by John Moralee
He had gone.
*
Like a pet dog, I was waiting at the window when a black cab drew up. Its passenger was Shunsuke. By the time he had got out, I had opened the front door. His arms were weighed down with shopping bags. Tears of relief stung my eyes.
“Hey, why’re you crying?”
“I was worried about you, you idiot! I was scared you’d do something bad, like killing yourself!”
“Oh, Reiko! I’m not suicidal. I’m sorry for leaving like that, but I just needed some time by myself.”
“Where did you go?”
“Nowhere, really. I went to a park. I sat on a bench and I did some thinking. About Laura. Her death. It must have been an accident. Nobody was to blame. She would want me to grieve for her and get on with my life. So ... I decided to cheer myself up with some shopping. Look, I bought everything for a great meal. I also bought you and your mother presents for being so nice to me.”
I wiped my eyes as he held out a small HMV bag. While I was opening it, Shunsuke left the shopping bags in the hall and dashed up the stairs, walking stiffly, holding his side, saying he really did have to use the bathroom this time.
He came down a few minutes later. He had bought me the latest CD by my favourite band. He urged me to play in the kitchen, where he promised to show me how to prepare an original recipe he’d devised in college.
Soon, the kitchen was filled with delicious aromas that reminded me of Japan. So many pots and pans were simmering, boiling and steaming it looked like we were performing a bizarre chemistry experiment. I feared it would go hideously wrong, exploding in a mushroom cloud that would take out half of London.
Luckily, the result was a perfect six-course meal, each presented like a work of art. He timed everything to be ready for when my mother arrived. The three of us had a great evening. It was like old times. My mother loved her present – a set of antique china teacups, far too precious to actually use. She retired to bed after drinking a little too much sake. Shunsake and I stayed up late watching DVDs. Around two, he yawned and said he was going to bed. He kissed me goodnight on the top of my head, sending a tingle all the way down my spine.
My mother was out. Shunsuke was shaving in the bathroom when I crept into his room. I had woken up thinking about the odd way he had hurried upstairs yesterday – like he had been hiding something. My paranoia was probably founded on nothing – but I could not help it. Guessing he would be in the shower no more than ten minutes, I searched as fast as possible, being careful not to leave anything out of place.
I found something under his mattress, a narrow, metre-long object wrapped in brown paper. It had a price tag on it for £315 from somewhere called Black Dragon Sports. The name seemed familiar, but I wasn’t sure why. The object felt like a snooker cue case. I carefully removed the wrapping paper, pulling out the contents far enough to see it was a beautifully ornate scabbard. The scabbard contained a sword. The blade was so smooth and shiny it looked like a mirror. The edge was so sharp it could slice through paper merely by dropping it onto it. I recognised the type of sword from martial arts films. It was called a katana. Such weapons were traditionally used in samurai suicide rituals.
In shock, I dropped it on the floor, making a loud metallic sound I was certain Shunsuke would hear. But he did not.
I did not know what to do.
I heard the water stop running.
He’ll be coming in a second.
My heart beating fast, I returned the katana to where I had found it. He was opening the bathroom door just as I stepped out of his room. He was naked except for a towel around his waist.
“Oh, there you are! I was going to see if you wanted to meet some of my friends today?”
“Er, sure, just let me get dressed first, okay?”
“Dressed first – of course!” I laughed nervously. “I’ll ... be downstairs.”
He brushed past me into his room, closing the door.
*
But he did not come down. I waited in the hall for what felt like an hour, looking up the stairs.
“Shunsuke! How long are you doing to be?”
He did not answer.
“Shunsuke!”
I knocked on his door. Silence. The door had no lock, so I opened it. I half expected his disembowelled body on the floor in a pool of blood, but the room was empty of all of his things. The window was opened, cold air blowing in. From it, there was a short fall onto the soft grass in our back garden. I could see shoe marks where he had landed.
I checked under the bed.
The katana was missing.
*
In the evening Scotland Yard detectives came to the house. They wanted to question my mother and me about Shunsuke. They had some bad news to tell us concerning him, but would not say what it was until we were both sitting down.
Earlier, Shunsuke had burst into the office of Michael Coleman, armed with the katana. After sending everyone except Carlson out, he blocked the doors and windows with desks and filing cabinets and spent over an hour making Coleman admit to the murder of Laura Wolfe.
Coleman wrote down a complete confession.
Afterwards, Shunsuke opened the door and calmly gave himself up to the police.
But not before beheading Michael Coleman.
*
When the detectives had gone, I went up to my room to be alone.
I switched on my computer and re-read all of the e-mails Shunsuke had ever sent to me. I had never deleted them. They were too precious. I read through them again, stopping only to wipe my eyes.
I also looked at the folder containing the e-mails between Shunsuke and Laura.
Shunsuke had never suspected I had been hacking into his e-mails for years, like any good friend would. I had known from the start that Laura was not suitable for him. What kind of person cheated on her fiancé? A bad one. It was only a matter of time before she cheated on Shunsuke, hurting him, but he was too blinded by love to realise it.
