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

by Patrick Sherriff

  The white locked box on the back pannier splintered open. This was where the police kept a pistol.

  If I took it, I would be in so much more trouble. But if I didn’t, I might regret it.

  I looked around. Nobody had seen me. I reached my hands in. I grasped something cold, smooth…and soft.

  A banana.

  I snapped it in half and stuffed it in my mouth, spitting out the peel as I hobbled to the pedestrian crossing before the bridge. A green man.

  I limped over the black and white lines.

  I was on the pavement on the bridge now. A couple of hundred meters and I’d be out of Abiko, over the other side into Kashiwa. I just had to get over the bridge. I stumbled on, up the incline of the bridge. I kept walking. I reached the middle of the bridge as I passed a grandpa striding toward me with his casual gear and baseball hat. His wife was three steps behind. He ignored me, but his wife’s eyes met mine. Then her hand went to cover her mouth.

  Was I in that much of a state? Did I have a sliver of banana string hanging from my teeth? It might have been the handcuffs.

  She was looking past me. I looked back.

  Sgt. Watanabe was there. Not so much running, as seething his way up the bridge. Out of breath and out of a banana. With his pistol in his hands. Determined. Not to be fooled again.

  I didn’t have the energy to go on. I faced Sgt. Watanabe and raised the only bits of my body that had any energy left—my hands.

  There was a screeching of tires behind me, coming from Kashiwa. A black car, with blacked-out windows, a crumpled bonnet and wonky hub caps. Yakuza.

  The back passenger door opened. Out jumped Shachou. He had a plaster on his forehead, but a smile on his face. And right behind him was Uncle Kentaro speaking into his telephone. Uncle Kentaro was in with the yakuza?

  Stuck in the middle again.

  Shachou was 10 paces away, as was Sgt. Watanabe. I backed myself into the railings. The lake was five meters below me. Shachou took a step forward. Sgt. Watanabe matched him.

  This wasn’t how I wanted it to end. There had to be another option.

  I leaned over the railings and looked down to the lake. This would have to be my stand, right here, right now. I clambered onto the railings and stood on the steel bar that ran waist-height over the bridge. Trouble was, the breeze was blowing straight in my face and it was a long way down. My legs shook. I couldn’t keep my balance with my hands in the cuffs.

  “Don’t come any closer or I’ll jump.”

  “Jump then. Better than falling, Hana,” said Shachou.

  “You don’t issue the orders, Arai,” Sgt. Watanabe said.

  “OK, you be mother.”

  “Surrender to the law, do your duty. If there is any Japanese blood at all in you, you will come down and do your duty.”

  “Blood,” I said, “why does it always come down to blood? The only difference between me and you,” I said, looking unsteadily at Sgt. Watanabe as I bent over to keep from falling, “is you have a gun and I don’t.”

  “Hana,” Uncle Kentaro said, “if you are going to tell people the truth, make sure they laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”

  Sgt. Watanabe shook his head. “You killed a woman, you can jump if you want, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll gladly fish your body out of Teganuma. But think of the victim here. She had a daughter. For her sake, you should face your destiny, not run away.”

  “I am thinking of her,” I said.

  I could see the swan boat below that Uncle Kentaro had said was our rendezvous point. Only I had planned to reach it from the shore, not five meters above it. Sometimes you have to make your own luck.

  I jumped with my hands above my head. It was a long way down. I didn’t even have the energy or time to scream as my legs smacked into the roof of the fibreglass pedal swan. It crumpled beneath my legs and I smacked into one of the two seats.

  “Nice of you to drop in, Hana.”

  I groaned with pain.

  It was someone I’d seen before. The prime minister’s PR guy. Koji Tachibana.

  “You got my message. Can you pedal?” I said, and that was all I remembered.

  @HikHayNewz

  The views expressed by HikHayNewz are my own and do not reflect my employer’s. You know the drill :)

  @HikHayNewz

  So, I’m working on the prime minister story and the earthquake.

  1 hour ago

  HikHayNewz

  But there’s one story I’d really like to be on. The killer teen on the run. It’s crazy. She killed a woman in front of the emperor’s brother.

