Six Four (75 page)

‘Thank you,’ she said.

Her voice was a whisper. Her expression had darkened, and it was clear that she was crestfallen, but it hadn’t broken her poise. She was still sitting straight. It wasn’t that she’d been prepared, or that she was trying to bear it, even that she was fighting the truth – none of that applied. None of the intensity with which
she’d insisted the caller had been Ayumi came through in her reaction. Her eyes were on Mikami’s chest. But they weren’t desolate. They’d found serenity. That was how it looked to Mikami.

Because she was still supported
, Mikami thought. By a faith that was too strong to come apart, even without the calls.

I just wonder . . . whether Ayumi just needs somebody else. Someone other than us.

Minako’s words, muttered in the dark of their bedroom.

Someone has to be out there. Someone ready to accept Ayumi as she is, who won’t try to change her one way or another. Someone who’ll tell her she’s perfect, who’ll stand silently by her side and protect her. That’s where she belongs. She’ll be free to be herself, do what she wants.

He’d thought Minako had given up. He’d thought she’d become tired of waiting, of turning it over in her mind. But now he knew. She’d been listing the conditions for Ayumi’s survival.

Ayumi had left with hardly any money. She couldn’t talk to anyone. More than anything, she’d been terrified that people might see her, laugh at her. She wouldn’t have survived without someone to extend a hand and rescue her. She wouldn’t have survived without someone to be there by her side. Someone who would give her a place to stay, someone who would feed her and who wouldn’t ask her name or try to find her parents, someone who wouldn’t report her to the council or the police, someone who would sit patiently by and wait for her to emerge from her shell – that someone
needed
to exist for Ayumi to breathe, to listen to her heartbeat, to gaze out at the world. That was what Minako had decided.

So she had let go.
It’s enough that she’s alive. She doesn’t have to be our daughter.
That was what Minako had told herself in the dark.

Not here, not with us. That’s why she left.

Mikami’s eyes began to close.

It felt like a wave lapping sand from his feet. Minako had never
given up. Nor had she ever looked away from the truth. She’d looked death in the face and searched for the conditions necessary for their daughter’s survival; and she’d come up with the idea of an inviolable ‘someone’ to meet those conditions. In her heart she’d built a world in which Ayumi
couldn’t
die. Even though doing so had meant giving up her role as the girl’s mother.

And what have I been doing?

Mikami had been hiding. He’d accepted the horrific reality thrust before him. He’d failed to nurture the unshakable faith of a parent, choosing instead to hold on to pragmatism, his experience as a detective.

The calls weren’t from Ayumi.

He’d suspected it all along, but he’d pretended otherwise. Minako had been fighting to believe. She’d searched for reasons to differentiate the calls from the others, even as Mikami had looked the other way. Afraid of turning up the opposite result, he’d consigned them to the back of his mind. Earlier that day, when he’d finally had to accept the reality he’d feared all along, he’d done so with resignation.
It hadn’t been Ayumi, after all . . .
He’d been forced into a corner. He’d started listing the conditions for her death.

He had, like Minako, focused on the conditions for her survival. He’d even considered the existence of that ‘someone’. But he’d shut the idea from his thoughts, unwilling to believe a person so genuinely good-natured could exist, deciding only a criminal would take her in. Too painful to consider, he’d driven the world in which Ayumi was still alive out of his head. For his own peace of mind, he’d stopped thinking about survival and focused only on death.

He’d been getting prepared. Was that it? He’d given up the belief that his daughter was still alive.

His hand drifted to his left ear. What had happened to the dizziness? After so many attacks, where had they gone? Had they gone because he’d given up? Because he’d stopped trying to hide.
He’d accepted reality . . . had that ended the disconnect between his heart and his brain?

There was his appearance, too. He’d completely forgotten about it, even though it was inseparable from Ayumi herself. He’d felt nothing at Goatee and Slick’s jeering, when they’d called him Gargoyle. All those reporters had burst into laughter. Even then, his feelings hadn’t responded. He hadn’t thought of Ayumi.

Had the bond been broken between them? Had he severed it himself?

