Chapter 208: The Conference Room

Chapter 208: Chapter 208: The Conference Room

The hearing that would decide whether a stolen outline could be broadcast on national television took place in a small conference room on the eleventh floor of the Tokyo District Court. It had a whiteboard, twelve chairs, and a box of tissues. There was no public gallery, and there never had been.

Shirai had explained it on the telephone the night before, very gently, to Kuroda.

"A provisional disposition isn’t a trial," he said. "It’s decided in chambers. The judge hears both sides in a conference room, with only the parties and their lawyers present. It isn’t open to the public." A pause. "I’m sorry, Kuroda-kun. There’s no front row."

Kuroda had been quiet on the line for a long time.

"Then I’ll sit in the corridor," he said finally. "Outside the door. The other side’s lawyers have to walk past it to get in."

So at 9:20 on the morning of the twelfth of December, Kuroda Ryu sat on a plastic bench in a long grey corridor on the eleventh floor. He wore the same creased shirt he had worn to the yakitori place in August, and he had a sketchbook on his knee that he wasn’t drawing in. Morikawa Sayo sat beside him. She was a declarant, not a party, and wasn’t needed in the room unless the judge asked for her. She had brought a single blue flower in a paper cup, because the jar wouldn’t fit in her bag.

They didn’t speak. They sat side by side in the corridor and watched the lift doors at the far end.

The respondents arrived at 9:41.

There were four lawyers from a large firm in Marunouchi, in dark suits, carrying two rolling cases of files. A young associate from Studio Kurenai’s legal department carried a folder. Beside them, in a grey suit, carrying nothing at all, walked a man in his late thirties with neat hair and a pleasant, forgettable face.

Kuroda stood up.

The man in the grey suit saw him halfway down the corridor and didn’t slow down. He didn’t stop or look away. He walked past the plastic bench at exactly the same pace as the lawyers, and as he passed, he inclined his head very slightly toward Kuroda. It was polite and courteous, the nod one gives a colleague one hasn’t seen for a while.

"Kuroda-sensei," said Saito Kenji pleasantly. "Good morning."

Then he went into the conference room with the lawyers, and the door closed.

Kuroda stood in the corridor and didn’t move. Beside him, Morikawa had gone very pale. She was staring at the closed door.

"That’s him," she said, barely audible. "The café in Hakata. The two coffees." Her hands were shaking around the paper cup. "He apologized for the noise."

Kuroda sat down again slowly on the plastic bench.

"He said good morning," he said. His voice was very strange. "He looked straight at me and said good morning, as though we’d see each other at the office on Monday."

Morikawa didn’t answer. After a moment, without saying anything, she set the paper cup with its single blue flower on the bench between them.

Inside the conference room, Haruki sat at the long table between Shirai and Hirose. Mizuno sat on Shirai’s other side, very straight, turning a cup of water a quarter turn. Arai sat at the end in his grey suit, as chairman of the complainant. Across the table sat four lawyers from Marunouchi, the young associate from Kurenai, and Saito Kenji, who had been introduced as the authorized representative of Kōyō Media Planning K.K. His representative director was travelling and unavailable.

The judge was a woman in her fifties with short grey hair and reading glasses, who looked as though she hadn’t slept much. She had read everything. There were thick binders in front of her, flagged with coloured tabs, and she turned to the right page every time without looking for it.

It took three hours.

Shirai presented the access logs Nakamura had found, the two rows at 2:47 and 3:12 from Osaka, and the account that should have been closed more than a year before either of them. He presented the five declarations from the ghost team. He presented a photograph of the grey binder in its evidence sleeve, with the printed page at the back: Printed by: kagawa.t — June 9, 03:14. He presented Kagawa’s handwritten statement about a password and an afternoon two years ago, when he had watched a woman type it.

The lawyers from Marunouchi listened politely, made notes, and then explained to the judge why none of it meant anything.

The access logs proved only that an account had been used, they said, not who had used it. The binder was in the possession of five people who had been dismissed by the respondent in August and had every reason to be resentful. A printed page could be produced by anyone with access to a printer. The respondents had no record of any such page, and no knowledge of how it had come to be in a binder in a former contractor’s apartment in Fukuoka.

