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  “I see what you mean … Of course, he could just have been toughing it out.”

  “That’s a possibility, sure. Still, I think that’s where we may find the answer to the riddle of the missing thirty minutes.” Kagawa got up and walked over to the cash register to pay.

  “Hang on. What are you implying?”

  “I can’t tell you any more yet. I need to unravel that riddle first,” said Kaga, as they left the café.

  4.

  Over dinner, Naho relayed what Detective Kaga had told her. Getting Satoko to grasp the concept of the missing thirty minutes was quite a struggle. Naho had to write out a timeline of Takura’s movements before her grandmother could understand.

  “Huh,” snorted Satoko, her head cocked to one side. “I don’t think those thirty minutes matter much, one way or the other.”

  “Thirty minutes is long enough for someone to have committed the murder. That’s why the police are taking it so seriously.”

  “Then the police are idiots. First of all, would Mr. Takura do something like that? Of course not. He’d never do anything so horrible. He’s not that kind of person. He always keeps his promises, always does his best to understand other people’s points of view. People as considerate as he are rare nowadays. I mean, he came around the minute I got out of hospital—”

  Naho interrupted Satoko with a dismissive wave of the hand.

  “We all know that Mr. Takura’s a nice guy. There’s no point going on about it. The important thing is to figure out a way to prove to the police that he didn’t do it.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. We need to tell the police loud and clear. The only reason they could possibly suspect Mr. Takura is because they have no idea what kind of man he is.”

  “I’m wasting my time,” muttered Naho under her breath. She looked over at Fumitaka, her father. He was sitting in silence, a solemn expression on his face.

  “What are you thinking, Dad?”

  “Huh? Oh, I was wondering if Mr. Takura really said those things.”

  “What things?”

  “You know, about how he dropped in on you here after going to Kodenmacho and before going back to the head office, then heading home after that.”

  “That’s what Detective Kaga told me he said.”

  “Hmm. I wonder…” murmured Fumitaka, deep in thought.

  “What’s wrong, Dad?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “That Detective Kaga is a handsome young fellow,” declared Satoko, as she prepared a pot of tea. “He’s got the perfect face for a samurai drama on TV. He’s clever-looking, too.”

  “I think he is clever. He pointed out something very interesting to me.” Naho then told Satoko about Kaga’s observation regarding how the businessmen walking along Amazake Alley were dressed.

  “Gosh, he’s right!” exclaimed Satoko wonderingly. “That would never have occurred to me.”

  “Anyway, that set Detective Kaga wondering why Mr. Takura still had his jacket on when he came to see us on that day. He thought it might be connected to that thirty-minute gap.”

  “How?”

  “He doesn’t yet know.”

  “Well, he’s got some eccentric ideas. Who knows, perhaps that makes him a better detective.”

  “Who knows?” said Naho, picking up her teacup. “I didn’t get the impression that he was very fired up about the case. And then, him talking so openly about the investigation to me—that doesn’t seem very professional.”

  “You were the one who asked him.”

  “Well, asking’s one thing, and telling’s another. I don’t think it’s quite normal, eh, Dad?” Naho looked at her father for his support.

  “What?… Oh, yes, I guess not.”

  Fumitaka got to his feet.

  “Time for me to have my bath. That was a very nice dinner.”

  Naho cocked her head. She was puzzled. Why was her father so distracted?

  5.

  In the late afternoon, Fumitaka went out front and closed the awning. He did this every day. It was cooler than it had been at lunchtime, but the sun was getting stronger by the day. He was thinking that before the summer got under way in earnest, he should change the shelf displays. Some rice crackers and snacks went better with beer than others.

  A shadow floating across the sidewalk alerted him that there someone was behind him. He was about to greet the person as a customer, when he recognized him. It was someone who was on his mind.

  “Another scorcher today, eh?” Kaga spoke first.

  “Tell me about it. If it’s my daughter you want, she’s not back yet.”

  Kaga waved away the idea.

  “It’s you I want to talk to. Have you got a few minutes to spare?”

  Startled, Fumitaka drew in his breath. He looked at Kaga. Kaga stared right back at him until Fumitaka had to look away.

  “All right. Well, come on in, then,” Fumitaka said, pushing the glass door.

  “Where’s your mother today?”

  “She’s here. Do you want me to call her?”

  “No, if she’s here, we’ll need to go and talk somewhere else,” Kaga said.

  Although the detective was considerably younger than he was, Fumitaka still found him intimidating. The man definitely hadn’t come just to double-check his facts this time.

  Fumitaka sighed and nodded.

  The two men went into the store. “Hey, Mom,” Fumitaka yelled in the direction of the back room. “Are you awake?”

  “Why, what’s up?” came Satoko’s voice from the living room.

  “I have to go out for a minute. Will you mind the store?”

  “Off to play pachinko again, are you? You’re a lost cause.” As Satoko shuffled into her sandals, she spotted Kaga behind her son. “Oh, if it isn’t our local debonair detective. Is Mr. Takura still a suspect?”

  “We’re still looking into him.”

  “Well, I’m relying on you. He’s a good man. Not murderer material. I guarantee that personally.”

