3
‘I planted that the year Chiori was born,’ said Kōjirō and he shivered slightly.
‘The wisteria?’
Shimada cocked his head, puzzled.
‘But why?’ he started, but then he mumbled ‘I see’ to himself. He turned to Kawaminami, who hadn’t understood any of it.
‘It’s the Genji Monogatari[xiv], Conan.’
‘The Genji Monogatari?’
‘Yes, I’m correct, I think, Kō?’
Shimada asked Kōjirō, who was standing on the veranda.
‘Hikaru Genji, who had been deeply in love with his father’s wife, Lady Fujitsubo, for many years, finally had relations with her for one single night. But she became pregnant and the two of them had to keep on betraying and deceiving their father and husband after that.’
Kōjirō considered his brother’s wife, Kazue, his Lady Fujitsubo.
Chiori, the child born out of sin. The birth had brought the two of them closer, but had also torn them apart. His heart, still longing for Kazue, had made him plant that wisteria. For Fujitsubo meant “wisteria pavilion.” Lady Fujitsubo never forgot about the sin she had committed with Hikaru Genji, nor would she ever forgive herself. And like Lady Fujitsubo, Kōjirō’s lover too would never….
‘You always said you liked Genji Monogatari.’
Shimada stood up from the sofa and walked up behind Kōjirō.
‘Seiji found out about you, didn’t he?’
‘No, I think my brother only had suspicions. I think half of him was suspicious and the other half was trying to deny it,’ answered Kōjirō, his eyes still fixed on the garden.
‘My brother had incredible talents, but as a human being, he was lacking something. He loved my sister-in-law passionately, but it was —how to put it—a twisted love, which had been overcome by a longing, a mad desire to keep her all for himself. That’s how I looked at it.
‘I think my brother himself was also aware of that. He knew that he wasn’t a good husband to her. That’s why he was always afraid, always suspecting her. I think he felt something close to fear for Chiori. But part of him still tried to believe, wanted to believe Chiori was his own daughter. That part of him that still believed in his bond with his wife was what kept his mind balanced those twenty years.
‘But then Chiori died. With the sudden death of his daughter—whom he had always tried to believe in, despite his fears—he lost the one bond that tied him to his wife. My brother was thrown back into a sea of suspicion. He suspected his wife didn’t love him, that her heart was elsewhere, that it lay with his own brother. And he brooded, suffered and finally broke… My brother killed her with his own hands.’
Kōjirō, his eyes fixed on the new leaves that had grown on the wisteria pavilion, didn’t move a muscle.
‘What happened on Tsunojima—that was a forced suicide planned by my brother.’
‘A forced suicide?’
‘Yes. That day, on the afternoon of September 19th, I did indeed receive a package from my brother, just as you said. Inside was a bloody left hand, sealed inside a plastic bag. I knew the ring on the ring finger. I instantly realised what had happened.
‘I telephoned the Blue Mansion. My brother answered, as if he had been waiting for me. He said, in a voice that was neither laughing nor crying: “The Kitamura couple and Yoshikawa died for me too. As a farewell gift for the two of us….”
‘He’d gone completely mad. That was all I understood. He didn’t listen to anything I said and was talking about how the two of them were heading for a new stage, something about the blessings of the grand darkness, that I needed to take good care of the present he’d sent me. And after going through all that, he hung up the phone.
‘There’s no way my brother is still alive. Even if the physical evidence says there is a possibility, I say the psychology doesn’t allow for it. He didn’t die because he had killed my sister-in-law. He could not cope with living with her like that anymore, so that’s why he took her with him.’
‘But Kō—.’
‘Shimada, and you too, Kawaminami. Nakamura Seiji is dead. He committed suicide. The couple of days between him murdering his wife and his own death weren’t for him to send her hand to me for revenge and to have me suffer. They were so he could hold in his arms the body of the wife who had always been too far to reach in life.’
Kōjirō didn’t speak again. Looking at his back, it appeared he had become smaller and older.
This figure staring motionlessly at the garden—what, Kawaminami asked himself, was he projecting upon the wisteria pavilion? The image of the murdered woman he had loved? The face of her murderer, his own brother? Or the image of his daughter who had died in a tragic accident?
It was just as Shimada had said: Kōjirō had been the father of the deceased Chiori. So the person who should be hating the students who drove her to her death was….
‘Kō, I want to ask you one more thing.’
Shimada broke the heavy silence.
‘What did you do with Kazue’s hand? Where is it now?’
Kōjirō didn’t say a word.
‘Kō, I….’
‘I know, you just want to know what really happened. You’ll say that you won’t tell the police, right? I know, Shimada.’
And Kōjirō pointed to the wisteria pavilion once again.
‘There. Her hand is buried beneath that tree.’
✦ ✦ ✦
‘It was just as you said, Morisu.’
Kawaminami put away another whisky and water.
‘It may sound rude to Mr. Shimada, but we asked things we should never have asked about, I think. It doesn’t feel right.’
Morisu kept smoking silently.
‘Mr. Kōjirō declared that Nakamura Seiji wasn’t alive. I think that’s the truth. Now the only problem left is with the letters.’
‘What are your thoughts about the whereabouts of Yoshikawa Sei’ichi?’ asked Morisu, also including Shimada in the question.
‘Mr. Shimada seems to be interested in his disappearance too, but as the body hasn’t been found, I think he just fell into the sea and was washed away,’ replied Kawaminami and he looked at Shimada, who was sitting with his back leaning on the wall. He was reading a book he had taken from the bookcase, his glass in one hand. Had he, or had he not, been listening to their discussion?
‘Anyway—.’ Cheeks red from the alcohol, Kawaminami clapped his two hands softly together. ‘This is the end of playing detective. Maybe we’ll find out who wrote those strange letters when the gang returns from the island next Tuesday.’