maeda made his way towards the café, a little place facing the main drag in Ginza. It was thirteen minutes to six in the evening. Shoppers and people on their way home from work crowded the street outside. A young couple was walking in front of him. Neither of them looked a year over twenty. The man was wearing a summer jacket – an Armani. He had seen them get out of a BMW parked down the street. Probably something he bought when the economy was good, Imaeda thought. He wouldn’t shed a tear when kids barely old enough to drive were no longer able to buy luxury cars as they’d been doing over the last decade.

The ground floor of the café was a pastry shop. He walked up the stairs, checking his watch. Five-fifty. He’d arrived a little later than he wanted to. Imaeda made it a policy to show up to appointments fifteen to thirty minutes early, for the psychological advantage it gave him over the person he was going to meet, if nothing else.

He scanned the patrons but, failing to see Kazunari Shinozuka anywhere, picked a seat where he could look out through the window at the street below. The café was about half full.

A waiter with southeast Asian features came to take his order. Many establishments had turned to hiring foreign help during the bubble years when it became too expensive to hire locally. Anything’s better than dealing with the preening Japanese kids these days, Imaeda thought. He ordered coffee.

Lighting a Marlboro, he looked down at the street through the window. There seemed to be more people walking outside than there had been just a few minutes ago. He heard businesses were cutting back on entertainment expenses but maybe the frugality was less widespread than he’d imagined. Either that, or Ginza was witnessing the last bright flicker of a dying flame.

Imaeda had only been watching for a minute before he picked a man out of the crowd who walked with long strides and had a beige suit jacket slung over one arm. It was five minutes to six. I guess the elite don’t believe in being late, either.

Kazunari walked in and waved a hand in greeting as he approached the table, just as the waiter was bringing Imaeda his coffee. Kazunari sat and ordered an iced coffee for himself. ‘Hot outside, isn’t it,’ he said, fanning himself with his hand.

‘Very,’ Imaeda agreed.

‘Do you take summer vacations in your line of work?’

‘Not usually, no,’ Imaeda said with a smile. ‘I tend to take my breaks whenever work is slow. Besides, summer is an excellent time to do a certain kind of investigation.’

‘What kind would that be?’

‘Adultery. For instance, if a woman has asked me to find out whether her husband is having an affair I advise her to tell her husband she wants to go visit her parents during the summer. If her husband shows any reluctance to going, she offers to go by herself.’

‘I see. So if the husband does have a woman on the side —’

‘It’s too good an opportunity to pass up. While his wife frets away at her parents’ house I photograph the husband and his lover on an overnight trip somewhere. I would say the rate that cheating husbands fall for that one is about 100 per cent.’

Kazunari laughed quietly. The stiffness Imaeda had seen in his face when he came into the café was fading.

The waiter brought Kazunari’s iced coffee. He took a gulp.

‘So, did you find anything out?’ he asked. The way he said it made it clear he had been waiting to ask this question since the moment he walked in.

‘I looked into a few things,’ Imaeda told him. ‘Though I’m afraid my report might fall a little short of what you were expecting.’

Imaeda pulled the file out of his briefcase and laid it on the table. Kazunari opened it at once.

Imaeda was confident he’d managed to cover everything he could about Yukiho Karasawa’s upbringing, school history, and current life.

After a while, Kazunari looked up from the report. ‘I had no idea her natural mother committed suicide.’

‘Actually, you’ll see I didn’t write suicide. Though that was a prevalent theory at the time, they never found any decisive evidence to support it.’

‘And yet given the conditions they were living under, suicide wasn’t unthinkable.’

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘This is all a little surprising,’ Kazunari said then. ‘Or, maybe not.’

‘Yes?’

‘Everything about her gives the impression that she was brought up in luxury, but every once in a while you see something in her other than the refinement. An attitude she wears like armour. Have you ever had a cat as a pet?’

Imaeda shook his head.

‘We had four when I was a kid,’ Kazunari explained. ‘They were all strays, nothing fancy. We tried to treat them all exactly the same, but their attitude towards us was different depending on how old they were when we took them in. A cat rescued as a kitten grows up never knowing life without human protection. They’re trusting and easily spoiled. But a cat picked up when it’s already grown – even though they might seem friendly, they never stop being wary. They’ll live with you because you feed them, but they’ll never completely let their guard down. I feel like that’s how she operates sometimes.’

‘Whatever Yukiho is, she’s no house cat.’

‘I’m sure if she heard me comparing her to a stray, her hair would bristle like one,’ Kazunari said, the corners of his mouth softening.

‘Of course,’ Imaeda said, thinking of Yukiho’s feline eyes, ‘that quality of hers might be attractive to some people.’

‘Oh, absolutely. Women can be scary that way, can’t they.’

‘You got that right,’ Imaeda agreed. ‘Incidentally, did you read the part about the stock trading?’

‘Briefly, yes. I’m surprised you found out who her broker was.’

‘She left some of her papers behind after the divorce.’

‘At Makoto’s place?’ Kazunari asked, a cloud coming over his face. ‘How did you explain the investigation to him?’

‘Only in very broad strokes. I told him that the family of a man considering marriage to Yukiho wanted me to look into her past. Should I not have told him?’

‘No, that’s fine. If they get married he’ll find out sooner or later anyway. How did he react to the news?’

‘He said he hoped she’d found the right man.’

‘You didn’t tell him the man was someone he knew?’

‘I didn’t tell him, but I think he might’ve guessed that you were behind the investigation. It would’ve been too big a coincidence for a complete stranger to have come to me – a friend of her ex-husband – requesting an investigation into Yukiho Karasawa.’

‘I’d better talk to him about it one of these days,’ Kazunari said, half to himself, as he looked back down at the file. ‘According to this, she did quite well for herself with the stocks?’

‘Yes. The broker she worked with retired from his firm last spring, so all I had to go on was what he remembered.’

It had been a mixed blessing, Imaeda thought. If the broker had still worked at the firm, there was a chance he might have had access to more detailed information. Then again, he might have also been more reluctant to talk about a client.

‘I’ve heard that even amateur traders were doing quite well up until around last year. Did she really buy two million yen’s worth of Ricardo?’ Kazunari asked.

‘Her broker remembered that quite vividly.’

Ricardo, Inc. was originally a semiconductor manufacturer. They announced that they had developed an alternative for chlorofluorocarbons, giving them a leg up on the competition when the UN announced a ban on the use of CFCs in September of 1987. The Helsinki Declaration in 1989, recommending that all chlorofluorocarbon use should be abandoned by the end of the century, only buoyed the stock further.

What impressed the broker so much was that, at the time Yukiho purchased the stock, nothing had yet been made public about Ricardo’s research. Even in the industry, few people knew what Ricardo was doing. Only after the press release announcing their discovery of the substitute was it revealed that several of the technicians who had been working at one of the few Japanese companies producing chlorofluorocarbons, Pacific Glass, had been headhunted by Ricardo to turbocharge their research.

‘And Ricardo wasn’t the only one,’ Imaeda said. ‘It’s not clear what kind of information she was basing her purchases on but nearly every company whose stock Yukiho bought had a hit product of one kind or another just after her purchase. The broker said her success ratio was amazingly close to perfect.’

