End of the World Blues

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  The city looked the same and Kit looked different. The changes from London had rubbed off on him, his clothes were less formal, and he found himself looking at Tokyo through the eyes of someone who’d forgotten how to belong.

  So much of how he defined himself had relied on Yoshi. With Yoshi gone, he’d begun to re-define himself, without even realising it. He checked into three different hotels and was taken for a tourist in each. At the Akasaka Prince he bought a hotel yukata, using it at the Shinjuku Hilton when he discovered the only thing on offer was a fluffy white robe. He might be assimilating, but things hadn’t yet gone that far.

  As he sat in the executive lounge on the thirty-seventh floor of the Hilton, looking out over one of the greatest night views in the world, while an Australian girl and her boyfriend huddled in front of a blaring laptop to watch children’s films and polite middle-class Japanese families talked quietly, Kit decided he really needed to know why Amy had gone to bed with him. Maybe it just happened without reason.

  Since a sign on his table banned the use of phones, Kit took himself out of the executive lounge and then, as an afterthought, out of the hotel altogether and into a taxi that was waiting at the door.

  It was the day the BBC’s news site announced that the Metropolitan police had issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Flyte, a society drug dealer and ex-advertising executive. Mr. Flyte was wanted for the murder of Armand de Valois, whose exact profession was left unspecified.

  An ex-chief from intelligence was quoted saying she doubted Mr. Flyte would ever be caught. Apparently, Brigadier Miles was allowed to say this, because she’d retired five years earlier. All her counterpart at the Met was prepared to say was he couldn’t comment on individual cases, particularly when the question was speculative.

  Evening in Tokyo translated as lunchtime in London and Amy was at her desk. Kit only knew this because he could hear the clatter of printers and the rattle of a train through an open window.

  “Amy Avenden,” she announced, and Kit realised his phone still had its ID lock in place. When Kit kept silence, Amy repeated her name, slightly more forcefully.

  “It’s me,” he said.

  She was about to ask who the fuck me was, because Kit could hear her draw breath and then she knew. It said something for her discretion that she didn’t immediately say his name, although she did ask the obvious.

  “Where are you?”

  “In Tokyo,” said Kit, wondering if it was wise to answer. Although anyone who understood street noise would know he was in Japan from the sing-song jingle activated every time someone walked past a shop door. And anyone who understood jingles could tell he was outside a shop in Akihabara, Tokyo’s electric town, where Kit intended to replace his phone the moment this conversation was done.

  “Yes,” Amy said. “That’s where Kate said you’d be.”

  “Kate?”

  “She called, to see if we’d heard from you. Apparently the kid’s worried.”

  Kit took a deep breath.

  “Things have changed at this end,” said Amy. “The Brigadier…”

  “Did a deal,” Kit said, finishing the sentence for Amy, then wondering if he was right. “I read about the warrant,” he added. “It’s why I called.”

  Silence, then more silence. He’d offended her, again. “It’s not my only reason,” said Kit. “But I do have a couple of questions. Are the police going to be waiting for me if I come back to the UK?”

  “You deserted,” said Amy. “What do you think?”

  “Brigadier Miles offered me a deal.”

  “If you helped us.”

  “I did help,” Kit said. “I got the kid back and de Valois won’t be troubling you. I even left the drugs there for you to find.”

  Amy laughed. “Fuck,” she said. “You’re impossible. What was the other question?”

  “Why did you go to bed with me?”

  “Shit,” said Amy, and for a moment Kit thought she’d broken the connection. “I’m at work,” she said. “All work calls get recorded. That’s just gone on my record.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  “I was drunk. It was stupid. I’d broken up with Steve the week before. You were available.”

  “That’s all it was?”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” said Amy. “I like you, alright? God knows why. People make mistakes. You were my biggest, both times.”

  “But we didn’t…”

  “No,” she said. “We didn’t. If we had, then I doubt we’d be having this conversation. Anything else you want to know?”

