Year of the Talking Dog: A Hana Walker Mystery (The Hana Walker Mysteries Book 2) (15 page)

And that is all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I’m high above the city, but I have no fear. Which is odd for me, but I’m comfortable floating high above it all, looking down. Which city, I can’t be sure. There are red double-decker buses below, but no sign of Big Ben or the River Thames, so not the London of the Peter Pan ride in Tokyo Disneyland. But people look Japanese. Then I’m sipping something cold and sweet. A coffee. A vending machine can of coffee. Everyone is relieved. Even my dad. Which is strange because he never drinks vending machine coffee. And he’s dead. But I can tell he’s enjoying the coffee. He’s smiling but he’s looking over his shoulder. Then singing. Lots of singing. Girls are dancing, wearing top hats and tails, but with long legs in silk stockings. There are massive numbers of them dancing in step. Dad can’t make himself heard over their racket. I try to get closer to hear what he’s saying. His lips are moving but no sounds are coming out above the noise of the girls.

I scream to him.

He waves for me to come closer. He’s on the edge of a raised platform. Behind him the city stretches out into the distance. He wants to say something, something important, I’m sure.

“Hana.”

A voice from the other side of the room. I can’t hear him--the J-pop music is getting louder--all I can do is read his lips. But even that is hard work with a line of dancing girls between us. Dad is the hub of a circle of girls high-kicking, forming spokes of a circle with arms linked like a primary school undokai
sports day. They’re marching past in rows wave after smiling wave, sparkly red hats tilted on their heads, and whirling diamond-encrusted batons in one hand. Dad’s in the centre, getting flustered, looking bewildered. But he’s speaking.

“Hana.”

“What are you trying to tell me?”

Then he’s drinking a red can of coffee, but coughing and spluttering, then wave after wave of dancing girls.

I push my way forward through the uniformed girls. They are pros though, they don’t stop for one moment, they keep marching in circles, absorbing me in their mass. Where am I? Where’s Dad? Every time I push towards the centre, it turns out to be the edge and I’m face up against a glass wall and a glass floor. I look down and there is the whole city below. I’m going to fall. But I know it’s going to happen and I’m not scared. I just wish I could hear what my father’s trying to tell me.        

“It’s wonderful.”

“What? That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I’m in a formal room. Grey walls. Cheap speckled grey linoleum floor. No windows. So, police or doctors again. Or, if I’m lucky, just a run-down hotel. A television is blaring above from a bracket screwed into the wall. It’s a cookery show. A TV tarento is trying the local delicacy of a family ramen noodle shop in Saitama. He ladles the soup with a cheap plastic spoon. You can see from the colour of the broth that they’re using miso soybean paste as the main ingredient rather than soy sauce or just salt as they do in Tokyo. You can see the white specks of pork fat floating on the soup. So, this is Kyushu-style ramen. They like it fat and spicy down south. Aunt Tanaka always says ramen noodles have an accent.

The celebrity is about to put the ladle to his mouth and then his expression is frozen like when a Skype connection goes bad, but it isn’t accidental. Was it delicious or not? 

Suddenly J-pop dancing girls march by. They are dancing around cans of coffee that are extremely refreshing for businessmen at a morning meeting. The girls disappear when the businessmen open the cans.

Now the celeb is back on and they replay the exact moment when he’s about to spoon the ramen soup into his gob. The master-san and his wife with sweat towels tied to their heads watch in the background expectantly. What will the celeb make of their humble broth? Their concerned faces are mirrored in the eyes of the celeb. Is this bowl of pork fat something to savour or reject?

“Oiiiiiishiiiii
!
” he says. An exaggerated “delicious!” 

The celeb must have been from Kyushu. Then back to the dancing girls and the coffee.
 

It’s strange because I don’t remember turning the TV on. There’s a red can on the table beside me. Looks the same as the cans of coffee that the girls had been dancing around, and the sickly-sweet smell of dissolved sugar and the sourness of black coffee is overwhelming. I reach for the can. It’s one of the ¥120 cans of coffee you can get from any vending machine on any city street. There are hundreds of kinds of coffee in cans that come heated in winter and ice cold in summer. Boss, Georgia, Wonda and the varieties that they come in are dazzling, as are the packaging, the names and the celebrities who endorse them. They all have one thing in common: they all taste like crap.

This can is empty. This is a café latte with a big picture of cream on the side of the can. I never go for that kind. Far too sweet. After I get to the bottom of the can, my teeth are on edge and I can’t tell if my heart is beating double time from the caffeine or the sugar.
 

I realise I’m in a bed. I can move my right arm to reach the empty coffee cup, but when I try to get out of bed, my left hand yanks me back. My wrist is handcuffed to the side rail.

Handcuffed?

A naked bulb hangs from the ceiling. So. Probably not doctors. They always give you green tea and never instant coffee. No sugar. Cops? And there beside my bed is a policeman.

Detective Watanabe. He’s snoring. I slide my handcuffed hand along the rail. I can move it about a metre either way, but when I try to yank my hand free, I only have 30cm to spare before the other end of my handcuff clatters against the end of the rail. 

“Walker-san. So, what have you been getting yourself into now?”

“Handcuffs.”

“For your own good.”

“Like the coffee?”

“I never drink it. Too sweet.”

“Where am I?”

“You are in St Christopher’s hospital. You were bad. The doctors say delirious. A good night of sleep and you will be fine.”

“How did I get here?”

“By ambulance. From the Metro station.”

“What happened to the waitress?”

“The waitress?”

“Did you catch the killer?”