  “Very good. I heard that you got out of the hospital quite recently. How are you feeling?”

  “Fit as a fiddle from the minute I got home, thank you very much. Going into the hospital in the first place was probably a mistake.” Satoko looked at Fumitaka. “Are you going to have a talk with Detective Kaga? You be sure to tell him what a good fellow Mr. Takura is.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Mom. I know.” Fumitaka turned to Kaga. “Shall we get going?”

  “Take good care of yourself,” Kaga said to Satoko.

  “It’s great to see your mother looking so well,” Kaga said as they emerged from the shop.

  “She can still talk the hind legs off a donkey.”

  They walked over to the café on the far side of the street. Fumitaka remembered what Naho had told them about her conversation with Kaga there the night before. Both men ordered iced coffee. When Fumitaka pulled out a pack of cigarettes, Kaga pushed the ashtray across.

  “I had a chat with your daughter here yesterday.”

  “I know.”

  “So she told you? No surprise, I suppose. Anyway, that should simplify things.”

  “She was telling us that you’d noticed something quite funny, if funny’s the right word for it. That business about the difference in the way the men walking in the street are dressed—I’d not noticed it, either.”

  “I notice details. That’s the sort of person I am. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Mr. Takura was dressed. What was he doing with his suit jacket on after pounding the streets all day?”

  Their iced coffees arrived. Fumitaka lit a cigarette.

  “Have you figured that out yet?”

  “Pretty much, yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “You don’t sound surprised. Aren’t you interested?”

  “It’s not that.”

  “Well, perhaps what I’ve got to say isn’t something all that interesting to you. After all, I’ll only be telling you something you already
know, Mr. Kamikawa.”

  The glass of coffee Fumitaka was carrying to his lips stopped in midair. “What do you mean?”

  “Why did Mr. Takura have his jacket on when he went to your store? The answer’s simple enough. It’s because he didn’t drop in at your place after having been outside all day. No, before going to your place, he swung by his office, finished off all his work, and only then did he go to see your mother and daughter. That’s why he wasn’t hot and bothered and was quite comfortable keeping his jacket on.”

  Fumitaka was looking resolutely at the floor.

  “Takura left Kodenmacho at five thirty and got back to his office before six,” continued the detective. “He gave all the documents related to Satoko Kamikawa’s hospitalization claim to a female colleague to process, then put on his jacket and headed back out. He dropped in at your place, then went to meet his friend for a drink and headed home for the day. In this account of things, his movements tally perfectly with all the different testimony we have. There are no missing thirty minutes. We can suppose that the missing half hour was taken up getting from his office to your place and then chatting with your mother, Satoko Kamikawa, and your daughter, Naho Kamikawa. However, this leaves us with just one discrepancy to explain: Mr. Takura needed to have a medical certificate in order to submit your mother’s insurance claim. That means he couldn’t have handed the paperwork over for processing unless he’d visited your family before returning to the head office. And that brings us to a second question: if this really is what Takura did that afternoon, why didn’t he just come out and tell us?”

  Fumitaka looked up to find the detective staring right at him.

  “You … you know everything, then,” said Fumitaka.

  Kaga broke into a smile.

  “I went to Shin-Ohashi Hospital and spoke to the doctor in charge. He told me everything, except for the nature of your mother’s illness, that is.”

  Fumitaka sighed, took a sip of his iced coffee, and gave a slight shake of the head.

  “It looks like the Nihonbashi Precinct has got a very smart new detective.…”

  “The doctor admitted to issuing two different medical certificates, one listing your mother’s actual condition, the other listing a false one. Why should he do that? According to him, it’s because you asked him to.”

  “You’re right. I made him do it. It was the only solution I could come up with. My mom’s so pigheaded that she insisted on handling the insurance claim herself. You’ve got to have a medical certificate to submit a claim, but I was determined not to let my mom see what was on the certificate. I was in a jam.”

  “So you asked the doctor to give your mother a fake certificate when she went to the hospital to collect it.”

  Fumitaka nodded.

  “At first the doctor told me that it was against the rules and he couldn’t do it. But he’s a nice guy, so he agreed to make an exception. The only condition was that I mustn’t show the fake one to anyone other than my mom. After my mom was safely back home, I went to the hospital myself to pick up the real medical certificate.”

  “Which you gave to Mr. Takura—”

  “A little before six o’clock that same day. I went over near his office and handed it to him in person. He processed it right away, he said.”

  “That left one more thing for Mr. Takura to take care of: he had to pick up the fake medical certificate from your mother. So he left his office and went around to your place.”

  Fumitaka frowned and scratched the side of his head.

  “I really got Mr. Takura in trouble. He has a legitimate alibi, but he can’t give it to you because he bent the rules for me. As far as I’m concerned, he’s welcome to tell you everything. There’s no other way out.”

  “Mr. Takura hasn’t breathed a word about the fake medical certificate.”

  “That’s because he’s thinking about the consequences. When I gave him the real certificate, he promised not to mention it to anyone. ‘I’m a trueborn Tokyoite. I’d rather die than break a promise.’ Those are his exact words.”

