Soul Cage E-Book

Tetsuya Honda

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

A severed hand is found in a van in the outskirts of Tokyo at the same time as contractor Kenichi Takaoka goes missing, leaving his garage covered in blood. Lieutenant Reiko Himekawa is on the case, and when the hand is identified as Takaoka's, she's investigating a murder. Reiko is plunged into a world of past sins, forced suicides, and the shadowy control of the yakuza. The rest of Takaoka's body is nowhere to be found. But when his childhood friend sees a photo of the missing man, he swears it is not Takaoka at all...

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by Tetsuya Honda and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Part One

1

2

3

4

5

Part Two

1

2

3

4

5

Part Three

1

2

3

4

5

Part Four

1

2

3

4

5

Part Five

1

2

3

4

5

Part Six

1

About the Author

SOUL CAGE

Also by TETSUYA HONDA and available from TITAN BOOKS

THE SILENT DEAD

SOUL CAGE

TETSUYA HONDA

TRANSLATED BY GILES MURRAY

TITAN BOOKS

Soul Cage Print edition ISBN: 9781785651717 Electronic edition ISBN: 9781785651724

Published by Titan Books A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First Titan edition: July 2017 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

First published in Japan by Kobunsha Co., Ltd.

This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Tetsuya Honda 2007 English translation © 2017 Giles Murray

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

PROLOGUE

Iread somewhere that prisoners on death row got a cigarette and a bean-jam bun just before their execution.

Tadaharu Mishima was lounging by himself, eating a bean-jam bun. Someone must have doled them out to the work crew at the three o’clock break, and Mishima had either saved his or pocketed a second one. It was white and powdery on the outside with smooth, creamy paste on the inside.

I couldn’t bear to look at him, so I turned and stared out the window. Work had ended for the day, and the sun was streaming straight into the building. We were up on the ninth floor, level with the late-afternoon sun.

The building was like a great black shadow: a huge gravestone in the vast graveyard of Tokyo. But I could hear the song of the cicadas. . . . Or is my memory playing tricks on me?

I turned away from the window and looked back at the room. Because of the sudden contrast, everything seemed to have fused together in one dark mass—the bare concrete walls, the burlap sacks crammed with rubble, the profile of Mishima as he perched on top of them.

All I could see was the silhouette of a face eating the silhouette of a bun—wordlessly and slowly.

I lit a cigarette to get my courage up. I felt a tiny burst of heat at the end of my nose. I inhaled, then expelled the smoke.

“Is there . . . like . . . nothing you can do?” I asked.

The jaw stopped moving. An instant later, it resumed its chewing motion, as if Mishima had had an idea, then changed his mind. His face was calm and emotionless. His eyes were unfocused. His gaze drifted around the empty room, then out into the corridor and off somewhere far, far away.

“No. It’s hopeless.”

He didn’t speak the words so much as sigh them.

“But there’s got to be something you can do. How about personal bankruptcy? I’m happy to go and speak to Mr. Tobe for you.”

Mishima took another leisurely bite of his bun.

“Personal bankruptcy? I tried that already . . . ages ago. It didn’t work. I needed money and just ended up borrowing more. . . . Look, the kind of people I was dealing with, I knew what I was getting into . . . I mean, whatever, man. It’s not a big deal.”

Mishima looked straight at me. His face was covered in dirt and grime. The sweat on his forehead had almost dried.

“Have you got any idea how it feels? My boy’s hungry, and the best I can manage is, ‘Sorry, kid, there’s nothing in the house to eat today.’ The boy’s so hungry he picks the straw out of the tatami mats and tries to eat that shit—until I smack him, that is. I smack his hands, punch his head, kick him in the legs and back.” Mishima paused and looked down at his feet. After a moment, he shook his head and looked back up at me. “One thing I never do, though, is hit him in the face. Never. Hit a kid in the face and you get visible bruising. Then someone raises a stink about child abuse and, next thing you know, they’ve taken your kid away from you. I keep telling myself, ‘If you’ve got to hit your kid, then hit him in the face. It’ll be better for him that way.’ But I can’t. I always end up stroking his damn face when I mean to smash it. . . .”

Mishima lowered his eyes and stared at the round, white, half-eaten bun in his hand.

“Children’s cheeks are so soft and smooth. They have this sweet smell. When I hug my boy and rub my face against his, it’s got to hurt. There’s my stubble, plus my face is always filthy. . . .And you know what the kid says to me? ‘Daddy, why are you crying?’ What can I do? I just tell him, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being such a shit dad.’”

My cigarette had burned all the way down to the filter. I tossed the butt out the window, pulled the pack out, and gestured for Mishima to help himself. When he said no, I took one.

He looked up at me and hesitated a moment before asking, “When did you find out about me?”