  1 hour ago

  HikHayNewz

  What makes a kid kill? Maybe she was pushed over the edge. Her dad killed himself and her mum died of cancer. Guess she had a death wish.

  1 hour ago

  HikHayNewz

  She’s a junior high school dropout. A foreigner in a strange land. Was this how she turned bad? Getting involved with yakuza.

  1 hour ago

  HikHayNewz

  But I just can’t imagine killing someone with a hammer. Hey if you’re out there, Hana Walker, drop me a line—I’d love to tell your story.

  1 hour ago

  HikHayNewz

  But maybe no-one cares. There’s only one story now: the earthquake.

  1 hour ago

  TachibanaPR

  How can Hana trust you to tell her story? You already called her a killer. Is this the famous unbiased media in action?

  48 minutes ago

  HikHayNewz

  I don’t know that she did it, of course. But it’s looking pretty bad. The cops have witnesses, a murder weapon and DNA.

  46 minutes ago

  TachibanaPR

  And a motive? Why would she kill a defenceless woman?

  45 minutes ago

  HikHayNewz

  Well that would be where I’d love to tell her side of the story. What was she thinking when she drove that hammer into the woman’s skull?

  42 minutes ago

  TachibanaPR

  If. And she’s no foreigner. She’s double.

  39 minutes ago

  HikHayNewz

  Double? You mean Hafu?

  37 minutes ago

  TachibanaPR

  Hafu. That says less than whole. She’s not. She’s every bit as English as she is Japanese. She’s both.

  30 minutes ago

  TachibanaPR

  Beware labels. Just because you know the label doesn’t mean you understand what’s underneath.

  10 minutes ago

  TachibanaPR

  You want to interview Hana Walker? Meet us at 3 p.m. at Ueno Zoo. By the pandas. Bring a camera crew.

  4 minutes ago

  2:55

  When I came to, I was leaning heavily on Uncle Kentaro.

  To anyone watching, we must have made an odd couple. But as we entered Ueno Zoo, dozens of families with small kids were far too engrossed watching a famous cable network reporter doing an ‘on-the-scene’ report. Nobody noticed a beat-up hafu girl with a scarf over her hands, and a scruffy old man shuffle past.

  The reporter, Hikaru Hayashi, was deep in TV journalism mode. She was questioning Koji Tachibana on camera. Uncle Kentaro and I were close enough to hear her interview as we passed by.

  “… so what is the truth?”

  “The truth is, the disaster facing Japan is not due to an act of Nature but the folly of men.”

  “I don’t think anyone could have predicted the size of the earthquake or the devastation from the tsunami.”

  “Maybe not, but if you choose to build a nuclear reactor on an earthquake-prone island, on a tsunami-prone coast, then put the emergency back-up generators on the ground floor, whose fault is that?”

  “There’s no such thing as absolute safety, people are doing the best they can…”

  “If you staff your nuclear safety agency with industry retirees, which motive is stronger: to do the best you can to ensure safety, or the best
you can to keep your amakudari golden handshake?”

  “That argument may be for later, right now we have to stick together…”

  “Right now, we have to know the truth. We cannot know the truth if the rot is everywhere. The nuclear industry is a cartel propped up by corruption and yakuza, they are everywhere! How high do you think the corruption goes? Why do you think the prime minister can’t stop the nuclear industry?”

  “You are paranoid. We can’t use this interview. You promised me the girl, Hana. Where is she?”

  “She’ll be here.”

  I cowered behind Uncle Kentaro. “Please, I’m not ready for prime-time.” He looked in my eyes and nodded.

  “But we’ve got to get you ready.”

  We limped away from the crowd. I struggled to breathe. We made it to a bench outside the monorail station before I had to sit. Uncle Kentaro thrust a Royal Milk Tea can in my face.

  “Uncle Kentaro, I can’t go any further. I need answers. How did I get here? And what do we do now?”

  He sucked air through his teeth.