‘Insider trading?’ Kazunari asked, his voice dropping.

‘That’s what the broker suspected, too. He knew that Yukiho’s husband worked for a manufacturer, and thought perhaps he had a route by which he was getting information on other companies’ projects in development. Of course, he never confronted Yukiho with this.’

‘What department did Makoto work in again?’

‘The Patent Licensing Division at Tozai Automotive. Definitely a position that would give him a window into the research and development going on at other companies. But only things that had been made public. He wouldn’t have had any easy or legal means of obtaining information on projects still under wraps.’

‘So we’re supposed to believe that she just had a knack for picking good stocks?’

‘Oh, she definitely had a knack. According to her broker, she was very good at knowing when to let go of stocks, too. Just when it looked like prices might inch a little higher, she would sell them off and move to the next investment. That sense of timing isn’t something most amateurs have, the broker said. And if it was blind luck – well, it’s hard to consistently make money in the market based on your gut.’

‘Which suggests that she did have access to privileged information – or someone working with her did.’

‘It does seem that way.’ Imaeda shrugged. ‘But then, that’s just my gut talking.’

Kazunari looked down at the file again. His eyebrow twitched. ‘There was one other thing that bothered me.’

‘Yes?’

‘According to this report, she was buying and selling stocks pretty frequently through last year. And she’s still trading now?’

‘Yes. Though I think her shop keeps her too busy to spend as much time on it as she used to. She still dabbles, though.’

Kazunari shook his head. ‘That doesn’t fit with what I heard from Makoto.’

‘He said something about her investments?’

‘Just about how Yukiho had got deep into stocks back when they were still married. It got so bad that at one point they had an argument and she sold off everything. But maybe he didn’t check closely enough.’

‘It was the broker’s opinion that Yukiho never gave up trading for any significant period of time since she started. At any rate, I was able to get a good picture of her financial situation as it stands now,’ Imaeda said. ‘Only one major question remains.’

‘Where’d she get her seed money from in the first place?’

‘Exactly. It’s difficult to trace the money back without proper documentation, but according to the broker she started with a sizeable sum of cash. Not the kind of money you would expect a housewife to have.’

‘Several hundred thousand yen, maybe?’

‘Probably more.’

Kazunari crossed his arms and let out a little groan. ‘Makoto said he had no idea how much she had stashed away.’

Imaeda nodded. ‘You said her foster mother, Reiko Karasawa, didn’t have much in the way of money. Certainly it would be hard for her to come up with a few hundred thousand yen.’

‘Isn’t there some way you can look into that?’

‘I plan to. Just, it’s going to take me a little time.’

‘That’s not a problem. Do what you need to do. Can I have this file?’

‘Of course. I kept a copy for myself.’

Kazunari slipped the file into the slim attaché case he’d brought with him.

‘I needed to give this back to you,’ Imaeda said, pulling a paper bag out of his briefcase. He took out the watch he had borrowed and put it on the table. ‘I’ve sent the suit back by courier. It should get there tomorrow.’

‘You could have sent the watch with it.’

‘No, I wouldn’t want to be responsible if it’d got lost along the way. It’s a limited edition Cartier.’

‘Is it? It was a gift,’ Kazunari said, glancing at the watch face before putting it into his jacket pocket.

‘I wouldn’t have known myself,’ Imaeda said, ‘if Yukiho hadn’t pointed it out.’

‘Right,’ Kazunari said, rolling his eyes. ‘I suppose it’s important to know that sort of thing in her line of work.’

‘I think it’s a little bit more than that,’ Imaeda said, playing the words for effect.

‘What do you mean?’

Imaeda shifted forward and rested his hands on the table, his fingers crossed together. ‘You mentioned that Yukiho hadn’t responded enthusiastically to your cousin’s proposal?’

‘Yes?’

‘I have an idea of why that might be.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s simple, really,’ Imaeda said, staring Kazunari in the eye. ‘She’s in love with someone else.’

Kazunari nodded several times before saying, ‘I had a similar thought myself. But something tells me that you’re basing this on a bit more than that. Do you know who the other man is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, who is it? Someone I know? In fact, don’t tell me if you think it might cause problems.’

‘Whether it’s a problem or not depends largely on you,’ Imaeda said, taking a drink of water. ‘That is to say, it is you.’

Kazunari furrowed his brows quizzically. Then he chuckled, his shoulders shaking. ‘That’s very funny.’

Imaeda shook his head. ‘I’m serious.’

Something in Imaeda’s voice made Kazunari’s face tighten.

‘What makes you think that?’ he asked.

‘I suppose you’d laugh if I said it was a gut feeling.’

‘I wouldn’t laugh, no, but I also wouldn’t believe you.’

‘It’s more than that. First, we have the watch. Yukiho clearly remembered its owner. Even though her chance to see it was so brief you didn’t even remember it, she did. I believe it’s likely she remembered because of her interest in you. And another thing: when I went to pay her a visit, she asked me who had introduced me and I gave her the name of Shinozuka. Normally you would expect her to assume it had been your cousin – Yasuharu Shinozuka. He’s older than you, higher up in the company, and a frequent visitor to her store.’

‘Maybe she was shy about mentioning him, in the wake of his proposal.’

‘That doesn’t fit what I know of her character. How many times have you visited her boutique?’

‘Twice, I think.’

‘When was the last time?’

He didn’t answer, so Imaeda answered for him. ‘More than a year ago, I bet.’

Kazunari nodded.

‘So, as far as her shop is concerned, the only Shinozuka who really matters is her frequent customer, Yasuharu Shinozuka, wouldn’t you say? If she had no special feelings towards you, I can’t see why your name would’ve come out first. You said you’ve known Yukiho since college, correct?’

‘Yes, from dance club practice.’

‘Try to think back on that time, see if you remember anything that sticks out. Anything you might be able to interpret as her having special feelings for you.’

‘You went to see her, didn’t you?’ said Kazunari, frowning. ‘Eriko Kawashima.’

‘I did, but I never mentioned your name and I made sure she wouldn’t suspect anything.’

Kazunari sighed. ‘How was she doing?’

‘She seemed good. She’s been married two years now. Her husband works at an electrical engineering company. They were introduced by a marriage service.’

‘I’m glad to hear she’s well,’ Kazunari said. ‘Did she have anything to say?’

‘Well, she seemed to think that Makoto wasn’t Yukiho’s one and only. Which I took to mean that she thought Yukiho loved someone else.’

‘And you think that someone else is me? No way,’ Kazunari laughed and shook his head.

‘Still,’ Imaeda said, ‘she seems to think it is.’

‘I doubt that,’ Kazunari said, his smile fading. ‘Wait – she didn’t say that, did she?’

‘Not in so many words, but that was the impression I got.’

‘It’s dangerous to make too many assumptions like that.’

‘I know. That’s why I haven’t written it in the report. But there’s something there, I’m sure of it.’

Imaeda still remembered Eriko’s expression when she had told him. It was the look of someone with a deep, abiding regret. She was afraid of something too, he realised. She was afraid he was going to ask who it was that Yukiho Karasawa loved. The moment he realised that, several pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Kazunari sighed and grabbed his glass of iced coffee, drinking down half of it in one gulp. The ice made a clinking sound in the glass as he set it back on the table.