“Pretty much from when you got here.”

“You knew, huh?”

I nodded. The cloud of smoke floating in front of me quivered and began to break up.

“Yeah. I couldn’t really help it. I mean, it’s unusual to be working as a scaffold builder at your age. I just heard rumors. Vague stuff.”

“Oh yeah?” sighed Mishima. “If you know so much, how come you think I’ve got any choice?”

I tried to reply, but the words wouldn’t come.

A great jumble of memories welled up inside of me, like a physical weight inside my chest. But I couldn’t talk to Mishima about my own past. I had no right.

Have you thought about the effect this will have on your little boy? I wanted to ask him. Damn stupid question. Of course he’d thought about his kid. He must’ve tied himself in mental knots before making the decision. God knows, I knew the thought process he’d been through—probably better than anyone.

“I’m just trying to help, man.”

In the end, that was the best I could come up with.

Mishima snorted derisively.

I felt bitterly ashamed. What I’d said sounded so cheap and facile. But what else could I say, for fuck’s sake?

“All right, then, you’d better go,” I murmured.

Mishima got to his feet, cramming what was left of the bun into his mouth. Patting the dust off the seat of his pants, he picked up a battered hard hat from the floor.

“Listen, man, I’m really sorry for getting you into this mess in the first place,” I said. “Anyway, you’d better go.”

The floor joists creaked as Mishima trudged out of the room. When he got to the corridor, the sound changed; I could hear sand scrunching on cement as he forced himself reluctantly forward.

I just stood there, watching my cigarette burn.

There was an empty soda can at my feet. I dropped my cigarette butt into it and listened as the butt went out with a sad fizzle.

Hearing the clanking of metal, I stuck my head out the window. Mishima was standing on the scaffolding three windows down. He had placed his hard hat onto his head without bothering to do up the chin strap. He looked up at a length of scaffolding above his head, stretched out his arm, and applied his wrench to a joint clamp.

He stayed in that position for a while, quite motionless. He wasn’t actually tightening anything, just staring up at his hand.

A gust of warm wind swept across the evening sky.

Eventually, Mishima’s right foot began to edge silently forward. One centimeter. Two centimeters. Now, just a millimeter or two.

I knew that if I kept watching, chances were I’d yell out before he’d done what he had to do. Which was the last thing I should do—for his sake, more than anyone’s.

The moment the heel of his right foot finally slid into the air, I felt a shiver of horror go through me, and I clasped my hands to my mouth.

His back slowly tilted forward. His hard hat came off his head and tumbled straight down. As his body angled forward, he finally lost his footing completely and plunged from the ninth floor.

It was only a matter of seconds. It felt long and short at the same time.

Gravity had some fun with him on the way down: he hit the scaffolding once, bounced, did a midair somersault, and kept on falling.

Just before he hit the ground, there was a loud splat, then a heavy thump, like when you drop a bag of cement.

His body lay sprawling on the dusty ground.

“Oh my God!”

The site foreman, the security guard, and a handful of construction workers ran over to him.

“He fell,” I yelled down. “There. He fell from there.”

I was three rooms away from where it had happened. No one had any reason to suspect me of anything. It had all gone exactly as planned.

* * *

Despite the accident, work resumed on schedule the very next day. The inspection or investigation or whatever they call it was all over and done with in less than twenty-four hours.

Two or three days later, I was gazing out the same window, thinking that the sunset was the same as on that day, when I noticed a tiny figure at the gate of the construction site.

* * *

I don’t remember anything about my mother. Dad told me she got sick and died. I never believed it. My guess is that she ran away. Given the kind of person Dad was, running away would be the sensible thing to do.

My dad was a complete loser, addicted to gambling though he never won a red cent. Most days we didn’t have so much as a grain of rice in the house. On the rare occasions when Dad came up with dinner, the best he could manage was a can of chicken. He made a big song and dance about it, but I knew he’d won it from a pachinko parlor. Some of those places aren’t allowed to give out cash prizes, so they hand out stuff instead.

My dad mostly worked in construction. He probably did odd jobs—taking the trash out, carrying stuff up to people, or, at a stretch, site security. Whatever it was, I doubt he had any special know-how or was a qualified construction worker.

I was only a kid then, but it was clear to me that my dad was physically weak and morally spineless. He was a loser who could never make up his mind about anything. The man had no backbone, no balls.

He wasn’t too bad when I was in nursery school. Things only really went to shit when I moved on to grade school. The guy couldn’t even afford to buy me a decent pencil case. A couple of pencils, an eraser, and a notebook—that was enough to wipe out my dad’s whole budget.

He wasn’t a store clerk’s idea of the dream customer either. He had on a filthy running shirt and ripped-up work pants. He was unshaven and gave off this sour smell of grime and sweat—plus a touch of cheap booze whenever he opened his mouth.