  “OK princess, it’s like this. Tachibana-san pedalled you across the lake to the far shore of Teganuma and bundled you into his Lexus before anyone could get to the shore. Then he drove you to the Park Exit of Ueno Station where I picked you up. He knew Hikaru Hayashi wouldn’t be able to resist an exclusive and so he tweeted her. Seems you do know people in high places.”

  “OK. But, er, why? What’s the plan?”

  “We’re going to tell the whole world the truth.”

  “But what is the truth Uncle Kentaro? Why is Tachibana-san helping us?”

  “He owes me. He’s my kohai junior. Back in the day, I got him his first job in PR, with the bankers. Then when the bubble burst, I gave him his first exclusive—the inside scoop on inari and how high up the scandal went.”

  “And he exposed the crooks and made his name?”

  “No, don’t be silly Hana, he’s in PR. Truth is just a commodity for him. He used what he knew to warn the politicians before the shit hit the fan. They were grateful, his rise to the top was secure. Anyway, don’t worry about him.”

  “The yakuza?”

  “Don’t worry about them either. I met with Shachou. They had nothing to do with the death of Emi’s mother. We came to an agreement. What you have to worry about is Blackmore. He’s the nail that sticks out.”

  Then I knew. Something I had learned on the way back from Ishinomaki had to make it true. Mr. Blackmore was the killer. Had to be. And I knew something else.

  “I know I can get him,” I said.

  Uncle Kentaro looked at his shoes. Sucked air between his teeth, then looked back at me.

  “No, Hana, let’s not cross him. Think of Emi. She’s been through so much. And she’s in the zoo now. Our best chance is to tell the world that you didn’t do it. You explain everything that you know and point the finger at Blackmore and…”

  “…and convince no one because we don’t have any evidence, and they don’t want to hear the truth right now.” I said.

  “Hana, your best chance is to get the public on your side. That’s what Tachibana-san can do, he’s a whiz at PR. The police don’t use evidence, they can’t solve anything without a confession. They don’t care about the truth, they just care about their clearance rates. They’d be as happy to force your confession as have the killer’s. The truth doesn’t matter as long as they have a solution.”

  “Then,” I said, and waggled my phone in the air, “let’s give them a confession. Blackmore’s.”

  Uncle Kentaro sucked air between his teeth and tilted his head. “I don’t know what you have in mind but that’s not part of the plan, I really don’t think…”

  But I’d already dialled the number.

  “Mr. Blackmore? It’s Hana. You got my message to meet at the zoo? Come to the monorail. Yes, Emi is here. Come right away. And Mr. Blackmore? Bring the $100,000.”

  Uncle Kentaro’s face looked white.

  He said “I don’t know if this is the right answer…”

  I cut him off. “Perhaps you should phone a friend?”

  3:07

  He complained, but I insisted Uncle Kentaro round up Emi and her chaperone Aunt Tanaka and go to the most crowded, and therefore safest, place—the queue for the panda bears. Actually, I sent him off because his fussing was driving me mad.

  If I wanted to make Blackmore confess, I needed a quiet place where we could talk alone, where he thought no one would hear him. Sunday at Tokyo’s cheapest zoo should have been insanely busy; but the earthquake had taken care of the crowds. Even so, it was still too cold to talk outside.

  That left the monorail. Despite the cartoon lions and monkeys painted on the outside, the monorail was a glass and steel trap. Once it started up there was no way out. But that suited me perfectly.

  I wanted Blackmore to think he had the advantage.

  And there he was, carrying a backpack. Mr. Blackmore smiled at me, like we were old pals. But his talk was all business.

  “I’ve brought the money, now where’s Emi? My flight leaves in three hours. Let’s get this done. Now.”

  “We need someplace to talk,” I said. Blackmore looked around for a bench and then past me at the empty monorail carriage. He liked what he saw.

  “Let’s go for a ride.”

  “That thing scares me. Do I have a choice?”

  “No.”

  He paid ¥300 for two tickets and we walked on to the monorail. The only other people on board were the driver, a husband and wife and their daughter bundled up in layers of clothes. The daughter was suffocating under a snake’s nest of scarves.

