Chapter 50 - Light and Shadow 29 (157–161: Deciphering the Code)
Then, he took out the copies of the three letters and lined them up on the desk. The book could not possibly be published. Yet he had sent a letter to Motohashi asking him to decide on a book title, and then wrote a letter saying it had been decided. All within a few days, and despite it being something that could have been settled during a meeting.
"There's no doubt the first two letters also have some meaning..."
Even as he said it, nothing came to mind immediately. However, what felt strangely bothersome was that both titles were in English. Why English? THE CROSS, which was "supposedly" rejected, was likely the same as the word 'cross' in the subtitle, but was there a point in saying it in English? That was what stuck.
"Speaking of CROSS, it also had the meanings of verbs like to intersect or to traverse..."
As Takeshita muttered this, Kurosu called out:
"Senior Staff, did you call me for something?"
"No, I didn't," he snapped at his junior, who had mistaken his name being called, and concentrated on his thoughts.
"Yoshimura! JAYWALK meant to ignore a signal or something like that, right?"
Suddenly questioned, Yoshimura looked like a pigeon that had been hit by a pea-shooter (T/N: idiom meaning to be blankly surprised), but he answered:
"Eh, ah... Ye-yes. That's right." Takeshita didn't even offer a word of thanks.
"But that alone doesn't tell me anything. I guess I'll go browse a detailed dictionary at the bookstore... Section Chief! I'm going to the bookstore for a bit." He said abruptly to Sawai, and before he could finish hearing the words of permission, he was putting on his suit jacket to head to the bookstore.
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While examining English-Japanese dictionaries at the bookstore, he found that CROSS, in addition to the noun meanings of "cross, crucifix, sign of the cross, passion (from Christ being crucified on the cross), crossbreed," also had meanings like "to cross, to traverse, to make the sign of the cross, to crossbreed (including transitive and intransitive verbs)," as he had known.
Certainly, in the sense of 'passion' (suffering), it was a title that felt right for a book by Motohashi, who at the time was "maintaining the appearance" of claiming innocence. Especially since the definite article THE was deliberately attached, according to the dictionary, it could be seen as a play on the (Passion of Christ). Of course, the book was never meant to be published...
In contrast, when he looked up the meaning of JAYWALK, it mostly meant "to ignore a signal, to break traffic rules," as Yoshimura had said, but some dictionaries also listed the meaning "to cross diagonally." He thought this meant one of the specific forms of "breaking traffic rules," but it wasn't a bad thing that it was described in detail.
However, since the title was THE JAYWALKING, it was likely the gerund of JAYWALK with a definite article, but unlike CROSS, there seemed to be no significance in the meaning "becoming different" by the addition of the definite article.
Ultimately, he purchased the most detailed and expensive dictionary just in case and returned to the station, continuing to think while "traveling back and forth" over the same pages many times. While doing so, the comment Oba had made to Takeshita the other day began to influence his thoughts. That only the third letter was written in a way that looked like it was written on manuscript paper rather than stationery.
"Both CROSS and JAYWALK share the common point of 'traversing.' And there's a strange characteristic in the way the third letter was written, which must have influenced the sudden confession."
Takeshita repeated this like a delirium, and began to introduce a "horizontal" perspective (Author's Note: Although this site is written horizontally, the layout is conscious of squares, so I think it can be read without much discomfort) to the vertically written stationery.
※※※※※※※ 3rd Letter: Postmarked Sept 29th, Arrived at Detention Center same day, Delivered to Motohashi on the 30th
Motohashi-san,
The recent verdict this time was very disappointing, not only for you but for me as well.
As time passes from now, it might be accepted... no, there is no way it can be accepted.
To be honest, I am stunned by the fact that I can no longer meet you.
Even so, we have not raised the white flag yet, and the means of a special appeal still remains.
However, in the judgment of the lawyers, they said there is no possibility of it being overturned with that.
Certainly, if what you did is true, it is unforgivable both legally and socially.
However, during this one month I have been with you, there has been nothing that made me feel you are a heinous criminal.
Until now, at the point of being a suspect, I would have had nothing but hatred, just like everyone else.
Only this time was different. The frustration of not being able to explain that specific reason in words.
And what that is, it seems I can no longer even find out.
It is a shame that our previous meeting was the last time I saw your face, but only that smile at that time has become my salvation. Anyway, please make sure you never fall into self-despair until the very end. Well then, I will stop here for now, but if there is an opportunity to send a letter, I will write again.
Shiino Satoshi
※※※※※※※ 2nd Letter: Postmarked Sept 8th, Arrived at Detention Center same day, Delivered to Motohashi on the 9th
Motohashi-san,
The result of the final appeal is finally coming out. I hope we can somehow avoid the death sentence and meet again with smiles. When we met yesterday, I heard your preference for the book title.
