‘Something bad. Almost the worst thing that could happen to a woman. That event was what drove us apart. So,’ Kazunari continued, ‘I guess you could say that I’ve met with misfortune, too.’
Imaeda parked on the street a good distance away from the shop. If anyone saw the beat-up Honda Prelude he’d driven, it would undo the impression made by the expensive suit and watch he’d borrowed from Kazunari.
‘Are you seriously not going to buy me anything? Maybe there’s something that’s not too expensive,’ Eri said. She was walking beside him in the best dress she owned.
‘It’s all too expensive,’ he told her. ‘Heart-attack-inducing levels of expensive, I’m guessing.’
‘But what if I really really want something?’
‘You have your own money. Spend it.’
‘You’re stingy, you know that?’
‘Just be happy I’m paying you to come along.’
They arrived at the R&Y Boutique. The storefront was all glass windows, giving them a good view of the women’s clothes and accessories within.
‘Wow,’ Eri breathed. ‘Those do look expensive.’
‘Watch what you say when we’re inside.’ He gave her a jab in the ribs with his elbow.
Eri worked at the bar next to Imaeda’s office. She went to a professional school of some sort during the day, though Imaeda had no idea what she was studying. All he knew was that she was trustworthy and whenever he needed to go anywhere as a couple, he could pay her to come along. She seemed to like the work, besides. It was fun pretending to be someone else.
Imaeda opened the glass door and took a step inside. A faint, tasteful scent of perfume lingered in the air.
‘Hello,’ said a young woman, coming out of the back. She was wearing a white suit, and had on a canned smile, like a stewardess. She wasn’t Yukiho Karasawa.
‘Yes, the name’s Sugawara. I made an appointment?’ Sugawara was Eri’s real last name. He used it because sometimes she would forget to respond when people called her by an alias.
‘What can I help you find today?’ the woman asked.
‘Something for her,’ Imaeda said, indicating Eri. ‘Classy, good in summer or autumn, but nothing too fancy. Something she could wear to the office if she wanted. This is her first year at work, so I wouldn’t want her standing out too much.’
‘I see,’ said the woman in the white suit. ‘I think I have just the thing. Give me just a moment.’
As soon as her back was turned, Eri looked over at Imaeda. He shook his head. Another person emerged from the back of the shop. Imaeda turned to see Yukiho Karasawa coming towards them, weaving carefully through the clothes hanging on the racks. She had a pleasant, utterly natural smile on her face, and a soft, gentle light in her eyes. There was an aura around her, as though her desire to meet the needs of every customer who came into her shop was some visible, tangible thing.
‘Hello,’ she said, bowing gently, her eyes never leaving them.
Imaeda nodded back in silence.
‘Mr Sugawara, correct? You heard about us from Mr Shinozuka?’
‘That’s right,’ Imaeda said. He’d been asked how he heard about the shop when he called to make an appointment.
‘Would that be Kazunari Shinozuka?’ Yukiho asked, raising an eyebrow.
‘Yes,’ Imaeda replied, wondering why her first guess had been Kazunari, and not Yasuharu – the Shinozuka she was dating.
‘Buying something for your wife?’ she asked with a glance at Eri.
‘No,’ Imaeda said laughing. ‘My niece. It’s a present to celebrate her first job.’
‘Oh, I see. My apologies,’ Yukiho said, still smiling. Her long eyelashes fluttered, and a few strands of hair fell across her forehead. She lifted them away with her index finger, an utterly graceful gesture that put Imaeda in mind of women he’d seen in old foreign films.
If he remembered correctly, Yukiho Karasawa was only twenty-nine years old. He wondered how she managed to project that kind of refinement at such a young age. Imaeda thought he could understand how Yasuharu had fallen for her. He’d like to meet the man who wouldn’t feel some twinge of longing in her presence.
The woman in the white suit brought several outfits for them to look at. She showed them to Eri, asking her what she thought.
‘Take your time,’ Imaeda told her. ‘Talk it over with this nice lady here and pick the one that really suits you.’
Eri looked around at him, a curious smile coming to her lips. Like you’re going to buy me anything, her eyes seemed to be saying.
‘How is Mr Shinozuka doing these days?’ Yukiho asked.
‘Busy as always.’
‘If you don’t mind me asking, how do you know him?’
‘He’s a friend. We play golf together sometimes.’
‘Ah, that makes sense,’ she said, nodding. Her almond-shaped eyes went to Imaeda’s wrists. ‘That’s a lovely watch.’
