Six Four (2 page)

‘The “Lake of Promise”?’

‘It looks like a heart, depending on the angle. The website makes the claim that it grants you true love in the next life; the girl today, she was the fourth. We had one come all the way from Tokyo not too long ago. The press decided to run an article, and now we’ve got the TV to deal with.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘Absolutely. It’s a disgrace, peddling articles about a suicide. If we had had time, Mikami, I would have liked to ask you for some pointers in dealing with them.’

As if he were uncomfortable with silence, the captain continued to talk. For his part, Mikami lacked the will to carry out any animated conversation. While he was thankful for the captain’s tact, his responses became increasingly terse.

It was a mistake. It wasn’t Ayumi. His thoughts were joyless all the same; no different to those on the journey out. To pray she wasn’t
their
daughter. He knew all too well that this was the same as wishing she was someone else’s.

Minako was perfectly still at his side. Their shoulders pressed together. Hers felt abnormally frail.

The car turned at a junction. The bright light of the train station came into view directly ahead of them. The square in front of the building was wide and spacious, strewn with a few commemorative monuments. It was almost empty of people. Mikami had heard that the building of the station was the result of political manoeuvring; no one had thought to consider actual passenger numbers.

‘There’s no need to get out, you’ll only get wet,’ Mikami said quickly. He had the rear passenger door halfway open, but the captain beat him out of the car regardless. The man’s face was flushed red.

‘Please accept my apologies for the unreliable information and the trouble you’ve taken to come here. We thought, well, from her height and the position of the mole that she might be . . . I just hope we haven’t caused you too much distress.’

‘Of course not.’

Mikami waved a hand to dismiss the idea, but the captain took hold of it.

‘This will work out. Your daughter is alive and well. We will find her. You have 260,000 friends looking for her, around the clock.’

Mikami remained in a low bow, watching the tail lights as the captain’s car pulled away. Minako’s neck was getting wet in the cold rain. He pulled her slight form close and started towards the station. The light from a police box – one of the
koban –
caught his eye. An old man, possibly a drunk, was sitting on the road, fending off the restraining arms of a young policeman.

260,000 friends.

There was no exaggeration in the captain’s words. District stations.
Koban
. Substations. Ayumi’s picture had been sent to police departments across the nation. Officers he would neither know nor recognize were keeping watch day and night for news of his daughter, as if she were their own. The police force . . . family. It inspired confidence, and he was indebted – not a single day went by in which he wasn’t thankful for being part of such a powerful and far-reaching organization. And yet . . .

Mikami bit down on the cold air. He had never imagined it. That his need for help could have become such a critical weakness.

Submission.

Now and then, his blood felt ready to boil. He could never tell Minako.

To find your missing daughter. To hold her alive in your arms. Mikami doubted there was anything a parent wouldn’t put themselves through in order to achieve such a goal.

An announcement rang out along the train platform.

Inside, the train was marked by empty seats. Mikami ushered Minako to a window seat, then whispered, ‘The captain’s right. She’s safe. She’s doing okay.’

Minako said nothing.

‘They’ll find her soon. You don’t need to worry.’

‘. . . yes.’

‘We had the calls, remember? She wants to come back. It’s just pride. You’ll see, one day soon, she’ll just turn up.’

Minako was as hollow-looking as before. Her elegant features shone in the dark window of the train. She looked worn. She had given up on make-up and hairdressers. How would she feel, though, if she realized this only served to draw attention to the natural, effortless beauty of her features?

Mikami’s face was also in the window. He saw a phantom image of Ayumi.

She had cursed the way she’d taken after him.

She had made her mother’s beauty the focus of her anger.

He slowly pulled his eyes away from the window. It was temporary. Like the measles. Sooner or later, she would come to her senses. Then she would come home with her tongue stuck out, like she had done when she made mistakes as a small girl. She couldn’t genuinely hate them, want to cause them pain, not Ayumi.

