Mikami stayed in his seat for the next hour.
He sat facing the sheet of paper. The pen stayed on the counter. He spent periods of time with his eyes closed. His brain felt useless, like something borrowed. Drowsiness enfolded him. A single image flickered at the back of his retina: Hiyoshi, wandering through a vast, twilight forest. Now and then he caught glimpses of Ayumi threading her way between the trees. She was lost in there. They both were. Although . . . maybe he was the one who was lost.
The letter of persuasion ended up being a short message.
I want to know where you are. I’ll come by if it’s somewhere I can visit.
Mikami had wasted too much time indulging himself. He added the numbers for his mobile and home phones, grabbed the bill and hurried across to the register.
His eyes tracked around to find the waitress. Perhaps she’d gone through to the back or maybe finished her shift. She was nowhere to be seen.
29
The 7 o’clock news came on the radio.
The lights seemed stuck on red. A powerful glow emanated from the window of a building, apparently a crammer school. Waves of people started to emerge. Navy duffel coats. Tartan scarves. Pink, woolly gloves. A couple of high-school girls cycled by, one then another, both dressed in winter garb no different to what Ayumi would wear.
She said it felt like Ayumi was saying goodbye.
Mikami was on his way home. He had delivered his message to Hiyoshi’s mother; by then, he had started telling himself he could get the rest of his work done using the phone at home.
Minako had set out boiled fish with some pickles. That was quick. Yeah, faster than I’d expected. Let me heat something up for you.
She sounded energetic, and spoke more than usual. She seemed to be making a visible effort. Mikami didn’t really have much of an appetite. The fried rice wasn’t the only thing lying undigested in his gut. But he still found himself enthusiastically commenting on how good the food smelled. Seeing Minako in good spirits was like seeing the sun through a cloudy sky. He learned the reason soon afterwards.
‘Mizuki said you paid her a visit?’ She introduced the subject not long after he’d started eating.
‘You called her?’
‘She called me, just this evening.’
Mikami came close to cursing out loud. Bloody gossip. ‘I just popped over, had something I wanted to ask her about.’
‘She said you looked overwrought.’
Mikami laughed. ‘She’s always over-reacting. I’m still getting used to it in Media Relations, that’s all.’
‘You think it would have been better if you’d stayed a detective?’
‘It’s hard to say. This is less of a strain, physically.’
‘Psychologically, though . . .’
‘Exactly, that part’s difficult. Still, it’ll never be fun and games, not so long as I stay in the force.’ Mikami continued to smile as he said this, but Minako sighed a little.
‘But they’ve got you dealing with Shoko’s kidnapping, even though you’re in Admin.’
‘Mizuki told you that?’
‘Don’t be silly, darling. You told me. You said someone important was visiting from Tokyo, that was why you had to go to Amamiya’s house.’
Mikami flicked at his chopsticks. He’d been talking for talking’s sake for so long it was easy to forget the things he’d said.
‘It isn’t going well?’
‘It’s definitely not going to plan. It’s proving difficult to get Amamiya’s permission for the commissioner’s visit.’
‘The visitor is . . . the commissioner?’ Minako stared in blank amazement, causing Mikami to panic a little.
‘Only on a whim. It’s like sightseeing for him.’
‘But, why wouldn’t . . .?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Amamiya, why wouldn’t he give his permission?’
‘Probably because we haven’t found the kidnapper. That’s enough to turn anyone against us.’
‘And you have to bring him around?’
Minako’s expression had hardened. The commissioner general of the National Police Agency. Having been an officer herself, she understood the weight of the title.
‘I’m going to try to talk him round, that’s all. If I can’t, then I can’t. The commissioner can still go to the site of the kidnapping, it’s no big deal.’
‘But—’
‘I’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry.’
‘Mizuki said it, you know.’ She spoke as if she were confessing something.
‘Said what?’
‘That she could tell you were exhausted. But that I was the only one who could tell if things were really bad or not.’
‘Nosy cow . . . thinks she knows it all.’
Mikami used the coarse language to hide his annoyance. He thought he understood Mizuki’s intentions, though. Minako had been in a dark place, focused on one single thing, so Mizuki had grabbed her by the shoulder and tried to shake her up. She had no doubt decided it would help Minako to worry about her husband. It was unpleasant to feel that someone was poking through their marriage, but Mikami also recognized gratitude; it came naturally as he watched Minako that night, her eyes staying focused, not drifting to the floor.
It was the main reason for his decision to broach the subject.
‘I only found this out today. Seems they had a call at Mizuki’s, too.’
‘What kind of call?’
‘You know, a silent call.’
Minako’s cheeks twitched a little. ‘They did . . .?’
‘Yeah. Around the same time we had ours.’
Mikami tried to speak evenly, but his monotone seemed only to exacerbate the tension in the room.
‘How many?’
‘Just the one.’
‘Right.’
Minako fell quiet. It was hard to read her reaction. Had she dismissed it as something unrelated? Or had she started to worry about some kind of possible connection? Depending on her reaction, Mikami had been ready to tell her about the two calls that had come in to Mikumo’s family home, but now it seemed too cruel.
‘The calls we had were Ayumi. It has to be: she called three times.’
Unable to stop himself, Mikami tried comforting her. He immediately cursed himself for doing so. Couldn’t he just leave it at that? What was the point in having tried to talk if he let the conversation slip back to square one?
‘Still . . .’
You never know, it could have just been someone fooling around.
The words reached the tip of his tongue. But he couldn’t bring himself to say them out loud. It became impossible the moment he imagined Minako’s reaction, the look on her face. Besides, he found them hard to accept himself. Some other people had received silent calls. That was all there was to it. There was nothing to ponder over. It was nothing more than speculation to question whether the calls had been from Ayumi or from some prankster. If so, they needed to believe in the better scenario. They would start to lose clarity the moment they stopped believing.
Even so . . .