When they passed on the street they pretended not to know each other. Still, though it was all over, if it were ever discovered. . . After all, she was the president's wife. This meant the issue wouldn't be settled on the basis of individual privacy alone. He certainly couldn't tell anyone about the letter—dated the eighth—that he'd received from Usami. If that got out, he would be a suspect in a murder case.
Saburo Matsushita, of the business staff, had an introspective personality. His reflective thinking tended to be gloomy. He, too, suffered because he'd told Usami something he should never have mentioned.
"It's tragic. . . ." That was how he started; then he told Usami everything.
Matsushita had homosexual tendencies. It wasn't that he was completely uninterested in women. He swung both ways. But, if his ideal type man appeared, that was a strong magnet, and he was iron filings.
"My trouble's I'm not attracted to gay men. They turn me off. For me, a man has to be normal. What does this mean? No sex. Because normal men find gays repulsive.
"But my ideal has turned up. Promise not to tell this to anyone, but it's the head of the business department, Akira Atsuta. He's a sportsman, efficient and good at his work. He's my ideal. But how's this for irony? He wants me to marry his niece. Of course, I'll marry her. That way I'll have him with me always, as a relative."
Matsushita berated himself. Why had he made such a personal confession to a department head—the head of the personnel department, at that. And the wedding was scheduled for the following spring! Then, there was that confidential letter from Usami, dated the eighth.
Sometimes Matsushita had wanted to kill Usami. Then Usami died. The thought that he had for a moment wished his death tormented Matsushita. "I didn't kill him. But. . ."
Shiro Shibaura, of the personnel department, was deeply happy that Usami died. If he'd gone on living and had sent more of those letters, Shibaura might have killed himself.
He had vowed never to tell anybody about that, not at the cost of his own life. Then, why had he told Usami? It must have been because Usami reminded him of a priest. A priest is forbidden to tell what he hears in a confessional. At the time, he felt as if he were confessing to a priest.
"Please—listen. . ." he had sobbed. Then he virtually clung to Usami, telling him about the hit-and-run killing.
He hadn't been to blame, that much was clear. He was on his way home from a bar. Near an apartment building, a fat man suddenly jumped in front of him. It happened quickly. Though he'd had only one beer, he had been drinking. Almost without thinking, he started the engine again. He did not look back.
The following morning, he looked at the paper. He remembered reading the item timidly. To his surprise, the victim had been a managing director of the S Commercial Company, one of Sanei's important customers. Not only that, he'd been coming to the apartment building where his secret girlfriend lived. For a time rumors ran rampant. But the scandal about the director grew to such proportions that almost everybody lost interest in it as an incident of hit-and-run.
If he'd kept the matter to himself, it would have ended there. The other guy was clearly wrong. Shibaura had little feeling of guilt except for having driven away from the scene. He had been the only one who knew about it. Why, then, did he feel like confessing to Usami? Psychologically, he felt confession would bring absolution. That was it. Usami had only said, "Yes," and "I see," like a priest. Shibaura had been grateful to Usami.
The confidential letter dated the eighth shocked him, frightened him, and made him want to kill Usami. He had died. Someone had killed him. But wild horses could never drag the story out of Shibaura.
The typist, Yumiko Murase, may have handled the matter in a cooler way than anybody else. She read the letter, dated the eighth, at seven on the evening of the ninth. Because she lived in a small satellite town of the city F, it took a day for the letter to reach her. It arrived in the morning while she was at work. She read it that evening:
"A need for money has come up. Please transfer one hundred thousand yen to general account 821-5613 at the S bank, no later than December eleventh."
It was signed Taro Usami. There were two days left before the deadline for the transfer.
On the morning of the eleventh, Yumiko phoned the office saying she'd be late. At nine ten, she pushed open the door of the local branch where she did her banking. The Sanei company made transfers of salaries and bonuses to its employees' banks. Yumiko's end-of-year bonus should have been transferred to her account December 7.
Filling out a form with her own account number and indicating she wanted one hundred thousand yen transferred to general account 821-5613 of the S bank, Yumiko hurried to the counter. As she left the bank, she saw a man on the opposite side of the street. It was Akira Atsuta, chief of the business department. He was hurrying and looked pale. No need to be a detective to figure it out. He must have received one of those elegant blackmailing letters from Usami, too, and probably was on his way to do whatever he'd been asked to do.
Yumiko thought, "I wonder what Atsuta told Usami?" In her own case, it had been the kind of man-woman relationship that happens in all companies between high-ranking men and lower-ranking women.
A year before, Yumiko had fallen in love with Mr. S of the technical staff. He was married and had children. From the beginning, it was clear he had no intention of marrying Yumiko. But, he was exciting, attractive—the type Yumiko admired. She was already an old maid at thirty-three and not so pretty, either. The words S used to entice her were of the driest. Late one night, when they were in a bar, both having drunk too much, S said, "Looks like I'll have to spend the night away from home. What d'you say? Lending it to me won't wear it out."
His rude words thrilled her, and they immediately went to a hotel. They had sex until they were tired of each other's bodies. Then, Yumiko discovered herself pregnant. Handing her two hundred thousand yen for an abortion, S said, "Pretty high rent. This ends everything between us."
Then the humiliation, the suspicious hospital, and the position she had been forced to assume on the surgical table. Then a man—even though a doctor—she'd never seen before did what he liked with the part of her body he should never have touched. The scalpel, which she feared, invaded her body. While understanding she was paying for something she had done, she suffered a festering wound.
Even an old maid left on the shelf has her pride. It was to cleanse herself of the resentment she felt for S that Yumiko confessed the ugly truth to Usami. Then she received that nonchalant letter. She had no choice but to comply with his demand.
For those who received the official-looking blackmail letters, Usami's death was a shock. Nor were Yokomizo, Misumi, Matsushita, and Shibaura the only recipients. There were also Atsuta, Nakanishi, Murayama, Nakajima. . . .
All had two things in common. First, they suspected someone had murdered Usami and suffered both anger and fear at the sight of Usami's odd right-slanting script, in which the letters were written. Second, they had made up their minds to remain eternally silent about what they had confessed to him and about the way they had complied with the demands in the letters. If any one of them were pushed to extremes and mentioned either of these things, he would become a murder suspect.
4
Six months after the incident, headquarters for the Taro Usami murder case was closed. It had been a cold winter. Now it was late May, with the greenery of trees inviting the eye to rest. As the investigation dragged out, the notion that the death was suicide gained more acceptance. This further retarded the search for a solution, since it lowered morale
