Kamakura Inn

by Marshall Browne

  One night early in the investigation, they’d followed Tamaki’s car here, about an hour’s drive from central Tokyo. Nishi had dropped Aoki close to the house and then gone around the corner to park. Tamaki’s car and driver, and his bodyguard, had disappeared into the night, presumably back to Tokyo. “What’s this all about?” Aoki had asked himself. This semirural property was a strong contrast to the politician’s luxury apartment in Roppongi, and he had a vacation house on Oshima Island. This one appeared to be an old wooden house of the type traditional to the area. Some kind of assignation?

  Alert and curious, he’d taken a position in the narrow lane among tree trunks and watched. There’d been no movement except for the breeze in the bamboo and the trees. The house, following the usual pattern, would run back a long way in a succession of rooms to a garden at the rear. Aoki had wondered what place in the Fatman’s convoluted life it had. The ex-prefectural governor, ex-minister of finance, and ex-chairman of several Diet committees was ex a lot of things. Was this house ex-something or currently in play?

  It had been a sterile hour that had yielded no answer. Aoki and Nishi drove back to Tokyo, and the next day he found out that the house had belonged to Tamaki’s deceased parents; on many Friday nights he went into retreat there. Years before, he’d told a journalist, “I go there to commune with my revered parents.” It almost made him seem human, doubtless the point of the remark.

  Now, Aoki stood in the night air, slapping at buzzing mosquitoes. There was movement in his brain, but he did not know where it was headed, nor even the possibilities of where it might go. After a while, he turned to go back to the station.

  Down the street, the policeman, who was a smart operator, straining his eyes to keep the inspector’s figure detached from the shadowy background, began to follow.

  ~ * ~

  Back at his apartment, Aoki opened a beer and prepared a bowl of noodles. He had nothing to add to them, not even pickles. All

  Tokie’s fine meals, which he’d so often been absent from, were lost to the past. “In time, the real appreciation of certain lost things comes to most of us,” his father had said once. “It is often accompanied by great sadness.” The old man’s voice resonated in his head—or was it in the apartment?

  Aoki held the beer can against his cheek and felt the chill go right through into his teeth. On the bureau at one side of the living room were neat stacks of papers, which the departed uncle must have left for him. On top was a bunch of news clippings. Aoki took up the first and read it.

  Police Inspector’s Wife Commits Suicide

  TOKYO. Madam Tokie Aoki was found hanged on Wednesday evening. She was discovered by her husband, Inspector Hideo Aoki of the Third Criminal Investigation Division, Metropolitan Police, when he returned to their Kamakura flat. According to police there are no suspicious circumstances. Sources advise that Aoki was under suspension from duty for several weeks, on “disciplinary grounds.”

  Aoki stared at this. Then he flicked through the others. His photograph and Tokie’s and Kimura’s ran side by side in several follow-up articles, with rehashes of the dead journalist’s scoop on the abandoned investigation and Aoki’s role in it. The Fatman, or his associates, had thought Kimura’s death would kill that business, but Tokie had made sure that it hadn’t. There was no doubt in his mind that Tamaki and his yakuza friends were responsible for Kimura’s savage murder.

  Lying on the futon, listening to the air conditioner, hearing faintly the waves from the beach, Aoki wondered what he could do with his life. The misery in him was as hard and cold as a steel ingot, and the silence in his home seemed absolute.

  ~ * ~

  When Aoki opened his door in response to the bell the next morning, Superintendent Watanabe was standing next to the bonsai pots. Immediately, Aoki guessed that he hadn’t shaken off yesterday’s surveillance: His visit to the Fatman’s residences had gone into the records. The shadowing cop had been better than competent.

  Watanabe studied him for a moment. “Ah, Aoki-san,” he said in a tone that expressed both greeting and censure. “Let’s go for a walk.” He grimaced. “There seem to be plenty of retired fellows around here doing just that, knocking their hearts around on these hills.”

