Missing in Tokyo

by Graham Marks

  ‘So what d’you know about Charlie and Alice? Why wouldn’t your friends talk to me about them?’

  ‘They don’t care, not their business.’

  ‘Right … so why’re you talking to me?’

  ‘I see you with Miki? You look … alone. I know how that is too.’

  ‘Was Miki telling me the truth about Charlie?’

  Oxana nodded. ‘Time Charlie went? She was no so good friend though. With Alice.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Oxana shrugged. ‘Maybe Alice’s new boyfriend? I think maybe that … not my business either.’

  ‘New boyfriend? What happened to whatsisname, Steve?’

  ‘Steve?’ Oxana drained her glass.

  ‘Alice’s old boyfriend.’

  Another shrug. ‘Only saw once.’

  ‘What was wrong with the new one? Didn’t Charlie like him?’

  Oxana held up her left hand, palm towards her and the little finger bent so to Adam and Aiko it looked like the top two joints were missing.

  Adam shook his head, shoulders and eyebrows raised. ‘And? What does that mean?’

  Aiko traced a line through the condensation on one of Oxana’s empty glasses. ‘It mean yakuza, Adam.’

  ‘Yakuza?’

  Oxana shook the ice left in her glass. ‘Mafia …’

  They left Oxana with a fourth vodka tonic, for which she’d repaid them with the information that she’d heard Alice had moved in with this new man – she thought his name was Yoshi – somewhere in Kabukicho. Why Oxana had actually decided to tell them what she knew, Adam wasn’t entirely sure – could just thinking he looked lonely be the whole reason? Whatever, it meant he now had a couple more tiny pieces of the puzzle. Some small justification, at least, for coming to Tokyo, even if he didn’t feel he was any nearer to finding Charlie.

  As they walked back to where the scooter was parked, drinking sweet black coffee straight out of tins they’d bought from a vending machine, Adam ran the facts in front of Aiko, trying to work out if there was anything he’d missed. He was pretty sure Charlie hadn’t left the club with anyone, suspicious or otherwise; then, to add to the very sketchy picture, there was the fact that she and Alice seemed to have had a falling out of some kind, possibly over Alice’s new gangster boyfriend. Something was going on, but what did it have to do with Charlie being kidnapped? Had Charlie been kidnapped?

  ‘You believe Oxana, Aiko?’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Jeez, I dunno … she backs up what Miki told me, which means Alice must have lied.’

  ‘She run away when she see you.’

  ‘But why would you make up a story about someone – your best friend for crissake – being kidnapped? Because she didn’t like your boyfriend? What a pile of crap.’

  ‘Pile of what?’

  ‘Doesn’t make sense … nothing makes sense.’

  ‘Oh … no, make no sense.’

  ‘You think the people who run the club know more than they’re saying? Maybe Miki told the girls to keep their mouths shut?’

  ‘Could be.’ Aiko was searching through her bag for the scooter keys. ‘These place with lot of foreigner working, have to be careful with police … could tell girls to say nothing, keep out of trouble.’

  ‘What about this guy, you know, the yakuza?’ Adam held up his left hand, waggling his little finger. ‘D’you think they’re afraid of him, protection rackets and stuff? Does that happen here?’

  They turned into the street where Aiko’s scooter was waiting, a noodle delivery bike still keeping it company. The Bar Belle’s sign had been turned off and the doorway was shut up tight, the street empty and quiet, just the rubbish whispering as it blew about in a sudden gust of wind. One day winding down, another starting up.

  ‘It happen, sure, but like girl say,’ Aiko finally extracted the keys, ‘like Oxana say, yakuza mostly up in Kabukicho, no down here in Roppongi.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Kabukicho?’ Aiko danced, pretending to take her clothes off, over to the scooter. ‘Place for sex club and bar and soapland – you want to go now?’

  Adam looked at his watch: after four; he shook his head. ‘No, maybe …’

  ‘I was joking, Adam!’

  ‘Ah, Japanese jokes, my favourite – like pretending not to speak English,’ he caught Aiko’s arm, pulled her towards him and kissed her, ‘and forcing poor tourists to have endless sex with them … what’s a soapland anyway?’

