Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino

That makes sense, I guess. It would be strange for you to let yourself into the house just because you were worried about him. That’s how they must’ve figured it out. They didn’t say a word about it to me, you know.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘I think they were pretending not to know so they could observe how I acted. They must suspect me, after all.’
    ‘What?’ Hiromi looked up at her teacher. ‘You mean, you’re a suspect?’
    ‘Well, sure. If you think about it, I have a motive. My husband betrayed me.’
    Right again
. But Hiromi hadn’t suspected Ayane at all. For one, she had been in Sapporo when Yoshitaka was murdered. That, and she had believed it when Yoshitaka told her that everything was going smoothly.
Maybe I was being stupid again.
    ‘Not that I mind. They can suspect me all they want.’ Ayane pulled her bag closer to her and fished out a handkerchief, daubing with it beneath her eyes. ‘All I want to know is what happened. Why that had to happen to him … Hiromi, are you sure you have no idea who could’ve done it? When was the last time you saw him?’
    She didn’t want to answer the question, but lying didn’t seem like an option. ‘Yesterday morning. We had coffee together. The detectives asked me all about it, but all I couldtell them was that I didn’t notice anything unusual at the time. Not about the house, or … Mr Mashiba.’
    ‘Right,’ Ayane said, tilting her head in thought for a moment before looking at Hiromi. ‘You haven’t kept anything a secret from the detectives, have you? You told them everything, right?’
    ‘I think so.’
    ‘Well, okay then. But if you remember anything that you might’ve forgotten, you should tell them as soon as you can. They might suspect you, too, you know.’
    ‘I think they already do suspect me. I’m the only one who saw him over the weekend.’
    ‘That’s true. I suppose that is where they would start looking.’
    ‘Should I tell them about this, too? That we met here tonight?’
    Ayane nodded, putting a hand to her forehead. ‘I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. I certainly don’t care. And if you tried to hide it, they might take it the wrong way.’
    ‘Okay.’
    Ayane’s lips softened into a smile. ‘It’s funny, don’t you think? Here we are, the woman abandoned and her husband’s lover, in the same room, talking. And instead of being at each other’s throats, we’re at our wits’ end. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t matter anymore, now that he’s dead.’
    Hiromi didn’t have an answer for that, though she realized that she felt the same. She only knew that ifYoshitaka were to spring back to life, she wouldn’t care about her teacher’s anger. She understood instinctively that her own loss right then was even greater than Ayane’s, just as she knew that this was the last thing she could tell anyone.

EIGHT
    Ayane Mashiba’s parents lived in a tidy, organized residential quarter of Sapporo, and their house was a squat, square three-storey structure. The ground floor was a garage, but was treated as a basement for zoning purposes, with two regular storeys above it. A stairway led up to the front entrance on the second storey.
    ‘There are lots of houses like this around here,’ Ayane’s father, Kazuhiro Mita, explained, putting out some rice crackers for his guests. ‘We get a lot of snow in the winter, so the front door has to be a way off the ground.’
    Kusanagi nodded.
It’s a different world up here
. He reached for the steaming cup of tea that Ayane’s mother, Tokiko, had just brought. She sat down next to her husband, the empty tea tray resting on her lap.
    ‘We were very surprised to hear the news about Mr Mashiba. We didn’t know what to make of it when they said it wasn’t an accident or an illness, but a policeinvestigation was the last thing we expected.’ Kazuhiro’s speckled white eyebrows formed little inverted Vs above his eyes.
    ‘It’s not been officially ruled a homicide