Half Life: A Hana Walker Mystery (The Hana Walker Mysteries Book 1)

by Patrick Sherriff

  I typed in the address I’d seen on the wall. Ishinomaki 14-124. According to the phone, I was standing at the end of a street that would come to the right block in a few hundred meters. But my eyes told me there was no street. Just a more passable route through a jungle of rubbish. A single long kitchen chopstick in the mud. A tree uprooted and on its side, still with leaves but coloured a sickly brown. Weird green chemicals in the pools of water seeped down the street. Houses were shells. Plastic bags, litter and debris on first floor house roofs, in the metal bars that every house-proud owner had on their windows. A front garden turned into a pond of black water, uprooted bushes and dead trees.

  Then I was there, No. 14-124.

  The fence was bent from the weight of a car hanging over it. A fish in the middle of the entrance steps, its mouth closed. It stared at me with a dead eye. A telephone pole had speared the roof. A Beatles album cover hung upside down from the top of a smashed window frame.

  Something was scribbled on a scrap of paper pinned to the front door. I held my breath as I realised I recognised the handwriting.

  Hana. Get out of here. Get back to Abiko. Now. Emi’s not here—Uncle Kentaro.

  7:01

  Mr. Blackmore was crouching in the water watching the minnows as I sloshed through the mud and water back to the car. Was the tide coming in? He stood up and puffed his chest out when I was near.

  “Where the heck’ve you been? It’s not safe here.”

  “I couldn’t sit still. I found this.” I unfolded the note and handed it to him.

  “What’s it say?”

  “It’s addressed to me and it says to get out of here. That Emi’s not here. To go back to Abiko.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  “My uncle.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “I’m not sure. It may mean we’re too late. It’s Emi… I saw her name on a residents’ list at the school. The name was crossed out. This note was on her house. The whole house was destroyed. She couldn’t have lived through the tsunami. The note is right. She can’t be here.”

  “She must be.”

  “Think about it, Mr. Blackmore. Even if she did make it through, she can’t still be here. In this place.”

  Mr. Blackmore looked back toward the school.

  “There’s something else I didn’t tell you,” I said.

  “Her name was read out on television last night as one of the confirmed dead. I didn’t want to believe it was true. But look around us. This is a city of the dead. And if she was here, then now, well, I don’t know how to say it, then her body…”

  Mr. Blackmore fell to his knees into the mud and looked down, “… is in the ocean.”

  He bowed his head and clasped his hands together in front of his face. He stayed kneeling in the stinking mud with his eyes shut.

  I didn’t know where to look, so I retreated to the car and made myself busy. I wiped the windscreen with my sleeve. Then I opened and closed the glove compartment, trying to memorise its contents. An oily cloth. An ice scraper. A manual. A crumpled tissue smeared with make-up. An empty, crumpled-up cigarette packet, and, what, a chocolate bar wrapper? No, it was chewing gum.

  And still Mr. Blackmore knelt in the mud.

  Should I speak to him? What would I say? What were the right words? There were none. The labels didn’t fit.

  I had Emi’s last books from the library on the back seat. I got halfway through the chapter in the business English book on bills of lading, whatever they were, before I remembered the second book wasn’t a textbook. Under the Banner of Heaven. I’d got through all the reviews on the inside page “Compelling… provocative… illuminating… a gripping tale” when something wouldn’t stop bothering me. Was that really Ono’s voice I heard? How did he get here? Who was he talking to? Where was he now? And Uncle Kentaro…

  “Mr. Blackmore, we have to get out of here now.”

  Mr. Blackmore struggled to his feet. He took his cowboy hat from his head and pitched it away into the water around. He waded back to the car, sat in the driver’s seat, and slipped the car into reverse.

  “Are you OK?” I said.

  He reached his arm over my seat and looked out the back window as he backed the car away from the school, back to the only road out of Ishinomaki.

  “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” he said. I wasn’t sure if that was true, and it sounded like Mr. Blackmore wasn’t sure either.

  I unfolded the note and read the Japanese again. Emi-chan wa imasen. Emi’s not here. Or you could translate it differently:

  There is no Emi.

  Direct Messages

  WalkDontRun

  Uncle Kentaro, what’s happening? Saw your note. I’m on the way back with Mr. Blackmore. What does it mean?

