A Quiet Place Page 6

  So, according to the maid, a man with a few tricks and a bit of knowledge could worm his way into a naive woman’s affections and then demolish her defences. That was surely what had happened to Eiko. This knowledge wasn’t something the maid had picked up from the pages of a women’s magazine. She was relating what her own eyes saw day in, day out. Asai found himself persuaded by her argument.

  “So, in your experience, what happens after a married woman falls for a man like that?” he asked.

  The maid looked modestly down at the floor, but a hint of a cold smile played on her lips.

  “To begin with, the woman is uncomfortable coming to a place like this with him. She’s married to someone else, and I imagine she feels terribly guilty. At first she’s timid and fearful, but over time she begins to get used to it and begins to relax more on her visits. By the end of it, it’s the woman who has taken the lead. She becomes so brazen that at times we can hardly believe she’s the same person. Her passion for the man gets obsessive. It’s not unusual for them to start coming here in the middle of the day. If she’s a housewife, it’s easier to arrange that way.”

  The maid’s last words really hit home. There was no hint of irony; they were plain and honest. And Asai recognized the pattern. Eiko used to go out in the daytime two or three times a week. All she had to do was be back before her husband got home from work.

  “Why don’t these couples go to several different hotels? The men too, but particularly the women – surely it feels weird for them to run into the same staff all the time.”

  “The young ones like to mix it up, but middle-aged couples don’t; staying at several different hotels means they’ll be seen by many more people. And that feels even more shameful.”

  “I see.”

  “And older couples are much more likely than young ones to form a kind of attachment to a particular hotel.”

  The maid took Eiko’s picture away, leaving Asai alone in the room. While he waited for her to return, a younger maid appeared with a tray of tea and cakes. He hadn’t ordered anything, but she assured him that it was on the house. He realized that his story of being abandoned by his wife had aroused sympathy among the hotel staff. He could practically hear the maids crying, “Oh the poor thing!” If he could just put up with the humiliation a little longer, it would really help his investigation.

  After about forty minutes the first maid returned, accompanied by a slightly older woman dressed in the same purple apron. She introduced herself as the head housekeeper and offered her sympathies to Asai.

  “I’m very sorry to hear about the situation you’re in. We’ve shown your wife’s picture to all the maids who work here, but I’m afraid that nobody recognizes her. And there are several of our staff members who never forget a face.”

  The first maid carefully returned Eiko’s photo to Asai. He didn’t think that they were lying. They’d been nothing but compassionate right from the beginning.

  “I see. Then this can’t be the right hotel.”

  In one sense, Asai was disappointed, as he’d been so sure that his hunch was correct. On the other hand, he was slightly relieved.

  “You said your wife had a box of our hotel’s matches, is that correct?” the head housekeeper asked him.

  The matches had been a fabrication that had got Asai the information he needed. He could hardly go back and admit he’d lied.

  “Now that I’ve looked more closely at the matches you have here, I think the box my wife had in her bag was just very similar. I never really picked them up and examined them closely. My memory is a little hazy, now that I think about it. But what I do know for certain is that an eyewitness saw her walking up the hill that leads to this place. That’s what made me think that she must have been heading here.”

  The housekeeper and maid exchanged a look. Then the housekeeper spoke.

  “We’re not the only hotel on this hill; there are two more beyond us. One, the Midori, is just close by, and the other’s a little further up – the Mori. But there’s another, more direct route that leads to the Mori, so I’d say if your wife was seen walking up the hill, then she was probably heading to the Midori.”

  Asai decided now that he’d turned himself into a desperate husband whose wife had walked out on him, he might as well continue carrying her photo around other hotels, and show it to even more of their employees. He was going to have to endure further humiliation if he was going to get the information he needed.

  “I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve put you to,” he said with feeling.

  “Oh, you’re welcome. I hear that you have children. I hope you all find a way to be happy again. I’m sure that your wife will return for their sake.”

  With these words of comfort, the housekeeper and maid showed him out.

  Asai exited the Tachibana’s main gate and stood for a moment at the top of the hill, looking down. The street just below him was lined on both sides by wide-roofed mansions and was completely dark. Way down below that, the lights of the bustling city stretched out before him. Everything looked peaceful from up here.

  Eiko wasn’t coming back. She’d been turned to ash and was waiting at the local temple for the engraver to finish her memorial stone. Then she’d be laid to rest beneath it.

  Who was responsible? Where was the man whose charm had tempted her all the way to her death? And how had this man managed to get close to Eiko in the first place? Asai hadn’t the faintest idea, and had no clue as to the mystery man’s identity.

  He kept walking southwards, up the slope. The Hotel Midori’s gaudy neon sign flashed against the night sky. He imagined the flaming red lights were designed to stimulate sexual appetite, luring men and women to a den of mind-numbing pleasure.

  In just five minutes Asai was at the hotel’s gate. The exterior was pretty similar to that of the Tachibana, and the concept more or less the same – the tiny pebbles and the plants glowed in the darkness from the light of low stone lanterns.

