by Nick Tanner
That morning the words had seemed to flow effortlessly from his lips and a few off-the-cuff comments that had just leapt into his head had perfectly embellished what he’d considered to be an appealingly powerful message. Most of all he’d been delighted that all this had been caught wonderfully by the TV networks. All in all he considered that he had done some pretty good work for the party, some fairly good work for the candidate but most of all some excellent work for himself. However all this endeavour had come crashing down around his shoulders as some fifteen minutes into his speech he had depressingly heard the shrill burp of vulgar-sounding marshal music followed not soon after by a procession of black and red political busses entering the square as the enemy within, the far-right faction, had approached. Too soon he’d been drowned out, too soon the few people who’d stopped to listen to him had their heads turned by the new arrivals and too soon the TV cameras had panned around to take in the full, more energetic, alternative view. A ruffled Watanabe had attempted to continue but he’d known his moment had gone. He’d lost the crowd as much as he’d lost himself. He’d then sadly noticed that the far-right were throwing his own phrases back at him, laced with heavy sarcasm and dripping with praise – a cunning a ploy as any he had ever witnessed.
‘Watanabe promises electoral reform,’ they’d shouted. ‘He’s a man who keeps his promises. You can trust Watanabe and his faction to deliver. He’s been fighting this corner for fifteen years! That's effectiveness for you! If you want electoral reform then Watanabe is your man.’
For every issue you cared to mention the ‘opposition’ tactic had been to shower him with compliments and smother him with eulogies knowing full well that stretched grotesquely in this manner his own pronouncements would begin to sound empty and fatuous.
Five minutes later, his stint done and brutally leaving a defenceless Tanaka to submissively fend off the opposition on her own, Hiro Watanabe sat in the back of his limousine that had returned him to faction headquarters. It went without saying that he’d been in a foul mood. In addition to the humiliation at the hustings, the latest opinion polls, that he’d then had in front of him, had the ruling party trailing to the real opposition – the Socialists, and his own faction had been singled out as the weak link in the chain. It had all been quite indigestible. He’d turned to his political advisor and closest confident, Shinsuke Kinjo, who’d been sitting beside him, equally sullen and equally despondent.
‘So?’ Watanabe had said, with the air of a man expecting someone else to come up with a solution.
Kinjo had taken a deep breath and then blown out his cheeks. ‘We need a plan – a new plan! We need a meeting with Hatoyama,’ he’d replied in a steely voice.
Two days later in a suitably anonymous hotel – a stone’s throw from Tokyo Shinbashi station, Watanabe and Kinjo had awaited their illustrious guest. Despite having called the meeting Watanabe had instinctively known that he was gambling and he’d glanced nervously at his watch and then at Kinjo.
‘Why here?’ he’d asked, peering around at the shabby surroundings.
‘It’s owned by my cousin – it’s quite safe, quite discreet.’
‘And quite disgusting! It had better be safe, though. I feel out on a limb here – exposed! You’re sure it’s safe?’
‘Trust me!’
‘I do. It’s just-’
‘Stop worrying. Relax. Everything will be fine.’
‘Right! But I’m surprised Hatoyama agreed so readily.’
‘He has his own problems – I’m sure we can come to some agreement.’
‘I hope so! I can’t allow myself to be subjected to the same level of electioneering again, otherwise I’ll disappear without trace.’
‘I agree – that’s why any agreement with Hatoyama is our last chance.’
‘Our last chance?’
‘Okay, your last chance. You know what I mean, but nonetheless, it’s important that you secure some kind of deal.’
Not for the first time Watanabe had wondered who it was that was truly in the driving seat.
The two men had continued to cool their heels, both fuming silently at the power play being enacted, that had them being kept waiting, rather than the other way round.
‘He's making us look like even bigger fools than we already are.'
‘He’ll be here!’
Hatoyama was an almost carbon copy of Watanabe. Both wore slicked-back, black hair, both had been dressed conservatively, both had a black facial mole on the left side of their face, both were relatively short in stature, however both had an aura and magnetism that lesser men could only admire. The only thing that separated them was that Hatoyama had a scar on the right side of his temple, the result of a fight in his youth, a fight in which, despite his wound, he had come off the better.
The men had bowed to each other and Watanabe had warmly invited the new arrivals to join them in the circle of comfy chairs and sofas surrounding a low table.
‘Drink, gentlemen?’
‘Please.’
Watanabe had nodded to Kinjo who in turn had caught the eye of an attendant.
The opening exchanges had been cordial if inconsequential with neither side revealing much of what was in their inner thoughts. The conversation had floated around important but irrelevant topics such as the unrest in North Korea and the health of the Emperor until eventually with the opening pleasantries exhausted the two men had girded themselves to address the kernel of their meeting.
