by Ashton, Hugh
“Another?” he asked.
“Yes, please.” There was almost no expression in the small quiet voice. He went into the kitchen to pour the drinks, and picked up a bag of rice crackers which he shook into a bowl. She accepted the glass with a word of thanks, and started sipping, and then coughing.
“Are you all right?” asked Sharpe. More coughing. As gently as he could, he moved beside her and started to pat her on the back, uncomfortably aware of the feel of her body through the thin black dress, which seemed to be all she was wearing in that area.
She stopped coughing and turned to him, her lovely face distorted in an ugly mask. “Please…” she gasped, and fell sobbing into his arms, gripping his clothes with both hands as though he was a life-belt. Feeling like a fool, he held her, stroking her hair and feeling her body shake as she wept. His feelings were definitely and inappropriately erotic. Eventually she stopped and loosened her grip on his shirt, and in response he unwound his arms from around her shoulders and moved a little way away from her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “So sorry. I never realised that it would come to this.”
“Come to what?” Sharpe asked her.
“My father and his brothers. They’re terrible men. That’s why I ran away from them and married Masashi, so that I wouldn’t have to live with that kind of thing any more.” She started sobbing again, but less violently than before. Even though he wanted to, Sharpe didn’t put his arms around her this time.
“What have they done?” he asked, when the sobs had died down a little. He remembered what Katsuyama had hinted about his in-laws’ gangster connections.
“It’s your wife,” she said, quietly. Turning to look him in the eyes. “They were here an hour ago and took her.”
Sharpe was on his feet instantly. “Where?” All his worst fears leapt to the surface.
“They mentioned the river,” she answered. She had completely stopped crying and seemed to be in control of herself. “They were talking about a construction lot near the station where there’s a new block of flats being built.”
“What were they going to do?”
“They didn’t say. Maybe hold her for ransom, maybe … I don’t know. I must go now before they notice I’ve gone.”
“Where have you come from?” asked Sharpe, already on his feet. He had no firm ideas in his mind, but part of him had already cast himself as a white knight riding to Mieko’s rescue.
“Staying with relatives. Now I must go.” As he was helping her on with her coat, the sleeve of her dress rode up, exposing livid bruises on her arm.
“What’s that?” asked Sharpe. “Who did that?” The bruises were about the size and shape that a man’s hand would make if he gripped a beautiful woman’s arm tightly.
“Nothing. No-one,” she answered too quickly. And then the coat was on, and she was off before Sharpe could stop her.
There was no doubt in his mind that he would go after Mieko. None at all. He thought for a moment about taking a weapon, and dismissed the idea. The odds were that he would be outnumbered by people whose way of life included violence as part of their daily routine, and the closest thing to a real weapon that he could find was likely to be a kitchen knife anyway.
Walking fast through the barely-lit streets (after a couple of decades of desk-based life, he was in no condition for extended bursts of running), he began to be afraid. It was years since he’d been personally involved in any kind of violent action. He’d studied a little kendo in the past, but fencing with bamboo swords hardly qualified as a practical method of self-defence in the 21st century. Usually he relied on his wits and his skill with words to talk his way out of difficult situations, but he had his doubts as to how effective this would be in this case.
Searching his pockets, he remembered his key-ring had a small light attached. Although it was meant to help find a keyhole in the dark, it was brighter than it needed to be, and might prove useful. And that, apart from the keys themselves, comprised the contents of his arsenal against … what?
He tried hard not to remember what he’d read in the past about some of the more gruesome habits of gangsters in Japan, and then asked himself why on earth he was being so possessive about Katsuyama’s gizmo. Let them have it, he told himself. It’s not yours. Hell, they probably have a legal right to it, if they’re his relatives. Perfectly reasonable. Except that Katsuyama had given it to him, and he’d liked Katsuyama. Not that that made any difference. He was getting illogical. Time to slow down and think it through.