  We sat at the rear of the monorail carriage, out of earshot from the rest. An automated female voice announced in polite, high-pitched Japanese and English “Mind the doors, doors now closing. Keep your hands away from the doors. Enjoy the trip.”

  The monorail lurched forward.

  “A question for you,” I said, “why did you kill your wife?”

  “For a conversation starter, that’s a mighty bold gambit, Miss Walker.”

  Not answering the question. So it was true.

  “You weren’t late for our meeting at the bird museum, you knew beforehand what you were going to do. You waited for the right moment and smacked your wife in the head with the hammer. I was covered in her blood but it’s her blood on your hands.”

  He could have interrupted me, but instead he was silent.

  “You tried to make me think it was the yakuza by shouting out Konna namaiki na busu shinjae! Pretty good. Your accent is excellent, but there was something odd. A yakuza wouldn’t speak like that, not quite right, like something a foreigner would learn out of a book. Whatever. But the yakuza didn’t have anything to do with the killing, did they?”

  He smiled at me: “If I’m a killer don’t you think it’s foolish of you to sit next to me?”

  “I don’t think things through. I like to improvise. It’s my foreign side, you know. But then, you sitting next to me proves you did it.”

  “Proves it?”

  “If you weren’t the killer, you wouldn’t have come here, you would have assumed I was the killer, like the rest of the world. Or as you say, if I’m a killer don’t you think it’s foolish of you to sit next to me?”

  Blackmore turned away from me, looking out the window. We were passing over a city street that cut the zoo grounds in half. The bags under his eyes told me he hadn’t slept in days. Yet he was calm. Too smart to be taken in by me. Too smart to confess.

  I had to improvise.

  “There’s just one thing I don’t get—why did you hire me to find Emi?”

  He looked up and down the carriage. Assessing what the people ahead might overhear? He didn’t seem interested in me. Perhaps he never was.

  That was it. He never was.

  “You never thought I would find Emi, did you? I was just bait for the police. You were always going to pay the money to Shachou. Not to find Emi, b
ut to find your wife. So you could kill her. As long as she was alive, there was always the chance she would take Emi from you. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Blackmore didn’t agree. But he didn’t disagree. So it was left to me to work the rest out.

  “So now you are going to kill me, perhaps plant another hammer on me identical to the one you used, and claim I was about to kill you. Will the cops believe that? Or do you care? Or have you and the yakuza bought them off?”

  “Maybe it’s the will of God,” Blackmore said.

  There was no humour in his eyes or irony in his tone of voice. He was serious. Deadly serious. Maybe he felt safe now that he had me trapped on a monorail. Now that he could tie up the last loose end. This was the moment to push him. Before he realised the trap he had laid for me was really a trap for himself.

  “The will of God? Come on, cut the bullshit,” I said in his face. “God doesn’t waste his time on a hafu like me and an idiot like you. God? Screw God. But then, you must agree with me, or else you wouldn’t have broken his commandments and killed an innocent lady, would you? You’re no Christian, you’re a lunatic.”

  Blackmore took the bait. He was in my face, speaking rapidly.

  “You shouldn’t take His name in vain. I didn’t kill one of His chosen flock. I did the world a favour by ridding it of the unrighteous. Lady? She was no lady, she was apostate. She was unclean. She had taken what God had given her. I had a revelation. Her life had to end. I was the one who was supposed to end it. And if God wants something done, it will be. You don’t want to offend Him by refusing to do His will. And His will is that Emi is to be betrothed to another, a very important person.”

  “That would be Uncle Whatshisname, the head of your church, the one with the dozen wives?”

  Blackmore’s eyes bulged.

  “Who told you that?”

  “You can learn a lot from library books, you know. Have you read that exposé of the Mormons in Colorado City, your home? The ones that marry their cousins and screw their kids? And kill those who know too much? Have you read it? Under the Banner of Heaven? Emi has. And so have I, on the trip back from Ishinomaki. You are a true believer. You like to work to His plan, right? Well, I’m coming round to my own plan.”