  Aoki put on a suit coat and fetched his wallet, and they walked to the bar that was becoming Aoki’s home away from home. It was not yet eight-thirty, but he ordered a Heineken, and a mineral water for his visitor. They had the bar to themselves. The bartender was watching the replay of a sumo contest, the sound turned down.

  Aoki nibbled nuts, his breakfast, and waited.

  Watanabe was deep in thought. He inspected the bar, then looked out to the depopulated park, where almost overnight the trees had turned autumn colours, hissing softly all the while through his teeth. It was a habit Aoki had observed for years. Another yellow tie, but with a different pattern, Aoki noted. It stood out against the hand-stitched navy blue suit. Except for that unreliable sighting of his face during the fog-shrouded month, Aoki hadn’t seen or spoken to his boss since the day of his suspension. He noted also Watanabe’s disparaging glance at his creased suit. Tokie was no longer here to take it to the cleaners; usually, she’d taken his clothes on rainy days to get the discount.

  Anyway, he thought, I go into darker and dirtier places than you. Used to, he corrected, when I wasn’t suspended.

  Watanabe ceased the soft hissing sound. “The shrink says you’ve got a long way to go. He’s still preying on your mind.”

  Aoki looked at his boss, then shrugged.

  A new cop was on duty, a tall, thin man who followed them into the bar and sat down in a corner. This morning Aoki hardly spared him a glance, and Watanabe appeared unaware of his arrival. Aoki was surprised at the tension in his boss; usually he was inscrutable.

  Watanabe’s hair covered his head in tiny black curls. What kind of genetic kick-in gave a compatriot hair like that, Aoki wondered— not for the first time.

  The superintendent turned on Aoki. His lips twisted angrily. “Haven’t you learned anything in your twenty years on the force? When the brass say it’s over, it’s over. It can’t be changed, because that’s the message that’s coming down from their brass.”

  Aoki rinsed nuts down with a mouthful of beer.

  Watanabe was frowning hard now, as if at an intractable problem. “Who are you? A fellow who thinks he can do what he likes? That’s not how things work for the likes of you—or me, Inspector. We take orders.” The fingertips of his right hand were tapping on the table. “Well, what about it?”

  Aoki half-turned away, then swung back, taking a deep breath. “First it was one thing, then another. A journalist I knew is dead, his wife is a sad widow, and I know who’s behind it. Why should I forget?” To himself, his voice sounded calm but depressed.

  The superintendent’s face hardened. “You think you know. Journalists like that make a lot of enemies.”

  I know, Aoki thought. He said, “Not to mention my wife.” Watanabe shook his head forcefully. “We’ve got to get on with our lives, and psycho thoughts won’t help.”

  Aoki looked away at the park. He grunted. Psycho thoughts! And how did his boss’s life come into it? With a quick gesture he scooped up more nuts.

  “What’s happened to you is tough, and people are concerned for you.” Watanabe flexed the fingers of each hand in turn, as though about to grab hold of something. “I agree with the medico, you’re not ready to return to duty yet.” Aoki thought he read in the voice doubt that he ever would be.

  Watanabe leaned forward and stared into Aoki’s eyes. “Stay away from the governor. Get him out of your mind. Don’t step any deeper into the shit, Inspector.”

  Without another word, he got up and left the bar. Aoki watched him go. He’d never seen his boss stirred up like this before.

  ~ * ~

  Aoki moved in the new routine of his life. Every morning, he watered the bonsai plants, as Tokie had done. He guessed his uncle had attended to it while h
e was in the clinic—must have; they were still alive. She’d been a great believer in talking to plants, and he pictured her watering, snipping the tiny leaves and branches, speaking to them. He had assumed the responsibility for these orphans.

  He had one conversation with Assistant Inspector Nishi. His ex-team member had sounded slightly embarrassed. Aoki’s admittance to the clinic was doubtless well known among his colleagues, and Nishi was wondering how “with it” he was. Nishi had nothing to report on the Kimura case.

