Fuminori Nakamura - Evil and the Mask

I hesitated, then gave up and let him in. He started to take off his shoes, but I stopped him with a gesture. Sae had been Shintani’s girlfriend at university, who died in a traffic accident after they broke up. I figured that Yaeko was probably her mother.

“Why are you here?” I asked, looking him in the face.

“You really don’t get it, do you? Because the statute’s about to run out on what you did. The time limit is different for different crimes, and the years you spent overseas don’t count. But then I felt the hand of fate, so strong it was spooky.”

He held out a photograph.

“This man, his name’s Takayuki Yajima. Do you know him? He’s a drug user and a dealer and some kind of con man, a marriage swindler.”

I felt a dull pain in my heart. I tried to look bored but I couldn’t speak. Inside my head I sorted through various reactions, but couldn’t decide which was best.

“When we were looking into his activities before he died, we found that he’d been to a bar called d’Alfaro. If he didn’t kill himself, maybe the person who gave him the poison went to the same bar. He had a lot of enemies. If one of them was there that day, maybe he’s the culprit. It would also make it less likely that he committed suicide. A shitty bar like that doesn’t have security cameras, but the sex shop next door has one at the entrance. They put it in so that they can check people’s faces when there’s trouble with customers. And sure enough, there was a picture of Yajima walking past. And then I saw a familiar face. Yours. I was flabbergasted. I felt like you’d come back into my clutches, and before the time expired. That’s when I decided to pay you another visit.”

My head was aching slightly. I was finding it hard to keep up with the pace of events.

“Am I under suspicion?” I said without thinking.

I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead, but couldn’t do anything about them. He was staring at me intently.

“Why? Should you be?”

“No …”

He burst out laughing.

“Come on! Why would you kill Yajima? There’s nothing tying you to him. There’s absolutely no link between your life and his. No matter what I think of you, I’m not going to set you up for that. He was either tricked by some woman and murdered, or he topped himself. Anyway, his body was already falling apart. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m saying I felt the hand of destiny. It’s a hunch I’ve had for a long time. And my hunches, they’ve been a friend to me my whole life, they’re always right on the money. When I meet someone again out of the blue like that, something is definitely going to happen. I started to think that maybe you really had killed Sae after all. Sorry, but you know I’m stubborn. In fact I don’t have that much time right now because of other cases, but I decided to have another look anyway.”

He continued to watch me.

“Yaeko’s health isn’t very good.”

“Huh?”

“Finally I get a reaction. That’s right. She might not have much longer. That’s another reason I’m here. Don’t you think that everything fits together, like cogs? Hell, you look really bad. Okay, we’ll leave it there for today. But before I leave, can I take a quick look at your room?”

“You really are obsessed with my room, aren’t you?”

“Haven’t I told you before? If you see a person’s room you can pretty much understand them. Fyodor Dostoevsky said that. I’m putting all my cards on the table here, but I want to get a feel for what you’re like now. After all, it’s been eight years. My instincts about you aren’t as sharp as they used to be. You seem really different from before, somehow. You even look different.”

“Okay.”

Casually he slipped off his shoes and opened the living room door.

“That’s far enough. You can see from there, can’t you?”

“Kind of a lonely room, isn’t it?” he said, gazing around.

“None of your business.”

“That reminds me. You liked movies, didn’t you?”

The projector screen was still down, and the shelves were overflowing with DVDs, mostly French and Italian. Shintani’s taste in movies.

“With a place like this, I bet you don’t get many visitors. No girlfriend either. This is definitely a one-person room.”

“I said, it’s none of your business.”

“People often die around you. Your family, Masao Yaeda at high school, then Takayuki Isoi, Mikio Suzuki.”

“Give me a break. They got sick and died. Well, Yaeda was an accident.”

“I know. But I always thought you were weird. It suddenly occurred to me that if I got mixed up with you I might drop dead too.”

“Maybe you’ll catch my flu and die. Apparently this year’s virus is really dangerous for diabetics.”

He laughed.

“I’ll come back another day. Actually, I don’t have much time, because I’ve got to follow up on those terrorist attacks. But shall I tell you my impression, seeing you after all these years? I get the feeling you’re a bit more upset than I expected. I wonder why? But don’t disappear overseas again.”

He opened the door carelessly and left. The smell of his old-fashioned hair oil lingered behind him.

I SAT ON my bed and lit a cigarette. Then a second, and a third. Breathing quietly, I considered my situation. As I stared at the gently dissolving trail of smoke, I felt sharp, stabbing pains in my head.

Shintani’s girlfriend at university, Sae Suzuki, had died in a traffic accident. Her mother, Yaeko, and that detective, Aida, had always harbored suspicions against him. From my conversation with Aida, I gathered that these suspicions were solely his and the mother’s, not shared by the police force as a whole. Yajima’s death was also tricky. Aida had claimed that there was no connection between Yajima and Shintani, but was that what he really thought? I had to be careful. I wondered how I’d gotten into this mess. But it goes without saying that taking on another person’s identity involves a degree of risk. I drank a glass of stale water that had been left on the table since I don’t know when, and finally stubbed out my cigarette.

After transferring the picture of Aida from the intercom camera to my computer, I lifted the receiver of my phone. Then I stopped and grabbed my cell phone instead. I’d bought it from a professional part-timer in Tokyo, so there was no tie to me or Shintani. The bills were paid through his bank account, so I’d bought that as well.

The phone rang three times and the private investigator answered in a quiet voice. I could hear a buzzing sound.

“Something awkward has come up. I want to move next week’s meeting forward.”

It sounded like he was in a bar somewhere.

“Okay. What’s happened?”

“I’ll tell you then. But put everything on hold until we meet, please. There’s a cop sniffing around.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe we should avoid the usual hotel. Do you know somewhere safe?”

“I think so. I’ll get back to you. Is this cell phone all right?”

“Yes. Let’s meet the day after tomorrow. Maybe it’s best if we lay low tomorrow, as a precaution.”

“Okay. I’ve got some new information too.”

I hung up and sat on the bed. Looking back on my exchange with Aida, I thought about how uneven my pulse had been, how perturbed I was. Even now my heart was still thumping, like a persistent echo. I got up, irritated by my body’s reaction. I was hungry, and that annoyed me too. I thought about going out, but changed my mind because Aida might still be there. I could hear low voices whispering right beside my ear. I ignored them and started walking, but something felt wrong with the floor. It seemed to be sticking to the soles of my feet, as if it had a mind of its own. The second hand on the clock moved sharply, jerkily. I felt the glass was urging me to pick it up and drink more of that stale liquid. I fired up my computer and forced down the rest of the water.