The store clerk looked disgusted, and even though I was just a kid, I felt desperately embarrassed.

“This one is three hundred yen,” the clerk said. “It’s the cheapest pencil case we stock.”

In the end, my dad just gave up on the idea. I used an elastic band to keep my pencils together.

In second and third grade, life became halfway decent. I don’t know why. Perhaps Dad lucked into money—or someone lent him some. Either way, he always had my lunch money waiting for me, and I had new clothes instead of ragged old ones. There was enough rice in the house, plus some meat and fish to go with it too!

That didn’t last. By the time I was in fourth grade, we were short of food again. Dad was usually able to give me money for my school lunch, but all there was at home were scraps of bread for breakfast and dried squid for dinner.

Not surprisingly, I got bullied at school.

The other kids called me “poor,” “smelly,” and “dirty.” I was like, Thanks, guys, I don’t need you to tell me that.

Still, I did my best to fight back.

“Come on, then. Calling me names doesn’t hurt me. But if I punch you, you’ll feel it all right.”

Being called names actually hurt me a lot. I was just trying to be a smartass, the way kids do.

I wasn’t big, but I was quick on my feet and had guts, so getting into a fight was no big deal. Still, I was careful not to overdo it. That wasn’t about being nice to the other kids; I was being nice to me: I simply didn’t have the energy.

After school, I’d go back to the shoddy two-story timber-frame apartment block where we lived and try and get Dad to make me something to eat. When he was out, I’d try and fix something for myself. Of course, whether my dad was there or not, it didn’t mean there was anything to eat.

“Sorry, buddy . . . I had a good look around, but there’s nothing in the house. . . . Sorry, buddy.”

I’d nod sympathetically, while thinking, Yeah, right. The way you smell, there must have been plenty of booze in the house.

As I drifted off into the comforting world of daydreams, I’d start picking at the tatami mats.

Suddenly, Mom was back with us, rustling up a hamburger and a steaming bowl of rice for me. Delicious! “You should come and live with me,” Mom would say in my dreams. I had no idea what she looked like in reality, so I’d give her the face of actresses I’d seen on TV. I didn’t need her to look sweet and pretty. I wanted someone who looked tough enough to deal with whatever life threw her way.

Then, a hand reached out and smacked me, bringing my daydream to an abrupt end.

“What the fuck you doing, kid?”

I opened my eyes. Without realizing it, I’d ripped a lump out of the tatami mat and was about to put it in my mouth.

“Oh,” I stammered. “Sorry, Dad.”

“You’re so hungry, you’ll eat tatami?”

“No, Dad.”

“Are you really that hungry?”

Actually, yes, I really am that hungry.

“No, I’m fine,” I answered after a moment. “I had seconds at lunch at school.”

“Don’t lie.”

Oh, come on. Do you really have to hit me?

“I’m fine. Honest, I am.”

“Shut up, kid.”

And off we went again. My broke, crappy old dad taking out his frustrations with the world on poor little me. He was a loser who went crazy whenever he had to face the fact that he was a loser. I knew what was coming and steeled myself.

My best strategy was to pull my knees up to my chest, curl up in a ball, protect my face, make myself as small as possible. My drunken dad was such a total failure he couldn’t even do a decent job of beating up his grade-school-age son.

Like a rain squall, his rage would quickly pass, and my dad would pick me up and hug me.

“I’m sorry, Kosuke. I’m sorry for being such a lousy father.”

You loser! The only thing you can teach me is to be as unlike you as possible. You’re weak and gutless. You can’t even follow through: if you’re gonna hit me, don’t start hugging me halfway through the beating.

“Why are you crying, Daddy?”

You were the one who was hitting me! I’m the one who should be crying here, Dad!

“Kosuke.”

Must you hug me?You stink. I don’t want your stink rubbing off on me.

I’d have preferred being rolled up in a gym mat and jumped on by the other kids in school to being hugged by him.

* * *

Anyway, this dad of mine died the summer after I finished fifth grade. He fell at work from the ninth floor of an apartment block.

Our phone had been disconnected ages ago, so I got the news in person from a detective who showed up at the door. When I heard him out dry-eyed, he patted me on the head and complimented me on being a tough little guy.

Being tough had nothing to do with it. I felt stunned and stupefied. That’s how pitifully weak I was.

Sure, you were a crap dad, but you tried to work so we could buy food. Sure, you lost it every three days and beat me up, but we always made up by bedtime. How am I meant to make it without you? A schoolkid like me can’t play the slots. I can’t work construction. How about delivering papers? Is a fifth grader allowed to do that?