All right, he finally decided to himself. If they want the bloody thing so much, then let them have it. He’d have to go to Vishal’s place and pick it up. But then he’d have to involve Vishal and Meema, and there was no way he was going to get them involved if he could help it. He’d have to talk.
Sharpe felt his heart was pounding fast and hard as he walked fast. He was rehearsing what to say in his best Japanese when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.
-o-
“Sharpe desu ka?” asked a rough voice as another hand grabbed the other shoulder – hard. He tried not to wince as the fingers bit into muscles that he’d forgotten existed.
“Hai,” he replied. There seemed to be little point in denying his identity and he wasn’t going to start complaining about the missing honorific.
He was dragged towards a large black car of the type that Sharpe automatically associated with gangsters. It seemed to be one of those things which were far too big for Japanese roads, and had incongruous dainty lace curtains behind the tinted windows.
“In,” said one of the men behind him, opening the door and shoving him inside. The central locking mechanism clicked, locking all the doors together. Sharpe found himself sitting next to a large older man, with tightly permed hair, wearing a dark shirt and light-coloured tie. Why on earth did gangsters in Japan always have to live up to their stereotyped image? Sharpe thought, but then reminded himself that all Japanese seem to find the image more appealing than the reality of actually being something.
“Where is my daughter’s husband?” asked his companion in almost completely fluent unaccented American English.
Sharpe choked back a number of possible answers and simply replied, “I’m sorry. I don’t know your daughter and I don’t know her husband.” The pain exploded in his head without warning. As he shrank back against the back seat of the car, giving an involuntary cry, he heard an answering cry from the front of the car. Screwing up his eyes against the pain, he looked, to see Mieko sitting in the car’s front seat, her arm gripped by the driver.
The man in the back seat beside him was reflectively fingering the gun with which he’d just pistol-whipped Sharpe. Sharpe didn’t know if it was a real gun or not – Japanese firearms regulations are incredibly strict, but there had been reports of Russian pistols finding their way into the hands of local gangs. He decided not to try and find out. “My daughter’s husband’s name is Katsuyama. Maybe that refreshes your memory,” said his captor.
Despite the pain and the oncoming dizziness, Sharpe noticed the use of the present tense. He decided to ignore it for the moment. “He’s dead. Fell off a platform at Shinjuku and was killed by a train. Didn’t the police tell you?”
The pain of the blow was worse this time, because he was half-expecting it. He could feel something warm and wet trickling down his cheek, but decided not to wipe it off. “Yes, the police did tell us, but they lied to us. The body my daughter and I identified as Masashi’s was that of a stranger.”
Sharpe looked at him, his mouth slowly opening. “But the police came to me that evening because they found my business card in his pocket,” he objected. “And later, I described his clothes to the police and they agreed that’s what he was wearing when I met him.”
“You didn’t see the body yourself, then?” Katsuyama’s father-in-law was shaking his head.
“No, of course not. Why did you think I had?”
“Never mind why. Yes, your card was found in
the pocket of the dead man. And the pocket belonged to a jacket that belonged to my son-in-law. But the body inside those clothes was not that of my son-in-law.”
Sharpe could think of nothing useful to say, and so kept his mouth shut. “But you did meet my son-in-law?” was the next question.
“Yes, I did. The afternoon the day he d— I mean, the day that Mr X fell off the platform at Shinjuku.”
“Mr Ecks?” There was a frown on the face. “Who is this Mr Ecks? The man who died? You know him, then?”
“I mean X like X, Y, Z,” explained Sharpe. “We don’t know his name, so we call him X.”
Relief. “Oh, I see.”
“May I ask a question?” asked Sharpe, half-tensing against a further blow. The other nodded. “Why did you say to the police that the mystery man – Mr X – was your daughter’s husband when he wasn’t?”
