Year of the Talking Dog: A Hana Walker Mystery (The Hana Walker Mysteries Book 2)

by Patrick Sherriff

  “You developed this? Why?”

  “I had to give the general something that works. If anyone looks at sample they will see bacteria that mutate, but not one that really develops based on race. How can it? There is no scientific basis for race. But he has Aoi. He has Aoi as insurance to ensure my loyalty, to ensure I deliver a drug worth all their time. Otherwise it’s the end for me and the end for Aoi. So I gave the general what he wanted. Something deadly that looks like it’s more accurate than it really is, but the mutations are only on the surface.”

  “I don’t understand. You could have gone to the police or told the government or somebody. You didn’t have to give him anything.”

  “But I did because the general was getting close. He didn’t have all the answers, but left alone, even he and his North Korean team could have pieced together a nerve agent deadly enough to kill millions.”

  “Where is Aoi? Is she still alive”

  “I don’t know, now the weapon is nearly perfected.”

  “Nearly?”

  “Yes, its only flaw is that it’s unstable in most states. But there is another strain the general was working on. It forms a gas at temperatures of 60 degrees, but only in lower air pressure between 300 and 400 metres above sea level. Anything stronger and the mutations don’t spread, anything lighter and the spores dissipate in the atmosphere.”

  “They could release it in any foothills in Japan.”

  “No. There are many locations outside, but there are too few people. It needs an instant infection of 2,000 people at least; more the better. There are many mountains in Japan that attract that many people, but the conditions are not right. The spores would dissipate harmlessly in wind unless in laboratory conditions, but there are no labs that can accommodate 2,000 people 300 metres above sea level.”

  “So what’s the problem, if it’s a weapon that’s impossible to use?”

  “Something happened. The general has stepped up the deadline. He was never ready, I thought, never serious. Maybe he’s feeling pressure from Pyongyang; North Korea has a new leader. Maybe he has to prove his worth. I don’t know. All I know is that I’m out. Not needed. And that means Aoi is in real danger. She’s not needed.”

  “You are willing to devote your whole life to fooling the North Koreans, but now that your science is actually helping them, you are still in your office, looking out the window? I don’t get it. Why don’t you do something? Warn the Americans?”

  “Even if they did believe me, even if they want to help, it’s too late. There’s nothing else can be done. Nothing you can do. No win-win now.”

  I look at him and I see the policeman, the doctor, the teacher. Everyone who has given up living but is telling me how to live. And I understand something. Their advice is just to make themselves feel better about their mistakes. They know nothing. It’s suddenly clear now. I have to stop the general. The general who has a secret base of operation on the floor above.

  I run out of the door, past the secretary and back to the lifts. I push open the access door to the stairs and bound up them two at a time to an unmarked door that leads to the fourth floor. It’s the same flimsy door I’d ventured through to find the masked man. I turn the handle and my mouth drops.

  I was expecting the dim lights and desolation of his secret lab, but inside it’s just one vast open floor. You can see out of the windows on three sides of the building. Everything smells fresh, new plaster, new paint. A new world. But no Aoi. No masked man.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Drive!”

  “What?”

  “Start the car. We have to get out of here.”

  “Did you find what you needed to know from the doctor?”

  “Drive!”

  “OK, OK. Where, exactly?”

  “I love you, Uncle Kentaro. But can we just please go? Go!”

  He turns the key, the engine makes a half-hearted attempt at starting, but there’s no ignition.

  “I do need to know where we’re going, you know. I can’t just drive.”

  “Uncle Kentaro. This isn’t philosophy, this is a Mini. Just go.”

  Uncle Kentaro shrugs his shoulders and sucks air through his teeth. “All good things come to those who wait. It’s a classic, but you can’t hurry a Mini Mayfair. Less haste, more speed.”

  He pulls the choke out and pumps the accelerator twice, just like my father used to do. Then counts to 10. I look back at the entrance to the hospital. There is no movement. It looks like nobody is there. Like I’m imagining things like angry security guards unhappy about a girl running around with a championship kendo sword. I fight the urge to close my eyes and wish it all away.

