Edge

by Kōji Suzuki

  Kitazawa was convinced that there was crucial information to be found in that footage. He would bill the TV station and publishing house for the expense later; it wouldn’t put any strain on his own wallet.

  “Do this for me. When you have the footage, call me at this number and I’ll come and get it.” Kitazawa pointed out his cell phone number on the business card in the manager’s hand.

  “I’ll be returning to Tokyo tomorrow, so I’d like it if you could get it ready for me tonight,” he stressed, making sure the manager realized that he’d better get cracking if he wanted to get his hands on that 100,000 yen.

  The manager made an “okay, okay” motion, waving his hand close to his body and twisting away. Kitazawa understood; the man didn’t want his employees to overhear. There wasn’t anything illegal about what they were doing, but given that the manager stood to make what was probably a month’s wages for his staff for a few minutes of labor, his employees might hope for a taste of the pot.

  If Kitazawa’s hunch about the footage were right, where would that leave him?

  It’ll probably just raise more questions, he realized. But he didn’t care. Bringing mysteries to light was what being a detective was all about. His professional instinct to seek out the truth behind bizarre enigmas spurred him on.

  Kitazawa bought a yogurt and a can of tomato juice and exited the shop. The two youngsters over in the magazine corner were leafing through comics anthologies, completely entranced.

  “Thank you!” the shrill voice of the girl behind the counter called out from behind him.

  5Kitazawa was late getting back. He’d planned to fly into Haneda Airport from Toyama, but the flight was sold out. At the last minute, he changed course and took a train from Itoigawa to Nagano, where he hopped a bullet train back to Tokyo. That was what Toshiya told Saeko when she showed up at the office. She had to wait another half-hour for Kitazawa’s return.

  “My dad did say he was bringing back a surprise, though,” Toshiya promised as if in apology. They both knew what that meant; Kitazawa had found a lead of some sort in Itoigawa.

  “What is it?” Saeko asked.

  “He wouldn’t say. He was being coy.”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait and see, then.”

  “Well, make yourself at home, anyway.” Toshiya gestured vaguely towards the sofa.

  Saeko looked away, her gaze flitting nervously around the office. It was well past closing time. There were two coffee cups on the table in the waiting room where the detectives met with clients during business hours. They hadn’t been set out for Saeko’s visit and were just left over from the last client who had visited the office. The computer in the corner of the office had been left on. The standby screen displayed a photograph of a pop singer posing in a bikini.

  Hurriedly, Toshiya keyed in a command to change the picture and began babbling incoherently about the events of the day. His comments seemed to be directed at Saeko, but they sounded more like he was talking to himself. It was a bit awkward being alone with Toshiya waiting for Kitazawa’s return. Their relationship was still somewhat strained.

  “Hey, Toshiya? Why do you think the universe has structure?” Saeko asked suddenly, cutting off Toshiya’s rambling monologue.

  “Where did that come from?” Toshiya widened his eyes in his patent expression of exaggerated surprise.

  The real mystery is the fact that anything exists at all.

  It had been a favorite contention of Saeko’s father. The fact that there was matter hinged on the existence of structure. There were two main categories of naturally occurring structure. One comprised the regular movements of heavenly bodies and their groupings, like the solar system or Milky Way. The other was the organic life that occurred on a planet’s surface. These organisms in turn created constructs of their own, spanning everything from simple nests built by birds and honeybees to huge skyscrapers. Saeko and her father had discussed in detail the evolution of manmade creations.

  “Why do the natural structures around us exist?” she reprised. “Because various physical constants dictate their existence. Countless parameters all have to line up for a star to form. A certain physicist once estimated the number of parameters to be 10 to the power of 229, while another physicist came up with the number ‘10 to the power of 10 to the power of 123.’ There’s a huge difference between those numbers, but both of them are mind-numbingly large. Far larger than the number of atoms in the universe. Basically, the fact that the universe as we know it exists is nothing short of a miracle.”

  For the structure of our universe to be maintained, countless dials, more numerous than all of the atoms in the universe, had to be all tuned to precisely the right values. Saeko and Toshiya discussed various examples of matter and life and the conditions that had to be met for them to exist.

  “The question is, who fine-tuned all of those dials in the first place?”

  “The gods? I suppose that’s the easy answer,” Toshiya offered. The chances of life spontaneously occurring on Earth were so slim as to be almost zero. It seemed in fact reasonable to try to attribute it to a divine creator.

  “But most physicists don’t attribute the universe to the work of a supreme being,” Saeko contended.

  “Of course not. That would be an admission of defeat. It would mean acknowledging that we have no idea.”

  “Okay—here’s another question for you, Toshiya. What do you think would happen if just one of those dials that maintains the structure of the universe got knocked out of tune?”

  Toshiya pretended to fall sideways off of the desk where he was sitting. “That would be the end, I guess. If even one of those 10 to the power of 229 dials got misaligned, our universe would fall apart. It would probably disintegrate instantaneously.”

