I still didn’t know what to do. Should I take advantage of the train’s stop and go over to greet him, ask him how he came to be here. I attempted to suggest this with another hand gesture, but Yoshi shook his head firmly and pointed up the tracks. I realized he must be waiting for an approaching train.
He gave me a thumbs-up and a wave and then turned away from me to wait for his train.
I heard and saw the train at roughly the same time. And I realized two things. The train wasn’t stopping and Yoshi wasn’t getting on. It thundered into the station and, with immaculate timing, Yoshi stepped off the platform into its path. The train struck him with a stomach-wrenching thud and a shower of blood.
I didn’t scream. I was beyond that now. I simply closed my eyes in pain and despair at the frightening waste of life. I closed my eyes and felt myself spiralling downwards into darkness.
I woke suddenly and alertly and looked about me.
Nothing had changed. The rain still beat against the window, Sarah still snoozed at my side and the brightly lit carriage buzzed with the murmur of voices.
It occurred to me that when I’d left Osaka, I’d left with the memory of Yoshi’s death still fresh in my mind. I’d headed to Izumi to be refreshed and revitalized. A few days on I was retreating from Izumi a nervous wreck, looking to Osaka for solace. What was happening to me? Only a couple of weeks earlier I had left England searching for escape. Why could I not find peace? Was I spending my life searching for something I could never hope to find?
I turned to the window and strained to make out features in the rainswept landscape, cursing the rain under my breath, cursing myself for sinking so low.
Then I saw her. It was only fleeting, but it was enough.
The train passed into a tunnel and the darkness of the tunnel walls threw the carriage interior into sharp focus.
Reiko was standing in the aisle next to Sarah, head bowed, arms clasped in front of her. She wore the same uniform, with the same blood-red ribbon tied around her neck.
I didn’t turn my head, just stared at her, stared at her downturned face, the three white stripes on her collars, the pleated skirt. Of all the visions, this was the most frightening.
The train passed out of the tunnel and the landscape came back into focus. She was gone.
I swivelled round to see the aisle empty and Sarah sleeping peacefully beside me. So she’d been right after all. Everything I’d thought about Reiko being bound by the borders of Izumi was wrong. She’d been with me when we’d left Izumi and she was still with me now.
I now knew she was following me, just as she’d followed Charlie before me.
Over and over I’d wondered what had happened to Charlie that night in Osaka after the long journey home. I’d wondered why his spirits hadn’t been lifted after leaving Izumi and why he had despaired so quickly. I’d wondered why he had gone back to the Tower, attached his dressing-gown cord to the window frame and hung himself by the neck.
And now I knew.
26. RETURN TO THE TOWER
As the bullet train glided into the terminal at Shin-Osaka station, it seemed like a different city to the one I’d left behind. Maybe it was my frame of mind, but under the relentless downpour it resembled something from the lower circles of Dante’s inferno. The once proud skyscrapers were shadows in the mist, while the people cowered beneath umbrellas or ran for cover. The elation I’d felt on leaving Izumi behind had gone, to be replaced by a grim determination to see out the next few hours or days or weeks. I didn’t know what Reiko’s appearance meant for me, but I certainly knew what had happened to Charlie on his first night back in Osaka.
As we made our way across the station complex, through the evening rush hour crowds, I resolved not to mention that I’d seen her again. Maybe it was an unwillingness to admit I’d been wrong. Maybe it was a desire not to burden Sarah further. I sensed she was still coming to terms with what Odagiri-san had told us and her impulsive decision to get on the train with me.
We found a taxi outside the station and jumped in, keen to get back to the Tower before the rain made the roads impassable.
‘So this is Osaka,’ she said with a hint of irony, as the taxi disappeared into the traffic. Since we could barely see past the next car, it wouldn’t have been the best introduction under any circumstances.
‘Bet you wish you’d stayed in Izumi now.’
She turned to me with a genuine smile. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘I’m glad you came,’ I said. It was the first time she’d appeared relaxed during the entire journey.
