Soul Cage--A Mystery

by Tetsuya Honda

  “Are you Tadaharu Mishima’s kid?”

  When I said I was, the guard took me to another, bigger prefab hut, where the air-conditioning was going full blast. There must have been four or five adults inside, all wearing identical pale green boiler suits—all except one, that is. He was dressed differently. He had on a white shirt, unbuttoned to show his chest, and black pants. He had a five-o’clock shadow and small brown sunglasses. I still remember how he had a cigarette dangling from his lips and the way his short-cropped hair stood straight up on his head.

  “Thanks for coming, kid. I’m impressed. Really impressed.”

  The man made an effort to be friendly.

  “This is your dad’s duffel bag. Is that right?”

  I nodded. The man asked me to check the contents. I recognized everything in it. There was even a little money in my dad’s wallet—six hundred yen.

  “Okay, kid, you take the duffel home with you. And take this too. It’s incense money from the company. Money to say we’re sorry for your loss. You’ll need cash for one thing and another. Spend it wisely.”

  They had also included what they owed Dad for overtime and other benefits.

  “Thank you very much, sir. Good-bye.”

  I took the money with a bow and left the hut.

  After just a couple of steps, I opened the envelope to peer inside. There was a hundred thousand yen in there. Wow! I was over the moon—and nervous about having that much cash on me.

  I made my way back to the front gate, then turned around for a last look at the construction site.

  The building was eleven stories high and covered in scaffolding. My dad had fallen from the ninth floor. The detective told me that he’d been building the scaffolding when he fell.

  The metal scaffolding glowed faintly in the light of the setting sun. In my childish imagination, it looked like a gigantic cage for a humongous monster.

  Did the monster eat my dad? Or had Dad jumped down to escape from the monster?

  Get me out of here! Get me out! Help me! Kosuke, help!

  I pictured my father, his blubbering face all scrunched up with fear. Suddenly I felt sorry for him. The hundred thousand yen I had on me was the price of his life.

  I didn’t cry. For some reason, however, I felt acutely thirsty.

  The metal boards they put on the ground for the trucks to drive over were wet. They’d been spraying water to keep the dust down. There had to be a spigot nearby.

  As I looked around, I heard a voice.

  “Hey, are you Mishima’s boy?”

  I spun around. Before I could reply, the man continued.

  “Of course you are. You’ve got your dad’s eyes.”

  Must you say that? I thought to myself.

  The man squatted down in front of me and looked into my face. He was handsome, with a striking-looking nose. I guessed that he worked there, but he wasn’t all grimy like my dad.

  A whiff of sweat wafted out from the collar of his polo shirt. Oddly enough, it didn’t disgust me.

  “Your dad and I were pals. We were working together right at the end.”

  It was the first time I’d imagined my dad having friends.

  “I guess you came alone, huh? Well, I’m alone too. How about you and me have dinner together? You can order all your favorite things. My treat.”

  All my favorite things.…

  My stomach started rumbling. It actually hurt. It was like my intestines were tying themselves in knots.

  “Come on, let’s go. I’m not planning to kidnap you, you know. If you’re frightened, you go first. Go into whatever restaurant you want and order whatever you like. How about it? Sound like a plan?”

  I wasn’t afraid of him abducting me or anything. If anyone was dumb enough to kidnap me, there was nobody to pay even a penny in ransom. I’d completely forgotten about the hundred thousand yen I had on me.

  “We’ve got us a deal, then. What’s your name?”

  Kosuke, I told him.

  “Kosuke, huh? Nice name. Mine’s Takaoka. Kenichi Takaoka. Pleased to meet you.”

  And that was how I met the old man.

  PART I

  1

  CHIYODA WARD, TOKYO

  TOKYO METROPOLITAN POLICE HEADQUARTERS

  Reiko Himekawa was having coffee with Kazuo Kikuta in the canteen on the seventeenth floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police headquarters. Kikuta was a sergeant in Himekawa’s squad and just a little bit older than she was.

