Journey Under the Midnight Sun

by Keigo Higashino

  There was no connection, however, with Tozai Automotive, and thus no contractual agreements. If Memorix had stolen software from Tozai, no one would be watching. The theft would be extremely difficult to prove, moreover, because the Tozai software had strictly been for internal use and never widely circulated. Even if the Memorix software bore a similarity to the earlier product, Memorix could simply claim coincidence.

  As the investigation went on, one man came to their attention: a chief developer at Memorix named Yuichi Akiyoshi who’d joined the company in 1986. Development of the metallurgy expert system began shortly after his arrival and was mostly completed by the following year. It was hard to reconcile the speed. The typical production cycle for a piece of software like that was three years at the minimum. Imaeda’s team came up with another theory: that Akiyoshi had already been in possession of the information forming the basis for the metallurgy expert system when he joined the company.

  They knew very little about the man.

  Akiyoshi lived in a rented apartment in north-west Tokyo but had never registered as a resident. Imaeda’s team went to the company managing the apartment to check on any places he might have lived previously, learning that he’d come up to Tokyo all the way from Nagoya.

  An investigator went down to Nagoya to check it out, only to find a tall, chimney-like building where the residence should have been. None of the locals remembered an Akiyoshi having lived at the previous building that had occupied the space. City Hall had a similar lack of records. No Yuichi Akiyoshi had ever registered as a resident in the area, nor could they find anyone living at the Nagoya address he’d listed in the contact information for his guarantor when he signed the lease on his current apartment. Everything pointed to Akiyoshi as having forged his rental documents. It was likely he was living under an assumed name.

  In order to find out who he really was, they were obliged to resort to the basics: they began a stakeout.

  First, they planted bugs in Akiyoshi’s apartment when he was out one day: one in the living room and another on his phone. All the mail that arrived in his mailbox, other than registered mail and express packages, was opened and examined then they resealed the envelopes and put them back in the box. They would never be able to use any information gained this way in a trial, but for now, finding out who he was took precedence.

  At first it seemed that Akiyoshi lived an entirely unremarkable life, just shuttling back and forth between office and home. No one paid him any visits, and there was nothing remarkable about his conversations on the phone. In fact, he hardly received any phone calls at all.

  ‘What does this guy do for fun? Doesn’t he have any friends?’ Imaeda’s partner said once as they were staring at the monitor in their van. The van had been disguised to look like a cleaner’s delivery truck. A camera on top of the truck was pointed at Akiyoshi’s apartment window.

  ‘He might be running from someone,’ said Imaeda. ‘Keeping a low profile.’

  ‘A murderer on the lam?’ his partner said, grinning.

  ‘We should be so lucky.’ Imaeda smiled back.

  It was a little while longer before they discovered that there was someone Akiyoshi contacted with some regularity. They were monitoring him in the apartment when they heard a loud electronic warble – a pager. Imaeda tensed and listened to the feed over his headphones, expecting Akiyoshi to phone someone.

  Instead, he left the apartment and walked down the street. Imaeda’s partner quickly started up the van and they followed him. Eventually Akiyoshi stopped at a public phone behind a bar and made a call. His face was expressionless while he talked, though he was keeping an eye on his surroundings, preventing them from getting too close.

  The same sequence of events played out several times. After his pager rang, Akiyoshi would leave the apartment to place a phone call. They thought at first that he might have realised his phone was tapped, but then it would have made more sense for him to simply remove the tap. Instead, it seemed that Akiyoshi was in the habit of always using a public phone to make important phone calls. Nor did he use the same phone each time. After one or two visits to the same phone, he would switch booths, showing an unusual degree of thoroughness.

  The big question was: who was ringing Akiyoshi’s pager?

  Yet before they could unravel that mystery, the investigation took a sudden turn.

  One Thursday after work Akiyoshi took a train to Shinjuku. This was more than unusual – it was the first time he had gone anywhere since they started watching him. He went to a café near the west exit of the station. There, he met a man. The man was thin and short, in his mid-forties, with a face as impenetrable as a Noh mask.

  Akiyoshi received a large envelope from the man. After checking the contents he handed the man a smaller envelope out of which the man took a small stack of bills. He counted them quickly and placed them in his jacket pocket before handing Akiyoshi a slip of paper.

  A receipt, thought Imaeda.

  Akiyoshi and the man spoke for several minutes before they both stood from the table. Imaeda and his partner split up, Imaeda following Akiyoshi and his partner following the man. To Imaeda’s disappointment, Akiyoshi went straight home.

  It turned out that the other man ran a small private detective agency in the city – ‘small’ meaning it was just him and his wife.

