A Quiet Place (18 page)

“You're welcome to come to Tokyo if you want, but I have to ask you not to talk to me any more about this business.”

“Right then. Speak to you soon.” Yagishita laughed and hung up.

A determined man like Yagishita doesn't cave that easily, thought Asai. It was to be expected that he would follow up the letter with a phone call. He'd probably already promised the vice-chairman of the prefectural cooperative that Asai would be there. It'd be just like Yagishita to have told the man that he and Assistant Division Chief Asai were as thick as thieves. He'd doubtless assured him that it'd be no problem to convince Asai to come. In fact, his attendance would already be guaranteed. Well, we'll see who ends up going, thought Asai. He wasn't being deliberately awkward; it was just for his own safety.

Four days later, Yagishita called again.

“So can I count on you?”

“No.”

“There's still time. Think it over some more.”

“There's nothing to think over. I'm up to my neck in end-of-year stuff. There's no way I can make it.”

“Can't you find a way?”

Asai hung up the phone. Although he was used to Yagishita's stubbornness, Asai felt that this time he was being obnoxious. But in fact neither Yagishita nor Tottori were being obnoxious. It was that Nagano Prefecture had approached him first. If only they hadn't, he could have been enjoying a soak in a hot spring this December.

Had Nagano Prefecture finally given up, though? He hadn't heard anything from them recently.

Three days later, Asai was waiting in front of the lifts to go down to the ground floor when one arrived from below and its door opened. The chief cabinet secretary stepped out, accompanied by Director-General Shiraishi. The chief cabinet secretary was slim and graceful like a crane, Director-General Shiraishi thick and clumsy as a bear. Asai bowed to them both.

The two men set off along the corridor, but after just a few steps Shiraishi abruptly turned and started back towards Asai. From the faintly magnanimous smile pasted on his face, Asai knew that he had some favour to ask of him. The heavy figure came ambling towards him, and Asai reacted by stepping a couple of paces towards his boss.

“How are you? Doing better?”

The director general spoke gently. He was clearly asking Asai how things had gone since Eiko had passed away. It was the right kind of concern for a supervisor to a member of his staff, but with a little hint of condescension thrown in.

“I'm fine, thank you,” Asai replied with a bow.

“Glad to hear it. By the way, I've had a request from the Nagano Prefectural Cooperative to go and observe their operations, so I'm planning to spend around three days there from the middle of next week. They're claiming it's about all the recent changes in government policy, but really they're just looking for an excuse to lobby for their own case. Well, now it's impossible to ignore them. Agricultural produce, beef, pork, all those kinds of food processing – these are going to be the mainstays from here on. I want to take you with me, so could you start working on that, please? We haven't been on a business trip together since that time in Kobe, have we?”

Asai was speechless.

“Yes; back then it really was too bad what happened to your wife. Let's hope this trip will be more of a pleasant experience.”

Still, he failed to come up with a response.

“Are you all right with that?”

“Yes”, Asai finally managed to mumble.

The director general rejoined the chief cabinet secretary. Asai watched as the two men, walking side by side, disappeared around the next corner. Minutes later he was still there, staring into the distance, his mind completely blank.

The next lift arrived and opened its doors. But since no one got on, it simply closed them again and continued its lonely descent.

18

When Director-General Shiraishi left for Nagano, Asai wasn't with him. Two days earlier he had officially applied for sick leave because of a cold with a high fever.

How could he go to Nagano, knowing he was putting himself in such a dangerous situation?

Asai knew that it would be damaging to his reputation at the ministry, but he could see no other way out. He counted on finding some way to make it up to the director general later.

Like a pampered child, Shiraishi was unpredictable, tending to sudden mood swings. It would be fair to call him temperamental. An office veteran like Asai knew that his boss wouldn't stay angry with him for long. A decent manager would be aware of what a loss it would be if a knowledgeable and able subordinate like Asai turned his back on him. Moreover, Shiraishi was hardly devoted to his current post; his eye was already on the office of Director-General of Agricultural Affairs or even Director-General of Agriculture. He had no time to make a fuss about petty matters.

When that day in front of the lifts Shiraishi had suddenly asked Asai to accompany him to Nagano, Asai's gut instinct had been to accept on the spot. That had caused all kinds of problems later. His inability to refuse showed how much
the director general intimidated him. It didn't matter how much of a spoilt child someone was; when they held that post they were different, special. A man like Asai, who had spent years working his way up through the ministry, had never lost that deferential attitude.

For about four or five days after agreeing to go to Nagano, he had felt depressed. Soon afterwards, his division chief had officially informed Asai that he would be accompanying Shiraishi on the field trip. As the request had come from the director general personally, there was no way to refuse. The sick leave had been his last resort. He had barely managed to avoid the danger.

