Journey Under the Midnight Sun

by Keigo Higashino

  Tomohiko raised an eyebrow. ‘Yakuza?’

  Namie nodded. ‘They got out of the van and surrounded my car, right there in the middle of the road. For a second, I didn’t know what was going to happen. That’s when Enomoto showed up. He was in another car, but he seemed to know the guys that were on me. He worked it out so I would only owe them for repairs.’

  ‘Let me guess, the repairs cost millions?’

  Namie shook her head. ‘No, more like a hundred thousand. Enomoto even apologised for not being able to work out a better deal. You might not believe it, but he was a real gentleman back then.’

  ‘You’re right, I don’t believe it.’

  ‘No, really. He dressed beautifully and always said he wasn’t “one of them”.’

  ‘So wait, you two were dating?’ Tomohiko asked.

  Namie didn’t answer right away. Instead she dragged at her cigarette, her eyes following the smoke trail.

  ‘I know this sounds like an excuse, but he was really nice. I thought he really loved me. And, to tell the truth, that was the first time I’d ever felt that.’

  ‘So you wanted to do something for him, I get it.’

  ‘It was more that I was afraid he’d lose interest. I wanted to show him I could be helpful.’

  ‘By stealing for him?’

  ‘It was stupid, I know. He said he needed it for a new business, and of course I didn’t doubt a thing.’

  ‘But you had realised he was yakuza, right?’

  ‘Mostly. But by then, it really didn’t matter.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, as long as he was with me, I didn’t care what he was.’

  Tomohiko grunted and stared at the table. Namie snubbed out her cigarette.

  ‘For some reason I keep hooking up with the wrong men. I guess it’s just my luck.’

  ‘Something like this happen before?’

  ‘Sort of. Got another cigarette?’

  He offered his pack. She took a cigarette and lit it.

  ‘I used to date this bartender. At least. he said he was a bartender, but he hardly ever went to work. He loved gambling, so he would borrow money from me and throw it all down the drain. Once my savings hit rock bottom, he left. Guess he didn’t have a use for me any more.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Three years ago, maybe?’

  ‘Three years…’

  ‘That’s right, it was just before we first met. It’s part of why I went in the first place.’

  Went to a place to have sex with young men.

  ‘I told Ryo about it once, a while ago. I don’t think he listens to me much, though. He’s probably sick of my boy troubles by now.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I would be, if I were him. Besides, he doesn’t like it when people make the same mistake twice.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’ Tomohiko agreed. ‘Mind if I ask you something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Was it easy making those transfers at the bank?’

  ‘That’s a tricky question,’ Namie said, crossing her legs and taking a few puffs. She seemed to be pondering her explanation. By the time she spoke, her cigarette had burned down close to her fingers. ‘I suppose you could say it was easy, yes. Which is what made it risky.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, all you really have to do is forge a transfer slip.’ Namie scratched the side of her forehead, the cigarette dangling precariously between her fingers. ‘Write an amount and the account the money is destined for, get two other people to put their stamp on it, and that’s it. One of those people is the section chief and he’s not at his desk all the time, so it’s pretty easy to grab his stamp without him knowing. The other person’s stamp was easy to forge.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone checking that stuff?’

  ‘There’s a daily ledger that shows remaining balances. The head of accounts is supposed to watch that, but as long as you have the stamp you can just forge documents saying they checked it. That holds them off for long enough.’

  ‘What do you mean, long enough?’

  ‘Well, it has to do with the money I was using. It came from a special pool set aside for temporary payments.’

  ‘What’re those?’

  ‘Say someone sends money from their bank to a customer at another bank. What happens is the receiving bank pays their customer immediately, then settles accounts with the sending bank later. The money they use to pay transfers up front is called “temporary funds”, which every financial institution has set aside in a special pool. That’s what I had my eye on.’

  ‘Sounds pretty technical.’

  ‘Well, to a point, yes. In order to manipulate temporary funds you need specialised knowledge, so only the people who have been working it for a long time know what’s going on. At my branch, that was me. In theory, accounting was supposed to check everything two or three times after I did my work, but in practice everything was pretty much left up to me.’

