“I for one would like to see these criminals arrested, but I cannot tell you what did not happen.”
“I see . . . Then, what do you make of this case?” One of the investigators pulled a sheet of paper from a manila envelope and handed it to him. Shiroyama’s eyes beheld the words letter of complaint at the top, followed by the claimant’s address and the name hinode beer company, and finally the date november 13, 1990, at the end of the letter. That was enough.
When he looked up, his eyes met the watchful gazes of the investigators.
“I understand your company filed this complaint against the accused, who had sent a defamatory cassette tape addressed to your company. The complaint itself was withdrawn on November twentieth, but how did that come about?”
The question came so abruptly that Shiroyama had to pretend to look down at the letter once more. The text typed out on a word processer blurred before his eyes.
“I’m aware of this case but—”
“As president of the company, when and how did you hear about the cassette tape?”
“I wrote down the exact date in my journal. But I can’t recall it now. Before work started that day, the human resources manager at the time—Tsukamoto—and the vice president with whom Tsukamoto had consulted—Shirai—came into my office. They informed me they had received such a tape and wanted to discuss how it should be handled . . . That’s what I remember.”
“Did you listen to the tape?”
“At the time they handed me a transcript of the tape, but there was so much text I remember not having sufficient time to read it thoroughly.”
“Then who made the decision to file a complaint?”
“I think Shirai suggested it and I approved it. Tsukamoto had informed me that before they received the tape, two slanderous letters from what appeared to be the same person who had sent the tape had been delivered to the office.”
“Why wasn’t the matter brought before the board of directors?”
“The matter didn’t call for it. Ordinarily human resources should have settled it on their own.”
“But the contents of both the letters and the tape, which compelled you to file the complaint, were quite delicate.”
“The contents of the tape were not what mattered. I believe we determined at that point in time that simply receiving letters written under an assumed name and a cryptic tape from an unidentified sender was a problem in and of itself.”
“I heard the same from Tsukamoto-san himself, but on October tenth, 1990, wasn’t there a student named Takayuki Hatano who left in the middle of an interview with your company? Following the interview, that student continued to be absent, unexcused, from his university seminar, and late on the night of the fifth day after, he was killed in an accident on the Shuto Expressway. Wasn’t the person who sent two separate letters to your company followed by the tape that student’s father? And the father killed himself by jumping in front of a train, late on the night of November seventeenth. Even if it was not the kind of matter to have bothered the president about, I would think it would have presented a significant issue for the reputation of the company.”
As Shiroyama took in each item uttered by the investigator, he realized that the police must have already gone to speak with Hatano’s family. The dead student’s mother would not have forgotten that her son’s girlfriend and her father had come to pay their respects after the funeral. Perhaps she had already revealed her suspicions to the police, and given them all the details. . .
“Shiroyama-san, wasn’t this a case of employment discrimination?”
“Sorry. What did you say?”
“The issue that the deceased dentist was trying to bring to your company’s attention was whether discrimination had been a factor in his son’s employment, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. But as far as the company was concerned, there was no such awareness. There was no basis for it—neither then nor in the past. We would have liked to have been able to decipher where the student’s father was coming from, but there was a limit to how we were able to act as a company given the way he had sent the letters and the tape.”
“I just want to confirm. What is the exact reason you decided that filing a complaint was the best course of action?”
“We had been moving forward with the project to build a new factory at the time, so we had no choice but to be particularly cautious. In the end we determined it was necessary to take measures against any unfounded attempts at obstruction.”
“So you are familiar with the contents of the tape, for the most part?”
“I am.”
“The intention behind the tape was indeed hard to grasp. The tape seemed to convey the substance of a letter sent by a certain Seiji Okamura to your company’s Kanagawa factory back in 1947. According to Tsukamoto-san, he was able to look up this Seiji Okamura in the student registry of the former Tohoku Imperial University and confirm that he had in fact previously been a Hinode employee. But he was unable to determine whether the letter from 1947 actually existed. Do I have that right?”
“I think that’s what I heard.”
“We are currently looking for employees who worked out of the Kanagawa factory or the main office at that time, but as of now we lack any conclusive evidence that the letter was ever delivered to the factory in 1947. However, hypothetically speaking, if such a letter did exist, it would clearly be considered the possession of Hinode Beer. And judging from the contents of the letter, it’s highly unlikely that this would have been treated lightly within the company back then, so how did you feel about a taped reading of such a letter being sent to your company by someone from the outside?”
“My only recollection from the time is that we discussed how we were unsure of the intention of the sender.”
“You didn’t think the letter had been leaked from within Hinode?”
“I guess when you put it that way . . . But this was something that had happened just after the war ended, and we could not even ascertain the existence of such a letter.”
“Going back in the conversation, did your company conduct a background check on this student, Hatano?”
“No. We don’t do that at Hinode.”
“How about after you received the second letter and the strange tape from the student’s father? What did you do then?”
“Nothing.”
