“This way.” Kobayashi led them to a side street that was remarkably quiet in comparison to the crowded path leading up to the temple. He followed her down an even smaller one, stopping in front of a red door with a little wooden sign overhead, adorned with some Japanese characters.
“Very authentic Japanese food,” she said.
Charlie nodded. “I’m sure it is.”
They went inside and, after a brief exchange between Kobayashi and an elderly woman who might have been the proprietor and who seemed to know her well, they were seated at a table on the far side of the room. Despite the lack of obvious signage outside, the room was full, mostly with families.
“Do you like Japanese food?” Kobayashi asked, after they were seated and a pot of tea was delivered to their table.
“I haven’t had anything I didn’t like yet.”
“They have a standard lunch menu, if you’d like to try?”
Charlie shrugged. “Why not.” He poured tea for her and then himself, and they began to chat about the Sensō-ji Temple and the Asakusa area, which he learned was where Kobayashi had grown up.
“My parents moved to a smaller apartment north of here, when my two brothers went out on their own.”
“What do your brothers do?”
“My older brother is a teacher, and my younger one works in a laboratory.”
“He’s a scientist?”
Her face broke into a grin. “No, more of a personnel manager,” she said recovering her composure. “I’m sorry to laugh, it’s just that my younger brother was always a bit of a … clown.”
Charlie grinned. “So not your typical scientist.”
“Not exactly.”
“Do you still live in Asakusa?”
“I live with my parents. It’s about twenty minutes away.”
Charlie nodded. He figured Kobayashi to be in her midthirties, and couldn’t really imagine her still at home, but he had to remember this was a different culture.
“It’s not so unusual in Japan, for daughters to stay with their parents … until they get married,” she said, apparently reading his thoughts.
“I don’t think it’s unusual at all,” he lied.
“In Canada it is probably more normal to leave home much earlier, yes?”
“I guess so, but kids are staying home longer these days, or even returning home after they’ve left,” he said, remembering an online article he had recently read about the phenomenon of empty nesters suddenly finding themselves with a kid or two in the basement after several years away. He had thought of his two nephews at the time, since his own prospects for children seemed slim now. His ex-wife had always refused to even discuss the possibility, and he hadn’t really thought much about whether he wanted kids himself.
“What do your parents think of your job?” he asked, picking up on the slight hint of surprise in her eyes and wondering whether he had wandered into a social no-go zone. “They must be very proud,” he added, trying to minimize the damage.
The look on her face confirmed his fear that he had strayed from light conversation into something a little more personal than he had intended. “They thought my choice of career was … unexpected,” she said, as if that explained everything. She seemed to recognize that Charlie wasn’t following, so she gave him an indulgent smile and continued. “We have a saying in Japan: Deru kui wa utareru. It means …” She paused for a moment, searching for the words. “‘The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.’”
“I think I understand.”
“My father had different plans for me.” She gave a little shrug. “He is a retired academic and he felt I should follow him. He thinks my talents are wasted with the police.”
“Well, the Tokyo Police obviously don’t agree,” Charlie said with a smile. “Since they made you an inspector at such a young age.”
She seemed embarrassed by the praise. “He doesn’t have a very high opinion of the police generally, and thinks maybe it is not a place for a woman.” Charlie’s surprise must have been obvious, as Kobayashi added, “It is not such an unusual attitude here.”
Charlie nodded, recalling an article he had read as part of his pre-posting briefing on Japanese culture, to the effect that despite being highly progressive in some areas, the country still clung to some traditional beliefs and practices. Omiai, for example — the practice of formal meetings arranged by parents to determine a couple’s suitability for marriage — wasn’t routine by any means, but it wasn’t unheard of either. He could see how Kobayashi’s career choice might have made some waves, which only made it more admirable. “And how does your mother feel?”
Kobayashi’s expression lightened and she let out a little laugh. “She can’t understand why I am not married, but I think she is proud of me, deep down. Also a little afraid.”
“I guess it can be a dangerous job,” Charlie said as a server arrived with several plates of rice, noodles, and some sort of deep-fried finger foods.
“I think she worries more about how my colleagues treat me,” Kobayashi said, after the waitress had left. “She imagines they are much worse than they are in reality.”
“Do they give you a hard time because you’re a woman?”
She looked thoughtful as she gestured to the rice, then watched as Charlie spooned some onto his plate. “At first, yes, but I have found my place now. It is not such a big problem anymore.”
“You mean they’ve realized you’re there to stay.”
“Exactly.” She smiled as Charlie looked at the plate of noodles in front of him, and the thin strands of something that sat on top as a garnish. They looked like ultra-thin versions of the same noodles, but they appeared to be … moving.
“They move with the steam.” She made a half-hearted effort to stifle a laugh. “They are not alive, Charlie.”
“Right.” It was his turn to look embarrassed, but Kobayashi was quick to throw him a face-saving line.
“It’s a common reaction,” she said as he tentatively scooped some of the noodles onto his plate.
“So, what did you think of Lepage?” Charlie asked.
