He paced through the stagnant chill of the poorly lit corridor.
He was an officer in Administrative Affairs. Part of the Secretariat. He had to admit a part of him existed that thought that way. He’d been breathing the air of the force’s administrative side for over half a year. It felt as though, through a process of osmosis, an invisible something had risen and insinuated itself through his pores. Things weren’t going the way he’d hoped. He had been sincere in his desire to reform Media Relations. He’d made the heartfelt pledge that he would spend his two years here battling for it. Where had this sense of hopelessness come from? The world he inhabited now was one devoid of murder or corrupt politicians, and yet he wasted more energy than he had when they’d been a part of his job; he was exhausting himself, and his confidence was waning.
Not for the first time, Mikami shivered. Futawatari had been in this place for twenty-eight years. He had made this inward-looking world his home, breathing in silence, never resting, the whole time Mikami had laboured as a detective in the outside world. What would that have created? What had it laid to rest? What had it magnified? Mikami felt a creeping unease. What twisted philosophies had made their way into that puny chest, into the mind of the man who, in their high-school years, had never once been given the chance to wield his bokuto in a tournament?
A monster in the family.
But gone was the time when Mikami was on the other side. Almost without his knowing it, he’d come to wear the uniform of Administrative Affairs. It’s just temporary. He would tell himself he could take it off, yet all the while he continued to add layers. He would carry on doing so regardless of his determination not to. There was no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen. Over time, the uniform would become his skin – then, his way of thinking fixed, he would never be able to take it off again.
Mikami fought an urge to cry out.
He saw a face appear before him – Ayumi. She turned up every time he got like this. She beamed at him. Like a safety mechanism of the heart, her soft smile remained in his thoughts until his agitation was gone.
14
The night had grown noticeably colder.
It had been just after eight o’clock when Mikami pulled up at home. He’d scanned the entranceway and seen that Minako hadn’t left out any bowls from Sogetsuan. They don’t deliver for one. If he reproached her about it, she’d only give him an excuse like that.
Dinner had been boiled tofu, with a beef-and-potato stew.
Delicious. Maybe delivered groceries aren’t so bad, after all. Although I’m sure it’s your cooking that does it.
Recently, the words flowed with comparative ease. Mikami had never imagined himself the kind to make small talk, to adopt a loving tone. When he reflected on how he had invested his time and energy, his life at home had always taken second place to his life in the force. This had been true when he was a detective, and it had remained the case after his transfer to Media Relations.
‘The bath’s ready.’
‘Thanks.’
Mikami sneaked a look at Minako’s profile as she cleared away the dishes. She was calm. She seemed fine. But it was still the day after their trip, and Mikami doubted the memory of the dead girl’s face had faded away. Like him, she was putting on a show of normality so he wouldn’t worry unnecessarily.
‘I went to see the father from the Shoko kidnapping today.’ Mikami said this to Minako’s back as she washed the dishes.
‘You did . . .?’ She turned the tap off and looked around, startled. ‘You went to see Mr Amamiya? What for?’
‘One of the top men in Tokyo has decided he wants to visit, pay his respects. I was there to ask Amamiya for his blessing.’
Mikami never discussed work at home, but he was happy to do so now if it helped fill the silence. And when it came to Six Four, the kidnapping was, for Minako, too, more than just printed word and hearsay. She had been part of Undercover B, had acted as someone’s wife as her unit marked the Aoi Café; she had seen Yoshio Amamiya in the flesh as he’d charged in.
The kitchen fell quiet. Minako took off her apron and walked back to the living room; she folded her legs under the kotatsu.
‘How were they, her parents?’
‘Mrs Amamiya had passed away, last year.’
‘Oh . . . that’s awful.’
‘I know. Without ever finding out who the kidnapper was . . .’
I guess we don’t have it so bad. The thought bubbled up like a spring.
‘That must have been hard for him,’ Minako muttered; her eyes were distant, as though picturing his face from that day.
‘He’d aged a lot.’
‘Yes . . . not surprising, really.’
‘Right.’
‘Do you think . . . is the kidnapper going to get away with it?’ Minako asked, her face grave.
Mikami grunted. Mochizuki’s words from earlier were still ringing in his ears.
‘I heard the investigation’s stalled.’ Minako bit gently on her lip. ‘Didn’t they think the kidnapper was someone from the prefecture?’
‘Yeah, most likely.’ Mikami nodded.
The kidnapping itself, the nine businesses the kidnapper had named, the location of the ransom exchange, even the site where the girl’s body had been dumped: they had all been in Prefecture D. The kidnapper had demonstrated an easy familiarity with the roads, along with the names and locations of local businesses. Extensive local knowledge. This fact had made the theory that the kidnapper was a citizen of the prefecture difficult to shake off.
‘And he had to have accomplices, too?’
‘That was the assumption.’
At the time, mobile phones had yet to spread to the general public. The final business the kidnapper had directed Amamiya to – the fishing lodge Ikkyu – had been deep in the mountains. He had then called the resort and instructed Amamiya to throw the suitcase down from the Kotohira bridge, before collecting the ransom at Dragon’s Hollow, further down the river. No more than 300 metres separated the bridge and the hollow. After calling the lodge, the kidnapper would have had to have been lying in wait at the hollow only minutes later. And yet there had been no private houses or public phones in the surrounding area. Someone other than the man relaying instructions on the phone, an accomplice, would have been needed to collect the ransom. Everyone in the Investigative HQ had agreed on this.
Although Mikami had agreed, he had found it hard to accept the idea that the kidnappers had been equal partners. He was used to cases of adults kidnapping and locking up other adults, but the thought of a group conspiring to kidnap and murder a seven-year-old girl was, even for a detective with Mikami’s long experience, enough to make him shudder. If there had been more than one kidnapper, one would have been the main offender and the other an accomplice. Even then, the leader would have to have wielded absolute power over the latter.
‘It might be best to work on the premise of a single kidnapper.’
‘How so?’