atsumiya was on his way to see the fourth person on his list when Kaga

called him. It was a little after five p.m. He hadn’t managed to extract any

genuinely useful information from any of the three people he’d interviewed

so far. It was all very well to classify them as acquaintances of Fuyuki

Yashima, but they’d often been work colleagues briefly or had a quick chat

after a job interview. They’d exchanged contact details but nothing more.

Matsumiya was walking as he took the call. “Hi there. Did you find

anything?”

“I don’t know yet. Where are you now?”

“I’m in … Kameido, I think,” said Matsumiya, looking around.

“Perfect. Ditch your inquiries and come give me a hand.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Bring me Ms. Nakahara. There’s something I need to ask her.”

“Hang on a second. Bring her to you? Where am I meant to go? Where

are you?”

“I’m in a bookstore.”

“A bookstore?” Matsumiya came to an abrupt stop.

Kaga gave him the name of the place. It was a well-known bookstore

in Nihonbashi.

I can see the logic, Matsumiya thought. There weren’t that many

places where men with time to kill could go. A café was about the only

other option, but Fuyuki Yashima was probably too broke to go to cafés by

himself. Browsing books and magazines had the merit of being free. The

notion that Yashima had been in a bookstore was a thoroughly credible one.

“What do you want to question her about?”

“You’ll find out when you get here. See you later.” Kaga ended the

call.

Self-important ass—cursing under his breath, Matsumiya raised a

hand to hail an approaching taxi.

Kaori Nakahara was at home. Possibly because she wasn’t wearing

makeup, she looked rather pale and sickly. When Matsumiya told her he

needed her to come with him right away, she reacted with puzzlement.

“If you plan to question me about the incident, I’m afraid there’s

nothing more I can tell you.”

“That’s not what we want. We need you to verify something.”

“Verify?” The expression on her face was as despondent as ever.

“There’s a chance,” said Matsumiya, who was getting increasingly

desperate, “that it will clear your boyfriend of suspicion.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Prove his innocence, you mean?”

“I can’t go that far. It’s no more than a possibility.”

Kaori took a deep breath and looked hard at Matsumiya. “Can you

wait ten minutes? I need to get ready.”

“No problem,” Matsumiya replied.

When Kaori was ready, Matsumiya hailed a cab and they headed to

Nihonbashi. On the way, Kaori again asked what it was they wanted her to

verify. Matsumiya could understand why she was so jittery.

“I don’t know the details. Detective Kaga will meet us there.”

“Detective Kaga…”

“He mentioned that you two bumped into one another last night. What

did you talk about?”

“Nothing much. Tricks for winning tickets for advance movie

screenings, stuff like that.”

“Tricks?”

Kaori ran through her conversation with Kaga. As Matsumiya listened

to her, the penny finally dropped. Having confirmed from the cocoa

evidence that Fuyuki Yashima hadn’t been in the café with Takeaki Aoyagi,

he had inferred that he must have been in a bookstore instead.

They reached their destination and got out of the taxi. Matsumiya

phoned Kaga and then led Kaori toward the entrance. The surprise on her

face as she looked up at the building was clear.

Kaga appeared at the door. He nodded at Matsumiya and apologized to

Kaori for dragging her there.

“You really think you can prove that my boyfriend is innocent?”

“I don’t know yet. Anyway, come this way,” Kaga said. He walked

into the store with her and Matsumiya followed.

They passed through a door marked “Employees Only” into the backof-

house area. Threading their way along a passage piled high with

cardboard boxes, they reached a small room. The walls were completely

covered with monitors and a middle-aged security guard sat in a chair.

“Oh, CCTV.” Matsumiya realized what Kaga was trying to do.

“If someone was in Nihonbashi and wanted to visit a bookstore, this

place would be their first port of call. The security cameras don’t have

complete coverage, but if he was in here for two hours, we can reasonably

expect him to show up in one of the feeds.”

“I can see that. Still, it’s quite a store. They must have a ton of

cameras.”

“They certainly do. I went through all the footage from six thirty to

eight thirty p.m. on the day of the incident and my eyes are killing me.”

Kaga massaged his eyelids with his fingertips.

Matsumiya looked hard at his cousin, who was a few years his senior.

In the Homicide Division, Kaga had a reputation as a shrewd operator. He

was definitely that, but his greatest asset was his almost scary level of

tenacity.

“What was it that you wanted Ms. Nakahara to look at?” Matsumiya

asked.

“Yes—could you play that footage we found?” Kaga said.

The security guard pressed a few buttons on the machine. The image

on the monitor closest to him changed to a still image. A number of

customers were standing in front of a magazine rack reading the magazines.

Since the majority were women, Matsumiya inferred that it was probably

the women’s magazine section.

“Ready, Ms. Nakahara? We’re going to run the footage. Tell us if you

notice anything.”

Kaori edged closer to the monitor.