  Fear kicks in.

  “I don’t have time for this!”

  I’ve no idea where I’m supposed to go, but I know it’s not here. I reach for the door handle, but it’s stiffer than I remember. I can’t stand it anymore. Panic is welling up in me. Then the hospital doors open and two security guards look around.

  “Please. Go. Now.”

  “There we are, I knew this old girl would start up with a little TLC.”

  Uncle Kentaro checks his rearview mirror, signals and pulls out from the car park space.

  “Just go. Please.”

  My head snaps back. I just know a guard has got me. But it isn’t that. The Mini lurches forward.

  Uncle Kentaro laughs.

  “Like I said, good things come to those who wait. I’ve made a few changes to the car since your father’s time. It has a Mazda Miata engine now for a start. Fits like a glove, and with our low weight, it accelerates. She’s a feisty one. Bit like you, but you’d do well to slow down a bit. You are a Walker, not a runner.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  He laughs. “Not a great one, but yes. Now tell me what all is going on.”

  In the hour it takes us to drive back to Abiko, I fill him in on everything Dr Ishihara told me. Then I ask Uncle Kentaro if it’s true: “Can they release bacteria that will spread around the world causing millions of deaths?”

  “I’m a priest, not a micro-biologist,” he says. Then he’s silent. I’m not sure if it’s Dr Ishihara he doesn’t believe or me. He doesn’t explain.

  We cross over the Edogawa river out of Tokyo and into Chiba prefecture. I stare at Uncle Kentaro’s face for a clue to his thoughts. Beyond him are the lights of a massive new skyscraper, dwarfing all around.

  Uncle Kentaro senses what I’m looking at.

  “The only place you can’t see that monstrosity is from inside it. Be a hell of a place to avoid with all the hangers-on and tourists.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The tallest telecommunications tower in the world. It opens tomorrow.”

  “What does?”

  “Skytree. Tokyo Skytree. Don’t you follow the news?”

  It’s my turn to fall silent. I get my phone out and google Skytree. There are hundreds of articles. I click on one. The opening of Tokyo Skytree on May 22.

  “It says here Skytree will revitalise Japan, a new beginning for the country after two lost decades. The new rise of the land of the rising sun.”

  “Cute,” Uncle Kentaro says. “But I’m not smart enough to know how building the world’s tallest TV tower is going to save Japan. They already have plenty of tall buildings to beam TV signals from and there still isn’t anything worth watching. Lost decades? The first place I look for anything I’ve lost is between the sofa cushions, but I guess when you’re on a whole bigger scale you have to make everything on a bigger scale. Including your mistakes.”

  I look up Skytree on Wikipedia. It’s a 650-meter tower open to the public. An observation deck is 350 metres above the ground with a second 100 metres above that. The capacity for the upper observation deck is 900, but 2,000 people at a time can stand on the lower deck. The floors are serviced by four lifts.

  “The observation deck on Skytree is 350 metres above sea Level. It has a capacity of 2,000.”

 
; Uncle Kentaro sucks on his teeth. “Wait. You don’t suppose that…”

  “…that the general will release the bacteria at the grand opening of Skytree?”

  Skytree. It makes sense. An observation deck 350 metres in the air where the virus could be kept indoors and 2,000 people had nothing to do but get infected. In an enclosed space with no way out, it couldn’t be released on a train, anyone could get out, and it’s not high enough. It couldn’t be in a stadium, too much airspace. No, it makes sense. Ground zero, only 350 metres up in the air.

  Uncle Kentaro says: “That would be quite a stunt to pull off. But if he did it, my God, that would be insane. He has to be stopped. But there’s a problem there.”

  I look at Uncle Kentaro. I don’t think he’s being serious — he doesn’t really believe me.

  “Even if you could convince the police to take you seriously, I don’t think anyone important enough will champion this cause. None of those pencil-pushers would put their necks on the line to delay the opening of Skytree. You have no proof. At least, none that anyone would listen to and act on in 24 hours. If we could get Dr Ishihara to tell the police what he told you, then maybe…”

  “No. It won’t work. They won’t believe me and nothing Ishihara says is proof that Skytree is where the masked man will release the bacteria. He can’t betray what he doesn’t know. Which means there’s only one thing to be done. We have to stop him ourselves.”