‘Me too. I’m sorry I’ve been a moody cow. It’s not you.’
I patted her hand shyly. I wanted to tell her again and again how glad I was she was with me. I wanted to reach over and throw my arms around her.
‘I hope you’ve got some board games in your room. I think we’re going to be indoors tonight. Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, something like that,’ she said, before adding, ‘maybe not Cluedo.’
I started to laugh. I couldn’t think of any better way to while away the hours than playing Scrabble with Sarah. I turned back to the window and saw, standing at a bus stop in the rain, the figure of a schoolgirl.
It was only a brief flash and I had no way of knowing if it was Reiko, but terror took hold of me again. It was out of term time, so there was less reason for any schoolgirl to be in uniform. And she’d been standing there, head bowed in the manner of Reiko, soaked through by the rain. It must have been her. No one would have gone out without an umbrella and stood in the rain like that. She had been with me on the train and now she was with me in Osaka.
‘Are you okay?’ Sarah asked, catching the change in my expression.
‘Fine.’ I wasn’t going to tell her. Maybe she suspected something, but I was determined not to let on that Reiko had come with us. I was going to keep my head down and will her to go away. I would close my eyes and live the rest of my life in darkness if that’s what it took.
We travelled through the opulent Osakan suburbs with their elegant topiarized gardens dripping with rain. And soon we passed under the entrance arch to the university, through the dark and deserted campus, to the Tower standing desolate against the hills. Apart from the entrance, there was only a solitary light on in the building, which I guessed would be Josh. The place had effectively shut down for the holidays.
I paid the taxi driver and we made a beeline for the entrance, where we stopped to shake off the rain.
‘We’re here,’ I said. ‘This is where I call home.’
‘The one place in Japan more depressing than Izumi.’ She smiled mischievously and I mustered a laugh. God knows I needed her to help relieve the knot growing in my stomach. I glanced at the spot where Yoshi had fallen, and had a brief flashback to the thin white sheet covering his broken body, the paramedics talking in low tones, the flashing blue lights of the ambulance.
As we entered the foyer and made our way to the lifts, I glanced over at the drinks machines and thought of Yoshi flattening out the bank note, his last act of kindness. I wondered if I’d ever be able to stand in the foyer and think of anything else. Somehow I had to banish these things from my mind.
We travelled up to the fifth floor and I fished my keys out of my pocket. I felt no elation at returning, not even with Sarah standing next to me. If only I’d returned during the start of term, when the place was milling with activity and people. Right now it felt like an abandoned building, a place that had witnessed too much tragedy in its time to be ever used again.
With only a dingy overhead light to guide us, we made our way down the corridor to my room. Fearful of what might be lurking in the shadows, I kept my head firmly down until we reached my door, like a little boy afraid of the dark.
I unlocked the door and we stepped into the gloom of my room. I fumbled for the light switch, anxious not to be left in darkness.
‘What do you think?’
Sarah looked around at the small, sterile room, perhaps co
mparing it in her mind to her comfortable pad in Izumi. There were no candles, no Gregorian chant, no posters or fabric throws on the wall. Nothing. I suddenly felt ashamed for bringing her back to this prison cell of a room. If only I’d known I’d be returning with someone, then perhaps I’d have made it more presentable.
‘Well, it’s monastic,’ she said, picking her words carefully.
‘Sorry. I’ll try and find something for you to sleep on.’
She patted me on the shoulder with a smile. ‘I came here to protect you, remember. Why do you think I got so much sleep on the train? If I’m going to be guarding you, I can’t very well do it asleep.’
As I’d guessed it was Josh burning the dormitory’s solitary light and he seemed mightily pleased to have company on such a wild and stormy night.
‘Man, I’m glad to see you,’ he said on opening the door. He pulled me in for a heartfelt hug, which lasted several seconds. The guy had definitely missed human company. ‘I was hoping you’d be back today. Then I thought maybe you’d gone travelling someplace else.’