She looked thoughtful for a moment, then gave a little nod. “I don’t think there’s much he can tell us about Seger’s death.”
Charlie considered the statement, and her expression, as he bit into a forkful of the still moving noodles. “But there’s something else?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m not sure he’s telling us everything.”
“You think he’s lying?”
She shook her head at the word, as though it were abhorrent. “Do you find it strange that his memory is so … segmented?”
“I thought that was how amnesia works,” Charlie said. “Remembering things after the traumatic event means the long-term functioning of the brain is intact, but memories from before the accident are temporarily lost.”
“But he remembers some things from before, yes?”
Charlie chewed his noodles and remembered Lepage’s reaction at seeing the pen with the Montreal Canadiens’ logo. He could have sworn that what he saw in Lepage’s eyes was recognition, yet he had said it had stirred no recollection at all. Had he been lying?
“I apologize if I have offended you,” Kobayashi said, making Charlie abandon his internal debate and look at her. Her face looked almost pained.
“Offended me, how?”
“I sense that you believe Mr. Lepage …” She stopped and seemed to search for the right word. “Believe in Mr. Lepage, and you may be right. But in my experience, I’m afraid many of the people I interview do not tell me the truth.”
“You’re doing your job,” he said, after a brief pause. “And I’m not offended at all. If there’s something Lepage’s holding back that could help solve Seger’s murder, then I’m just as eager to find out what it is as you are. My only question is, why would he lie?”
“A good question. Maybe his email account will give us some answers.”
“How soon do you think you�
�ll be able to get access?”
She poured them both some more tea. “Tomorrow, I think.”
“Thank you,” he said, taking a sip of the tea. “And we might have the autopsy results tomorrow, too. Maybe between the two we’ll catch a break?”
“I hope so,” she said, a slight frown appearing on her brow.
“You’re not so sure?” he said, misinterpreting her expression.
“It’s just that I will be under pressure to move on to other cases if something doesn’t come up soon on the Seger file.”
He nodded. “I’m sure you have other files, and I guess your superiors don’t want you making a mountain out of a molehill,” he said, taking a spoonful of rice. When he looked up, he saw puzzlement on Kobayashi’s face. “I’m sorry — it’s an expression. It means to make too much of something minor. In other words, they’ll want you to close the case unless there’s a very good reason to keep it open. If they’re anything like Canadian police, I mean,” he added.
She smiled. “That’s true.”
The proprietor came by to check on their meals and Kobayashi introduced Charlie, translating the old woman’s rapid-fire Japanese. He thought he heard the Japanese words for Canadian embassy in Kobayashi’s description and wondered if he was being introduced as a friend or some sort of work-related acquaintance. He was going to have to make a more concerted effort to improve his Japanese.
“You mentioned Lepage’s girlfriend was supposed to be at the interview today,” she said, after the old woman had moved on to another table.
He nodded. “She made a point of saying she wanted to attend, so I thought she would be there.”
Kobayashi chewed her food in silence, looking at him. Her face was friendly but those eyes were quite intense, and he could sense the activity behind them as she appraised him. He could only imagine their effect in an interrogation. “But you weren’t surprised?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You weren’t surprised that she didn’t show up today,” Kobayashi continued.
“Not really, I guess.”
“Why not?”
He smiled. “I don’t know why exactly. Just a feeling.”
“Feelings should never be ignored,” Kobayashi said, sipping her tea in silence, while Charlie wondered what or how much to say next. He decided to come at it logically, from his first impression.
“I just have a hard time seeing the two of them together. They seem so … different.”
“How so?”
“She seems a bit rough around the edges for him, that’s all.” He realized he had confused her again when he saw her expression and quickly explained. “She seems a bit … harsh — her manner and the way she dresses, whereas Rob seems more clean-cut and friendlier.” He played with his teacup in the silence that followed, and felt her appraising eyes on him. It occurred to him that his comments might say more about him than Kimura — his judging her for the clothes she wore. And who was to say that her gruff exterior wasn’t just her way of being protective of Lepage?
“She has made an impression on you, that much is obvious,” Kobayashi finally said.
“It’s just that though — an impression. I could be completely wrong.”
“I doubt that,” she replied, with a little smile. “Do you have contact information for Ms. Kimura?”
Charlie shook his head, realizing that while he had given Kimura his card, she had never sent him the email she had promised with her own coordinates. “I know she works at a call centre, and has odd hours. But she’s at the hospital all the time. I can tell Rob you’d like to get in touch with her if you like.”
She shook her head. “That won’t be necessary.”
Charlie glanced at his watch and realized they had been there for almost ninety minutes. “Well, I should probably let you enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Thank you for the wonderful lunch,” he said, which led to a five minute negotiation during which he was finally allowed to pay the bill, but only after promising to let Kobayashi reciprocate some other time.