  “What’s wrong, Lieutenant? Why the long face?”

  “Oh, no reason.”

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon of Thursday, December 4. The canteen overlooked the Imperial Palace grounds. It was so bright and sunny that it was easy to forget how cold it was outside.

  “Are you still having dreams about Otsuka?”

  Reiko looked up. Kikuta was resting his chin in his hands and gazing into her eyes. It was an atypical pose for him.

  Shinji Otsuka had been a cop in Himekawa’s squad. On August 25 this year, he’d been killed while investigating a series of murders. He was only twenty-seven. Two years younger than she.

  Kikuta had hit the nail on the head.

  “Yeah.” She paused. “He’s been showing up in my dreams a lot recently. It’s always the last time I saw him in Ikebukuro. It’s rush hour. He’s got no idea what’s coming as he gets off the train and makes his way through the crowd. And then—this is the part where the dream departs from reality—Otsuka always turns back and waves at me with this goofy grin on his face.…”

  Reiko’s voice quavered. Take a sip of coffee and get a grip on yourself. Her hand refused to obey, and the words started pouring out uncontrollably.

  “I say, ‘Don’t go, Otsuka, don’t go.’ For some reason, though, he can’t hear me, and off he goes, still with that goofy grin on his face.”

  The waitress came over, and Reiko discreetly turned away to hide her face.

  “Everyone talks about me having a sixth sense. It’s bullshit. God, I wish I did! Then I could have warned him.”

  “So you’re still putting yourself through the wringer, Lieutenant.”

  Kikuta was holding out a handkerchief. Reiko shook her head and began looking through her handbag. She couldn’t find a handkerchief or even a Kleenex. Should she use the napkin on the table?

  “Think I will take that after all.”

  Kikuta was about to stuff the handkerchief back into his pocket. He stopped mid-motion and, with a grin, handed it to her.

  “It’s not healthy to obsess about it.”

  Kikuta’s chunky fingers closed around the handle of his mug. His lips were thick and slightly chapped, and his chin was a mass of dark stubble. There was something endearing in his simple, vigorous masculinity.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean those dreams. It’s not your fault, Lieutenant. If you start going down that route, then it’s Director Hashizume and Captain Imaizumi who are ultimately responsible. They’re the ones who assigned Otsuka to Ikebukuro.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “But it’s the same thing. Remember what you’re always telling us? How the criminal is the only one who is guilty, and that no one else should blame themselves? You mustn’t blame yourself, Lieutenant. And that’s exactly what you’re doing. For one thing, Otsuka wouldn’t have wanted you to. He loved being a cop, and he took his job—and that investigation—seriously. That’s the reason he’s always smiling. I mean, Otsuka is smiling at you in your dreams, right?”

  “Hey, take it down a notch. You’re yelling.”

  “Sorry,” mumbled Kikuta. The small black eyes that were such a bad fit with the great meaty slab of his face darted anxiously around the room.

  Reiko suddenly saw a funny side to what Kikuta had been saying. She pressed the handkerchief to her mouth. “You’re about the last person I’d expect to say that sort of thing.”

  Kikuta’s eyes widened.

  “What do you
mean?”

  “I mean that sort of new age, spiritual stuff: ‘Otsuka is smiling at you in your dreams.…’”

  Kikuta put his mug down on the table with a shamefaced grin.

  “Perhaps it’s because ‘that sort of thing’ is popular right now.”

  “Do you believe that stuff, Kikuta? Spiritualism? Communicating with the ‘other side’?”

  “Nah, not really. How about you, Lieutenant? Women are usually more into that sort of thing than men.”

  “Oh, women are, are they? I’m not a big one for generalizations myself.”

  Did she believe in it or not? That was a question worth pondering.

  She certainly thought about the people she loved who had passed on. Did that mean she believed in the spirit world? Hardly. She had no sense that there were invisible beings out there, smoothing her way. When she went to the family grave, she thanked her ancestors as you were supposed to do, but as far as she was concerned, she herself was responsible for what she had achieved.