  ‘Where poor tourist have to pay to sleep with Japanese girl – want to see?’

  Adam made a thing of looking at his watch again, ducking as Aiko took a playful swipe at him. ‘OK, we’ll do it tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow? You want to go to soapland tomorrow?’

  ‘Yeah … no! I want to go to, what’s it called, Kabukicho, after we’ve been to the hotel to settle up.’ Adam eased the helmet carefully over his ears. ‘See if we can find Alice.’

  ‘That OK, I think you mean something else.’

  ‘Trust me …’

  Aiko sat up, pulling the sheets away from Adam. ‘What happen to boyfren – Alice ol boyfren?’

  ‘Sorry? What …’ Adam squinted up at Aiko; he’d been doing a rapid nosedive into deep, post-sex sleep mode and had no idea what Aiko was talking about.

  ‘Where is Alice boyfren?’ Aiko switched on the table lamp next to her, lighting up Keiko’s main room where they were sleeping on a pull-out futon bed that took up most of the available floor space.

  ‘What made you remember him …’ Adam leant over and looked at his watch on the floor, ‘… now?’

  ‘Nobody say anything. He must be somewhere … could know something?’

  ‘Steve? I suppose so. Might do.’ Adam reached up and traced the line of Aiko’s backbone down from her neck, watching as she stretched like a cat when he reached her coccyx. ‘It was his idea to come here in the first place, maybe after he and Alice broke up he just went back travelling. Maybe he’d earned enough money and wanted to move on and Alice didn’t.’ Was there a pattern in any of this? If there was it was too subtle for him to spot – also way too late to start trying – and it all still left the question: where was Charlie?

  ‘We talk tomorrow.’ Aiko turned the lamp off, lay back down and snaked herself round Adam. ‘You tired?’

  27

  A happy time on tables

  The room was back the way Adam had first seen it, everything put away, everything neat, everything organised. Just no space here to be untidy in, and Aiko had insisted the job was done before they did anything else, like eat. Except, when they had finished, there was nothing in the flat that smelled anything like breakfast.

  ‘You no hungry?’ Aiko held up a bowl of the aromatic, almost fishy miso soup she was drinking. ‘Sure you no want some?’

  Adam shook his head. Fish soup for breakfast? He didn’t think so.

  ‘Rice?’ She pointed at a bowl she’d just heated up in the microwave.

  ‘Coffee and toast with jam? Bacon and eggs?’

  ‘You no like Japanese choshok … breakfas?’

  ‘Japanese choshok looks like supper, Aiko.’

  ‘OK, I take you somewhere.’

  ‘Somewhere’ turned out to be the local coffee shop, part of a chain, like a kind of Japanese Starbucks, but less aggressive. Here Adam had his choice of teas, coffees, Danishes, croissants, filled rolls and sandwiches and the only downside was that just about everyone in the place was smoking. It was, he thought, the national hobby, along with talking on the mobile or texting, which a lot of people seemed to do obsessively at the same time.

  Adam sat down opposite Aiko with his tray, pulled the top off the individual serving of liquid sugar, poured it in his coffee and opened the wrapping on his egg and bacon croissant. This was definitely more like it.

  ‘Happy now, Mr Adam?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘We go to hotel when you finish? Check you out?’

  Adam shook his head, swallowing
. ‘I … we … can’t keep on staying at Keiko’s, can we?’

  ‘She don mind – how long for, anyway … when do you go home?’

  With a jolt Adam was brought right back down to earth. Sitting in this nice café with Aiko wasn’t reality, it was time out of line and soon, very soon, he was going to have to go home; he’d only booked the hotel room for a week, which gave him a few more nights in Tokyo. Not much time to do anything, if he stuck to his plan. He looked across the table at Aiko, feeling like she was an illusion which could disappear at any moment. He thought about his parents and about Grangie and felt bad. He thought about Charlie, that she was still missing, and felt worse. Sat here on his backside he was just wasting time, screwing everything up and achieving nothing.

  ‘You OK, Adam?’

  He stood up, took his helmet off the bench seat next to him and picked up his croissant. ‘We’d better get to the hotel … I’ll eat this on the trot.’

