Nocturne of Remembrance (31 page)

They could never be sure unless they asked Akiko, but she’d probably deny it to the end to cover for Miyuki.

The young Akiko had lost her ward. It wasn’t hard to imagine how, once she grew up and started a family, she might try to shield her
daughters beyond the dictates of maternal instinct—in compensation, so to speak.

“You refrained from pointing out in court that Miyuki had committed the crime. Was it out of consideration for Akiko?”

“What consideration?”

“If you divulged the whole truth, the police would investigate Miyuki, naturally. She’s only thirteen and subject to juvenile law, but even if the sexual abuse is proven, it smacks of excessive self-defense. She’ll probably be sent to a family court. You hesitated to put Miyuki in that situation.”

“Oh, and why would that be my concern? All I wanted was to win Akiko’s innocence.”

“If Miyuki is sent to a reformatory, more than anyone else it’s Akiko who’ll despair.”

“Bosh,” Mikoshiba denied monosyllabically, but Yozo bowed deeply.

Then Misaki confided, “I trust it’s okay to tell you this since you seem to have been fired. Given the drift of things, our side can only drop our charges. We won’t go so far as to admit innocence since she’s guilty of concealing a criminal. We’ll have to bring a new case against her based on different charges. That should placate the presiding judge as well.”

“Good luck getting Akiko to testify to the truth.”

“I won’t be deceived anymore. As harsh as this may sound, I’ll extract statements from Miyuki, too. This time, I’ll have them investigate properly, and I’ll see her tried properly. Whoever she appoints as your replacement can’t affect the main outcome.”

“I … wonder about that,” Mikoshiba disagreed in a voice devoid of feeling.

“Are you saying that you can win her innocence if you defend her? Unfortunately, she will never appoint you a second time. Her mother, at any rate, would never allow it.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Having Akiko testify truthfully will be
quite a challenge, and not just because she’s stubborn. She also has an erroneous understanding of the facts.”

“What?”

“I don’t doubt that it was Miyuki who killed Shingo. But the motive wasn’t retaliation for being sexually abused by him, nor was it excessive self-defense. Akiko doesn’t know that.”

Misaki and Yozo stood there wide-eyed.

“I went over this in court earlier, but right after the incident came to light and the Setagaya Station forensics unit searched the entire house, there were no used contraceptives, even though they found empty packaging. If Shingo had been perpetrating sexual abuse on a continual basis, there ought to have been a used contraceptive somewhere. Remember, this was a man who’d shut himself in his room and seldom went out. He wasn’t the type to bother to take his daughter to a so-called love hotel, either. If so, there’s only one other possibility. It wasn’t Shingo who was taking advantage of Miyuki.”

Ignoring Misaki, who was at a loss for words, Mikoshiba took a cold look at the third man there.

“It was you, Yozo.”

“That’s absurd!” Yozo objected angrily. “I may be indebted to you, sensei, but there are some things you can and cannot say.”

“There are some things even family can and cannot do. During the day, Akiko was away at work, while Shingo remained shut up in his room on the first floor. Taking advantage of the situation, you sexually assaulted Miyuki in her room on the second floor. Only the packaging was left in the trash box because you took home the used contraceptive. As shameless as you are, you stopped short of leaving behind your own semen. When I visited the Tsuda residence for the second time, Miyuki had her door shut and didn’t take a single step out of her room. It wasn’t due to the lingering shock of the murder. It was because you were there. She was afraid of letting you in her room, of even seeing you. That’s not all. When you stood on the witness stand during the first session, you testified that her lip was cut because Shingo beat her
too. But there are no clinical records to that effect, and according to Rinko, Miyuki was the only one that Shingo spared. Nevertheless, you mentioned Miyuki’s injury because you had struck her.”

“You … are as rude as they come.”

“Really? So when you violated your granddaughter, you didn’t even use a condom?”

“That’s disgusting. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never did such a thing!”

