Dying to Tell (25 page)

"I can't undo anything he did."

"I know. But ... he broke her heart."

"Not beyond repair, I hope."

"I hope not also. She is young. It is harder for those of us who are no longer young."

"I told your brother I'd do everything in my power to help you."

"And, unlike your friend, you keep your promises."

The question is, Mayumi: how can I help you?"

"Save Haruko. That is all I ask now. I have lost so much. I must not lose her."

"Why is she in danger, Mayumi? Why are we all in danger? What's in the Townley letter?"

She sat forward and sipped some tea, seeming to grow more solemn still. "The only way to save Haruko is to make Stephen stop hunting us." (It was quite a shock to hear her refer to Townley by his first name.) "We must communicate with him."

"But he won't listen."

"I do not think he has heard. I think the man Ledgister is doing this without Stephen's knowledge."

"Why would he?"

"Because it is not only about Stephen. A son-in-law in the oil business would be in danger too. Miller She broke off and looked away, taking time to compose herself. "Miller explained the consequences to me. There seems no end to it. But there must be."

"No end to what?"

She gazed at me, her calmness restored. "I know you want me to tell you. I know you think it will be better if you understand. But it will not be. It will destroy you. It has destroyed enough, I think."

"Mayumi '

"Please listen." She held up a hand to silence me. "You may have guessed I do not know but Miller was Haruko's father." (I suppose I had guessed, though until she'd said it I hadn't been conscious of doing so.) "When he came back to Japan, twenty-five years ago, we were together for a while. Then ... we parted. Haruko does not know this. I would not let him tell her. That is why he told Rupe about the letter. To make himself matter to Haruko and the man she would marry. Also to punish me for keeping him out of his daughter's life. He admitted it to me later. I forgave him. He did not know what was in the letter. He did not know how dangerous it was until I told him, after Rupe had stolen it. I kept it in a safe-deposit box at my bank. There were things of Haruko's in the box also, inherited from her grandmother. She had access to it. Rupe persuaded her to let him see the letter. She would have done anything for him. She did not know he meant to steal it. How could she? She loved him. I think she still does, in spite of what he has done. I cannot tell her that Miller was her father. Not now. But I will. When she is safe."

"But when will that be?"

"Stephen was trained to kill people, Lance. He was a dangerous man when I knew him. But he is old now. He is not evil. He is probably as frightened as I am."

"Miller didn't seem to think so."

"He did not know Stephen as I did." (And how was that exactly? I wondered, knowing I could never ask.) "I have to trust what my memories and my instincts tell me. Stephen has lost his son. I have lost my brother. Haruko has lost her father. It is enough. I think he will understand that. I cannot give him the letter. I do not have it. But I will never tell anyone what is in it. I ask you to be the proof of that."

"Me?"

"I want you to take a message to him from me. I want you to ask him to end this. Before we all lose everything."

"How can I do that?"

"Kiyofumi said he has a grandson at Stanford University, in California."

"Clyde Ledgister. What about him?"

"I want you to speak to Clyde. He will know how to contact his grandfather and there is no other member of the family we can ask. You must persuade Clyde to take you to Stephen. And you must see Stephen face to face. Tell him he has to stop. I will never reveal his secret. That is all I can offer him. But he will believe me, I think. Because even my messenger will not know what the secret is."

I was caught in a velvet vice. I wanted the truth. But I also wanted to help Mayumi and Haruko. I'd heightened the danger they were in by leading Ledgister to their hiding-place. I was, in some ill-defined sense I couldn't refute, Rupe's representative, obliged to do everything I could to repair the damage he'd caused. Mayumi's plan, desperate as it was, was the only plan in town. Keeping me in ignorance just might win Townley over. (And a very big might it was.)

"I am sorry to have to ask you to do this, Lance," Mayumi said. "There is no one else I can ask. You do not have to do it. I would understand if you refused."

There was, of course, as we both knew, no way I could refuse. Mayumi genuinely regretted having to ask so much of me. But she knew she had a right to ask it. And so did I. Yamazawa didn't see it that way. In fact, though he didn't say so, it was pretty obvious he thought I was mad. We talked in his study. (Well, I suppose that's what you'd call it, though the fact that it contained nothing beyond a desk, chair, computer, phone and fax made it feel more like an office a paperless one at that.)