Asai would probably have been all right in Nagano, but you never knew. Potentially, he could have run into the two men who'd given him a lift that night, and although the magazine article said they didn't remember his face, seeing him again might conceivably have jogged their memory. He really didn't feel like participating in a game of Russian roulette.

One of the junior managers in the division had been scrambled to replace him at the last moment. He reported back to Asai that his absence had been deeply regretted.

“They told me that they were determined to get you to come the next time. In fact, they're already planning their next event. They say they're not interested in inviting a bunch of high-level names. They want to hold a special training course and invite people with practical know-how like you to run it for them.”

Obviously that was out of the question. If he was going to keep himself safe, it would be a while before he was able to accept invitations from anywhere in Japan.

He hadn't seen Director-General Shiraishi since then. He knew that he ought to apologize for the inconvenience that his feigned illness had caused, but he couldn't bring himself to visit the director general's office in person. When he made his reappearance at work following his supposed recovery, he went only to the division chief to express his regret. His manager didn't seem particularly bothered.

“You were ill. It couldn't be helped. I'll mention it to the director general.”

Asai felt quite offended. At that moment he realized how easily he could be replaced by any number of different people. This division chief was also a career-track bureaucrat, and, just like Shiraishi, Asai knew he didn't plan to be in the post for long. His type was far less interested in the content of the job than in being careful not to rock the boat.

Asai assumed that Shiraishi would communicate his displeasure via a message sent through the division chief, but this wasn't the case. Despite the director general having asked Asai personally to accompany him to Nagano, it turned out that he didn't specifically want him at all – it could have been anybody. Asai supposed that when his replacement had reported how disappointed the locals had been by his absence, it was probably just flattery after all. They might well intend to invite him again sometime, but they weren't all that bothered. Or perhaps he was just overthinking it.

Asai knew he should take care not to become too obsessed by the Kubo case. Of course, he needed to be cautious, but he shouldn't get neurotic about it. It was important to stay calm.

For the moment, there was nothing too worrying. There'd been no more articles on the murder in the newspapers or the weekly magazines, nor any sign that the investigation was closing in on any one suspect. Crimes committed in idyllic, pastoral locations such as the Yatsugatake ridge or the Fujimi plateau, no matter how fascinating to the reader, always had to yield to sordid tales from the big city. There must have been no progress in the investigation, so nothing new to report.

He told himself that he'd pay a visit to Director-General Shiraishi as soon as he could and apologize in person for his absence, but somehow time got away from him. The year came to an end and the new one began. The director general gathered his whole staff for an opening-of-year speech, but Asai was hardly going to stand up in front of everyone and start offering excuses.

Throughout January and February, he never once had the opportunity to be alone with Shiraishi. Asai often saw him at a distance, but the director general was always surrounded by people. There were no more chance meetings in front of the lifts. That was the thing about fate – sometimes the opportunities came thick and fast, and then suddenly there'd be none whatsoever.

And then finally, at the beginning of March, he ran into Shiraishi in the foyer of the ministry. The director general was apparently on his way out to lunch alone. Asai stopped him as he sauntered towards the door where his car was waiting.

Three months had already passed, which made it rather late for Asai to be making his excuses, but it had been weighing on his mind and he had to get it out.

“Sir,” he began, bowing low as he approached. “Last year… in December, I'm terribly sorry that I wasn't able to accompany you.”

The director general stopped in his tracks. He turned his heavy frame slowly to face Asai, and the expression in his eyes in that moment revealed he had no idea what the other man was talking about. Asai continued.

“Er… When you went on that business trip to Nagano last year, I caught a bad cold at the last minute, and wasn't able to accompany you.”

He bowed once more.

“Ah.” The vague stare in Shiraishi's eyes finally seemed to give way to comprehension.

“Ah yes, I see. That time… Hmm. So, are you feeling better?” Shiraishi was speaking, but there was no thought behind it, and as the words hung empty in the air he was already moving again towards his waiting car.

“Yes, thank you, sir. I'm fine.” He'd hardly still be suffering from a cold caught three months previously!

“Take care of yourself.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As he watched the clumsy figure of his boss walking away, Asai immediately regretted having brought up the subject. Director-General Shiraishi hadn't even given a second thought to Asai's cancellation.

He hadn't much cared who it was who came with him. All he'd cared about was having someone in his entourage. Those words he'd said to Asai in front of the lifts had been no more than an attempt to seem amiable.

Directors high up in the hierarchy often came out with stuff like that. They were trying to make themselves
popular with their employees. It was just hot air – there was no heart involved.