Papa, Papa! Hey, Papa . . .!

Absurd. He hadn’t given up on her. How could he do such a thing?

He wanted to see her again. From the bottom of his heart, he wanted to see her again. He hoped she was still alive. He needed her to be alive. He
knew
she was still alive. She would come home soon. She was just getting ready. Yes . . . she would be back, with the ‘someone’ by her side.

‘Honey, you . . .’

Mikami’s hands had come up to cover his face. His teeth were clenched tight. He was pressing down on his eyes, painfully hard, desperate to keep the tears at bay.

He felt a hand on his cheek.

He was supposed to have been the one to reach out. He was supposed to have touched her cheek, thumbed away the line of her tears, repeated those words from another age.

Are you okay?

‘We’ll get through this. She’s doing fine, I’m sure of it.’

She was rubbing his wrists.

It’s you.
Minako was his ‘somebody’. He’d already known it. He’d known it since the beginning. He’d pretended not to notice. Then, as he maintained the pretence, he’d actually stopped noticing. He’d been a fool. He’d been mistaken. He knew every sordid detail of his work, but what kind of a life was that if you didn’t even notice your wife?

He would believe in it, too, the world Minako had created. The world in which that ‘someone’ existed. The world in which Ayumi was alive and well.

‘You’re exhausted. Why don’t you lie down for a bit?’

Her hand came to rest on his forehead, as though checking for a temperature. He had the vague memory of his mother doing the same. He felt fiercely self-conscious. He rubbed his fingers over his eyes to extinguish the tears, then got to his feet.

‘They’ll need watering . . .’

‘Sorry?’

‘The rosemary.’

‘The Christmas rose?’

‘Right, those . . .’

‘Now?’

‘I mean . . . tomorrow, the day after. We should water them every day.’

‘You think so? It is winter.’

‘Yeah, we should. They’re alive, after all.’

‘Well, I suppose.’

‘Why don’t you buy a few more flowers – it’ll liven the place up a little.’

‘Listen to you!’ Minako laughed, spurring him on.

‘When work eases, we can go buy some from Mochizuki. You know him, right? Mochizuki?’

‘Yes I think so – he retired, grows flowers now?’

‘It’s impressive. He’s got these huge greenhouses, we could get some of those . . .’ The name of the flowers refused to surface. ‘Anyway, we should go and buy some. We can get some you like the look of.’

The conversation ending, Mikami looked at his watch. It was just after half past eight. The press conference would have finished by now.

‘I have to make a call.’

‘Is anything wrong?’

He looked her in the face. She was frowning, looking concerned.

Not yet, that’s still to come
, he thought. He looked her in the eyes.

‘No, nothing’s wrong. Never has been, not really,’ he said.

He picked up the phone in the living room and dialled Media Relations. He felt clearer, almost cheerful.

‘Media Relations.’

It was Suwa.

‘Is the press director in?’

‘Nice, sir. You’re not still awake, are you?’

‘How was the seven o’clock conference?’

‘Terrible. The press were relentless, kept insisting we give them Mesaki’s address.’

‘That’s not our remit. What about Ochiai? How’s he doing?’

‘He’s full of beans. And we know why. It’s Mikumo . . . Mikumo!’

Stop saying that!
Mikumo sounded genuinely angry in the background. Mikami smiled. He left a few instructions then ended the call.

He pressed some more digits. Koichiro Hiyoshi’s home number. When his mother picked up, Mikami asked if she would take the phone to the first floor, as she had the last time. From then on, time seemed to expand. Mikami grew wary of falling asleep.

Do a good deed, and it’ll find its way back.

No, Dad. That’s not why I’m . . .

Minako, tending to the flowers with a watering can. The clenched hands are open. Reds, yellows, blues. The area’s in shadow; a dazzling ray of light shines on the flowers alone.

The phone’s ringing . . .

Don’t worry, I’ll get it. It’s fine, I’ll get it . . .

Mikami started. He could hear a shuffling. Someone taking the phone into the room.

‘It’s Mikami. I’m just going to get straight to it, okay?’

‘. . .’

