Half Life: A Hana Walker Mystery (The Hana Walker Mysteries Book 1)

by Patrick Sherriff

  “Hey, the car dries up pretty good. Must be that foreign engineering,” I said.

  Ono glared in the rear view mirror and drove off, spinning the tires. I lurched forward, but Shachou sat unmoved in the rear left seat. I was next to him, behind Ono, counting the flabby folds on his neck.

  Ono forced the car into the flow of traffic and crossed over three lanes. We were heading back toward central Abiko.

  Shachou looked over a newspaper—The Yomiuri Shimbun. The front page featured a television news image of the Fukushima plant consumed by waves and a helicopter dropping water onto the plant. The banner headline was “Pray for Japan.”

  He snorted.

  “Pray for Japan? Bullshit. Pay for Japan, more like. Anyway, where’s the girl?”

  “I know where she is, but if I told the yakuza, I would put her in danger.”

  Shachou snorted again. “Danger? Let me tell you about danger. Forget the movie heroics. It’s us yakuza who will save Japan. Who do you think the government calls when there’s a job too dangerous for civilians? The military? Hah! Those TEPCO jokers in charge of the nuclear plant? If our men hadn’t stayed to fight the meltdown, you could kiss Japan goodbye. The Sumiyoshi-kai faction stands its ground. And pays the price.”

  He threw the newspaper into the front seat.

  Something the crazy tramp had said stuck in my mind. “So, the Sumiyoshi-kai are heroes? Dumping nuclear waste in Teganuma Lake is to protect Abiko? Spreading cancer to the children of Abiko?”

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.

  “Danger is relative. That waste is long gone anyway. What were we supposed to do with it? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But why should I worry about cancer in 30 years when people are dead right now in the tsunami? We’ll all be dead of old age before radiation poisoning. You talk a good game, Hana-chan, but you are a risk to our enterprises now. I want that $100,000. But even more, I can’t afford for you to mess things up.”

  “I can’t afford to either. If I hand Emi over to you, that wouldn’t be, well, honourable.”

  “Honour is a luxury. As I’m sure you can appreciate, in the current financial climate we can’t afford to jeopardise our local arrangements. The recession has hit us hard. It’s not just family restaurants that bar us now, it’s everywhere. Every city feels its duty is to pass a law banning officials from doing business with us.”

  He looked out the window at the chain shops passing by in a blur. “Used to be every plot of land, every centimetre of concrete had the yakuza seal on it. It was OK when charging protection money was the accepted thing. But now our customers can go to jail for paying us.

  “It’s a constant balancing of risks. A bullet through the door used to be enough to focus the mind, but… well, the politicians who used to be so scared of us are now more scared of the law ruining their future prospects.”

  We were approaching the Abiko Station south entrance. All around, people were going about their business. Two short, stooped old ladies were bent over carrying shopping bags. They looked up and stared at our Mercedes pulling up at the station.

  A young couple saw the car and hurried into the Doutor shop next to the police box.

  “And future prospects, as I’m sure you know, Hana, are the name of the game. So, you can tell your tale to someone who cares. We have no wish to be on the wrong side of the law. This is where you leave us.”

  The car pulled up next to the coffee shop.

  “Here? I can’t stand Doutor coffee,” I said.

  “Not the coffee shop, the police box.”

  Sgt. Watanabe strolled out onto the pavement, reaching for his holster.

  12:49

  I could see Sgt. Watanabe reach for his gun as he stared at the passenger door, waiting for it to open. In a moment I’d be in handcuffs and looking at jail and the hangman’s noose.

  I had done nothing with my life to be proud of.

  Pride.

  Pride was what makes a yakuza boss sit in the honoured rear seat by the curb-side door, which meant my door was on the roadside.

  The seat shook beneath me as a bus horn blasted out—the Mercedes was blocking its way. Sgt. Watanabe looked away for a moment, shouted at the bus driver. He waved the bus to stop and we moved forward to make space for the bus.

  This was the only break I was going to get.

  I flung the door open and jumped into the path of the bus. The driver slammed on his brakes. I shut my eyes.