They went their separate ways outside the restaurant, and as he made his way back to the main pedestrian street leading up to the Sensō-ji Temple, Charlie found himself contemplating several elements of the lunch. The first was Kobayashi’s obvious doubts about whether Lepage was telling them everything. Whether it was her instincts as an inspector or something more, Charlie didn’t know, but she had got him thinking, too. He couldn’t shake the odd sensation he had felt on watching Lepage’s reaction to the pen. If he had recognized it, why would Lepage conceal the fact, especially if it was evidence that his medical condition improving? But the lunch hadn’t just shown him that Kobayashi was a perceptive investigator, it has also given him a glimpse of her more personal side. He imagined her returning to her parents’ apartment. Would she mention the lunch meeting? Probably not, and even if she did, she was sure to describe it as a purely work-related function, just as she had seemed to introduce him to the restaurant’s proprietor in his official capacity.
Too bad, he thought, as made his way to the end of the crowded street and caught sight of the sign for the Metro. He felt a flush of pleasure when he recalled smelling her floral scent as they stood in close quarters on the Metro, and the look in her eyes when she smiled.
CHAPTER 14
Charlie sat at his dining room table, scraping the bottom of the takeout box with a spoon — he had abandoned the chopsticks, but not before taking some satisfaction from having made it through 90 percent of the meal. He scooped the last of the rice out and popped it in his mouth, savouring it as he scrolled through the results of some internet research with his other hand. Kobayashi had definitely got him thinking about what Lepage should and should not be able to remember, and while he had come across plenty of online materials on amnesia, there was nothing so far to suggest that Lepage’s description of how his own memory was returning was at odds with medical reality. There was also the fact that Dr. Yamaguchi didn’t seem suspicious, but Charlie couldn’t help feeling naive when Kobayashi had raised the possibility. She was right — he wanted to believe Lepage — and while there was still nothing concrete to suggest he shouldn’t, Charlie felt he owed it to himself to at least do his homework.
He spent another fifteen minutes online, the result of which was that virtually anything seemed possible when it came to the way a person’s memories came back after a traumatic event. The exercise was not only frustrating, but a good reminder of why you shouldn’t try to play doctor on the internet: if you looked hard enough, you could find something that supported any number of completely opposing diagnoses. Charlie tried to sip from the empty beer bottle and glanced over toward the fridge, considering another, when his line of sight was interrupted by the wooden bowl on the counter where he kept his keys. He got up and walked over to the counter, ignoring his keys and focusing instead on the white key card at the bottom of the bowl that he had intended to return to Lepage at this morning’s interview. He glanced at his watch and made up his mind, then plucked the card from the bowl, grabbed his jacket, and was out the door.
Charlie arrived at Lepage’s apartment building in Omote-sando Hills fifteen minutes later. Despite the chill in the evening air, he could feel a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he stood outside the building entrance, feeling the outline of the key in the pocket of his jeans and considering whether he should turn back. Then he made up his mind and trotted up the front steps two at a time, with a friendly nod to the young couple passing by on their way out of the building. Charlie made his way quickly to the elevators and stepped inside a waiting car. He pressed the button for Lepage’s floor, then the one to close the doors, keen to be underway before another resident showed up. The doors were almost all the way shut when a slender arm clad in black slid between them, jolting them open again.
“Moushiwake arimasen,” he said, surprised to see that the arm belonged to a tall, red-headed woman in running gear.
“No worries,” she said with a British lilt. Her
attempt to conceal a smirk was less than successful as she removed a pair of high-end ear buds and rolled up the cord. “American?”
Charlie turned to look at her full on. She was maybe a couple of inches shorter than him, with her hair tied back in a ponytail, her cheeks rosy from exertion and the cold night air. He tried not to linger on the clinging black pants and long-sleeved top, both adorned with familiar athletic logos.
“Why do I get the feeling that I just asked you where the Metro station is?” he said, which made her laugh out loud.
“No, not at all.” She shook her head, her face lighting up with her smile. “It was just a very formal apology, that’s all.”
“Oh really? I thought that’s what I was supposed to say.”
“I usually go with gomen, or gomenasai, but I’m quite informal.”
The elevator chimed and the doors opened onto the ninth floor. She looked at the panel with the single floor button lit up, then back at him.
“After you,” he said, realizing they were going to the same floor.
“You live here?” There was a trace of something in her eyes that might have been fear. He wanted to put her at ease as quickly as possible.
“No, I’m a friend of someone who lives here.”
“You’re not a friend of Rob’s, are you?” she asked as they stood in the hallway.
“Rob Lepage? Actually, I am. Do you know him?”
“Sort of … I haven’t seen him around much lately, though.” Again, Charlie detected something in her body language. Suspicion, anxiety, or general awkwardness? He wasn’t sure.
“Look, Ms.… My name’s Charlie Hillier by the way. I’m with the Canadian embassy,” he added, plucking a card from his pocket and giving it to her. She seemed satisfied that he posed no danger to her, but she still looked puzzled.
“Elizabeth Farnsworth. You said you’re with the embassy.… Is everything okay with Rob?”
“I’m afraid Rob’s been in an accident.”
“Oh my God.” She put a hand over her mouth. “Is he …”
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