting all of those conditions was the one taken at the Fuji River rest area.

“No, of course I have no proof you stole anything. I’m merely saying it was possible. But, given the number of times I’ve been misled by things you’ve written, the mere possibility is enough to convince me I shouldn’t accept the details of your alleged relationship with Hatsumi at face value.

“Of course, if there was no attempted murder, no blackmail, and no plagiarism, then it would only stand to reason that the precondition necessary for all of those events to take place—Hatsumi’s adultery—also did not occur. This also clears up the matter of Hatsumi’s accidental death. It was simply that: an accident. There was no motive for suicide.

“Let’s take a look at what we have so far—specifically, what you’ve been up to since fall of last year. I’ll try to keep things in chronological order.

“First, you procured some unused, but old—and old-looking—spiral notebooks. I’m sure you were able to find them stashed somewhere in the school where you taught. Then, you began copying Kunihiko Hidaka’s published works. Not exact copies, because you adjusted them to give the impression that these were the originals upon which those published works had been based. I’d guess it took you something on the order of a full month to rewrite each novel. That must’ve been quite a chore. For the newer works, of course, you simply used your word processor. The stories written on composition paper that were without counterparts in Hidaka’s published works were things that you actually did write back in your college days.

“As for The Gates of Ice, this is where we really see the hand of the master planner. Anticipating events, you realized you needed story memos for the detectives to find, and you needed to have written the next installment to use as your alibi when you killed Hidaka.

“Then comes the video. As I said, you probably took this toward the end of last year. Then, in the new year, you obtained Hatsumi’s apron and photograph. No doubt you also filled out those travel forms and bought the necklace around the same time. Did you already have blank travel forms lying around? Maybe you found those at your school, too. Also, you claimed that the paisley necktie in your dresser was from Hatsumi, and the teacup in the cupboard was one you had purchased together. You probably picked up both of these items rather recently and by yourself.

“Next we come to a very important final step. I hear that it took the Hidakas about a week to prepare all of their things to send to Canada, during which time you visited their house once. I believe your main goal for this visit was to conceal two items in their luggage: the knife and the videotape. The tape you placed inside a hollowed-out copy of Hidaka’s book in order to create the impression that it was something he’d been hiding.