I assumed they’d stick me in an orphanage. An orphanage would probably be better than this shitty apartment without a stick of food in it. Sure it would. How did I get into one? Who was going to take me? Should I ask someone at school to set it up? Would the detective take care of it?

Right at that moment, I didn’t need to worry about that. They took me to a sort of hospital in Otsuka. It wasn’t a normal hospital. I didn’t see any nurses, and the place was crawling with police.

“You’re the only family your father’s got, kid,” said someone. “I’m sorry, but we need you to identify him for us.”

I said okay. What else could I do? They led me into this bare white room and took me over to a bed covered with a white sheet.

All of a sudden, I was afraid.

The detective who’d come to the house said that Dad had fallen from the ninth floor. The ninth floor! That was three times taller than my school!

“His face is a bit . . . well . . . so I’m going to have you look at his tummy and his chest. Is that all right?”

I was wondering what exactly was meant by his face being “a bit, well . . . ,” when the sheet was pulled back.

I retched, gasping for air.

My dad’s body had this greenish tinge. That’s how I remember it. There were several sets of black stitches on the body. How am I supposed to identify this? was my first thought. Then I took a good look and recognized the chest hair as my dad’s, and the round, sticking-out belly button, which was undamaged.

“Yes, that’s him,” I whispered. “That’s my daddy.”

That was all I could manage before a second wave of nausea hit me.

* * *

A message came for me at the school two days later.

It was from Kinoshita Construction, the company Dad worked for. They wanted me to come and pick up his things.

“Will you be all right? Can you get there all by yourself?”

My teacher, Mr. Masuoka, was a very nice man. He photocopied a map for me and lent me money for the train fare. I thanked him and headed for Kinoshita Construction. I’m not proud of it, but even as a kid, I was kind of hoping that there might be some money in it for me.

The directions they’d given me were for the construction site where Dad had died. I was pacing anxiously in front of the big metal security shutter at the entrance when the security guard came out of his little prefab cabin.

“Are you Tadaharu Mishima’s kid?”

When I said I was, the guard took me to another, bigger prefab hut, where the air-conditioning was going full blast. There must have been four or five adults inside, all wearing identical pale green boiler suits—all except one, that is. He was dressed differently. He had on a white shirt, unbuttoned to show his chest, and black pants. He had a five-o’clock shadow and small brown sunglasses. I still remember how he had a cigarette dangling from his lips and the way his short-cropped hair stood straight up on his head.

“Thanks for coming, kid. I’m impressed. Really impressed.”

The man made an effort to be friendly.

“This is your dad’s duffel bag. Is that right?”

I nodded. The man asked me to check the contents. I recognized everything in it. There was even a little money in my dad’s wallet—six hundred yen.

“Okay, kid, you take the duffel home with you. And take this too. It’s incense money from the company. Money to say we’re sorry for your loss. You’ll need cash for one thing and another. Spend it wisely.”

They had also included what they owed Dad for overtime and other benefits.

“Thank you very much, sir. Good-bye.”

I took the money with a bow and left the hut.

After just a couple of steps, I opened the envelope to peer inside. There was a hundred thousand yen in there. Wow! I was over the moon—and nervous about having that much cash on me.

I made my way back to the front gate, then turned around for a last look at the construction site.

The building was eleven stories high and covered in scaffolding. My dad had fallen from the ninth floor. The detective told me that he’d been building the scaffolding when he fell.

The metal scaffolding glowed faintly in the light of the setting sun. In my childish imagination, it looked like a gigantic cage for a humongous monster.

Did the monster eat my dad? Or had Dad jumped down to escape from the monster?

Get me out of here! Get me out! Help me! Kosuke, help!

I pictured my father, his blubbering face all scrunched up with fear. Suddenly I felt sorry for him. The hundred thousand yen I had on me was the price of his life.

I didn’t cry. For some reason, however, I felt acutely thirsty.

The metal boards they put on the ground for the trucks to drive over were wet. They’d been spraying water to keep the dust down. There had to be a spigot nearby.

As I looked around, I heard a voice.

“Hey, are you Mishima’s boy?”

I spun around. Before I could reply, the man continued.

“Of course you are. You’ve got your dad’s eyes.”

Must you say that? I thought to myself.

The man squatted down in front of me and looked into my face. He was handsome, with a striking-looking nose. I guessed that he worked there, but he wasn’t all grimy like my dad.

A whiff of sweat wafted out from the collar of his polo shirt. Oddly enough, it didn’t disgust me.

“Your dad and I were pals. We were working together right at the end.”

It was the first time I’d imagined my dad having friends.

“I guess you came alone, huh? Well, I’m alone too. How about you and me have dinner together? You can order all your favorite things. My treat.”

All my favorite things. . . .

My stomach started rumbling. It actually hurt. It was like my intestines were tying themselves in knots.

