“I can’t go anywhere that Mr. Nakamura might be. He might recognize me and become furious—he already thinks I’m too nosy,” I explained.
“Your nose is fine. But you must change the hair, and perhaps wear some spectacles?” Mr. Ota handed me a single page from the midst of his stack of dog-eared documents. It contained two telephone numbers for Hikari Yasui and Piers Clancy.
“How much does Hikari Yasui know?” I asked.
“Yasui-san knows that her boss is in trouble. She is a girl with a loyal heart.”
I wonder if Hugh had also told him that part. I cleared my throat and asked, “Will you stay in touch with me? Can you tell me what happens with the prosecutor?”
“Certainly. Tomorrow I will be staying overnight in Shiroyama, but I’ll call when I return.”
I watched Mr. Ota from the window as he left fifteen minutes later, slipping on the wet pavement as he walked with arm outstretched, trying to hail a cab. They don’t come this far down, I wanted to say to him. In this neighborhood, you were lucky if they came at all.
I called Piers Clancy promptly at nine the next morning.
“Your English is very good, Miss Shimura,” he said snidely after I’d introduced myself.
“So is yours. Despite the accent.” The few words he’d uttered sounded like a bad imitation of Masterpiece Theatre.
“Well, then.” A moment of chilly silence. I pictured him sitting at a large desk wearing a starched shirt with cufflinks made of some precious metal. “Let me advise you that this is a rather unusual case for the consulate. I’ve seen subjects jailed for drunk and disorderly conduct, drugs, that sort of thing. Nothing like murder.”
“I thought you were his friend. You can’t believe he did it?”
“I didn’t go to the Japanese police, Miss Shimura. You did.”
“About my calling the police—it was a well-meaning move that was unfortunately misinterpreted. What I want to know is where we go from here, and how Hugh’s holding up in prison.”
Piers Clancy coughed as if something irritating had caught in his throat.
“I haven’t been to Shiroyama. However, our consul has toured various detainment facilities in this region and found them generally Spartan but safe. No chance of inmate rape or violence, given that prisoners are forbidden to mix.”
“But the police are known to be brutal. I heard about an Iranian jewelry vendor who was beaten so badly that he went deaf!”
“They’d be mad to beat a British solicitor.” Piers laughed a bit cruelly. “It’s all a matter of knowing the rules. I’ve spoken to Hugh about etiquette: not looking or speaking to the guards until told, and so on. If he is harmed, he is to notify us and we will make a formal protest.”
“Wonderful,” I said, sarcasm heavy. “What else can you do for him?”
“Foreign consulates are neither expected nor allowed to interfere in the Japanese legal system. As a private citizen, though, I will submit a character reference, which can at least be brought to the judge’s attention when he has his preliminary hearing.”
“I don’t suppose it would help if Sendai sent anyone to vouch for him? The company chairman or executive officer?” A mid-level foreign diplomat wasn’t worth half a Japanese business leader.
“We have dead silence from that quarter, except for a comment that they’d understand if he felt the need to resign.”
“Don’t they know he was the one who wanted the autopsy looked into and the bathroom searched? If Hugh killed somebody and was lucky enough to have the thing ruled an accident, wouldn’t he just have kept quiet?” The words tumbled out of me.
“Hugh will employ refined versions of some of those arguments, certainly. And he’s working with Ota on establishing an alibi for the time he was allegedly bathing with that woman—”
“He didn’t go with her. I know it because his hair was wet before dinner. His and Mr. Yamamoto’s.”
“I appreciate your memories, but as Yamamoto is missing and presumed dead, we’re not too well off.”
Piers Clancy clearly didn’t want to work with me. I was going to have to fall on his mercy for the slightest morsel. I asked, “Will you talk to Hugh again today? Can you tell him that I’m sorry?”
“Miss Shimura, please. I’ll let you know when, or if, he is allowed out.” The diplomat’s voice was fading as if he were already onto some new order of business. “Until then, be a good girl and stay away from the journalists, will you?”
The next person on my list, Hikari Yasui, was considerably kinder.