“Then let me consult with the prosecutor,” Mikoshiba said, turning to Misaki. “Prosecutor, please listen to me keeping in mind what he just said. Do you remember what I told you in the basement cafeteria? To carefully store any and all seized evidence?”

“Yes, we’ve kept everything just as they were.”

“This,” said Mikoshiba, taking out a vinyl case holding a piece of paper, “is the card that he handed me to confirm his contact info. His fingerprints are all over it, of course. Check the contraceptive packaging. You’ll probably detect the same fingerprints. Of course, if you obtain Miyuki’s testimony first, it’s all the same.”

At the word “fingerprints,” Yozo’s demeanor changed completely. Wearing an uneasy look, he started to peep at Misaki.

The prosecutor, for his part, only cast a quick glance at Yozo but had grabbed his arm and wasn’t letting go.

“Let me add one more thing. You used to be a primary school teacher, right? Sorry, but I contacted the Board of Education via the Bar Association. You quit when you were close to the retirement age. The reason was given as ‘personal circumstances,’ but it was actually because you were suspected of indecent behavior. A girl who was eleven at the time revealed to her mother that you’d molested her. You seem to have had a taste for little girls for a long time. Because the girl’s testimony wasn’t accompanied by physical evidence, the school and the board continued to take a head-in-the-sand attitude, and the girl and the family had to give up in frustration. Still, the board had at least a shred of conscience and had you resign under its instruction.
Because it was a resignation under instruction, the reason provided on your résumé was ‘personal circumstances,’ and you became a district welfare officer without a hitch.”

As this exposé unfolded, Yozo grew more and more pale. He struggled to escape from the spot but couldn’t move, his arm trapped by Misaki.

“Wait, but that doesn’t make sense,” the prosecutor spoke up. “Didn’t Miyuki harbor designs on the victim because she was abused by him? If what you say is true, the person to be killed should have been this man here.”

“No, regardless, Shingo had a sufficient reason to be killed. He betrayed her. He sold his own daughter to his father.”

“S-Sold her?”

“The four cash transfers which you, too, took note of weren’t made because he couldn’t neglect his son. Shingo, who’d been in his room on the first floor, had noticed the violence on the upper floor. But rather than condemn his father for the terrible deed, Shingo threatened and extorted hush money from him. No, perhaps it was Tsuda senior who proposed the deal: sell your daughter for 100,000 yen a pop. Otherwise, Yozo would never have poured his precious pension money down the drain. Either way, what a heartwarming father-and-son story—I’m nearly moved to tears. But if the sacrificed daughter ever found out, she might feel downright murderous. In which case, rather than the grandfather who violated her, she’d have it in for the wretched father who sold her.”

Listening to the explanation, Misaki gave Yozo a sharp look and said to him, “Though the counterparty is a thirteen-year-old girl, she’s a prime person of interest in a murder case. We’ll press for details stringently and under transparent conditions. If what Mikoshiba-sensei says is true, what you sank to is full-fledged rape and child prostitution. And this time the Board of Education won’t cover for you. In addition, I’m sure that both the Setagaya Station and the Prosecutor’s Office will be giving our all to the investigation in the way of payback. How about
it, wanna try hollering that you’re innocent, here and now?”

“… Every man has an ugly side that he must hide.” It was the moment when Yozo Tsuda dropped his mask of a virtuous old man. “You do, too, as does the lawyer. Don’t put on airs.”

“So you admit to your ugly side.”

“Rape? Give me a break. Miyuki was obedient. And only I see that girl’s true charm.”

Mikoshiba, who had been listening to the exchange between the two, suddenly seemed to lose interest and turned on his heel. “Well, I will leave the matter to you, Prosecutor Misaki.”

“Wait.”

“What now?”

