The Informer

by Akimitsu Takagi

“Yes, you’re probably right,” he mumbled.

  “Well,” she said, softening her expression, “the truth is she trusts you completely, without question—and she’s terribly upset all the time. She starts crying as soon as she’s alone. She hardly eats, and she can’t sleep at night. I have to force her to take sedatives and go to bed. Other people think she’s aggrieved by her husband’s death, but I know better. Her tears are for you.”

  Segawa felt as if his guts were being torn out. “I must meet her—there must be a way—I must say something to her.”

  “No, you can’t. If you try to do that now, you’ll only cause her more suffering, in more ways than one. You must be patient for the time being—until things sort themselves out.”

  “You may be right, but—”

  “I’ll be your messenger, at least for the first forty-nine days after the funeral. I’m quite prepared to do this for you two. After all, I must accept at least some responsibility for your troubles. None of this would’ve happened if I hadn’t insisted on bringing the two of you together again.”

  “Don’t talk like that. I’ll always be grateful to you for what you’ve done for us, and I’ll never regret we’ve found each other again. Ogino’s death has nothing to do with our love!”

  Toshiko leaned back in her chair and sighed, keeping her eyes on Segawa. “If what you say is true, then I must apologise to you . . .”

  “Of course it’s true,” Segawa said, almost crying. “Is there any word for me from Eiko?”

  “Only that she loves you.”

  He echoed the words and became even more emotional, his eyes shining with tears. “Would you please tell her the same?”

  “I’ll do that,” Toshiko said, “but is that all you want to say?”

  “Well . . . the rest of it is that I want her to go on trusting me . . . have courage . . . take care . . .”

  Toshiko stood up slowly. “The last time I met you here I was my usual cheeky self. I hope the day will come when I feel like teasing you again.”

  They walked out of the café and Toshiko quickly glanced around. “The police seem to be very suspicious of you,” she whispered. “If you’ve a clear conscience, you’ve nothing to fear, but for the time being—until the killer is caught—be careful, won’t you?”

  She left him there in the red light of the evening, disappearing around the corner.

  Segawa slowly woke from a deep, dreamless sleep. Since Ogino’s death this was the first night he’d managed to give his mind and body a real rest. He crawled out of the bed-sheets and sat there in a daze, then looked around the unfamiliar room with a stupid expression on his sleep-lined face. Neat and tidy and nicely decorated, the room was filled with the perfume and smell of a woman.

  Kazumi was not in sight. Had she gone to work already? As his head began to clear he recalled what she’d told him last night—that her company had recently introduced short daily executive meetings before normal office hours. As personal secretary to the president she had to be there first.

  Segawa slowly turned around. He began to think about last night. He’d found it unbearable staying in his flat on his own, so he decided to visit Kazumi, his lifeline. And as soon as he’d set eyes on her he became even more frightened of the idea of being alone. He wanted to cling to somebody who was secure and free from worries. “I don’t want to go home,” he kept saying childishly.

  Recalling this now he felt embarrassed, though he realised he’d been half drunk and completely shaken up at the time. He’d reached the point of being afraid of everything, and his primitive instinct was driving him to escape loneliness. He re­membered embracing Kazumi roughly and seeing on her face surprise mixed with a kind of motherly gentleness.

  “You’re a fool,” Kazumi muttered, “the biggest fool on earth.”

  He discovered in her eyes his own reflection and was sud­denly gripped by an urge to dissolve himself in her. He pushed her onto the bed and covered her with his body. Eiko came to his mind, but only for a fleeting moment—he had no control over his desire. Melting into a woman to escape reality seemed to him then the only way to save his sanity.

  His breathless impatience infected her. She undid her bra straps with trembling fingers and, holding her breasts in her own hands, offered them to him, one after the other.

  She met his violent entry with equal force, sinking her nails into his back under his shirt, her groan a fusion of pain and de­light.

