Six Four (13 page)

‘Anyway, I was planning to call you. How did it go with Amamiya? Were you able to sort everything out?’

The question brought Mikami’s thoughts back to the present. He had bad news to report. He straightened himself and lowered his voice a little.

‘I’m planning to concentrate on that tomorrow. We have a bigger problem though – there’s been a complication with the press.’

‘What kind of complication?’ Mikami saw a hint of fear cross Ishii’s eyes.

‘It’s the issue of anonymity. They’ve threatened to submit a written protest to the station captain.’

‘To the captain?’ The colour seemed to drain from Ishii’s face. ‘That’s . . . you’re joking?’

‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

‘No. Absolutely not – you absolutely cannot let that happen.’

‘It was the consensus after a full meeting.’

‘No, we can’t have that. We can’t have that at all. You have to talk them out of it.’

He reminded Mikami of a child having a tantrum. He seemed on the verge of tears. ‘They did say they would be willing to reconsider, on the condition that we give them the woman’s identity.’

‘That . . . no, that’s out of the question. The director would never stand for that.’

‘But it’s better than them barging into the captain’s office in protest. There could be consequences for the commissioner’s visit.’

‘Yes, well, of course. But it was Akama’s decision to keep her identity from the press.’

Akama’s decision?
The accident had taken place in the jurisdiction of Station Y. The decision to conceal her identity had come from them. Mikami had never suspected otherwise.

‘Sakaniwa called to discuss it, but it was Akama’s decision.’

Right, that made sense.

Sakaniwa was Ishii’s predecessor, now the captain of Station Y. He’d been here in the Secretariat until the spring. There wasn’t an officer in the headquarters who didn’t know the story. He had devoted himself utterly to serving Akama; as a reward, Akama had promoted him to captain, in command of a hundred and thirty officers at Station Y, letting him bypass a number of steps on the career ladder.

Sakaniwa had delegated his decision. No doubt having concluded that the best way to protect himself was to report the incident upwards, he had turned to Akama for advice. Mikami had to admit, that did make it more difficult. Akama wasn’t the type to let an underling’s opinion sway a personal decision. Even suggesting he reconsider was likely to send him into a rage.
In which case
. Mikami decided to push his next idea. The one that had come to him on his way to the office.

‘What if we give them her identity, but unofficially? Without committing it to writing.’

This is just me talking to myself here, but . . .

A while ago, this had been the stock phrase for when a detective slipped the press a tidbit to feed on. Mikami could claim he was talking to himself as he gave them verbal confirmation of Hanako Kikunishi’s name. It was a stop-gap, there was no doubt about that, but it still qualified more as
accommodation
than
capitulation
. The force would get by without losing face. Nothing would remain in writing, there would be nothing that could establish a precedent – it would end at one man having muttered something to himself.

‘I suppose it’s an idea . . . I wonder what Akama would say.’ Ishii sighed weakly.

‘Can you put it forward, suggest it?’

‘Okay. But he’s already left for today, a visitor from Tokyo. When would you need an answer by?’

‘Before four o’clock tomorrow.’

‘Fine. I’ll bring it up tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. I can’t say which side he’ll fall on, so either way you need to work on bringing the press into line. If the worst comes to the worst and they still insist on the written protest, you need to make sure the buck stops with you or me.’ Large beads of sweat had gathered on his forehead. ‘I’m counting on you for this, Mikami. Keep it in mind that the captain isn’t just any old person.’

The sentence caused an image of the captain’s face to pop into Mikami’s mind, vague and indistinct. He had already known their captain was special. Kinji Tsujiuchi. Forty-four, two years younger than Mikami. He had come to the Prefectural HQ after having worked as chief in the NPA’s Accounts Division. His next step would be to return to Tokyo in the spring, taking over as chief of the Personnel Division. All organizations were the same, the police included. You climbed to the top by gaining control over the money, then the people. As such, Kinji Tsujiuchi was
currently regarded as the NPA’s next in line when it came to taking over the seat of commissioner general.