  She gave him the name Brigadier Miles had produced, offering to spell it out if Kit needed, but he already knew how to spell Tek Tamagusuku.

  “You know him?” said Amy; it was only half a question.

  Tall, quite thin, with high cheekbones, a pointed chin, and dyes his hair… “Yes,” said Kit. “I know him.”

  Amy seemed surprised when Kit apologised. “I mean it,” he said. “I fucked up, both times.”

  “What are the chances of you not fucking up a third time?”

  Kit laughed, mostly at himself. “Better than they were,” he said. “Much better. Can I ask a favour?”

  “What?”

  “Would you thank Charlie for the dice and send my love to the kid? Say I hope she’s okay.”

  “Why not tell her yourself?”

  “If I call that number,” said Kit, “someone at this end might link us. I want to keep her out of this.”

  Out of what? Amy clearly wanted to ask, but Kit was gone. Tossing his Nokia into a nearby bin, he fought his way into the crowded chaos of an Akihabara electronics boutique and bought himself another.

  CHAPTER 61 — Friday, 13 July

  Yuko’s house was impressive, apparently. A copy in concrete and glass of a traditional Okinawan building, complete with red tiles on the roof and ceramic shisa lions guarding its rafters. Kit had never been. Yoshi and her sister always chose times to meet when he was teaching or buying stores for his bar.

  Everything he knew about the Tamagusuku family home he knew from Yoshi. It was big, the garden had its own waterfall and the gates were rather vulgar; although Yoshi had always been careful to blame this on Mr. Tamagusuku and his southern heritage.

  The house phone was gilt and alabaster, originally 1950s French, but refurbished by Mitsukoshi before being sold to Mr. Tamagusuku. It sat on a marble table by the front door, or so Kit had been told.

  As he sat in yet another café, nursing a cappuccino and watching morning commuters stream in the thousands out of a West Shinjuku metro entrance, he imagined Yuko Tamagusuku putting down her own coffee. Or maybe he’d got that wrong, perhaps she was handing her baby to the nanny and walking slowly to the phone as Kit counted the rings, wondering how many could go by before he had to accept she was…

  “Yuko,” said Kit, caught by surprise. “It’s me.”

  He listened to Yoshi’s sister struggle to put a name to his voice.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Who is this?”

  “Me,” said Kit. She got it then. “No,” he said. “Don’t put it down.”

  Picking up again was Yuko’s big mistake. If she really wanted to ignore him she should have left the phone ringing.

  “We need to talk,” said Kit. He waited for a click, for the tone which would follow. It said something for Yuko’s manners that she let the silence continue.

  “Talk,” she said eventually.

  “I know why Yoshi died.”

  “That’s no mystery,” said Yuko, voice cold. “You abandoned her to the fire. I wouldn’t be surprised if you did it on purpose.”

  “Yuko!”

  “Everyone knew you didn’t love her anymore. All you really cared about was the bar and your mistress…”

  So Yoshi had known about Mrs. Oniji. What’s more, she’d told her sister. “I’m sorry,” said Kit, bowing to his phone from instinct.

  At the next table a Japanese boy glanced up, caught Kit’s glar
e, and hastily buried his head in an electronics catalogue. A second later he carefully extracted the exact change for his coffee and left the café.

  “What are you sorry for?” said Yuko.

  “Mostly for not being the person Yoshi thought I was. It was hard,” he added. “And it got harder.”

  “You knew who she was when it started. She showed you her studio and her…” Yuko’s voice faltered. “Her equipment. You let my sister fall in love with you, then you abandoned her to a burning building and saved yourself.” Yuko was crying, her words no longer clipped with anger but swallowed along with her tears.

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like?”

  “I was already outside when the bomb exploded.”

  “The what…?”

  “There was a bomb,” said Kit. “Something basic, like phosphorus and plastique packed in a cola bottle and detonated by walkie talkie.”

  “No,” protested Yuko. “It was an accident. I’ve seen the police report. You didn’t even try to save her.”

