uto could feel that the tide had turned against him in a matter of a few

days. The other boys were not actively ignoring him, but they were

certainly keeping their distance. Nobody at the school would come over and

talk to him. And if he tried to talk to them, they were very standoffish.

There was a group of boys standing in a small circle not far away.

Their faces were close together and they were whispering conspiratorially.

Every now and then, they would turn and look at him with a disgusted

frown or a cruel sneer.

He knew what was behind the change. Kaneseki Metals’ practice of

covering up workplace accidents had been all over the news the last few

days.

The day before, the Kaneseki CEO held his first press conference on

the subject. A small man with glasses too big for his face, he apologized for

the scandal and announced that he had been completely ignorant of what

was going on. Company policy was to leave the running of the factory in

the hands of the factory staff. It was their responsibility to manage health

and safety properly, and, in the unlikely instance of an employee having an

accident, to respond swiftly and appropriately and do their best to make

sure that it didn’t happen again. Of course, what he meant by “employee”

wasn’t just full-time employees but also employees on short-term contracts

and temp workers. The company planned to launch a thoroughgoing

investigation into how such a thing could have happened.

Kotake, the factory manager, had already confessed that it was

Aoyagi, the head of production, who ordered the cover- up of all workplace accidents. Kotake claimed to have been threatened by Aoyagi. “If push

comes to shove, it’s you, as factory manager, who’ll be in the firing line.”

Everyone above Aoyagi in the hierarchy claimed to have been kept in

the dark. They were all singing from the same hymn sheet: the person with

ultimate responsibility for the factory was the head of production.

In other words, Takeaki Aoyagi was to blame for everything.

Because of deficiencies in the company’s safety management, a

contract worker had had an accident. Nonetheless, Takeaki Aoyagi’s

policies meant that the incident hadn’t been recorded as a workplace

accident nor had the worker been permitted to go to the hospital. To make

things even worse, the worker had lost his job and then been unable to find

a new one because of the aftereffects.

The worker—Fuyuki Yashima—was living with a girl who was three

months’ pregnant and he needed to find a job, fast.

It was unclear what sort of interactions there had been between Fuyuki

Yashima, who was understandably frustrated, and Takeaki Aoyagi. It

seemed likely that Yashima laid responsibility for the cover-up at Aoyagi’s

door. Things could plausibly have escalated into a full-blown shouting

match from there. This was how the tabloid shows on TV had been

presenting the Nihonbashi Bridge murder case in their coverage over the

last few days.

One TV channel had broadcast an interview with Fuyuki Yashima’s

girlfriend.

The woman’s face was pixelated, but you could tell from her clothes

she was just scraping by. The camera spent a lot of time lingering on her

belly.

The reporter conducting the interview got the girlfriend to talk about her life and the difficulties she had been having since getting pregnant. She

also asked her quite a few questions about Fuyuki Yashima’s accident. The

interview concluded with this question.

“I’d like to ask you about the murder. Takeaki Aoyagi, the victim, was

the mastermind behind the cover-up at Kaneseki Metals. Do you think

there’s a link between the two things? Let me be very clear here that

murder, whatever the motivation for it, can never be condoned.”

The girlfriend’s response to the question was:

“I think that … that what took place happened because my boyfriend

was the victim of a workplace accident cover-up.”

“So you’re saying that he was responsible for the crime?”

“Yes,” said Fuyuki Yashima’s girlfriend almost inaudibly.

In the tradition of such programs, this segment was followed by

feckless comments from a range of talking heads. “Yashima must have felt

cornered.” “No one has the right to take another human life.” “Why

couldn’t anybody reach out to him?” The commentators were clearly on the

perpetrator’s side. Yashima’s death seemed to have further aroused their sympathy.

The sequence of events had subtly changed the mood at school. Yuto

felt an acute sense of injustice at the cold and contemptuous glances he got.

We’re the real victims here. Why are we being treated like this?

Yuto was isolated at breaks and during the lunch hour. No one came

near him. Even Sugino seemed to be avoiding him. In a way, it was a relief.

The state he was in, Yuto was well aware that even the smallest thing could

trigger his anger.

Of course, Yuto wasn’t the only one who was suffering.

Arriving back home, he heard shrill voices coming from the living

room.

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t stand another day of this.”

