The devotion of suspect X by Higashino Keigo 1958-

Author:Higashino, Keigo, 1958- [Higashino, Keigo, 1958-]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Grief -- Fiction, Abused women -- Fiction, Neighbors -- Fiction, Japan -- Fiction, Japan
ISBN: 9780312375065
Publisher: New York : Minotaur Books
Published: 2011-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

Kusanagi pulled out his mobile phone as he emerged from Shinozaki Station. He looked up Manabu Yukawa’s number and pressed the call button. Then, phone to his ear, he looked around. It was three in the afternoon - the lull time between the lunch rush and the commuter hour but there were still plenty of people out on the street. A line of bicycles stood in front of the supermarket across the way.

Kusanagi’s mobile found a signal quickly, and he waited for the dial tone - but then, before the phone began to ring, he closed it with a snap. He had just spotted the man he was looking for.

Yukawa was sitting on a guardrail in front of a bookshop, eating an ice cream cone. He was wearing white trousers and a simple black long-sleeved shirt. He was wearing sunglasses, too - a sleek, fashionable pair.

Kusanagi crossed the street and approached him from behind. Yukawa wasn’t moving. His eyes were fixed on the supermarket and its environs.

‘Detective Galileo!’ the detective exclaimed, hoping to get a rise out of his friend, but Yukawa’s reaction was unusually subdued. Still licking his ice cream, he looked around, his head turning in slow motion.

‘I see your nose is as keen as ever. Who says the police need bloodhounds to do their sniffing for them?’ he said, his expression unchanging.

‘What are you doing here?’ Kusanagi asked. ‘Oh, and before you say it, “I was eating ice cream” isn’t an acceptable answer.’

Yukawa chuckled. ‘I might ask you the same question, but there’s no need. The answer’s quite evident. You came looking for me. Or rather, you came here hoping to find out what I was up to.’

‘Well, now that the jig is up, you can just come out and tell me what you’re up to.’

‘I was waiting for you.’

‘Me? Yeah, right.’

‘I’m quite serious. You see, I called the lab a little while ago, and one of the grad students said you’d been there asking after me. And I hear that you dropped by last evening, too, didn’t you? So, I reasoned that if I waited here long enough, you’d show up. After all, my grad student told you I was here at Shinozaki, didn’t he?’

This was all true enough, but it didn’t answer the real

question, and Kusanagi wasn’t in the mood to let Yukawa off so easily.

‘What I want to know is: why are you here in the first place?’ he said, his voice rising a little. He was used to his physicist friend’s circumlocutions, but still they could be maddening sometimes.

‘No need to get impatient. How about some coffee? All I can offer is what’s in those vending machines over there, but it’s bound to be better than the instant stuff back at the lab.’ Yukawa stood, tossing the rest of his ice cream cone into a nearby dustbin.

With Kusanagi following he ambled over to the supermarket, where he bought two coffees out of one of the vending machines. He passed one to the detective, and then, carelessly straddling a nearby parked bicycle, he began to sip his own drink.

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