“Just tell me one more thing. Akiko is the older sister of the girl you killed. Even her mother showed up in the courtroom today. While you needed Dr. Mizohata’s testimony to prove Akiko’s innocence, exposing her past was almost guaranteed to drag yours into the light of day. Not only are court arguments recorded, but the media were there. With your past in such full view, your social credibility as well as your career as a lawyer would be virtually finished. The trust you built up would crumble, the whole world would cast stones at you, and not one friend would remain by your side. You, of all people, should have been well aware of that. Why did you do such a stupid thing? No, in the first place, back when you first read the trial record of Akiko Tsuda and met with her, you must have recognized the older sister of the girl whom you murdered. Why, then, did you go so far as to blackmail your predecessor in order to defend her? Was it to atone for the crime that you, yourself, committed twenty-six years ago?”

“… You’re giving me too much credit.”

Mikoshiba started to walk away, this time without looking back, leaving behind a pair of men soon to split into the accuser and the accused.

Entering Hibiya Park through Kasumi Gate and walking toward the
Crane Fountain, he got spotted by Rinko almost right away.

“Sensei!”

Though she was still only six, she ran terribly fast. Allowing Mikoshiba no time to escape, she gripped his trousers.

“The trial, how was it? Did we win?”

“Yes … we won.”

“Then Mommy will come back home, won’t she?”

“Sure, though not like tomorrow.”

“Yay!”

Bursting with joy, Rinko began to frolic at Mikoshiba’s feet.

He began to hate himself.

True, he’d saved Akiko. But in exchange, he’d offered Rinko’s older sister and grandfather up to the law. Would Rinko resent him when she found out?

Upon learning that Akiko had been arrested for murdering her husband, he’d thought to clear her name, if she was innocent, or to reduce her sentence to a minimum if she wasn’t. He’d felt that it was his duty.

After his arrest, Shinichiro Sonobe had been reborn as Reiji Mikoshiba at the Kanto Medical Reformatory. His peers had imparted human emotions to him, and his counselor, Mr. Inami, the meaning of expiation. The oath that Mikoshiba had sworn face to face with the reformatory’s dean and others two weeks before his release on parole had bound and regulated him as his compass ever since.

I will spend my life helping people who are reaching out from the abyss
.

It wasn’t that he expected forgiveness, or anything else, in return. He just believed that it was his only way to return from fiend to person.

Akiko was going to be tried again, but for the right crime. Miyuki and Yozo, too, would be facing their own sins. It probably wasn’t what Akiko wanted. Nor what Rinko wanted.

Yet the truth was ever a ray of light. Though uncaring at times, and cruel at times, it was a lighthouse for those wandering in the dark. It
was a guidepost for those who had slipped into the abyss.

Mikoshiba knelt down to Rinko’s eye level.

“The contract between me and your mother is over. I’ll probably never see you again.”

The young girl’s face scrunched from the sorrow of parting.

“So I’ll tell you this before I go. I cleared your mom of murder, but as long as we’re alive, we’re all committing some sin. Your mother, your big sister, your grandfather, everyone.”

“… Rinko, too?”

“Yes, you too. And me. Yet we’re alive. We’re allowed to live. That’s because everyone has been given the chance to atone.”

“… I don’t know if I really understand.”

“You don’t need to just yet. But don’t forget. People can go on living, by atoning.”

Mikoshiba slowly rose up and tousled Rinko’s hair.

“So long.”

At that moment, a gust of wind blew right at his face. It was one of those gales that swept across town when the seasons changed.

Mikoshiba blinked, but it wasn’t particularly uncomfortable.

I played this right, yes, Counselor Inami?

With his jacket flapping in the headwind, Mikoshiba started walking. A final cry reached his back.

“See you again, sensei!”

Shichiri Nakayama, born in 1961, worked at a company until a fateful meeting with a favorite novelist at a book event rekindled—at the ripe age of forty-five—his youthful dreams of becoming a writer. He made his debut in 2010 with the award-winning
Goodbye, Debussy
. Proving a born storyteller, with his prolific and versatile output he has established himself as a late-blooming giant straddling the mystery field. He lives in Gifu Prefecture, has an office in Tokyo, and is rumored to sleep only an hour a day.
Nocturne of Remembrance
is his first work to appear in English.