“Come on, let’s go. I’m not planning to kidnap you, you know. If you’re frightened, you go first. Go into whatever restaurant you want and order whatever you like. How about it? Sound like a plan?”

I wasn’t afraid of him abducting me or anything. If anyone was dumb enough to kidnap me, there was nobody to pay even a penny in ransom. I’d completely forgotten about the hundred thousand yen I had on me.

“We’ve got us a deal, then. What’s your name?”

Kosuke, I told him.

“Kosuke, huh? Nice name. Mine’s Takaoka. Kenichi Takaoka. Pleased to meet you.”

And that was how I met the old man.

PARTONE

1

CHIYODA WARD, TOKYO TOKYO METROPOLITAN POLICE HEADQUARTERS

Reiko Himekawa was having coffee with Kazuo Kikuta in the canteen on the seventeenth floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police headquarters. Kikuta was a sergeant in Himekawa’s squad and just a little bit older than she was.

“What’s wrong, Lieutenant? Why the long face?”

“Oh, no reason.”

It was three o’clock in the afternoon of Thursday, December 4. The canteen overlooked the Imperial Palace grounds. It was so bright and sunny that it was easy to forget how cold it was outside.

“Are you still having dreams about Otsuka?”

Reiko looked up. Kikuta was resting his chin in his hands and gazing into her eyes. It was an atypical pose for him.

Shinji Otsuka had been a cop in Himekawa’s squad. On August 25 this year, he’d been killed while investigating a series of murders. He was only twenty-seven. Two years younger than she.

Kikuta had hit the nail on the head.

“Yeah.” She paused. “He’s been showing up in my dreams a lot recently. It’s always the last time I saw him in Ikebukuro. It’s rush hour. He’s got no idea what’s coming as he gets off the train and makes his way through the crowd. And then—this is the part where the dream departs from reality—Otsuka always turns back and waves at me with this goofy grin on his face. . . .”

Reiko’s voice quavered. Take a sip of coffee and get a grip on yourself. Her hand refused to obey, and the words started pouring out uncontrollably.

“I say, ‘Don’t go, Otsuka, don’t go.’ For some reason, though, he can’t hear me, and off he goes, still with that goofy grin on his face.”

The waitress came over, and Reiko discreetly turned away to hide her face.

“Everyone talks about me having a sixth sense. It’s bullshit. God, I wish I did! Then I could have warned him.”

“So you’re still putting yourself through the wringer, Lieutenant.”

Kikuta was holding out a handkerchief. Reiko shook her head and began looking through her handbag. She couldn’t find a handkerchief or even a Kleenex. Should she use the napkin on the table?

“Think I will take that after all.”

Kikuta was about to stuff the handkerchief back into his pocket. He stopped mid-motion and, with a grin, handed it to her.

“It’s not healthy to obsess about it.”

Kikuta’s chunky fingers closed around the handle of his mug. His lips were thick and slightly chapped, and his chin was a mass of dark stubble. There was something endearing in his simple, vigorous masculinity.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean those dreams. It’s not your fault, Lieutenant. If you start going down that route, then it’s Director Hashizume and Captain Imaizumi who are ultimately responsible. They’re the ones who assigned Otsuka to Ikebukuro.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“But it’s the same thing. Remember what you’re always telling us? How the criminal is the only one who is guilty, and that no one else should blame themselves? You mustn’t blame yourself, Lieutenant. And that’s exactly what you’re doing. For one thing, Otsuka wouldn’t have wanted you to. He loved being a cop, and he took his job—and that investigation—seriously. That’s the reason he’s always smiling. I mean, Otsuka is smiling at you in your dreams, right?”

“Hey, take it down a notch. You’re yelling.”

“Sorry,” mumbled Kikuta. The small black eyes that were such a bad fit with the great meaty slab of his face darted anxiously around the room.

Reiko suddenly saw a funny side to what Kikuta had been saying. She pressed the handkerchief to her mouth. “You’re about the last person I’d expect to say that sort of thing.”

Kikuta’s eyes widened.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that sort of new age, spiritual stuff: ‘Otsuka is smiling at you in your dreams. . . . ’”

Kikuta put his mug down on the table with a shamefaced grin.

“Perhaps it’s because ‘that sort of thing’ is popular right now.”

“Do you believe that stuff, Kikuta? Spiritualism? Communicating with the ‘other side’?”

“Nah, not really. How about you, Lieutenant? Women are usually more into that sort of thing than men.”

“Oh, women are, are they? I’m not a big one for generalizations myself.”

Did she believe in it or not? That was a question worth pondering.

She certainly thought about the people she loved who had passed on. Did that mean she believed in the spirit world? Hardly. She had no sense that there were invisible beings out there, smoothing her way. When she went to the family grave, she thanked her ancestors as you were supposed to do, but as far as she was concerned, she herself was responsible for what she had achieved.