‘What, this?’ Imaeda self-consciously covered his watch with his right hand. ‘It was a gift.’
Yukiho nodded again, yet he couldn’t help but notice that something about her smile had changed. For a second, he wondered if she had somehow guessed it belonged to Kazunari, despite his assurances that he had never worn it in front of her. So how could she know?
‘This is really a nice shop you’ve got here,’ Imaeda said. ‘You have a fantastic selection. You must be a very talented businesswoman. Remarkable for one so young.’
‘Thank you. Though we do have trouble meeting some clients’ requests.’
‘You’re just being modest.’
‘No, it’s true. But where are my manners? Would you like something to drink? I have iced coffee, and tea. Or something hot, if you prefer.’
‘That’s nice of you. I’ll take a coffee. Hot, thanks.’
‘Right away. Have a seat over there.’ Yukiho indicated a corner of the shop with a sofa and a table.
Imaeda sat down on the sofa. It was Italian-made, with little clawed feet. The table doubled as a display stand. Beneath the glass top, necklaces, bracelets and the like were lined out for customers to see. There were no price tags, but these were clearly for sale. No doubt they were put here to catch the eye of shoppers who came over to take a break from the clothes.
Imaeda took a pack of Marlboros out of his jacket pocket and pulled out his lighter. The lighter, too, was a loan from Kazunari. He lit his cigarette and filled his lungs with smoke. Gradually he could feel his nerves relaxing. He hadn’t realised how tense he was. All because of one woman.
He wondered where she got her seemingly natural elegance and grace. What had polished her to gleam so brightly?
An old two-storey apartment building floated in the back of Imaeda’s mind. Yoshida Heights. The building had somehow remained standing since the 1950s. Imaeda had paid the place a visit the week before in an attempt to gain some insight into Yukiho’s past.
There were a few old houses nearby, pre-war structures, most of them. Some of the residents remembered the mother and daughter who had lived in Yoshida Heights No 103.
The mother’s last name had been Nishimoto, making Yukiho’s original name Yukiho Nishimoto.
Her father had passed away when she was still young, so she had lived alone with her mother, Fumiyo, who worked a few part-time jobs to make ends meet. Fumiyo had died of gas poisoning when Yukiho was in sixth grade. Officially, the death had been ruled an accident, but one of the older women living nearby had told him about the rumours of suicide.
‘She was taking all kinds of medicine, you know,’ she told him. ‘And there were all these other strange things going on. The poor thing was so tired all the time, what with her husband passing and all. Still, they never found out what really happened,’ she added in a hushed voice.
Imaeda went over to the apartment building to give it a closer inspection. Around the back, someone had left a window open, letting him take a good look inside. The unit was tiny, a small tatami-matted room next to a little
kitchen. There was an old dresser and a wicker basket along the wall. Both had seen better days. A low table sat in the middle of the matted room, on which had been left some glasses and a few bottles of pills. Whoever lived there was elderly – nearly all the residents of Yoshida Heights were, according to what he had heard.
He tried to imagine an elementary school girl and her mother – probably in her late thirties – living in the tiny apartment in front of him. The girl would be doing her homework at the little table. Behind her, the mother moved wearily as she prepared supper…
Something tugged at his chest, and he remembered another thing the people who lived near Yoshida Heights had told him about. A murder.
The murder had taken place about a year before Fumiyo’s death. The victim had been the owner of a pawnshop who paid occasional visits to Fumiyo, which had put her on the list of suspects. She was never arrested, however.
‘But of course word got around that the police had paid her visit, so everyone figured she had something to do with it. I heard she had real trouble getting jobs after that, the poor lady,’ an old man who ran a tobacco shop nearby told him.
Imaeda had gone to the library and looked through archival newspapers to find out more about the murder. A year before Fumiyo’s death made it 1973. He also knew it had happened during the autumn.
The article wasn’t hard to find. According to the report, the body had been discovered in an unfinished building located in a part of town called Ōe. The victim had been stabbed several times with something like a slender knife, but the murder weapon was never found. The victim, one Yosuke Kirihara, had left his house some time after noon that day and not returned. The wife had called the police. Though he typically carried little money on his person, he had just withdrawn a considerable sum of money before he was killed, making it likely that the murderer knew him. Imaeda searched for an article reporting that the case had been solved, but couldn’t find one. The man at the tobacco shop had been right, then. The killer was never found.
If Fumiyo Nishimoto had been a regular at the pawnshop, he could see why the police would have suspected her. She could have approached the owner without alarming him, and caught him unawares with the knife. And yet the way public opinion had turned against her after the questioning made him think that, in a sense, Fumiyo Nishimoto had been a victim, too.