The next candidate for commissioner general, surrounded by reporters fresh out of university forcing a written protest into his hands. It would be a disaster. It simply couldn’t be allowed to happen.

‘Is something funny?’

Mikami’s head came up in surprise. Ishii’s mouth was a tight line.

‘What?’

‘You were grinning, just then.’

Mikami didn’t think he’d been grinning.

‘Look, you need to take this seriously. I’m trusting you to keep this from getting out of hand.’

Mikami replied with a perfunctory nod before excusing himself from the room. The lamp was still on, signaling that the captain was there.

He realized what it was the moment he stepped outside into the corridor.
A disaster, one that can’t be allowed to happen.
He had laughed at himself for having considered it that way. At his core, Ishii was no different to Captain Sakaniwa. He had offered up his soul to Akama and Tsujiuchi; now he spent his days playing it safe, lost in dreams of the promotional transfer he would probably receive in the next year or two. He wasn’t afraid of failure, only that his superior officers might deem him as one. That was why Mikami had been grinning – at having sat with a man like that, for having tried to think up a solution from his perspective.

He paced through the stagnant chill of the poorly lit corridor.

He was an officer in Administrative Affairs. Part of the Secretariat. He had to admit a part of him existed that thought that way. He’d been breathing the air of the force’s administrative side for over half a year. It felt as though, through a process of osmosis, an invisible something had risen and insinuated itself through his pores. Things weren’t going the way he’d hoped. He had been
sincere in his desire to reform Media Relations. He’d made the heartfelt pledge that he would spend his two years here battling for it. Where had this sense of hopelessness come from? The world he inhabited now was one devoid of murder or corrupt politicians, and yet he wasted more energy than he had when they’d been a part of his job; he was exhausting himself, and his confidence was waning.

Not for the first time, Mikami shivered. Futawatari had been in this place for twenty-eight years. He had made this inward-looking world his home, breathing in silence, never resting, the whole time Mikami had laboured as a detective in the outside world. What would that have created? What had it laid to rest? What had it magnified? Mikami felt a creeping unease. What twisted philosophies had made their way into that puny chest, into the mind of the man who, in their high-school years, had never once been given the chance to wield his
bokuto
in a tournament?

A monster in the family.

But gone was the time when Mikami was on the other side. Almost without his knowing it, he’d come to wear the uniform of Administrative Affairs.
It’s just temporary.
He would tell himself he could take it off, yet all the while he continued to add layers. He would carry on doing so regardless of his determination not to. There was no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen. Over time, the uniform would become his skin – then, his way of thinking fixed, he would never be able to take it off again.

Mikami fought an urge to cry out.

He saw a face appear before him – Ayumi. She turned up every time he got like this. She beamed at him. Like a safety mechanism of the heart, her soft smile remained in his thoughts until his agitation was gone.

The night had grown noticeably colder.

It had been just after eight o’clock when Mikami pulled up at home. He’d scanned the entranceway and seen that Minako hadn’t left out any bowls from Sogetsuan.
They don’t deliver for one
. If he reproached her about it, she’d only give him an excuse like that.

Dinner had been boiled tofu, with a beef-and-potato stew.

Delicious. Maybe delivered groceries aren’t so bad, after all. Although I’m sure it’s your cooking that does it.

Recently, the words flowed with comparative ease. Mikami had never imagined himself the kind to make small talk, to adopt a loving tone. When he reflected on how he had invested his time and energy, his life at home had always taken second place to his life in the force. This had been true when he was a detective, and it had remained the case after his transfer to Media Relations.

‘The bath’s ready.’

‘Thanks.’

Mikami sneaked a look at Minako’s profile as she cleared away the dishes. She was calm. She seemed fine. But it was still the day after their trip, and Mikami doubted the memory of the dead girl’s face had faded away. Like him, she was putting on a show of normality so he wouldn’t worry unnecessarily.

‘I went to see the father from the Shoko kidnapping today.’ Mikami said this to Minako’s back as she washed the dishes.

‘You did . . .?’ She turned the tap off and looked around, startled. ‘You went to see Mr Amamiya? What for?’