There had been nothing to fret about. Asai wasn't even part of Shiraishi's consciousness – to the extent that he had even forgotten that his junior had been supposed to accompany him to Nagano. Asai was both disappointed that he'd made all that fuss for nothing, and at the same time it brought him some relief. His sadness was that of the petty functionary who was always too concerned about the opinions of his superiors. Even though he thought Shiraishi a mediocre man, Asai had suffered from the oppression of the system for years and didn't know how to change. He envied the younger employees – they seemed more able to speak their own minds.

But then it was a good thing that the director general wasn't concerned about him; it meant there was no danger of being forced to go to Nagano. Rather than feeling depressed over his own subservient attitude towards his bosses, Asai ought to be celebrating.

For a while, everything carried on as normal. The weather was unstable, fluctuating between cold and milder temperatures, then finally settled down and it began to feel like spring.

The newspapers featured new murder cases daily. The killers were always caught right away. Even if they escaped, they would eventually be found to have committed suicide. In every case, the identity of the killer was always discovered through his or her relationship with the victim. There was always some third party connected with the case who could shed light on its motive and its causes. Without this information, the police would have been at a loss.

All kinds of books of codes and regulations were lined up across Asai's desk, all necessary for his work as an administrator, among them of course the
Roppo Zensho
, the compendium of Japanese laws. Chapter 25, entitled “Corruption”, pertained to civil servants.

Article #197: If a public official or a third party intermediary is found to have accepted a bribe or demanded a bribe, or entered into an agreement to offer or accept a bribe, he shall receive a sentence of no more than three years. If he is found to have accepted a solicitation, he shall receive a sentence of no more than five years.

Strangely enough, the section regarding homicide appeared right after the chapter on corruption of public officials.

Chapter 26: Homicide

Article #199: Persons guilty of committing murder shall be either put to death or imprisoned for a term of between three years and life.

The fact that homicide closely succeeded corruption seemed to imply that public officials were likely to commit murder.

The Criminal Procedure Code

Article #250: The statute of limitations applies as follows:

        
1)
    
15 years for crimes punishable by death

        
2)
    
10 years for crimes punishable by imprisonment for life, or life with hard labour

        
3)
    
7 years for crimes punishable with a sentence of more than 10 years' imprisonment or hard labour.

Seven to fifteen years
. Asai considered this period of time. The scale he used was the number of years of public service he had left. Fifteen years would take him to one year after retirement age. In ten he would probably already be division chief. Seven would be right around the time that his promotion was being considered.

The whole incident in Fujimi was fading from his consciousness, but from time to time he would start making these calculations. It wasn't out of fear of being arrested. He wanted to know how soon the statute of limitations would be up so that he'd be able to live a completely carefree existence.

He was in the middle of one of these moments of reflection when the president of Yagishita Ham arrived on a trip from Kobe.

“So what brings you to Tokyo?” Asai asked. He'd taken Yagishita to a nearby café. It was lunchtime, and men and women from the various government ministries were out strolling in the park.

“A thank-you gift for all our franchise stores. We're taking them to a spa in Hokkaido.”

“Wow. You're always up to something.”

“There's a lot of competition these days. Our firm only offers domestic travel tickets, but there are other companies who organize group tours overseas.”

“Which ones?”

“Kurosaki, the agricultural equipment manufacturers, for example. Well, machinery makers are a whole different
ball game – their sales are on a different level to ours. We can't make the same kind of offers to the sausage and ham vendors. I've heard that at the end of March they're organizing a courtesy trip to Southeast Asia for the executive members of all the agricultural cooperatives in the Koshinetsu region.”

“The whole of Koshinetsu? That's going to be quite a number.”

“Seems they've kept it to about forty people – the people with the most influence in the region, I imagine. This time it's not the prefectural-level executives they're taking, but local members from the towns and villages. The managing director at Kurosaki Machinery is a friend of mine, so I heard it from him. This rice acreage reduction policy – well, it's got everyone in the agricultural equipment business quite worried. They've carefully hand-picked the local members over the big guns. They've decided they need to turn their attentions to the regional level.”

“Everyone's feeling the pinch, eh?”

“Yep, tough times for tradesmen too.”

A couple of days later, the division director summoned Asai.

“Asai, the Nagano Prefectural co-op is sponsoring a short seminar. Can you attend?”

Startled, he repeated what he thought he'd heard. “Nagano Prefecture?”

“Yep. There's been a joint request from both the national and prefectural unions for a series of lectures to be held in the region.”

Asai felt irritated. Nagano again – seriously? Why were they being so stubborn?

“Whereabouts in Nagano?”

“The south. They want you to give a lecture in each of the southern regions over a period of five days. By the way, I got this request directly from Director-General Shiraishi's office.”

“From the director general?”

“That's right. He feels strongly that with the new agricultural policies the ministry should offer as much support to the farmers at the local level as possible. I know it's a lot of trouble for you, but we'd like you to be the one to go, seeing as you are so familiar with the politics and administration of food processing.”