A Quiet Place Page 10

  “Follow me, please,” she said, opening the office door.

  “Thank you.”

  Asai spoke softly. He took one step inside the door, right behind the young woman. He was a little nervous, expecting all the employees in the office to turn and stare at him, but he needn’t have worried. It was a large office, chock-a-block with desks and overflowing with people, both standing and sitting. No one paid Asai any attention. The receptionist’s desk, nearest to the doorway, was unoccupied.

  “Which one is Mr Kubo?” he whispered to his guide.

  “The general manager is over there.”

  She raised the pile of documents slightly so that she could discreetly point a finger. In the direction she indicated, towards the window, there were three large tables lined up together, around which five or six men were sitting or standing. Keeping his eyes on the men, Asai whispered once again to the young woman.

  “Which one is he?”

  “He’s sitting at the far end of those three desks. The tall man. Wearing glasses. Look, he’s talking to the deputy manager – the man standing across from him. That’s Mr Kubo.”

  The woman glanced at Asai to check he was looking in the right direction.

  “That man with glasses? The one who just put a cigarette in his mouth?”

  Asai’s throat seemed to have closed up.

  “That’s right. That’s him.”

  “The one just lighting his cigarette now?”

  “Yes.”

  Asai hurriedly thanked the young woman and got out of the room as fast as he could.

  Mr Kubo, General Affairs manager, was the same man he’d seen last spring when he’d been trying to look inside Takahashi Cosmetics. The one standing behind him on the street, staring at him, dressed in a grey sweater and with a German shepherd. The same long face that had watched him beat a hasty retreat.

  Asai made his way straight over to the detective agency in Kanda, where he was met by the same detective as before.

  “I’d like to request a further investigation, please,” he said, his dark glasses still firmly in place.

  The man frowned.

  “Oh, was there a problem with the first one?”

  “No. Not at all. This time, I’d like you to focus the investigation on Konosuke Kubo.”

  “I see. What kind of things do you want to know?”

  “His daily routine back when he lived in Yoyogi.”

  “His daily routine? Not now, but when he lived in the house in Yoyogi?”

  “Well, I’m interested in his current lifestyle too, but for now just when he was in Yoyogi. Before his land was turned into a hotel.”

  “It was back at the end of April that his house was knocked down to make room for the hotel. It’s going to be very difficult to find out much about his life before that, you know.”

  “I’m willing to pay whatever it takes.”

  “And you know, people aren’t very community-spirited around that neighbourhood. They don’t have much to do with one another. We’re not going to get much out of interviewing his ex-neighbours. I’m not sure what the best approach would be.” The detective folded his arms.

  “I’m counting on you to find a way.”

  “All right. ‘His daily routine’ is a little vague. What specifically do you want to know?”

  “First of all, whether he was home on the afternoon of the seventh of March.”

  The detective made a note.

  “There was a strong earthquake at 3.25 that afternoon,” Asai continued.

  “An earthquake? What has that got to do with Kubo?”

  “Maybe nothing. But that day there was a big earthquake, and you might be able to use the fact to jog people’s memories.”

  “Got it. So you want me to find out whether Kubo was home at the time of the earthquake and what he was doing?”

  “Yes. But not just during the earthquake. What he was doing that afternoon, until around four.”

  “And is there anything in particular you’re interested in about that afternoon? If you could let me know, it might help me find some leads.”

  “Yes, I’d like to know if anyone visited Mr Kubo at home at any point in the afternoon.”

  “Ah, you mean a woman?”

  The detective probably assumed that Asai meant Chiyoko Takahashi.

  “Not only Ms Takahashi. I mean, she may well have visited him that afternoon, but if there was someone else…”

  “Someone else?”

  “Yes. Man or woman – it doesn’t matter. Anyone who visited that house on the afternoon of the seventh.”

  He was being deliberately vague. He had Eiko in mind, but he didn’t dare put that into words, even discreetly. If the detective knew the identity of the probable visitor, he would know too much about Asai.

  “I don’t think anyone would know that besides the people in the house,” said the detective, pulling a face. “His wife’s in a sanatorium up in Nagano. There’s only the housekeeper who’d be able to help.”

  “The housekeeper? Of course. But in your previous report you wrote that Mr Kubo didn’t have one. Just a part-time help.”

  “She was sent by a dispatch service.”

  “So if you ask the dispatch service, they’ll let you talk to her?”

  “I think so. But these services don’t always send the same person every time. I’ll make it a priority to find the one who worked on the seventh of March.”

  “It’d be useful if you could talk to others who worked on different days, to get an idea of Mr Kubo’s daily routine, but let’s find out about the seventh of March first. Do you think you’ll be able to find her?”

  “If she’s still working for the dispatch service, and out on another job, I’ll go and find her there and interview her. If she’s quit the service, it might take a little longer to find her.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Understood. Is there anything else you’d like to know about?”

  Asai thought for a moment.

  “As a matter of fact there is. What are Mr Kubo’s hobbies?”