  ‘We go straight up to Kabukicho, after,’ Aiko picked up her helmet and bag, following Adam out of the café. ‘We find Alice, Adam, sure … I think this all about Alice.’

  Adam stopped as he reached the pavement. ‘D’you reckon her yakuza boyfriend did it? Kidnapped Charlie or something?’

  Aiko shook her head. ‘Don’t know, Adam. We find Alice we find out.’

  They sailed round the corner into the road where the New Economy Hotel was, Aiko leaning the scooter over into the right-hand turn, and drove past without stopping; a large black 4x4, a Lexus with darkened windows, was taking up all the space where they could’ve parked. Aiko drove on to the end of the street, took another right and found somewhere to put the scooter fifty, sixty metres down the street.

  They’d walked almost back to the turn when Adam looked behind him. ‘Done it again, Aiko!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your keys.’

  Aiko stopped, looked at her scooter and then at Adam. ‘You get keys, OK? I go talk to them at hotel first, explain,’ she bowed low, ‘sorry, sorry. Maybe they not charge too much.’

  ‘OK … you don’t mind?’

  ‘No … my fault anyway. I make you stay and force you to have endless sex, right?’

  Adam kissed her and walked back towards the scooter with the taste of her lipstick on his tongue, memorising the scent of her perfume, aware that he should experience every single moment, remember everything he saw, heard, touched, smelt. As he kept on forgetting to take any pictures, what was in his head was all he’d have left when this was over and he was back in London. Back in London, not walking down some street in Minowa to pick up the keys this astonishing, beautiful, extraordinary, perceptive, wicked, breathtaking girl had left behind. Again.

  London. He didn’t really want to think about the place and the people waiting for him there. He knew his parents were going to find out, eventually, when the credit card bill arrived, that he’d gone to Tokyo; if he returned empty-handed it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to justify what he’d done, but that was a bridge far enough away to ignore for the moment. What he was going to do about Suzy was something else. Although, he heard Andy say, like some little horned devil on his shoulder, who says you have to do anything?

  He hated himself for being able to think like this, but there really was nothing to stop him from acting like nothing had happened and carrying on as before. Was there? Even though he knew there were things about his relationship with Suzy that weren’t working, it wasn’t like he could finish with her and be with Aiko. Just not going to happen. But having been with Aiko, even for just a few days, would he be able to compromise, pretend it’d never happened? Make do?

  Pulling the keys out by their fob, Adam walked up the road again, swinging them from his finger. Heavy shit, deal with it later. He’d been mulling things over in his head on the back of the scooter and had already decided that he was going to spend the rest of his time trawling through Kabukicho until he found Alice. It was all he could do. If he hadn’t found her by Monday he’d try and change his flight and go home early. There was no point in him staying any longer. And Aiko was back at her college on Monday anyway.

  As he was coming up to the corner Adam heard a car start, its engine hi-revving, wheels screeching as it accelerated away. Ahead of him a black 4x4 with darkened windows squealed to a momentary halt at the junction; he noticed it had those flash-bastard, brightly chromed custom wheel trims that spun independently of the actual wheels, creating a weird optical effect that the car was moving even when it was stationary. The shadowy figure of the driver appeared to look his way, then the car turned a sharp left and sped off down the street, leaving behind a lazy vapour trail of blue exhaust. Another swift right turn at the end of the road and it was gone. The whole incident happened so quickly he hadn’t had time to think about it and was fleetingly surprised when he turned the corner to go down to the hotel and saw the Lexus had gone.

  Kind of wondering, in the back of his mind, why the driver had been in such a tearing hurry, Adam walked down the street, up the steps into the hotel’s small foyer and into a scene of total chaos. Behind the counter two Japanese women were screeching at each other while the concierge – it looked like the man he’d met when he’d come to book a room on Thursday morning – was standing, a hand over one ear, barking down the phone. There was a European couple standing in the foyer, asking questions in broken English with what sounded like some Scandinavian accent, and as Adam came in, looking for Aiko, the concierge began pointing at him and nodding angrily.

  ‘You the boy they want!’

  The accusation stopped Adam like he’d been slapped. ‘Me? Who wanted me?’