  Taking a deep breath, Kit said, “I swear, I was already outside. No one could have saved Yoshi. The blast ripped my bar apart. She would have died instantly and so would I,” he added, admitting it to himself for the first time.

  “Not true.”

  “Yes,” said Kit. “It’s entirely true.”

  Yuko fought her tears. When she finally broke her snuffling silence her words surprised Kit. “You lasted longer than her first husband.”

  “God,” said Kit. “She’d been married before?”

  “Yoshi never said?”

  “No,” he said. “I had no idea.”

  Yuko sighed. “Call me back later,” she said. “I need time to think.”

  CHAPTER 62 — Saturday, 14 July

  The waves were high by the time Kit’s taxi reached Kamakura. Families clung to their spots on the beach, but the atmosphere was sullen and no one seemed to be enjoying themselves. As Kit cleared a long stretch of sand, the rain arrived and people began to fold beach blankets and tidy away picnic ware.

  “Storm soon,” the taxi driver said.

  “Hai,” said Kit, nodding.

  The driver smiled. Having decided Kit was new to Tokyo, he’d been busy pointing out shrines, famous buildings, and women in kimonos ever since they left West Shinjuku. He’d even tried to teach Kit a traditional song about Lord Tokugawa, who turned the swampy village of Edo into his capital.

  The directions Yuko had delivered to the Hilton were for a new marina on Enoshima, an island opposite the Oriental Miami, the most popular of the bathing beaches on the Shonan coast. She made no mention of the fact that Kit was staying at the hotel under another name.

  “Here,” said Kit, indicating a road-side bar, where two Japanese boys were buying Pink Health, one of the newer amino-acid drinks. A double surf board rested against a road sign beside them.

  “See Myo-on Benten,” said the driver.

  Kit looked blank.

  “Goddess of karaoke and rock stars, many arms and very nude, also white and very detailed. You can see her…” The driver shrugged, leaving the rest to Kit’s imagination. “Very famous,” said the driver. “Also lucky.”

  Having thanked and paid his driver, Kit thanked him again, promised to keep the Benten statue in mind, and watched the car pull away. It left him standing in the rain, along with the surfers and a handful of tourists preparing to cross the bridge.

  “Oxygen?” asked Kit, nodding to a small silver tank resting next to the upturned surf board.

  The younger of the two boys wore his hair like a Shinjuku Yakuza, but his accent belonged in Tokyo’s western suburbs and he’d probably spent most of that morning just getting to the beach. “Emergency flotation,” he said, patting the tank.

  “Emergency…?”

  “Yank the cord and whoosh.” Unrolling a wafer-thin orange wet suit, the boy indicated a puffy white strip running along the spine and across the shoulders. “Latest thing,” he said, “very expensive.”

  Nodding, Kit smiled his approval. And that was the way the three of them passed onto the bridge, talking and smiling, under the lazy eye of a local policeman, whose attention centred on an Australian girl in sodden tee-shirt and high-sided briefs.

  No picking wild flowers. No unguided cave trips. No dropping litter. No public indecency of costume. In English the rules were blunter than their Japanese equivalents, though the message was the same. The Australian girl’s outfit just about obeyed the law.

  “There’s going to be a bad storm,” said Kit, repeating what he’d been told by the taxi driver.

  “Cyclone,” said one.

  “Typhoon,” said the other.

  Both grinned. “It’s going to be extreme,” they said together, then laughed at what was obviously a tag line or shared joke. “Everyone’s here,” said the first, indicating other surfers lugging boards or heading towards the bridge. “The call’s been going out all morning. We want to get in the water before the police arrive.”

  Fantastic Far View of Mount Fuji. By the time Kit and the two boys reached a teriyaki restaurant just beyond a botanical garden, the rain had stopped and the café’s canvas awning was dripping lazily onto the tiles of a small terrace. The far views of Fuji-san might well have been wonderful, but they were also obscured by cloud.

  With its cafés and tourist shops Enoshima island reminded Kit of Mont St Michel. Small islands off a mainland, their causeways hidden at high tide. Although in the case of Enoshima the bridge had dealt with that particular problem. And tourists, lots of tourists.