  Uncle Kentaro snorts.

  “Even if I wanted to help you, I don’t know how we could possibly do anything. Tickets for the grand opening are impossible to come by. Tens of thousands of people will be standing around. How are we going to get in? How are we going to stop them even if we do get in? It’s madness. The whole thing. Even if I wanted to help you. And none of it will save the girl Aoi, will it?”

  We fall silent. I look out of the rear window. A red warning beacon glows on the tip of Skytree.

  By the time I see the lights of Aunt Tanaka’s shack at the bottom of the hill beneath Uncle Kentaro’s shrine, I have the outlines of a plan written on my smartphone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The 7:04 Tobu Skytree Line train pulls out of Kita-Senju station on time with only half the seats taken.

  The train is on street level, running somewhere between the speed of a mamachari shopping bicycle and a delivery van. Only neither of these things is anywhere to be seen. An old man walking, but no other signs of life. Here, all around are non-chain stores. A shop made of wood selling futons. A faded sign for a bakery, but, judging by faded paint, none of these looks like it’s ever seen much in the way of business. Then the train rises up to third-floor level and we speed along the tracks elevated above the road below. At a left turn, I glimpse Skytree. Then it vanishes behind the sparkling pine floors of an empty apartment. Nobody home.

  Now a chirpy automated recorded message in English and Japanese. Tokyo Skytree stop. Disembark here for the Skytree. It’s a new station, though like any other in the Tokyo area, it has ticket gates and yellow grooved pavements to guide the blind. Though why would blind people want to visit Skytree for its views of Tokyo?

  I find the disabled toilet and shut the door, catching my breath in the seconds of absolute darkness between closing the door latch and the LED light flicking on. Sometimes seconds can last a lifetime. I think there’s still time for a natto rice ball in whatever time remains of my life. I bought one from the convenience store by the station, but now my hands are shaking, and I realise it’s not from hunger. But I eat anyway. I will need all my strength. I watch the tendrils of fermented soy beans ooze out of the rice and hang in my mouth. Really not bad, once you get used to it.

  I wipe the sticky ooze of natto off my hands, then kick off my black canvas lace-ups, slip out of my shorts and T-shirt and unfold the uniform of a Skytree cleaner that Emi had left in Uncle Kentaro’s guest room.

  It’s a heavy cotton job that would have been out of date in the 1950s. A lime-green dress with a pattern of lemon yellow triangles topped off with a 1920s hat with a band. Isn’t cleaning toilets for a living hard enough without having to wear such a hideous outfit?

  But as I tie my hair back and tuck it under the hat, hide my nose and chin behind a flu mask, there is no sign of me. Not my hair, my figure or my mouth. Apart from the black socks, there’s nothing left of the old Hana. In the mirror, a Skytree employee stares back at me. I have to be convincing or else it’s all over.

  I turn the corner and I can see Skytree, a giant syringe piercing the sky. I have to crane my neck back and hold on to a wall to stop myself from collapsing. And I have to go to the top? I take a deep breath. I get in line for an escalator that goes up four floors to the base of the tower. I lodge myself behind a man and in front of a woman. They might be a couple or might not, but they are standing close enough that I can fool myself into not feeling that I’m doing a solo climb of a mountain that I’ll fall off at any moment.

  I bow my head apologetically, and we make our way up the escalator. Awkward. They share a disapproving glance but say nothing. I close my eyes until I feel the pressure of the man’s back disappear and I guess we’ve reached the top. The fourth floor opens out onto a concrete courtyard. I push my way through crowds of families and still more men in dark suits and women in grey skirts and black stockings and sweaters. Suitable colours for a funeral.

  It’s still three hours until the official opening of Skytree, but here are thousands of people with nothing to do but wait outside for the lifts to open, just as Uncle Kentaro predicted. Japanese, he said, will always arrive early. But nothing had been arranged to entertain the crowds and there’s nowhere for them to sit or anything for them to do, just as Uncle Kentaro also predicted. I scan the crowds for the masked man. There are plenty of people wearing masks, but none with a heavy-duty round mask.