After a brief pause, the investigator muttered, “That can’t be.” Shiroyama, unsure what the investigator meant, held his breath and waited for what he would say next. He expected to hear the name of the student’s girlfriend—his niece—mentioned next, but the conversation grew even more complicated.
“Seiji Okamura is the uncle of the student’s mother, isn’t he?” the investigator asked.
“I heard he is a distant relation.”
“That’s what you heard? Then you do know that Tsukamoto-san, the human resources manager, had conducted a background check anyway?”
“I suppose you’re right. It must have escaped my memory. What of—”
“The student, Takayuki Hatano; his father, the dentist Hiroyuki Hatano; and the letter’s sender, Seiji Okamura—seeing that these people are all related, it wouldn’t be implausible for there to be some kind of confrontation or misunderstanding, but the reality is a little more complex. Hiroyuki Hatano had not even known about Seiji Okamura until shortly before he committed suicide. On November fifth, 1990, the day before Hatano mailed the tape, he had called his estranged wife in the middle of the night and asked if she knew someone by the name of Seiji Okamura. But, as his wife told him, she didn’t. That same night, Hatano also called the home of his wife’s father, who happens to be the younger brother of Seiji Okamura, and asked his father-in-law about him. Hatano’s father-in-law confirmed that Seiji Okamura was in fact his older brother, but that Okamura had been adopted into another family before he was bo
rn. Apparently, Hatano’s father-in-law had only met Okamura a handful of times before the war, and had never spoken about him to his family either. In other words, Hiroyuki Hatano had recorded a tape of himself reading the letter written by Seiji Okamura—someone he didn’t know about until that very evening—and sent it off to your company.”
“That man Okamura, is he still alive?”
“He died last summer in a nursing home in Tokyo. Okamura’s younger brother—the father of Hiroyuki Hatano’s wife—had hired a detective agency to track down Okamura’s whereabouts. He had visited him at the nursing home from time to time. Okamura had dementia.”
If the father of Hatano’s wife was indeed the younger brother of Okamura, then perhaps this brother had heard about the girl his grandson had intended to marry. Shiroyama pondered this as he listened to the investigator’s story with astonishment.
“As to the circumstances of how the original or perhaps a photocopy of Seiji Okamura’s letter, presumably sent to your company’s Kanagawa factory back in 1947, found its way into Hatano’s hands, we do not yet know. But the fact that it ended up with Hatano means that it must have been leaked from your company.”
“That seems right.”
“Of course, it’s possible that the letter was forged. In any case, according to professional assessment, the style of writing in Seiji Okamura’s letter seems characteristic of a man in his thirties or forties at the time and who completed high school before the war.”
“And that means—”
“As we told you in the beginning, at this point it is our view that an individual with some kind of connection to Hinode is involved in the crime group that targeted Hinode Beer and its president. It’s clear that this individual harbors feelings of strong hostility or antagonism toward Hinode. This is why we’ve also asked your General Affairs Department to submit a list of retired employees from the past twenty years.”
“I understand. And—”
“At this point we don’t have the evidence to make any specific accusations, but for instance, I would say that whoever leaked Seiji Okamura’s letter in the first place must be on the inside at Hinode, and since it’s plausible that person bore malicious intent, he or she should be considered as one of the candidates.”
“I follow what you’re saying.”
“Of course, it’s also possible that the person from whom the late Hiroyuki Hatano received the copy of the letter had machinations against Hinode. Actually, there is someone we already suspect, and I’m sure in due time he will be pulled into the fray on a different case.”
As the investigator said this, Shiroyama observed how his gaze and tone of voice again shifted slightly, and Shiroyama felt another visceral chill. He was nearing his limit, having held his breath each time in anticipation of the next revelation.
“Who is this suspect?”
“An executive at Toichi Industry, a front company associated with the crime syndicate the Seiwakai, who styles himself as a corporate extortionist. It’s hard to believe he acted alone, so we suspect that he had the backing of a somewhat larger organization . . . Well, how about it, Shiroyama-san? When you decided to file a complaint against Hatano the dentist, wasn’t your company also aware of such matters?”
“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what sort of matters you are referring to specifically—”
“I see . . . Well, I’ll refrain from questioning you any further about the extortionist,” the investigator said with an ambiguous smile. Shiroyama no longer had the energy to respond. “With that said, two people are dead because of the 1990 incident with the mysterious tape, while members of Hatano’s family are still alive. You can bet that sooner or later this kind of story will be blown out of proportion, never mind what’s true and what’s not.”
Shiroyama listened, aware that a definitive threat had finally been made. Images flashed through his mind of lurid headlines in the weekly tabloids—exaggerated stories about the student who had left in the middle of his second employee interview and his relationship with Shiroyama’s niece Yoshiko.
“I’m sure you already know, but hundreds of reporters from every media outlet are out there, sniffing around in a frenzy. The more they pry the harder it becomes for us to conduct our investigation, and the damage incurred to your corporate image will be considerable. We, for our part, would like to avoid such a situation, as the only people to benefit from it are the perpetrators. To that end, the only thing for us to do is to apprehend the perpetrators as soon as possible. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“In order to do so it is imperative that you—the victim and the only person to have had direct contact with the criminal group—tell us everything.”