  “You fool, you damned fool!” she cried out as she ap­proached her climax, and he didn’t know whether she meant him or herself.

  In all their previous love-making he’d never seen her reach this pitch. The thought of this polished, wilful, self-assured woman allowing herself to unwind for him this far ignited his mind and recharged him with fresh lust.

  A few hours later they were still lying in each other’s arms in a state of stupor as if their minds had escaped from them.

  Kazumi mumbled, “You like Eiko more than me, don’t you?” Her voice was timid, almost scared, and she looked insecure and vulnerable.

  Segawa was amazed she should need reassurance after all that violent love-making. But he didn’t answer. By some trick of memory he suddenly heard Sakai’s voice: This time, should she want you to marry her, you’ll have no choice—you’ll have to do it. He didn’t know what would happen if it came to this. Right now he felt that both Eiko and Kazumi were desperately neces­sary to his existence. His own utter selfishness never entered his mind.

  Kazumi let her question go unanswered. As her body began to grow hot again, she seemed to regain her self-confidence until once more she was the wilful woman Segawa knew. She tickled his ear with her tongue and her hands explored him gently. Then she propped herself up, resting on hands and knees, and challenged him with burning eyes, like a beautiful beast.

  “Once more, please,” she said.

  He remained on his back and she moved over him swiftly, straddling him and pinning him to the bed. Carefully she made contact with him, then began to ride him furiously, her whole body slamming against him in self-absorbed passion, until she finished with shrill, inarticulate cries of ecstasy.

  Segawa’s pleasure was tempered with fear. She was perform­ing as if this was the only night of love left in her life. And he thought that if his false alibi was to be destroyed and he was to be arrested, then this might well be the last night of love for him, too.

  Now he turned on his stomach and lit a cigarette, trying to expel from his mind the wild images of the previous night. Under the bedside lamp he saw a sheet of paper with a note written on it in Kazumi’s neat hand. He read it several times.

  You were so deeply asleep I didn’t want to wake you. I have to go now, otherwise I’ll be late. I have a spare key with me, so lock the door with the key in it and keep it. As you leave, try to avoid being seen by other people. I am what I am, but I don’t like gossip.

  The words were chosen and put together in secretarial style, like an office memo. There was no mention of last night. This was typical of Kazumi, Segawa thought wryly and got out of bed. Thermos bottle, toast and the morning paper had been neatly placed on the table for him in the tiny kitchen-dinette, as if by a good wife who had to go out for early shopping.

  He made himself a cup of instant coffee and absent-mindedly looked at the newspaper. The report on yesterday’s earthquake in the Niigata district filled the whole front page, but he didn’t have the energy to read through it. He was too preoccupied with his own problem. There had been a time when he could hardly wait to get hold of the morning paper. A small heading like Sell Showa Refinery Shares would’ve made him jump then. Now he was jumpy enough without newspapers.

  Segawa left the apartment house with Kazumi’s key in his pocket. It was already after ten o’clock. Robbed of all his will­power, he didn’t feel like facing Sakai today. He would’ve pre­ferred to meet Toshiko, even i
f he had nothing to tell her. He rang Sakai from a public phone box, thinking he’d use the ex­cuse of meeting Toshiko as part of his paramizol assignment to stay away from the office.

  “Hello, Segawa here,” he said when the coin dropped.

  “Hello, Mr. Yamamoto,” Sakai’s voice came from the other end. “It’s nice of you to call. Haven’t heard from you for quite a while.”

  Segawa was holding the receiver, mystified. Sakai knew his voice, and he’d said his name clearly at the start of the call, so what the hell?

  “Yes,” Sakai said, as if answering a question, “that’s quite right . . . No, I don’t mind at all going flat out in my own busi­ness, but today I’ve been spending time on all sorts of odds and ends . . . Oh? Are you talking about the polyethylene additive? . . . Yes, we’ve got some right here in the office. How much would you need?”