‘Hiyoshi, we got the kidnapper. Shoko’s murderer.’

‘. . .’

‘It’s big news, right? It won’t be in the press for a while, but we’ve got the bastard. I saw his face. So did a guy just like you, called Morita. And this guy called Shiratori . . . you’d laugh to see the man’s bulk after hearing that name. All of us had a good long look at the bastard’s face.’

‘. . .’

‘Amamiya did, too. After fourteen years . . . he finally got to see the kidnapper’s face. I think he’s a lot calmer now. Grateful, too, to all the people who worked with him, all that time ago.’

‘. . .’

‘Hiyoshi, I hope you’re listening to this. I guess you’re tired. I am, too. Just hold on for another ten minutes. I’m going for a new record . . . thirty-nine hours without sleep. Thought I’d make a go of breaking the record I made at twenty-five.’

‘. . .’

‘Anyway, I’m going to put in a call every now and again. You’ve got the time, right? I have, too. My nights are free now I’ve been booted from detective work.’

The week hurtled by.

The press conferences were pulled back to twice a day. The majority of those still showing up were local, friendly faces, although any semblance of like-mindedness had all but faded away. Akikawa was back to his usual self. The others, too, had regained their aggressive edge and had taken to bulldozing their way into Media Relations after every announcement.

‘You’ve got them in hiding, admit it. It’s ridiculous . . . we’ve tried every trick in the book and we still can’t track them down.’

‘You can’t blame us for your ineptitude.’

‘Just give us a little more, on the girl’s family. That was part of the coverage agreement. You have an obligation to let us in on the whole picture.’

‘The agreement’s no longer in effect. I can’t hand out confidential case information.’

The Mesaki family were renting a house in a town in the north of the prefecture. Mesaki had brought someone in to run the sports business and had decided to sell their old house. No longer in police custody, his official status was now ‘under observation’. After days of being questioned as the victim, he had revealed nothing that could be used against him. The only change was that the detectives had taken to calling him ‘the honest man’; this was partly due to the first character in his name, meaning ‘truth’, but mostly due to the detectives’ frustration with the way he always said exactly the right thing.

They’d held police ‘line-ups’ using recordings of his voice. Among those called in were the owners of the nine businesses where Amamiya had used the phone, together with people who had worked there; the detectives had also called in employees from Amamiya’s pickle business, including Motoko Yoshida. The latter was now a patient in a closed psychiatric ward; the head warden had refused to let her leave and she hadn’t been able to attend. A few of the remaining ‘witnesses’ had also failed to show, so that in the end only seven people listened to the recordings. Five agreed that the voice was similar; of these, three were convinced it was the same man. Out of the remaining two, one claimed not to remember, while the other said the voice wasn’t the same. It was a result, but only a tiny part of the evidence they would need to bury Mesaki, as Matsuoka had said. They had nothing else from fourteen years ago that could help narrow the perpetrator down to Mesaki. It was going to take a while before ‘the honest man’ could be brought before a court of law.

‘Would you prefer we let the tabloids and freelancers in, too?’

This time, the reporters had got hold of Suwa.

‘You keep going on about the club, acting like it’s an inalienable right. How about we hold another conference and give
all of you
the same information?
Ready, set, go!
You all go out and do your thing. If the tabloids beat you to it, you can think of it as motivation to improve on your reporting skills.’

‘Right, hilarious. We’ve been helping you with information, too. You’re making out like we’re the bad guys, but this only started because of the way your organization likes to treat small fry like us. The police have always treated us as an agency for propaganda, refused to dole out any intelligence worthy of the name – my predecessors had to fight long and hard, waging their battles on the front lines and in government offices. The ‘inalienable rights’ that you’re mocking? They’re the result.’

‘That’s nothing
you
should be proud about. Maybe your predecessors did all that, but I’m talking about the here and now. You
pester us for information, always more information, even as you sit in the Press Room with your feet up. That’s not so hard to do.’

Suwa had matured. He no longer worried about upsetting the reporters. His tendencies towards calculation and brown-nosing were more subdued, and he’d developed a sharper edge.