  This confirmed the hunch Imaeda had formed the first time he saw him. There was just something about him that smelled like a man in their line of work.

  Imaeda wanted to know what business Akiyoshi had hiring a private detective. If the agency had any ties to Tokyo General Research, a few well-placed questions would tell him what he wanted to know, but it turned out that the detective Akiyoshi had hired was running his operation almost entirely independently. They couldn’t risk making contact. If the man got wind of their investigation, it would be all over.

  They continued their stakeout.

  Akiyoshi made his next move on the following Saturday.

  Imaeda and his partner were watching the apartment when Akiyoshi came out, dressed in jeans and a windbreaker. There was something about the way his shoulders were hunched that made Imaeda think this wasn’t just a trip to the convenience store.

  Akiyoshi took a few trains, getting off in Shimokitazawa, a trendy suburb just west of central Tokyo. He cast his eyes around, wary of his surroundings, but didn’t seem to have noticed he was being tailed. He had a small notebook in his hand, and would occasionally check something in it as he wandered the streets near the station. He’s looking for someone’s house, Imaeda thought.

  Finally he came to a stop by a small, three-storey building near the tracks. It looked like an apartment building made up entirely of small, single-resident units. But Akiyoshi didn’t go inside. Instead, he went into a café across the street. After a moment’s hesitation, Imaeda sent his partner into the café, in case Akiyoshi might be meeting someone inside, and himself went into a nearby bookshop to wait.

  An hour later, his partner came out of the café alone.

  ‘He’s not meeting anyone,’ he said. ‘It’s a stakeout. He’s waiting for someone who lives in that apartment building.’ He nodded his head, indicating the building across the street.

  Imaeda wondered if the private investigator hadn’t found whoever lived in the apartment for Akiyoshi.

  ‘Which means we’re on stakeout, too,’ Imaeda said. He sighed and went to look for a payphone so he could get someone back at the office to bring a car.

  Akiyoshi left the café before the car arrived. Imaeda glanced at the apartment and saw a young woman just leaving. It looked as though she was walking towards the station, a bag of golf clubs in her hand. Akiyoshi followed the woman, keeping a good distance between them, with Imaeda and his partner behind him.

  The woman was going to the Eagle Golf Driving Range. Akiyoshi followed her inside. Imaeda and his partner went in too. As they soon discovered, the woman was attending golf lessons. Akiyoshi watched her until lessons
began, then took a brochure from the front desk and headed out. He didn’t return to the practice range that day.

  It didn’t take them long to identify the woman. Her name was Chizuru Misawa, a temp worker with one of the large staffing agencies. They looked into her agency records and found that she had previously been assigned to Tozai Automotive. They had finally found their connection.

  They renewed their stakeout on Akiyoshi, fully expecting him to make contact with Miss Misawa, until the investigation took another unexpected turn.

  For a while, Akiyoshi did nothing out of the ordinary, until one Saturday when he went again to the driving range. He timed his visit for when Chizuru would be beginning her lesson. However, Akiyoshi didn’t approach her. He merely sat, undetected, watching.

  Eventually, another man approached and sat down next to Chizuru and began talking to her. It was clear from the way they spoke that the two were in a relationship.

  This, apparently, was what Akiyoshi had come to see, because as soon as he saw the two of them sit down he left the practice range.

  That day was the last time he ever approached Chizuru Misawa. Nor did he again go to the Eagle Golf Driving Range for as long as they watched him.

  Imaeda’s team looked into the man who was with Chizuru that day. His name was Makoto Takamiya, an employee of Tozai Automotive in the patent licensing division.

  Fully expecting that they had hit the jackpot, they started to look into their relationship and their connection to Akiyoshi. However, they could find absolutely nothing connecting the two to the stolen software. The only thing they did discover was that Makoto Takamiya was married and having an affair with Chizuru.

  Eventually, with the detective’s bills piling up, the client called off the investigation. Though Tokyo General Research handed off a thick file of findings to the client, it was unclear how useful the information would be.

  Imaeda was willing to bet good money it had all gone straight into the shredder.

  A wrenching metallic clang brought Imaeda back to the present. He looked up and saw Makoto Takamiya standing, dumbfounded.

  ‘Man…’ He was staring at the club in his hand, his mouth agape. The end of the club had broken clean off.

  ‘What happened?’ Imaeda asked, looking around. The head of the club was lying on the floor some distance away from where Makoto stood. A few of the other golfers nearby had stopped swinging to look over. Imaeda stood up, walked over, and picked up the broken golf head.

  ‘Wow, I’m so sorry. I have no idea how that happened,’ Makoto said, holding the headless club in his hand. His face had gone pale.