  Segawa realised the receiver was shaking in his hand. They had often talked in a kind of amateur code language in front of the staff, but what was the meaning of this? Did polyethylene mean police? The police must’ve been looking for him at his flat early this morning, and when they didn’t find him there, they went to the office. Yes, that must be it. If he went to the office now, he’d be taken to the police station.

  “How strong is the effect of the additive?” Segawa asked, keeping up the pretence in case the police overheard his voice on the phone in that tiny office.

  “I’d say it’s twice as strong as before. I’d like you to read through the report of the test.”

  This must mean that police suspicion of him was now twice as strong as before. He licked his dry lips. “Would you like me to call at your office straight away?”

  “Well, that depends on your schedule, of course, though we are extremely busy at the moment. I’d be very grateful if you could leave it till the afternoon. If you can, then perhaps you’d like to give me another ring before coming over.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  The moment Segawa had put down the phone he broke out in cold sweat. The detectives had been waiting for him at the office, questioning Sakai about him in the meantime—that seemed obvious enough. Sakai could probably cope with them, avoiding all the pitfalls, but it must have been a very unwel­come interview for him, just the same. Segawa thought he had detected a hidden irritation in Sakai’s voice.

  But what the hell did the police discover? he wondered. Did they perhaps investigate all the inns around Sendagaya and found the one that he and Eiko had been using for their meet­ings? The mere thought of this was enough to make all his nerve-ends feel exposed.

  At the same time, Kirishima was visiting the Shichiyo Chemi­cal Company head office with his clerk, Kitahara. He had arranged this through Inspector Ishida in the hope he might be able to uncover some additional facts. People were naturally more impressed by the State Prosecutor than by a detective in­spector. Especially men holding prominent positions in the community were more likely to co-operate if approached by someone above the level of the police. Kirishima was banking on this.

  First he paid a visit to managing director Kurosaka. He had decided to go straight to the man who had had a confrontation with the victim. It was his experience that the more indirectly one went about in a case like this, the more opportunity one gave the opponent to get ready and become tight-lipped.

  Takuzo Kurosaka was close to sixty, but he looked energetic and much younger than he was. Smooth and shiny, his round face was serene. Only his sharp eyes and thick brows suggested he was an old campaigner who knew all the tricks and couldn’t be easily rattled.

  After their greetings he twisted one corner of his mouth and said, “Mr. Prosecutor, I appreciate you coming to me first. You must’ve heard somewhere that the late director Ogino and I didn’t get along so well.”

  Kirishima realised he’d been robbed of the chance to fire the first shot. Being a young man, he found his biggest problem was to handle men of Kurosaka’s type and age, and women around their menopause. When they got a jump ahead of him, he often lost confidence and ended up asking less than half of what he’d intended.

  Now he braced himself for the encounter. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve heard there was a violent confrontation at the executive meeting on the day of Mr. Ogino’s death.”

  “That’s true. And it’s also quite true that he couldn’t get along with me very well.” Kurosaka spoke in a level voice and without any change of expression.

  “Was it perhaps a case of two lords not being able to fit into the one castle?”

  “Two lords?” Kurosaka smiled with contempt. “He was not a rival—he was far too young for that, though he was very ca­pable. As the son of the former president he also had the right upbringing—breeding if you like—and the combination of these two gave him the potential to become an outstanding manager in the future. I was well aware of this, but coming back to the present, he still needed a great deal more experi­ence, and what made things worse, he was being treated far too softly. The only two people in the company who could tell him anything straight were the president and me. I realised that getting his own way most of the time in his youth would be a big disadvantage to him in later years.”

  “Because of your attitude, did Mr. Ogino show open resent­ment towards you?”

  “Yes, I’d say so. There were certainly many occasions when he openly and quite harshly opposed me in matters concerning company business.”

