‘Urgent, urgent! Mobile Command, this is Pursuit 1. Mesaki has just made a u-turn. Continuing pursuit.’
‘Pursuit 1, do not follow. Take the next two right turns, then turn left at the next intersection to join the ring road. Pursuit 2, left for three turns to follow.’ Once he’d finished, Ogata turned to look at Matsuoka. ‘Sir, what do you want us to do?’
‘We follow Pursuit 1.’
‘Affirmative.’
Ogata used the radio to relay this to the driver. To his side, Minegishi had the mobile labelled Kitou pressed to his ear. Burly was fixing various wires into the monitors, moving with a speed at odds with his size.
‘Make sure Mesaki remains calm.’
‘I can’t.’ The voice that came back was muffled. Kitou was speaking from under a blanket on the floor behind the front seats. ‘He’s still on the phone. I can’t talk to him.’
‘How fast is he going now?’
‘Hold on. Eighty . . . no, closer to eighty-five.’
‘Use your nightstick to give him a jab. Softly though, like he’s a peach.’
– Have you turned around?
They were interrupted by the helium voice.
– Yes! I just need to join the ring road, yes?
– That’s right. Turn left at the intersection you passed: 3-chome.
‘Mesaki approaching now!’ Pencil-face yelled.
The front-facing monitor. The white coupé was racing towards them in the opposite lane. Mesaki had his phone to his ear. He and the car flashed by. He was rocking violently backwards and forwards, like a kid having a tantrum behind the wheel of a broken pedal car.
‘All Intercept Units in City D, this is Mobile Command. Intercept 1, hold position. Intercept 2, 3, 4 and 5, bring the back line forwards. Ogata! Mesaki’s going to crash if he continues like this.’
‘. . . cancel the green lights on the prefectural highway . . . cancel all green lights on the prefectural highway. Mesaki should be fine . . . he used to sell imported cars.’
‘. . . we can’t bring the line forwards. Three kilometres south . . . that’s where we need the intercept cars. And Mesaki’s doing eighty-five, with one hand!’
‘This is Mobile Command. Copy. Okay, let’s get him below seventy. Use two units to block his path – can you do that?’
Mikami was on edge. As if to suggest they couldn’t work seated down, Ogata and Minegishi were both on their feet, backs pressed together. It was the best way of keeping balance. The command vehicle swung roughly to one side then the other, switching lanes before making a right. The road was bad, making the vertical jolting worse.
‘Incoming call. DoCoMo. The origin of the call is . . . unchanged. Yuasa Radio Tower. Genbu. Districts: Yuasa-cho and Asahimachi.’
The kidnapper was still there. Perhaps moving, but still in the same general area.
‘Can they narrow the area at all?’ Mikami asked Pencil-face.
‘Not possible. Not without more radio towers. Or the phone having GPS.’
‘The phone having GPS?’
‘Right. Some of the new models come with GPS antennas. KDDI put a few on sale last year. Fantastic phones, but they didn’t catch on . . .’
Pencil-face looked for a moment like he’d forgotten everything else. He had long eyelashes, attractive eyes. Mikami sighed. It felt like he’d been treated as a guest. He was a guest, that much was true. But Matsuoka was showing no signs of hospitality, despite having invited him in. Instead of cushions, he’d been given a hard, mushroom-like stool. He’d had to bear witness to Ogata and Minegishi’s impressive swordsmanship. It wasn’t humiliation he felt, but it certainly wasn’t comfortable. At the same time, he had to reflect on his luck, that he had managed to go with them in the command vehicle . . . To reflect on his luck . . .
The vehicle lurched into the air. Mikami caught a sharp breath. It took a moment to remember where he was. He’d almost gone under. No – he had gone under. The bump in the road had brought him back. Amazing. He was at the front line of the investigation, inside the lair of the true commander of Criminal Investigations, at the very top of the food chain. And yet the sandman had still come, unforgiving of even a momentary lapse. It had seized on his sense of good fortune and tried to lure him away by turning it to a sense of well-being, even elation.
He pinched the inside of his leg, twisting until the pain forced his mouth open.
‘Incoming call. Forensics. Initial analysis of the calls to Mesaki’s home has revealed a subtle reverberation. Potential matches are bathrooms, unfurnished studios, public toilets in government and/or commercial buildings built using reinforced concrete.’
Public toilets . . .
Mikami remembered the footsteps he’d heard the previous night. He saw again the map of the Asahimachi area. Large stores on a main road . . .
First he had to take down the new information. He opened his notebook, then stared in disbelief. One of the details was missing. He’d forgotten to record the time the kidnapper had instructed Mesaki to join the ring road. He’d been on the phone with Suwa. Then he remembered: Suwa had mentioned the time. It’s already thirty-seven minutes past. The call had come in directly after that: 11.37. Mikami wrote down the time, then appended the details. The kidnapper’s words. Making sure to get them right.
Holding the pen too tight, he tore the paper. Damn idiot. What are you doing? Keep it together!
‘Mobile Command, this is Pursuit 1. Visual confirmation of Mesaki’s car ahead. He’s heading east on the ring road.’
‘Copy. What’s his speed?’
‘Eighty-three, maybe eighty-four.’
‘That’s too fast. Pursuit 1 and Pursuit 2, get in front and slow him down to below seventy.’
‘Pursuit 1, copy.’
‘Pursuit 2, copy.’
‘Mobile Command out.’
– Aaaaahhh . . . aaaaahhh.
Mesaki emitted a high-pitched moan. The kidnapper was still on the line. – Please . . . please give Kasumi back . . .
Heartbreaking was the only way to describe it. With guilty eyes, Burly lowered the volume a fraction.
– Where do you want me to go? Just tell me where. I need to see Kasumi. Please, I’m begging . . .