"It is the kanji for mountain," he said, seeing me glance at the single item of decoration a framed piece of calligraphy on the wall. "Pronounced yama."

"Like the first syllable of your name."

"A gift from Toshishige, actually. He sends me a mountain. Then he sends me a man who thinks he can climb one. Without rope. And without knowing how high it is. I have much to thank my brother for."

"I get the impression you don't think what I'm proposing to do is a very smart idea."

"You have to decide what is best for you to do, Lance. But there will be nobody to watch your back in California. Mayumi's knowledge of Townley is from forty years ago. I would not like to risk my life on such knowledge."

"I offered to help her. This is the help she's asked for."

"Then I suppose you must go."

"Well, you said I should leave the country as soon as possible."

"I will see what can be done. You will need a new name and passport. Also safe passage. Stanford University is near San Francisco, right?"

"So I believe."

He thought for a moment. "I will need to speak to some friends. The airports will be watched, for sure. So, safe may be slow, OK?"

"I'm in your hands, Shintaro."

"But soon you may be in Townley's hands. You should think about that, Lance. You should think hard."

As it turned out, I had plenty of opportunity for thought over the next twenty-four hours. Yamazawa was absent most of the time, making arrangements with his 'friends' on my behalf. Mayumi and Haruko kept themselves largely to themselves.

We didn't even eat together. I couldn't leave the house, of course, and neither could they. We were prisoners by choice and necessity.

As to just how extreme that necessity was, the television was our only source of information. Naturally, I had no idea what was being said on the news programmes about Loudon's murder. For that I had to look to my fellow prisoners. My name hadn't been mentioned, they told me. The reports were thinly factual. A man found dead; a policeman in hospital with a bullet wound; a dangerous fugitive at large in the mountains north-west of Kyoto. All we knew for sure then was that Ledgister was still on the loose.

"But we are safe here, I think," said Haruko, when, for the first time, Mayumi left us alone together.

"Yes. I'm sure you are."

"How long will we have to stay?"

"I don't know. It depends..."

"On what happens when you meet Townley." She looked searchingly at me. "You are taking a big risk for us, I think."

"I'll try not to take any risks at all."

"Will you find Rupe?"

"Maybe."

"He talked to me about you once."

"What did he say?"

She smiled nervously. "That he sometimes wondered if he should have lived his life like you."

"Really?" (It was an idle piece of wondering. Rupe never had enough of my sit-down-and-stop.)

"I asked him if I would ever meet you. He said he was sure I would. I thought She blushed and looked down, then started again. "I thought he meant at our wedding. But now ... I wonder if ... really .. ." Her words petered into silence.

"He couldn't have foreseen this, Haruko."

"I think he might have done. You see .. ."

"What?"

"I know what he did was unforgivable. I know he only pretended to love me. But he is not cruel, Lance. He could only have done as he did .. . for a grand reason." (For grand read noble? This was surely love at its blindest.) "In business, he told me once, you must always have a fail-safe. And I think' she gazed at me through her large, dark, guileless eyes' that you are his fail-safe."

Yamazawa returned a few hours later and called me into his study. He handed me my passport (which he'd borrowed earlier). As I took it, I noticed it was closed around a second passport. This one was American.

"Your photograph's been scanned onto the details of Gary Charlesworth Young."

"Who's he?"

"He was born in New York on May twenty-six, nineteen sixty-one."

"That doesn't exactly answer my question."

"It's all you need to know. Mr. Young does not require his passport any more."

"We're sure about that, are we?"

"Completely."

"How long has he ... not required it?"

"I know people who supply such documents, Lance. There is a trade in them. The source of this one is most reliable. Asking questions is not part of the transaction."

"I'll bet it isn't."

"Container ship Taiyo-Maru leaves Kobe Monday morning, bound for Europe. It calls at Busan, South Korea, Tuesday, to take on cargo. You can get off there and '

"I'm leaving by ship?"

"Slow but safe, like I told you."

"How slow?"