  At 6:45 A.M. on the third morning following the superintendent’s visit, he was in the coffee shop, stirring his Colombian brew, when a shadow fell over the table. He looked up—into Watanabe’s dark-eyed appraisal.

  Aoki blinked his surprise. He was slipping, had gone rusty, if his boss could come up on him like that—and another visit! At this hour! The superintendent must have a clear desk to take the trip out here again.

  Watanabe nodded, moved forward, and pulled out a chair. In the past few days it had turned cold. He was wearing yellow kid gloves and his camel overcoat. His face, as ever, showed a calculating look, as though his mind were already in new territory, which he might or might not bring you into. Efficiently he stripped off his gloves.

  “You’re taking a trip today, Inspector, to Hokkaido.”

  Aoki blinked again. An envelope had appeared and lay on the table between the superintendent’s now-bare, lean hands.

  “You’re going to a ryokan in the mountains, where they’ll feed you more than cocktail nuts and potato chips, where you’ll have a change of scene and a chance to think through your future.”

  Watanabe thrust his head forward, as though to stare into Aoki’s brain. “You’ve got to get away from here, out of your apartment, if you’re ever going to make it back.”

  Frowning, Aoki studied his boss. A ryokan? He was only vaguely familiar with such establishments; when he traveled, he stayed at basic, low-cost modern hotels, not these ultratraditional, pricey inns where every room had its own maid. Everything in my life is changing.

  “You’re going, Inspector. Last time, I told you what the shrink said. He’s not happy with your lack of cooperation, and the DG’s getting impatient. You’re too good a man to throw on the scrap heap, but don’t worry, they’ll do it, unless you get it together.” The superintendent’s austere eyes regarded his subordinate. “I’ve gone out on a limb for you.”

  “Out on a limb,” Aoki murmured, and resumed stirring his coffee.

  Watanabe hissed softly through his teeth. “Here’s a reserved ticket on the 8:45 A.M. bullet train to Morioka, and tickets for the two connecting trains. I’ve written down directions for getting to the ryokan. A reservation’s been made for four nights, but stay a week, eat the food, take the hot-spring baths. They don’t know anything about you.” He added succinctly, “Get moving. You should look on this as a last chance.” He was flexing his hands into the gloves.

  Aoki sat like a statue and watched him go. His boss walked in a quick, determined way; an ambitious walk, though it was well known that his promotion had stalled. The superintendent disliked him but somehow was intrigued by him, by the way he operated, the successes he’d had. Watanabe’s calculating mind-set saw value in Aoki’s methods and contrasting personality—years ago Aoki had decided this. “It must be why he’s taking this trouble,” he told himself. Yet, right now, the superintendent seemed to have more on his mind than that.

  Through the plate-glass window, Aoki watched Watanabe talk to the cop who sprang up from a bench when the impeccably dressed senior officer beckoned him. Probably, he was to ensure Aoki caught that train, and maybe be his shadow to Hokkaido. The shadow of a damaged and dangerous man!

  Aoki did not know yet how dangerous he was, or might become. To him that prospect lay in a future even foggier than his recent past.

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Six

  “IS THIS WHAT I EXPECTED?” Inspector Aoki asked himself. In the best part of a day, he’d traveled almost the length of Japan. During the journey, he’d hardly spared the physical nature of his destination a thought. The taxi he’d engaged at the station was descending into a valley. The road was narrow and potholed, and the dark blue asphalt coiled down through the trees in tight S-bends.

  At this season, and this hour, strangers to the district might have sensed an atmosphere of menace in the road, but Aoki merely found it wretched, though he had realized something on the train: His destination, the ryokan at this road’s end, had figured in a case seven years ago, a notorious, unsolved case about a missing woman. In his reserved seat, in a smoking car (Superintendent Watanabe had thought of that), speeding north through alternating urban and rural scenes, this had come back to him in a stab of memory.

