I was conscious of an eerie silence filling the convenience store. Even the rain sounded distant and detached. What did he mean about mistaken identity? And what was this about a solution?
Professor Atami stopped suddenly. Perhaps he too feared that spirits might be listening to him.
‘What was the solution?’ I asked, trying my best to sound nonchalant.
Professor Atami turned away, shaking his head sadly. ‘I’m sorry, he didn’t tell me what it was. He died that night. Whatever it was, it couldn’t save him.’
And with that chilling valediction he left us.
27. THE RECKONING
All the way back to the dorm, I kept my head down and my eyes on the ground, a carrier bag full of beer cans swaying at my side. Though Sarah walked beside me, the relentless noise of the rain made any conversation impossible. This suited me, as it was less obvious that I was afraid to look up. I looked no different to any other person battling against the elements. Once or twice I thought I glimpsed a figure out of the corner of my eye, though I could no longer say what was real and what was imagined. In the end I shut my eyes and walked blind, letting myself be guided by the presence of Sarah at my side.
As we rounded the corner of the playing fields on the approach to the Tower, I heard Sarah exclaim loudly. I raised my eyes and saw with a horrible sinking feeling that the building was in total darkness.
‘Must be a power failure,’ Sarah said, shouting above the sound of rain.
‘Shit. That’s all we need.’
‘Maybe lightening struck.’
Now there would be no light in the entrance or stairwells or corridors. I looked up at the Tower with a horrible sense of foreboding. The building, which had seen many a young life snuffed out in its prime, seemed to be waiting for me. Was this how Charlie had felt on the way back from the convenience store and his meeting with Professor Atami, as he faced his final hours?
‘It’s going to be an interesting night,’ Sarah said with bitter irony.
This was no exaggeration. I sensed it was going to be the most interesting night of my life.
We reached the shelter of the dark entrance and paused to shake off the rain and attempt to wring some of the water out of our clothes. The only sign of power was the small emergency light over the fire doors. Otherwise everything was in darkness, even the drinks machines along the wall.
I knew with crushing certainty that she was behind me, watching from the forecourt in the rain. I knew that she’d been with us at the convenience store and that she’d followed us every step of the way. It didn’t matter to her that I’d kept my eyes on the ground. It hadn’t made me any less conspicuous. All I had to do was turn and I’d see her there, head bowed and hair dripping, waiting for my next move.
‘Come on, let’s find Josh,’ I said, striding over to the lifts.
‘Hope he hasn’t found that axe.’ Sarah seemed to be back to her gallows humour best, but it wasn’t what I needed right now. My nerves were too frayed.
We realized that the lifts were out of order along with everything else, so we followed the green emergency exit light over the stairwell. Not only were we soaked to the bone, but now we would have to walk up five flights of steps in the dark.
As we groped our way upwards leaving a trail of water for any would-be pursuers, our state of isolation began to hit home. Apart from us, Josh was the only sign of life in the entire building. The concierge had gone home for the day and wouldn’t be back until the morning at best. No one would be coming to restore electricity until then. We were well and truly stranded in a dark building with no one in the immediate vicinity to hear us scream. I thought again of the family alone in the Overlook Hotel, snowbound for the winter with nothing to keep them company except ghosts of winters past. And even if I only had one night to endure, it was stretching out before me like an eternity.
We found Josh silhouetted in the entrance to the fifth floor stairwell, awaiting our arrival impatiently.
‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you two,’ he shouted down as soon as he saw us. ‘Looks like we’re in the dark here.’
‘You have to admit, though, it’s atmospheric,’ Sarah said cheerfully. ‘And we’ve got a load of beer.’
Josh laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got candles.’ He held up a couple of large ornamental candles with Japanese calligraphy up the side. ‘I got them from some Buddhist temple as a gift.’
We started down the dark corridor towards my room, feeling our way along the walls.
‘Looks like you got wet,’ Josh said, gleefully stating the obvious.
I unlocked the door, then stood outside with Josh while Sarah went in to change. He’d come across as so confident when I’d first met him that it was a shock to see him so vulnerable.
‘I got hold of Shinichi and Etsuko. They’re around, so I asked them to come over. That okay?’
It was nice to hear. Never had the phrase ‘the more, the merrier’ carried so much resonance.
‘I told them to bring candles. They’re going to stop off at the convenience store and get some.’
Josh crouched down with a box of matches and began lighting his temple candles.
‘So, you see any ghosts in Izumi?’ he asked, peering up at me.
I knew he was being jocular, but the question still hit home. What should I say? Not only had I seen one, but I’d brought one back with me too. ‘Yes,’ I said, deciding to continue the jocular tone.
‘Girl ghost or boy ghost?’ He placed the candles on the desk for maximum light.
‘Girl ghost.’
‘Good looking?’
‘Like nothing on this earth.’
Josh grinned. ‘Sounds great. That’s one experience I’ve never had.’
‘If you like, I’ll introduce you.’ Keep the tone light, I told myself. It was the only way to combat the fear.
And then I heard something that stopped me cold. It was a sound carried on the wind, rising above the sound of the driving rain. Maybe I was imagining it, but it sounded like a scream.
