He probably already had.
If the ace of Administrative Affairs had been there already, Odate wouldn’t have to ask Mikami the reason for his visit. He would only need to sit there in silence and look into Odate’s eyes. Wait for the man to come out with his final testimony.
Mikami shook his head.
He gazed at the steam rolling over the ceiling. For a while he did nothing else.
What was Mikumo doing now? She was probably still in Amigos.
Cruel . . .
It’s not fair to use me as a surrogate . . .
Mikami tried to imagine her expression when she’d said the words.
You’re only able to speak like this because you’re a woman, Mikami had thought, irritated during the first half of their conversation. Then Mikumo had broken the taboo. The last person he’d wanted to hear say the words had told him exactly what he’d hoped never to hear. He’d been shocked and saddened, but the feeling went beyond her having landed a blow on him. He’d felt a concurrent surge of self-disgust and astonishment, realizing that the very thing he’d been looking for had been right there in front of him. Mikumo had been there the whole time. She was quiet, but he knew more than anyone that she was a quick thinker, that her eyes and ears were keen.
But . . .
It was because she was a woman. He’d realized it when she’d called him cruel. He’d never intended to use her as some kind of trophy. Nor had he ever thought to keep her untarnished on his behalf. He had wanted to protect her, that was all. Having failed to do the same for his wife and daughter, he’d chosen Mikumo to keep close, thinking he might be able to keep her safe for a year or two, for as long as he remained her boss.
He had been using her as a surrogate after all. Playing an unfair game. Perhaps he had been cruel to her.
Amigos. Laughter. The tang of alcohol . . .
He began to wonder if his attempts to maintain her innocence might have had the opposite effect. Was it possible her passion for the job had nothing to do with her decision to shun her womanly virtues? Mikami started to get worried. She’d told him she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty. How far had she decided she would go?
I want to contribute, to help with what we’re here to do.
‘Darling?’
Mikami started, thinking he’d dozed off and imagined Minako’s voice.
‘Are you okay?’
She was calling out from the next room, where the sink was. She was worried he’d been in the bath for too long.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. Getting out now,’ he replied, but he remained where he was.
He didn’t feel like he’d had time to warm up. Had he really been in the bath long enough to justify her worrying? Their daily rhythms – washing, bathing, using the toilet – had all suffered since their daughter had run away. He would become engrossed in brushing his teeth. Not because his thoughts were on Ayumi, just focused on keeping the toothbrush in motion. So he didn’t have to think. Turning away from reality. Sometimes he was convinced that was what he was doing.
But he had never pictured her dead. He made sure he didn’t focus on the negatives.
She was alive.
And yet . . .
He couldn’t see anything beyond that.
If she was alive, it followed that she would be out there somewhere. On her feet . . . moving around . . . eating . . . sleeping. But he couldn’t picture her doing any of those things.
In her mind, the whole world was laughing at her. She hated people looking at her. He couldn’t imagine in any detail her going about a normal life outside of home, not in that state of mind. What would she do for money? For a place to sleep? Most high-school girls ran away to get a job, a boyfriend, even to the red-light districts – but none of those cases fitted Ayumi. How would she support herself? Was she living on the streets? It seemed unlikely that a young homeless girl would slip through the net cast by 260,000 officers. Could someone have taken her in? If they had, who? It felt as if it would be a criminal act for anyone to take in a sixteen-year-old girl and not notify her parents or the authorities. She was locked up somewhere. Was that the only possible conclusion? Would he have to spend the rest of his life haunted by the thought?
It was better not to think at all, to ensure that Minako had no reason to dwell on it. Ayumi is safe and well. He made sure to draw a line under any other thoughts, forcing the subject to a close. For her part, Minako didn’t try to talk of anything else. She discussed the calls, but anything more was taboo. Ayumi, holding the receiver in a public phone box. It was the only image they had of her in the outside world, the only one they permitted.
‘She’ll come back to us.’
Mikami tried saying the words he always said. He listened to the way they sounded. Whatever happened while Ayumi was away was immaterial. She just needed to come home. They would make it work.
‘Just come back.’
A drop of condensation trailed down the dark window. Mikami’s eyes felt heavy. The drowsiness was relentless this time. He wondered where he’d put Minako’s road-safety charm.
Darkness fell.
He saw a hand.
Minako, in her white kimono, smiling gently as she reached down with both hands.
41
As expected, the week failed to start normally. Mikami was woken by a call from Akama, which arrived even before the alarm he’d set for 6 a.m. went off.
‘Have you seen the morning edition of the Toyo?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, get a move on and read it.’ Akama sounded ready to explode. Still in bed, Mikami told Akama he would call back. He hung up the phone, threw a dressing gown over his nightshirt, then hurried outside to the letterbox. The Toyo had run some kind of scoop. His mind went first to the bid-rigging charges, but he dismissed the idea, realizing that Akama wouldn’t have called so early for that.
No, he thought.
The Public Safety Committee. The pregnant woman. The old man’s death.
‘Is it something in the papers?’
Minako was already up by the time he came back into the living room, the papers bundled in his hands. She had just finished turning on the heater. She was frowning, looking nervous.
‘Seems so. Could you get me a coffee?’
Having coaxed her into the kitchen, he spread open the sheets of the Toyo, then leafed through to the local section.
Two headlines in bold jumped out from the page.
GIFT VOUCHERS BUY SILENCE
DETENTION FACILITIES IN QUESTION
A chill ran across his forehead. He noticed as soon as he started to read that the article was a detailed report with a parent write-up in the national pages. He quickly scanned across to the general news. There. The article lacked the detail of that in the local section, but the headline stood out nonetheless.
PREFECTURE D POLICE HEADQUARTERS. FEMALE DETAINEE ABUSED.
His eyes recoiled from the page.