As for the idea of a personal guardian spirit—that, she rejected out of hand.

“Hmmm,” she grunted. “I’d have to say that I’m not much of a believer . . . I think.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Reiko felt slightly annoyed.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m not a normal woman?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“I just thought skepticism was more you, Lieutenant. That’s all.”

“And ‘more me’ means what, exactly?”

Kikuta looked flustered.

“What’s with the third degree? The Reiko Himekawa I know tends to be skeptical and look at things in a more detached and rational way. The Reiko Himekawa I know wouldn’t fret over all the hypotheticals with Otsuka—what if this, what if that—it’s a bottomless rabbit hole. No, the Reiko Himekawa I know would just come out and say, ‘The only person at fault here is the murderer—and that’s that.’”

Reiko could feel herself getting angry.

That’s what you think of me, is it?

Still, if people tended to see her as brisk, decisive, and businesslike, that was because it was the image she chose to project. As a woman in her twenties, there was no way she could move up the ladder at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police without some careful image-management.

Reiko had been appointed a squad leader in the Homicide Division soon after making lieutenant at twenty-seven. It was a nearly unprecedented achievement, but still, a woman could not be a woman in a work environment like the police. She had to be more of a man than the men if she wanted to avoid being treated as a joke.

Still . . .

To Kikuta, if to no one else, Reiko made an effort to show her feminine side. She thought they were close enough for that. She thought that he liked her.

It hasn’t worked out too well. He doesn’t understand me one bit.

She’d known all along that Kikuta was never going to win any prizes for sensitivity. His emotional obtuseness got on her nerves, but she was willing to overlook it as a lovable defect. The truth was, she had her own vulnerabilities, and she wanted his support. She thought he could at least sense her needs without her having to be explicit.

What a bummer!

She wasn’t going to transform herself and suddenly become all clingy and dependent, girly-girl style, just for his sake. She was too proud for that, and her rank as lieutenant obliged her to be a little more formal and stiff. Sometimes, though, she felt like she had a metal board strapped to her back.

“Perhaps we should make a move,” said Reiko, consulting her Longines watch. Kikuta reached for the check and sprang briskly to his feet.

“I’ll deal with this, Lieutenant. You go ahead.”

You’re the soul of tact when it comes to unimportant things, Reiko thought to herself.

“It’s okay.”

“Seriously. You should go first.” Kikuta’s large head suddenly loomed in toward her. “You need to redo your makeup. Anyone can tell you’ve been crying.”

Reiko shuddered. The skin around her eyes flushed.

Was Kikuta being sensitive or obtuse? She wasn’t quite sure.

Worse than that, what was she coming to if she needed a man like him to tell her that her makeup needed fixing!

* * *

When Reiko got back to the big open-plan office on the sixth floor, everyone else on the squad was at their desks.

Sergeant Tamotsu Ishikura, the veteran of her team at forty-seven years old, had his nose buried in the newspaper as usual.

Officer Kohei Yuda was poring sleepily over a textbook for his promotional exam. With Otsuka gone, his position in the group had risen a notch.

Otsuka’s replacement was Officer Noriyuki Hayama. He was deep in an old case file.

Hayama was highly competent. Despite joining the force out of high school, he’d been appointed to the Homicide Division when he was only twenty-five. He was tall and handsome, but he didn’t let that go to his head. When he was working a case, he went about things quietly and methodically. He’d only been with Reiko’s squad for three months, and, as far as she could tell, he was a model detective.

If Himekawa was going to be picky, then perhaps Hayama was a little gloomier than she would have liked. When the squad went out for a communal booze-up, he barely smiled or spoke. Even when Yuda got so wasted that he started sticking chopsticks into his nose, mouth, and ears in his best Hellraiser imitation, Hayama’s only response was a solemn nod. He certainly knew how to wreck the mood.

There was also something about him that hinted at insubordination. It was nothing Reiko could put her finger on, just a certain irritating superciliousness. She’d gotten so annoyed that she’d asked him flat out if working with a female lieutenant was a problem for him. “Problem? No,” he’d replied, flatly. Worried that pressing him too hard would make her look immature, Reiko opted to let sleeping dogs lie. Perhaps he’d thaw out in time.

Sergeant Kikuta was the fourth and last member of Reiko’s team. Unit 10 of the TMPD Homicide Division consisted of the Himekawa squad and the Kusaka squad—and they were a whole other set of oddballs.

“Lieutenant?”

Ishikura pushed his newspaper to one side and cocked an eyebrow at Reiko. He wanted to tell her something in confidence.

Reiko walked around the clump of pushed-together desks until she was standing next to Ishikura. Kikuta, who was sitting on the far side, discreetly strained to listen in.