‘One of the top men in Tokyo has decided he wants to visit, pay his respects. I was there to ask Amamiya for his blessing.’

Mikami never discussed work at home, but he was happy to do so now if it helped fill the silence. And when it came to Six Four, the kidnapping was, for Minako, too, more than just printed word and hearsay. She had been part of Undercover B, had acted as someone’s wife as her unit marked the Aoi Café; she had seen Yoshio Amamiya in the flesh as he’d charged in.

The kitchen fell quiet. Minako took off her apron and walked back to the living room; she folded her legs under the
kotatsu
.

‘How were they, her parents?’

‘Mrs Amamiya had passed away, last year.’

‘Oh . . . that’s awful.’

‘I know. Without ever finding out who the kidnapper was . . .’

I guess we don’t have it so bad.
The thought bubbled up like a spring.

‘That must have been hard for him,’ Minako muttered; her eyes were distant, as though picturing his face from that day.

‘He’d aged a lot.’

‘Yes . . . not surprising, really.’

‘Right.’

‘Do you think . . . is the kidnapper going to get away with it?’ Minako asked, her face grave.

Mikami grunted. Mochizuki’s words from earlier were still ringing in his ears.

‘I heard the investigation’s stalled.’ Minako bit gently on her lip. ‘Didn’t they think the kidnapper was someone from the prefecture?’

‘Yeah, most likely.’ Mikami nodded.

The kidnapping itself, the nine businesses the kidnapper had named, the location of the ransom exchange, even the site where the girl’s body had been dumped: they had all been in Prefecture
D. The kidnapper had demonstrated an easy familiarity with the roads, along with the names and locations of local businesses.
Extensive local knowledge
. This fact had made the theory that the kidnapper was a citizen of the prefecture difficult to shake off.

‘And he had to have accomplices, too?’

‘That was the assumption.’

At the time, mobile phones had yet to spread to the general public. The final business the kidnapper had directed Amamiya to – the fishing lodge Ikkyu – had been deep in the mountains. He had then called the resort and instructed Amamiya to throw the suitcase down from the Kotohira bridge, before collecting the ransom at Dragon’s Hollow, further down the river. No more than 300 metres separated the bridge and the hollow. After calling the lodge, the kidnapper would have had to have been lying in wait at the hollow only minutes later. And yet there had been no private houses or public phones in the surrounding area. Someone other than the man relaying instructions on the phone, an accomplice, would have been needed to collect the ransom. Everyone in the Investigative HQ had agreed on this.

Although Mikami had agreed, he had found it hard to accept the idea that the kidnappers had been equal partners. He was used to cases of adults kidnapping and locking up other adults, but the thought of a group conspiring to kidnap and murder a seven-year-old girl was, even for a detective with Mikami’s long experience, enough to make him shudder. If there had been more than one kidnapper, one would have been the main offender and the other an accomplice. Even then, the leader would have to have wielded absolute power over the latter.

‘It might be best to work on the premise of a single kidnapper.’

‘How so?’

‘It’s how a detective’s brain works. A solitary offender. We’re no good at imagining offenders in groups.’

Minako looked thoughtful

Whether or not the kidnapping had been perpetrated by a
single offender, it was clear it had been planned in great detail, and with extreme care. And brutal cold-bloodedness.

Worse than a monster . . .

Minako opened her mouth to speak. ‘He even knew about those rocks, in the river, the hollow. What happened to the investigation into canoeists, the rafting enthusiasts?’

‘They’re still pursuing it, as far as I know. But . . . well, remember it turned out that people from a surprisingly wide area knew about the hollows.’

This had been discovered some way into the investigation. The
D Daily
had, only a couple of weeks before the kidnapping, printed a large feature article on ‘The Enigma of Dragon’s Hollow’ in its lifestyle section.

‘But . . .’ Minako seemed a little agitated. ‘Even if he
had
got the idea from reading the paper, doesn’t that just confirm the fact that he was local? They’ve been chasing this for so long. Why haven’t they found him? I wonder.’