The train rocked a little. Minako was resting against his shoulder. Her irregular breathing made it hard to know if she was groaning or just asleep.

Mikami closed his eyes.

The window was still there, under his eyelids, reflecting the ill-matched husband and wife.

Since the morning a strong northern wind had been blowing over the plains of Prefecture D.

The lights were green up ahead, but the traffic was backed up and Mikami could do nothing but edge forwards. He took his hands off the steering wheel and lit a cigarette. Work had already begun on another cluster of high-rise apartments, gradually stealing away the outline of the mountains framed through the car window.

580,000 households. 1,820,000 citizens. Mikami remembered the numbers from a demographic survey he’d seen in the morning paper. Close to a third of that population lived or worked within the limits of City D. After a laboured and drawn-out process the city had successfully merged with the neighbouring cities, towns and villages, giving momentum to the process of centralization. Despite this, work on a universal public transport system – the very first item on the agenda – had yet to begin. With only a few trains or buses in service, most of the routes hugely impractical, the roads were overflowing with cars.

Get a bloody move on
, Mikami muttered to himself. It was five days into December, and the morning congestion was particularly bad. The radio seemed poised to announce eight o’clock at any moment. He could make out the five-storey structure of the Prefectural Police HQ up ahead. The sight brought an unexpected sense of nostalgia for its cold but familiar outer walls, despite the fact that he’d only been away in the north for half a day.

He hadn’t needed to go all that way. He’d known from the start that it would be a waste of time. It was obvious now, a day later. Ayumi hated the cold more than most; it was ludicrous to think she would venture north. Even more that she would decide to throw herself into a frozen lake.

Mikami stubbed out his cigarette and pushed down on the accelerator. Space enough for a few cars had opened up ahead.

Somehow, he managed not to arrive late. Having stopped in the station parking area, he hurried towards the main building. As he did this, force of habit pulled his eyes towards the spaces set aside for the press.

He stopped dead. The area, usually empty at this time of day, was packed full of cars. Correspondents representing each of the news outlets would be gathered inside. For a brief moment Mikami wondered if something had happened. But no – they were here to continue yesterday’s discussions, that was all. They would be inside, waiting for him to show.

Gunning for an early start.

Mikami entered the building through the front entrance. It was less than ten steps along the corridor to Media Relations. Three nervous-looking faces looked up as he pushed open the door. Section Chief Suwa and Sub-chief Kuramae, both sitting at their desks facing the wall. Mikumo, at her desk nearest the door.

The cramped space made for subdued greetings.

The room was a little bigger than it had been before the spring, as they’d had the wall to the archive room torn down, but there was hardly room to breathe when the reporters decided all to barge in at once. Mikami had imagined such a situation before he came in, but the press were nowhere to be seen. Feeling as though he’d made a narrow escape, he took his seat by the windows. Suwa approached before he had the chance to call him over. He was unusually reticent when he spoke.

‘Sir. Umm . . . about yesterday’s . . .’

Mikami hadn’t expected this; he’d been getting ready to ask
about the press situation. Late last night Mikami had called his reporting officer, Division Chief Ishii of the Secretariat, and given a full account of what had happened during the ID. He had naturally assumed Ishii would pass the news on to his staff in Media Relations.

‘It wasn’t her. Thanks for asking.’

The atmosphere seemed to brighten immediately. Suwa and Kuramae exchanged relieved glances and Mikumo seemed to reanimate; she jumped up and took Mikami’s mug off its place on the shelf.

‘More to the point, Suwa – the press are here?’

Mikami jerked his chin towards one of the walls. The Press Room was on the other side, housing the Press Club, an informal grouping of thirteen news groups.

Suwa’s expression darkened again.

‘Yes, they’re all in there. They were talking about stringing you up. They’ll be barging in soon enough.’

Stringing him up? Mikami felt a sudden irritation.

‘Oh, and if you could also bear in mind – they think you left because you had a relative in a critical condition.’

Mikami paused briefly before he nodded.

