You really take after your old man, kid.
His mom smiled, as if to say, He really does. His dad showed yellow teeth, cracking a smile that looked half proud, half pained.
Just hang in there. Do a good deed, and it’ll find its way back to you.
Mikami remembered now. The friend had started to cry when Mikami’s dad had uttered his favourite phrase. He’d been on the way out, finished doing his laces; he got back to his feet and turned around, his face creased up.
He had no doubt lost lots of good friends.
Taken countless lives.
He didn’t show up again after that. He’d messed his hands through Mikami’s hair, as though Mikami were his own son. He’d come with gifts of chocolate and ice-cream . . . had the good deed ever found its way back to him?
Dad . . .
His father had existed in the shadows. When Mikami remembered him, he was always standing behind his mother. It wasn’t that he’d been intimidating, or that he’d let Mikami’s mother take charge of raising him; it was just that he’d been quiet, as though afraid to step out from the safety of her shadow. Mikami had also, for his part, kept his mother between them. He’d never been able to relax when she was out of the room, left alone with his dad. He’d found it difficult to relate to the melancholy in his eyes, the ruggedness of his face, hands and fingers. He had no memory of his dad ever holding him. His DNA had taken precedence, Mikami having taken after him, yet, when he died in the year of the Six Four kidnapping, he did so without having ever opened up to his son.
‘Dig in, dig in. It’ll melt if you don’t get a move on!’
Mikami had finished the cake, but he hadn’t smiled. As his dad’s friend cried at the door he’d stolen a look, and felt somehow that the man deserved it.
Don’t worry, it’s just because you’re a boy. His mother had always been relaxed like that, easy-going. Despite this, she’d been completely at a loss – far more than his father had been – the first time Mikami had introduced them to Minako. Her eyes had lost focus, swimming before she blinked and looked at him again. He remembered it even now. It was the same look she’d had when she’d suspected him of keeping back change many years before. Have you been a bad boy?
Mikami smiled.
She’d definitely over-reacted.
It came back to him now: it was on her recommendation that he’d first gone to kendo at his local club. She’d wanted him to be strong, honourable, more than she’d wanted him to learn the abacus or become proficient at calligraphy. The training had been punishing. If not for the excitement he’d felt each time he donned the mask, he doubted he would have lasted long. Inside the mask’s metal enclosure, with his restricted vision and close breath, he’d felt like he was in a hideaway, a top-secret base made from old boxes. He’d never been conscious of wanting a disguise, but that had no doubt been a part of it, too. The thirteen horizontal bars obscured his features. The one vertical bar hid the shape of his nose. Apart from the two eyes peering through the gap of the monomi, he was lost in shadow. He stopped being a face. He stopped needing a face. For a short while, he’d been able to transform into something special. And when he’d started to become conscious of girls, grown spots on his face, it was under the sweaty confines of his kendo mask that he had felt most at ease.
A mother’s wishes, the way he’d looked, kendo. It had seemed natural to follow that line and become an officer of the law.
Mikami squeezed the hand towel and rubbed it over his face. He could feel his craggy features through the fabric.
The job’s an easy one. Easiest in the world.
It can give you the resources to hide from the world – maybe that was what Osakabe had wanted to say. It was widely known that the job wasn’t easy. An endless supply of detective novels, documentaries and TV dramas had conditioned the general population into thinking that they understood the difficulty, anguish and misery of the job. They had flicked a switch each time Mikami introduced himself. It meant he hardly needed to say anything himself – it was easy in that sense of the word. It was also easy for a detective to ignore the various difficulties, anguish and miseries of everyday life. There was always new prey to hunt. Matsuoka had summarized it aptly in a speech to motivate the officers in district: I won’t allow any complaints. You’re all here to enjoy yourselves. We’re being paid to get out there and hunt.
Detectives understand the concept of justice, but they lack an instinctual hatred of crime. Their only instinct is the chase.
Mikami had been no different. Identify the perpetrator. Corner him. Take him down. The daily grind served to polish to a dull glow the mindset of the detective, eroding as it did any vestiges of individuality. Nobody tried to resist the process. If anything, they welcomed it, thirsted for more. For these people, the desire to stay in the hunt went far beyond any monetary considerations. It was their sole hobby, their greatest entertainment.
Mikami only had to ask Koda. A man who’d had his licence stripped, who had instead become one of the hunted. Someone whose only motivation to work was to support his wife and child. Try asking him if being a detective had been hard.
Mikami exhaled deeply.
The commissioner would arrive in four days. The most important thing was to keep his cool. He would side with Administrative Affairs, for the sake of his family. The part of him that was still a detective would scream.
He felt a sudden rush of adrenalin.
Wait – this isn’t the time for sitting back . . .
What announcement was the commissioner planning to make? What would happen as a result? Mikami had yet to discover what it was.
A face flashed through his mind – the man who had kindly acted as a go-between in helping arrange his marriage. Osakabe was unwilling to help, but he could still try Odate. He had been one of the directors party to the cover-up. He was a greatly respected figure, second in estimation only to Osakabe himself. It was entirely plausible that he might have information on the commissioner’s plans. He had collapsed from a stroke at the beginning of the year; when Mikami had taken him a gift in the summer he’d been at home and working on his rehabilitation. He’d been sorry to hear of Mikami’s transfer to Media Relations, and promised, with a slightly frozen mouth, to have a sharp word with Arakida.
Odate would talk. If Mikami asked him to . . .
His excitement passed, the enthusiasm suddenly leaving him, as though sucked away.
It would be too cruel. Odate had only been retired four years. The wound would be far from healed. It would be hard on him to have one of his officers – one he’d been fond enough to act as a go-between for – turn up and prise open the partially desiccated sore. Would he consider doing it even knowing that Odate was still in recovery?
Futawatari would do it. He wouldn’t even hesitate before pushing the buzzer.