  Security guards stand to attention. There are the usual retirement-age guards, dressed in crisply ironed slacks with peaked caps. They look like extras in a movie about the American Civil War. But there are other guards too. Two by each of the four glass door entrances to the Skytree tower. They wear black suits and white shirts with red ties. They are armed with walkie-talkies, but stand silently. There is something about them. A look, a coolness, that says they are not here to check ticket stubs.

  Lines of people stand around. Men with megaphones are ordering people to do something, but nobody is doing anything other than stand around. Women in high-pitched voices shout into rolled-up paper funnels. Everyone is shouting at once so I can’t work out what people are supposed to do, but it involves standing in line to get pieces of paper to stand in other lines.

  A guitar riff cuts through it all.

  Half-a-dozen people form a circle around an amplifier and an old man. He clicks his fingers and shakes his hips like an old rocker. His quiff is jet black. The music is old-fashioned, like World War II dance music but with an electric guitar. The lyrics are in English. Something about the time and clocks and rocking around them.

  He’s working the audience, gazing into the eyes of the people around him. Is he looking for a volunteer? Nine, ten, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock. More people gather in a circle as he struts around. He seems to be singing the words and playing all the instruments but he’s just one man. I can’t tell if he’s going to keel over or wow us with the splits, it could go either way. He has a surly sneer and playful eyes. He does the splits and the audience claps, less out of embarrassment that he might hurt himself and more out of surprised respect. For a man in his 50s, Uncle Kentaro can still cut it.

  The music keeps blaring, more of a crowd gathers. A guard at the nearest glass door speaks into his walkie-talkie. I wonder if the guards will shut the music down. What if the masked man is there? He could be among the crowd, watching me. I take in everyone around me. I can’t see anyone wearing that kind of paper mask. But four of the men in suits approach Uncle Kentaro.

  The old man doesn’t care. He turns up the music. He skips around the ci
rcle that has gathered and picks out a volunteer. The volunteer shuffles his feet but looks down with his back bent. He looks like he’s about to burst into tears. He’s not a natural dancer. Uncle Kentaro spins him around as if he was a woman in a flowing dress, only he keeps stumbling. His face is a bright red. The crowd laughs nervously. It’s ridiculous, a 50-year-old man wooing a shy computer-geek boy.

  A man in a suit bends over and turns off the music. He shakes his hand at the old man, telling him to clear off and stop causing a scene. Then a gasp from the crowd. The computer geek is lying on the ground holding his head. Blood is pouring from his head through his fingers. At first, some in the crowd laugh. They think it’s part of the act. Did anyone see what happened? But they soon realise it’s not an act. It’s some kind of accident. Three men in suits huddle over the geek on the ground. He stands, wobbling on his feet. They take him through the glass doors. A first aid office is behind the security cordon. He’s ushered into the room, and the door slams shut. A man in a suit tells Uncle Kentaro off. He bows his head and stares at the ground, then tries to follow the volunteer into the building, but no one is going to let him in.

  I catch his eye. He bows deeply to the men in black, with a goofy smile on his face. The cops let him go. Maybe they think his smile is as an expression of extreme embarrassment. But I know what it is. It’s Uncle Kentaro’s pride. He’s smiling because he managed to distract four guards and get Firefly into Skytree without a ticket. But he was supposed to get in with Firefly. He was going to make sure I wasn’t crazy, and that there is a plot to kill millions. He was going to help me confront the masked man. But he’s out and only Firefly is in. This is not how I wanted things to go. And I still have to get in. And in time to save Aoi.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I skip through the crowds to the main entrance. I can hear Uncle Kentaro arguing with the guards. He wants to be let in to check on Firefly, but he’s making no progress. This isn’t part of the plan. The plan is for Uncle Kentaro to get in and then, together with Firefly, we’ll find a way to search the place for the general. But now? Now it’s just Firefly in the sick room and me.