‘Well, I’m afraid I have no idea who it might be, except I’m sure it’s not me. She never confessed anything of the sort to me and she’s never given me presents for my birthday or Christmas. I think the best I got was a chocolate on Valentine’s Day, but then again, she gave one to all the boys in dance club.’

‘Maybe your chocolate was special?’

‘Not even a little.’ Kazunari shook his head.

Imaeda stuck a finger in his box of Marlboros. There was only one left. He put it in his mouth and lit it, crushing the empty box in his left hand. ‘There’s another thing I didn’t write in the report. Something that happened when she was in middle school.’

‘What was that?’

‘A rape. Actually, it’s not clear whether it was technically rape, but it was definitely close.’

Imaeda explained how Yukiho and Eriko had discovered their classmate after she was assaulted and how their classmate had once been Yukiho’s rival in school.

‘So what about this incident bothered you?’ Kazunari asked, his voice hard.

‘Wouldn’t you say it bears some resemblance to what happened when you were in college?’

‘What if it does?’ Kazunari said with evident displeasure.

‘The assault in middle school had the effect of removing Yukiho’s rival. That doubtless left an impression on her. One could imagine that she arranged for the same thing to happen to her romantic rival several years later in college.’

Kazunari stared hard at Imaeda’s face. The look turned quickly into a glare. ‘You have a dark imagination, detective. Eriko was her best friend.’

‘Eriko certainly thought so. I wonder if Yukiho felt the same way? To be perfectly honest, I even suspect she had something to do with what happened in middle school, too. It would explain a lot.’

Kazunari held his hand up. ‘I think that’s enough imagining for now. I want facts.’

Imaeda nodded. ‘Of course.’

Kazunari stood and reached for the bill sitting on the table, but Imaeda quickly put his hand over it. ‘If I were to discover something that would prove what I just told you isn’t just my imagination, but something that actually happened, do you think you would be able to tell your cousin?’

Kazunari took his other hand and, moving slowly, brushed Imaeda’s aside, taking the bill from the table. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Provided there’s proof.’

‘Very well.’

‘I hope to see proof of something in your next report.’

Bill in hand, Kazunari walked away from the table.

The phone call from Eri Sugawara came two days after he met with Kazunari in Ginza. Imaeda had been on a stakeout for an unrelated job at a hotel in Shibuya until eleven at night. It was after midnight by the time he got home. He had just taken off his clothes and was about to get into the shower when the phone rang.

The first thing Eri told him was that she was worried. He could tell from her tone that she wasn’t kidding around.

‘There are all these messages on my answering machine where the caller just hangs up without saying anything. It’s weird. It’s not you, is it, Imaeda?’

‘Sorry, I’m not in the habit of making crank calls. Maybe it’s some guy from the bar who has a thing for you?’

‘No, no one has a thing for me. And I never give my phone number to customers, anyway.’

‘It’s easy enough to find out someone’s phone number,’ Imaeda told her. For example, you could steal someone’s phone bill out of their mailbox. He had used that technique himself, though he wasn’t about to share that with Eri now. She sounded frightened enough.

‘And there’s something else, too. It might just be my imagination,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘but I have a weird feeling, like someone’s been in my apartment.’

‘What?’

‘When I got back from work just now, I noticed something was off as soon as I opened the door. For one thing, my sandal had fallen over on its side.’

‘Your sandal?’

‘Yeah, they’re high heels. I left them in the entrance way and one of them had fallen on its side. I never leave my shoes lying on their side, never. No matter how much of a hurry I’m in, I always make sure they’re in a neat pair.’

‘So one of your sandals fell over and that’s why you’re calling me in the middle of the night?’

‘It’s not just that. There’s something weird about my phone.’

‘What about it?’

‘I always leave it at a bit of an angle to the table, so I can grab it with my left hand while I’m in bed, but for some reason it was flush with the table edge.’

A thought flashed through Imaeda’s mind, but he kept it to himself. ‘Right. Listen, I’m coming over.’

‘You’re coming here? Now? OK, I guess.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll behave. Also, I don’t want you using this phone until I get there. Understood?’

‘Fine, but what’s this all about?’

‘I’ll explain once I’m there. And one other thing. I’m going to knock on your door, but don’t open it until you’re sure it’s me. Got it?’

‘Right,’ Eri said, her voice sounding considerably more worried than it had when she first called.

Eri’s apartment was on a side street one block in from the main road, with a car park across the street. He ran up the outside staircase of the apartment building and knocked on the door to unit 205, saying his name. The door opened and Eri looked out, a scowl on her face. ‘OK, you have to tell me what this all is all about.’

‘I don’t know. In fact, I hope it’s just your mind playing tricks on you.’

‘It’s not.’ Eri shook her head. ‘After I hung up the phone, I could sense it. It was like my apartment wasn’t my own anymore.’

Now that’s your mind playing tricks with you, Imaeda thought, but he just shrugged and stepped inside.

Three pairs of shoes were out in the hall: a pair of sneakers, a pair of pumps, and the sandals in question. The heels were rather high. It looked like it wouldn’t take much to knock one over.

Imaeda took off his shoes and stepped inside. It was a small place, one room with a small sink attached. Eri had hung a curtain halfway across it so you couldn’t see the whole apartment from the doorway. Beyond the curtain was a bed, a television, and a table. The air conditioner on the wall looked old, probably something that came with the apartment when she moved in. It was succeeding in blowing cold air into the room, but it was making an incredible racket in the process.

‘Where’s the phone?’

Eri pointed towards the bed.

Next to the bed was a small shelf with an almost perfectly square top on which rested a white telephone. He noted it wasn’t cordless – probably wouldn’t be much need for that in an apartment this small.

Imaeda took a black, blocky device out of his bag. An antenna stuck out of the top and the front side had a small meter and a few switches.

‘What’s that? Some kind of radio?’ Eri asked.

‘Just a little toy.’ Imaeda clicked on the power switch and began to turn the frequency adjustment dial. At around 100 MHz, the meter started to react. At the same time a light on the front winked on. He brought the device closer to the phone, then further away. The meter went up and down as he moved.

He turned off the switch. Next he picked up the phone, looked at the base, then pulled a small tool pouch out of his bag. Fishing out a Phillips screwdriver, he began to undo the screws holding the cover on the base of the phone. As he’d expected, it didn’t take much effort to loosen the screws, because someone else had recently taken this phone apart.

‘Are you breaking my phone?’

‘I’m fixing it.’

‘What?’

He ignored her. Once all the screws were out, he carefully removed the cover. There was a small board inside with various circuits for the phone. His eyes went to a small box-like object attached to the board with tape. Grabbing it between his fingertips, he yanked it out.

‘Are you sure you’re supposed to take that out?’

Imaeda took another screwdriver and pried open the lid on the small box. It had a small mercury battery, which he dug out with the tip of his screwdriver. ‘There, all done,’ he announced.

‘What is that thing?’ Eri asked, terror creeping into her voice.