"In short, Your Honour," said the senior lawyer pleasantly, "the petitioners have a document of unknown origin, five disgruntled former contractors, and a theory."

The judge looked at him over her reading glasses for a long moment.

"Mr. Saito," she said. "You’re the authorized representative of Kōyō Media Planning."

"I am, Your Honour."

"The petitioners’ declarations say a man in a grey suit delivered an outline to Ms. Morikawa at a café near Hakata Station in mid-June." She turned a tab in her binder without looking for it. "Have you ever been to Hakata, Mr. Saito?"

Saito smiled pleasantly.

"Many times, Your Honour. I’m an editor. I travel for work."

"In June?"

"I couldn’t say without checking my diary. I travel a great deal."

The judge looked at him for a long time.

Then Shirai stood up, slowly, with a single sheet of paper in his hand.

"Your Honour," he said. "The petitioners respectfully ask the court to order Kōyō Media Planning’s affiliated company in Osaka to produce its original expense records for the month of June. We believe they include a claim for a return Shinkansen journey from Shin-Osaka to Hakata on the sixteenth of June, and a café receipt for two coffees. We believe the claimant was Mr. Saito." He laid the sheet on the table. "We’d be grateful if Mr. Saito could confirm, today, whether such a claim exists. It would save the court a great deal of time."

The conference room went very quiet.

Across the table, for the first time that morning, Saito Kenji’s pleasant expression didn’t change at all. It simply stopped moving, as though someone had paused it.

The senior lawyer from Marunouchi leaned toward him and whispered something.

Saito didn’t answer.

"Mr. Saito?" said the judge.

"I would need to consult my records, Your Honour," Saito said at last. His voice was exactly as pleasant as before. "I’m afraid I couldn’t say today."

The judge looked at him for a long moment over her reading glasses. Then she wrote something in her binder, in small, careful handwriting, and turned to the senior lawyer.

"The court orders the respondents’ affiliated company to produce its original expense records for June," she said. "All of them, in full, by five o’clock on the nineteenth of December. If they aren’t produced, the court will draw its own conclusions about why." She closed the binder. "We’ll reconvene on the twenty-second."

The respondents came out first, at 12:50.

The four lawyers from Marunouchi walked quickly down the corridor toward the lifts, talking in low voices, pulling their rolling cases behind them. The young associate from Kurenai hurried after them with her folder.

Saito Kenji came out last, alone.

Kuroda was standing by the plastic bench. He had been standing for three hours, Morikawa said later, and had refused to sit down again after the door closed.

This time, Saito didn’t nod. He walked down the corridor toward the lifts with his eyes fixed straight ahead and his pleasant face very carefully arranged, as though the bench and the two people beside it weren’t there.

"Saito-san," said Kuroda.

Saito stopped. He didn’t turn around.

"The rooftop fight," Kuroda said. His voice was quiet and very steady. "In Chapter one. You made me redraw it four times." He paused. "You were right every time. The fourth version is the one on my wall. It’s the best thing I’ve ever drawn."

Saito stood very still in the corridor with his back to them.

"I wanted you to know that," Kuroda said. "Whatever else is true. You were a very good editor." He took a breath. "That’s what I can’t forgive."

For a long moment, Saito didn’t move.

Then, without turning around, he walked on down the corridor to the lifts. The doors opened, and he stepped inside and turned to face the front, as people do in lifts. For the space of a second before the doors closed, Haruki, coming out of the conference room behind Shirai, saw his face.

It wasn’t pleasant anymore. It was simply tired.

The doors closed.

Morikawa picked up the paper cup with its single blue flower from the bench and held it out to Kuroda without a word. After a moment, he took it.

[Hearing (provisional disposition, in chambers): Dec 12. Respondents: Studio Kurenai, Kōyō Media Planning (rep: Saito Kenji). Ishimura Reiko: "Travelling, unavailable."]

[Court order: Original June expense records to be produced by Dec 19, 17:00. Reconvene: Dec 22.]