You said you wanted it to be "THE JAYWALKING: Self-Reflection Starting Now and the False Charges I Wore," so I have obtained permission from the publisher and will decide on that.
Well then,
Shiino Satoshi
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The fact that he ultimately chose JAYWALK would simply mean that meaning would emerge there. The meaning "diagonal crossing" might be the key. And the consciousness of the squares would also be involved. Having come this far, Takeshita began to look at the characters on the third stationery diagonally rather than vertically (Author's Note: From a mobile phone or smartphone, the trick of the code included in this letter might be difficult to understand. Please check on a computer or a tablet with a large screen).
First, since the beginning of the first line is indented by one square, reading diagonally, the first is nothing to read, then in order "re," "gen," "mo," "shi"... This doesn't make sense. Since the beginning of the line is blank, he tries from the head of the second line, "ko." "Ko," "jiki," "de," "go"... This also doesn't make sense. He tries from the last line. "I," "kai," "ma," "no"... He also considers the movement from bottom to top diagonally, but this also doesn't make sense at all. This time he considers the flow of going up diagonally from bottom to top, but whether from the first line or the last line, or from the end of the line, he similarly doesn't understand the meaning.
"Is this way of thinking no good after all..."
Just as he was about to give up, his eyes suddenly went to the subtitle after the title.
In both the rejected "THE CROSS—The Cross Borne from Birth and the False Accusation Forced Upon Me" and the adopted "THE JAYWALKING: Self-Reflection Starting Now and the False Charges I Wore," subtitles were attached, but both "from birth" and "starting now" used the case-marking particles "yori" and "kara," which both represent a starting point. With a flash of inspiration, Takeshita looked at the third letter again and focused on the fact that the word 'now' (ima) was used three times along with the phrase "this time" (konkai).
"What if I try reading diagonally from the word 'now'..."
Naturally, he looks from the 'now' in the first line. To go up, he would immediately hit the beginning of the line, so he tried the way of reading toward the bottom.
"'Ima' (Now), 'ga' (is), 'ji' (self), 'haku' (confession)...!?"
Takeshita, having suddenly hit the tip of a "gold vein," flinched for a moment. But he immediately resumed the "excavation work."
"'No' (of), 'ta' (the), 'i' (ti-), 'mi' (-ming), 'n' (-n-), 'gu' (-g), 'ki' (de-), 'me' (-ci-), 'te' (-de), 'ku' (it), 're' (please)."
When Takeshita finished reading to the end, he lightly looked up to the heavens and said:
"As I thought, this letter was an instruction to incite Motohashi to confess..." and took a deep breath.
What Takeshita read by traversing and continuing character by character from the word "now" in the vertically written text toward the horizontal diagonal-down direction while being conscious of the squares was "Ima ga jihaku no taimingu kimete kure." "Ima" is "kon" in the text (konkai), but alone it is "ima"; "i" is "i"; "mi" is "mada" (imada) in the flow of the text, but alone it can also be read as "mi." "Gu" can just be "gu." In other words, it means "Now is the timing for confession, please decide." The probability of this happening by chance is virtually non-existent. It is clearly a text hidden intentionally. He immediately called out to Sawai and Nishida and began explaining the trick.
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"This is brilliant! You finally did it! You solved it well!"
Sawai praised him unreservedly. Nishida similarly appreciated his hard work. After all, it was a task Takeshita had been working on since he was in Osaka. Having seen him struggling with it, he rejoiced as if it were his own matter. However, Takeshita himself felt a sense of accomplishment, but now had almost no joy.
"Certainly, this letter must have reflected the intentions of Shiino—or rather, the mastermind behind him—who felt the progress of the investigation situation, and I believe it undoubtedly prompted Motohashi's confession. However, that's all we've found out, and I still have no idea how to link their involvement to the crime. We're in a situation where there's not much time left, and to be honest, it's quite tough. I was expecting more specific meanings or descriptions..."
Having said that much, Takeshita lightly lost his words. Both Nishida and Sawai clearly understood at this time that Takeshita had bet more than they imagined on deciphering this letter.
"The fact that this decipherment only had the effect of backing up what was inferred from circumstantial evidence is just..."
Takeshita finally managed to continue his words, but Sawai, seeing how clearly disappointed Takeshita was, said:
"It's true that the results you were hoping for didn't come out, and I think you have your own thoughts. But isn't it good just that what was bothering you has become clear! It's better than staying fuzzy like this... It's now almost clear that he confessed because he was instructed by this letter. Well, that's... it can't be helped that various things ahead are tough..."