 “The killer?”

“You know, the masked man.”

“Masked man?”

“Do you have to repeat everything I say? Shouldn’t you be taking notes?”

“Notes?”

“Yes, it’s what detectives do to find connections and solve cases, to bring killers to justice and save those in danger.”

“The only one in danger I can see is you. You bashed your head there on the overhanging beam. And now you are all…confused.”

“Confused? I saw a woman get killed. She was pushed in front of an oncoming train by the man with a mask. The same one who killed my fiancé, I’d say. Then he came after me.”

“I see. Interesting theory. Except that no one died on the tracks last night.”

“But I heard her scream. And saw her being pushed. By a masked man.”

“I see. If that were true, where is the body?”

“On the tracks?”

“No. There are no reports of any problems except from a certain Flying Horse restaurant. We had a complaint that you went crazy and threatened people with a meat cleaver in the kitchen.”

“No, that wasn’t me, that was them.”

“It was the masked man?”

“No. He came later. He’s dangerous. He pushed a waitress onto the tracks. He’s part of something bigger, something to do with Unit 731.”

“What is that?”

“It was a military unit that did medical experiments on Chinese. They used to remove one arm from one side and stick it on the other without anaesthetic just to see what would happen.”

I tried to demonstrate with my arms, but with one cuffed to the side of the bed, I flapped about unconvincingly.

“Maybe I should be taking notes. What was it? Unit 753? I think I would have heard about it. I was good at history in high school.” 

“Unit 731. They don’t teach it much in the history books in Japan. Try Google or Wikipedia.”

“Right. So, our schools are less trustworthy than the internet?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

I look at his uniform. Perhaps I’m talking to the wrong person. But I have to make him understand, or else no one will be able to get it. Although I wasn’t sure I got it. Like trying to translate something. You can only translate the words if you know the meaning in the first language. Without meaning, you are lost. I can’t find the meaning to anything that has happened to me since Detective Watanabe first called me to his police station. But I have to try.

“Detective, this is the best that I can figure out: the masked man is involved in some kind of plot. He’s probably a North Korean agent. It has something to do with the medical experiments that the Japanese government carried out during the Second World War. I don’t know how all the pieces fit together, but I must be getting close because the resistance is growing. It has something to do with wrist tattoos. The waitress had one. And it’s related to a missing girl called Aoi. Does that make sense?”

“Very clever,” he says. But he says it like he doesn’t think it’s very clever at all.

“But then why are you still alive and not dead?”

“What?”

“If your theory is true, why didn’t this mysterious masked man kill you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What would be the point of tattooing people?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would you ever get any proof.”

“I don’t know.”

I think some more. I’m not making any headway.

“I don’t have all the answers. In fact, maybe that’s why I wasn’t killed.”

“You are telling me that you were saved because you don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Yes, exactly, Detective Watanabe.”

“Exactly, Walker-san.”

“But if I’m so wrong, why am I here? Why am I a threat? Why are you here? Why have you handcuffed me to the bed? If I’m so wrong, why bother with me?”

“Well, for one thing, I’d like to know why you injected yourself with amphetamine.”

“I didn’t, the waitress did.”

“I see. But you had the syringe.”

“I took it to find out what it was. Thank you for giving me that information. Why do you think I’m a suspect rather than the victim?”

He’s silent.
 

But then something else bothers me. I look over at the empty can of coffee. Who drank it? Not me, I was unconscious. Not Watanabe, he says he doesn’t drink sweet coffee.

“Who else was here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here in this room. Beside my bed.”

“It’s not important. Nobody.”

I remember now how he likes to conduct interviews. I have a go. “Nobody? Or nobody important? They are two different things. Think about your answer, Detective Watanabe. Let’s go over it again, shall we? Nobody, or nobody important? Which is it? Perhaps if you tell the truth it will go better for you. Admit just a little of the truth and I’ll let you go from here.”

“You are a tricky one.”

“You say that like you know me.”

The smile on his face fades. “I have your best interests at heart.”

I’ve heard that before. It’s the speech I heard when I was told I couldn’t continue at school, that I’m not cut out for the life I thought was mine, that I’m only good for cleaning up after other people. I don’t know much, but I know when I hear those words they are not true.
 

“That’s a lie. You’re a liar or else you actually believe that, which would make you stupid. Which are you? A liar or stupid?”

He looks at his shoes. So. Not stupid, but lying all the same. He says nothing.

“To say nothing means you have no respect for the person you are talking to. But I don’t think you’re that stupid or disrespectful. So. You must think I’m just a child, not worthy of respect?”

He continues looking at his feet, no change in his expression. But he chews his lip as if he wanted to say more but somewhere his brain is telling him to be quiet. He has my best interests at heart.

“You’re not levelling with me because you think I’m crazy.”

“You need help.”

“I do. It would be great if the police would help me. If the police would find a girl who has been missing for just about as long as I have been alive.”

“You’re the girl who needs help, medical help. And if you want to solve a problem, the first thing you have to do is admit there is one.”

“What?”

“Admit there is a problem.”

“I do have a problem.”

“Good. That’s a good start.”

“I have a problem with a cop who thinks I’m crazy.”

He sighs. “It’s very complicated. But it’s a matter of case-by-case. If we follow the rules exactly, there is no room for the right decision. Do you know what I mean Hana? Complicated.”

“No. It sounds simple enough to me. Somebody decides I’m crazy and you are happy to go along with it. It’s easier that way than doing your job. Decide I’m crazy and you have solved the case without having to investigate anything. I see.”