‘So how can I help you?’ Hatoyama had asked in a way that suggested that Watanabe must have been in real trouble.
‘I believe there are mutual benefits that can accrue from a discussion - from an understanding.’ Watanabe had been careful not to display any weakness.
‘Mutual benefits?’
‘The world can be a less inhospitable place if we all learn to rub along together, can it not?’
‘But specifically-’
‘Specifically, as you ask, I’m concerned about these rallies from the far right faction.’
‘Go on.’
‘They are disruptive to the Party.’
‘I can see why you might think that but why should that concern me?’
Watanabe had smiled and taken a sip out of his drink that had just arrived. ‘The Party has seen you right over the years, hasn’t it?’
Hatoyama hadn’t replied, instead he’d taken a long sip out of his own drink.
‘I’d like you to tone down the rallies – stop them if you can.’
‘You think I can do that?’
‘I know you can do that!’
Hatoyama had smiled. ‘And why should I?’
‘Like I said, there are benefits that can accrue.’
Watanabe had examined Hatoyama closely. He’d sensed him carefully thinking about what he had just heard. With his right index finger he’d scratched the scar on his forehead as he had a tendency to do when he was thinking. After some time he’d looked back up and smiled briefly.
‘Okay.’ He’d scratched his scar a further time. 'On one condition. I ask that you pay your respects to my mentor and visit him at the Mejiro temple.’
Watanabe had nodded in affirmation and with that the meeting had closed fairly abruptly.
As Watanabe had exited the room he'd hoped that such an unholy alliance would come to nothing more than what had been agreed. He knew that in their careers he and Kinjo had played a wily game but never before had he imagined that they would ever have to court the company and support of the Yakuza. Looking back Watanabe was right in his thinking. Looking back Watanabe could pin-point his slide into difficulty to this very meeting.
However for the present he was happily ignorant and according to the evidence of the newspapers the strategy to involve Hatoyama had been particularly effective, substantiated by the reduction in the number of reports from the minions complaining that their rallies were being subjected to harassment and intimidation from the far-right. He had Kinjo to thank and he made a mental not
e to remind himself to offer Kinjo some kind of bonus-remuneration for his efforts. But still, the vultures circled and his political enemies would be all too pleased to feast on his rotting carcass should he ever give them the chance. This was no time to rest on his laurels.
There was only one item on the agenda for the meeting to come – the possibility of an alliance with the Ryozo group, a faction slightly to the left of his own. This particular alliance was another plan and another gem that had spouted from the seemingly unending fount that gushed from within Kinjo’s scheming and manipulative mind. With the strategy carefully explained to him even Watanabe had recognised that if they were able to clinch such an alliance then he really would be one step away from being unassailable once again.
Watanabe’s life had been full of political scheming, the origins of which stemmed from his desperate need to regain power, and a love-hate relationship with the Matsuzaki faction, the biggest and most powerful faction within Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which itself had governed Japan almost continuously since the second world war.
The Matsuzaki faction basked in its role as puppet-master and king-maker – an oblique aspect of Japanese politics which neatly concealed where the real power rested. Supposedly this lay with the elected Prime Minister and his Cabinet but those who played the system knew that in reality the power lay in the hands of the unaccountable wire-pullers - the faction leaders and modern day Shoguns.
It was this role of ‘Shogun’ that Watanabe coveted, but it was only through a myriad of alliances that he could ever hope to regain such a position now that he was no longer head of the powerful Matzusaki faction.
In a not untypical episode in his political life, two years previously, Watanabe had fought for and lost the chairmanship of the Matsuzaki faction. In the election for Chairman the choice between the candidates was fundamentally simply one of personal chemistry with serious matters of policy tending to become mere side issues in the incessant, internal haggling and wrangling that took place within each and between each and every faction. When the Matsuzaki faction failed to return Watanabe, in a fit of pique, he removed himself and his thirty-six followers from the faction and formed his own group. From chairmanship of the ruling party’s most influential faction, from position of ‘Shogun’, he had descended to a situation of relative powerlessness. Sadly, true power was an unfaithful and temporary mistress for him. Sad, too, was that he was hopelessly and addictively smitten. He would do anything to regain his once lofty position – anything at all!
Others recognised that the swings and roundabouts in Watanabe’s political fortune were all too typical for him. Newspapers sympathetic to him insisted that there really was a principled method to his apparent madness, that he saw himself as a historical figure who could modernize Japanese politics by increasing the power and accountability of elected politicians as opposed to the unelected bureaucrats. Cynics however, failed to see how colourful rustic politicians making deals in smoke-filled restaurants was any better or more democratic than faceless urbane bureaucrats from Tokyo University making decisions in air-conditioned civil service offices.
