“And the offering?”
“Seems he’s dispensing with that. The official announcement’s going to be tonight. If only we had an evening edition.”
“I’ll let management know Aoki’s got a story. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“How’s that going?” Kishi asked, indicating with a flick of his head the pile of proofs on Yuuki’s desk.
“They’re removing the bodies today.”
“Already? Gunma police have really got their shit together.”
“Seems the Self-Defense Forces have already managed to build a heliport.”
“Aha! Yes, in an emergency, it’s the SDF you want.”
“Yeah, but they’re not the ones who get to investigate it.”
“What?”
“Late last night the prefectural police set up a special investigative unit.”
Kishi looked amazed.
“Wow. Local police have to investigate this crash? You must be joking.”
“It happened here, so they have jurisdiction.”
“That’s bad luck. This has got to be the worst accident the Gunma prefectural police have ever inherited.” Kishi frowned. “Us, too.”
Yuuki decided to ignore Kishi’s gaffe.
An inherited accident.
Sooner or later there would be plenty of people within and outside the department saying the same thing, Yuuki guessed. It happened quite often with murder cases, too. Gunma, with all its mountains, was frequently used as a dumping ground for corpses. The killers would drive the bodies up from Tokyo. Every time, the prefectural police would mount a big investigation. And so would the North Kanto Times. Scores of reporters would run around covering the case—all for someone from a different part of the country who had committed their crime far from Gunma.
“Some plane” had just happened to crash—that was how Kurasaka from Advertising had so dismissively put it. A plane connecting Tokyo and Osaka, with no ties or relationship with Gunma, had just happened to crash into their side of the border that divided them from Nagano. That was how Kurasaka saw it.
Deep down, Yuuki’s own feelings were not all that different. Back when it had been difficult to get information and they hadn’t been sure where the crash site was, he’d hoped it was in Nagano. And he still hadn’t completely banished that thought. Why did it have to be Gunma, which wasn’t even on any flight paths? Why did he have to be saddled with supervising this, of all cases?
Maybe it was just some inherited accident, after all. If someone high up at the paper were to say it loudly enough, then perhaps the whole thing would just fade away. The world’s biggest airline disaster. Maybe the words would lose their magical power before too long. And if they did, would he breathe a long sigh of relief that this huge burden was off his shoulders? Or would he be overcome with regret? Right at this moment, Yuuki had no idea.
The newsroom was filling up.
The reporters who’d been paged began calling back, and Yuuki was busy explaining their assignments to each one. Wajima was the one person he didn’t expect a fast response from, and he was indeed the last to call. He sounded worried.
“This is Wajima … Did you page me?”
The previous day, Yuuki had given the timorous reporter the order to climb Mount Osutaka, but he’d gotten lost and had been forced to turn back.
“Climb it again.”
The line went silent.
“We’re starting a series of feature stories. You’ll be one of ten people climbing the mountain, and I want you to be in charge.”
“You want me—?”
“You’ll be fine. The Self-Defense Forces and the police are constructing a ropeway. It’ll be completely different from yesterday.”
He somehow managed to persuade him, but after hanging up the phone he still felt uneasy. Not only was Wajima cautious but since the previous day’s failure he’d lost all his self-confidence. All Yuuki could do was offer words of encouragement. Wajima wasn’t a novice. He’d been working as a reporter for seven years now and should be able to supervise the junior staff members. He was doing a good job as the number-two reporter at police headquarters. But the thought that he hadn’t been able to climb Mount Osutaka had the potential to haunt his future as a reporter.
The next thing Yuuki did was page Sayama and Hanazawa. It wasn’t to send them back to the crash site but to call them into the office. He wanted to thank them for their hard work the day before, and to reward them for it. He’d decided that Sayama would get to write the first feature story.
When the phone rang, Yuuki took a moment to gather himself before he picked up. But it wasn’t Sayama or Hanazawa. It was an update from Totsuka, the young reporter from Fujioka.
“The heliport’s finished. They’re about to start removing the bodies.”
“Got it. Thanks.”
Yuuki replaced the receiver and paged the two men again.
Still no response.
They must have somehow gotten hold of a copy of today’s paper and discovered that their eyewitness account wasn’t in it. They’d be devastated, furious even. They’d probably turned off their pagers.
He tried to reach them one more time. Still, his desk phone stayed silent.
Yuuki let out a quick breath and looked up. It was ten past eight. From the afternoon on, he was sure to be buried again under a pile of papers. What if he quickly called in at home and then on Anzai in the hospital? If he was going to do it, it would have to be now.
“Kishi, can you cover for me for a couple of hours?”
Just as he spoke, he heard the beep of a pager right behind him. He turned and was blown away by what he saw.
Sayama and Hanazawa had just walked in. Yuuki was not alone in his reaction—everyone who’d seen them arrive had gasped in shock.
They were in a terrible state. Their once-white shirts were completely brown; not just dirty—there was absolutely no white left anywhere. It was as if they had been soaked in brown dye. In contrast, possibly from the two having sweated so much, their navy-blue trousers were now white with salt. Their sunburned arms were covered with cuts and gashes. Apparently they’d had to beat their way through heavy undergrowth. But it was Sayama’s eyes that were the worst. Yuuki recoiled at the look in them. They were horrifyingly dark, the eyes of someone in deep distress.