The quick-witted spin doctor. That was Suwa to a tee. He was ranked Assistant Inspector, having come up through Administrative Affairs. With three years of experience in Media Relations and another two in the field as a police sergeant, he had already achieved a deep understanding of the modern-day ecology of the press. While his precociousness could be annoying from time to time, his ability to win the reporters over, transitioning seamlessly between the twin roles of diplomat and spin doctor, was genuinely astonishing. Now that he had further polished his skills during his second posting, the department held him in increasingly high regard.

Mikami’s second posting to the office had been less fortuitous. He was forty-six, and the transfer had come after twenty years
away. Until the spring, he had worked as the assistant chief of Second Division; prior to that, he had managed a team in the field, investigating corruption and election fraud as a section chief in Non-violent Crime.

Mikami stood and turned towards the whiteboard next to his desk.

Prefecture D, Police Headquarters. Press Release: Thursday, 5 December 2002.

As press director, his first job of the morning was to run through all announcements to be made to the press.

The office received a non-stop deluge of calls and faxes reporting accidents and crimes from within the jurisdiction of the prefecture’s nineteen district stations. The recent and widespread adoption of computers meant the same now applied to emails. Mikami’s staff would summarize the reports using a template, then attach copies to whiteboards in the office and the Press Room. At the same time, they would get in touch with the prefecture’s TV news. It was through activities like these that the force helped facilitate press coverage. Despite this, press releases often ended up becoming sources of friction.

Mikami checked the clock on the wall. It was after eight thirty.

What were they doing in there?

‘Sir, do you have a moment?’ Kuramae had come over to stand in front of Mikami’s desk. His willowy form contrasted with his hefty-sounding name, part of which translated as ‘storehouse’. His tone, as usual, was understated. ‘It’s . . . about the bid-rigging charges.’

‘Sure. Did you manage to find out anything?’

‘Ah . . .’ Kuramae faltered.

‘What is it? The CEO’s refusing to come clean?’

‘To be honest, I wasn’t able to—’

‘You weren’t able to . . . what?’

Mikami’s eyes sharpened unconsciously. It was five days since Second Division had made a series of arrests for bid-rigging
charges surrounding a project to build a prefectural art museum. They had raided six mid-tier construction companies and brought eight executives into custody, but the investigation was far from over. Their target was Hakkaku Construction, a regional contractor which they suspected had been behind the process. Mikami had heard whispers that the CEO had been quietly summoned to one of the district stations and that, for the last few days, he had submitted to voluntary questioning. If the police successfully brought in the ringleader, it would be big news for the regional papers.

It was common in Second Division for statements – and the formal issuing of arrest warrants – to be delayed until late at night. Mikami had sent Kuramae to get an overview of the current situation, with the hope of avoiding any confusion that might arise should the timing clash with the cut-off point for the next day’s news.

‘Did you at least find out if the CEO has been brought in?’

Kuramae looked downcast. ‘I asked the assistant chief. But he . . .’

It wasn’t hard to work out what had happened. They had decided to treat Kuramae as a spy.

‘That’s fine. I’ll go and see them later.’

Mikami watched Kuramae move away with slumped shoulders, then let out a bitter sigh. Kuramae had previously worked in an office job at Second Division in one of the district stations. Mikami had asked him to go in the hope that he would be able to use the contacts he’d made there to extract some new information, but he’d been over-optimistic. Anything you gave Media Relations went straight to the press, who would then use it as a bargaining tool. Many detectives still swore by this belief.

Mikami had been no exception.

Back when he was a rookie detective, Media Relations had been nothing but a department to distrust.
A pawn of the press. A guard dog for Administrative Affairs. A place to brush up for exams.
He had no doubt said as much himself, mimicking the behaviour of his fault-finding superiors. Even from a distance he had found
their intimacy with the press distasteful. They would spend night after night drinking, plying the reporters with compliments. At crime scenes they stood aloof, bystanders as they chatted to the press.