  The bus stopped a hair’s breadth from my face. The heat from its grill filled my nostrils. I opened my eyes. My face stared back at me from a poster above the grill. Wanted: ¥10,000,000 reward.

  And then I ran like hell.

  I ran right down the middle of the road. My mind couldn’t focus. If it’s a reward, do policemen pay the yakuza? Or do the yakuza pay the police? This was total rubbish. Rubbish? Recycle rubbish. And there it was. The neighbourhood rubbish collection point on the other side of the road. In amongst the neatly stacked cardboard and newspapers was my way out. Nothing fancy, just a discarded shopping bicycle with a wire basket full of newspapers on front and a child’s seat on back.

  I grabbed the bike and ran with it into the street.

  A car swerved to avoid me. I was breaking at least a half dozen city ordinances. The police would have their work cut out. Police? I looked over my shoulder.

  Sgt. Watanabe was far behind me. He had stopped by the bus, his feet steady and planted on the ground. He had drawn his pistol, which he pointed straight at me.

  “Stop! Or I’ll shoot!”

  Keep moving. It was all I could do. I ducked my head and pedalled with everything I had.

  There was a side street to my left. I stood up on the pedals and put my weight into the handlebars, throwing the bike into a sharp turn between two square-cut hedges at the end of a single-lane side street. I shouted as I tore past a mother with a push-chair. But my shoulder smacked into her back and she lurched forward, knocking the push-chair free of her hands. It overturned and the woman screamed. I squeezed the brakes and shuddered to a halt. What had I done?

  From inside the cart, a pink shaved poodle in a dress yelped.

  I screamed, “Out of my WAY!”

  I sailed over an intersection past another street. I didn’t even look but made it to the other side. But now I could hear a car coming up behind me. Getting closer. Engine gunning. Not slowing. Yakuza.

  The street was empty except for me and the car. Like every side street in Abiko, the road was not wide enough for two cars to pass. There was no pavement, and every dozen meters or so there was a lamppost or electricity pole to knock the wind out of a late salariman or a girl too stupid, too stubborn, and too confused to admit she had lost.

  But I couldn’t go any faster. The stack of old newspapers in the bicycle’s front basket slowed me down. Nothing left for me to do. The yakuza were going to knock me off my bike, and I had only seconds left. I reached for the papers and tossed them into the air, just to lighten the load.

  The wind caught the papers and the pages fanned open. It was like a festival firework had exploded, raining down a confetti of news. Clusters of Yomiuri pages hit the Mercedes windscreen and spread out, blocking Ono’s view. Brakes squealed.

  Then my left arm brushed an electricity pole, and my right hand scraped against the concrete breeze blocks of a garden street-front wall. But I passed through, just as Ono’s side-view mirrors clipped the pole and the boot of the car fish-tailed around and smacked into the concrete wall.

  I looked back as I rode. Ono was slumped over the steering wheel. Steam rose from the crumpled bonnet. The smell of burnt rubber, oil, and smouldering paper made me want to be sick. The power of the press.

  But I didn’t hang around. The side road was coming to a red light and an intersection with Route 356 and its flow of traffic. Cars ahead, going fast. I pulled up at the traffic light. It was red.

  I couldn’t afford to stop now. But it was better than getting hit by an e
lderly driver, and in Abiko they are all elderly. I reached over and pressed the pedestrian crossing button. I glanced at the red man. It was one of those new signals that has lights counting down to the appearance of a green man. I felt like an F1 driver waiting for the start of a race.

  Six lights.

  I looked back at the Mercedes. The driver’s door was open. Ono was still slumped over the steering wheel, but moving his fat, bloodied head.

  Five lights.

  Shachou appeared unharmed and was standing on the other side of the car, staring at me. He didn’t look happy.

  Four lights.

  Shachou had his telephone out. He was watching me but nodding his head in short bursts. He was doing the talking.

  Three lights.

  I heard a bell frantically ringing. Sgt. Watanabe had got his police bike and was coming up the street behind the yakuza.

  Two lights.

  Sgt. Watanabe was past the yakuza and coming up the street to me. A hundred meters and closing.