  The Scandinavian man turned, frowning, puzzled. ‘They took the girl. We came down …’ he indicated the staircase with his thumb, ‘… and saw two men grab her. It was so quick.’

  Adam’s mouth went dry. Were they talking about Aiko? They couldn’t be. He scanned left, right, then looked behind him, in case, somehow, she’d managed to go outside somehow and was coming back in again. She hadn’t.

  ‘They want you!’ The concierge put the phone down. ‘They been here two time, asking!’

  ‘Who the hell are you talking about? Who’s taken Aiko?’

  ‘Bad men. Very bad men …’

  Adam sat in the small back office of the hotel, watching the concierge talk to the two policemen who’d shown up five, ten minutes ago – he couldn’t remember how long it had been. His head was like a stuck record, one thought – AIKO HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED F’CRISSAKE – AND IT’S ALL MY FAULT!! – shouting at him as it went round and round and round his brain, stopping him from thinking straight. Very bad men had been waiting for him in the hotel … Yoshi was a yakuza or Mafia or whatever, a ‘bad person’, so was he the one who’d taken Aiko? But why would he do that?

  He saw one of the policemen turn and look through the door, look him up and down in a way that immediately made him feel guilty as hell. Guiltier. He looked away, staring at a pin board covered in notes and messages and posters, the handwritten and printed characters meaning nothing, telling no stories.

  If, if, if … if he hadn’t spotted the keys in the scooter, if Aiko hadn’t suggested trying to smooth things out for him, if he hadn’t let her. He’d wanted to go after Aiko (right, chase a car that had been gone for ages and in who knew what direction …) but had been stopped by the concierge, made to stay and wait until the police arrived. And a lot of good they seemed to be doing. And now here he was, surrounded by people who didn’t speak much or anything of his language, didn’t trust him, didn’t look like they were doing anything!

  ‘What the girl name?’

  Adam looked round to find the concierge had come into the office. ‘Aiko … she’s called Aiko.’

  ‘Family name, you give me family name?’

  Family name? He’d never asked, never thought to. He shook his head. ‘Sorry, don’t know.’

  The concierge said something to the police over his shoulder, listening to their reply. ‘How
long you know?’

  ‘Um … not long … about two days.’

  The man nodded – Adam couldn’t read his expression at all – and went out of the room, leaving him alone again. What did he know about Aiko? Since they’d met they’d hardly been out of each other’s sight, spent hours in bed, not many of them actually asleep; emotionally he knew her, he could describe her, physically, in minute detail, but what was her name, where did she live, what was her mobile number? Not a chance. He could be no help at all.

  A feeling of total hopelessness fell on him like a slow-motion blanket of fog, draining his ability to be positive, making him want to cry tears of rage and frustration, paralysing him. A memory opened, blossoming in his head: sitting with Suzy in the café, the enthusiasm he’d felt pumping him up, creating an aura of such optimism that he could actually do something and make a difference. And now, in this poky room in a hotel in Tokyo, the dream was dust. Not only had he not found Charlie, he’d also lost Aiko. How crap was that?

  Adam heard a door open, letting in outside noises, and then voices; he moved so more of the small foyer came into view and saw three more people had arrived, two more Japanese wearing suits – plain-clothes cops? – and a European. Who was he? The European man glanced at Adam, frowning, the way you do when you realise you’re being watched, leant across to one of the plain-clothes newcomers and then walked into the room.

  ‘Adam Grey?’

  It was Adam’s turn to looked perplexed, and he just nodded.

  ‘I’m with the embassy.’ The man, youngish – Adam thought probably mid-twenties, smart, at ease and with that couldn’t-give-a-toss manner he assumed came from breeding and a private education – put out his hand. ‘Simon Palmer.’

  Adam shook his hand quickly and let go. ‘How d’you know my name?’

  ‘You told the hotel when you booked the room, remember? Nothing suspicious.’ Simon sat on the edge of the desk that took up most of the floor space in the office. ‘When the concierge called the police about the abduction, he also told them about the men who’d been coming here asking about you. Your name rang alarm bells because you’ve been reported as missing by your parents.’