‘I bowed back, on auto-pilot. I told Chief Adviser Matsuoka later, I said I was sorry, but he said not to worry, that it was fine. He said it was exactly what he’d hoped to hear.’
Mikami breathed out. Everyone’s eyes had been fixed on Mesaki. Only two people – Amamiya and Minako – had been watching the trail of smoke.
‘Did you see the man when he set fire to the money?’
‘The money? Was that what the smoke was?’
‘Yeah, he burned the ransom money.’
‘But, I don’t . . . Why on earth would he do that?’
‘The man you saw – he was Shoko’s kidnapper.’
Minako gasped.
‘Him? Really? But he was crying . . .’
‘He was laughing.’
Mikami sunk his chopsticks into the ramen. Minako asked a new question each time he swallowed a mouthful. The conversation was getting difficult. He had to tell her how Amamiya had found out that Mesaki was the kidnapper – if he didn’t, there was no point in having brought the subject up. He knew his courage to tell her wouldn’t last the night.
It had to be now.
‘Minako, I need you to listen to something.’
He left the remainder of the noodles and pushed the bowl to one side. He was close enough to touch her cheeks or hands if he reached out. He made sure he was close.
‘Amamiya worked out he was the kidnapper by listening to his voice.’
That was how Mikami broached the subject. He was unhurried and methodical as he related the story, keeping nothing back. He went into particular detail when it came to the calls they’d had on 4 November. He wanted to make sure she knew why there had been three separate calls. Minako’s hand stayed on her chest. She’d been silent – asked no questions, shed no tears, kept control of herself all the way to the end.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Her voice was a whisper. Her expression had darkened, and it was clear that she was crestfallen, but it hadn’t broken her poise. She was still sitting straight. It wasn’t that she’d been prepared, or that she was trying to bear it, even that she was fighting the truth – none of that applied. None of the intensity with which she’d insisted the caller had been Ayumi came through in her reaction. Her eyes were on Mikami’s chest. But they weren’t desolate. They’d found serenity. That was how it looked to Mikami.
Because she was still supported, Mikami thought. By a faith that was too strong to come apart, even without the calls.
I just wonder . . . whether Ayumi just needs somebody else. Someone other than us.
Minako’s words, muttered in the dark of their bedroom.
Someone has to be out there. Someone ready to accept Ayumi as she is, who won’t try to change her one way or another. Someone who’ll tell her she’s perfect, who’ll stand silently by her side and protect her. That’s where she belongs. She’ll be free to be herself, do what she wants.
He’d thought Minako had given up. He’d thought she’d become tired of waiting, of turning it over in her mind. But now he knew. She’d been listing the conditions for Ayumi’s survival.
Ayumi had left with hardly any money. She couldn’t talk to anyone. More than anything, she’d been terrified that people might see her, laugh at her. She wouldn’t have survived without someone to extend a hand and rescue her. She wouldn’t have survived without someone to be there by her side. Someone who would give her a place to stay, someone who would feed her and who wouldn’t ask her name or try to find her parents, someone who wouldn’t report her to the council or the police, someone who would sit patiently by and wait for her to emerge from her shell – that someone needed to exist for Ayumi to breathe, to listen to her heartbeat, to gaze out at the world. That was what Minako had decided.
So she had let go. It’s enough that she’s alive. She doesn’t have to be our daughter. That was what Minako had told herself in the dark.
Not here, not with us. That’s why she left.
Mikami’s eyes began to close.
It felt like a wave lapping sand from his feet. Minako had never given up. Nor had she ever looked away from the truth. She’d looked death in the face and searched for the conditions necessary for their daughter’s survival; and she’d come up with the idea of an inviolable ‘someone’ to meet those conditions. In her heart she’d built a world in which Ayumi couldn’t die. Even though doing so had meant giving up her role as the girl’s mother.
And what have I been doing?
Mikami had been hiding. He’d accepted the horrific reality thrust before him. He’d failed to nurture the unshakable faith of a parent, choosing instead to hold on to pragmatism, his experience as a detective.
The calls weren’t from Ayumi.
He’d suspected it all along, but he’d pretended otherwise. Minako had been fighting to believe. She’d searched for reasons to differentiate the calls from the others, even as Mikami had looked the other way. Afraid of turning up the opposite result, he’d consigned them to the back of his mind. Earlier that day, when he’d finally had to accept the reality he’d feared all along, he’d done so with resignation. It hadn’t been Ayumi, after all . . . He’d been forced into a corner. He’d started listing the conditions for her death.
He had, like Minako, focused on the conditions for her survival. He’d even considered the existence of that ‘someone’. But he’d shut the idea from his thoughts, unwilling to believe a person so genuinely good-natured could exist, deciding only a criminal would take her in. Too painful to consider, he’d driven the world in which Ayumi was still alive out of his head. For his own peace of mind, he’d stopped thinking about survival and focused only on death.
He’d been getting prepared. Was that it? He’d given up the belief that his daughter was still alive.
His hand drifted to his left ear. What had happened to the dizziness? After so many attacks, where had they gone? Had they gone because he’d given up? Because he’d stopped trying to hide. He’d accepted reality . . . had that ended the disconnect between his heart and his brain?
There was his appearance, too. He’d completely forgotten about it, even though it was inseparable from Ayumi herself. He’d felt nothing at Goatee and Slick’s jeering, when they’d called him Gargoyle. All those reporters had burst into laughter. Even then, his feelings hadn’t responded. He hadn’t thought of Ayumi.
Had the bond been broken between them? Had he severed it himself?
Papa, Papa! Hey, Papa . . .!
Absurd. He hadn’t given up on her. How could he do such a thing?
He wanted to see her again. From the bottom of his heart, he wanted to see her again. He hoped she was still alive. He needed her to be alive. He knew she was still alive. She would come home soon. She was just getting ready. Yes . . . she would be back, with the ‘someone’ by her side.
‘Honey, you . . .’
Mikami’s hands had come up to cover his face. His teeth were clenched tight. He was pressing down on his eyes, painfully hard, desperate to keep the tears at bay.
He felt a hand on his cheek.
He was supposed to have been the one to reach out. He was supposed to have touched her cheek, thumbed away the line of her tears, repeated those words from another age.