The Silent Dead

 

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Table of Contents

About the Author and Translator

Copyright Page

 

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Cast of characters

TMPD,
Unit 10:

Reiko Himekawa—Lieutenant and squad leader, Homicide Division, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Tamotsu Ishikura—Sergeant, Himekawa's squad

Kazuo Kikuta—Sergeant, Himekawa's squad

Junji Otsuka—Officer, Himekawa's squad

Kohei Yuda—Officer, Himekawa's squad

Mamoru Kusaka—Lieutenant and squad leader

Haruo Imaizumi—Captain, head of Unit 10

Hiromitsu Ioka—Senior Officer, Kameari precinct

Kensaku Katsumata—Lieutenant and squad leader, Unit 5, Homicide Division, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Noboru Kitami—Lieutenant, fast-track trainee, assigned to the Kameari precinct

Hashizume—Director, Homicide Division, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Wada—Chief of Homicide Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Komine—Lieutenant, Criminal Identification Bureau, Forensics

Sadanosuke Kunioku—coroner, Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office

 

Note

100,000 yen is approximately equal to 850 US dollars or 750 Euros

 

PART I

 

 

A putrid rain was falling, turning the whole world gray.

I knew what was really out there in front of my eyes. The passing taxi that was sending up a curtain of muddy water from the potholed street was green. The umbrella that the little school kid was holding was red. I looked down at my shoulder. I could see that my navy blue school blazer had turned black in the rain. My mind recognized the colors—but my heart couldn't
feel
them.

My perception is monochrome. Not like a black-and-white photo, though. It's got none of those soft edges, or depth, or sense of reality. It's more like a crappy watercolor, a meaningless shadowy blur. Spilt ink on a sheet of white paper—that's the gray universe where I live.

The flimsy prefab house was old and its walls rain-blackened. The front door was unlocked. I pushed it open in silence. Straightaway a sour stink invaded my body. I'm not imagining things. The house itself was sick, rotten.

Leaking sewage. A rank, animal odor. A thick, musty atmosphere. Mold on every surface—the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Living in that vile place was enough to destroy anyone's sense of smell. Sadly, mine still worked. And the stink was rotting me from the inside out.

“That you?”

The voice gurgled like sludge oozing from a drainpipe. It came from the dimly lit living room at the end of the passage. It was about as welcome as a cockroach burrowing into my brain. I covered my ears. I did not reply.

“I'm talking to you, shit-for-brains.”

A shadow reared up and blocked the living room doorway.

He'd gotten dressed in my honor. He wore a sleeveless running shirt. It looked gray to me; in reality it was probably brown. Otherwise he was naked. Everything in this place was foul. Dirt and ugliness was my world.

“Didn't you fucking hear me?”

Enjoying yourself, are you? Is bullying me really so much fun? Just because you're my dad, you think you've got the right to make my life hell. You've been kicked out of your gang and hightailed it back here with a load of drugs you probably stole. You may think it's fun to see which will hold out longer—your decaying body or the supply of drugs you're stuffing it with. But it's got nothing to do with me. Nothing.

“Get over here,” he growled.

He grabbed me by the hair, same as always, and dragged me into the room. My mom, covered in sores, was sprawled on the ripped-up couch with the sticking-out springs.

Her eyes swiveled toward me. She recognized me but didn't lift a finger. I didn't want or expect her help. Still, it'd be nice if she could at least manage to
look
a teeny bit upset. Her scrawny arms were black and pitted with track marks.
Come on, Mom, I'm being abused here. Can't you manage a teeny-weeny frown?

“This one's for you.”

His thick palm smacked the bridge of my nose. It knocked me off my feet and onto the floor.

“Yee-haw.”

He straddled me, panting and laughing like a maniac.

That again?

I wondered where he got the strength. A washed-up two-bit gangster, he'd never even tried to support his family. He was so busy being perverted, most of the time he forgot to eat. The guy was sinking in a swamp of drugs and filth, but he was still as strong as a horse.

My uniform tore. Probably where I'd sewn it up the day before yesterday. Tomorrow I'd have to go to school in my tracksuit.

None of my classmates would speak to me. Same with the teachers. They all kept their distance. Because I stank; I stank bad enough to make them gag. Still, I was grateful that the school let me in at all. It was somewhere to escape to in the daytime at least.