‘Meet Sarah,’ I said, extricating myself from his firm grasp. ‘I brought her from the provinces to sample some city life.’
‘Great to meet you,’ he said, shaking her hand vigorously and flashing me a conspiratorial smile. Bringing girls back to the dorm was the kind of thing he approved of.
We stepped into his room, which at least made mine look respectable. It was the room of a single young man with time on his hands and no one to tell him what to do. It was a mess of magazines, pizza boxes, empty beer cans and a tangle of bedclothes.
‘Sorry about this. I’ve been living like a tramp this past week,’ he said, kicking some of the debris under the bed. ‘The only people I’ve seen are the pizza guy and the girl at the convenience store. Even the concierge only comes now and then to check the place is still here.’
‘So the whole place is…?’
‘Empty.’ He completed my question with a firm nod of the head, as though his isolation needed emphasizing. ‘Right now, we own the building. Did you ever see ‘The Shining’? Jack Nicholson in that hotel with his wife and kid and all those demons going round in his head. Well, that’s how I’ve been feeling.’
‘Did you get any work done?’
Josh laughed. ‘Work? Hell, no. I’ve been pacing up and down the corridors like some mad person. You get some strange fucked-up ideas all on your own in this place. Any longer and I would’ve been looking round for that axe.’
Sarah was understandably alarmed at this six foot five American talking about axes, so I quickly changed the subject.
‘Some storm we’ve got here. It started when we set out. It was there in Tokyo. It’s followed us all the way across Japan.’
Josh slapped me on the back with a booming laugh. Maybe he really had been going mad. ‘So, what’s the plan?’ he said.
‘I don’t think we’ll be hitting the town tonight,’ I said. ‘Not really the weather.’
Josh looked a little disappointed. He clearly favoured venturing out. ‘We could get the beers in, have a party here.’
This seemed like a good idea and I realized that Sarah and I needed Josh’s company as much as he needed ours. Josh knew nothing about what had gone on in Izumi and, while he knew what had happened to Charlie, he probably wasn’t thinking about it just now. We needed someone to distract us from our own tormented thoughts.
‘Only trouble is, someone needs to go out to the convenience store in this typhoon.’
In the end Sarah and I volunteered to brave the weather. Sarah suggested a good soaking might just clear our heads. I couldn’t let on that I didn’t want to venture out for fear of seeing Reiko, so I agreed with her suggestion. Josh said he’d try and find out if Shinichi and Etsuko were around to join us. The more the merrier, he said, and we couldn’t have agreed more. With the wind and rain shaking the foundations of the empty dormitory, I’d have pulled strangers off the street to come in and join us.
‘He’s very highly strung,’ Sarah said, as we walked across the foyer towards the wall of rain awaiting us outside.
‘He’s okay. Just a little lonely here on his own.’
‘You sure he was joking about looking for that axe?’
I laughed, but I could see what Sarah was thinking. As my guardian, she had to think of every conceivable hazard. While Charlie might have hanged himself from his window, I could easily fall victim to a giant football-playing American with cabin fever. It occurred to me how difficult it must have been for Josh staying behind after what had happened to Yoshi. The number of beer cans littering his floor were an indication of his struggle.
We started our journey across the campus wrestling with an umbrella, but the wind soon ripped it to shreds and we gave ourselves up to the rain. I didn’t really care that I was wet. I was too busy keeping my head down and my eyes fixed on the ground beneath my feet.
As we hurried along I was aware that every shadow could be hiding the figure of a long dead high school student. I neither knew what she wanted of me, nor why she had followed me so far. I just didn’t want to ever see her again, in this life or any other.
We proceeded through the dark, deserted campus, under the entrance arch and down a street of residential houses to the bright lights of the convenience store.