  ‘So they weren’t checking it when they were supposed to be?’

  ‘Right. For example, at our bank, if you transfer more than a million yen, you have to record the amount and the destination in a special ledger and get the section chief’s permission to borrow the key you need to access the terminal where everything happens. The results of the transfer are printed out in a daily report from the computer the following day and the section chief is supposed to check those. However, they hardly ever do. Which is why, if you hide the illegitimate transfer slip and the daily report for that day, and make sure your boss only sees slips and reports from regular days, no one raises a fuss.’

  ‘OK. It sounds pretty complicated, but I gather the point here is that your boss is lazy.’

  ‘Yeah, though that only goes so far.’ Namie let out a big sigh. ‘It was only a matter of time before somebody like Makabe found out.’

  ‘Which you knew. But that didn’t stop you from doing it, huh.’

  ‘Yeah. It was like I was addicted.’ Namie flicked the ashes from her cigarette into the ashtray. ‘All you have to do is hit some keys on the keyboard and these huge sums fly every which way. You start feeling like you have some kind of magic power. But it’s all an illusion.’

  Tomohiko had told his parents the night before that he’d be staying nights at work for a few days, and one of the twin beds became his. He took a shower, put on the hotel bathrobe and got under the covers. Namie went into the bathroom after him. The lights in the room were off, except for the little footlight at the bottom of the bed.

  He heard Namie get out of the bath and into the other bed. Though his back was to her, he felt acutely aware of her presence just an arm’s reach away. A faint smell of shampoo drifted through the air.

  Tomohiko lay still in the darkness. His mind was racing, trying to figure out ways of getting Namie out of there safely. Ryo hadn’t called them at all that day.

  ‘Tomohiko?’ He heard Namie behind him. ‘You asleep?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, eyes closed.

  ‘Me neither.’

  That came as no surprise. She would soon be fleeing for her life to destinations unknown.

  ‘Do you ever think about her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Yoko.’

  ‘Oh.’ The name sent a shiver down his back. He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘I thought so,’ Namie said. ‘Did you love her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was pretty young.’

  He heard Namie laugh. ‘You’re still pretty young.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘And I – I just ran.’

  ‘From the apartment that day? Yes, you did.’

  ‘You two probably thought I was some kind of reject. To go all the way to that apartment only to turn tail and run.’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Sometimes, I regret leaving.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I do. I think maybe if I’d just stay
ed and let things happen it would have changed me, somehow. I know it sounds funny, but I think maybe I would have been reborn.’

  Tomohiko lay in silence. There was a weight to her words he didn’t fully understand, but something told him he was about to.

  The air in the room felt heavy. She spoke again. ‘I wonder if it’s too late.’

  ‘Namie…’ Might as well go for it. ‘You saying what I think you’re saying?’

  She was silent. Now I’ve done it, he thought.

  ‘You don’t think I’m too old?’ she said after a long silence.

  Tomohiko breathed an inward sigh of relief. ‘You haven’t changed a bit in three years,’ he said.

  ‘So was I already too old three years ago?’

  He laughed. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  He heard Namie get out of bed. Seconds later, she was crawling under his covers.

  ‘Rebirth would be nice,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘But I’ll settle for this.’

  Ryo showed up on Monday morning and began by apologising to Namie. He hadn’t been able to find a safe house for her yet but thought she should move to another hotel for the time being. This one was a few hours away to the north, in Nagoya.

  ‘It’ll only be temporary.’

  ‘That’s not what you said last night,’ Tomohiko protested. Ryo had called late with news that he’d found a good place and they would be leaving in the morning.

  ‘Things changed. I’m sorry. But you won’t have to put up with it for long, I promise.’

  ‘I’m OK with that,’ Namie said. ‘I lived in Nagoya before, so I know the place.’

  ‘That’s part of why I picked it,’ Ryo said.

  A white sedan was parked in the underground lot at the hotel. A rental, Ryo told them. If he went anywhere in his van, Enomoto or one of his goons was sure to find out.

  ‘Here’s a ticket for the bullet train. And a map to your hotel,’ he said, handing an envelope and a printout to Namie once they were in the car.