  One light.

  Sgt. Watanabe was close enough to shout. “Stop right now. Surrender now, before someone gets hurt.” He got off his bike and kicked out the bike stand. He was reaching for his gun.

  Green man.

  I hesitated. “Stop shooting at me then, and nobody will get hurt,” I shouted.

  “You are not in a position to give the orders. You are under arrest.”

  He walked closer.

  The green man was flashing.

  “Step away from the bicycle.”

  Red man.

  “I didn’t kill anyone, I can prove it.”

  Cars started in both directions. I took off, running with the handlebar in my hands. Squeezing between the traffic. A furious old woman blasted her car horn. It wasn’t enough to drown out Sgt. Watanabe swearing as he ran back to his bike.

  I turned right and followed the main road on the pavement, but it was uphill. Cars were zipping by. They were all that were between me and Sgt. Watanabe. This was not going to end well, I could feel it. And we were going uphill now.

  Then I discovered why this shopping bike was meant for recycling. It was stuck in third gear. And there were only three. No matter how hard I pedalled, the bike kept slowing. Sgt. Watanabe had no such problem. He was pedalling parallel to me on the other side of the road, waiting for a break in the traffic. I needed a hill that went down.

  Would he shoot off my tires? Do policemen do such things?

  I slipped my feet off the pedals and side-saddled back off the bike. And ran, pushing the bike.

  Run up this hill. If I could just get to the crest of it and find the way down, then it wouldn’t matter that I was a girl, that he was a policeman, and that my bike was rubbish and his was new. We could be equal. Going down.

  To my left was a Buddhist nursery school. I pulled off the road and headed for it, a sign that said “The right teacher chooses the student when the student is ready.”

  I was ready.

  Sgt. Watanabe was 10 meters behind on his bike. His face was red, but he wasn’t slowing. He would catch me, and then it would be over. I passed the school on my left and the road took a winding turn and got narrower. Then it went downhill.

  Down I rode, through new building lots. There were workers in hard hats and toed boots, eating their lunches and staring as a policeman came down the hill shouting after a teenage girl.

  A 70-ish man in white helmet and blue overalls was waving his light baton. “Road closed, you can’t go…” he said as I whipped past him. The road was getting steeper, to the point where you had to brake if you didn’t want to lose control. Or wanted to escape a policeman.

  Then a road crew. Four men in white helmets laying asphalt in front of me. Steam rose from the street.

  And I was going to hit one crewman in the back, unless…..

  I slammed on the brakes. Squeals as the metal of the worn break pads scraped the metal of the bicycle wheel rim. But the bike didn’t slow. It belonged on the scrap heap.

  “Watch it!” I screamed. One of the workers pushed the man I was going to hit to the side and I hurtled past. All I could hear behind me were shouts: “Danger!” “Stop.” And Sgt. Watanabe’s furious bell-ringing.

  But I was out of control now. I had no way of stopping and the hill was steep and winding. The only thing slowing me was the hot asphalt underneath the tires. I heard a hiss of air. And then the back wheel started wobbling. Then more hissing and the front tire deflated.

  I was running on rims but still picking up speed. I couldn’t hear anything but the rush of air in my ears. It was all I could do to keep from being thrown from the bike as it shuddered down the hill. At this speed, I was headed towards a sticky end.

  An end which was fast approaching.

  The road ended in a T junction, with a breeze-block wall straight in front and no way to stop. A grandma carrying a rubbish bag walked out of her front door on my left and straight into my path. I couldn’t steer, I couldn’t brake. I leaned my weight away from her. It was all I could do. The bike smacked her arm and I lost balance. I hit the rubbish bag then skidded onto the ground as the bike fell on its side and slid down the hill. I turned head over heels with that bag in my arms. I rolled down the hill, trying to tuck my head in. I heard the bike clatter into the wall and then I followed next to it until I smacked the wall with a thump.

  Everything hurt.

  I couldn’t move my legs. My arms were a bloody mess and my head was throbbing.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  Ring.