  11

  Had it really been Konosuke Kubo watching him that day? Ever since he’d caught a glimpse of the face of the General Affairs manager at R-Textiles, the memory kept playing in Asai’s head.

  It had been a bright afternoon in early spring, and he’d been completely focused on trying to see through the gap in the front door of Takahashi Cosmetics. He’d felt someone standing behind him. He hadn’t heard footsteps or a voice, but there’d been some sort of invisible force like a wave breaking against his back, and in response he had turned around to see the figure of a man with a dog standing at the other side of the road. Asai could tell that the man had been watching him for some time.

  Asai had been worried at the time that he might be taken for a burglar, so he had stepped away from the shop window very slowly and calmly – he hadn’t run in case that would have made him look even more suspicious – and begun to walk away in the opposite direction. Still, until he’d managed to put a reasonable distance between himself and the tall figure, he’d been afraid that the man would challenge him and demand to know what he was doing. His feet had felt clumsy, the flesh on his back crawling.

  He had only turned and glimpsed the man’s long face, and thanks to the backlighting effect of the sun it had been dark like an underexposed photograph. He couldn’t make out anything clearly besides a nose and a pair of spectacles. As time had passed, these had become the stranger’s distinguishing features. And now, as those features from his memory began to merge with the face of the man who’d been seated at the desk in the General Affairs department of R-Textiles, it had all suddenly come together.

  The man with the dog who’d been staring at him that day hadn’t been a concerned resident. He hadn’t been out there watching over the shop out of kindness or consideration for his next-door neighbour. He’d had the look of someone defending his own property. His stance, the feel of his glare: there had been so
mething very severe about him.

  It made sense. If the man had been Kubo, Asai could see why he might have given him that strange look. If he had an intimate relationship with Ms Takahashi next door, he wouldn’t have been able to ignore another man checking out her premises while she was out. If, after watching a little longer, he’d decided that Asai was a burglar, he might have set his German shepherd on him. Or perhaps he’d been suspicious that this snooper had some kind of relationship with Chiyoko Takahashi. Whichever of these might have been the truth, his behaviour had definitely been out of the ordinary.

  Whatever the case, Asai wanted to know the exact nature of the relationship between Konosuke Kubo and Chiyoko Takahashi. And so he had ended up at the private detective agency once again. Had Ms Takahashi made Kubo a member of Hotel Chiyo’s board of directors in return for the sale of the land, or was it much more than that? He was anxious to know the truth.

  Asai had the advantage that Mr Kubo had never seen his face clearly. In front of the cosmetics shop there had been only a split second before Asai had turned and walked away. He was sure that Kubo had never got a proper look at him. At R-Textiles too, Asai had stayed right in the corner near the entrance; Kubo had been in conversation with other staff members, and had never once looked up. It was typical of any office – insurance salesmen and other businesspeople would often stop by the reception desk. Staff were used to this, and didn’t pay them any attention. Nobody had even glanced in Asai’s direction. Besides, he’d been wearing dark glasses, so no one could have seen his face clearly.

  Some day he was going to run into Konosuke Kubo. When that happened, it was vital that the man didn’t recognize him. Above all, he didn’t want to be identified as Tsuneo Asai, husband of Eiko Asai. He mustn’t be traced back to the Ministry of Agriculture and risk a stain on his reputation as a ministry civil servant. Kubo was not to recognize his face, know his name, or have an idea where he worked. He should be nothing more to him than an anonymous figure he saw on the street. On the other hand, Asai would know everything there was to know about Konosuke Kubo.

  For the next two weeks, as he anxiously waited for the detective agency to complete the second investigation, Asai was distracted and unable to concentrate. He was impatient to hear what the housekeeper from the dispatch service had to say about Kubo’s private life and the events of 7 March. The detective had told him he couldn’t be sure whether she still worked for the service, but Asai held out hope he’d be able to find her.

  It was surprising that one lone maid from a cleaning service had been employed to clean such a large house, but these days it was getting more and more difficult to find a live-in housekeeper. Asai supposed that as there was only Kubo and his wife, and as she was currently hospitalized, there wasn’t any call for full-time live-in help. Or maybe that was why he had sold the house off – because it had become so difficult to keep it running without a permanent housekeeper. He’d heard many times that when a couple were on their own without children, living in an apartment was often the more practical and comfortable option.

  Asai had long believed that there was a connection between Kubo’s sale of the fine old house in a great neighbourhood and his relationship with Chiyoko Takahashi. He hadn’t quite given up on that theory, but ever since he’d heard about the maid he’d employed from the dispatch service, he was anxious to hear what other evidence she might have.

  Anyway, he was certain that the next investigation would make everything clear. What insight was he going to get into Kubo’s private life? Was there a connection between him and Ms Takahashi?

  Or was he hoping to find out whether Eiko had somehow played a part in Kubo’s life?