He likely intended to encourage him at first, but in the end, he just put the current situation into words. Nishida realized here that the impression he'd gotten from Sawai recently—that he'd given up on uncovering the truth—was perhaps because such a recognition had emerged unconsciously.
"For now, we have no choice but to throw this matter at Motohashi during the interrogation, right?"
"Yeah... But the opponent is Motohashi. He's not the type of guy who would get shaken and start blabbing just because we thrust this at him..." Nishida's talk didn't even seem to be a comfort to Takeshita.
"The outer moat is being filled, but without a weapon to charge into the main keep... Charging in recklessly will only lose our soldiers." Sawai expressed the investigation by comparing it to a siege, but in fact, since the opponent was a "strong enemy," they had to be cautious. To go boldly, a "decisive" weapon was necessary.
"Can't we haul Shiino in and make him spit something out?" Kurosu, who had been listening intently, spoke up.
"Idiot, the opponent is a politician's confidant! It's impossible to pull him in with this level of grounds. He's clearly 'black' (guilty), but it's difficult unless we can prove it properly. If we move poorly, the powerful people will strike a fatal first blow!" Perhaps the blood rushed to his head at Kurosu's insensitive remark; it was a way of speaking that sounded like a reprimand, unusual for the mild-mannered Section Chief.
"For now, that's the end of the report, but I feel like some background is needed as a premise, so I want to check a few things just in case. I'm going to call the Osaka Prefectural Police for a bit."
As soon as the exchange between Sawai and Kurosu ended, Takeshita said this and began making a call to the Prefectural Police.
Takeshita first contacted Sugai, the Section Chief of Investigation Cooperation at the Osaka Prefectural Police, and told him he wanted to get in touch with Yoshise of Investigation Division 4. He got Yoshise's phone number, and when he called:
"Oh, Takeshita-kun! I saw you clearly on TV during the escort the other day!" he was greeted in the same tone as before.
"Is that so. I wonder if it was good or bad for me to stand out... Well, that doesn't matter, I have a few things I'd like to ask..."
"What is it? You have a gloomy voice."
"It's about Motohashi; did he have a certain amount of knowledge or could he speak English to some extent? I have a memory of hearing something about him going to the Philippines when he was young."
"Ah, that's right. He went to the Philippines and was involved in smuggling handguns and such."
"Which means Motohashi is indeed proficient in English? It doesn't seem like he would use Tagalog..."
"To be honest, I don't know if he's proficient, but as you guessed, he probably interacted with the local brokers in English. Many of our investigators have heard rumors that he can speak it quite well, though he's not seen using English much within Japan."
Takeshita thought he should have said so last time, but since the conversation hadn't been about questioning his knowledge of English, there was no point in complaining now. However, one doubt arose here, so he threw it at him.
"What's the deal with Motohashi, who was involved in handgun smuggling in the Philippines in his youth, using a Tokarev? Even now, Tokarevs have started coming in a bit, mainly in Hokkaido, but there were almost none back then, right?"
"You've got a good eye! This is just my speculation, but maybe it was because using the Philippine-style Colts or revolvers he was familiar with would make it easy for people from the Aoi-ikka to be suspected—in other words, easy to trace? Apparently, at the time, the smuggling route for Tokarevs from China was more common than from the Soviet Union. Well, not many should have been coming in, though. Nowadays, they even come in directly through the Russian route to your local Hokkaido."
I see. As Yoshise said, with handguns that frequently came in through the Philippine route, it was possible—even if only a slim chance—that he would emerge on the investigative line as an Aoi-ikka yakuza during a killing, and that could have caused trouble for the Aoi-ikka itself. If there was a pretext to avoid that, it was a convincing answer.
"I see. That's certainly possible. Also, there's one more thing I want to ask. It's difficult to explain over the phone, and I think Section Chief Yoshise would find it hard to understand, so I'll send an explanation by fax now; I'd like to hear your thoughts on this too. Please tell me your fax number."
Takeshita got the fax number from Yoshise and had Yoshimura send a "document of explanation" about the other meaning hidden in Shiino's letter, which was written almost like a scribble on a piece of copy paper, along with a copy of Shiino's letter.
"Did it get there?"
"Yeah, I'm looking at it now..." Yoshise seemed to be looking at the document after receiving the fax. After a while, he said:
"Regarding this, I think Taka-san would be more knowledgeable than me..." he muttered.
"We have a super-veteran investigator who's been in the Marubou (T/N: Organized Crime Department) for 35 years; I think that person might be able to give some advice. I'll call from here, so it shouldn't take long, just wait a bit!" he continued.
After waiting for about 30 minutes, a call came from Yoshise.