“What’s up, Tamotsu?”

Much older than the rest of them, Ishikura gave off quite a different vibe from the others in the squad. Reiko didn’t dislike it; if anything, just the opposite. Of late, she found middle-aged male stolidity increasingly appealing.

“Toyama is definitely up to something,” murmured Ishikura. “A moment ago he left the room with Kusaka. Perhaps there’s been a development in that business this morning.”

Toyama was a sergeant on Kusaka’s squad. “That business this morning” was a rumor about Director Hashizume bringing back an object from Kamata Precinct in Ota Ward.

“Have you got the lowdown on whatever it was?”

“It was in an ice chest. Hashizume took it to the crime lab and gave the head of Forensics a hard time about needing the results fast. That’s all I know.”

At present, the members of Homicide Unit 10 were the only people on standby at TMPD headquarters. There were three levels of readiness: A, B, and C. Level A meant standing by at headquarters; B was standing by at home; and C meant on call but free to go about your business.

There wasn’t much difference between being on level C and being on vacation. With the recent squeeze on department finances, however, C had been temporarily shelved, and for the last three days, both squads in Unit 10 had been at the desks on level A, while Unit 3 was on level B.

This meant that if there was a murder anywhere in Tokyo today, Reiko’s team would have to work with Kusaka’s squad on the case. This would be a problem. The Kusaka squad and the Himekawa squad were at daggers drawn; or to be precise, Lieutenant Himekawa loathed Lieutenant Kusaka.

Reiko wasn’t short of reasons. She detested everything about Kusaka, from his looks and the sound of his voice to the way he handled his cases. Through sheer dumb luck, they’d not had to collaborate on any cases over the last few months. Sadly, it looked like that happy state of separation was about to come to an end. Reiko was just going to have to suck it up.

“Any idea what’s going on in Kamata?”

“That must be what Toyama is trying to find out. My guess is they’ve put a gag order on it.”

All sorts of horse-trading went on behind the scenes before a task force was formally established, whether between different divisions of the TMPD, between the TMPD and the local precincts, or between the police and the media. The fact that the detectives hadn’t heard anything formally yet probably meant one of two things: either the incident was too insignificant to deserve its own task force, or it was a delicate and complex case and things were moving slowly. It was the latter scenario that Reiko thought more likely—and it was the one she was hoping for.

If you wanted to make a name for yourself in this department, it was far better to solve one big case than to fool around with a bunch of smaller ones. Big cases drew media attention, and the bigger the noise the media made about you, the more of a reputation you got inside the force. The best possible thing was to singlehandedly solve a case that made major headlines, like the Mizumoto Park murders earlier this year.

It’s a shame that someone else walked off with all the credit for that one.

Reiko gazed out across the office at the vast rows of desks. There was a cluster of men around the coffee machine near the door on the far side. It was Sergeant Mizoguchi, and Officers Shinjo and Itoi—all of them members of Kusaka’s squad.

“Hey, Tamotsu, have you seen the captain?”

Reiko was talking about Captain Imaizumi, the head of Unit 10.

“He went out about ten minutes ago.”

“Did someone come in to fetch him?”

“Not that I saw.”

As Reiko and Ishikura were talking, Kusaka and Toyama reappeared in the doorway. They seemed to be relaying information to the other three members of their squad, deliberately keeping their voices low.

Were they planning to keep whatever they had found out to themselves so they could be a step ahead when the task force was set up?

Come on, Reiko! Why must you always think the worst of other people?

Reiko walked over to the group. She could hear Kikuta’s footsteps right behind her.

“Hey, Lieutenant Kusaka, any interesting scuttlebutt come your way today?”

Kusaka stared blankly back at her with his small black reptilian eyes. As usual, his thin lips were clamped together in a straight line.

“Scuttlebutt? What’s that?”

That voice—deep, heavy, joyless.

“I know you’ve been gathering info. What did you find out?”

“You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I just went to the bathroom.”

“Oh, and you’re so pally with your squad mates that you always take them with you for a communal piss?”

“Watch it, Himekawa. Dirty talk like that’s not going to help you find yourself a husband.”

Reiko caught the hint of a smirk on his face.

“Thanks for the marital counseling, but I’d prefer if you stayed off that topic in the workplace.”

“Sorry. I misspoke.”

Officer Itoi, who was standing in front of Kusaka, sniggered. Reiko ignored him.

“So what’s going on? In the crime lab, I mean?”

“Like I said, I just went to the bathroom—”

“A man of your caliber, Lieutenant Kusaka—I’m sure you can retrieve useful information even when it’s just floating around in the toilet bowl.”

Kusaka flinched and snorted with disgust. Reiko simply kept staring at him.