  While he was hesitating outside, a man and a woman hurried past him through the gate. They were young, and didn’t speak as they crunched their way along the pebble path. Asai waited a couple of minutes, then followed them inside. To his left, what looked a lot like a roadside tea house was the only place that was brightly lit. From that direction he heard a woman’s voice.

  “Irrashaimase – welcome.”

  A maid had stepped out to greet him, and he realized at once that this must be the hotel’s reception.

  “Will someone be joining you later?”

  The same question as at the Tachibana.

  He guessed there must be about ten maids working at this hotel. Assuming there were about the same number at the previous hotel, then he’d end up showing his wife’s picture to over twenty people. He could ask them to keep it among themselves, as it was such a personal matter, but he knew this would be futile. The story was going to spread. Each maid who promised faithfully to keep it secret was bound to leak it to one or two other people. As long as he didn’t give his real name, then it wouldn’t be too terrible if they discussed his story. But sneaking around and flashing Eiko’s photo about like this was a really low thing to do. He felt wretched. And he might not have any luck at this hotel, either. If they hadn’t seen her here, would he then have to move on to the next one? And then another, and another, until he’d visited all the hotels, inns and hostels in the neighbourhood?

  The Midori’s head housekeeper listened sympathetically to his heartbreaking tale. She took the photo, but when she still hadn’t returned after forty minutes, he imagined how the conversation might be going.

  “His wife ran off with another man. Left two children at home! The husband’s going crazy searching for her. Wants her to come home for the sake of the kids. He’s got no shame. Lost all self-respect, poor thing. Hey, this is her. He brought her photo. Wants to know if she came here with her lover. Have you seen her? It’s okay if you have; just tell him. I feel sorry for him.”

  Each maid�
��s expression when she was handed Eiko’s picture would be slightly different, but by the end they’d all pretty much be close to pity.

  When the housekeeper finally returned, she was accompanied by a younger, shorter maid who knelt nervously on the tatami behind her.

  “I’ve asked everybody, but they all say she’s never been to our hotel. No one has ever seen her here before,” explained the housekeeper. She went on to emphasize that everyone who worked at the hotel had a good memory for faces. She indicated the young maid sitting behind her.

  “This young woman says she’s never seen your wife at the hotel, but she did see someone outside on the street who resembled the woman in the photo. Go on, Senko.”

  At her boss’s urging, the twenty-something, red-cheeked maid shuffled a little further forward.

  “I can’t be absolutely sure that it was her, but she looks a lot like a lady I met about two months back who was walking up the hill. I was going downhill at the time, so we passed each other.”

  “Do you remember what day it was?” Asai asked.

  The maid was still examining the photo as if trying to compare it to the woman in her memory.

  “I don’t remember the date exactly, but it was the middle of the month.”

  “About what time?”

  “Around two in the afternoon.”

  “Why do you remember her so clearly?”

  “Because there was hardly anyone in the street. That lady and I were the only ones around. Normally I pass lots of people when I’m walking, but it was so quiet that day. I remember thinking it felt a bit weird, and then she walked by and I had the chance to take a good look at her face.”

  “And she looked like my wife in the photo.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember what she was wearing?”

  “I think it was a beige two-piece suit. The jacket was open at the neck and I could see a maroon-coloured scarf underneath. Her handbag was made of leather – it looked like crocodile – and it was dark red.”

  There was no doubt about the mystery woman’s identity now. That had been one of Eiko’s favourite outfits. The burgundy crocodile-skin handbag had been a present from one of the businessmen he’d helped at work. He’d brought it back from a business trip to Southeast Asia.

  “You say that my wife – or at least this person who most probably was my wife – was walking alone when you saw her. Are you sure there was no one with her?”

  “I’m sure. There was no one else around. She was by herself.”

  “Whereabouts on the hill did you pass her?”

  “Right where the road begins to slope upwards.”

  “So it was quite a way down the street, then?”

  “Right.”

  “There’s a small boutique around there, isn’t there? I think it’s called Takahashi Cosmetics.”

  The young woman seemed surprised that Asai would have heard of such a place.

  “Well, yes, there is. I met her about twenty yards down from that boutique. She was heading up the hill.”

  7

  After leaving the Midori, Asai returned to the crossroads by the Tachibana, and set off down the hill. He checked his wristwatch under a street lamp: 9.20 p.m.

  To tell the truth, he really wanted to pay a visit to the Mori, but he supposed those kind of places got busy after nine o’clock, so he decided to call it a night. Visiting two hotels in one evening had been exhausting enough.

  The street wasn’t well lit, and he made his way down the slope by following the concrete walls and the bamboo fences perched on top of the old stone walls. Hardly any light filtered through from the houses beyond. With the exception of the hotels on the top of the hill, it seemed this residential neighbourhood went to bed early.