  7:41 a.m.

  WalkDontRun

  Please tell me Emi is alive. Me and Mr. Blackmore are exhausted, but I can’t sleep, in case he does. He’s driving.

  7:59 a.m.

  WalkDontRun

  Arrived in Abiko. Mr. Blackmore hasn’t spoken a word since Ishinomaki. I kept myself awake by reading. What do I do?

  1:03 p.m.

  WalkDontRun

  Mr. Blackmore is asleep in the hotel. Help me please, Uncle Kentaro.

  1:12 p.m.

  Chosenname

  It’s time to end this. Bring everyone together.

  2:07 p.m.

  WalkDontRun

  Everyone? How do I do that?

  2:10 p.m.

  Chosenname

  Tell them to meet in a public place, say the Abiko Water Museum at 3 p.m.

  2:23 p.m.

  WalkDontRun

  How do I get them there?

  2:25 p.m.

  Chosenname

  Call them now. Tell them Emi is alive. They will come.

  2:27 p.m.

  WalkDontRun

  I’ve done it. But is she really alive? Where is she?

  2:38 p.m.

  Chosenname

  You’ll see in 10 minutes. Meet me at the Teganuma Museum of Water. In the observation deck.

  2:50 p.m.

  2:52

  I slipped my phone into my pocket. I couldn’t get the stink of Ishinomaki off my hands or my boots, or maybe it was just in my mind. I had a bad feeling about meeting at the water museum, but I told myself it was a chance to find Emi and end this. I wish I hadn’t been so convincing.

  From the observation deck on the fifth floor of the water museum you could see all around Abiko, the rice paddies, the lake and the fibreglass swan pedal boats under the highway bridge. But I didn’t feel like looking at water, I’d seen enough of what it could do for a lifetime. There was one other place I could get into unnoticed, where no one else ever went.

  The Abiko Municipal Museum of Birds, right across the road from the water museum.

  The whole third floor is full of dead birds. They dangle from the ceiling or are in glass coffins like they were about to take off or swoop down on a mouse, not like they’d had their insides sucked out and been glued in position forever. Harmony between birds and humans, it says so in the museum entrance.

  I used to go to the bird museum as a primary school kid and spend hours pressing the buttons on the displays. The buttons made little robot bird-leg displays light up on the wall and move. We can make a flashing light show, we can stuff the birds, we can put them in glass boxes, but we can’t be them. We don’t really know anything about them.

  Or life. Or water. Not anymore.

  When I got to the bird museum, dozens of old folks were milling around in the lobby. I wasn’t expecting that, but it was good because I didn’t have any money for the ticket to get in. I skipped through the crowds and dashed for the stairs toilets. I hoped the clerk behind the window on the ground floor hadn’t seen me. The old folks didn’t seem to care I was dressed like a priest’s assistant, wearing boots, covered in mud. They didn’t look so normal. They were all wearing yellow duck-shaped cardboard hats with ‘Japan Nation
al Bird Festival’ printed on the sides.

  I cleaned up the best I could in the toilets and went up the stairs. Through the third-floor windows I could see everything at the water museum across the road. Scores of people were wandering between the museums, like the earthquake hadn’t changed a thing. But it was a festival without any fun, unless you counted the paper-scissors-rock competition between five grey-haired women. A line of jet-black-haired old men on the lakeside had telephoto lenses propped on poles. An old guy in a parking attendant uniform was shouting “All right, all right, all right” into his megaphone, directing a bus load of duck-heads. The driver was backing up too fast for the old man to keep up.

  Whatever happened next, I had done what I’d promised to do, brought together father and daughter. And mother and yakuza. Now I was just watching. Anything that happened was not going to be my fault. So why did I feel shaky? Very shaky.

  I felt in my robe pocket. It was my phone vibrating.

  “Hello?”

  “Answer the phone, would you? Trouble.” It was Uncle Kentaro.

  I looked out of the window. The only person without a duck hat was a woman going to the water museum main entrance. She was wearing a winter duffel coat that made me sweat just looking at it. Her head flitted around the crowd, a nervous coot in a flock of ducks.

  “I can see Emi’s mother. She’s going in. No sign of Emi, though.”

