The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [4]
It was eight years since she married Shinji Togashi. Now the whole sordid story replayed in her mind …
When she met him, Yasuko was working as a hostess in a club in Akasaka. Togashi was a regular.
He was a foreign-car salesman. He lived large, and he had included her in his high-flying lifestyle. He gave her expensive gifts, took her to pricey restaurants. When he proposed, she felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. She was tired of working long hours to support her daughter after a failed first marriage.
In the beginning, they were happy. Togashi had a steady income, so Yasuko could wash her hands of the nightclub scene. He was great with Misato, too, and for her part, Misato seemed to try hard to think of him as “Daddy.”
When things fell apart, it happened suddenly. Togashi was fired from his job when his employers discovered that he had been embezzling company funds for years. The only reason they didn’t press charges was that they wanted to cover the whole thing up, afraid their own judgment and oversight would be called into question. So there it was: all the money he had been spending in Akasaka had been dirty.
After that, Togashi changed. Or maybe it was just that the real person he had always been finally came to the surface. The days he didn’t go out gambling he spent lying about at home. When Yasuko complained, he became violent. He started drinking more, too, until it seemed as though he was always bleary-eyed drunk and looking for a fight.
Yasuko had no choice but to go back to work. But all the money she made, Togashi took from her by force. When she tried hiding it, he started turning up at the club on payday and taking the money before she could stash it away.
Misato learned to be terrified of her stepfather. She didn’t like being left alone with him at home. At times she even came to the club where Yasuko worked just to avoid him.
Yasuko asked Togashi for a divorce, but he wouldn’t hear of it. When she pressed harder, he started hitting her. Finally after months of anguish she turned to a lawyer recommended by one of her customers. The lawyer was able to get a reluctant Togashi to sign the divorce papers. Evidently, her husband realized that he had no chance of winning in court and that unless he agreed to go quietly, he might even end up having to pay alimony.
Yet divorce alone did not solve the problem. In the months that followed, Togashi had made a habit of dropping in on Yasuko and her daughter. His affairs were all settled, he told her; he was devoting himself to his work. Wouldn’t she consider mending things between them? When Yasuko tried to avoid him, he started approaching Misato, sometimes even waiting outside her school.
When he came to Yasuko literally on his knees, she couldn’t help but feel pity, even though she knew the whole thing was a performance. Perhaps a little bit of the affection she had once felt for him remained. She gave him a little money.
It was a mistake. Once Togashi got a taste, he started coming more frequently—always with the same groveling demeanor, yet growing increasingly shameless in his requests.
Eventually Yasuko switched clubs and moved to a new apartment. Even though she hated to do it, she also changed Misato’s school. And Togashi stopped appearing. Then a year ago she moved again and took the job at Benten-tei. She had wholly believed she had rid herself of that walking catastrophe for good.
She couldn’t let the Yonazawas hear about her ex-husband and his reappearance. She didn’t want to worry them. Misato couldn’t know about it either. She had to make sure, on her own, that he never came back to see her again. Yasuko glanced at the clock on the wall and gritted her teeth.
Just before six thirty, she left the shop and made her way to the restaurant. She found Togashi sitting near the window, smoking. There was a coffee cup on the table in front of him. Yasuko sat down, ordering hot cocoa from the waitress. She usually went for the soft drinks