‘It’s nothing to be afraid of. Just a listening device – a bug,’ Imaeda said, as he re-fastened the cover on her phone.

‘What?’ Eri’s eyes went wide. She picked up the box. ‘Who the hell would want to bug my phone?’

‘That’s what I want to know. Are you sure some guy isn’t after you?’

‘Pretty sure.’

Imaeda turned his bug detector back on and adjusted the frequency as he walked around the apartment. The meter didn’t react at all.

‘Looks like they weren’t that serious about listening to you,’ he said, turning off the device and putting it back in his duffel bag along with his tools.

‘Serious enough. How did you know someone had bugged my phone?’

‘You got anything to drink? I’m all hot from walking around.’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Eri went over to her mini-refrigerator and took out two cans of beer. She put one on the table and opened the other for herself.

Imaeda sat cross-legged on the floor and took a sip. He felt himself relax, which was a signal for the sweat to start pouring from his body.

‘Basically, it was intuition via experience.’ He set the beer down. ‘You said it looked like someone had been in your room, and the phone was moved. Makes sense that someone might have done something to your phone, right?’

‘When you put it that way, I guess it was pretty obvious.’

‘I’d like to claim some special professional knowledge, but yeah, you’re right,’ he said, taking another sip of beer and wiping his mouth with his hand. ‘You sure you don’t know anyone who could have done this?’

‘I’m sure. Positive.’ Eri sat down on the edge of her bed.

‘Which means,’ Imaeda said, ‘they were probably after me.’

‘After you?’

‘You said someone left messages on your phone? That got you worried, right? So what did you do? You called me. That might’ve been what they wanted you to do. In other words, they wanted you to make a phone call to the first person you thought might’ve left those messages.’

‘What would that do for them?’

‘They would learn who you talk to, who your friends are, who you call in times of need.’

‘I can’t see how knowing any of that would do anybody any good. I mean, they could’ve just asked me. They didn’t have to bug my phone.’

‘Clearly, they wanted to know more about you without you knowing they knew. Let’s review the facts. Our snoop wants to know someone’s name and identity. Their only lead is you. All they know is that the person they want to know more about is close to you somehow.’ Imaeda finished his beer and crushed the empty can in his hand. ‘Now who do you think knows you who wants to know me?’

Eri looked down at the floor and chewed the thumb of her hand that wasn’t holding the beer. ‘The people at that boutique we visited in South Aoyama?’

‘An excellent guess,’ Imaeda said. ‘I believe you gave them your address? But I wrote nothing. If they wanted to know more about me, they would have to go through you.’

‘But why would they care about you? You think they knew you were a detective?’

‘There are a number of reasons they could’ve wanted to know,’ Imaeda said, grinning. ‘But that’s grown-up talk.’

A picture of Kazunari’s watch loomed in the back of Imaeda’s mind. Yukiho obviously knew it was his. Of course she would want to know who this man was coming to her store wearing such an important timepiece. So she had hired someone in Imaeda’s profession to follow up on their only lead: Eri Sugawara.

He thought back on his conversation with Eri over the phone just before he had come to her apartment. She had called him ‘Imaeda’ over the phone, which meant that it was only a matter of time before whoever placed the bug would find out that there was a man by that name who ran a private detective agency not far from this apartment.

‘But I didn’t give them my real address. I figured it would sound weird if I was supposed to be this little rich girl and my address had an apartment name like “Yamamoto Co-Op”. I changed several things.’

‘You did?’

‘Yeah. I mean, I am a private detective’s assistant. I know a few things.’

Imaeda reflected back on their visit to the boutique, trying to figure out where they had slipped up.

‘Did you have your wallet with you that day?’ Imaeda asked.

‘Yeah, sure.’

‘It was in your handbag?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘You tried on a lot of dresses that day; where did you put your bag while you were doing that?’

‘I guess… in the dressing room?’

‘So you left it there when you went to look at other clothes on the racks?’

Eri nodded. She was starting to frown.

‘Can you show me your wallet?’ Imaeda held out his left hand.

‘Hey, there’s not a lot of money in there.’

‘I don’t care about the money. I’m interested in what’s in there besides money.’

Eri reached inside the shoulder bag hanging from the corner of her bed and pulled out a black wallet. It was a slender leather one with a Gucci mark.

‘That’s quite a nice wallet you’ve got.’

‘It was a gift, from the boss.’

‘At the bar? You mean that guy with the whiskers?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Well, that’s interesting,’ Imaeda said, opening the wallet and checking the pocket for cards. Eri’s licence was in there, along with her member’s card for a local department store and a loyalty card for a hairdresser. He pulled it out and gave it a look. The address listed her apartment.

‘You mean someone snuck a look at my wallet?’ Eri said.

‘It’s possible. I’d give it a sixty per cent chance. Maybe more.’

‘I don’t believe it! Do people just do that kind of thing? I mean, does that mean they suspected me from the beginning?’

‘It does,’ Imaeda said. He was pretty sure Yukiho had suspected them from the moment she noticed the watch. He wouldn’t put looking at someone’s wallet past her. Those feline eyes glimmered in the back of Imaeda’s mind.

‘Then why did she have me write down my name and address before we left? Not to send me a postcard, I’m guessing?’

‘They were probably just making sure.’

‘Making sure of what?’

‘They wanted to see whether you would write your real name and address. Which, as it turns out, you didn’t.’

Eri looked sorry. ‘I changed the numbers a bit, too.’

‘Which is how she knew for sure that we hadn’t just come to buy clothes.’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to be clever.’

‘It’s OK. They suspected us anyway.’ Imaeda stood and picked up his bag. ‘Be careful to lock up tight. As I’m sure you know by now, the lock on your apartment isn’t going to stop a professional who wants to get in. Keep the chain on when you’re at home.’

‘OK, got it.’

‘See you,’ Imaeda said, stepping into his sneakers.

‘Are you going to be OK, Imaeda? You sure they’re not going to attack you or anything?’

Imaeda chuckled. ‘Who do you think I am? James Bond? No, don’t worry. At worst they’ll just send some evil-looking killer with steel jaws after me.’

‘What?’ Eri gasped.

‘Goodnight,’ Imaeda said, smiling. ‘And don’t forget to lock up.’

He stepped outside and closed the door behind him. But he didn’t start walking right away. He waited until he heard the lock turn and the chain slide closed before leaving.

I wonder who will show up?

Imaeda looked up at the sky. It was still drizzling, but he didn’t mind getting a little wet.

The following day, the drizzle turned to a downpour. This at least had the effect of cooling off temperatures, making the sweltering mid-August heat slightly more bearable that morning.

Imaeda crawled out of bed a little after nine and went out dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. Holding an umbrella with one bent rib above his head, he walked to Bolero, a small café right across the street from his apartment.

The wooden door had a tiny bell on it that rang when he walked in. Bolero was a small place, just four tables and a counter. Presently, two of the tables were taken and a man was sitting at the counter. Behind the counter, the balding owner nodded in greeting when he saw Imaeda come in.

Imaeda chose a table at the back. It was late for breakfast, and in the unlikely event that a big group came in, he could always move to the counter. He didn’t have to order. In a few minutes, the owner would bring him the hot dog morning set: a hot coffee and a fat sausage on a bed of chopped cabbage that overflowed its bun.