  “Forget her, we’ve got two policemen by the entrance. That’s not ideal since we’re meeting yakuza. A fat one, waiting for the elevator in the water museum. He’s going up to the observation deck. Take the stairs and meet me in the lobby.”

  A bell rang and I turned. The lift button behind me was flashing. Arrival imminent.

  “I’ll be there in a minute, Uncle Kentaro.”

  I dashed for the stairs. Heard the strain of the lift doors opening behind me. I ran, taking the steps four at a time, not looking behind, not looking ahead.

  Were those footsteps behind me? It was hard to tell. Piped lift music played in the stairwell. But who used stairs these days? Yakuza? I heard footsteps and gruff talk in front of me.

  “…getting there…”

  I jumped round the corner, falling down the last flight. Round the corner I flew—

  Into the arms of a startled grandpa.

  His duck hat went flying. “Sorry!” I shouted behind me as I yanked open the glass doors to dash across the street, squeezing past a black Lexus as it made a right turn into the stalled traffic. I skidded into the lobby of the water museum. Uncle Kentaro, with a duck hat, tried but failed to close his mouth.

  “Hi, Uncle Kentaro,” I said, catching my breath as the glass sliding doors entrance shut behind me.

  I skipped between two policemen standing to attention at the door.

  “I thought you were watching from the observation deck?”

  “I was. But from across the road, in the bird museum.”

  “Don’t you ever do as you’re told?”

  “I try to. But I’m not good at following orders.”

  “Does doing your own thing entitle you to look a mess? We don’t want to make a scene.”

  “Is that why you’re wearing that duck hat?”

  “There’s no shame in appearing to fit in, even if you don’t. Anyway, I see the police are waiting for someone. Maybe they got wind of something. Not hard considering how much you stink. It’s good to see you, but you should change.”

  “No time. You told me to contact everyone, so I did. I sent a message to Ono. And called Mr. Blackmore and Emi’s Mama. She’s over there.”

  She was standing in a group of duck-heads beside a two-meter high steel ball sculpture of a raindrop in the centre of the lobby. She hadn’t seen me.

  “I told her Emi was alive, would be here. She is, right? And how did you get to Ishinomaki? Tell me the truth, Uncle.”

  He sucked his teeth, and ran a hand through his hair. Then he sucked his teeth some more and looked at his watch.

  “OK, I’ll tell you, but first, where’s Blackmore? He’s late.”

  I looked at my phone. “It’s 2:58. He’s not late.”

  “Two minutes early is late for something of importance. What is wrong with you people?”

  “You people?”

  “You people who can’t keep time, can’t do what you’re told.”

  “It’s no big deal, we’ll improvise. Let’s round up everyone, bring them to the family restaurant down the road, have a hamburg set. You can have a bowl of soba noodles and we’ll give Mr. Blackmore a mixed pizza. I think he’d like that.”

  Uncle Kentaro spat out the words: “No big deal? Improvise? Mixed pizza? That’s your solution is it? That’s your code, your way of life? Dishonouring others?”

  “It’s just a plan. We can change the plan. It’s nothing to do with dishonour. Mr. Blackmore’s exhausted. He’s lost his daughter and found her again, and lost her again and, I don’t know, I can’t keep up. He’ll be here in a bit. It’s just a few minutes, he doesn’t know the town. He doesn’t mean it as an insult.”

  “Listen, princess, it’s all about dishonour. Nobody forced him to come here. By not being here he insults everyone who arrived on time.”

  “Everyone who arrived here two minutes early?”

  “If he doesn’t know the town, then he should allow longer to get here. If he can’t keep his word on something that is ‘no big deal’ how can we trust his word on anything that is a big deal? It’s an insult. Besides,” Uncle Kentaro nodded toward the lift doors as Ono stepped out, “you can bet the yakuza know the meaning of punctuality.”

  Then Mr. Blackmore dashed into the lobby. He was panting. He saw me and smiled. The colour drained from Emi’s Mama’s face. Ono grinned at me from the lift.

  “The gang’s all here,” Uncle Kentaro said.

  Emi’s Mama was still standing in the display area beside the shiny metal ball. The four of us: Ono, Mr. Blackmore, Uncle Kentaro and I threaded our way from different corners of the room through the duck-head old folks standing around to Emi’s Mama.

