Chapter 183 - Name and Reality 106 {134 Solo} (321-322 Toward Crime 4)
"Now then, I'd like to hear the details regarding the perpetrators who were dispatched. You might not know this, but did you hear anything in detail beforehand about the people sent from Takigawa's side? You must have at least known their names, but what about the organizations they belonged to?"
"Yoshimura-kun. I left the details to Nakagawa, but I do recall receiving a report from Takigawa on that point, albeit a general one. I believe I only heard names from Takigawa. Even in the prior exchanges between Nakagawa and those dispatched fellows, I think they made sure not to reveal fine details to each other."
"Was that a proposal from Takigawa, or was it from Onodera-san's side? Which was it?"
Yoshimura pressed for more information.
"Takigawa told me, 'If you're going to have them hide out in your office, it's better not to know the specifics. They aren't people I have a personal relationship of trust with like Motohashi.' When I complained, saying, 'Even if you say that, they're hiding in my office, so it'll be a problem if they aren't trustworthy,' he laughed it off, saying, 'My trust with them is thin, but given their relationship with us, it's impossible for them to send someone unreliable. This is just a precaution.' At that point, I felt like 'ignorance is bliss' and didn't want him telling me unnecessary things, but I steeled myself to trust Takigawa."
Hearing the response, Nishida interjected here.
"Regarding that concealment... whose idea was it to hide them in your office and have them practice shooting in the assembly hall upstairs? To be honest, looking back even now, from an investigator's perspective, that was a quite nasty tactic."
"I see... So it really was effective in disrupting the investigation," Oshima muttered.
"Yes. A raid on the office of a powerful Diet member was impossible under the circumstances at the time, no matter how you look at it. Or rather, to be honest, I never even imagined back then that such a thing was happening..."
Nishida spoke, feeling a sense of nostalgia for how far his own thoughts had failed to reach at that time.
"First, my office is reasonably close to Kyoritsu Hospital, so it didn't take much time to go back and forth. And the probability of the police coming to search my office was remarkably low. It was the best place to hide. Additionally, it had good soundproofing so it could be used for karaoke contests, making it versatile in many ways. There was no need to go out to some deserted mountain for target practice. This was the result of various discussions between Nakagawa and myself. While I did respect the opinion of Nakagawa, who was stationed in Kitami, I made the final decision and gave my approval, so I have no intention of making excuses on that point."
It seemed the specific plan was mainly formulated by Nakagawa and ratified by Oshima. Nishida believed Oshima was telling the truth, likely recognizing that in his position, the weight of his crime wouldn't change based on whether he led the specific planning or not.
"After the crime, the perpetrators hid in your office for a while, just as they did before the incident, and then they moved to a facility in Rubeshibe that belonged to the Isaka Group. Were you involved in that decision?"
Nishida continued, but Oshima tilted his head as he answered.
"Unfortunately, my memory on that isn't clear, but I think there was some talk from Nakagawa saying he 'wanted to do that'..."
"Understood. I'll confirm it with Secretary Nakagawa later," Nishida said, cutting off that topic. Then he asked again.
"Was investigation information regarding the hospital shooting leaking to you at the time, Oshima-san?"
He asked because he suspected that the overall investigation information, including such movements, might have been leaking to Oshima's side.
"I wanted information from the police myself, but unfortunately, the Hokkaido Prefectural Police were quite strict. I clearly remember that nothing like what you're concerned about happened."
He looked Nishida straight in the eye and denied it clearly.
"I see."
Nishida was inwardly pleased that Oshima had explicitly denied this point. Nevertheless, he sought a more satisfying answer, concealing the fact that the investigators in question were themselves.
"However, toward the end of that year, pressure was applied to the Hokkaido Prefectural Police from the National Police Agency, and eventually, the investigators who were at the forefront of the investigation were unfortunately removed. There was pressure regarding this, wasn't there?"
"Since the Hokkaido Prefectural Police wouldn't budge just by working on them, I believe it was decided to apply pressure from Tokyo. However, I had no way of knowing who was at the forefront of the investigation! As I said earlier, I wasn't getting proper information."
Oshima showed some dissatisfaction, but the suspicion from back then was now exposed as fact. Hearing this, Yoshimura asked.
"Even about the fact that they were checking your fingerprints?"
"Fingerprints? That's the first I've heard of it," Oshima replied, not hiding his blunt attitude.
"Is that true?"
Yoshimura said this and then let out a clear, dissatisfied click of his tongue. His frustration toward Nishida, who hadn't resisted the leaders of the Kitami District Headquarters much back then, seemed to have resurfaced.
"Specifically, was it through the politician side, involving the Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission? Or was it through the National Police Agency Commissioner (the bureaucrat) below him?"
Nishida ignored that flow and asked where Oshima had applied the pressure.
"The Public Safety Commission Chairman at the time was Shirata, a junior of mine from Meiho (University), so while we were from different factions, it's a fact that things were easy to handle in various ways."
Needless to say, if one suppressed the Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, it was as good as suppressing the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency.
"The other party didn't grasp the actual facts, did they?"
Yoshimura pushed suspiciously.
"I didn't discuss details. They didn't ask for them either."
As usual with this kind of talk, he used a manner of speaking that seemed like a strong denial while remaining somewhat vague. While the facts were unclear, he likely had a desire not to cause trouble for others.
On the other hand, if the Oshima side didn't have a good grasp of the Hokkaido Prefectural Police's investigation information, yet Nishida and the others from the Engaru group were marginalized as a result of pressure from Tokyo, it meant they were removed at the convenience of either the Hokkaido Prefectural Police Headquarters or the Kitami District Headquarters. If information hadn't leaked, the choice to remove Nishida and the others as a result of the pressure was made entirely by their "own people."