  He took out his battered wallet; something else had also come back to him. At first he couldn’t find it in the numerous paper- and card-stuffed recesses, then he did. From 1993, yellowed, folded into deep creases, appearing as dead as the seven-year-old story it told. This had been his first big case as a junior detective; that was why he’d kept the clipping.

  Missing Wife of Bank Chairman

  Feared Murdered

  The bloodstained women’s clothing found in a luggage locker at Tokyo Central station has been identified as belonging to Misako Ito, wife of a prominent banker. Madam Ito was reported missing to police a week ago. Grave fears are held for her safety. Reportedly, the blood group on the clothing matches the missing woman’s. A large police team headed by Superintendent Kuga Watanabe has been detailed to the investigation. Her husband, Hiroshi Ito, chairman of Tokyo Citizens Bank, who reported her disappearance, is appealing for information to assist police with their inquiries. Superintendent Watanabe said Madam Ito was last seen leaving an address in Shimbashi by taxi, at approximately 11:00 P.M. on October 24 . . .

  Ah, yes! Watanabe’s case! Reportedly the one that had stalled his promotion. Aoki had studied the photograph of the attractive middle-aged woman who was smiling enigmatically at the camera. Shaking his head in wonderment, he’d carefully replaced the clipping in his wallet. How remarkable that he’d been carrying it around all these years; it was as if it had been traveling with him, in waiting for this moment.

  Aoki frowned. Had Watanabe chosen this ryokan for his rest cure based on his recollection of it from the case, or was it a coincidence?

  Beside him the taxi driver downshifted and pumped the brakes. He said, “Sir, I fear your timing isn’t right. The colors are nearly finished, and last week we had a fall of snow, which didn’t help, though it was gone the next day. Now the weather bureau’s forecasting a storm.”

  It was true. The mountain slopes, which a week or so earlier must have been ablaze with color, were now merely speckled with scarlet. The man assumed that Aoki was here to observe autumn leaves; probably that was the only kind of visitor that came at this time of the year.

  The inspector said, “A storm? If that happens, how will I get down the mountain? “

  The driver grunted, twisting the steering wheel. “Don’t worry, they’ll clear the road. Only with the big snows in late November will it become impassable for the winter, and by then the ryokan’s closed.”

  Aoki nodded and looked ahead. Like a slide flashed on a screen the ryokan appeared far below, cut into fragments by the intervening trees: a straggling timber building descending the mountainside on terraces.

  This morning in Tokyo, the superintendent, with a meaningful look, had emphasized the ryokan’s peaceful isolation, as though that were the tonic needed. It certainly looked peaceful enough. Kamakura Inn. Why was it called that? It was a hell of a long way from Kamakura. The taxi continued its descent, plunging deeper into evening shadows.

  Abruptly, Aoki felt annoyed with himself that he’d come. Traveling north, increasingly, the trip hadn’t felt right. Why had it been sprung on him at such short notice, and why Watanabe’s air of impatience, even agitation? Aoki fumbled for cigarettes. Probably, his unease was due to his distrust of most of W
atanabe’s motives; however, the way his senior officer had put it, he’d had no choice. Even in the warmth of the car the cold seemed to be pouring depression and doubt into his soul, as if there weren’t enough of it there already! They coasted down a final section of road, and the ryokan was now plainly revealed.

  Climbing out of the taxi, Aoki was shocked by the temperature. He stood there in his overcoat, bareheaded, his short, sparse hair ruffled from the long journey. His hand brushed at the mole. His throat had tightened with nerves, and his heart had begun to hammer in his chest. Deliberately he hardened himself and felt the spasm passing. He lit the cigarette he’d taken out in the taxi.

  He turned to face the wooden building. Overhanging eaves were supported by rough-hewn log pillars. Two, three hundred years old? Aoki didn’t know or care; he was examining it from his habit of accumulating information and to get his brain back into the present.