There were a few folded newspapers in the rack next to his table. He saw the regular paper and a business paper – the man at the counter was already reading the sports pages. Imaeda sighed and fished out today’s Asahi Shimbun. He had just leaned back in his chair and was about to open the paper when he heard the jingle of the bell on the door and reflexively glanced up to see another man come in.

The man looked about sixty, with white-speckled hair parted evenly down the middle. He was a big man, with a wide chest under his white shirt and thick arms emerging from his sleeves. He was at least one metre seventy tall, and stood straight, like a samurai in the movies.

Yet more than the man’s appearance, it was his sharp gaze that went directly towards Imaeda which caught his attention. It only lasted a moment. The man looked away and walked over to take a seat at the counter. ‘Coffee, please,’ he said.

Imaeda had already gone back to reading his paper, but at those words, he looked back up again, surprised to hear an Osakan accent.

Just then the man looked back around at Imaeda and their eyes met.

There was nothing like threat or malice in the man’s look. On the contrary, his eyes looked like they had seen their share of the dark, twisted things humans were capable of and taken it all in stride. Whoever the guy was, he was one cool customer, Imaeda thought, and he actually felt a shiver travel up his spine.

Imaeda went back to reading the headlines on the society pages. There was something about an accident on the highway involving an eighteen-wheeler. Still, his attention was only half on the paper.

The owner brought over his hot dog and coffee. Imaeda applied a liberal helping of ketchup and mustard to his dog before taking a bite. He liked the feel of the skin as it broke beneath his front teeth. Not so tough that eating was a chore, but firm enough that you felt that first bite. That particular degree of resilience was, in his opinion, the mark of a good hot dog.

Imaeda took pains not to look in the man’s direction as he ate, just in case their eyes met again. He had just finished the last bite and was taking a sip of his coffee when he glanced towards the counter again to see the man turning his head back to his own cup of coffee.

He was looking at me.

Imaeda finished his coffee and stood. He stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out a thousand-yen bill and put it on the counter. The owner set out his four hundred and fifty yen’s worth of change in silence. During this time, the man hardly moved. He just drank his coffee, his back straight beneath his jacket. He moved rhythmically, like a clockwork automaton, never looking in Imaeda’s direction.

Imaeda left the café and dashed across the road without bothering to put up his umbrella. He ran up the stairs to his apartment, turning round to glance back at Bolero before going inside. The mysterious man was nowhere in sight.

Imaeda flipped the switch on the stereo system he had set up on a steel shelf against the wall, hearing the CD player whirr to life, followed shortly after by the sounds of Whitney Houston coming out of the speakers he’d mounted on the wall.

Imaeda took off his T-shirt in order take a shower – he usually showered before bed, but hadn’t got around to it the night before and his hair was a mess. He was just unzipping his jeans when the doorbell rang.

A familiar sound, but there was something different about it today. Probably because he had a pretty good idea who was at his door, and it wasn’t someone he wanted to talk to. The bell rang again.

Imaeda zipped up his jeans and put his T-shirt back on. Wondering when he ever would get the chance to shower, he went out to the entranceway, undid the lock and opened the door.

The man from the café was standing outside, a faint smile on his face. He was carrying an umbrella in his left hand, and a black travel bag in his right.

Imaeda didn’t blink. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

‘Mr Imaeda?’ the man asked. His Osaka accent was strong. ‘Satoshi Imaeda?’

‘That’s me.’

‘I had a few questions for you, if you have the time.’ The man had a deep voice that rumbled in his chest and wrinkles that looked as though they had been carved out with a chisel across his face, meeting between his brows. Imaeda realised that one of the lines was, in fact, a scar left by a blade.

‘I’m sorry, but who are you?’

‘The name’s Sasagaki. From Osaka.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly come a long way, so I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr Sasagaki, but I was just on my way to work.’

‘I won’t take much of your time,’ the man said. ‘Just two or three questions.’

‘Can you try another day? I’m really in a bit of a hurry here.’

‘Not so much of a hurry that you couldn’t enjoy a leisurely breakfast with the paper,’ the man said, the corner of his mouth curling upwards.

‘How I spend my time is none of your business. Goodbye,’ Imaeda said, going to close the door. The man stuck his umbrella in to stop it from closing.

‘I applaud your enthusiasm for your job. Unfortunately, I have a job to do too,’ the man said, sticking his hand into the pocket of his grey trousers and pulling out a police badge.

Imaeda sighed and relaxed his grip on the doorknob. ‘If you’re a cop, why didn’t you just say so?’

‘Some people don’t like us announcing ourselves out in the hallway where the neighbours might hear. Now, might I ask a few questions?’

‘Be my guest,’ said Imaeda, showing him to the chair he had set out for visiting clients. Imaeda went back behind his desk. He had set the height on the client’s chair a little on the low side, to give himself a height advantage when talking. He didn’t hold out much hope that such Negotiation 101 tricks would work on today’s visitor, however.

Imaeda asked for a business card, but the man said he wasn’t carrying any – almost certainly a lie, but he didn’t feel the need to dispute his claim now. Instead, he asked for him to show him his badge again.

‘If it’s a fake, I at least want to see whether or not you did a good job making it.’

‘By all means,’ the man said, offering Imaeda his badge. ‘Knock yourself out.’

Imaeda looked over the name, and the small photograph next to it.

‘I hope it passed inspection,’ Sasagaki said, putting the badge away. ‘I’m a detective in Homicide, Eastern Osaka.’

‘So this is a murder investigation?’ Imaeda asked. This did come as surprise.

‘You could say that.’

‘You could say what, exactly? I haven’t heard anything about any murders connected to me.’

‘Just because you haven’t heard anything, doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.’

‘OK.’ Imaeda held up his hands. ‘So who died?’

Sasagaki smiled, the wrinkles forming a complex pattern across his face. ‘I have some questions for you first, if you don’t mind, Mr Imaeda. Answer them, and you’ll have my gratitude.’

Imaeda narrowed his eyes at the detective. The man was rocking slightly in his chair, but his expression was unwavering.

‘Fine, you first. What do you want to know?’

Sasagaki stood his umbrella on the floor in front of him and rested his hands on the handle. ‘I believe you were in Osaka about two weeks ago? You did some snooping around in Ōe, a neighbourhood in Ikuno ward, if I’m not mistaken.’

Imaeda felt like he’d been jabbed in the gut. From the moment he’d heard the man was from Osaka, he had been wondering if this visit had anything to do with his recent trip.

‘Well?’ Sasagaki asked again, although it was clear from his face that he’d already knew the answer.

‘I did,’ Imaeda admitted. ‘You’re well informed.’

‘When it comes to that particular neighbourhood, I can tell which of the stray cats are pregnant, and who the father was,’ Sasagaki said, his mouth opening in silent laughter. All Imaeda could hear was the wind passing between his lips.

Sasagaki smiled after a moment had passed and asked, ‘What were you there for?’

Imaeda’s mind raced, trying to figure out this guy’s angle. ‘Work.’

‘And what work is that?’