“It seemed like a good idea for everyone to believe he was dead, especially if the police had kidnapped him and decided he was better off officially dead.” This made no sense to Sharpe. If the official bodies, whoever they might be, had indeed kidnapped Katsuyama, why on earth would they call in someone to identify a strange body in this way? And why would his nearest and dearest aid and abet such a conspiracy? Something seemed to be very wrong with all this, but he decided to hold his tongue. Maybe all would be revealed in time. The gangster continued. “Now a question for you. What did you and Masashi talk about?”
It seemed like a good idea to keep telling the truth. After all, it wasn’t just him who was going to suffer if he got caught out in a lie. “His work. He claimed that the Americans were chasing him.”
“Did he say anything about me?”
Honesty is the best policy, Sharpe told himself once again, but a little unconvincingly, and took a deep breath. “Yes, he did. He said that you were very well-connected in certain special circles.” He tensed himself, waiting for the gun in his face again, but it didn’t arrive. “He also said that you came from Korea. The North,” he added.
To his relief, his questioner was smiling. “Well, that sounds fair enough. Did he give you anything?”
Damn, thought Sharpe. The big one. Even though he’d made up his mind in advance to return Katsuyama’s gadget, he wished he didn’t have to answer questions about it. Being hit in the face tends to prejudice your opinion of a man. He answered anyway. “Yes, he did.”
“I won’t insult your intelligence by asking you what it was. Is it safe?”
Sharpe nodded, dumbly.
“Will the Japanese police find it?”
“Probably not,” replied Sharpe, wondering why he hadn’t been asked where it was.
As if reading his mind, the other said, “I’m not going to ask you where it is. Frankly, I’m not sure I want to know right now, as long as you have no intention of going to the police with it.”
“I’m certainly not going to do that,” replied Sharpe, truthfully. He’d had enough of Sugita, or whatever his real name was, and he wasn’t going to help him, let alone that bastard Ben or Al or whatever he wanted to call himself, who went round wrecking other people’s houses. As for the British Embassy and the gang of nut-jobs there, he couldn’t care less. He stated, with a little more conviction, “There’s no way I’m going to talk to the police about this.”
“That’s fine. Keep it that way.”
By now, Sharpe was thoroughly confused. “Excuse me, but your son-in-law told me that you wanted to pass his invention to North Korea.”
The other laughed. It seemed like genuine laughter, but Sharpe couldn’t be entirely sure without a clear look at the man’s face. “No, that’s not what I want. The Dear Leader could never pay me enough for it. I want this for my own use and I may well explain that to you some time in the future. But more than anything else right now, I want my son-in-law found. Will you help me find him, Mr Sharpe?”
“I’m not a detective,” answered Sharpe.
“But I believe you have friends in interesting places. And you must be good at finding things out, otherwise Masashi would never have trusted you. Will you help?” The voice was insistent, and Sharpe could feel the man’s hot breath on his face as he leaned close, gripping Sharpe’s jacket sleeve in a vice-like grip.
“I can try.” Damn it, it was as much as he could promise.
“Find him, and I’ll make you rich, Mr Sharpe. Fail to find him, and I’ll …” The voice tailed off.
“You’ll kill me?”
Again the laughter. “No, Mr Sharpe. I’m not the monster you think I am. I was going to say that I’ll pay you for trying, but not as much as if you find him.”
“Oh.”
“And I apologise for all the rough stuff just now. You see, I thought you’d been working together with the police to cover up Masashi’s kidnapping by them. Now I’m sure we’re friends. Shake?” The grip on Sharpe’s sleeve relaxed, to change to an outstretched hand. By now thoroughly confused, Sharpe shook it, and felt something small and hard pressed into his palm. As he withdrew it, he opened his hand to look at the metal key with a number stamped on the tag attached to it.
“A man of your talents, Mr Sharpe, who passes through Tokyo station almost every day, should have no problem knowing what to do with this.”
“What about—?” Sharpe jerked his head towards the front seat, where Mieko was still sitting in shocked silence.
“Of course she goes when you go, in a minute. We had to get your attention somehow. Again, my apologies.”