That was why I had lured his so-called girlfriend onto the bridge, where she had believed Shunsuke was coming to make a romantic rendezvous. Pushing her over the rail was easy. I had thought it was a poignant ending to their relationship. Just the sort of thing to bring us closer. I wished I had known she had been afraid of drowning. It wasn’t in their e-mails. A little mistake had ruined things, turning my Shunsuke into a murderer.
That was never my intention. I just wanted him to stop seeing her. She was no good for him. There was only one person he should have loved.
I deleted every e-mail just in case the police decided to look at my computer.
*
Shunsuke would need me while he was in prison.
I hoped they would put him somewhere close.
Thinking that, I heard the kettle boiling.
My mother was brewing tea.
The Abduction
The pregnant woman was arguing with the police. Geoff Nolan could not hear her through the soundproof glass partition between the bar and the lobby, but whatever she was saying was making her cry. He wondered if her bag had been stolen. No – he saw it over her shoulder. She wore a loose blue cotton dress that covered her bump, which she supported with both hands. Judging by her age – young thirties – he guessed it was her first pregnancy. The Las Vegas cops looked bored as they took notes. One officer had not even removed his sunglasses. Nolan had sympathy for her, knowing what it was like dealing with unsympathetic cops. Once, he had had his wallet stolen at LAX, only for the LAPD to treat him like it was his fault. The Las Vegas cops seemed the same. They were not helping matters by looking bored. When the police left, she stared after them, shaking her head. She looked exhausted. Her dark hair fell over her face when she wiped her eyes with a Kleenex. Holding onto her unborn baby, she waddled away towards the restrooms. Nolan lost sight of her as his waiter returned with another refill of coffee.
“Do you know what’s going on with that pregnant woman?”
The waiter looked but didn�
��t see anyone. “Sir?”
“Forget it,” Nolan said. The waiter moved on. But Nolan didn’t forget about it. He thought of the woman as he drank his coffee and rested after an hour-long workout in the gym. She had looked so lonely. What was she doing alone in Las Vegas? Was she there for the convention?
While he sat there, answering email on his laptop, he kept looking into the lobby, hoping to see her again. The next time he saw her, he vowed, he would ask her if she needed help.
Unfortunately, he was distracted by a call from Freda in New York.
“Geoff, my favourite moonwalker, how’s the Camelot Hotel?”
“It’s … big,” he said. It was very big. From the outside it looked like an oversized Norman castle, surrounded by a moat where guests could ride in mediaeval barges. The penthouse suites were shaped like towers with ramparts. The hotel had over a thousand rooms, a casino floor and six international-standard VIP convention rooms. The lobby was more like a shopping mall, with restaurants, banks and shops enticing guests to stay in the hotel. This bar had real-looking tapestries of mediaeval folk gambling. Classical guitar music played in the background, as gentle as a waterfall. He was impressed.
“You need anything?” Freda asked.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Fine? I want you to be better than fine, Geoff. I want you to be great. Is there something wrong with the suite they gave you because if there is I’ll have someone’s ass nailed to the wall?”
“I don’t want anyone’s ass nailed to a wall,” Nolan said, imagining it. In Vegas, there was probably a museum of asses nailed to walls. The Butt Gallery. He had once read that there were so many museums in Vegas that there was literally not enough art to fill them – so exhibitions of hub caps, soda bottles and even garbage were appearing at the lesser-known ones. “The suite is … great.” He nearly said fine again. Freda, fuelled by black coffee as thick as tar, would react badly to any word that wasn’t a superlative. “Everything’s great. Honestly. Great!”
“I’ll nail someone’s ass if it isn’t,” she warned.
Freda had booked him as a Sunday’s guest speaker at the UFO convention. The real purpose of her call was to make certain that he was ready for his speech. He assured her his fifty-minute speech was on his laptop, ready to go.
“I might wing it, though. It depends on the audience reaction.”
“Don’t get nervous,” she said. “It’s only 800 strangers. They paid to see you, remember.”
“I wasn’t nervous – until now.”
“Relax. Have a massage. Enjoy yourself. You’ve got a whole day to have fun before you do it. Besides, think of the money.” Freda – bless her – cared more about the convention than he did. The convention circuit was a lucrative business for popular speakers. Big names like ex-presidents, movie stars and top business leaders earned five-figure sums for talking an hour or two about nothing much. Retired moonwalkers were not that lucky – unless their names were Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin – but there was an audience for them at UFO conferences. “Call me if you’re not happy, Geoff.”
After the call, Nolan signalled for another refill. He was drinking it when he saw the pregnant woman. She was at a table by herself, drinking a cappuccino. She sipped at it unenthusiastically. Her eyes were on the lobby, watching the entrance doors. Under the table, her right foot tapped a nervous rhythm.
He abandoned his coffee and walked over.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I couldn’t help notice you were having some trouble with the police. My name’s Geoff Nolan. I might be able to help. I know people.”
She looked at him with a frown. “I’m sorry, I don’t see how you can help me, Mr Nolan. My husband has gone missing and nobody cares. The hotel staff and the police think I’m worrying over nothing. But I know something is wrong.”