  We all came to a stop beside the metal ball. Ono smoothed his shirt. Mr. Blackmore stared at Emi’s Mama. Uncle Kentaro looked at me. I cleared my throat to begin.

  But I never managed to say anything.

  A loudspeaker blasted out “Welcome the Patron of the Japan National Bird Festival, president of the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology, His Royal Highness Prince Akishino.”

  The Beatles’ “Help!” echoed around the room.

  The duck-heads milling around, pushed past us, flocking for the entrance.

  A short middle-aged man, with grey wavy hair parted in the centre and a big fat black moustache, waved mechanically in the entrance. So this was what a real live prince looked like? Applause. Clapping to the beat of the song.

  Everyone was watching him.

  “Konna namaiki na busu shinjae!”

  Somebody pushed something cold into my hands. I turned to Emi’s Mama.

  “Help me,” she whispered but slumped forward, into my arms, knocking me backwards to the ground.

  My head hit the concrete floor.

  There was no sound from her, no sound from anywhere.

  “Uncle Kentaro, help! Uncle Kentaro?” I scuttled backwards free of Emi’s Mama.

  “Mr. Blackmore? Emi? Uncle Kentaro!”

  I heard shrieks now.

  The shrieking wasn’t coming from near me. It echoed all around. The old women in duck hats were staring, pointing and backing away from me. On the floor in front of me was a mess of bloody meat. Staring back at me, reflected in the orb was a teenage girl covered in mud and blood. She was breathing like an animal. She had a steel hammer in her hand. It was covered in skin, blood and hair. She looked familiar, but…

  It was me.

  There was no music now. All around me people stared. From the other side of the room came two sets of footsteps hard on the concrete floor. Then they stopped. Unsure what to do next? I could make out
the green light of the fire escape exit. Escape.

  I ran.

  The only sounds I remember were the hammer clattering to the floor, and the alarm as I pushed my way out into the open. With the words Konna namaiki na busu shinjae running through my head: Die you insolent bitch.

  TEXT MESSAGE FROM ONO

  Shachou, Everyone’s gone. Didn’t go down how you said it would. Cops everywhere. Bitch escaped. What should I do now, Papa?

  7:49

  “Back in the land of the living?”

  I sat up. I was shivering. My back was stiff. And my head was killing me. I could see stars, real ones, in the sky. And a dim glow from distant street lights. Traffic far off, and bull frogs croaking nearby. I stank. I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes. Something was seriously wrong, and it was my fault, but I couldn’t think what.

  In front of me, a Santa Claus in rags sat on an overturned Kirin beer crate with a kitten on his knee. There were a dozen cats around him. And a samurai sword scabbard leaned against the beer crate.

  “You’re the guy who directed traffic after the earthquake. In Kashiwa.”

  “Here.” he held on to the kitten by the scruff of its neck in one hand and passed me a plastic mug with the other. Cold green tea. Bitter.

  “You gave Grandpa O and Mishima-kun here a fright. With all that blood on you, I thought you were at death’s door. But Grandpa O’s cleaned you up, best he could with this lake water, and his children’s help.”

  “Where am I?”

  “Well, Mishima-kun here found you in his ditch. He guessed you must have fallen off the path and taken a tumble into the rice paddy by our blessed Teganuma.”

  “You cleaned me up with the lake water?”

  “It’s water from the lake all right. Don’t worry, it’s not the dirtiest in the country anymore! Grandpa O should know. Grandpa O’s been living out here since before you were born and he saw it with his own eyes. It was a night like this, cold and clear, 30 years ago. But that was before they built the bridge and the houses got closer to the lake. Only if you were a kid who wanted to fish before sun-up would you have seen them. A gang of thugs, backed three trucks to the lake’s edge and rolled the drums into the lake. Back then, in the ’60s, we used to dump any old thing in the lake. You did what you could to live and you didn’t ask questions. But those hundred drums were trouble. See, when they built those atomic energy plants, nobody knew what to do with the spent fuel rods. They still don’t, but they know you are not supposed to dump them in lakes. Anyway, this swamp of a lake is much cleaner since they pulled the rusted old drums by barge at night and sank them in the Pacific. Then they opened the flood gates and pumped all the waste out to sea down the Tonegawa. But I wouldn’t recommend eating the fish. That was all before your time. Don’t worry about the water being clean now.”