Imaeda looked up as someone approached him. The aroma of coffee hit his nostrils. A woman just over twenty years old, wearing an apron, had come over with a coffee cup on a tray. Beneath the apron she wore a tight-fitting T-shirt that showed off her curves.
‘Thanks,’ Imaeda said, reaching out for the cup. Just being in a place like this made even the coffee smell richer. ‘Do you always have three people running the shop?’
‘Most of the time,’ the girl said. ‘Though Miss Karasawa often spends time at another one of our boutiques.’
‘Where would that be?’
‘Daikanyama.’
Daikanyama was another trendy area, on the western edge of central Tokyo. ‘Two stores, at her age?’ Imaeda said. ‘That’s impressive.’
‘Actually, we’re about to open a third store selling children’s clothes in Jiyugaoka.’
‘Amazing. Miss Karasawa must have a goose tucked away somewhere that lays golden eggs.’
‘She’s a very hard worker. I wonder sometimes if she ever sleeps,’ she added in a quiet voice, glancing towards the back. ‘Enjoy,’ she said, leaving him alone with his coffee.
Imaeda drank his coffee black. It was much better than the stuff they served at the café near his office.
It occurred to Imaeda that Yukiho might be more frugal than she appeared. Most successful businesspeople were. And she would have had plenty of time while living at Yoshida Heights to hone that part of her character.
When her mother died, a nearby relative, Reiko Karasawa, had taken Yukiho in. Reiko was Yukiho’s father’s cousin.
For his next trip, Imaeda had paid a visit to the Karasawa house. It was an elegant Japanese-style home, with a small garden. A sign hanging on the door announced that tea ceremony classes were held there regularly.
This was where Yukiho’s foster mother had taught her tea, flower arrangement, and a number of other skills that would serve her well in her future life. He imagined it was during her time living here that the femininity she seemed to exude from her entire body had begun to bud.
Because Reiko Karasawa was still alive, he had to be circumspect in his questioning in the area. Still, he was able to gather that Yukiho’s life after moving to the Karasawa household wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Most of the residents remembered little about her other than that she was a ‘pretty, well-mannered sort of girl’.
Someone else approached and he looked up to see Eri Sugawara wearing a black velvet dress. The hem sat alarmingly high up her shapely legs.
‘You sure you can wear that to work?’
‘It’s a bit much, huh.’
‘How about something like this?’ the woman in the white suit said, showing her another outfit. It was a blue jacket, with a white collar. ‘You can wear this with a skirt or knee-length pants if you prefer.’
‘Hmm…’ Eri rubbed her chin. ‘I like it – it’s just that I already have something very similar.’
‘Well, no sense getting two,’ Imaeda said. He looked at his watch. It was almost time for them to leave.
‘Do you think we could come back?’ Eri asked him. ‘You know, I’m starting to forget exactly what I already have.’ This was her line, exactly as they had rehearsed.
‘I suppose, though I hate having put them through all this trouble.’
‘I’m really sorry. Thank you for showing me everything,’ Eri apologised to the woman in the white suit.
‘Not at all,’ the woman replied with a saccharine smile.
Imaeda stood and waited for Eri to change back into her own clothes. Yukiho reappeared from the back.
‘Couldn’t find anything for your niece?’
He shook his head. ‘I apologise. She has trouble making up her mind sometimes.’
‘Not to worry,’ Yukiho said. ‘It’s often difficult to find something just right.’
‘Apparently so.’
‘I’ve always thought that clothes and jewellery aren’t meant to hide what’s inside a person. They’re meant to bring it out. That’s why, when we help our customers find something, we like to talk to them so we can understand what they’re like on the inside as well as the outside.’
‘That’s an interesting approach.’
‘Someone who’s been well raised can wear practically anything and make it look elegant. Of course…’ Yukiho stared directly at Imaeda before continuing, ‘… the opposite is also true.’
Imaeda nodded and looked away. Maybe his suit didn’t fit him. Or maybe it was Eri who seemed unnatural.
Eri returned from the fitting room. ‘All ready,’ she said.
‘I’d like to send you a postcard the next time we have a sale, if you’d write your address here for me,’ Yukiho said, handing a piece of paper to Eri, who shot Imaeda an uneasy look.
‘Your address is fine,’ he said. ‘You can let me know.’
She started to write.
‘It really is a nice watch,’ Yukiho said, her eyes on Imaeda’s wrist.
Journey Under the Midnight Sun Page 44