Not that Watanabe really cared. Deep down Watanabe had few genuine principles.
In the years since his departure from the Matsuzaki faction, he had done little to alter this public perception of him as a maverick politician, having traversed a variety of factions, pleaded unsuccessfully to be allowed back into the Matsuzaki faction, alienated countless allies, and engineered a few unexpected electoral victories. Any underlying principles were fiendishly hard to detect – save that of survival and aggrandisement.
But the cycle of Watanabe’s fortune was once again beginning to turn – he could sense it.
Of course he knew the underlying reasons for all this. Of course he did. Hatoyama’s role was all too clear. Kinjo’s plan had been risky – was risky, and Watanabe hadn’t been sure at first. He was now! But all the same, it remained imperative that this particular alliance remained secret. If it ever surfaced that he’d had any dealings with the Yakuza, any dealings at all, then what was left of his political career would come to an immediate and shuddering halt. That much was elementary.
He cast his mind back once more to that initial meeting with Hatoyama. He’d been confident that Kinjo had made suitable security arrangements – he’d trusted Kinjo after all. He was his right hand man.
But then Kinjo had passed on his suspicions surrounding a young woman, one of the attendants who’d served the drinks, and about what he thought she might, or might not have noted, particularly about the significance of the meeting. Watanabe had felt that familiar cold shudder crawl up his spine. The meeting had to remain a secret and now someone unreliable had sensed its importance. He’d chewed his lip with particular vigour on hearing the news.
Watanabe though, was equally confident that Kinjo would take care of it. It was what Kinjo was good at – tidying up. Typically he would pay them off or ensure silence through other means – usually fictitious claims of patronage, promotion or work within the faction. Kinjo was expert at utilising his situational power, if not his charisma.
It had not been a surprise therefore when Kinjo had pointed the girl in Watanabe’s direction – with recommendation! ‘Keep your friends close but your enemies closer,’ some foreigner had said. Watanabe had followed that and Kinjo’s advice.
‘You can keep a check on her and… well, she has a nice arse. Enjoy her. She’s harmless. Trust me!’
Watanabe had surprisingly little difficulty in getting together with the girl. She’d been more than eagerly acquiescent and he had become more than quickly aroused. ‘Your turn,’ she’d said as Watanabe had lain back on the futon, closed his eyes and listened to her slipping off the rest of her clothing. It hadn’t taken him long to reach a state of complete and utter abandon and all he could hear and all he could feel had been the soft touch of her hand. He hadn’t objected and imperceptibly had opened his legs to invite her on. As he’d drifted into delirium he’d sensed her lips – sucking.
It was only after that session that he’d become more confident that the woman had been happily taken care of. He was confident that she would remain silent, after all why risk an inside seat with the hottest politician in town?
Then there had been that other woman. That had not been so nearly as satisfying. She had not been acquiescent – there had been no gay abandon, rather an eruption of force and only the merest pleasure at the exertion of physical control and power.
Another momentary, ice-cold shudder shot up and down his spine. He poured himself a glass of water, noting that his hand was slightly shaking, paced around the room taking deep breaths attempting to re-group his composure before greeting his colleagues as they entered the room.
He forced himself to focus. There were important matters to hand concerning the Ryozo group. He drew in his stomach, took further deep breaths and then fixed his mouth into a look of confident assurance.
6 - In which Mori reluctantly accepts Sakamoto’s point of view
Friday 31st December 8:30am
Mori made his way alone, somewhat secretively and somewhat more slowly than he wanted to Kawasaki. A full head cold had now descended and he felt weak and heady, was dripping with mucus and as a consequence was hardly enthusiastic about the task ahead of him. The freezing conditions all around him did nothing to ease his mood. Nonetheless he persisted in his covert duty, not before popping into the local doctor and being prescribed the usual bucket load of tablets, clear that despite Sakamoto’s instruction he wanted at least to talk to a few other people before he pulled in Yamada for full interrogative questioning.
Eri Yamada's parents sat silently around the low table in their guest reception room waiting patiently for Sergeant Mori to begin. The heater above the window gently hummed and sent wafts of warm air into the cold room and Mori, thankfully clutching the cup of green tea he'd been offered, thought carefully about what he wanted to say. To his left he had an emergency p
ack of tissues to deal with his streaming nose.
Similar to the evening before he was looking into the eyes of those who had suffered loss but even so Mrs Tsuchida, particularly, looked like she'd be a sad looking woman even under less trying circumstances.
Mori opened his small notebook and took out his pen from within his jacket pocket. 'Can you think of anyone who would want to kill your daughter?’