Silent Parade by Keigo Higashino

Author:Keigo Higashino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

28

He went to his room to change into his sweatpants. When he got back to the dining room, dinner was neatly arranged on the table. There was a big dish of grilled ginger pork and a smaller dish of spinach salad, along with miso soup with lumps of tofu in it. It was a classic family meal.

Tomoya Takagaki sat down, put his phone on the table, and placed his hands together in a gesture of gratitude. “This looks delicious.”

“You deserve it,” said Rie, his mother, placing a small bowl heaped with rice in front of him. “It’s not like you to be back so late.”

“I was nearly done for the day, when my section chief had a sudden change of heart. ‘Sorry, Takagaki, but I’m going to need these designs ready first thing tomorrow morning.’ I get that he wants to please the client, but he should think a bit about us, too.”

With a sigh, he reached out with his chopsticks to help himself to some grilled ginger pork. By the clock on the wall, it was nearly 10 P.M. Tomoya had never done more than two hours of overtime before in his life.

Poor old you.

Since she had already finished her meal, Rie walked over to the sink and started doing the washing up. Tomoya looked at her from behind. She had turned fifty the month before. She definitely seemed to have more gray hair than before; or perhaps she was just too busy to go to the hairdresser.

Rie was an excellent cook. The taste of the grilled ginger pork was a little more intense than usual tonight, but when you mixed in the generous helpings of shredded cabbage she served with it, the flavors balanced out perfectly.

He had just polished off the last grain of rice in his bowl, when his phone started to vibrate. He blanched when he saw the incoming caller’s name: it was Tojima.

He got to his feet, grabbed his phone, and went out into the hall.

“Takagaki here,” he whispered.

“It’s me, Tojima. Can you talk now?” Tojima’s voice was so low that Tomoya immediately started feeling nervous.

“Yes. What’s the problem?”

“Has anything odd happened since we last met? Have any more detectives been around to see you?”

“No, nothing I can think of…”

“That’s good.”

“Why? Has … uhm … something happened?”

“Yeah.” There was a brief pause. “It’s that professor fellow,” Tojima said.

“Sorry? Professor?”

“Professor Yukawa. You see him all the time at Namiki-ya.”

“Oh, him.” Tomoya was puzzled. It wasn’t a name he’d been expecting to hear. He knew Yukawa quite well. Although something of an oddball, the professor was very knowledgeable and well worth talking to. “What’s he done?”

“You need to watch out for him.”

“Wha—? Watch out? Why?”

“Because it looks like he’s poking around the Hasunuma business. Plus, I heard that he’s pals with a detective. He may have been asked to spy on us.”

“Him?”

In his mind’s eye, Tomoya pictured Yukawa. He really didn’t strike him as the spying kind.

“Planning to pop into Namiki-ya anytime soon?”

“Namiki-ya? No plans to go, no.

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