The Mammoth Book Best International Crime

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “This is just like the story of Ms A. But listening to you, it does sound like a plausible turn of events.”

  “That may be. After opening the door, Aki hesitated at the entryway. She felt she shouldn’t wake the soundly sleeping Matsunaga just for her convenience. Besides, in the worst case, a groggy Matsunaga might mistake her appearance for a seduction and suddenly come at her. So, without turning on the light, she whispered softly, ‘It’s Aki, I’ve forgotten my cell phone, so I’ve come to pick it up.’ She crawled on her knees so as not to have to take off her shoes and proceeded into the pitch-dark room. Having been there many times, she remembered the layout. She said she found her cell phone right off when she felt around on the floor where she had been sitting. She backed out the way she had come in without making a sound, quietly closed the door, and quickly left Matsunaga’s room. She said it crossed her mind that it was unsafe to leave the door unlocked, but she told herself he would be all right because he was a man. Aki then jumped onto Reiko’s bicycle and returned to the station to meet up with Reiko, who was waiting at the donut shop.”

  “Didn’t she notice anything unusual when she entered Matsunaga’s room?”

  “No, nothing. Her mind must have been taken up with collecting her cell phone. She was convinced that Matsunaga was fast asleep in his bed, and apparently she didn’t sense anything or hear any sounds that were eerie.”

  “I suppose she can’t be faulted for that. Say she stayed in Matsunaga’s apartment for a few minutes, then it took her about five minutes to return to the station by bicycle, the same amount of time as getting there. In that case, it must have been about eleven-forty when she met up with Reiko at the donut shop.”

  “Right. During our questioning I had them show me their receipts for the drinks they had ordered. They showed 11:26 for Reiko and 11:41 for Aki, who entered the shop later. The two of them chatted for a while at the donut shop, sobering up. They said they talked about their reactions to the argument between Matsunaga and Miyoshi. As Aki was returning to Yoyogi Hachiman, they left the shop a few minutes before 12:33 am, the departure time for the last train toward Shinjuku, and parted at the ticket gate.”

  3.

  While Inspector Norizuki went to the toilet, Rintar prepared some cold drinks in the kitchen. The night was deepening, but the discussion about the case was only now entering its crucial phase. His father would be wanting a drink about now.

  “Hey, that’s considerate.” Returning to the living room, Inspector Norizuki took a sip.

  Rintar joined him, just to wet his throat.

  Bending his neck sideways to give it a stretch, the Inspector continued, “I got as far as telling you that Hirotani Aki and Sekiguchi Reiko had parted at Umegaoka Station. I don’t have to tell you what happened next. It’s almost the same end as Ms A’s story.”

  “Almost?”

  “There are a few differences. For example, Aki didn’t drop by Belle Maison Matsubara the following day, and during her questioning she didn’t faint when she found out about the message written in blood. But she turned pale when she heard about it and couldn’t stop shaking. It will affect her for quite a while.”

  “It must have been quite a shock.”

  “Of course it was. It wasn’t only Matsunaga’s dead body that was right in front of her eyes in that pitch-dark room but also someone who had just committed murder. She must have been in mortal fear. I sent her home with an officer for protection in case of the worst. I’ve had her watched ever since. It would be good if she could recall something that might be a clue to identifying the murderer, but I don’t have much hope of that. After all, the phrase ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?’ was also a warning aimed at her.”

  “Can that message be used as physical evidence? The trace of the finger or the handwriting?”

  “No, the murderer is quite clever.” His expression glum, Inspector Norizuki turned his eyes to the ashtray on the table. “According to the Identification Section, the words in blood were written with a cigarette butt left in the room, by soaking the filter in blood. The victim was a chain smoker. We haven’t found the blood-soaked cigarette butt. It must have been flushed down the toilet. We can’t rely on the handwriting, either. It is unnaturally faltering, almost as if it were written by a child.”

  “Does it look as if it was written with the non-dominant hand to hide the penmanship?”

  “Yes, that’s about it. And now I’d like to have your thoughts. You said there were many versions to the story of Ms A. Are there any that deal with the murderer’s character?”