“Listen, Himekawa, if you’re so keen to get some information, how about finding it out for yourself? Being on standby level A isn’t supposed to mean getting all lovey-dovey with your subordinates and taking them out for coffee and a nice view.”

The bastard! He must have seen me and Kikuta!

“Which just proves I was right. You weren’t in the bathroom.”

“Did I say it was me who saw you? I’ve had enough of this chitchat. It’s a waste of time.”

Tapping Toyama on the shoulder, Kusaka headed over to his desk.

“Hey, just a minute. Are you trying to give me the slip?”

Kusaka glared at Reiko.

“You shouldn’t try and copy Stubby, Himekawa. You’re way too young to be able to browbeat information out of me. Try again in ten years’ time.”

Kusaka spun on his heel and marched off, his subordinates in tow.

Me? Trying to copy Stubby?

Stubby was the nickname of Lieutenant Kensaku Katsumata, a squad leader in Unit 5. He was ex–Public Security Bureau and a classic old-school cop in the worst possible sense. His method of investigation was a combination of foul language, violence, and bribes—and he excelled at all three.

Stubby’s the last person on Earth I want to be compared to!

Reiko heard footsteps in the corridor and turned to see Director Hashizume and Captain Imaizumi in the doorway.

“Listen up, everyone,” announced Imaizumi. “We’re going to be setting up a task force for a murder over in Kamata. Everyone needs to get over to that precinct right now.”

Director Hashizume looked like the cat who ate the canary and was clearly desperate for a chance to sound off.

“What’s going on, Director?” Reiko asked.

Hashizume cleared his throat rather theatrically, then announced: “It’s because I kicked their asses and told them get a move on. They insisted that they needed a minimum of nine hours. I knew that if they got it together, they could do it in seven.”

“Do what, sir?”

“DNA analysis. On some bloodstains and a hand. Sure enough, the DNA was a match.”

Now it was all starting to make sense. The “something” that Director Hashizume had brought back in the cooler was a human hand.

“You’ll get a proper briefing over in Kamata. I need you all to get a move on,” said Captain Imaizumi. “It’s already 3:20. If it gets dark, we’ll have lost a whole day.”

2

Kamata Police Station was about five minutes’ walk from Kamata train station.

When they arrived, Reiko and her squad took the elevator to the sixth floor, walked past the cafeteria, and to a large conference room. Reiko slipped off her coat and had a look around.

It all looks well prepared.

The desks had all been arranged in long rows facing the front of the room. Around twenty investigators—from Kamata and neighboring precincts, Reiko guessed—were already there.

“Hi there, Lieutenant Reiko.”

I just can’t believe it! Of all people: Hiromitsu Ioka!

“What the hell are you doing here?” growled Kikuta.

Reiko had to slide between the two men and physically restrain Kikuta from grabbing Ioka by his jacket lapels.

“Just cool it, Kikuta. Ioka, what are you doing here in Kamata? Last I heard, you were over in Kameari.”

Ioka gave a bucktoothed smile, flushed up to his jug ears, and stared at Reiko with his round bug eyes.

“I got transferred again. I’ve been based here since October.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. It’s just too weird. Three times in one year, you’ve transferred to precincts my team gets sent to. That’s not natural.”

Ioka squirmed in his chair and rubbed his hands. Reiko shuddered at the all-too-familiar sight.

“You know why, Lieutenant Reiko? It’s because our destinies are intertwined. That’s an incontestable fact, isn’t it?”

“I damn well hope not. Anyway, like I told you before, don’t call me by my first name.”

“You’re so cute when you’re bashful.”

“Ioka!” bellowed Kikuta, his face purple with rage. “How come you’re always in the right place whenever a murder’s committed? Are you committing these crimes yourself just to have an excuse to see the lieutenant?”

Oh please. Get real, thought Reiko to herself. Ioka himself seemed quite unflustered.

“My old pal Kaz Kikuta.”

Kaz?

“You creep, you can’t talk to me like that—”

Reiko guessed that Kikuta had been about to say that a lowly officer like Ioka had no business being so familiar with a sergeant like him when Ioka lifted a hand and cut Kikuta off. Ioka reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out his badge wallet, then flapped it ostentatiously open and shoved it into Kikuta’s face.

“I’m happy to report that I just made sergeant. In other words, Brother Kaz, you and I are now the same rank.”

Kikuta scowled ferociously, spluttered, and sank into silence.

That explained Ioka’s move to this precinct. Any detective who passed the promotional exam was rewarded with an automatic transfer.

“Maybe you finally made sergeant, but you’ve still got two years’ less on the force than me,” Kikuta barked at Ioka.

“You lot, shut the fuck up,” bellowed Captain Imaizumi, drowning out the tail end of Kikuta’s outburst.

The group exchanged looks and shrugged.