  “It’s busy,” he said.

  Both boys grinned. “This is deserted,” they said, almost in unison. “The storm warning has kept most families away.”

  Kit left them at the Fantastic Far View, paying the bill for three take-out teriyaki before he said goodbye. He’d arranged to meet Yuko at 2 pm and it was now fifteen minutes after that. It was time Kit worked out exactly what he was going to say.

  Your husband did it.

  Tamagusuku-san killed my wife. No, I have no real proof.

  Even marinas in Japan had league tables to establish their status, and the new marina on Enoshima island was one of Tokyo’s most exclusive, a sign at the entrance announced this fact. As did the uniform of the guard who stalked out to meet Kit, once it became obvious that was where he was headed.

  White gloves, a dark blue uniform, and an officer’s cap with high brim and a glistening gold and enamel badge, the guard’s uniform was designed to impress and reassure in equal measures. The centre of the man’s badge mirrored the emblem on the gate, a yacht silhouetted against a blood-red sun.

  “Your business?”

  Kit stared at the guard, and kept staring until the man finally blinked. Then Kit waited for him to ask again, using polite form. When Kit replied it was in near-fluent Japanese. His business, however, was his own.

  “Suijin-sama?”

  The guard gestured towards a far jetty in answer to Kit’s question.

  It would be. Named after a water god, the Suijin-sama had steel masts and gleaming brass work. The hull was black, with a white strip around the top, so it looked from the gateway like a floating tray of Guinness. A smartly dressed woman with shoulder-length black hair stood on deck, staring towards Kit. Her nod ordered the guard to let him through.

  Maybe it was looking identical that had forced the Tanaka twins to be so different in the choices they made. This woman wore Yoshi’s face and body, but the expression of distrust was entirely her own. Yoshi would never have revealed herself to that extent.

  Yuko Tamagusuku didn’t offer to shake hands or even bother to walk down to meet Kit, she just stood at the top of the gang plank and scowled.

  “Yuko,” said Kit, when he reached her.

  After a second, Yuko nodded.

  Their exchange was watched by a small man near the wheel. Unlike Yuko’s husband, who habitually wore expensive suits and still looked like a chimpira
pretending to be a Yakuza grandee, this man wore his like he meant it. A ruby ring glittered from one little finger and his watch was a Seiko, with a heavy gold bracelet, half a dozen dials, and three winders. It was a point of principle for senior Yakuza to wear only Japanese clothes, jewellery, and watches. Although what really gave the man’s status away was a tiny and understated lapel pin.

  What looked silver was platinum, and what looked like enamel was ruby, pearl, and emerald, cut to fit and framed by the tiny circle of the pin.

  Kit bowed.

  The man bowed back.

  “My uncle,” said Yuko. “Nureki-san.”

  A couple of teenagers appeared. The crew, Kit imagined. At least, they wore striped jerseys, blue chinos, and deck shoes with rope soles; but they fumbled raising the sail and after a second the man waved them away and pushed a button on a console in front of him. Winches turned and the sail began to raise itself.

  “My sons,” he said. “You’re Yoshi’s English friend?”

  “Husband,” said Kit.

  Mr. Nureki raised his eyebrows. “More of that later,” he said. “First we need to discuss her lamentable death.”

  On the jetty below, the guard with the strange uniform had already unhooked a bow rope. Once the rope was discarded, Yuko’s uncle tapped his console to winch it in.

  “Wait,” said Kit. “I just need a quick word with Yuko.”

  “Too late,” said the man, glancing at the sky. “Already the weather warning says stay in harbour. The rains will be back, worse next time. And besides”—he paused—“you believe my niece was murdered. Is that true?”

  “Yes,” said Kit.

  “Then the conversation should not be quick.”

  Turning away, Nureki-san tapped two more buttons, checked a readout on a tiny screen, and spoke softly into a microphone. Engines fired into life below Kit’s feet and the Suijin-sama began to turn itself.