  Since his father had chided him earlier for showing off, Rintar took care not to be pretentious when he answered, “Even if there were some, it probably wouldn’t be of any use. In these kinds of rumors, the murders usually end up being committed by an escaped convict or a crazed killer with a screw loose.”

  “I thought as much. Just for the record, there’s been no report of any prison escapes this month,” the Inspector said.

  Nodding, Rintar continued, “There’s probably the influence of an actual crime committed in America in the motif of a psychotic killer leaving a crime-scene message written in blood. For example, in the 1969 Sharon Tate mass murder, where five people including the actress were butchered by the Charles Manson Family, the word ‘Pig’ was inscribed with the victims’ blood on the wall of the crime scene, and at the scene of another murder they committed that same day, the words ‘Helter Skelter’ were used.”

  “I’ve heard of that one. Weren’t those words from a Beatles song?”

  “Yes. And even further back, from 1945 to the following year, there was the case of William Heirens, a murderer who killed three females, including a six-year-old girl, for the fun of it. A seventeen-year-old student at the University of Chicago at the time, Heirens left a message written with the victim’s lipstick at the crime scene. It said, ‘For heaven’s sake catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself.”

  “Hmm. He must have been completely crazy.”

  “In Heirens’s case, it wasn’t written in blood, but the memory of these kinds of shocking crimes works on the public’s subconscious. And you can see why the ‘message written in blood’ was made into a symbol of the indiscriminate psychotic murderer. But this is just to say that this was the case for the original urban legend. It doesn’t prove definitively that the actual murder at Belle Maison Matsubara was committed by a psychotic, or in the manner of a killer who wantonly knifes passers-by.”

  Inspector Norizuki rubbed his chin and nodded his satisfaction. “I agree with you on that. As a practical matter, even if we consider just the time factor, I can’t conceive that a psychotic with no past connection to the victim would enter Matsunaga’s room and kill the occupant.”

  “What do you mean ‘the time factor’?”

  “As I explained to you, it was just past eleven p.m. when the club members departed Belle Maison Matsubara. And it was eleven-thirty when Aki, having returned to pick up her cell phone, nearly ran into the murderer in the pitch-dark room. It is much too preposterous to suppose that a total stranger would break into Matsunaga’s room and kill him in the span of those thirty minutes, even if he had forgotten to lock his door. I just can’t believe that such a thing could happen.”

  “That is true. In that case, do you think that the message ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?’ was an elaborate trick to make it look as if a wanton psychotic killer was the culprit?”

  “Yes. But rather than say it was an elaborate setup, I would say it was done on the spur of the moment. I wasn’t sure until I talked to you, but hearing that the phrase is straight out of a popular urban legend, I’m able to have conviction about my theory. That’s not all.” The Inspector set his glass on the table to stress his next point. “When we consider what went on before and after, there’s a high probability that Matsunaga’s murderer was one of the members of the drinking party on Monday night.”

  “The wa
y you say that, it sounds as if you already have an idea who the killer is. Is it because of an alibi?”

  At Rintar’s anticipation of the next step, the inspector grinned.

  “That’s about it. From Aki’s statement and the content of the message in blood, there can be no mistake that the murderer was in Matsunaga’s room around eleven-thirty. Now, turning to everyone’s alibi. We’ve already discussed Hirotani Aki and Sekiguchi Reiko. I can add that not only do we have the times stamped on the receipts, we also have backing for their statements from an attendant at the donut shop. During the fifteen minutes or so before she met with Aki, Reiko occupied a seat within sight of the shop attendant and did not leave the shop. It was about twelve twenty-five when the two of them left the donut shop.”

  “Seems airtight. Next?”

  “The couple, Nozaki Tetsu and Nagashima Yurika, I just told you about. After they parted from End Fumiaki, who was going home to Tsutsujigaoka, on the platform at Meidaimae Station, they went toward Kichijji on the Inogashira Line, and then to her apartment. They were together until morning, and provide alibis for each other.”

  “Hmm. We can’t discard the possibility that they were accomplices, but . . . What about End Fumiaki after he left the other two?”