“So you sent your daughter to see me and tell me where you were?”
“Of course.”
Sharpe considered asking about the bruises on her arm, but decided against chancing his luck. Enough questions for one night. But there was one other practical matter. The small part of Sharpe that took care of business showed itself.
“Look, I’m going to be looking for your son-in-law. I’m happy to do it. I liked him when I met him, and I’m glad it wasn’t him who went under the train at Shinjuku. But how do I get in contact with you to let you know how I’m doing?”
“You don’t. I contact you. It’s much safer that way. Now both of you, get out and go home.” The driver pushed the button to unlock the doors. Sharpe opened his door, and Mieko opened hers. Sharpe got out, and faced the two gorillas who’d dragged him to the car.
“Leave them alone. They’re going home in peace. Make sure they get back safely,” came the voice from the car, speaking Japanese.
Sharpe went round to the other side of the car and took Mieko’s arm, steadying her. She seemed to be in reasonable shape – better than Sharpe, anyway. He had the feeling she was steadying him. Galileo or Copernicus or whoever it was had been right, he realised. The world was definitely spinning round.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“OK,” she said.
“Let’s go,” he told her, and they started off back home, hand in hand, followed at a discreet distance by the two thugs.
-o-
They returned to the relative safety of the wrecked flat, and Mieko shrieked at the sight of his cut face, now she could see it clearly in the light. Sharpe went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, exploring the lumps on his cheek with his fingers. Nothing seemed to be broken, but one side of his face was covered in blood. He was glad that they hadn’t met Mrs Watanabe or any of the neighbours on their way back. When he dabbed the blood off gently, and had splashed some antiseptic over the cuts, it stung, and he walked back into the living-room, wincing.
Mieko had found the whisky bottle, and the glasses that he had used earlier that evening and was examining them curiously.
“There’s lipstick on one of these,” she accused.
“You heard what he said,” replied Sharpe. “He sent his daughter round to let me know where you were. She said she needed a drink, so I gave her some whisky.”
“Oh.” She didn’t seem totally convinced. “Did you think she was pretty?”
“Yes,” Sharpe answered. Honest
y seemed to be the order of the day. It seemed to work. Mieko seemed to become a little calmer, and she started stroking his face.
“Itai! That hurts!” complained Sharpe. She stopped touching his face. “Why, did you meet her?” Mieko nodded. “Anyway, you haven’t told me yet what happened to you.”
She shrugged. “Nothing much. I was just putting away the shopping when the doorbell rang, and I went to answer it. The two men who brought you to the car were standing there, and they forced me to go along with them. I really couldn’t struggle out of their hands, and one of them showed me a knife. I was too frightened to scream or anything. They took me to the car and then we went to this building somewhere near Shinagawa. I’m not sure exactly where. They talked to me for a couple of hours, and then we got back in the car and went to where you found me.”
“Did they hurt you?” asked Sharpe. He was aware that it was a bit late to be asking this question, but Mieko hadn’t seemed hurt, or even unduly upset by her capture. In fact, she seemed to be much more upset by his state. He noted, though, that she had said she’d been snatched as she came back from the supermarket, four hours before Sharpe’s return, according to the till receipt, while Katsuyama’s wife had said the kidnapping had taken place only an hour before. He decided not to press the point.
“No, not at all,” replied Mieko. “The older man who was talking to you was very kind and polite. He even gave me tea and cookies and he and his daughter talked to me. I agree with you, she is good-looking – to some men, I suppose.” Sharpe smiled inwardly at the qualification.
“What did he say to you?”
“Not a lot that seemed important. He asked a few questions, though, all about you. Where you work, who you work for, when you come back home. That sort of thing?”
“Anything else?”
“He asked about that Kitty-chan box that you brought back the other day. How on earth he knew we had it, I don’t know. I told him that I hadn’t seen it since you brought it back. Why is it important, anyway?”