“As I already said repeatedly, I’ve told you everything I can remember.”
“I’ll ask again. Did the perpetrators tell you anything else other than their demand for six hundred million and that they would get in touch with you later?”
“No. That was all.”
“But who would ever pay a ransom when there’s no hostage or blackmail bait? If tomorrow the perpetrators gave you instructions on how the cash should be delivered, would your company pay the six hundred million?”
“No, we would not.”
“Then why did the crime group let you go? If they said, ‘We will contact you about how to deliver the money,’ common sense tells us that statement is based on the assumption that a certain negotiation would take place. How do you make sense of that?”
“I have told you everything that actually happened. It is your job to make sense of the situation.”
“Then—say, if tomorrow the perpetrators demanded their ransom, how does your company intend to respond?”
“We would report it to the police.”
“We would only ask you the same questions.”
“And I would only be able to give you the same answers.”
“I understand. The perpetrators told you they would be in touch about how to deliver the money, correct? Did they say anything more? There were no provisos about what they would do if you don’t agree to their demand?”
In that moment, Shiroyama was overwhelmed by the thought of what might happen if he were to admit right then and there that the beer was being held hostage. He wondered whether the police would be satisfied with that revelation and whether it was the right thing to do. He had debated this over and over again, but each time had failed to come up with a definitive conclusion. Once they found out that the hostage was the Hinode beer, the police might beef up police patrols at Hinode and spearhead increased security measures at their factories, news of which would then spread throughout their entire company, their distributors, the rest of the industry, and the market, all but assuring a negative impact on their sales. Even so, should they dare to fortify security publicly? Still, even with heightened security, to what extent would they be able to deter the perpetrators’ interference? Even if they managed to keep a close enough watch on their shipments, what about the vending machines that dotted the streets all over Japan?
Thinking this through, Shiroyama ultimately decided he was unable to entrust the police with the beer company’s lifeline. It wasn’t that he found the police incompetent; at this point in time, the police and the company stood on different places on the horizon, and Shiroyama simply couldn’t see how the distance between them would ever shrink.
“No, nothing,” Shiroyama replied.
“I see . . . You must be tired, so soon after such a long ordeal. Why don’t you get some rest tonight and think it all over. We’ll pay a visit to your office at 9 tomorrow morning, and I’d like for us to speak again then.”
“There will be quite a number of pending tasks that require my attention in the morning, so would it be possible for you to arrive at 10?”
“If it were up to us we would begin at dawn. The media is so desperate rig
ht now, they could break a story that would cause irreparable damage to your company.”
There was no question the police were implying the incident involving Takayuki Hatano and Shiroyama’s niece, Yoshiko. Having quickly grasped the nature of the incident with the mysterious cassette tape from 1990, the police were now using the exact same tricks as the criminal group to pressure Shiroyama. Even with the taste of utter defeat in his mouth, Shiroyama’s abject hatred of the police was reaffirmed—it was stronger than what he felt toward the criminals, who had avoided saying anything superfluous to him.
“Please make it 9:15,” was Shiroyama’s only response.
“Fine. 9:15 it is then. Thank you for coming in today.”
“Thank you.”
And so it was that, at 4:40 p.m, Shiroyama stood up from the seat he had been sitting in for nearly six hours and exited the room. He was fully aware that the expression on his face bore no resemblance to that of a victim who had been freed after a fifty-six-hour confinement, and in reality, he felt not a trace of any such profound emotion.
When he reached the front lobby, three male employees from the corporate secretariat were waiting for him. The three of them lowered their heads at once in a bow, and there outside, beyond the glass doors, was another phalanx of cameras from the press corps. As Shiroyama’s eyes drifted over the green public payphone beside the entrance, he suddenly longed to hear the voices of his family, but even that thought was fleeting. The only thing left was the vortex of hatred that swirled between himself as he stood at the entrance, wearing the façade of the victim, and the public who formed a barrier outside, ready and waiting for him.
The vehicle that came to retrieve him was the same company car that he had been riding in every day until three days ago, but there were now curtains covering all the windows save for the front windshield; in addition, Tatsuo Yamazaki, who had been his driver for many years, had been replaced by another man. Shiroyama had been away for less than three days, but he was forced to acknowledge all over again that many things must have transpired at the company during his brief absence. The ride from Omori Police Department to the company’s main office in Kita-Shinagawa did not even take ten minutes, and the car transported him to the underground parking lot to avoid the thronging press corps that surrounded the front of the building. Once the car entered the lot, the shutter door closed behind it, and two guards from the security company immediately appeared within the dim passageway and bowed toward the car, their expressions austere, as if to convey the gravity of the situation. Shiroyama recognized neither of them.
Lady Joker, Volume 1 Page 46