  ‘Thank you for everything,’ she said.

  ‘One other thing – you should probably take this with you.’ Ryo held out a paper bag.

  She looked inside the bag and chuckled.

  Tomohiko craned his head over to take a look. Inside the bag was a curly-haired wig, big sunglasses, and the kind of face mask people wore when they had colds.

  ‘I’m guessing you’re going to use an ATM card to get the money out of your accounts,’ Ryo said, turning the ignition. ‘When you do, you’re not going to want to look like yourself. And whatever you do, make sure the camera doesn’t see your face.’

  ‘You’re very thorough. Thanks.’ Namie took the paper bag and managed to cram it into one of her already overstuffed suitcases.

  ‘Give us a call when you get there,’ Tomohiko said.

  ‘I will,’ Namie said, and she smiled at him.

  The car drove out of the car park.

  Once Namie was on the train, Tomohiko and Ryo went back to the office.

  ‘I hope she makes it,’ Tomohiko said.

  Ryo shook his head. ‘You hear the Enomoto story?’

  Tomohiko told him he had.

  ‘Stupid, isn’t she?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  ‘Enomoto had her pegged from the start. He wanted to use her position at the bank. That whole thing with the traffic accident? Enomoto planned that from the get-go. You see? Stupid. She’s always been that way, too. She falls for some guy and can’t think straight.’

  Tomohiko swallowed. He had nothing to say, except his stomach felt like he’d just swallowed a ball of lead. He wasn’t sure he would have realised the set-up either.

  Tomohiko went home early that day and waited for a call from Namie, but none came.

  Four days later he read in the newspaper that Namie Nishiguchi’s body had been discovered at a hotel in Nagoya. She’d been stabbed with a knife in the chest and stomach.

  Namie had filed for a two-day vacation from work. When she didn’t show up on the third day, people started looking. They found five bank books in her possession. As of Monday, the money in those accounts was well over twenty million yen. By the time her body was found, they had been emptied.

  The bank investigated and found out about her illegal transfers. The accounts she had used led the police to arrest one of the directors at the bank on suspicion of embezzlement, making him a suspect in her murder in the process.

  The money she withdrew from those five accounts just before her death was never found. A security camera at the ATM where she had made the withdrawals showed a woman dressed in the same wig, sunglasses, and mask that had been found in her luggage.

  Tomohiko threw down the newspaper, ran to the bathroom and emptied the contents of his stomach.

  SEVEN

  Makoto Takamiya stared at the patent application in his hand: Physical Properties of Eddy-Current Testing Coils. He’d just finished talking on the phone with the technician who’d written the application. Makoto stood and looked over towards the wall where four ‘data entry technicians’ – their official title – sat with their backs to him in front of a row of computer terminals. The technicians were all women, three temp workers dressed in civilian clothes and one full-time employee in an official Tozai Automotive uniform.

  While the company had previously kept all patent information on microfilm, they were currently in the process of transferring everything over to floppy disk to enable computer-based searches. Lately, more and more companies were using temp workers for these kinds of tasks. Though the temp agencies were probably running foul of the Employment Security Act, the previous administration had given them legal status and established a ‘Temporary Staffing Services Law’ in an attempt to afford them some protection.

  Makoto walked towards the woman sitting on the far left. She had long hair tied behind her head in a braid – ‘so as not to interfere with my typing,’ she had told him once.

  Chizuru Misawa looked between her screen and the paper stand next to it, her fingers flashing over the keys with blinding speed. The movements of the women were so fast and so precise, it sometimes gave one the impression of watching robots on an assembly line.

  ‘Ms Misawa?’ said Makoto.

  Chizuru’s hands stopped as though a switch had been thrown. There was a beat before she turned to look in Makoto’s direction. She was wearing large-lens glasses, with black frames. There was a hardness in her look that came from staring at the screen for so long, but when she saw Makoto, her expression softened.

  ‘Yes?’ A smile came to her lips. Her pink lipstick matched the milky white of her skin well, Makoto thought. Though her roundish face gave her a young look, he had learned through previous conversations that she was only a year younger than him.