The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [100]
Tokiwa scratched his jaw. He seemed to be seriously considering the question, at least.
Kusanagi tried smiling at him. “Don’t worry, he’s not involved in an investigation or anything. It is a little hard to explain, but I can’t help getting the feeling that Yukawa is hiding something from me—because he thinks I’m better off not knowing it. I’ve tried asking, but you know how stubborn he can be.”
Kusanagi wasn’t sure how well he was getting his point across, but the student did seem to be warming to him slightly. Perhaps mentioning his professor’s stubbornness had struck a chord.
“Well,” Tokiwa began, “I’m not sure what he was researching, but Professor Yukawa was on the phone to the library a few days ago.”
“The library? You mean the university’s?”
Tokiwa nodded. “I think he was asking them whether they had newspapers.”
“Newspapers? Don’t all libraries have newspapers?”
“They do, but he wanted to know how long they kept their old newspapers.”
“You don’t say.”
“Yeah. Not that he was looking for anything particularly old. I heard him asking whether he could read all the newspapers from this month. Something like that.”
“This month? Do you have any idea whether they had what he was looking for?”
“I’m pretty sure they did, because he went to the library straight after that.”
Kusanagi nodded, thanked Tokiwa, and stood up, his cup of coffee in his hand. The paper cup was still half full.
* * *
The Imperial University library was a substantial three-story building. When Kusanagi was a student, he had only visited it two or three times at most. He guessed that additions had been built since he’d left, but he couldn’t exactly remember what the place had looked like before. The entire edifice could have been rebuilt and he wouldn’t have known the difference.
He went in now and saw a woman behind the reception counter just inside the door. He asked her if she remembered Assistant Professor Yukawa’s recent visit and if she knew which newspapers he had been interested in. She hesitated, eyeing him suspiciously.
Kusanagi sighed and showed her his badge. “Don’t worry, this has very little to do with Professor Yukawa. All I want to know is which newspapers he was looking at.” He knew it was an odd-sounding question, but he couldn’t think of any other way to find out what he needed to know.
“I believe he was interested in articles from March,” the woman said, choosing her words carefully.
“Do you know what sort of articles?”
“I can’t say that I do.” She considered for a moment. “Except, he did say that all he needed to look at the Local News section.”
“The Local News? You mind showing me where the newspapers are?”
She led him to a wide, low shelf where all the newspapers were kept in stacks—one stack for every ten days.
“I’m afraid we only have newspapers for the last month here,” she informed him. “Everything older than that we recycle. We used to keep older papers on site, but there are Internet archives where you can read past articles now.”
“But all Yukawa—Professor Yukawa—cared about was the papers from March?”
“Yes. Everything after March 10, actually.”
“March 10?”
“Yes, I believe that’s what he said.”
“You mind if I look at these?”
“Not at all. Just let me know when you’re finished.”
As soon as the librarian had turned away, Kusanagi pulled out the stack of newspapers and set them on a nearby table. He began with the Local sections from March 10.
March 10 was, of course, the day Shinji Togashi had been murdered. Which confirmed that Yukawa had been here to research the case. But what had he hoped to find in a newspaper?
Kusanagi looked for any articles that might have been related to the Togashi case. The first he found were in the evening editions from March 11. The next were in the morning editions from March 13, when the police had released the victim’s identity. That was the last mention of the case in the news until an article from the previous day, when Ishigami had turned himself in.
So what about these articles had interested Yukawa?
Kusanagi carefully read and reread a few pertinent articles.