They’d witnessed something unthinkable, Yuuki’s instinct told him.
Sayama walked straight up to Yuuki.
“Did you page me?”
His voice was hoarse, like an old man’s.
“Yes, I did. You did a great job out there.”
“Why was my report dropped?”
Perhaps Sayama was already way past his anger. He was strangely calm.
Yuuki looked him straight back in the eyes.
“The rotary press was broken. We had to use the old one and couldn’t extend the deadline.”
He didn’t want to tell Sayama what Todoroki had done. As far as Sayama was concerned, he would just have to believe that Todoroki had notified Yuuki that there could be no extension. Yuuki knew there was no point in arguing any further; otherwise, it would never end.
Yuuki couldn’t tell whether Sayama had understood what he’d said. He just nodded his head vaguely two or three times.
“Then why didn’t you tell me when I was phoning in the story?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to.”
“I see.”
Once again, Sayama nodded unsteadily. His mind was only half there. At least, that was how it looked.
But now it was Hanazawa, behind Sayama, who began to worry Yuuki. Standing there, looking like some kind of feral animal, he had begun to shake. From the moment they’d arrived in the newsroom, in contrast to Sayama, Hanazawa had been fixated on Yuuki’s face, a peculiar gleam in his eyes. He was twenty-six years old, with three years’ experience as a reporter. It was fair to say he was still just starting out. He had delicate features, didn’t really say very much. Yuuki had alw
ays thought of him as someone who didn’t stand out. This Hanazawa in front of him seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
Yuuki led the two men out into the corridor and over to the area where people took their breaks—a small corner with vending machines and a couple of sofas. He bought three cans of iced coffee from one of the machines. Staff from other departments stared at the two reporters’ tattered clothes as they walked by. Hanazawa scowled back menacingly at them all.
“What was it like at the crash site?”
At Yuuki’s question, a visible chill passed through Sayama’s whole body. But it was Hanazawa who spoke.
“Every single thing was in pieces. Heads, hands, feet…”
Yuuki sat and listened to their story for a full hour.
It was mostly Hanazawa who talked. They’d followed the Self-Defense Forces up the mountain from the Nagano side, but there turned out to be three separate mountain ridges, divided by steep, scree-covered valleys that they had to slide down. They’d had neither water nor food with them, so they scooped up puddle water with a small plastic film cylinder. They’d had to fight their way through thick bamboo grass taller than they were; then, after practically crawling up one last cliff face, they’d finally reached the crash site. Dead body parts were strewn everywhere. There was nowhere one could step without treading on something.
As Hanazawa talked, editorial staff began to gather around the sofas. People from other departments, too, paused on their way past and listened in from a distance.
The light in Hanazawa’s eyes was far from normal; he sounded like some kind of lifeless robot as he recited the gruesome details of the crash site. In particular, his tone was flat as he described the state of the bodies in the minutest detail. It was as if the human part of him had been broken.
In contrast, Sayama just sat there lifelessly, his eyes on the floor. If he spoke, it was with great hesitation. He looked terrified of something, almost possessed. When he’d phoned in his article in the middle of the night, he’d been in high spirits. Turning over in his head what he’d seen up on that mountain, he must have suffered some kind of aftershock. They were both damaged, Sayama and Hanazawa, but in different ways.
Yuuki could tell more about the atrocity of the crash site from the reactions of the two men than from the details of Hanazawa’s account.
Yuuki turned to Sayama.
“Please write one more eyewitness piece about the crash site.”
He began to explain his plan for the feature series. Sayama merely folded his arms in silence. Instead, it was Hanazawa who responded.
“It’s too late for that!” he snapped. “It might have meant something if it’d appeared in this morning’s paper. We risked our lives to send that report, but you didn’t even bother to use it!”
Yuuki turned to Hanazawa.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t bother to. I wasn’t able to.”
“For fuck’s sake. The whole paper was filled with Kyodo articles. We were made to look like complete idiots!”
“That wasn’t it at all,” said Yuuki, his tone hardening. Hanazawa was getting angrier, criticizing the Editorial Department’s decisions. He was playing to the gallery now, all the people around getting him far too worked up.
Yuuki turned back to Sayama.
“What do you think?”
After a long pause, Sayama replied.
“I feel the same as Hanazawa. I gave my report in the proper manner.”
He’d spoken quietly, but his words oozed with the indignation and chagrin of a journalist who had been prevented from leaving his mark on the history of the North Kanto Times.
“I’m asking you personally.”
“I already sent it.”
Yuuki bit his lip. He was getting frustrated by this defiant attitude, and from a junior reporter. It was true that he’d been prevented from printing Sayama’s report. But his new plan was a way of rewarding Sayama’s hard work. He’d bulldozed the idea through at the meeting. He was not retreating now. Sayama was vital to his plan and, if he turned Yuuki down now, everything would have to be put on hold. Yuuki couldn’t bear to imagine Oimura and Todoroki’s sneering faces if that were to happen. He lowered his voice.