  Going to the detective agency under a false name, going back in person to pick up the report, paying in cash – all these were to make sure that the detective had no idea of his true identity. So if it turned out that Eiko was mixed up in all this, then the detective would have no idea that she was related to Asai in any way. He wouldn’t feel the need to hide any of the details from his client.

  In those weeks before the second report was completed, Asai made an effort to throw himself into his work. He was sent to Ishikawa and Yamanashi on government business. Farmers in both prefectures were interested in moving away from the cultivation of rice and developing their meat-processing industry. Asai went on a week’s tour, invited by local agricultural cooperatives to give lectures on the meat industry in their town or village. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry had been trying to deal with the national rice surplus by getting farmers to reduce the acreage devoted to the cultivation of rice, but they knew their measures were inefficient. Local farming families also knew that this policy was doing nothing to improve their prospects. In the current recession, the present system of food control was just not working, and the future looked grim. The farmers felt that the recent trend of leaving the countryside in the off season to find outside work was not what their job should be about. Lately, even the women were being forced to go to the cities to find jobs to supplement their falling income.

  It was here that the agricultural cooperatives came in. They were encouraging farming families to give up their little domestic sidelines – work traditionally performed by the grandparents and wives of farming families, such as the raising of pigs. The plan was to get whole communities to work together in joint enterprises, a more modern farming model which they considered to be better equipped to face the future.

  Whenever there was a general election, the top executive of the local agricultural cooperative was in charge of collecting votes from its members, and when the time came for the government to hold meetings to decide the latest price of rice, he was also the man responsible for lining up the protesters in front of the Ministry of Agriculture. Today, this same man was delivering the opening greetings for Asai’s lecture.

  Asai, while maintaining what he believed to be the dignity appropriate to a government employee, explained manufacturing techniques and business methods. He didn’t limit his talks to meat products; he also covered fruit and, in the coastal areas, the processing of seafood and other marine products. For this he had an official from the Fisheries Agency accompanying him. For meat and fruit, Asai had enough general background knowledge of the industry to get the job done by himself. A veteran administrator in the field of food processing, he had a vast amount of technical knowledge, more even than some of the specialist technicians employed in the industry.

  Asai was very well-received out in the provinces. The inns he stayed in were not luxurious, but the meals he was served were made from the freshest ingredients. Sometimes there were geishas attending the evening parties. His only problem on the trip was trying to keep up with the large number of heavy drinkers who wanted to toast his good health. And in the daytime he had a chance to visit some of the local tourist spots.

  He was pretty much fully occupied with all this, but there were also free moments when his mind drifted back to the investigation. How much had they found out so far?

  There were plenty of people envious of Asai’s newly single status. Several of his colleagues at the ministry expressed their views.

  “Must be nice to be free.”

  “You can come home as late as you like, even stay out all night, and no wife at home to complain. We’re all kind of jealous of you.”

  “You can do whatever you want, enjoy a whole second youth. Unfortunately for me, my wife has me under her thumb.”

  However, Asai wasn’t the type to play around. He had never cheated on his wife, or even thought about it. He knew everything there was to know about being a civil servant, but had never had the faintest idea how to attract women. He’d never had a passionate love affair. He knew all too well that he just didn’t have that kind of appeal to the opposite sex. And consequently he had never even tried to pick up a woman. Even if he’d wanted to, he just didn’t have the courage. His interest in women had long been on the back burner. And so, even though others were envious o
f his return to bachelorhood, for him it was no hedonistic freedom. Perhaps if he’d had more money, things would have been different, but he didn’t have that luxury. He had no intention of dipping into his precious funds month after month to pay for prostitutes.

  Some of his more outspoken colleagues asked him when he was going to get married again. They thought he might be able to get himself a young wife, and that also made them envious.

  He’d not even thought about that yet. He supposed he might after the first anniversary of Eiko’s death. There were people who loved to play matchmaker, but Asai really wasn’t inclined to rush into something. A woman of his age would have a past. He didn’t want to be compared to someone else, and didn’t think another marriage like that would work out. A plain, quiet wife would be a problem. He wasn’t at all outgoing or flamboyant, so between them it would be one gloomy, cheerless household. He’d much prefer a cheerful, intellectual, kind wife with feminine charms, but this was hardly likely for a forty-something civil servant on his third marriage. There were very few possibilities left; he knew his prospects were bleak. Asai was confident of his abilities and achievements as a civil servant, but it was a completely different matter when it came to his private life.

  And anyway, he wouldn’t know how to relate to a young wife. She was bound to cheat on him. He’d have no idea what she was up to outside the house. Eiko had caused him more than enough trouble with private detectives.

  Finally, he was informed that the second investigation was complete. Asai donned his usual dark glasses and set out for the detective agency. He was met once again by the chief detective.

  “We eventually managed to find the maid from the cleaning service. She’d left the company and was working for a different place. It took a lot of running around by one of our junior staff, but finally he found out she’d gone back to her hometown in rural Yamanashi Prefecture. That’s why the fee ended up being a little higher than we anticipated.”

  “I’ll pay the extra.”