  “He stated that he went home directly, without stopping off anywhere. There isn’t any direct proof to back up his statement, but we found out that just at that time a classmate, also in the Economics Department, called End’s cell phone. According to that classmate’s statement, he talked continuously with End for about ten minutes from eleven twenty-five.”

  “I see.” Rintar started and slapped his knee. “That was when Aki was in Matsunaga’s room. At that moment, the killer must have been hiding in the dark room after killing Matsunaga. So, regardless of where he was, End, who was talking on his cell phone with his classmate, couldn’t have been the killer.”

  “Exactly. As for the last one left, Miyoshi Nobuhiko, he doesn’t have a definite alibi. According to his statement, after he left Belle Maison Matsubara alone at ten-thirty, he went to several video-game centers in the area, still in a foul mood from his argument with Matsunaga. He played games for about an hour, and then took the train home to Yga. He lives with his parents and siblings. The family stated that he returned home shortly after midnight.”

  “So he got home shortly after midnight. Say he left Matsunaga’s apartment after eleven-thirty. If he walked to Matsubara Station, took a train on the Tkyu Setagaya Line, and changed to the Denentoshi Line at Sangenjaya, he would have had time to reach home by then.”

  “Right. We’re looking for witnesses around the game centers, but so far we have no reports of anyone seeing someone fitting Miyoshi’s description around that time. Not only doesn’t he have an alibi, but also in terms of motive, since he had an intense argument with the victim during the drinking party, Miyoshi seems suspicious to me,” Inspector Norizuki stated emphatically.

  It was perfectly natural to suspect Miyoshi from what had been discussed so far. Yet, as he sifted through the alibis, Rintar felt a slight doubt. Since he couldn’t put his finger on what specifically was bothering him, he decided to go along for a while longer with his father’s theory.

  “We were still in the middle of the story with regard to motive, weren’t we? You said that there was a story behind the trouble between Matsunaga and Miyoshi – concerning the former club member Sasaki Megumi. What’s that all about?”

  “It relates to the victim’s conduct. And it’s typical of young people these days in that drugs were involved.”

  Inspector Norizuki let the implication hang and reached for another cigarette.

  “One of Matsunaga’s relatives is a cousin eight years older than he who is an internist with a psychiatric specialty. Apparently Matsunaga had something on this cousin. It’s probably a trite thing, like he knew of the cousin’s extramarital affair or something. In exchange for keeping quiet about this secret, Matsunaga hit his cousin up for drugs that are ordinarily hard to get.”

  “Were they illegal drugs?”

  “No. Only Prozac, an antidepressant put out by an American pharmaceutical company. It’s not a crime just to possess it. The victim had some fifty green-and-white capsules hidden away. When the crime scene was investigated, the search of Matsunaga’s room revealed the pills in a cardboard box in his closet.”

  “Prozac is a drug said to promote the production of seratonin in the brain and to be very effective in treating depression. I hear that since it came on the market in America, it’s sometimes used as a legal ‘happy drug’ even by healthy people. . . . Does that mean Matsunaga had a tendency toward depression?”

  “No, he himself was quite healthy. He may have tried it once or twice, but there’s no indication that he was a regular user. It seems Matsunaga was selling the Prozac he got from his cousin to people he knew as a way to earn some spending money.”

  Rintar furrowed his brow at this piece of unexpected information. “Just a minute. If the victim was selling drugs, the motive for the crime could have been trouble related to a drug deal. I don’t mean to say a drug user is necessarily a psychotic, but doesn’t this completely change the nature of the case?”

  “I don’t think so. We checked into that possibility, but Matsunaga wasn’t selling enough to make him a drug dealer. And he didn’t have any drugs other than Prozac.” He added that Matsunaga used a rough count, and appeared not to have a ledger or list of buyers, either. Having struck down Rintar’s suspicion with one blow, Inspector Norizuki exhaled smoke and continued, “It’s also called SSRI – Selective Seratonin Re-uptake Inhibitor – and there is a similar domestic drug on the market. Insurance will cover that one. Prozac hasn’t been approved by the Health and Labor Ministry yet. But it’s all right for qualified physicians to prescribe it to patients, and it’s no longer rare for people to use the Internet to import it on an individual basis.”