“Play it,” Kaga said.

The image started to move. Nothing much was going on: one woman

would drift away from the rack, and another would wander over and take

her place.

After a few more moments, Kaori gasped.

“Pause it,” Kaga said.

“There. I think that’s Fuyuki.”

Matsumiya peered at the part of the screen she was pointing at. There

was a man about to pass behind the women standing at the magazine rack.

He was captured from behind and at an angle, so his face was hard to make

out, but the resemblance to Fuyuki Yashima was undeniable.

“Play it again,” Kaga ordered the security guard.

The footage played again from the beginning. After watching it a

second time, Kaori nodded her head emphatically. “That’s definitely him.”

Matsumiya felt a surge of warmth. There was a time stamp in one

corner of the image. It read 19:45. That was when Takeaki Aoyagi had been

in the café—meaning that whomever he had been with, it wasn’t Fuyuki

Yashima.

“Could you run the next set of footage?” Kaga said. His calm voice

contrasted with Matsumiya’s excitement.

A new sequence started. “That’s Fuyuki,” Kaori said after a moment

or two. Matsumiya recognized him as well. He was plucking a magazine

from a shelf. Unfortunately, his back was to the camera, but you could

recognize him from the clothes he had on.

Although this supposed Fuyuki Yashima stayed where he was for over

twenty minutes, he never once turned to face the camera before moving on.

“This is the final bit of footage.”

The location in this footage was different from the other two, with

very few people and bookshelves on both sides. Clearly, this wasn’t one of

the heavily trafficked floors with magazines on sale.

Matsumiya gasped. A man had walked into the frame. His back was to

the camera, but it looked like Fuyuki Yashima again.

The man stopped, stood there, and picked several books off the

shelves on the left side of the screen. From time to time, you could glimpse

his face in profile. He looked like Fuyuki Yashima.

The man eventually wandered off without buying anything.

“That’s Fuyuki. I’ve no doubt about it,” Kaori declared categorically.

Kaga nodded. “You think so? If you’re that sure, then you’re probably

right.”

“Is this enough to prove his innocence?” Kaori looked at Kaga

beseechingly.

Kaga didn’t reply. He glanced at Matsumiya. “Take Ms. Nakahara

home.”

“Why?” Kaori’s voice rose. “I’m here because you told me I could

help prove my boyfriend’s innocence.”

Kaga looked at the floor, exhaled, then fixed his gaze on her. “Proving

anything takes a great deal of hard work. I need you to understand that.”

Kaori said nothing.

“Take her home,” Kaga repeated.

Matsumiya led Kaori out of the room. She didn’t say a word and Matsumiya couldn’t think of anything to say. Kaga was right. The last thing

they wanted to do was to raise the young woman’s hopes.

“I’ll take it from here,” said Kaori as soon as they were outside the

bookstore.

“Are you sure? I’m happy to see you home.”

Kaori shook her head. “Seeing as I’m here, I think I’d like to walk

around. This is the last part of town my boyfriend was in.”

“Ah … yes, of course.”

“Detective Matsumiya.” She looked at him with avid eyes. “Do

whatever it takes to sort this out. I’m relying on you.” She bowed deeply as

she said this.

“We’ll do our best,” he replied. Cliché or not, he was sincere.

He watched the young woman walk down the street before going back

to the security guard’s room in the store. Kaga was sitting in front of the

bank of monitors.

“You didn’t take her home, then?”

“No. She said she wanted to take a walk around. So, what do you plan

to do with this footage?”

“Take it back to the task force, obviously. I don’t think it’s enough to

change the higher-ups’ minds, though.”

“How so?”

Kaga looked at the monitor in front of him. “We have no proof that the

man in this CCTV footage is Fuyuki Yashima. I thought he resembled him,

which is why I got Ms. Nakahara over here for confirmation. Even if she’s

prepared to state that it definitely is him, that doesn’t actually constitute

proof. She’s not a third party.”

Matsumiya stared at the monitor. “There aren’t any images where his

face is clearer?”

“I’ve checked all the footage. The sequences I showed you are all

we’ve got, I’m afraid.”

Matsumiya bit his lip. There was a freeze-frame on the screen. It was

the final scene and showed Yashima replacing a book on the shelf prior to

walking off.

Matsumiya had a sudden idea. He jabbed a finger at the monitor.

“Fingerprints! If we dust all the books in that shelf, maybe we’ll find

Yashima’s prints!”

“That’s certainly conceivable.”

“Which floor is this? We need to collect all the books. God, I hope no

one’s gone and handled them or bought the darn things. Come on, what’s

the floor number?”

“Keep your hat on. The evidence isn’t going anywhere.”

“Yes, but—” Matsumiya was protesting when the words stuck in his

throat. Kaga had pulled a paper carrier bag out from beneath the table. It

was full of books. One of them was a volume called The Best 100 Japanese

Sci-Fi Movies.