Mikami made a mental note as he reached for the phone. He dialled the number for Ishii’s desk. The situation was too pressing to sit back and wait for him to get in touch. The deadline for their official response to the Press Club was four o’clock. He also needed to fix matters with Yoshio Amamiya urgently.
Aiko Toda answered the phone. She told him Ishii was in Akama’s office. Mikami asked her to get Ishii to call when he was back, then hung up. Restless, he got to his feet and paced over to the whiteboard near the wall. He ran his eyes over the press reports. Three road accidents between the previous night and the morning. A fire in someone’s kitchen. The arrest of a man who had tried to skip out on paying his food bill. All things considered, a quiet night for the prefecture. His phone started to ring just as he turned around. He hurried over and took the receiver in his hand.
‘Mikami, could you go and see Akama in his office?’
Ishii hung up without offering an explanation. His voice had sounded heavy. Akama’s office, not Ishii’s desk. Perhaps it meant Akama wanted to give his response in person.
Three minutes later, Mikami knocked on Akama’s door. The director was in there by himself. He moved from his desk to one of the couches without offering Mikami a seat.
‘You seem to be particularly bad at managing the press, Mikami. Why did you leave this until it got out of hand?’
He started harshly. A written protest was going to be submitted to the station captain. Mikami understood his urge to get angry, knowing Akama had been told only at the last minute. Even so . . .
‘I refused their request to give them the woman’s identity, as per your request; unfortunately, this only strengthened their resolve, even more than we could have expected. We are doing our best to remedy the situation, but negotiations are proving difficult. They have a lot of aggravation left to blow off.’ He had given his answer standing. Akama still hadn’t offered him a seat. It wasn’t that it had slipped his mind. He was doling out a reprimand.
‘I’m not interested in excuses. They’re a waste of my time.’
Mikami felt himself bristle. You think I have the time to stand here and listen to your sarcasm?
‘They did say they would be willing to withdraw their protest, if we were to give them the woman’s identity.’
‘I heard from Ishii, you know. About your little expediency, that nonsense about “thinking out loud”.’
Expediency?
Mikami looked Akama squarely in the eye. ‘There’s no risk to us. The exchange would leave no traces in the press, and there wouldn’t be any official documents.’
‘Rejected,’ Akama said coldly. He raised an eyebrow. ‘Under no circumstances are we to release her name to the public.’
There was something odd about his tone. It brought to mind a con artist Mikami had investigated some years earlier. The con artist had refused to divulge information regarding a number of his crimes despite clearly wanting to brag, considering it below him to confess to a rookie detective.
Mikami decided he would need to dig a little.
‘I understand it was your decision, to withhold her identity.’
‘That’s right. Sakaniwa phoned to discuss the matter from District Y. I made the call.’
‘Could I ask you to reconsider? The press aren’t going to relent unless something changes. In light of the fact that the commissioner’s visit is so close, could I ask you this one time . . . as an emergency measure—’
‘You’re pushing it now, Mikami. It’s time you stopped clinging to that ridiculous idea and came up with a new strategy.’
His tone had been less cutting than the words themselves. Akama was still caught in the con man’s dilemma. Something else was going on. Mikami’s unease was only aggravated by the fact that Sakaniwa, a man very much in Akama’s favour, was involved.
‘Sir, is there something else that is stopping us from revealing her identity, something other than the fact she’s pregnant?’
‘Of course there is,’ Akama answered with surprising openness. It felt as though he’d been waiting for Mikami to ask. ‘The issue of anonymity is on the agenda.’
The agenda?
‘I assume you are aware that central government is currently in talks on two bills, one on privacy, the other on the protection of individual rights?’
‘I am.’
The subject was one that often emerged from the mouths of the press. The legislation was unforgivable, no different to laying open restrictions on the press. They wouldn’t stand for it.
‘The bills are being subjected to intense criticism from the press, but this is simply their own actions turning full circle – they must reap what they have sown. Whenever there’s a big case they swarm in and create more damage for the casualties, all the time underplaying any cases that would reflect badly on their institution. What is it but impudence when such people attempt to lay blame on us and dress themselves up as watchdogs of the peace?’
Akama paused to rub some balm over his lips.
‘The two bills will eventually be passed. That is when we’ll tackle the question of anonymous reporting. We plan to lobby the government and establish a review committee to discuss official policy on crime victims. We will incorporate a paragraph that gives us the final decision over whether or not to release their identity to the public. While this will initially limit us to crime victims, once the Cabinet decision has been made and we are given the green light, we will be able to stretch the interpretation to fit our needs. We will be in the driving seat from the beginning to the end. We will seize control of every aspect of our press reporting.’
Mikami finally understood . . . why it was that Akama had so relentlessly pushed for such a hard-line approach.
The issue of anonymity had become one of the NPA’s projects. Or, perhaps, one of Akama’s. From the hints of pride evident in the way he’d talked about ‘Cabinet decisions’ and ‘review committees’, it was possible this was something Akama was hoping to push through once he’d returned to Tokyo.
Mikami had already guessed that Akama was unlikely to reverse his decision, but he couldn’t help a growing sense of disgruntlement. He knew his idea of ‘thinking out loud’ didn’t run counter to Tokyo’s goals. It was standard in the force to treat unofficial or covert actions as though they had never happened.
‘If I have your understanding, you may go.’
‘Is that the only reason?’ Mikami asked, not thinking.
This seemed to throw Akama a little. But only a moment later a spark of curiosity registered under his glasses. ‘What are you getting at, Mikami?’
‘Is that all – the only reason you have for withholding her identity?’ Mikami asked, having switched completely to the role of detective. The con man’s dilemma was still there. He could see it. Akama was still hiding something.
‘Since you asked . . . perhaps I’ll let you into it.’ Akama broke into a smile. ‘The truth is, the woman in question is the daughter of Takuzo Kato.’
Mikami felt his whole frame tense.
Takuzo Kato. Acting chairman of King Cement, and now in his second year as a member of the Prefecture D Public Safety Committee.
‘He pushed the decision through?’ The words came out like gunfire.