  Even the forces that governed the orbits of the planets around the sun were governed by intricate relationships. If even one parameter were off, it could act like a crack in the system that sent the Earth hurling into the Sun, causing it to explode, or careening out of orbit into the pitch black reaches of space. If a parameter pertaining to the micro world went out of whack it could wreak havoc on the relationships between protons, neutrons, and electrons and cause atoms and molecules to disintegrate, instantly turning our bodies into vapor. In either case, existence hinged on maintaining a very delicate balance.

  “You know what I think, Toshiya? It might sound funny to you, but I think the universe didn’t just set those dials. I think they were fine-tuned by its interrelationship with the cognitive abilities of genetic life. The same is true of men and women, isn’t it? Slavery aside, there’s no such thing as a relationship where one completely dominates the other. The rules of their relationship evolve naturally, as a function of their interaction. They both have to … meet in the middle …” Saeko trailed off, embarrassed suddenly by her brazenness in opining on such topics when her own marriage had failed.

  “The anthropic principle, you mean?”

  “I guess I mean the interaction between the observer and the observed.”

  “If you put it in those terms, it saves us from having a purely passive role, anyway. It also answers the enigma of why the universe can be described in mathematical terms even though math is a man-made construct.”

  “Yes. Exactly. The fact that the universe can be described in mathematical terms is a real mystery.”

  Why was it possible to consider the universe in terms of mathematics, which was a sort of language devised by human beings? It was another question Saeko’s father had posed to her.

  She found herself starting to really enjoy this conversation with Toshiya. There was so much more to talk about, but their time was up. Kitazawa had returned.

  “Welcome back!” Saeko and Toshiya chorused, looking up in unison as Kitazawa entered the office.

  “Thanks,” Kitazawa replied. His face was drawn with fatigue, but as he twisted with a grunt to pull a memory stick out of his shoulder bag, an expression of satisfaction and exciteme
nt flooded his visage.

  “Is that the surprise?” Toshiya asked.

  Kitazawa gave them a quick rundown on how he’d obtained the memory stick. “It may be totally worthless. We won’t know until we have a look.” His warning belied the look on his face.

  Toshiya accepted the memory stick, plugged it into the computer, and played the footage.

  The first thing the monitor showed was the inside of the Rendaiji S Mart store, at around 6:30 p.m. on September 13th of the previous year. The memory stick contained approximately thirty minutes of footage, spanning the transition from dusk to complete darkness outside.

  The interior of the store was brightly lit, revealing row upon row of useful everyday products but few customers. Whenever anyone entered the shop someone else seemed to leave, so that the number of customers remained fairly stable at around two or three.

  The camera afforded a view of nearly the entire store, with just a few exceptions. The right edge of the screen showed the magazine racks positioned along the glass window contiguous with the entrance. The left edge showed the refrigerated shelving containing boxed lunches and other fresh food. On either side, there was a small area of the store that was out of range of the camera.

  After several minutes of footage, a dark shadow passed through the center of the monitor. It was the store manager, his arms full to overflowing with a load of cardboard boxes. He was having a hard time exiting the shop. The automatic door was open, but one of the boxes had somehow gotten caught on its edge and he was having trouble breaking free.

  When a young clerk emerged from behind the counter and rushed over to help the manager, Kitazawa paused the video.

  “That’s Tomoaki Nishimura,” he told them. Then he fast-forwarded the video for a few moments, pressing the play button again when a young woman entered the shop. She came through the front door and slowly past the register towards the area where toiletries were displayed. Her sleeveless blouse revealed delicate shoulders, and she wore an inexpensive-looking bracelet on the wrist of the hand gripping her wallet.

  Kitazawa hit the pause button and shot Saeko a glance.

  “That’s Mizuho Takayama?” Saeko asked.

  Kitazawa nodded. It was her, all right. Only the profile of her face was visible, but her physical characteristics and clothing were a perfect match.

  After finding the item she was looking for and dropping it into her basket, Mizuho Takayama disappeared momentarily from the camera’s field of vision. At that same moment, a young man wearing jeans and a denim shirt entered the store. He positioned himself in front of a rack of ramen products and proceeded to compare two items with an intensity that seemed somewhat excessive for selecting instant noodles.

  Kitazawa hit the pause button and shot Saeko a meaningful glance. The image of the young man’s face was small and not terribly distinct, but there was no doubt about it. The young man in jeans was Nobuhisa Igarashi.

  Just as Kitazawa had suspected, the three disappearances shared a common location. After checking in at the business hotel, Mizuho Takayama had begun to draw a bath when she realized she’d forgotten to pack something. At the convenience store, Nobuhisa Igarashi and Tomoaki Nishimura had happened to be at the same place at the same time.

  When the earthquake struck, Nobuhisa Igarashi was standing in front of the magazine rack, Mizuho Takayama was off to the left, just out of view, and Tomoaki Nishimura was behind the counter, the top of his head under the security camera.

  The shock of the earthquake shifted the camera’s view slightly upwards so that less of the store was visible. There was no audio, but it was clear from the video image that the store was shaking. It made Saeko a bit nauseous just watching it. Cups of instant ramen flew into the air and the counter next to the register began to fall inwards towards Nishimura. Nishimura covered his head with both hands and leaned into the counter in a desperate attempt to hold it up.