  Asai found himself again in front of Takahashi Cosmetics. He’d expected the lights of the shop to be spilling out onto the street, but it was just as dark as its neighbours. The glass entrance door was shut and the curtains were drawn. Asai supposed it was natural that a small boutique in this neighbourhood would also shut early. He glanced up at the first floor, where the shop sign hung. Not a glimmer of light was visible through the shutters.

  The maid at the Midori had been sure that she’d seen Eiko here two months ago. From the description of her clothes and handbag there was no doubt that it had been Eiko. And it made sense that she’d been out walking around two in the afternoon.

  So if she’d been walking up the slope, about twenty yards below Takahashi Cosmetics, where was that exactly? Asai estimated it was a spot approximately between the house next door to Ms Takahashi’s and the one next to that. Both of these houses were traditional old Japanese-style buildings with their low stone walls intact. The one directly across the street had a concrete-block wall and a pale western-style building just visible through the trees.

  Asai stopped walking and turned around to look back up at the road he had just come down. He didn’t deliberately look upwards, but the steep slope meant he automatically raised his eyes.

  He tried to put himself in Eiko’s shoes. She’d walked up the hill as far as this point. Assuming she hadn’t slowed her pace at all, her destination must have been further up. Straight ahead at the top was the Hotel Tachibana; off to the right from there, the Midori; a little further on, the Mori.

  So, assuming again that she’d walked straight up this hill, her destination was most likely to have been one of the hotels, but the maids at both establishments had sworn they’d never seen her. He believed that they’d been telling the truth. They’d definitely been sympathetic to the poor abandoned husband with his two motherless children.

  So where? Takahashi Cosmetics, perhaps? The story was that Eiko had begun to feel unwell and staggered into the boutique, but the maid at the Midori had seen her twenty yards before she would have reached the shop; in other words, where Asai was standing right now.

  Was it a coincidence? Had Eiko visited Takahashi Cosmetics in the past, not just the day she died?

  Surely that was a crazy idea. And if the maid had seen Eiko a little further up the hill, one that would never have occurred to Asai. It only crossed his mind because his wife had been seen near the bottom of the hill. Another vision came to him – this time Chiyoko Takahashi’s heavily made-up face with its full lips.

  So, two months before her death, Eiko had been seen here on this street. Asai imagined her destination could have been the boutique, but that was pure speculation. As long as he had no definite proof that Chiyoko Takahashi and his wife had known each other, it would remain just that. It wasn’t really logical to believe that Eiko had come all the way to this particular area just to buy make-up.

  Asai decided to stop his enquiries for now after investigating the two hotels at the top of the hill, and returned home to his lonely, empty house. He fell quickly into a fitful sleep, still troubled by the words of the maid at the Midori.

  He woke up early. The wristwatch he’d placed by his head showed just after 6 a.m. Only a single man would put his watch next to his pillow, or someone on a trip away. Every day the feeling that he’d been abandoned grew stronger and stronger; Eiko’s relatives had even stopped dropping by.

  Asai lay on his stomach and smoked a cigarette. When Eiko had been alive he’d never been allowed to do this kind of thing. He wondered if he should sell the house and move into an apartment. It had been his parents’ home, so it was close to forty years old. The house itself wouldn’t have any value, but it stood on about three and a half thousand square feet. In this part of Tokyo, land went for about 60,000 yen per square foot. He’d have enough money to buy himself a luxury apartment. But he didn’t have the status to live in a place like that. Even at the division-chief level, whole families of four were making do in cheap civil-service housing. A modest apartment would suit his needs better, he thought. It’d be a while before he married again.

  He finished his cigarette and went out to collect the newspaper from the letterbox. Then he got back into bed and opened the
paper. There weren’t many interesting articles, but, ever the civil servant, his eye was drawn to anything connected with government policy.

  There was an article about the Japan Medical Association’s opposition to a new plan by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. It included comments by the chairman of the association.

  Doctors… Just a moment – why had he not thought of it before?

  Chiyoko Takahashi had told him that after Eiko collapsed in her boutique, she’d sent a university student, a young woman who’d just come in to buy make-up, to a nearby doctor’s office to get help. He recalled the words from Ms Takahashi’s own, rather memorable, lips.

  “Doctor Ohama has a clinic about five doors up, off to the right – I got her to run over and ask him for help.” In his lunch hour, Asai took a taxi to Yoyogi. On his way up the hill he glanced at Takahashi Cosmetics, but the front entrance was shut and the curtains were drawn. It looked exactly the same as the night before. It must be closed today. Maybe it was the regular day off for all the local businesses. But no – all the shops out on the main shopping street had been open. It was only the cosmetics boutique that was closed.

  Asai had the driver drop him about three streets away, opposite a narrow side street. Doctor Ohama’s clinic was at the far end of the street. There was no mistaking the building for anything but a private clinic.

  There was nobody in the waiting room when Asai entered. A nurse opened the glass window at the reception desk and looked out at him.

  “Appointments are mornings only, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t need a medical appointment. I’m here to enquire about a patient.”