The Red Locked Room by Tetsuya Ayukawa

Author:Tetsuya Ayukawa [Ayukawa, Tetsuya]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-08T22:00:00+00:00

Time

Fuda

Time

Kokuryō

17:00

Leaves work.

17:30

Visits Kyōbashi mah-jong

18:30

Leaves, walks to Ginza

19:20

Takes cab to Ueno

19:25

Takes train from Chigasaki

19:30

Borrows money at Tyltyl

19:50

Leaves Tyltyl

20:00

Passes by Yokohama

20:00

Takes train from Ueno Station to Niigata

20:38

Arrives at Tōkyō Station

‘I arrived at twenty-past midnight at Kamimoku and, after a ten- minute walk from the station, I found an inn called Hanaya near the river. I woke the people there up and got a room. If you don’t believe me, you can check with them. But I was trying to escape from being Fukujirō Fuda, the securities broker, so I used a fake name. I stayed there for three days, but then I decided I wanted a more rural place, so I moved on to Onishimachi.’

Fuda appeared self-confident, irritatingly so. If Fuda had really taken that eight o’clock train from Ueno, he could not have killed Kokuryō.

‘Can you prove you took that train?’

‘I’m sure you’d love to hear that I can’t, but I can,’ replied Fuda sarcastically.

‘It appears there’s a shortage of eligible men these days. I was sitting opposite a lady and her eligible daughter in the train all the way from Ueno. She told me her husband was a member of the prefectural assembly and that her parents run a large apple orchard in Nagano Prefecture. It was obvious she was trying to hook her daughter up with me. She kept talking to me, and when she learned I was single, she gave me her business card. A fortune teller once told me I was a ladies’ man, and I guess he was right, ha ha!’

‘Do you still have that business card?’

‘I tore it up and threw it away when I arrived in Kamimoku. I have a woman in Tōkyō and we love each other very much, so I have no interest in some daughter of a member of a prefectural assembly. But I remember her name was Namegawa of Ryōtsu, Sado. I hope you can find her and have her confirm my story. I need to be able to walk free again. One night in a small cell is more than enough.’

He was so confident, Onitsura was inclined to believe him. He produced the lighter, which Fuda took and clicked on.

‘This is mine. Where did you find it?’

‘Lying next to the victim. Can you explain that?’

‘Actually, I lost it at the beginning of the month. Perhaps the killer stole it from me and left it at the scene of the crime to implicate me?’

Fuda had an answer for everything. Onitsura suspected that he had read the details in the newspapers while he was on the run, which would have given him time to think of an excuse. He was going to have to send someone to Sado to locate that wife of an assembly member.

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