Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [77]
But she remained silent. She had doubtless understood my meaning. Intuitively, she may indeed have realized the intent that I myself had not yet been able to formulate clearly into words—my intent in repeating these ill-natured questions, attempting to estrange the husband and the brother—at this point, the one lost and the other dead. That intent there was I could not deny. Thus I felt that I had been seen through, and I was upset at the thought.
Subjects more appropriate to my role and to the play I was in were not altogether lacking after all. Even the report that I had prepared this morning was not completely worthless. The conversation with Toyama was suggestive; it had sketched for me the actual wiring chart for the connections between the husband and the Camellia. It was simpler and more reliable than any line that had come to me thus far. But something made me hesitate. As soon as I had put it into words I felt empty and uneasy, as if I had quite lost my reason for being. I could bring up the Camellia in a little more roundabout way.
“Oh, yes. I forgot to write up two or three things in my report about the Camellia. Let’s see. There’s a parking lot right in front of it, you know. It was there I met your brother for the first time. Accidentally. A little too accidentally, I think. But let that go. Did you know just why your brother happened to be in such a place?”
“Well …”
“According to his explanation, there was the possibility your husband had made the parking lot his base of operations for his second-hand car business.”
“Then what happened?”
At last I had provoked real interest. But was it because the information concerned her husband or because of the mention of her brother’s name? The two of us lifted our glasses of beer to our lips at the same instant, both of us feigning unconcern. Her glass was nearly half full; in mine there remained about an inch of beer.
“I really couldn’t get any evidence there, but I wonder why your brother suddenly appeared in such a place yesterday morning. He must have been investigating your husband’s case over six months now. Furthermore, from the looks of it he was lying in wait for me.” Her expression clouded over, and I listened to the alarm that began to sound within me. Any brakes would be useless; I should have to come to a natural stop.
“Even if our meeting was accidental, it was too much so. I suspected at once that your husband and your brother weren’t accomplices. I mean, your brother knew of your husband’s whereabouts, yet for some reason he attempted to conceal that from you and from everybody else.”
“What do you mean ‘for some reason’?”
“If we knew that, we’d have the solution. But we have to consider all possibilities. We’ve got to be suspicious of everyone … except you.”
“Why am I so special?”
“Because you’re the client.”
“But my brother also agreed about requesting you to investigate, you know.”
“That’s not particularly inconsistent. You hired me. I was given charge of the investigation. But since you were able to follow all my movements, I was exactly like a cat with a bell around its neck, wasn’t I.”
“But why would I do that?”
“Consider a completely opposite situation. Your brother knows the whereabouts of your husband, but since they were not accomplices, he has recourse to either psychological or physical blackmail so that your husband cannot come back again. How about that? Interesting, isn’t it? A given situation can be seen in different lights just by changing the point of view.”
“Very interesting indeed.”
“I’m not just making things up, you know.” I was inexpressibly angry both with myself and with her at my gradual loss of composure. Just a little more and I would put it into words, but the depth of the crevasse separating me from that little more was too great. “It’s an undeniable fact that my actions were observed by your brother, isn’t it? Aside from however you would explain that, his aim was simply to observe the way I worked, I suppose. I’m not angry,