The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [23]
Ishigami knew he had to avoid going to their apartment, of course. He had been avoiding any direct contact. That was why he didn’t call from his own house. The investigators might see from the phone records that he had made frequent calls to Yasuko Hanaoka and find it suspicious.
But what about Benten-tei?
He still hadn’t made up his mind about that. All things being equal, he should probably avoid the place for a while. But the police might come around asking questions. The owners might tell them about how the mathematician who lived next to Yasuko came by there every day to buy lunch. Wouldn’t they find it odd if he stopped coming right after the day of the murder? Shouldn’t he keep going there as usual so as not to raise suspicions?
Ishigami didn’t trust his own capacity to come up with a logical answer to this question, because he knew that, in his heart, he wanted to keep going to Benten-tei. That lunchbox shop was his connection to Yasuko. If he didn’t go there, he would never see her at all.
He arrived at the public phone and inserted a telephone card. The card had been a gift from another teacher—the front showed a picture of the teacher’s newborn baby.
The number he dialed was for Yasuko’s cell phone. They might have put a tap on her home phone, after all. The police claimed they didn’t wiretap citizens, but he didn’t trust that one bit.
“Yes?” came Yasuko’s voice over the line. She would have already guessed that it was he, because of the public number. He had told her he would contact her this way.
“It’s me, Ishigami.”
“Oh, yes.”
“The police came to my apartment a few minutes ago. I’m guessing they dropped by your place as well.”
“Yes, a little while ago.”
“What did they want to know?”
Ishigami listened to every word Yasuko said, organized it in his head, analyzed it, and committed it to memory. It seemed that, for the time being, the police didn’t directly suspect Yasuko. They had probably just been following procedure when they asked after her whereabouts. They might have someone check out her story, but it probably wouldn’t be a high priority.
But if they found out that Togashi had visited on the tenth, that he had come to see Yasuko, they wouldn’t be so friendly the next time they turned up. And the first thing they were bound to check out would be her statement that she hadn’t seen Togashi recently. Luckily, he had already prepared her for that eventuality.
“Did the detectives see your daughter?”
“No, Misato was in the back room.”
“I see. Still, they will probably want to question her before long. You know what to do if that happens, right?”
“Yes, you were very clear. I think she’ll be okay.”
“I don’t mean to repeat myself, but remember, there’s no need to make an act of it. She just needs to answer the questions they ask as mechanically as possible.”
“Yes, I told her that.”
“Did you show the police your ticket stubs?”
“No, I didn’t. You told me I didn’t have to show them unless they asked for them specifically.”
“Then that’s fine. By the way, where did you put the stubs?”
“In a kitchen drawer.”
“Put them inside the theater pamphlet. Nobody goes out of their way to store ticket stubs. They might suspect something if you have them in your drawer.”
“Okay, I’ll take them out.”
“By the way…” Ishigami swallowed. He tightened his grip on the receiver. “The owners at Benten-tei … do they know about me going there to buy my lunch?”
“What…?” Yasuko asked, momentarily taken aback.
“What I’m asking is, do the people who run the store where you work know that your neighbor comes there frequently to buy lunches? This is rather important, so please be honest.”
“Well, yes, actually. The owners were saying they were happy you were such a reliable regular.”
“And they know