"Sorry to keep you waiting! I asked the old man Takahashi, the Taka-san I mentioned earlier, and he said he has an idea, so the two of you talk now. Here, I'm switching over."
Then, a new person identified himself in a voice that sounded clearly elderly.
"Hello? I'm the one called Takahashi..."
"Thank you for your help while you're busy. I'm Takeshita, and you have an idea?"
"Yeah. I certainly do. Though, it's been quite a while since I heard that there's this kind of code..." he began to tell Takeshita.
"You've heard of it?"
"That's right. I've never seen it directly. I'm sorry, I've only heard about it..."
"No, that's fine, but please tell me what you've learned about this method."
Takeshita asked, and Takahashi began to explain in a low voice.
"It's been relaxed a bit now, but you know that in the old days, once a yakuza was incarcerated, it was a long time before meetings were permitted, right?"
As Takahashi said, in the case of yakuza, the detention centers and prisons are wary of order being disrupted, so meeting permits are not easily granted. Takeshita had also heard that it was even stricter a generation ago.
"Yes."
"When that happens, for example, if an executive is incarcerated and there's a serious matter they want to hear an opinion on urgently that they don't want the police to know about, they have to interact by letter. Of course, there's also the method of using the connections of people incarcerated at the same time who don't seem directly related to yakuza, and contacting them through their visitors. However, that takes time and carries the risk of becoming a game of telephone, and there's also the possibility of information leaking halfway. That's a very bad thing, so they shouldn't take that method, right? There's also the option of going through a lawyer, but while prison officers don't stand in during meetings when a lawyer is undertaking a trial, they do stand in during other mere meetings, so they can't talk easily. Furthermore, they can't easily ask a lawyer to be a messenger for a 'bad' matter, right? Even if it's the group's advisor lawyer. So they use letters to interact directly with the other party, even though they pass through censorship. However, since the contents are looked at closely, they can't write what they want to convey as it is. Naturally, they need to convey the true meaning without being noticed by others. That said, if they write a text that makes no sense when read normally and straight, they'll be telling them it's a code. At that time, I heard quite a while ago that a method is sometimes taken where, as in what you sent me, another meaning emerges when you trace a normal vertically written text horizontally or diagonally. However, even back then, it was certainly a special method used only among executives for quite important matters. I haven't seen it directly either. I've only heard about it from a guy who was an executive of the Aoi-ikka. In that sense, it wouldn't be strange if Motohashi, who had been favored by the executive class since he was young, had knowledge of this kind of method. Regarding the decryption method, there are cases where it's decided before they're caught or incarcerated, and cases where only the way of reading is conveyed after they're caught. In those cases, they use a letter with a hint that the other party would notice but other people wouldn't, or they have the lawyer convey a hint for the reading while making sure the lawyer doesn't notice. Furthermore, there's the possibility of a curveball where they write a letter instructing a new way of reading using a way of reading decided in advance. In this case, I don't know if there was a rule decided in advance, but there's no doubt the choice of the title in the several exchanges of letters is related to the instruction for decryption. If they did it without any prior arrangement, it could be said to be a quite sophisticated pattern of interaction."
If one took Takahashi's statement as it was, it was a method one wouldn't often encounter, but it could be seen that the method Takeshita discovered was recognized to some extent among high-level yakuza. In this case, the circumstance that information could only be transmitted by letter—since he had become a finalized death row inmate and was in a state of disownment where he couldn't get cooperation from Motohashi's family—made it not strange even if that special method was adopted. And the "premise" of the two people—Shiino, who had a history of working in Washington, and Motohashi, who had a history of activity in the Philippines for several years—both having a certain amount of knowledge of English, coupled with the unnatural English that appeared in the titles of the books that were never meant to be published, gave Takeshita conviction.
"I see. So it's not strange for Motohashi to have knowledge of such a method. It was a help to confirm it. Thank you very much!"
Takeshita's voice was more buoyant than before, meaning he was satisfied that he'd obtained corroboration for the background, though he'd had confidence from the moment he deciphered it. It was merely that his sense of accomplishment in his reasoning was fulfilled, not joy in the sense of an investigative achievement... After finishing his greetings to Yoshise, he said to Sawai and Nishida:
"I think there's no doubt after all," and explained the content of the conversation.
"The problem is whether Shiino, who was the sender, had that knowledge..."
To Sawai's doubt, Takeshita answered:
"There is that problem, but if he goes through the Hakozaki Faction, it doesn't seem very strange even if Shiino was given knowledge about such a method by the Aoi-ikka."
"Hmm, indeed it's not unnatural..." Sawai nodded several times and stopped interjecting further.