“I care,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened?”
Her eyes studied Nolan’s face, perhaps for signs of insincerity. “Haven’t I seen you before?”
“Maybe. I’m speaking at the convention. You might have seen my picture on the programme book. I looked a lot younger in their photo. I was wearing my spacesuit.”
“That Geoff Nolan,” she said. “You’re the astronaut who believes in aliens.”
“I saw a UFO,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
She grimaced as her baby kicked. It looked ready to come out, in Nolan’s opinion.
“When’s it due?”
“Two weeks,” she said.
“Boy or girl?”
“Don’t know. I want that to be a mystery,” she said. “My husband knows, though. He likes to uncover secrets. That’s what he does – he’s a writer.”
Mentioning her husband made her eyes glisten.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Let me help. Please. I do know people. Some of my best friends are in the FBI. The FBI are the best guys to talk to about missing people. You tell me what’s happened and I’ll call my friend at Quantico, see if he can do something.”
“Okay,” she said. “Join me. At least you want to hear my story, unlike the police.”
He sat opposite her. He could smell her strawberry perfume. She said her name was Gina Lawrence-Dane. Her husband’s name was Toby Dane. They had been married seven years.
“Toby flew in yesterday from Los Angeles, but I could not go with him because of my work commitments and my pregnancy. I drove here this morning to spend the weekend with him.”
Nolan wondered what kind of man would make his pregnant wife drive herself to Las Vegas. “He was expecting you?”
“Yes – of course. When I went up to our room - number 303 - he wasn’t there. There was no sign of him, no message for me, nothing. His suitcase wasn’t even there. I know he arrived because he called me to say he liked the room. That was at six yesterday. My husband sometimes rushes off to places if he has a lead, but he wouldn’t have gone anywhere without leaving a message. He’s not like that. The police seem to think he’s left me and I’m in denial. But that’s not true. And even if it were true, he would not leave the convention. This convention was very important to him. He is due to lecture on Sunday evening. He was excited about debunking the work of another writer. That’s why I can’t understand why he’s not here. You might have seen my husband yesterday. I have … I have a picture of him ...”
Gina opened her bag and removed her purse, locating a picture. Her hands were trembling.
“It’s from last summer at the Cape, but …”
Toby Dane was a handsome guy, slim, mid-forties, grey-black hair, blue eyes, glasses. His wife was beside him in a bikini, looking beautiful and non-pregnant. Her husband had his arms around her body, hugging her from behind. He was looking over her shoulder into the camera with a big smile. They looked a very happy couple.
Nolan remembered seeing him.
It was at the private cocktail party for the guest speakers, who arrived on Friday, the day before the convention. It stared at six-thirty in the VIP lounge. Nolan arrived in his tuxedo, thinking it was going to be a black tie affair, but he realised it was less formal when he saw men in jeans and T-shirts. He wasn’t the only man in a suit, luckily, so he did not return to his room to change. The convention organiser Benjamin Turco handed him a weekend schedule as he entered, thanking him for coming. Nolan looked at it on his way into the assorted crowd of scientists, psychologists, writers and celebrity abductees. He wondered who was what. Nolan did not know anyone there, unlike everyone else. He was the second from last speaker on the Sunday evening, preceding a bestselling writer called Dr Harlan Swanson.
Nolan had gained some (reluctant) fame after reporting seeing a UFO on his Apollo mission – a streak of green lights in the Earth’s upper atmosphere that seemed to move intelligently like a flock of birds. He had dutifully reported it to NASA and the media had run with it for almost thirty years. The green lights had never been explained to his satisfaction, though he suspected it was a series of cosmic ray explosions
that just happened to look like something more. Nolan did not believe he had seen alien ships practising combat manoeuvres, as some of the articles about his sighting had suggested, just an unidentified flying object. Unfortunately, UFOs and alien ships were synonymous for most of the public. He hated that. In his speech Nolan wanted to discuss the lack of serious study of the phenomenon. If Nolan made a good impression, it could open up a new career to coincide with the launch of his book Unexplained Lights.
The schedule was arranged so time was allotted for individual lectures as well as panels of experts – Q&A sessions with the public. Not everyone was happy with the order. Some people saw the order as having a hierarchy, with the top speakers being saved for the final lectures of each day. Turco denied it, but failed to convince. Quickly, an ugly atmosphere formed as tensions between rivals built up. The sceptics and believers hated each other like Israelis and Palestinians. Nolan felt like a civilian caught in the middle. What had been intended as a friendly get-to-together was starting to look like a riot situation – until Turco wisely opened the bottles of champagne and hastily encouraged rapid consumption. Champagne diffused the situation a little – it gave the guests something else to complain about.
Personally, Nolan loved the free champagne. It would shorten the weekend. He had a feeling it would be a long one. He tried making conversation with a few people, but it felt like being back at school. They enjoyed gossiping about other guests, bitching behind their backs. Nolan, with no axe to grind, found the experience boring. His smile muscles started to wear out. One subject was very popular: Dr Harlan Swanson’s top billing.