Now Imaeda smiled, if only to give the impression that he wasn’t frightened. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t already know what my job is, detective.’

‘It’s a very interesting line of work,’ Sasagaki said, his eyes straying to the shelves packed with case files. ‘A friend of mine runs a similar operation down in Osaka. Though I couldn’t tell you how business has been.’

‘That’s why I went down to Osaka. For work.’

‘So looking into Yukiho Karasawa’s upbringing was part of your job?’

Now things are starting to come into focus, Imaeda thought. He wondered how they had managed to chase him down, and remembered the wiretapping incident from the night before.

‘I’d really appreciate it if you could tell me exactly why Yukiho’s past is so important to you,’ Sasagaki said in a languid drawl, looking up at Imaeda.

‘If you have a friend in my line of work, as you say, you know I can’t reveal anything about my clients.’

‘So someone hired you to look into Yukiho, then?’

‘That’s right,’ Imaeda said, wondering why the detective referred to Yukiho Karasawa by her first name and not as ‘Ms Karasawa’, as he’d expect. Either that was just the way detectives talked, or the two were very close. Or else —

‘This have to do with marriage talks?’ Sasagaki suddenly asked.

‘Huh?’

‘I’ve heard someone proposed to her. I can imagine they’d want to look into her past a little first, given her business dealings.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Marriage.’ Sasagaki gave him a curious smile. His eyes went across the desk and he pointed towards the ashtray he saw there. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘Go right ahead,’ Imaeda told him.

Sasagaki pulled a box of Hi-Lites out of his shirt pocket. The box was crumpled nearly flat, and the cigarette he pulled from it was bent in two places. He lit it with a match from a familiar looking matchbook – it was from Bolero across the street.

The detective blew a long stream of smoke into the air, as if to indicate he was in absolutely no hurry at all. The smoke rose wavering in a cloud before dissipating towards the ceiling.

Clearly, he was giving Imaeda time to think. He had shown a few of his cards; now he was waiting to see what Imaeda pulled out of his sleeve. Showing up at the café had just been a way to let Imaeda know that he was being watched, a way to suggest he was holding the better hand. The detective’s expression was blank, but there was a crafty look in his eyes as they followed the smoke.

Imaeda badly wanted to know what kind of hand the detective was holding. Why would someone in homicide be after Yukiho Karasawa? Though, Imaeda thought, he hadn’t actually said it was Yukiho he was after. The only thing he knew was that the man clearly knew quite a bit about her.

‘I’d heard the talk of marriage concerning Ms Karasawa,’ Imaeda said after thinking about it for some time. ‘But I’m not at liberty to say whether that has anything to do with my investigation.’

Sasagaki gave a satisfied nod, his cigarette dangling between his fingers. Slowly, he snubbed the butt out in the ashtray. ‘Mr Imaeda,’ he said, ‘do you remember Mario?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Super Mario Bros. A big seller several years back. One of those games for kids. Though I hear a lot of adults play them these days.’

‘Oh, the Nintendo game. Yeah, I remember that.’

‘Well, there was a man who tried to sell fake copies of the game down in Osaka. They’d made a pirate edition, see, and were on the verge of bringing it to market. They would have made a bundle if the police hadn’t caught them in the nick of time and confiscated every last one of the fake game cartridges. But they never found the man who did it.’

‘He ran?’

‘That’s what the police thought. That’s what they still think.’ Sasagaki opened his travel bag and pulled a folded flier out of it. He spread it open on the table and showed it to Imaeda. Beneath the familiar Have you seen this man? headline was a picture of a man in his fifties, his hair slicked back across his head. Beneath that was a name: Isamu Matsuura.

‘I’ll ask just in case, but have you ever seen this man?’

‘Sorry, no.’

‘I didn’t think you would have,’ Sasagaki said, folding the paper and putting it back in his bag.

‘So you’re after this Matsuura guy?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Imaeda stared Sasagaki in the eyes, but the detective merely gave him a knowing smile.

With a start, Imaeda realised what it was that had been nagging him since Sasagaki started talking about Super Mario Bros. Why would a detective in homicide care about someone pirating a game? That was what he meant about the police ‘thinking’ Matsuura had run. Apparently, this detective thought he was dead – murdered. He wasn’t looking for Matsuura, he was looking for Matsuura’s body, and whoever killed him.

‘Does this guy have something to do with Yukiho Karasawa?’

‘Nothing direct. At least, not that I know of.’

Imaeda shook his head. ‘OK, I’ll admit it. I’m confused. Why should I care about any of this?’

‘There was a man with Matsuura who disappeared at the same time he did,’ Sasagaki said. ‘It’s highly likely this other man was involved in pirating the game as well. And…’ The detective paused, choosing his words carefully. ‘He’s likely to be somewhere near Yukiho.’

‘Near her?’ Imaeda said. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Exactly what it sounds like. He’s hiding somewhere. Have you ever heard of something called a pistol shrimp?’

‘You mean shrimp, like in the ocean?’

‘That’s right. The pistol shrimp digs out a little hole to live in. But every once in a while, something else comes and sets up camp in the shrimp’s hole – a little fish, called a goby. The goby isn’t a freeloader, however. In exchange for a place to live, he hangs out at the entrance to the hole and wags his tail whenever enemies approach, letting the shrimp know what’s coming. It’s what biologists call a symbiotic relationship.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ Imaeda said, holding out his left hand. ‘Are you saying that there’s a guy working with Yukiho Karasawa?’

If there was, the ramifications would be huge – but Imaeda didn’t believe it. He’d been on her case for more than a month now, and never seen any sign of a collaborator.

Sasagaki grinned. ‘It’s just a theory,’ he said. ‘I have no proof.’

‘Surely you have something you’re basing this on?’

‘Call it the intuition of a detective past his prime. It’s not a horse I recommend putting any money on.’

He’s lying, Imaeda thought. He has proof, solid as a rock. Proof enough to bring him all the way up here to Tokyo.

Sasagaki opened his bag again and pulled out a photograph. ‘How about this man? Ever see him?’

He put the photograph on the desk and Imaeda reached out for it. The man was facing directly towards the camera. It looked like a photo taken for a driver’s licence. He was about thirty years old, with a pointed chin.

The face looked familiar. Imaeda tried not to let his expression show it as he tried to think back to where he’d seen it before. He had a good memory for faces, but sometimes it took a little while to put everything together.

He stared at the photo for a few seconds more and, like that, the fog lifted. He knew exactly who he was looking at: alias, occupation, most recent address, everything. He almost yelped out loud, it was so unexpected, but he managed to restrain himself.

‘Is this the guy working with Yukiho Karasawa?’ he asked, taking care his voice remained casual.

‘Maybe,’ Sasagaki said with a shrug. ‘You’ve seen him?’

‘Maybe,’ Imaeda replied, ‘but maybe not.’ He held the photo up and took a closer look. ‘You mind if I take this into the next room? I want to check my files.’

‘What do you think you’ll find?’

‘I’ll bring it right back. Wait here,’ Imaeda stood without waiting for Sasagaki’s answer. He hurried into the next room, locking the door behind him.