  Over by the magazine rack, Igarashi cowered on the floor, shielding his head with both hands to protect against the toothbrushes, boxes of tissues, and other items that were raining down on his head.

  Meanwhile, Mizuho Takayama had fallen to the ground so that just her delicate arm was now within view of the camera. It writhed awkwardly on the floor, attesting to her presence. Even though the rest of her body wasn’t visible, as her thin arm wriggled on the floor like an inchworm, it served as a powerful reminder of her existence.

  As a second jolt shook the store, the security camera tilted even further upwards. The ceiling now occupied most of the screen, with only a shelf lined with pornographic magazines visible at the bottom.

  The counter read 6:44:30 p.m. The tremor subsided, and the screen showed nothing more than an unchanging view of the ceiling. A small dark speck on the ceiling flew off into the air—it was an insect, not a stain. Other than that, there was no movement on the screen whatsoever.

  Absorbed, Saeko had drawn close, perching on the edge of a table in an unladylike pose. Now she stood up and moved in even closer.

  The stillness after the earthquake was like a palpable presence. The counter on the screen indicated that the footage was still playing, but to both Saeko and Kitazawa, it felt as if time had stopped. With nothing but the ceiling visible on the screen, the three young people were about to vanish at any moment.

  “This is when it happens, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But the camera didn’t catch it?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Saeko stopped the video and turned towards Kitazawa. “What do you make of this?”

  “I don’t know. I really can’t say.”

  For a full minute, the three of them sat in silence, thinking. Not only did they fail to achieve any flashes of inspiration, it seemed as if they had lost the power to think and were simply staring blankly into space.

  The video clearly told them one thing.

  The three seemingly unrelated disappearances in Itoigawa had taken place together.

  Saeko recalled the footage from the earthquake that had struck while they were filming at the Fujimuras’ home in Takato. Immediately afterwards, the voices of the staff had filled the air, in sharp contrast to the stillness they had just observed. Saeko alone had been plunged into a silent abyss of unconsciousness. Here, at the convenience store in Itoigawa, three people had simultaneously disappeared in the wake of an earthquake.

  There was clearly a link that related to the setting.

  Kitazawa issued a research assignment to his son. “This is where you come in,” he told Toshiya. “I want you to find as many similar disappearances as you can, not just in Japan but worldwide, and figure out what they have in common.”

  Toshiya muttered something about being busy enough already writing his dissertation, but the pleased expression on his face told a different story. He agreed to the task—given his self-proclaimed ability to locate and analyze any kind of information, how could he refuse? But more importantly, Toshiya was starting to become intrigued by the case. When he wasn’t interested in something, heaven and earth couldn’t budge him. But when he did take an interest, he would work all night if he had to, even without pay.

  If Saeko knew Toshiya, he would probably pull an all-nighter tonight. She was sure of it.

  6The next evening at seven o’clock, Saeko visited Kitazawa’s office again, this time with Hashiba. They arrived just as Toshiya was leaving; he had been called into office at the university suddenly and had to go, even though he had been up all night working on the case. Chagrined that he couldn’t discuss his findings with the rest of the group, Toshiya hurried off after a few words of greeting.

  The lines of fatigue in Kitazawa’s face were etched even more deeply than the day before. He paced the small room feverishly, turning the computer on and off and pulling books from the shelf only to replace them, as if he himself weren’t sure what he was doing. Saeko had never seen him so distracted.

  She cut right to the chase. “What did you find out?”

>   “Well, how should I put this? I guess the best thing is to show you. All I can say is, Toshiya did his job well.”

  Kitazawa reached for a file on his desk but hesitated before picking it up. The file was fat with printed pages.

  Hashiba observed Kitazawa’s cryptic, noncommittal movements without comment.

  “I suppose you might say we’ve discovered something unexpected. Then again, I might be reading too much into something that’s actually pure coincidence. In any case, I’d be glad to get your opinions on the matter.”

  In a roundabout way, Kitazawa seemed to be hinting that they had come across an important lead.

  “This computer contains data on missing persons cases all over Japan. Not the 100,000 cases said to occur in Japan each year—just the ones that are potentially relevant. Most missing persons wind up surfacing eventually. Ninety percent of the ones who don’t were usually struggling with serious debts, and such. The other ten percent are the ones Toshiya focused on. In other words, disappearances without any obvious cause. Still, that leaves about 5,000 cases. That’s still too many to really review. So he narrowed the field again, rejecting any cases where there was any kind of likely explanation, keeping just the ones that were total mysterious. Those cases always generate a fair bit of buzz. The police investigate some of those cases if they suspect foul play, but not all of them. Beyond that, he picked up a number of cases from the last few years that seemed similar to the Ina and Itoigawa cases, relying solely on intuition. That brought the number down to 150 cases. Anyway, have a look.”

  Kitazawa divided the pile of printed documents into stacks of roughly 50 pages each and handed them to Saeko and Hashiba.

  Each page contained the name of a missing person, their age, date of disappearance, and other pertinent information summed up in as few words as possible.

  The three of them went through their stacks page by page, skimming the information. When they’d each finished with their piles, they swapped stacks. It took around fifteen minutes for all three of them to peruse all 150 pages.