  “How come you didn’t say anything, either?”

  This comment flummoxed Fumitaka. He was briefly at a loss for words.

  “Apparently, she’s got cancer of the bile duct.”

  “The bile duct … I see.” The expression on Kaga’s face was grave.

  “She’s too weak for an operation. They’ve discharged her—for now, at least. The idea is to keep an eye on her and treat her at home, but she’s unlikely to get her old energy back.” Fumitaka took a deep breath and went on, “She may only have six months left to live.”

  “I can only offer my deepest sympathies.”

  Fumitaka just smiled.

  “It’s nice of you to sympathize, but the important thing is for no one else to find out the truth. Not my mother, obviously, but not Naho, either.”

  “I understand completely,” said Kaga.

  “That girl loves my mom like her own mother. Her real mother died when she was little more than a baby, so her granny means everything to her. I don’t want to tell her what’s really going on until she has finished classes and has got her start as a hairdresser.” A thought struck Fumitaka midflow, and he looked at Kaga. “I suppose I can’t hide the truth any longer. We’ll have to come clean about the fake medical certificate to provide Mr. Takura with a proper alibi.”

  Kaga shook his head slowly and deliberately.

  “I discussed the matter with my superiors, and I’ve arranged for someone from the local precinct to have a word with the homicide detectives at the Metropolitan Police. The only thing we’ll need is a statement from you.”

  “I see. If I do that, everything will be okay.”

  “Sorry for the bother.”

  “No worries,” said Fumitaka, shaking his head. “The woman who was murdered in Kodenmacho—she lived alone?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Does she have any family?”

  Kaga briefly looked down, something between a grimace and a smile on his lips. Fumitaka sensed that the detective was reluctant to speak.

  “I’m sorry. Of course, you can’t talk about the investigation.”

  “No, those aren’t really details that we need to keep secret. The woman was living by herself after separating from her husband. She had a son, but they seldom saw each other.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “We don’t yet know why she decided to move to the Nihonbashi area. She’s a bit of a mysterious newcomer.”

  Fumitaka looked startled.

  “Just like you, then.”

  “I guess so.”

  The two men laughed.

  “Ah, look. It’s your daughter.” Kaga motioned with his eyes toward the street.

  Naho was standing outside the store, rearranging the rice crackers in the display cases. The glass door opened and Satoko emerged onto the street. They exchanged some words. Naho face’s was a sulky pout.

  “If Naho finds out that we met, she’s bound to ask all sorts of questions.”

  “Why not just tell her that Mr. Takura is no longer a suspect? That should do the trick.”

  Fumitaka nodded and stood up. “Do you expect to stay at the local precinct for a while?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well, I’m delighted to hear it. Please come around for more rice crackers anytime.”

  “Will do.”

  Placing the money for his iced coffee on the table, Fumitaka went out onto the street. A businessman in shirtsleeves hurried past the café.

  2

  THE APPRENTICE AT THE JAPANESE RESTAURANT

  1.

  At four o’clock every day, Shuhei had to sprinkle the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Wearing a special white smock, he used a ladle to splash water from a bucket. It would have been easier to use a hose, but when he suggested this to Yoriko, the restaurant’s co-owner and manager, she glared at him and called him a fool.

  “You’re not washing a car, you
know. The point of sprinkling water is to keep the dust down. Soaking the whole sidewalk will only inconvenience our customers.

  “People who choose to come to a restaurant like ours take atmosphere seriously. They love the sight of an apprentice sprinkling water from a bucket. Some kid in jeans squirting water from a hose—where’s the poetry in that?”

  Since their customers only started to arrive around six o’clock, objected Shuhei, none of them actually saw him sprinkling the sidewalk. So what did it matter?

  Yoriko’s response was a smack on the head. “Don’t talk back. Debating isn’t part of your job description.”

  That’s not very nice, thought Shuhei. But he held his tongue; despite Yoriko’s occasional high-handedness, he respected her abilities as a manager.

  A man came out of the restaurant just as Shuhei was ladling out the last of the water. It was Yoriko’s husband, Taiji, the other owner of Matsuya, as the restaurant was called. He was decked out in a Hawaiian shirt and white chinos, with a pair of shades and a gold neck chain thrown in for good measure. Taiji was convinced that he was the last word in style, though Shuhei felt that his look needed work. Shuhei had half a mind to tell Taiji that he resembled a low-level gangster from a B movie.

  “Hi there. Got my things for me today?” asked Taiji, looking around anxiously.

  “Yeah, I got them.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Safely out of sight.”

  “Good work, kid. Go fetch ’em, will you?”

  Shuhei put the bucket down and ducked into the alleyway that ran down one side of the restaurant. He pulled out a white plastic bag from the basket of a parked bicycle and brought the bag back to Taiji. Taiji was looking at his watch and casting nervous glances in the direction of the restaurant’s main entrance. He was clearly worried that Yoriko would come out and find him.

  “Here you go.” Shuhei held out the plastic bag.

  “Thank you, thank you. I owe you.” Taiji peered into the bag and gave a satisfied nod. “You got what I asked for?”

  “Yes. Seven with bean paste, three without.”