  All this sounded reasonable enough, but Kirishima wasn’t going to accept everything Kurosaka had said without ques­tioning it. It seemed natural that Kurosaka would have consid­ered Ogino—to him hardly more than a boy—as an insolent youth, but surely this in itself wasn’t sufficient reason for their open hostility? Did some secret ambition of Kurosaka influence things? Kirishima was going to try to find out.

  “Would you mind telling me precisely the subject which pre­cipitated that heated argument at the executive meeting on the day of Mr. Ogino’s death? I don’t expect you to divulge any com­pany secret—just try to describe it within permissible limits.”

  “It was simply a problem concerning the management of the company. It had absolutely nothing to do with Ogino’s murder.”

  “Mr. Kurosaka, we are the ones to decide what has and what hasn’t a bearing on this case.” As soon as he’d said this he re­gretted it. Not only did he feel he was too young to act arro­gantly towards a man of Kurosaka’s age, but he also thought an impatient snap like this might cause the other to clam up, and he certainly couldn’t force Kurosaka to tell him anything if he didn’t want to.

  “I see. I’ve been put in my place, have I?” Kurosaka smiled like a cunning old badger. “Since you choose to assert your au­thority so bluntly, I’ve no alternative but to give you a brief outline of the subject of that argument. Well, at present we’re developing a new material, and we expect that once this prod­uct is on the market, the company will enter a stage of dra­matic development. I can’t reveal specific details of the new material even to you, Mr. Prosecutor.”

  “I understand.”

  “The inventor of this product is Dr. Nishiwaki, the late Ogino’s brother-in-law. Because of this, Ogino was appointed chief executive to handle all problems associated with this par­ticular development. I’d raised no objection to this, but subse­quently I wasn’t satisfied with his attitude.”

  “What was his attitude?”

  “To put it plainly, he insisted on keeping every detail of the development to himself. Whenever he was asked questions by members of the board, he gave vague, meaningless replies. Now, I know there’s such a thing as industrial espionage, so it was wise of him to guard the secret of the new product jeal­ously. But he was quite wrong in trying to adopt the same attitude towards his fellow directors who constitute the most responsible body of the company. In fact, his attitude implied there might be a spy among the directors themselves.”

  Ki
rishima thought this was an important point. It was the first time he’d heard the victim had this kind of problem on his hands just before his death.

  Kurosaka softened his tone slightly as he went on. “Mind you, I don’t think he’d ever actually suspected any member of the board. The idea itself mightn’t have occurred to him, for all I know. He might’ve been just showing off, telling us we could leave it all to him—he could carry the entire responsibility on his own shoulders. My chief objection was that he was still too young, too inexperienced, and this had attendant dangers for the company. Anyway, this was the subject of the confronta­tion between him and me that day. I was quite emotional at the time. Afterwards I regretted my outburst because I don’t be­lieve in solving anything by shouting. Of course, there were some other problems discussed at that meeting, too, but the heated argument definitely related to management policy on the new product. Well, I can’t tell you any more.”

  “What were the other problems discussed?” Kirishima asked. “Was there any problem concerning staff?”

  “You’re talking about the chief accountant, no doubt?” Once again Kurosaka took the initiative. “There seems to be a misunderstanding about this, too. I never tried to protect Kobayashi on a personal basis. I simply said we shouldn’t pun­ish him until we have concrete evidence of his guilt before us. Anyone who shirks his responsibility must be punished—there’s no question about that. Any manager worth his salt must be able to enforce discipline, but he should also possess a certain capacity for sympathy—a knack of letting other people live.”

  Kurosaka kept talking fluently, and Kirishima couldn’t judge how much of what he said was true and how much wasn’t, es­pecially in view of the ruthless power struggle that was going on within the company. Kirishima found it quite impossible to see into the mind of a man like Kurosaka in a single interview.

  “What conclusion did you reach about the chief accoun­tant?” he asked.

  “We didn’t reach a conclusion but decided to consider the matter again.”