‘What’s the matter?’ Josh asked.
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Did you hear something?’
Josh shook his head. ‘What is it? I can’t hear anything above this rain.’
He was right. It was impossible to hear anything with any certainty. I wished I could explain what was happening to me. I wished I could tell him of Reiko, the tragic high school girl who had followed me all this distance, with motives I couldn’t begin to understand. I wanted to give him fair warning should anything bad happen that night.
The door opened and Sarah appeared, changed and rubbing her hair vigorously with a towel.
‘Did you hear anything?’ I asked.
‘Like what?’
‘It sounded like a scream.’
Sarah looked at me oddly. I still hadn’t told her that I’d seen Reiko.
‘Doesn’t matter. Just me hearing things.’
I went into my room to change and found myself drawn towards the window against my better judgement. It was difficult to make out anything much through the downpour, but I knew I had to look. I had to understand what I was up against. With a mounting sense of terror I squinted through the mist of rain to see a figure standing in front of the building, looking up at me. I couldn’t make out the features, but there was no mistaking the stripes on the uniform and the crimson ribbon round the neck.
She had come.
Shinichi and Etsuko arrived to find the three of us huddled round a large temple candle in my room. We’d put the other candle in the corridor to spread the light around. Even with the windows firmly shut, draughts were buffeting the flames from all sides and Josh had already re-lit the candles several times, leading to a discussion about what we’d do if the matches ran out. Start a camp fire, was the general consensus. The beer tasted good and was helping me to keep the image of Reiko from the forefront of my mind. I resolved to drink just enough to relax, but not enough to lose control of my faculties
. The one thing I had going for me was this company of friends, this band of brothers. From what I knew of Charlie, I was sure he’d not sought out anyone’s company on his last night. Whatever demons he’d faced, he’d faced alone.
Our two Japanese friends were in high spirits, excited by this adventure in a dark building.
‘Hello,’ they cried in unison, and we all got up to greet them as friends and saviours.
Their enthusiasm was exactly what we needed. The beer had helped, but we had still been on edge. Sarah and I had our own reasons to be nervous, which we couldn’t easily share. As for Josh, a week of isolation had left him with other demons to contend with.
For the next few minutes we embraced, exchanged pleasantries, opened beer cans and delved into a big bag of tea-lights. They’d even thought to buy matches. Soon every surface in my room had its own candle and we’d set a row of tea-lights leading down the corridor to the toilets, like landing lights on an air-strip. As far as I was concerned the extra bodies made for extra security and the image of Reiko standing outside the building looking up at me began to seem less menacing. What could she possibly do to hurt me? We had safety in numbers.
Shinichi and Etsuko wanted to know all about Izumi and I focused on all the cool things I’d done with Sarah. I talked about visits to burial mounds, temples and castles; then I described some of the things I’d eaten, starting with Mrs Azuma’s terrifying raw meat platters. They found it hilarious to hear what I’d been duped into eating and told me Japanese people were prepared to give foreigners all sorts of stuff just to see the looks on their faces when they found out what it was. Sarah was on great form, cracking jokes about her adopted home, telling anecdotes about the backwardness of life in the provinces. With the candles giving off a warm glow and the beer showing no sign of running out, the evening was shaping up into something quite pleasant.
I was beginning to think I was in the clear. I was beginning to think I’d make it, that the curse of Izumi would dissolve into the air around me. I was beginning to relax and enjoy the company, the beer, the feeling of being away from home in an exotic country.
And then I heard the scream.
This time it was closer. This time it was inside the Tower. And it was unmistakably human. No wind could ever have made a sound like that.
And this time they all heard it too. The conversation stopped dead and we looked at one another in alarm. There was an initial comfort in knowing that I wasn’t alone. But this was outweighed by the terrible realization that this wasn’t just my warped imagination playing tricks. This was real.
‘What the hell was that?’ Josh said, breaking the silence.
‘That’s it,’ I said. ‘That’s what I heard before.’
‘Who else is in this building?’ Shinichi asked.
‘No one,’ said Josh.
Shinichi got to his feet and went over to the window. He stood there for a moment, squinting out, while the rest of us strained our ears for further sounds. He turned back to us, saying there was nothing out there.
‘We should go and take a look,’ Josh said. ‘Sounds like someone’s in trouble down there.’
Was this where I laid my cards on the table? Was this where I told them all about what I knew was following me, what I’d seen standing outside the building just a short while before? I knew it was hopeless.
After a short deliberation, we agreed that Josh and Shinichi would venture out to look. The idea seemed to empower Josh. As a man of action, this was the kind of challenge he liked. It was my job, he said, to look after Sarah and Etsuko. All the time I saw Sarah watching me carefully. She knew I was keeping something from her. After all, it wasn’t her that needed protecting. It was me.
As we listened to their footsteps retreating down the corridor, I had the sickening feeling that they too might be in real danger. So far Reiko had been invisible to everyone but me. But if it was Reiko’s scream that we had all heard, then suddenly others had been drawn into the fray. The rules had changed.
I clung to the possibility that it was a real person’s scream. All the foreign students might have gone home, but there were still other students on campus who could come in and make a racket in the empty building. I told myself to keep an open mind.
