“Do you recognize either of these people?” Kitazawa asked the store manager, holding up both documents.
The manager examined the pictures closely. “No. Afraid not.” He shook his head.
“Take a good look. Weren’t they customers of yours?” Kitazawa prompted.
“Sorry — I’m afraid I don’t recognize them.” The manager bit his lip with his upper front teeth.
Mizuho Takayama lived in Tokyo. If she’d visited the shop, it was just once, and more than a year ago. Of course he doesn’t remember. Kitazawa was on the verge of giving up when his gaze wandered overhead and suddenly came to rest on a small object on the ceiling, directly above the cash register. He froze.
A security camera!
The human memory was unreliable. Footage from a video camera, on the other hand …
Immediately, Kitazawa changed tack. “That security camera records everything that happens in here, right?”
Kitazawa had a basic understanding of how it worked. There was probably a monitor installed behind the counter so that the person working the cash register had a full view of the interior. It helped prevent shoplifting by eliminating blind spots in the clerk’s field of vision. Generally, it was also connected to a computer that stored the footage so that it could later be reviewed.
The manager turned, following Kitazawa’s gaze. “Yes,” he nodded.
But security camera footage wasn’t stored forever, or it would end up consuming massive amounts of memory. Most stores recorded over their stored footage every two or three weeks, or every month at most.
“How long do you store the footage?” Kitazawa inquired.
“If nothing out of the ordinary happens, we overwrite it every two weeks.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary, eh?”
“Yes. When there’s some kind of incident, the footage might contain clues that might be useful to the police. So when that happens, we hold onto it.”
Kitazawa reflected on the information in Saeko’s missing persons files. When Tomoaki Nishimura was working at the cash register and the manager left to take some cardboard boxes to the warehouse, there was an earthquake.
It was right there in the file.
“What about in the case of an earthquake?”
“Huh, an earthquake?”
“Yes. Would you save the footage then?”
“Ah, I get it. You mean the day Nishimura disappeared.” There had been an earthquake that day — the manager remembered it now.
“We might still have it. It’s a good idea to hold onto footage when something like that happens.”
Kitazawa paused for breath as he made some mental calculations. Detectives often bought information from members of the general public, and the minimum price they paid was 50,000 yen. The more critical the information, the more they were willing to pay. It wasn’t worth pinching pennies if it meant missing out on something you needed to know.
Kitazawa lowered his voice but spoke with emphasis. “I’ll buy it for 100,000 yen. Can you get me a copy of the footage from September 13th of last year, around the time of the earthquake?”
“Huh?” The manager seemed momentarily stunned by the mention of 100,000 yen. It was a pretty hefty reward for the simple task of locating some stored footage and making a copy of it.
Kitazawa was convinced that there was crucial information to be found in that footage. He would bill the TV station and publishing house for the expense later; it wouldn’t put any strain on his own wallet.
“Do this for me. When you have the footage, call me at this number and I’ll come and get it.” Kitazawa pointed out his cell phone number on the business card in the manager’s hand.
“I’ll be returning to Tokyo tomorrow, so I’d like it if you could get it ready for me tonight,” he stressed, making sure the manager realized that he’d better get cracking if he wanted to get his hands on that 100,000 yen.
The manager made an “okay, okay” motion, waving his hand close to his body and twisting away. Kitazawa understood; the man didn’t want his employees to overhear. There wasn’t anything illegal about what they were doing, but given that the manager stood to make what was probably a month’s wages for his staff for a few minutes of labor, his employees might hope for a taste of the pot.
If Kitazawa’s hunch about the footage were right, where would that leave him?
It’ll probably just raise more questions, he realized. But he didn’t care. Bringing mysteries to light was what being a detective was all about. His professional instinct to seek out the truth behind bizarre enigmas spurred him on.
Kitazawa bought a yogurt and a can of tomato juice and exited the shop. The two youngsters over in the magazine corner were leafing through comics anthologies, completely entranced.
“Thank you!” the shrill voice of the girl behind the counter called out from behind him.
Kitazawa was late getting back. He’d planned to fly into Haneda Airport from Toyama, but the flight was sold out. At the last minute, he changed course and took a train from Itoigawa to Nagano, where he hopped a bullet train back to Tokyo. That was what Toshiya told Saeko when she showed up at the office. She had to wait another half-hour for Kitazawa’s return.
“My dad did say he was bringing back a surprise, though,” Toshiya promised as if in apology. They both knew what that meant; Kitazawa had found a lead of some sort in Itoigawa.
“What is it?” Saeko asked.
“He wouldn’t say. He was being coy.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see, then.”
“Well, make yourself at home, anyway.” Toshiya gestured vaguely towards the sofa.
Saeko looked away, her gaze flitting nervously around the office. It was well past closing time. There were two coffee cups on the table in the waiting room where the detectives met with clients during business hours. They hadn’t been set out for Saeko’s visit and were just left over from the last client who had visited the office. The computer in the corner of the office had been left on. The standby screen displayed a photograph of a pop singer posing in a bikini.
Hurriedly, Toshiya keyed in a command to change the picture and began babbling incoherently about the events of the day. His comments seemed to be directed at Saeko, but they sounded more like he was talking to himself. It was a bit awkward being alone with Toshiya waiting for Kitazawa’s return. Their relationship was still somewhat strained.
“Hey, Toshiya? Why do you think the universe has structure?” Saeko asked suddenly, cutting off Toshiya’s rambling monologue.
“Where did that come from?” Toshiya widened his eyes in his patent expression of exaggerated surprise.
The real mystery is the fact that anything exists at all.
It had been a favorite contention of Saeko’s father. The fact that there was matter hinged on the existence of structure. There were two main categories of naturally occurring structure. One comprised the regular movements of heavenly bodies and their groupings, like the solar system or Milky Way. The other was the organic life that occurred on a planet’s surface. These organisms in turn created constructs of their own, spanning everything from simple nests built by birds and honeybees to huge skyscrapers. Saeko and her father had discussed in detail the evolution of manmade creations.
“Why do the natural structures around us exist?” she reprised. “Because various physical constants dictate their existence. Countless parameters all have to line up for a star to form. A certain physicist once estimated the number of parameters to be 10 to the power of 229, while another physicist came up with the number ‘10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123.’ There’s a huge difference between those numbers, but both of them are mind-numbingly large. Far larger than the number of atoms in the universe. Basically, the fact that the universe as we know it exists is nothing short of a miracle.”