  As for the idea of a personal guardian spirit—that, she rejected out of hand.

  “Hmmm,” she grunted. “I’d have to say that I’m not much of a believer … I think.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Reiko felt slightly annoyed.

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m not a normal woman?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean, then?”

  “I just thought skepticism was more you, Lieutenant. That’s all.”

  “And ‘more me’ means what, exactly?”

  Kikuta looked flustered.

  “What’s with the third degree? The Reiko Himekawa I know tends to be skeptical and look at things in a more detached and rational way. The Reiko Himekawa I know wouldn’t fret over all the hypotheticals with Otsuka—what if this, what if that—it’s a bottomless rabbit hole. No, the Reiko Himekawa I know would just come out and say, ‘The only person at fault here is the murderer—and that’s that.’”

  Reiko could feel herself getting angry.

  That’s what you think of me, is it?

  Still, if people tended to see her as brisk, decisive, and businesslike, that was because it was the image she chose to project. As a woman in her twenties, there was no way she could move up the ladder at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police without some careful image-management.

  Reiko had been appointed a squad leader in the Homicide Division soon after making lieutenant at twenty-seven. It was a nearly unprecedented achievement, but still, a woman could not be a woman in a work environment like the police. She had to be more of a man than the men if she wanted to avoid being treated as a joke.

  Still …

  To Kikuta, if to no one else, Reiko made an effort to show her feminine side. She thought they were close enough for that. She thought that he liked her.

  It hasn’t worked out too well. He doesn’t understand me one bit.

  She’d known all along that Kikuta was never going to win any prizes for sensitivity. His emotional obtuseness got on her nerves, but she was willing to overlook it as a lovable defect. The truth was, she had her own vulnerabilities, and she wanted his support. She thought he could at least sense her needs without her having to be explicit.

  What a bummer!

  She wasn’t going to transform herself and suddenly become all clingy and dependent, girly-girl style, just for his sake. She was too proud for that, and her rank as lieutenant obliged her to be a little more formal and stiff. Sometimes, though, she felt like she had a metal board strapped to her back.

  “Perhaps we should make a move,” said Reiko, consulting her Longines watch. Kikuta reached for the check and sprang briskly to his feet.

  “I’ll deal with this, Lieutenant. You go ahead.”

  You’re the soul of tact when it comes to unimportant things, Reiko thought to herself.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Seriously. You should go first.” Kikuta’s large head suddenly loomed in toward her. “You need to redo your makeup. Anyone can tell you’ve been crying.”

  Reiko shuddered. The skin around her eyes flushed.

  Was Kikuta being sensitive or obtuse? She wasn’t quite sure.

  Worse than that, what was she coming to if she needed a man like him to tell her that her makeup needed fixing!

  * * *

  When Reiko got back to the big open-plan office on the sixth floor, everyone else on the squad was at their desks.

  Sergeant Tamotsu Ishikura, the veteran of her team at forty-seven years old, had his nose buried in the newspaper as usual.

  Officer Kohei Yuda was poring sleepily over a textbook for his promotional exam. With Otsuka gone, his position in the group had risen a notch.

  Otsuka’s replacement was Officer Noriyuki Hayama. He was deep in an old case file.

  Hayama was highly competent. Despite joining the force out of high school, he’d been appointed to the Homicide Division when he was only twenty-five. He was tall and handsome, but he didn’t let that go to his head. When he was working a case, he went about things quietly and methodically. He’d only been with Reiko’s squad for three months, and, as far as she could tell, he was a model detective.

  If Himekawa was going to be picky, then perhaps Hayama was a little gloomier than she would have liked. When the squad went out for a communal booze-up, he barely smiled or spoke. Even when Yuda got so wasted that he started sticking chopsticks into his nose, mouth, and ears in his best Hellraiser imitation, Hayama’s only response was a solemn nod. He certainly knew how to wreck the mood.