Train from Busan to Seoul and an evening flight to San Francisco. With the time change, it will still be Tuesday when you arrive."

"But that's three days from now."

"These arrangements are secure, Lance. If you try to fly direct, I estimate a seventy-five per cent chance you will be picked up."

"There's been nothing on the news about me."

"Maybe not. But I have spoken to Toshishige. The police have been to see him."

"How did they get on to him?"

"His boss at Eurybia '

Tenberthy?"

"Yes. Penberthy. That is the name. He contacted the police as soon as he read about you in Thursday's Japan Times'

"Bastard."

"Toshishige said the same."

"What did Toshi tell the police?"

"As little as possible. But they will have made the connection with Loudon's murder by now. So, we have to be careful."

He was right. And I couldn't explain what was really at the root of my impatience without admitting that he was right about something else as well. Going after Townley was crazy. I'd promised Mayumi I'd do it. But it was still crazy. And the longer I had to think about it, the crazier it got. "Whatever you say," I meekly conceded.

"Good. Because there is more care we have to take. It is possible just possible that the police will suspect Toshishige of helping you. If they do, they might decide to investigate his friends and

"His family."

"Exactly. I do not think they would be able to trace me. I do not think they will try. But we cannot take the risk. Mayumi and Haruko can stay. They have nothing to fear from the police. But you must leave. Tonight."

He was right, of course. Again. "OK. Where do I go?"

"I have booked Mr. Gary Young into the Hotel Umi in Kobe. I will drive you there as soon as it is dark. Tomorrow night, at twenty-two hundred hours, a man called Ohashi will call for you. He will take you to the container terminal and put you aboard the Taiyo-Maru. Officially, you are an employee of the ship's owners the Seinan Shipping Company. There is a crew of twelve Japanese master, mate and chief engineer, the rest Filipinos. None of them speak English. But the master has his instructions. There will be no problem." (No problem, that is, until I arrived in San Francisco.) "From Busan' he handed me a thickly filled brown envelope 'there is enough here in US dollars to take you as far as you need to go."

"I can't accept that."

"You must."

And he was right yet again.

There was time for a last, futile attempt to persuade Mayumi that she should trust me with the secret contained in the Townley letter. But her gentle manner veiled the firmest of resolves. "If I told you, Lance, I could not let you go. This is the only way." And in her gaze, lingering on me after she'd stopped speaking, there was conveyed a strange form of blessing, which I knew instinctively was all I'd get from her.

Later, after a final exchange of stilted but hopeful farewells with Haruko and her, I set off with Yamazawa in his Range Rover. Cruising along the empty expressway towards Kobe, he revealed the use he clearly thought I'd be wise to put my fistful of dollars to.

"This is a cellphone number which you can reach me on any time," he said, handing me a slip of paper. "Mayumi and Haruko will be anxious to hear what happens."

"Won't you be?"

"You have an American passport, Lance. And money in your pocket. When you get to California, you will have a choice."

"I don't intend to run out on them."

"Sometimes, what we intend ... we cannot do."

"I'm going through with this."

"They will be safe even if you don't. I will make sure of that."

"I'm still going through with it."

"OK." He fell silent as the car surged on towards the lights of Kobe, then said, "It's your choice."

SAN FRANCISCO

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ten years ago, one of those women whose lives I've drifted across and with and then away from persuaded me that Christmas shopping in New York was something I really wanted to do. The trip wasn't a success, unless you count the fact that it reduced by one the number of Christmas presents we each had to buy that year. It certainly didn't leave me with fond memories of the Big Apple. In fact, it didn't leave me with many memories at all, other than a vague mental picture of the interior of Lucky's Bar on the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 57th Street.

Touchdown in San Francisco, with the passport of a native New Yorker wedged in my pocket, was therefore an experience registering fairly high on the scale of surreality. Various exacerbating factors nudged it higher still. I'd left Kobe forty-eight hours before and crammed a cruise across the Sea of Japan, a train ride through South Korea and a flight over the Pacific Ocean into that time. Thanks to crossing the International Date Line, however, forty-eight hours had been magically reduced to twenty-four and I was about to live Tuesday 7 November all over again.