It was Haruka. There was genuine rage in her voice.

“It’s all very well your saying that, but I’ve no more idea of what’s

going on than you do. It’s not like the police have told us anything.”

Fumiko sounded shaken.

“Listen to what they’re saying on TV. That it was all Dad’s fault. On

the internet, people are saying that Dad simply got what he deserved. Did

you know?”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Well, it’s true. Go look for yourself. There are so many awful

comments about him,” Haruka wailed through her tears. “Today, a girl at

school said she regretted having shown me any sympathy. And she made

sure I could hear her.”

Yuto pushed open the living room door. The two women wheeled

around. They must not have realized that he was back and surprise was all

over their faces. Haruka was red around the eyes.

“This is such a mess,” he snarled. “Dad was rotten. You reap what you

sow.”

Haruka glowered at him. Pressing her lips together angrily, she

marched out of the room with her schoolbag. They heard her running full

tilt up the stairs. She’s going to lock herself up in her room and bawl her

eyes out, Yuto thought.

“God, it’s just too depressing.”

“Has anyone said anything to you at school?” Fumiko asked him.

“Not really. The atmosphere’s weird, though. No one will talk to me

anymore.”

“School too, huh…” Fumiko’s voice trailed off.

“What do you mean, ‘school too’? Has something happened here?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Fumiko reached into the trash can in a

corner of the room. She pulled out a piece of paper that was scrunched up

into a ball and handed it to Yuto.

“I found this when I went to check the mailbox a few minutes ago.”

Yuto unfolded the piece of paper. “Return the condolence money,”

someone had written in thick black marker.

He crumpled up the note and threw it back into the trash can. God,

some people are pathetic! It was probably a neighbor, but whether they had

really attended the wake or the funeral was anybody’s guess. Chances were,

they had written the note for the pleasure of making them miserable.

Walking to the far end of the room, Yuto opened the sliding doors that

divided the living room from the Japanese-style room next door. It was

there that the altar with Takeaki’s memorial photograph stood.

“Let’s take this crap down. It’s just an eyesore.”

“How can you say that!”

“It’s my dad who got murdered and everyone’s giving me the cold

shoulder! It makes no damn sense.”

“It can’t last forever. Give it time, people will forget. Mr. Kotake—”

“Kotake?” Yuto wheeled around. “Have you spoken to him?”

“He called around lunchtime. He said he had done something he was

sorry for.”

“Oh yeah? What was it he was so sorry about?”

“Going on the news, of course. When the authorities started digging

around, his superiors told him to tell the truth. He had to make a clean

breast of things.”

“What? That when he behaved fraudulently, he did so under orders

from Dad and had no choice in the matter?”

Fumiko nodded glumly. Then, with a sudden jerk of the head, she

looked up at her son.

“No, but listen. Kotake says it’s not actually as bad as all that. The fine

is only about five hundred thousand yen. Covering up workplace accidents is something that all businesses do, he says. It’s not such a big deal. It’s not

a serious crime or misdemeanor.”

“Great. Why don’t you go and proclaim the good news from the

rooftops?” Yuto stamped his foot on the tatami mat. “Yeah, come to my

school and tell the other kids. ‘What Dad did wasn’t so bad after all.’

Saying it in here doesn’t make a jot of difference. People have already made

up their minds: Dad was a wicked man who deserved to be killed. Come on,

they’re even saying that on the TV.”

“Kotake said we’d caught a bad break. The whole thing got blown out

of proportion because Dad was killed in such a famous location … Kotake

said that he couldn’t believe anyone would stab someone over such an

insignificant matter.”

“What’s the man even talking about? What sort of consolation is that

supposed to be? Saying crap like that at this stage is useless.”

Yuto pictured Kotake. That friendly, smiling face of his could be a

mask he was hiding behind. He was probably thinking, Thank God it wasn’t

me who got stabbed.

Self-pity and anger churned in Yuto’s chest. The fact that both men

responsible for this state of affairs were dead only reinforced his rage.

Yuto grabbed the photograph of Takeaki and raised his arm as if to

fling it into the family altar.

“No, Yuto, don’t!” Fumiko cried.

Yuto lowered his arm. The hand holding the photograph was shaking.

With a final glance at Takeaki’s smiling face, he replaced the picture on the

altar. Facedown.