I pushed open the door with a sense of triumph that I had avoided my pursuer thus far, but remembered she had confronted me in a convenience store once before. With windows on one side and a wall of glass fridge doors on the other, I would have to keep my eyes firmly on the ground. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the young female shop assistant staring at us in alarm – two bedraggled foreigners leaving a trail of water in their wake.
‘How many beers?’ Sarah asked, grabbing a basket and heading towards the fridges.
‘As much as we can carry, I reckon. What do you think?’ The thought of drinking myself into oblivion strongly appealed.
Sarah nodded and, pulling open the fridge door, began filling the basket with cans. I crouched down next to her, trying to avoid looking at the glass door.
‘James?’
I looked up, startled at the sound of my name, and saw Professor Atami standing at the end of the aisle, folding an umbrella. ‘Hello,’ I said meekly.
‘When did you get back from Izumi?’ he asked, approaching me slowly.
I got to my feet, leaving Sarah to concentrate on the beer. ‘Just this evening. We got back to the dormitory an hour ago.’
I realized what abject figures we must have cut. I was standing there, my shirt plastered to my skin, rain still dripping from the tip of my nose. I ran a hand through my hair in a vain attempt to tidy my appearance in front of my supervising tutor.
‘This isn’t the kind of weather I signed up for when I came here,’ I said, trying to keep the mood light.
Professor Atami smiled faintly, but looked troubled. ‘It’s a coincidence.’
‘What is?’
‘Meeting you here. On your return from Izumi.’
I frowned, not catching his drift.
Professor Atami took a deep breath. ‘I met Charlie here, the night he returned from Izumi. On a night just like this one. Did I tell you?’
He hadn’t told me. He’d told me a number of things about Charlie, but not that he’d met with him on the night he died. Perhaps he’d even been the last person to speak to him, just as I’d been the last person to speak to Yoshi.
‘Did you have a successful trip to Izumi? Did you find what you were looking for?’
I didn’t know how to answer. I wasn’t going to tell him what I’d seen. But nor could I look him in the eye and tell him the trip had been successful.
‘We had a good time,’ said Sarah, getting to her feet. ‘I’m the English teacher in Izumi. James invited me back to stay.’
Professor Atami acknowledged her briefly, but he was more interested in getting an answer from me. ‘Did anything happen? Anything unusual?’ He was watching me
closely for a reaction.
‘Not really.’ I was a bad liar and looking up at his face I could see he wasn’t fooled. He knew that I had gone down the same road as Charlie. And now we were reliving the tryst in the convenience store. I wondered at what point history would stop repeating itself. So far the only real difference was the presence of Sarah. As far as I knew Charlie had returned to Osaka alone and I clung to this one crumb of comfort.
‘That night,’ he continued, ‘Charlie told me he’d seen visions of a high school student.’
I shrugged, feigning disinterest. I prayed that my face didn’t betray my horror. I had still not admitted to Sarah what I’d seen.
‘She appeared to him in Izumi. And when he came back to Osaka, she appeared to him here.’
Now was not the time to show weakness. ‘I’ve seen the file you gave me. Charlie was losing his mind.’
Professor Atami looked at me for a long time, evaluating me. He was dissatisfied, but I could see he didn’t want to push the point.
‘Don’t worry, I had an uneventful stay in Izumi. I didn’t see anything to make me believe it’s cursed.’
‘And I live there,’ Sarah added. ‘I’m sure I’d have noticed if it was.’
Professor Atami nodded his head, reluctantly accepting our testimony. His concern was understandable. He didn’t want a second fatality on his watch.
‘One other thing,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘When I met Charlie that night, he told me he was being pursued by this apparition. But he also told me he knew what to do.’
I looked up in surprise.
‘He told me she was trying to kill him, but he knew what to do. Someone had hurt her once and now she was trying to hurt them. I asked him why he thought that and he told me it was a case of mistaken identity. Then he said he had a solution to the problem.’
This was even more interesting, even if I was trying my best not to look too interested. I began to think I should come clean and tell him everything.
‘He said he knew how to stop her.’
Reiko Page 21