Judging from the attitudes and words of Criminal Investigation Director Ootomo and Section Chief Kurano of the Kitami District Headquarters at the time, it was highly likely a decision by the Prefectural Police Headquarters rather than their own choice, but in any case, it was not a pleasant realization.
"Understood."
Nishida uttered a single word, feigning composure. This basically concluded the questions directly related to the murder case, but there were still a fair number of things he had to ask about the period from 1996 to the present.
"After that, Motohashi was executed quite early, in October '97. I believe the Minister of Justice in the Hashizume Cabinet at the time was from your faction, Onodera-san. Surely you didn't have any involvement in that?"
Nishida's statement was laced with irony, anticipating a response that no "explicit instructions" from Oshima existed. Throughout the interrogation so far, looking at his relationships with lawyers and other politicians, no clear instructions had been found between them. Rather, it felt as though they had clearly avoided each other while operating on tacit understandings. This phrasing came from Nishida's resignation that this time would surely be no different.
"At that time, I believe... was it Murofushi? The Minister of Justice."
After pausing for a moment, he continued.
"He was originally quite a proponent of the death penalty, so I shouldn't have said anything to him. It's not impossible that the faction as a whole—perhaps me or Umeda—might have taken some action, though I don't know specifically, and he might have been considerate knowing that, but there's no way to prove such a thing, and I don't know either."
He brushed it off with a somewhat dismissive answer.
However, if they didn't think Motohashi would ever betray them back then, it was a fact that the prosecution couldn't deny the possibility that they didn't recognize speeding up the execution as an urgent matter.
"Recognizing that he was a death penalty proponent, is it possible that Prime Minister Hashizume at the time, who belonged to the same faction, went out of his way to appoint him as Minister of Justice as a favor?"
Yoshimura touched upon the possibility that it was a "contribution" by Prime Minister Hashizume. To this, Oshima replied.
"It's true Hashizume was in the same faction, but despite how he looks, he has a very stubborn side. Even if I was a senior member of the Diet to him, he's not the type of person to do something like that out of some vague consideration. He doesn't like that sort of thing. That much I can say."
Perhaps having several instances in mind, he showed a gesture that it was clearly impossible. On this matter, Nishida and Yoshimura felt that, contrary to their expectations, Oshima was likely telling the truth regarding "consideration" by the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice from the same faction.
But immediately after, Oshima seemed to think of something.
"Now that I think of it..."
"Now that you think of it, what?" Nishida asked again.
"In the cabinet reshuffle where Murofushi became Minister of Justice, Hashizume appointed Saino—who had various troubles in the Rodman (actually Sato Takayuki of the Lockheed Incident) case and was from the same Hokkaido constituency as me—as the Director-General of the Management and Coordination Agency (which became the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2001 after merging with the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and the Ministry of Home Affairs). He was heavily criticized by the media and public opinion for that. Since the execution was right after that, I honestly thought they might have carried it out to aim for a recovery in approval ratings or as a distraction... For us, to put it bluntly, it was convenient, so I didn't pry into it with him personally, but I did think such things..."
Oshima reminisced slowly, as if reaching back for memories from a while ago.
"Regarding that, some of us at the time thought that because the approval ratings had plummeted and dark clouds hung over the cabinet's future, they might have tried to carry out the execution before things got worse. Of course, that was based on the assumption that there was consideration for you."
Nishida mentioned the hypothesis he had discussed with Takeshita at the time.
"As I said before, I don't know how much Murofushi suspected, but since Saino ended up resigning immediately anyway, I don't think they had that much of a sense of crisis. At least, that's for certain."
Oshima flatly denied that point. In any case, it was obvious that the conclusion remained the same—Oshima persisted in claiming he wasn't involved in the swift execution—and the two stopped questioning him on this point.
"Then, regarding the aftermath, did you recognize the series of incidents as having ended in October '97 when Motohashi was executed?"
When Yoshimura asked for his impressions after the execution was carried out, Oshima spoke calmly.
"The hospital incident still remained, so I didn't have that feeling, but I think it's true I felt quite relieved."
He spoke dispassionately and unclasped his hands, which had been lightly folded on the desk.
"Now, this is about a story from over a year ago. When the body of a man named Kagami was found in the mountains and it was discovered that he was involved in the hospital shooting, I believe there were various reports, though it wasn't a massive scale. Internal information might have reached you from the police side, but did you try to take any action or have any thoughts on it? We haven't heard anything about anything particular happening on your end."
As soon as Nishida finished his question, Oshima explained.
"Nakagawa learned of that through the news first and contacted me. Following that, when I inquired with the police, I learned he was a member of the Shiun Association, a secondary organization of the Aoi. I then asked Takigawa again if there was any worry about the accomplices from back then being exposed, but he only said, 'The relationship is too distant from you, so there's no problem, don't worry about it.' There was no point in pressing him further, so I had no choice but to believe those words."
It seemed he had indeed grasped the information.
At this point, there was a possibility that Takigawa's side also recognized that the remaining perpetrator was Ohara, an executive belonging to the Sunpu Group and the senior brother of Higashidate. However, they likely didn't have the slightest clue that the junior brother, Higashidate, had become the perpetrator as a scapegoat for Ohara.
"In connection with that, around June of this year, you're aware there was a bombing at a yakuza office in Tokyo—specifically, the Shiun Association's office, right?"
Nishida expanded the questioning based on that story.
"Yeah, I know."
"Regarding that bombing, surely you didn't instruct the Aoi-ikka side to do it to silence them, Onodera-san? After all, if the perpetrators and the involved organizations are wiped out, it would be a sufficient merit for you, so it shouldn't be an impossible story."
This time, Yoshimura interrogated Oshima while staring at him intently.