Exposure (13 page)

She let her eyes rove over the pale scar on his shoulder and the satisfying muscles of his chest and arms. But when she looked back to his face, the wide, blue eyes were open, watching her thoughtfully.

“Hello,” he said quietly.

Helene was embarrassed that he’d caught her gawking like this. But there was nothing triumphant about his face, just a puzzled question in his eyes. She felt herself flush, her cheeks and neck becoming hot.

She swung herself out of bed abruptly, heading for the bathroom next door, feeling exposed by the briefness of the T-shirt she’d slept in.

“Helene,” he said.

She stopped and turned round.

He was still lying in the bed, but leaning up now, staring at her, his left hand stretched out towards her in invitation.

Helene’s stomach lurched and she felt a delicious warmth begin to spread through her. But her trained, rational mind protested.

“No, Charlie,” she said in a low voice.

She heard him sigh softly and lie back. She clenched her teeth as she left the room.

Before they left Hawaii Helene insisted that there was one more thing they had to do. She bought an envelope and put in $1,000 and a first class open return ticket to Cleveland in Jenny’s name.

Then they stopped at Bill’s place and a sleepy looking girl promised faithfully to give it to her.

Later that morning, Jenny opened the envelope, her eyes wide with wonder as she read the brief message: ‘From your Hawaiian fairy (god)mother’.

There was no signature.

She shoved the envelope into the pocket of her jeans and didn’t show it to Dylan.

This time Helene and Charlie travelled steerage. There was no point trying not to stand out when there was 6 foot 3 of newly re-blonded hair and blue eyes at your side among a cargo of five foot five Japanese with dark eyes and black hair.

So they sat together: two Australians travelling tourist class – David Hunter and Stella Liddle.

“Couldn’t you have chosen a name for me that Japanese people are going to actually be able to pronounce?” complained Helene.

“Well, I did think of calling you ‘Stella Rimmington’,” he said, smiling wolfishly.

“Very funny,” she snorted. “We are trying to avoid detection by the authorities. You do remember the bit where men with dark intents came to my house?”

“You can’t blame them for that,” he said, his teeth very white in his tanned face. “I’ve had some thoughts about dark intents when it comes to you... But I did gallop in on my white horse to save you, didn’t I?”

“You’re in a very good mood for a man on a wild goose chase,” she said.

“And there was me thinking you’d win the Little Miss Sunshine Award,” he shot back.

“Yes, you bring out the best in me,” she said rather sarcastically.

He smiled broadly. “I’ve always suspected it: I have that effect on women.”

She didn’t bother to reply.

He kissed her suddenly on the cheek.

“What’s that for?” she said in surprise.

“Just so,” he replied, the corner of his mouth twitching as if he was trying to hold back a smile.

Landing at Narita International Tokyo, was a shock. After the laidback Hawaiian Islands the noise and flood of people was bewildering. Plus, the gentle warmth of Hawaii had been replaced by a humid fug of heavy, damp air. Tokyo in the summer was going to be unpleasantly moist outside of any air-conditioned building.

Helene had spent years in the Middle East so she could just about read Arabic but the spider’s web of Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji was beyond her. She bought a phrase book and traveller’s guide for an exorbitant price at the airport shop. Charlie had found a map in English and Romaji at the tourist office and worked out that they could get the Shinkansen bullet train to Osaka and then local trains to Kotohira, the nearest town to the Kompira Shrine. Neither of them felt confident enough to try driving: especially as there was little chance of them being able to read the road signs the further they were from Tokyo – it would be more hit and miss than either of them liked. Besides, the train was more democratic and less likely to draw attention to them.

Helene purchased some ongiri rice balls wrapped in seaweed from a smiling Mise no Hito who spoke a type of English that was almost incomprehensible: although still better than Helene’s non-existent Japanese. She gathered that one set of rice balls was stuffed with tuna and the other pickled apricot, but she had no idea which was which. Lunch was going to be a lucky dip.

Charlie came back with the train tickets and a new baseball cap. His face had a pinched look about it and Helene recognised that he was on edge.

