The truth, however, was that, even then, he couldn’t be sure that his presence was actually providing her with any reassurance. When he was back early or home during lunch he would encourage her to go out, maybe do some shopping, telling her he would keep watch over the phone. She would nod in response but fail to show any signs of leaving. He saw Ayumi reflected in her stubbornness, the way their daughter had locked herself in her room in the days that led up to her running away.
And yet . . . he understood all too well the emotions that drove her to cling to the phone. After two months of silence following their daughter’s running away, the moment of the call coming in had, for two parents on the edge of despair, represented confirmation that their daughter was alive. That evening, torrential rain had swept the northern area of the prefecture. The office had been inundated with reports of landslides and Mikami had been late home, so Minako had answered two of the three calls. The first had come in a little after eight. As soon as Minako had given her name, the caller had hung up. The second had come in at exactly half past nine. Minako had later explained to Mikami that she’d known it was Ayumi the instant it had started to ring. The second time she had kept quiet and just pressed the receiver to her ear. Ayumi tended to shrink away from pressure. It was best to give her space. She would talk, she just needed time. Minako had waited and prayed. Five . . . ten seconds. But the caller had remained silent. When Minako finally broke and called out Ayumi’s name, the line had been immediately disconnected.
Minako had been beside herself when she called Mikami on his mobile. He had rushed home. Call, just one more time. He had waited, hoping against hope. The phone had rung a little before midnight. Mikami grabbed the receiver. A moment of silence. His pulse was racing. He called out to her. Ayumi? I know it’s you, Ayumi. There was no reply. Mikami let his emotions take over. Ayumi! Where are you? Come home. Everything will be fine, just come home right away! The rest, he couldn’t remember. He suspected he’d continued to call her name, over and over. At some point, the line had gone dead. He’d fallen into a stupor. For a while, he’d just stood there, rooted to the spot. It was only later that he realized he’d neglected to remember his training as a police officer, as a detective – he’d changed into a father, nothing else; lost sight of the fundamentals; forgotten even to pay attention to noises in the background. They hadn’t bought Ayumi a mobile. The call seemed to have been made from a pay phone. He thought he could remember a faint sound, present throughout the call. Had it been breathing, or the murmur of the city, or something else? He’d tried desperately to remember, but nothing came. All that was left was a vague sensation, nothing he could call memory; a continuous sound, one that varied in intensity. His imagination had run wild. A non-stop stream of traffic, a city at night. A phone box on a pavement. An image of Ayumi inside, curled into a ball.
It had to be her, Mikami muttered to himself. His steps were becoming irregular. Without realizing it, his hands had clenched into fists. Who else apart from Ayumi would call three times without saying anything? There was also the fact that they weren’t listed in the telephone directory. They didn’t live in official police accommodation. After their marriage Mikami and Minako had moved into Mikami’s family home in order to take care of his ailing parents. The number had, at the time, still been in the directory, under his dad’s name. Illness had eventually claimed his mother, and it wasn’t long after Six Four that his father passed away from pneumonia. Mikami had become the new head of the family and, in line with police tradition, applied to remove their personal number from the register. Ever since, it hadn’t been included in the annually updated directory. Mikami knew from his experience as a detective that the directory was used for the majority of prank (and obscene) calls. Compared to households with listed numbers, this meant the likelihood of their number being targeted for such calls was minute.
Someone pressing random numbers had got through on a fluke. Emboldened after hearing a woman’s voice, they had dialled a second, then a third time. That was, of course, possible. And there were a number of officers in the force who knew his number – after twenty-eight years of service, it was easy enough to imagine two or three who might bear him a grudge. Still . . . what was the point in lining up possibilities? Ayumi had made the call. He believed it. Insisted on it. They had no other palpable means, as parents, of clinging to the hope that their daughter was alive. Ayumi had called. She had survived for two months. She was alive now, after three. It was all they could hope for.
Mikami entered the station grounds through the back gate. It had been on his mind the whole month: her hesitation, the three calls. Had Ayumi been trying to tell them something? Or, perhaps, instead of wanting to say something, had she simply wanted to hear her parents’ voices? She had called twice, but Minako had answered both times. So she’d tried a third time. Because she’d wanted to hear her father’s voice, too.
Occasionally, the thought would come. That Ayumi had wanted to talk to him and not Minako. He’d finally answered on her third attempt. She had tried to speak, but the words hadn’t come. She’d wanted him to know. So she’d uttered the phrase in her heart. I’m sorry. I accept my face as it is.
Mikami felt a sudden attack of dizziness. It hit him the moment he was through the staff entrance leading to the main building. Shit, not again. His vision blackened even as he cursed, his sense of balance deserting him. Crouch! His brain issued the command but his hands stubbornly reached for support. He felt the cold surface of a wall. This being his only guide, he waited. Eventually his vision began to creep back. Brightness. Strip lighting. Grey walls. He recoiled from a full-length mirror fitted into one of the walls. He saw the image of himself, his shoulders heaving with each breath. His slanted eyes. His thick nose. His harsh cheekbones. His look was that of an exposed rock face.
Shrill laughter piped up from behind. Someone was mocking him – that was his first thought.
He held his breath and glared into the mirror: a couple of beaming faces passed by. The image was of two women officers from Transport, playing with a training dummy as they walked by.
7
Mikami washed his face in the bathroom. The sweat on his hands was oily enough to repel the water. He dried himself without looking in the mirror then returned to Media Relations. Suwa and Kuramae were sitting on a couch, heads together in conversation. He had expected them to be ensconced in the Press Room, checking on the state of the reporters – why were they back in the office together?
‘Something happen?’ The words sounded sharper than he had intended.
Suwa stood. He looked crushed, as though his earlier enthusiasm had been a figment of the imagination. Kuramae drifted back to his desk with hunched shoulders.
Suwa’s voice was a whisper. ‘Sir, I’m sorry. They booted us out.’
‘They kicked you out?’