This room was originally designed to be a bedroom, but he often used it as a dark room for developing monochrome photos. He pulled a Polaroid camera off the shelf. Then, placing the photograph he got from Sasagaki on the floor, he looked through the viewfinder on the camera, and bent his knees to get the focus right. Adjusting the lens would take too much time.

At just the right height, he pressed the shutter, and the flash filled the room with light.

Imaeda pulled the film out and put the camera back on the shelf. Then, shaking the developing picture in one hand, he pulled a thick file off another shelf. This file contained all the photographs he’d taken during his investigation of Yukiho Karasawa. He checked through quickly, making sure there was nothing in it that would get him in trouble if he showed it to Sasagaki.

He glanced down at his watch, checking that enough time had passed before peeling off the top paper. It was a perfect reproduction – he could even see the tiny specks of dust that had been on the original.

Placing his new photo in a desk drawer, Imaeda opened the door and took the original photograph and his file back into the room where the detective was waiting.

‘Sorry, my mistake,’ he said, placing the file on the desk. ‘The face looked familiar, but looking through this I realised I was mistaken.’

‘What’s this file?’ Sasagaki asked.

‘Everything I have on Yukiho Karasawa. There’s not many pictures, I’m afraid.’

‘Might I take a look?’

‘Go right ahead. Just, I’m not at liberty to tell you much about them.’

Sasagaki took out each of the photographs in the file and looked them over carefully. There were photos of the streets near the house where Yukiho Karasawa had grown up, and some shots he had taken of her broker without the man’s knowledge.

When he had finished looking at them all, the detective looked back up. ‘Some interesting photos in here.’

‘See any you like?’

‘I was just wondering why someone investigating a potential bride would need photos of her visiting a bank.’

‘You’ll just have to use your imagination on that one.’

In fact, he had taken pictures of the bank because Yukiho had a safe deposit box there. He’d discovered this when following her one day. The reason he took pictures of her going in and coming out was to see if there was anything different about her appearance. For example, if she came out wearing a necklace she hadn’t been wearing when she went in, that would suggest she’d kept the necklace in a safe deposit box. It was a very primitive way of checking on someone’s most valuable possessions.

‘I was wondering if I could ask a favour of you,’ Sasagaki said.

‘Yes?’

‘If, in your investigation, you should come across this man’ – here, he held up the photograph – ‘if you should see or hear of him, I want you to tell me. As quickly as you can.’

Imaeda looked between the photo and Sasagaki’s wrinkled face. ‘OK, but there’s something I need to know,’ he said.

‘Yeah?’

‘What’s his name? And where’s the last place he lived?’

For the first time, Imaeda noticed a look of hesitation pass across the detective’s face.

‘If you find him, I’ll give you more information about him than you ever wanted to know.’

‘All I want now is his name and his address.’

Sasagaki looked at Imaeda for a few seconds before nodding. Then he pulled a single sheet of paper off the memo pad on the desk and wrote something on it before placing it in front of Imaeda. It read:

Ryo Kirihara

LIMITLESS

2-42-12 Nihonbashi, Chuo Ward, Osaka

‘What’s Limitless? Some kind of company?’

‘A computer shop. Ryo was the manager.’

Sasagaki wrote out another note with his own name and phone number on it.

‘Sorry to take up so much of your time,’ the detective said. ‘I believe you said you had work to get to?’

‘No problem,’ Imaeda replied, unconcerned that the detective had called his bluff. ‘I was wondering, though. How did you know I was investigating Yukiho Karasawa?’

Sasagaki smiled. ‘I’m sure you’ll figure that one out the next time you’re out and about.’

‘Out and about? You mean walking around, listening to my radio?’ Imaeda made a motion like he was twisting the dial on his wiretap detector.

‘Radio? I’m not sure I follow,’ Sasagaki said, looking honestly confused.

‘Nothing, forget I mentioned it.’

Sasagaki stood and walked towards the door, using his umbrella as a kind of cane. Just before he opened the door, he turned back around. ‘I’m sure you don’t need to hear this from me, but if I ever met him, I’d have a word of advice for the person who asked you to look into Yukiho.’

‘Yes?’

Sasagaki’s lips curled into a smile. ‘Steer clear of that woman. Yukiho Karasawa is trouble.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Imaeda said. ‘He knows.’

Sasagaki gave a satisfied nod and walked out the door.

A group of women on their way home from some kind of community college class had taken over two of the tables. Imaeda considered changing locations entirely, but the person he was going to meet had probably already left the office, so he made do with the table furthest from the noise. He’d hoped that, with it being already one-thirty in the afternoon, the café would be relatively empty. Clearly he was wrong, and this was the spot for a late lunch after class let out. He’d remember that in the future.

Imaeda had only taken a few sips of his coffee when his old colleague walked in. Hitoshi Masuda looked a little thinner than he had when they last worked together. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a navy-blue tie and carrying a large envelope in one hand.

Masuda spotted Imaeda immediately and walked over to the table.

‘Long time no see,’ he said, sitting across from him, but when the waitress came to take his order he told her, ‘No, thanks, I’ll be heading right back out.’

‘Busy as always, I see,’ said Imaeda.

Masuda shrugged. He was clearly in a foul mood. He set the brown paper envelope on the table. ‘This what you wanted?’

Imaeda took the envelope and examined its contents. He counted more than twenty sheets of letter-sized paper. He scanned the papers and gave a deep nod. Everything looked familiar. Some of the sheets he had even written himself.

‘This is it. Thanks.’

‘Look,’ Masuda said, leaning closer, ‘I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but please don’t ask me to do this again. You know the rules against sharing office documents with someone outside.’

‘I know, sorry. This is the only time I’ll ask.’

Masuda stood, but he didn’t immediately leave. ‘Why do you need those now, anyway?’ he asked, looking down at Imaeda. ‘You find the missing piece to some old puzzle?’

‘No. Just something I needed to check. That’s all.’

‘Right, whatever,’ Masuda said, walking away. It was clear he didn’t believe Imaeda in the least, and also clear he knew better than to stick his nose where it didn’t belong.

Imaeda waited for him to leave before looking back at the documents. Three-year-old memories resurfaced in his mind. The pages were a copy of the report they had done on behalf of the client from Tozai Automotive – an investigation that had run up against a brick wall when they were unable to determine the true identity of the Memorix employee suspected of data theft: Yuichi Akiyoshi. They’d never found out his real name, his real work history, or even where he was from.

Thus Imaeda’s surprise when Sasagaki had shown him a picture of Akiyoshi the other day, calling him ‘Ryo Kirihara’.

Managing a computer shop fitted Akiyoshi’s profile, and the date of Ryo’s disappearance from Osaka roughly matched the timing of Akiyoshi’s arrival at Memorix.

At first, Imaeda thought it was just a coincidence. The longer you did this kind of work, the greater the chances were that you’d run into the same people from an old case under completely unrelated circumstances.

Yet, as he thought things through, he realised it couldn’t be unrelated. On the contrary, the request from Tozai Automotive and his current investigation were deeply intertwined at their very roots.

