The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [27]
“Upperclassman?” Yukawa echoed, lifting an eyebrow.
“Guy by the name of Ishigami. Teaches high school math. He graduated from Imperial University. Probably from your department, too.”
“Ishigami…” Yukawa muttered to himself, then his eyes went wide behind his glasses. “Ishigami the Buddha!”
“The Buddha? Huh?”
Yukawa held up a hand, motioning for them to wait, then disappeared into the next room. Kusanagi and Kishitani exchanged curious glances.
The professor returned a moment later. He was carrying a black university folder in his hand. He opened it and pointed to a page. “This Ishigami?”
There were several photographs on the page, all of them young students. At the top of the page was the heading, “Masters of Science Received in the 38th Term.”
Yukawa was pointing to the picture of a chubby-faced graduate student. Unlike the students in the other photos, this fellow wasn’t smiling; his thin eyes merely stared straight ahead impassively. The name beneath the photo read “Tetsuya Ishigami.”
“Hey, that’s him,” Kishitani said. “He’s a lot younger here, but there’s no mistaking that look.”
Kusanagi covered the top of the man’s head with one finger and nodded. “Yeah. That’s the guy. Didn’t recognize him at first with all that hair. You know him?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t an upperclassman. We were the same year. The science department in those days split us up by major after the second year. I was in physics, and Ishigami was in math.” Yukawa closed the file.
“So that guy’s the same age as us, then? Hmph.”
“He always looked old for his years, even back then.” Yukawa grinned. Then a look of surprise came over his face. “A teacher? You said he teaches high school math?”
“Yeah, at a school near where he lives. And he coaches the judo club there.”
“That’s right. I’d heard he did judo from an early age. I think his grandfather ran a dojo, or something like that. At any rate, you’re sure he teaches at a high school?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“That’s unexpected, but I’ll take your word for it. I hadn’t heard anything, so I assumed he was buried in research at a private university somewhere … Huh. Ishigami teaching math in high school…” Yukawa’s voice trailed off as he gazed into his memory.
“So he was a hotshot in school, then?” Kishitani asked.
Yukawa sighed. “I don’t use the word genius lightly, but it fits him well. One of our professors said he was the kind of student you only see once every fifty or a hundred years. Even though we were in separate departments, stories about him made the rounds. He didn’t care for computers, so he would lock himself in the school lab, working out problems with paper and pencil all night. When you saw him, it was usually from the back while he sat hunched over a desk—that’s how he got the nickname ‘the Buddha.’ A term of respect, of course.”
Kusanagi nodded. It was odd to hear Yukawa talk about someone even more brilliant than himself. The detective had always thought of his friend as the genius, but he supposed that even when you were at the top, there was always something higher.
“But wouldn’t someone that gifted automatically get snatched up by a university?” Kishitani asked.
“Well, it takes all types, even at a university,” Yukawa mumbled, sounding uncharacteristically perplexed. Kusanagi didn’t imagine his friend had wasted much time worrying about how old acquaintances were faring in the world.
As if on cue, Yukawa asked, “How is he doing? Did he seem well?”
“I can’t say. He didn’t seem ill, at least. We talked to him for a bit, but he was hard to get a handle on. Maybe he just wasn’t very personable…”
“No man can know the mind of the Buddha,” Yukawa said with a wry chuckle.
“That’s just it. Normally, when detectives come calling, you expect people to be surprised, or a little flustered, or give some reaction at