The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [18]
“And you knew the registration number? That’s impressive.”
“Well, I’d only just bought the thing. I still had the receipt at my house. I called and had my daughter tell me the number.”
“I see. Good thinking.”
“I was wondering—just what sort of case is this? The man on the phone didn’t give any details. But I have to admit all this has me very curious.”
“Well, we’re not even sure there really is a case just yet, ma’am. I’m afraid we don’t have the details.”
“What? Really?” She snorted. “I didn’t know you police types were so tight-lipped about these things.”
In the passenger seat, Kishitani was trying to keep from laughing. Kusanagi was glad he had gone to visit the woman today and not later. If the murder had already become public knowledge, he would have had to suffer through a deluge of questions.
Ms. Yamabe took one look at the bicycle down in the evidence room at Edogawa station and ID’d it on the spot. Then she turned to Kusanagi and asked who was going to pay for repairing her tires.
* * *
The forensics team got several fingerprints off the bicycle’s handlebars, frame, and seat. They had found other evidence as well. What they thought to be the victim’s clothes had turned up, stuffed into a five-gallon oil can, several hundred yards from the place where the body was found. The clothes were partially burned. There was a jacket, a sweater, pants, socks, and underwear. Forensics guessed that the killer had set fire to the clothes and then left. But the fire had gone out before finishing the job, and they hadn’t burned as well as he had hoped.
There was nothing special about the style or manufacture of the clothes. All of them were standard designs, common throughout the country. A police artist had used the clothing and the shape of the victim’s body to draw an approximation of how he had looked before he was killed. Some policemen had already been to Shinozaki Station, illustration in hand, to ask around. However, without anything distinctive about either the person or the clothes, they had gathered no information of any worth.
A picture of the illustration went up on the nightly news that evening, and a mountain of calls came in, but none of them offered any positive link to the body from beside the Old Edogawa.
Meanwhile, the police had compared everything they knew about the victim to the missing persons list, but they were unable to find even the thinnest thread connecting anyone to their John Doe. Only a survey of hotels and hostels in the Edogawa area, checking to see if any single men had abruptly disappeared, turned up something of merit.
A customer staying at a place in Kamedo called Rental Room Ogiya had gone missing on March 11, the day the body was found. When he hadn’t shown up at the desk at checkout time, one of the staff had gone to check the room and had found it empty, save for a few of the man’s personal belongings. The manager hadn’t bothered to inform the police because the customer had already paid in advance.
Forensics descended on the place immediately, picking up every fingerprint and loose piece of hair. Finally they struck gold. One of the hairs was a perfect match with those on the body. There were also fingerprints on the walls and belongings that matched those from the stolen bicycle.
The missing man had signed his name in the rental room’s guestbook: Shinji Togashi. His address was listed as being in West Shinjuku, Shinjuku Ward.
FOUR
They walked from the subway station toward Shin-Ohashi Bridge, taking a right onto the narrow road just before the river. The neighborhood they had entered was mainly residential, though there were a few small shops here and there, all of which felt like they had been around for years—real mom-and-pop establishments. Most other parts of town had long since been overrun with supermarkets and chain stores, but this area was different. This is the old downtown district, Shitamachi,