  ‘Metal fatigue, most likely,’ said Imaeda. ‘I’ve been abusing that five iron for years.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I wasn’t even swinging it that hard.’

  ‘I know, it’s OK. Its number was up. It probably would’ve broken faster if I’d been swinging it. You’re not hurt, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m fine. Look, I’ll be happy to pay for your club. I broke it, after all.’

  Imaeda shook his head. ‘No need. Like I said, that club wasn’t long for this world.’

  ‘No, I insist. And besides, I won’t even be using my own money. I have insurance.’

  ‘Insurance?’

  ‘Golfer’s insurance. I just have to fill out a few forms and they should cover the cost of a repair.’

  ‘Even if the club isn’t yours?’

  ‘I think so. We can ask at the shop.’

  Makoto took the broken club in his hand and started walking towards the lobby. Imaeda followed. The shop was in a corner of the lobby. Makoto walked in like he was familiar with the place and waved to the suntanned attendant behind the counter. He showed him the broken club and explained what had happened.

  ‘Yeah, insurance should cover that,’ the attendant told them. ‘You just need to describe the place where it happened, attach a picture of the broken club, and the receipt from the repair shop.’ He leaned over the counter and whispered, ‘See, there’s no way to prove the club isn’t yours.’ Then, more loudly, he added, ‘We can get the forms for you, if you call the insurance company.’

  ‘Great, thanks. How long will repairs take?’

  ‘Well, we have to find the same size shaft, so two weeks, maybe?’

  ‘Two weeks…’ Makoto shot Imaeda a worried glance. ‘Is that OK?’

  ‘Sure, no problem,’ Imaeda said, smiling. Two weeks later would be after his golf date but the lack of one club wouldn’t really affect the score either way. More than that, he didn’t want to impose on Makoto any more than he already had.

  They turned the club in for repairs and left the shop.

  ‘Hey, Makoto,’ a voice called out as they were heading back to the practice range. Imaeda looked around and his mouth tightened. He recognised this woman as Chizuru Misawa. A tall man was standing behind her, though his face was unfamiliar to him.

  ‘Hey there,’ Makoto said to them.

  ‘All done with practice?’ Chizuru asked.

  ‘Almost, if I hadn’t gone and broken this poor man’s club.’

  Makoto explained what had happened to Chizuru and the man. Her face clouded as she listened.

  ‘How awful,’ she sympathised. ‘I bet that’s the last time you’ll loan your club to a stranger.’

  ‘No, really,’ said Imaeda, ‘it’s fine.’ He looked towards Makoto. ‘Is this your… wife?’

  Makoto nodded, smiling.

  So the affair stuck, Imaeda thought bemusedly.

  ‘I hope the club head didn’t hit anyone on its way down?’ the man standing behind Chizuru said.

  ‘Luckily, it didn’t. Here, let me give you my business card,’ Makoto said, pulling his wallet out of his golf trousers and handing a card to Imaeda.

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ Imaeda said, pulling out his own wallet. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of which card to give him. He always carried several, each with different names and job titles. After a second’s thought, he decided on his real card. There was no point using an alias here, and there was always a chance that Makoto or one of the other two might be a future client.

  ‘A private detective?’ Makoto asked, looking curiously at the card.

  ‘Let me know if you ever need our services,’ said Imaeda.

  ‘Ooh, do you catch people having affairs and things like that?’ Chizuru asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Imaeda nodded. ‘That’s probably our most frequent request.’

  She laughed at that, then said to Makoto, ‘In that case, maybe I should hold on to that card.’

  ‘Probably a good idea,’ Makoto said, grinning.

  It is a good idea, Imaeda wanted to say. Right now is the most dangerous time of all, he thought, his eyes noting the prominent swell of Chizuru’s belly.

  Imaeda’s office, which also served as his residence, was located in west Shinjuku, on the second storey of a five-storey building facing a narrow street. There was a bus stop right out in front, so you could get there in just a few minutes from the station. Still, that wasn’t convenient enough for his clients. Whenever he explained the directions over the phone, he could hear the frustration on the other end. But he needed the business, so he always put in extra effort to sound welcoming. The end result was that most phone calls left him exhausted.

  He knew it made more sense to move closer to a station. Clients usually had a lot on their mind when they first considered hiring a private eye. They could well change their mind in the several minutes it took to catch a bus. Yet, with the housing bubble, rents had gone through the roof. Imaeda still hadn’t got used to the eye-popping sums of money he had to pay each month just for his tiny office. Increased rents meant increased fees for services, which put the pressure on him. One of his goals when he went independent was to keep his fees reasonable and his clients happy, but it was getting harder to do both.