“What’s the matter, has something happened?”

He gave an irritated twitch of his shoulders.

“Too many CCTV cameras. Too exposed. Too easy to get picked up.”

Hence the baseball cap.

It might hide his hair and cast a shadow over his face but there was no way he could disguise 6 foot 3. Helene was finding it easier to blend in, having bought a dark brown wig that was cut into a sharp bob. From behind she would be unremarkable on any CCTV images. A pair of heavy sunglasses helped to mask her face. She was slight enough to blend in with the majority of Japanese.

Helene was worried: she’d never seen Charlie so strained – not even when he’d been holding a gun to Bill’s head.

“Come on,” she said. “There’s something else – tell me what’s up?”

“It’s nothing, I’m fine,” he snapped.

“You’re not fine: you’re as fine as a man with two broken legs. Just tell me, will you, or I’ll go bonkers trying to guess.”

He turned to look at her.

“I think we’re being followed – I think...”

Her stomach lurched and her hand flew to her mouth.

“Are you sure?”

“No. I just thought I saw someone tailing us when I went to get the train tickets: an Asian, Japanese, I guess.”

He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I paid cash so they won’t be able to trace us through credit cards and I didn’t see the guy again but...”

Helene didn’t know what else to say. If they were being followed it made their job a lot harder – and more dangerous – but there was nothing they could do but go on.

“Maybe it was just coincidence.”

“Maybe.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to use words to quell the rising panic. “We’d better get out of here then. Tokyo’s a big place: we ought to be able to disappear.”

He nodded, his eyes flickering, checking out faces in the crowd, looking for warning signs.

Helene wanted to take his hand, but was worried the gesture would be unwelcome.

“I booked the first train I could,” he said, “but it’s not till tomorrow morning: everything was booked up – some festival or something.”

Helene felt panicky.

“What do we do?” she said, trying to sound calm.

He looked down at her briefly.

“We’ll head for the city: keep your head down and don’t look up or the cameras will see your face. They’ve got facial recognition software that could find us in minutes. Keep the sunglasses on, too.”

Helene tried to remember if she’d looked up at all without her sunglasses on in the last 40 minutes since they’d landed, but Charlie didn’t give her time to think: instead he hustled her away from the arrivals area.

Luckily there was a sign in English for the train into the city: the Narita Express. Helene kept her head down and tried to avoid walking into the person in front of her.

The train was busy but not overwhelmingly so: it wasn’t like the pictures Helene had seen where uniformed train officials shoved people onto overcrowded carriages using hands clad in immaculate white gloves. Maybe that was just in rush hour.

This was altogether more relaxing, although Charlie was on edge the whole time.

He waved away her offer of a rice ball, but Helene was feeling hungry. An orange juice and cereal bar on the plane several hours since, was no substitute for a proper breakfast.

She chewed thoughtfully on her rice ball while the Express rocked rhythmically from side to side. The ongiri’s seaweed wrapper acted as a convenient way of holding the soft, sticky rice together – a bit like the folded crust of a Cornish pasty, now she thought about it.

It was tasty and not too stodgy, despite the starch. She’d got the tuna.

She opened a box of fruit juice that she’d bought at the same time. It was a dark purple like red grapes, but according to the colourful translation, it was made from ‘devil’s root’. Helene wondered if that meant it was mandrake, but who knew.

It tasted okay: not too sweet.

She offered the juice to Charlie but he shook his head and continued to stare out of the window. If he wanted to sulk, best leave him to it.

Helene began to wish they were back in Hawaii: everything had seemed so much more possible then.

“So,” she said as a conversational opener.

He didn’t reply.

“So,” she said again, feeling a little desperate. “Our train isn’t for 24 hours: any idea how we’re going to spend them?”

Still no reply.

“There are some reasonably priced hotels listed in this guidebook?” The words sounded like a question.

He shook his head.

“No hotels: too easy to find us in a hotel.”

She opened her eyes wide.

“Do you really think so?”

“I know so. We have to stay on the move.”