For a while we sat there, huddled round the temple candle, listening to the sound of rain hammering on the window. Without the other two to swell the numbers, the shadows seemed to be closing in.
‘James,’ Sarah said, her voice grave.
I looked up. I knew what was coming.
‘You saw her didn’t you?’
I nodded my head. There was no point pretending anymore. I had told her everything up until then. She needed to know that Reiko had followed us. ‘Yeah, I saw her.’
Etsuko realized this was a private issue between us and didn’t ask who we were talking about.
‘Where?’
‘On the train. Then from the window of the taxi. Then just now, outside the building.’
‘So she did follow you. I thought she probably would.’ I was expecting her to react angrily to not being told, but she seemed calm enough. After a few moments reflection she reached over to her bag and pulled out a piece of paper. She looked at it for a moment, in two minds, then put it down in front of her. It was a page of Japanese writing, crumpled and dog-eared.
‘I found this,’ she said quietly, straightening it out with her hands.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. But I found it and I had a feeling it was important. I’ve learnt to read a little Japanese, but I need help deciphering it.’ She looked up at Etsuko.
‘Sure.’ Etsuko reached for the paper.
‘At first I didn’t want to know what it said, in case it just made matters worse. But after meeting the Professor at the convenience store and hearing what he said, I think we have to know everything.’
‘What is it?’ I asked, getting frustrated. It wasn’t like Sarah to be cryptic.
‘It was among the photographs. Kenji’s photographs. I took it out and kept it. I think we need to know what it says.’
‘Why did you keep it secret?’
‘I don’t know. I thought you might have enough to deal with. I’m sorry.’
A draught swept through the room, snuffing out several tea-lights and leaving the place darker than before.
‘Who’s Kenji?’ Etsuko asked.
‘He’s the son of my host mother in Izumi. He was in love with a girl in his class called Reiko Shimura. She disappeared four years ago.’
Etsuko visibly recoiled. Of course it was she who I had originally questioned about Izumi and I remembered her reluctance back then. Now, crouched in a dark building, amidst a dwindling number of candles, with her boyfriend gone to investigate a disturbing scream, she was facing the same subject again. No wonder she looked unhappy.
‘Have you heard about it?’ Sarah asked.
Etsuko nodded. ‘It is very famous in Japan. One girl disappeared. Her four friends all died soon after.’
Sarah leaned over to her bag again and pulled out the photograph of Kenji and Reiko’s four friends taken at the Azuma home. She handed it to Etsuko, who received it reluctantly.
‘That’s Kenji, eating at home just after Reiko died. His mother must have invited them over. That’s why none of them look very happy to be there.’
Etsuko nodded faintly.
‘I’m sorry to bring this up now,’ Sarah said, ‘but I need to know what he wrote. Can you help me translate it?’
‘It’s okay.’ Etsuko put the photograph down on the floor and carefully unfolded the piece of paper to reveal what looked like a poem in Japanese: a series of neatly-written lines, inscribed vertically and from right to left according to the Japanese style. Even in the dim light of the candle I could see that this was a careful, studied piece of work.
Etsuko took the piece of paper with a frown, troubled by the task we had set her.
‘Yatto wakatta,’
she read, then after a brief pause, translated. ‘At last I am able to understand.’
Sarah and I watched Etsuko’s eyes move down the page, reading the characters.
‘Dare ka Reiko o koroshita ka yatto wakatta… At last I understand who killed Reiko.’ She read this with a sharp intake of breath.
‘That’s the bit I understood,’ Sarah said quietly. ‘That’s why I needed to know.’
‘I can’t read this,’ Etsuko said, her voice trembling.
‘Please,’ Sarah said. ‘Please. I know it’s horrible, but I need to know what he says. This is where I live. I need to know whether I can ever go back there or not.’
With considerable effort Etsuko returned to the page, her eyes flitting about, taking it all in.
‘Please,’ Sarah said again.
‘He says she killed Reiko,’ Etsuko said, almost to herself. She didn’t seem to be translating any passage in particular. ‘He says his mother killed Reiko. He says she followed her to the woods after school and killed her.’
I stared at Etsuko in disbelief. It was a ridiculous statement. Mrs Azuma was manic, but she was no murderer. She was a local dignitary, a respectable citizen, a celebrated host of dinner parties. She was no murderer. I didn’t know what drove someone to murder, but it had to be a desperation beyond anything I’d ever experienced. Besides, she was too small – she wouldn’t have been physically capable.
‘If Kenji suffered from abuse,’ I said, ‘it’s not surprising he says these things about his mother. It’s his way of venting his frustration.’
I looked to Sarah for support, but she ignored me. Her eyes were on Etsuko, waiting to hear more.
‘Reiko o tabesaseta. Reiko o tabesaseta.’ I wasn’t sure what it meant, but Etsuko read the sentence twice and suddenly her face creased with emotion.
‘What does it mean?’ I pleaded.
Etsuko’s eyes filled with tears and she put her hand over her mouth as though to stifle a scream. ‘It says she made them eat Reiko.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what it says,’ she cried. ‘That’s what it says. She made them eat Reiko.’
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