  “You mean it’s rather widely available, so selling it can only bring in enough for spending money?”

  “Exactly. If he did it too openly, he would be targeted, and if he approached someone in the know he would be taken advantage of. After all, there are plenty of other routes to get hold of it. Unless he was using it as a way to pick up girls, about all he could do was to sell small amounts to naive, earnest coeds as a cure for May post university entry depression.”

  “May depression isn’t so prevalent anymore. But are you suggesting that Sasaki Megumi is one of those who bought Prozac from Matsunaga?”

  “Yes. Megumi was an intense, introverted type from the start, so she must have been an easy mark for Matsunaga. She regularly bought the drug from him without letting her boyfriend Miyoshi know about it. If that was all, it would have been one thing, but Matsunaga apparently pressed for a physical relationship in exchange for giving her the drug. He probably didn’t actually succeed, but this caused Megumi to become deeply neurotic. She couldn’t face Miyoshi, and she may also have suffered a reaction to having become dependent on Prozac. Not only did she stop showing up at the Bowling Club, she also stopped attending her classes. Now she is on leave and recuperating at home.”

  Disheartened, Rintar said, “That’s abominable. I can’t blame Miyoshi for holding that against Matsunaga.”

  “See? There’s no doubting that he had a motive. And as to opportunity, if we consider the crime to have been committed by Miyoshi, the time factor that has been the bottleneck for the case will fit exactly.”

  “How so?”

  “It would go like this. Having had a verbal fight full of recriminations with Matsunaga, Miyoshi left Belle Maison Matsubara at ten-thirty. But instead of going to the game center as he claimed in his statement, he could have wandered around nearby, intending to cool his head. He did this for thirty or forty minutes, but he was still angry, so he went back to the party intending to settle the argument. But when he returned to Belle Maison Matsubara, the party had ended, and Room 206 was quiet. He rang the doorbell, but there
was no answer, and it appeared that Matsunaga had already gone to bed. Just as he was about to give up and head home, Miyoshi noticed that the door was unlocked.”

  Folding his arms across his chest, Rintar uttered without much enthusiasm, “I see. And then?”

  “Miyoshi stole into the room without turning on the light, roused the sleeping Matsunaga, and let loose a string of abuse. The time was between eleven-fifteen and eleven-twenty. At this stage I don’t think Miyoshi had any clear intent to kill. But having been woken from his sleep, Matsunaga could hardly have stood for this. Mistaking the intruder for a burglar, he may have swung at Miyoshi without first questioning him. The two of them scuffled, and after several rounds, one of them took hold of the ice pick left in the room. As they grappled for it in the dark, Miyoshi’s hand faltered and the stainless-steel tip ended up stabbing Matsunaga’s chest. The hands of the clock showed half-past eleven. It was then, as Miyoshi was standing in a daze over Matsunaga’s dead body in the darkened room, that Hirotani Aki, who knew nothing of this, came to retrieve what she had forgotten.”

  Having recreated the crime as if he had seen it happen, Inspector Norizuki jerked his chin up and sought his son’s reaction.

  Arms still folded, Rintar absent-mindedly gazed at the ceiling. Finally he said, “You certainly make the time factor fit. Your theory gives a logical explanation for the victim having been killed in less than thirty minutes after he was left alone. However . . .”

  Peering at Rintar dubiously, the Inspector said, “What do you mean, ‘However’? Is there something that is unconvincing to you?”

  “Yes, a major something. If that were the end of the story, then your theory would hold up. But the problem lies in what comes after that. If we consider Miyoshi to be the murderer, it is inconceivable that he would have written the message in blood. The message ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?’ was not left by Miyoshi.”

  4.

  “I started thinking something was off as I reviewed the alibis of those at the drinking party,” Rintar explained to his father as he unfolded his arms. “I should have realized what it was earlier. Namely, that if Miyoshi were the murderer, then the disadvantage to him of leaving the message in blood far outweighs the advantage of making the crime appear to be like the urban legend.”