For one thing, the entire reason Shinozuka had asked him and not another PI to investigate Yukiho Karasawa was because he had run into Makoto Takamiya at the golf driving range. And the reason he went to that particular range was because, three years earlier, he had followed Akiyoshi there. That was when he’d first taken note of Makoto, who was clearly in a relationship with the woman Akiyoshi had been following, Chizuru Misawa, despite the fact that Makoto was already married to Yukiho at the time.

Detective Sasagaki had suggested that Ryo Kirihara and Yukiho Karasawa were somehow working together, and Imaeda wasn’t buying the detective’s claim that it was just a theory. He decided to reassess his investigation of three years earlier with the premise that Ryo and Yukiho did in fact have some kind of covert connection.

This hardly required any deep thinking at all: the connection was obvious. Yukiho’s husband worked at Tozai Automotive in the Patent Licensing Division, a position with access to internal company data. He would have had both the ID and the password to access top-secret data on the company’s systems. Imaeda had no doubt that Makoto took this responsibility seriously, but would he extend a wary eye to his wife? Couldn’t she have got access to his ID and password somehow?

Three years ago, Imaeda and his team had been looking for a connection between Akiyoshi and Makoto, and found nothing. Which made sense, because the person they should have been watching was Yukiho.

Another question occurred to Imaeda at this point. Why had Akiyoshi, aka Ryo, been so interested in Chizuru? Was it because of her relationship with Makoto?

He could imagine a scenario where Yukiho had asked him to investigate her husband’s infidelity. But why would she ask Ryo to do something like that? It would make more sense to go to a private investigator. Also, if he had been investigating Makoto’s infidelities, why was he watching Chizuru? It had to mean that he already knew she was Makoto’s lover. But if they knew that, why keep investigating at all?

As he leafed through the copy of the report, another curious thought occurred to Imaeda. It had been early April when Ryo first visited the Eagle Golf Driving Range in pursuit of Chizuru. But that day Makoto hadn’t been there. Then, two weeks later, Ryo paid another visit to the driving range. This was the first time that Imaeda’s team had spotted Makoto being on familiar terms with Chizuru.

That was also, to their knowledge, the last time Ryo ever visited the range. Except, Imaeda’s team had continued observing Makoto and Chizuru, watching their relationship deepen. By the time their investigation had been called off at the beginning of August, the two were deep into an affair.

This struck Imaeda as odd. If Yukiho and Ryo were in contact, and Ryo knew that Yukiho’s husband was growing closer to another woman, why hadn’t Yukiho acted? She had to have known what was going on.

Imaeda took a sip of his coffee, remembering another similarly lukewarm coffee at the Ginza café with Kazunari. What if, Imaeda thought, what if Yukiho didn’t want to stop the affair? What if she wanted a divorce?

This made sense on a few levels. To borrow Eriko Kawashima’s turn of phrase, Makoto had never been Yukiho’s one and only. What if her husband had fallen for another woman, and she had just decided to wait it out, let the crush bloom into a full-blown affair?

No, Imaeda thought, shaking his head. Yukiho wasn’t the type to just let things happen like that. But what if Makoto’s encounter with Chizuru, and everything that had developed since, had been part of Yukiho’s plan?

That was a scary thought. He never would have even considered it if the woman involved was anyone but Yukiho. There was something about her that made him unable to entirely discount the possibility.

And yet he still doubted it was that easy to control someone’s heart like that. Even if Chizuru Misawa were the most beautiful woman in the world, that wouldn’t guarantee love at first sight. Of course, if there had already been something there, it would be much easier to ensure those feelings were given space to grow.

Imaeda left the café and found a payphone. Checking his notes, he dialled the number of Tozai Automotive and asked for Makoto Takamiya.

A couple of minutes later, Makoto was on the phone.

‘Hello, it’s Imaeda. I’m sorry to bother you while you’re at work, but I was hoping I could ask you some questions.’

He heard hesitation on the other side of the line. Clearly this wasn’t someone who enjoyed getting calls from private eyes at work.

‘Questions about what?’

‘Actually, it would be best if we could meet and talk in person.’ Imaeda wasn’t about to ask the man how he had fallen in love with his wife over the phone. ‘Would you have time today or tomorrow evening?’

‘Tomorrow, sure.’

‘Right, I’ll call you again to set up a time.’

‘Fine. Oh, wait, there is something I needed to tell you.’

‘Yes?’

‘A couple of days ago,’ Makoto lowered his voice, ‘a police detective came to visit me. An older man from Osaka.’

‘What did he have to say?’

‘He wanted to know if anyone had been asking questions about my ex-wife recently, and I gave him your name. I hope that’s OK.’

‘Oh, sure.’

‘I hope I didn’t cause any trouble.’

‘No, it’s fine. Did you tell him what I did for work?’

Makoto said he had.

‘Right, I’ll keep that in mind,’ Imaeda replied, before saying goodbye and hanging up.

Imaeda hadn’t even considered the possibility that Sasagaki had gone through Makoto to get to him. That was easy work for him, Imaeda thought. Of course, that made him wonder who was tapping Eri’s phone, if not the police. He had a pretty good idea.

It was already late when Imaeda returned to his apartment that night. He had run around checking on things for another job all afternoon, then stopped in for the first time in a long while at the bar where Eri worked.

‘I always keep the chain on the door whenever I’m at home now,’ she told him. She said she hadn’t noticed any signs that anyone was in her place since that first day.

On his way back to his building, he had to step around an unfamiliar-looking white van parked on the street right outside the door. He walked up the stairs, swaying a little, his feet feeling heavy. He had reached his door and was fishing around in his pocket for his keys when he noticed a cart out in the hallway, with a large cardboard box folded flat on top of it. It was a big box, large enough to hold a washing machine. He wondered for a moment who had left it there, but not for long. His neighbours weren’t the most polite people, and frequently left rubbish sitting out in the hallway for days. Imaeda had long since given up complaining. He didn’t exactly have a great track record on that count himself.

Keys out, he unlocked the door, feeling the bolt slide as he turned the lock. The bolt seemed to slide faster than usual. He gave it a few seconds’ thought before deciding he was imagining things.

Imaeda opened the door, flicked on the lights and looked around the room. Nothing was out of place. His room was as devoid of decoration as usual and covered with dust. The air freshener he used to cover up the smell of dirty clothes hung thick in the air.

He threw his stuff down on a chair and headed for the toilet. He had a good buzz on and was feeling a little sleepy and a little sluggish. When he turned on the bathroom light, he realised that the fan was already on. That’s a waste of electricity, he thought dimly, fumbling for his zipper as he opened the door. The toilet lid was down, which also struck him as strange. As a long-time bachelor, Imaeda took pride in never lowering the lid. Closing the door behind him, he lifted the lid – and an alarm went off in his head.

Without being consciously aware of what it was, he knew he was in grave danger. He tried to close the lid, twisting his body to get out of the bathroom as quickly as he could.

But his body wouldn’t move. He couldn’t even breathe.

The bathroom spun around him. He felt his body hit something, but there was no pain. All his senses had been robbed from him too. He tried to move his arms, his legs, but he couldn’t even twitch a single finger. Then he had the sensation that someone was standing next to him, but he couldn’t be sure. Maybe I’m just imagining things again.

Everything went dark.