Free Malice by Keigo Higashino Page A

continued, “from the time that Miyako Fujio left Hidaka alone to the time that he was killed, he didn’t smoke even one cigarette. I mentioned this to the wife, and she told me that even if he’d only been working for thirty minutes, he’d have smoked at least two or three. She said he also had a tendency to smoke more when he was starting work on a new installment. And yet, that night he didn’t smoke a single cigarette. What am I to make of this?”
    I had already begun inwardly chastising myself. It was so obvious, yet it had never crossed my mind. Probably because I don’t smoke.
    â€œMaybe he was out of cigarettes?” I tried, realizing this tactic was probably futile. “Or he realized he didn’t have enough to last, so he was pacing himself?”
    â€œThat day at lunch, Hidaka bought four packs. A pack with fourteen cigarettes remained on his desk, and there were three unopened packs in his desk drawer.”
    Though Kaga spoke softly, I could feel his words slowly advancing toward me, each step powerful, inevitable. I remembered that he was good at kendo, and a shiver ran down my spine.
    â€œWell, what do you know!” I said. “I guess that would make a single cigarette seem a little suspicious. Though you’d have to ask Hidaka himself why he didn’t smoke more. Maybe he had a sore throat, or something like that?” It was a last, desperate line of defense.
    â€œIf that were the case, I wouldn’t think he’d have smoked while you were there, either. I’m afraid we have to assume the most likely explanation.”
    â€œIn other words, that he was killed earlier.”
    â€œMuch earlier. In fact it only makes sense if he left his office just after Ms. Fujio departed, then, after his wife left for the hotel, he went back to his desk and was killed immediately.”
    â€œYou seem pretty sure of that.”
    â€œGoing back to the cigarette briefly, it’s worth noting that Hidaka didn’t even smoke one while Ms. Fujio was there—and with good reason. According to his wife, Ms. Fujio didn’t like cigarette smoke, and he’d decided not to smoke while she was there, in hopes it would help smooth things out.”
    â€œNo kidding.” One thing I could say about Hidaka: he was always a shrewd tactician.
    â€œAnd yet there is no doubt that his conversation with Ms. Fujio was stressful. One would assume that as soon as she left, and he was done speaking to his wife, he’d have lit up a cigarette with the eagerness of a starving man. Yet there are no butts. Did he not smoke? Could he not smoke? I believe it is the latter.”
    â€œBecause he was killed.”
    â€œYes.” Kaga nodded.
    â€œBut I left the Hidaka’s a long time before that.”
    â€œI know. You went out the front door. After which you went around to the garden, to Hidaka’s office window.”
    â€œYou say that like you were standing there watching me do it.”
    â€œActually, it was you who gave me the idea, albeit while you were speculating that Miyako Fujio was the killer. In your version, she pretended to leave the Hidakas’ and then went around to the office, did she not? I wondered if you weren’t simply relating what you yourself had done.”
    I shook my head slowly. “Serves me right for trying to be helpful! I wouldn’t have said a thing if I’d thought you were going to twist it around and throw it back at me like this.”
    Detective Kaga looked down at his notebook. “In your own account, you described your departure from the Hidakas’ in the following manner: “‘Good-bye,” she said, and stood watching me until I’d turned the corner.’ She here refers to Rie Hidaka.”
    â€œSo? That’s what happened.”
    â€œAccording to what you wrote, she went as far as the front gate to see you off. Yet when I talked to her about this, she said she only saw