  There was also something about him that hinted at insubordination. It was nothing Reiko could put her finger on, just a certain irritating superciliousness. She’d gotten so annoyed that she’d asked him flat out if working with a female lieutenant was a problem for him. “Problem? No,” he’d replied, flatly. Worried that pressing him too hard would make her look immature, Reiko opted to let sleeping dogs lie. Perhaps he’d thaw out in time.

  Sergeant Kikuta was the fourth and last member of Reiko’s team. Unit 10 of the TMPD Homicide Division consisted of the Himekawa squad and the Kusaka squad—and they were a whole other set of oddballs.

  “Lieutenant?”

  Ishikura pushed his newspaper to one side and cocked an eyebrow at Reiko. He wanted to tell her something in confidence.

  Reiko walked around the clump of pushed-together desks until she was standing next to Ishikura. Kikuta, who was sitting on the far side, discreetly strained to listen in.

  “What’s up, Tamotsu?”

  Much older than the rest of them, Ishikura gave off quite a different vibe from the others in the squad. Reiko didn’t dislike it; if anything, just the opposite. Of late, she found middle-aged male stolidity increasingly appealing.

  “Toyama is definitely up to something,” murmured Ishikura. “A moment ago he left the room with Kusaka. Perhaps there’s been a development in that business this morning.”

  Toyama was a sergeant on Kusaka’s squad. “That business this morning” was a rumor about Director Hashizume bringing back an object from Kamata Precinct in Ota Ward.

  “Have you got the lowdown on whatever it was?”

  “It was in an ice chest. Hashizume took it to the crime lab and gave the head of Forensics a hard time about needing the results fast. That’s all I know.”

  At present, the members of Homicide Unit 10 were the only people on standby at TMPD headquarters. There were three levels of readiness: A, B, and C. Level A meant standing by at headquarters; B was standing by at home; and C meant on call but free to go about your business.

  There wasn’t much difference between being on level C and being on vacation. With the recent squeeze on department finances, however, C had been temporarily shelved, and for the last three days, both squads in Unit 10 had been at the desks on level A, while Unit 3 was on level B.

  This meant that if there was a murder anywhere in Tokyo today, Reiko’s team would have to work with Kusaka�
��s squad on the case. This would be a problem. The Kusaka squad and the Himekawa squad were at daggers drawn; or to be precise, Lieutenant Himekawa loathed Lieutenant Kusaka.

  Reiko wasn’t short of reasons. She detested everything about Kusaka, from his looks and the sound of his voice to the way he handled his cases. Through sheer dumb luck, they’d not had to collaborate on any cases over the last few months. Sadly, it looked like that happy state of separation was about to come to an end. Reiko was just going to have to suck it up.

  “Any idea what’s going on in Kamata?”

  “That must be what Toyama is trying to find out. My guess is they’ve put a gag order on it.”

  All sorts of horse-trading went on behind the scenes before a task force was formally established, whether between different divisions of the TMPD, between the TMPD and the local precincts, or between the police and the media. The fact that the detectives hadn’t heard anything formally yet probably meant one of two things: either the incident was too insignificant to deserve its own task force, or it was a delicate and complex case and things were moving slowly. It was the latter scenario that Reiko thought more likely—and it was the one she was hoping for.

  If you wanted to make a name for yourself in this department, it was far better to solve one big case than to fool around with a bunch of smaller ones. Big cases drew media attention, and the bigger the noise the media made about you, the more of a reputation you got inside the force. The best possible thing was to singlehandedly solve a case that made major headlines, like the Mizumoto Park murders earlier this year.

  It’s a shame that someone else walked off with all the credit for that one.

  Reiko gazed out across the office at the vast rows of desks. There was a cluster of men around the coffee machine near the door on the far side. It was Sergeant Mizoguchi, and Officers Shinjo and Itoi—all of them members of Kusaka’s squad.

  “Hey, Tamotsu, have you seen the captain?”

  Reiko was talking about Captain Imaizumi, the head of Unit 10.