  It was a sound outside my head. Coming down the hill. I tried to get up. I couldn’t. But I could lift my eyelids. A pair of shoes, black leather scuffed from years of use but polished for the day. Attached to them were starched trouser legs.

  “You are under arrest for the murder of Tomoko Blackmore,” Sgt. Watanabe said.

  “I didn’t do it. I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t do it,” I said in a whisper.

  “You are a dangerous young woman, and a determined one. But you are a mess. And you are not going anywhere this time.”

  He looked down at me, and added “Except the hospital.”

  He held my hands and I thought he really cared, but then I felt the bite of steel as handcuffs clasped my hands together.

  There was wailing now from behind Sgt. Watanabe. It was the old woman holding her hand. He turned to her.

  “Officer,” the old woman said, “I was taking my old clothes out to the recycle rubbish when she came out of the sun straight for me. If I hadn’t jumped away, something terrible might have happened. I can move my wrist but…”

  I could feel gravel from the road pressing into my cheek.

  My mind slipped a gear. I could hear my mother laughing and playing “Jerusalem” on the Casio keyboard I had as a kid. Now, I was a seven-year-old on my bicycle and being shepherded to the side of the road by a friendly policeman as parts of a massive pipe came by on a truck. Then I was 16, crying my eyes out in the toilets of my school. Papa was dead. And no one cared.

  But I did. I cared. I still care, Emi.

  Sgt. Watanabe was bent down on his haunches holding the old woman’s hand. She was babbling and shaking. If I could just get up and move he wouldn’t notice before I was halfway down the street. I wouldn’t be able to make it more than a few paces before I fell to the ground, or he ran me over on his bike.

  His bike? I looked around.

  I could just make out the tires and spokes to my right. Closer to me than Sgt. Watanabe. This was my opportunity. And Papa had told me those don’t come around too often. If you are lucky enough to see one, grab it with both hands. Not easy to do when you are handcuffed.

  But I could see myself walking. Just like in my childhood I somehow translated the notes on the sheet in front of me into actions my fingers must make on the piano keyboard. Keep to a rhythm and it became music. I willed my feet to move and they did. I was standing
facing the bike. Hands outstretched, holding the middle of the handlebars. Sgt. Watanabe was still with the old woman. He hadn’t turned around.

  Now or never.

  I threw my shoulders into a push and the bike eased off its back wheel stand with a crack. I pushed with only the weight of my body and fell onto the seat just as Sgt. Watanabe turned his head and dropped the old lady’s hand. She was as stunned as he was.

  I pedalled for everything I was worth. I had a 20-meter start on him, which was crucial, because he had covered half of that while my body figured out where it was and that it had to pedal again.

  The air stung my face and my legs didn’t want to do their bit, but there was no choice. I couldn’t sit on the saddle, it was too high up. So I stood on the pedals, holding the handlebars from underneath willing the bike to stay a few more meters ahead. It was downhill all the way.

  All the way to lake Teganuma.

  Sgt. Watanabe was following, but he couldn’t keep up. The further he fell behind, the more he shouted. But the hill was my friend. I made it along the side road. It ran parallel to a main road that ran around the lake. If I could cross somehow and pass that, there was the Teganuma bridge. Downhill all the way.

  To the rendezvous with Uncle Kentaro on the other side of the lake. He said he had a surprise for me. I actually believed I was going to make it.

  The road was twisting and when I looked back, I couldn’t see or hear Sgt. Watanabe. I passed the Ryokan Tomimasu inn on my left. If I could just find somewhere to sleep it off. I wouldn’t mind not moving, not being tired, not being pursued, and not pursuing anything. Not doing, just being. If I could just sleep for an hour or two, I’d be OK.

  But I pressed on. On the left, high up on the slope of the hill, was a karate dojo. An old artist’s tea house was to the left of the dojo. A famous writer that no one read. On the right a supermarket and ¥100 shop. Which was my way? The back road ended at Route 8, a four-lane highway. And the bridge. Follow it and it would take me out of Abiko over the lake.

  Over the lake again? I couldn’t face it. I had no strength to carry on. I slipped off the bike and it clattered to the ground.