“That bullshit—is that what you call a feature article?”
Sayama’s cheek twitched.
“That bullshit?”
“A measly thirty lines of copy delivered in the middle of the night?”
“It was all I could manage in the time.”
“I understand. But NKT has its pride. That was no feature article.”
It was a childish trick. But once an investigative reporter grew up and acted maturely, you couldn’t call him an investigative reporter anymore.
“Write me eighty, a hundred lines. As much as you want. Let us read about what you’ve seen.”
This was something he felt strongly about. What did it look like, this phenomenon that in one night had transformed a competent reporter in his prime into this despondent, gloomy man? Yuuki wanted to know.
Sayama thought it over for a while.
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
A little color had returned to his complexion.
Hanazawa was furious, but Sayama stayed firm.
When they returned to the newsroom, the TV screen was showing helicopters airlifting the dead bodies.
The pile of articles and memos on Yuuki’s desk had grown.
Thirteen members of Ministry of Transport’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee arrive at crash site. Work under way to retrieve voice and flight recorders.
Interview with doctors from Tano General Hospital: “Survivors’ blood pressure, breathing, back to normal. Transfer to regular wing in two/three days.”
Patrol boat of the Third Regional Coast Guard finds piece of fuselage from crashed plane in Sagami Bay, 18 kilometers south of Enoshima.
Every now and then, as he made his way through the heap of articles, Yuuki would throw a glance to the opposite end of the newsroom. In the corner desk sat Sayama, hunched over, his pen barely moving. Normally he was the fastest writer in the local news section.
Three hours went by. It was nearing the end of the lunch break by the time Sayama brought over his copy.
“Here you are.”
The hardness in his face had softened a little.
“Thank you. I’ll read it right away.”
“I’m glad I wrote it. It helped me feel better.”
With this very uncharacteristic comment, Sayama turned and headed for the door.
Yuuki pulled out a red pen and placed the sheets of copy in front of him. Sayama had written more than a hundred lines.
As soon as he started in on the lede, a shiver ran through his body. The words on the paper bore no resemblance to the ones he’d heard in that midnight call. This didn’t sound like any newspaper lede he’d ever read.
Report by Sayama on Mount Osutaka
The young Self-Defense Forces soldier cut an impressive figure.
Clasped in his arms was a young girl with a red dragonfly-shaped barrette in her hair, and dressed in a blue polka-dot dress. Her tiny right hand, golden-tanned, dangled loosely down.
The soldier looked up at the sky. How could it be so blue? How could the clouds float so lightly? Birds were chirping. The wind blew gently across the mountain ridge.
The soldier looked down at the hell below him.
It must be around there somewhere … He really needed to find it—this little girl’s left hand.
Yuuki put down his red pen.
He reread the opening over and over. Then he went on to the main story. He waited until he’d regained control of his emotions, then stood up. Even then, he still felt he was looking directly at the crash scene. It was right there in front of his eyes.
He handed the article to the copy chief, Kamejima.
“Kaku-san, this is our front-page story.”
“What’s up? Your eyes look red.”
Yuuki didn’t reply. He
walked toward the door, loosening his tie as he left.
10
The sun felt blistering on his skin, but he crossed the parking lot with a spring in his step. After two days shut up in the office, he felt free again. He’d escaped momentarily from the noise and chaos surrounding the plane crash. Above all, the opportunity to read Sayama’s eyewitness account had given him a clear picture of what they were dealing with.
It was too hot to get into his car right away, so instead he opened all the windows and turned the air conditioner on full blast. From Sojacho, where the newspaper offices were located, it would take him about twenty minutes to drive home. After that he planned to return to work via the prefectural hospital in Maebashi City. He’d have to put the pedal down to make it.
His wife’s little red car was in the drive. Yumiko wasn’t a bit surprised when he turned up suddenly in the living room.
“Hi there. That plane crash is big news, eh? Did you go all the way to that mountain?”
“I had to run it all from the office.”
“The whole time?”
“Yep.”
“You must be pretty stressed, then.”
She understood reporters better than they understood themselves. It came from fifteen years of living with one.
“Where’s Jun?”
“Around somewhere.”
His heart lurched a little. Why hadn’t he come out to say hello?
“Yuka?”
“She’s gone swimming with some friends.”
“Sports club?”
“You’ve forgotten it’s the summer holidays.” She laughed.
He handed her his sweaty shirt and his necktie.
“So, are you going back to the office?”
“Yes, right after I take a shower. Could you pack me about three days’ worth of clothes?”
“Rough time?”
“A bit, yes.”
As Yuuki turned to get a bottle of cold barley tea out of the fridge, Jun walked by, dressed in pajamas. To his father’s greeting of “Hi!” he replied with his usual grunt. He took a manga book off the bookshelf by the TV and lay down on the sofa to read. He’d grown a lot since starting junior high school that spring. He couldn’t stretch out completely on the sofa anymore. From his ankle bone to the top of his head, he could no longer fit comfortably on the two-person sofa.
Seventeen Page 9