My seat was right at the back of the classroom. They'd made a space for me by shifting a locker full of cleaning stuff out of the corner a little way. I sat wedged in between the locker and the window. During lessons I could only see half the blackboard, and the teachers never asked me any questions. At school I was alone all day. I didn't care. It was nothing compared to the hell I went through at home.

Every day was the same. My clothes were ripped, and I was punched and kicked. I was throttled and my face shoved into the floorboards.

And with every passing day, I was losing my ability to see color, my ability to taste food, even my ability to speak. The only thing I never lost was the ability to smell the foul stink of it all. My father wasn't the only one sinking into the swamp. I was the same. I was going down with him. I knew he could kill me at any time. I don't know why, but it never occurred to me to take my own life.

Someday my life is going to change
.

I was sure of that. I didn't know how. I just knew that someday something would change.

Today was that day.

On the floor, right in front of me, I noticed something that looked like a squashed pen. It was plastic, pretty, baby-pink. The tip was silver, and the other end was white. It loomed up toward me like something from a 3D movie. The cheap box cutter that had slipped out of my breast pocket.

“
What the fu—!
”

He looked down at me in bewilderment. He had no idea what had happened. He was clutching at his throat. From between his fingers, red blood was pumping out, spraying all around the room. Red—that brilliant, vibrant red—poured all over me and drenched me like glorious Technicolor rain.

Perhaps the world is not gray after all!

He grunted and groaned as he rolled on the floor. He looked like he was about to burst into tears.

That's funny. I always assumed he
wanted
to die.

I looked at the box cutter in my hand.

That was a whole lot easier than I thought it would be.

“He-he … help me!”

Fixing me with a look of terror, he dragged himself to the far side of the room.
Duh, you think the wall's gonna save your life?
He finally made his way to the couch where Mom was sprawling. He grabbed one of her feet and gave it a shake.

“He-he … help me, please.”

He looked back at me from time to time as he tugged at her. Mom just gawped dreamily down at her own feet. Didn't move a muscle to help him. Minutes passed. His pleas for help became incoherent. The eyes, which looked at me with terror, gradually became as dim and bleary as my mom's.

“Beautiful,” I murmured.

Everything was red now. The blood had transformed my dreary gray life into a place of brilliant, vivid color. My dark, stinking nothingness was a brave new world.

Freedom
.

The word just popped into my head.

My mom—my putrid, grungy mom—had been spray-painted a beautiful scarlet. I just stared at her. Then the color slowly started to fade. Blood blackens as it dries.

Oh God, I don't want everything to go back to gray again!

In a momentary panic, I slashed the box cutter across my mother's throat.

*   *   *

The pigsty of a house was burning. A red redder even than blood came billowing out the windows. Thick and surly black smoke hung heavily over the scene, as if a dark cloud had swallowed the whole neighborhood. Through the haze, I caught a glimpse of a streetlight like a full moon beneath a veil of cloud.

The firefighters came and tried to put out the fire. Clouds of white smoke shot up every time they trained their hoses at the house. I was watching from behind a hedge in the park a little way away. I couldn't be certain, but it looked like they weren't putting much of a dent in the fire. It was burning as fiercely as ever, despite all their efforts. I liked that.

A fire that fierce was sure to reduce both bodies to ashes. It wouldn't be too hard for the police to find out that the man had been an addict. They'd probably conclude that he'd gone crazy and killed himself and his wife. It was perfect. I was free from that bastard. I had sidestepped my destruction at his hands.

“I've got to go now … I want you to forget what happened today. No, strike that. I want you to forget
everything
that's happened in your life so far. Let it go. Make a fresh start.”

I nodded. That was what I planned to do. It didn't make saying good-bye any easier.

“Can't we see each other?”

“Better not.”

“Never?”

“Not never, but for a while…”

Am I going to be alone again?

Black smoke. White smoke. Bright streetlights. The pitch-black park. I could feel myself slipping back, down into my old gray world.

 

1

TUESDAY, AUGUST 12
OTSUKA, BUNKYO WARD, TOKYO

Reiko Himekawa was in a restaurant not far from the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, having lunch with the coroner, Sadanosuke Kunioku.