Helene sighed. That sounded tiring. She’d have given anything for a comfortable hotel room and a hot shower. Well, not anything perhaps; certainly not life and liberty.

“Okay,” she said, carefully, “how about we do some sight-seeing – we are supposed to be tourists after all.”

As he didn’t contradict her, Helene took it that he approved of this plan. She turned to her guidebook and tried to find some inspiration. She was appalled to see that her hands were shaking ever so slightly.

They changed from the Express onto another over-ground train that circumnavigated Tokyo’s key tourist areas. The JR Yamanote line was thronged with people who, as Helene’s mother might have said, were in their Sunday best. They were certainly dressed for a Saturday night out, and instead of the neatly coiffed salarymen and women, there were Teddy Boys with enormous quiffs, Elvis look-alikes, and gangs of Lolita Goths playing to the crowds with their brightly-dyed hair, bizarre costumes and outlandish make-up. They were certainly more colourful than the whey-faced, misery merchants and emos familiar in British cities.

Just watching the other passengers was truly an education in the dichotomy of the Japanese personality, Helene thought.

They got off at Shinjuku. Helene had worked out that this was the key shopping and entertainment area. Certainly the Japanese people seemed in a frantic hurry to have a good time. Huge, street-side video screens blared out a bewildering cacophony of ads for food, beer, films and a range of teenage J-pops bands that were so similar Helene wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to learn that they were manufactured in the same efficient way as the latest Honda. There were three vans driving around broadcasting competing adverts at an ear-splintering level. And then there was a group of people in matching T-shirts protesting at the vans broadcasting at top volume: the protestors were using megaphones. How very Japanese.

To her relief, there were enough gaijin for them to blend in a little. Most of them seemed to be young Australians or Americans. Helene saw only one black person, unsurprisingly in a group of Americans, and he was attracting a number of stares. The Japanese were very open about it: they stared at anything they found unusual. Helene was glad that her wig and sunglasses gave her a degree of anonymity.

One of the plazas was full of free entertainment: buskers, dancers, DJs with outdoor decks, musicians of varying ability, bongo drummers, tap dancers, and dogs: lots and lots of dogs. In fact there were two parks dedicated to man’s best friend: one where big dogs could exercise; and one for the more bijou beasts. Helene was reminded of Mrs Jenkin’s dog, Alfie. He’d have liked the corral for smaller canines.

She wondered briefly what the Jenkins had made of her sudden absence.

Helene and Charlie meandered through the heaving streets, flowing with the crowds, stopping to look in shop windows, watching the street vendors selling red bean snapper cake, large pancakes stuffed with a variety of confectionary, takoyaki laced with spring onions and bright pink ginger, and generally acting like a couple of tourists without a care in the world.

In fact, stopping to look in shop windows gave Charlie a chance to check their back trail and see if anyone was following them. Helene figured it was an almost impossible task to pick out a face in the hordes, but then again, his instincts had kept them safe this long.

Without a particular plan in mind, Helene led them away from the shops and strange entertainments of the main streets. She was surprised and rather relieved when her aimless rambling led them through one of the narrower streets only to find a beautiful park opening up before them.

“Shall we go in?” she said. “It’s only ¥200 each?”

Which was about £1.20.

He shrugged. “It’s as good a place as any to waste some time.”

Helene carefully counted out the money and they were admitted.

“Oh, this is lovely!”

She couldn’t help feeling the pleasure of such a delightful place. Her shoulders relaxed and she felt she could breathe again.

“This must be amazing when the cherry blossom is out,” she said enthusiastically. “Can’t you imagine it? Rows and rows of cherry trees filled with pink blossom. It would make the most wonderful snow-fall of petals.”

She glanced at Charlie: he was smiling at her.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing. It’s just… you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before.”

Helene was taken aback. “You think?”

He grinned at her.

“For sure! We’re on the ride of a lifetime, probably being hunted by any number of international agencies, and you can still… you can still enjoy this park. That’s pretty amazing.
You’re
pretty amazing.”

His blue eyes were suddenly serious.

“Oh. Thanks,” she said, looking away.