It’s done. I did everything I could.
‘Moving to extraction,’ Matsuoka said into the radio. ‘Bring Mesaki in. Say it’s to shield him from the press. I want him under guard and delivered to Central Station.’
Mikami nodded. Matsuoka had been right. The rest was up to them.
Sensing a parting of ways, Mikami flicked open his phone and pressed the button for Suwa’s speed dial.
‘Sir.’
‘Kasumi Mesaki is in police custody – she’s safe. Disband the coverage agreement, effective immediately.’
77
The glow of the phone box came into view, a point in the darkness.
Having asked his taxi to wait at the top of the hill, Mikami had started towards the riverside park. The path was a gradual downward incline. There was the faint sound of water. It wasn’t yet 6 p.m., but as he walked his feet became increasingly shrouded in the dark. The park’s mercury lamps were still off, making the bluish glow of the phone box the only artificial light in the area.
Mikami had left the Mobile Command Centre, returning to the Prefectural HQ by three o’clock. By that point, there were no longer any traces of the bizarre atmosphere that had prevailed on the fifth floor of the government building’s west wing. The conference room had been deserted, the state of the room shocking. Empty of its inhabitants, it had looked to Mikami like Wall Street during the Great Depression, or the aftermath of a parade celebrating the return of an astronaut. The reporters had taken flight, scattering like birds the moment they learned of the agreement’s termination. Knowing Kasumi was safe, half had returned to Tokyo. Those who had remained had either left for the empty plot of land behind the hair salon or Mesaki’s house in Genbu.
The schedule of press announcements was pulled back to once every three hours. The colour had returned to Ochiai’s face by the time the four o’clock announcement – which less than fifty reporters hurried back to – took place. With the coverage agreement no longer in effect, the police were under no obligation to supply the press with real-time case updates. While they were careful to give out as much information as possible, the fact that Masato Mesaki had been taken into custody at Central Station was, needless to say, not mentioned. The locations of his wife and daughter – Mutsuko and Kasumi – were also concealed. Matsuoka had met them in person and taken them into protective custody, transferred anonymously – together with Kasumi’s younger sister – to a shelter in a neighbouring prefecture’s Mutual Welfare Society. Some things must never be spoken. Mikami finally understood what Matsuoka had meant. When Masato Mesaki was arrested, Mutsuko would become the wife of a kidnapper and murderer. Kasumi, the daughter. He would do what he could to prevent their first names from coming out, for their sake. That was the decision Matsuoka had made.
You need to get some sleep. Go home and get some rest. We’ve been taking turns catching up. We’ve had plenty. Suwa and Mikumo had insisted. Kuramae had called the taxi even as they spoke. The idea to visit the park had come suddenly, Mikami giving the driver the new destination on the way home. Yoshio Amamiya’s house was dark. His car was gone, too. Where was he now? Where had he been when Masato Mesaki was burning the money? Mikami pushed on the door of the phone box. It was old, but it opened easily and without a sound. The phone inside was light green, faded and in poor repair. The push buttons were blackened from use but, towards the centre, where the finger made most contact, they were polished to a dull and silvery shine. Not surprising, after so much use.
Mikami let out a deep sigh.
This is where Amamiya made his calls.
He would have used the phone to call Mikami’s number, too. Sometime after eight o’clock, that day on 4 November. A female voice had answered. He’d called again at nine thirty. Again, the female voice. He’d made a third attempt, calling close to midnight – that was when he’d finally heard a male voice. He’d concentrated on the sound, then hung up, striking a line through the name Moriyuki Mikami. The name was that of Mikami’s father, who had still been alive at the time the directory was issued. If Amamiya had used a later edition, or if Mikami had moved into police accommodation, he’d never have received the calls.
No doubt he’d started making the calls from his phone at home. Then he’d heard about the introduction of caller display. As often happened with people living by themselves, he’d only had a partial understanding of the service, and hadn’t known about the option to withhold his number. That would have been when he’d started to use the phone box.
Perhaps there’d been other reasons, too.
The park was the nearest to his home. It had a children’s play area. It went without question that he would have visited it with Shoko, when she was a child; with Toshiko, too; the three of them. Families with small children tended to avoid it after Six Four, partly because the location of Shoko’s abduction was never determined. It was ironic that this very fact gave Amamiya a place where he could occupy a phone box for extended periods, day and night, without having to worry about people seeing him.
This is it, this is the place.
Mikami closed his eyes and listened. It was quiet. No sound reached inside the phone box. It had no doubt been different on the day of their call. That evening, the north of the prefecture had been deluged with an unseasonal torrent of rain. Many places had suffered landslides. Rivers had swollen, noisily tossing mud downstream. The noise hadn’t been the buzz of a city. It hadn’t been traffic. The phone box was in a riverside park, part of a flood plain. That was the truth behind the ‘continuous’ sound he’d heard.
Ayumi? I know it’s you, Ayumi.
That was what he’d said to the caller.
Ayumi! Where are you? Come home. Everything will be fine, just come home right away!
Amamiya had known the reason for Mikami’s tears in front of the Buddhist altar.
Are you better?
Amamiya’s words on the phone last night.
Not everything is bad. There’s good out there, too.