Soul Cage--A Mystery

by Tetsuya Honda

  “That’s insane,” burst out Kosuke. “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “To make us think that Tobe was the murderer and that he was the victim.”

  Mishima’s confusion was visible on his face: Takaoka was the killer, not the victim. And Makio Tobe was the one who’d been killed. Why? Why? Why?

  “In conclusion, we believe that Kenichi Takaoka is still alive somewhere, but missing his left hand. If he hasn’t received any medical care, we should assume that his physical condition is critical.”

  Why had Takaoka killed Tobe? That was the big question—and the question Mishima was probably best equipped to answer.

  Reiko had her own ideas on the subject. A powerful sense of paternal responsibility was what had driven Takaoka to “end” his life as Kazutoshi Naito after the terrible road accident thirteen years ago. Similar paternal feelings had then turned him into a surrogate father for young Kosuke Mishima. Surely that was where they’d find his motive for murder? Surely Mishima knew that.

  Reiko was sure of it.

  Look at his eyes!

  Kosuke’s eyes were clear, frank, and straightforward, despite his difficult childhood. From the way he looked at people, you could tell that he’d been raised in a caring, loving atmosphere; that he knew someone loved him; and that he reciprocated the feeling.

  Kenichi Takaoka was there for Mishima throughout his life. Family doesn’t have to be about blood.

  People raised in loveless homes, thought Reiko, their eyes were quite different: sluggish, listless, cold. Their eyes hid their feelings and acted as a barrier between them and the world outside. People like that could sometimes be very cruel. Reiko suspected that Makio Tobe probably fit that particular bill.

  It was just so tragically sad. Takaoka only did what he did because he’d been driven into a corner, because he had no choice. His fatherly feelings had compelled him to commit the crime.

  The police couldn’t turn a blind eye to what Takaoka had done. At the same time, as a person, Reiko couldn’t just stay detached and disengaged.

  Takaoka and I—we’re of a kind.

  Unlike him, Reiko hadn’t broken any laws. But if harboring murderous impulses were a crime, then, God knew, she was doubly guilty. She wanted to kill the man who’d raped her. She wanted to kill the man who’d murdered Otsuka from her squad. Those feelings were still smoldering and festering inside her.

  Even Reiko’s father, with his desire for revenge, was guilty. She felt bad that he’d become like that because of her, and she felt good because those feelings were also an expression of his love for her.

  “Have you any idea where Takaoka might have gone?” said Kusaka.

  Reiko didn’t relish the idea of being on the same wavelength as Kusaka, but that was precisely the question she wanted to ask.

  However, there was something she was desperate for Mishima to understand: they were asking the question because they wanted to help Takaoka, not to punish him.

  “I’ve got no idea.”

  Of course he didn’t. The incident had taken place more than two weeks ago now. Mishima had been struggling to come to terms with the loss of the man with whom he spent most of his time and who meant more to him than anyone, when suddenly they announced that actually he’d been alive all along. He needed to get his head around that fact before he could answer their question. Perhaps he wanted to ask them the same thing.

  “In the course of the investigation, we found out that Kenichi Takaoka has an older sister and a son. I believe you know about the sister; her name is Kimie Naito. The son’s name is Yuto. He’s a couple of years younger than you are and is permanently hospitalized here in Tokyo. We’ve dug pretty deeply into Takaoka’s past, and those two people are the only family of his we could find. As far as we can tell, Takaoka hasn’t tried to make contact or see either of them. We’re just beefing up our surveillance of Kimie’s restaurant and Yuto’s hospital room, but we have no reported sightings of Kenichi Takaoka yet.”

  Mishima’s eyes were blinking uncontrollably. He looked bewildered. It was too much new information, too fast. He was having trouble taking it in.

  “The only other person who has a special relationship with Kenichi Takaoka is you, son. We want to hear your ideas about where he could have gone. Any ideas you may have.”

  Reiko’s mind drifted off as she watched Mishima. She began ruminating about the state of mind Takaoka had been in on the night of the murder.

  What was he thinking when he sawed off his own hand? What was he thinking when he loaded Tobe’s chopped-up corpse into the minivan and drove over to the embankment? What was he thinking as he trudged through the rain and the dark up and down the steep slope and through the weeds to the river’s edge?

  Takaoka had had to do it all with just one good hand while enduring excruciating pain. Reiko imagined him willing himself to stay conscious as he went between the embankment and the river. She imagined him gritting his teeth, wiping the sweat out of his eyes, fighting off the shivering fits. She imagined the thoughts of Yuto, his quadriplegic son, and of Kosuke that must have kept him going.

  Oh. My. God.

  A black spark ignited in her brain.

  I’ve been a fool. A total, utter idiot.

  She felt tears welling into her eyes.

  Takaoka had disposed of an entire adult body in the river after he had chopped off his own left hand. After so much exertion, he wouldn’t have the energy left to go anywhere else. He hadn’t left the minivan on the embankment and run away because someone had seen him. By that stage, Takaoka would have been too weak to do any more driving. The only place that he could run to was—

  Mishima was the first person there to notice the change that had come over Reiko. Kusaka turned to see what the young man was staring at.

  “What’s got into you, Himekawa?”

  Reiko shook her head, though she didn’t know what she was trying to say by doing so.

  “Kosuke, I need you to come with me.”

  She got to her feet, reaching out and grabbing hold of his meaty hand on the table as she did so. Mishima looked at the others in bewilderment.

  “Come on, get up. Let’s go and find Takaoka right now.”

  Mishima leaped to his feet, sending his chair flying.

  PART VI

  Ilooked down at Tobe. He was quite motionless. For some reason, I thought of Yuto, my son.

  I’d arranged for my sister to get a fifty-million-yen insurance payout when Kazutoshi Naito “died.” Even after embarking on my new life as Kenichi Takaoka, I still sent her seventy thousand yen every month.

  But after my “death,” I’d had to cut off direct contact. We couldn’t communicate with each other. Even so, occasionally watched her from a distance: she looked careworn, haggard.

  She’d been a stylish woman back in the day; she had this clear white skin she was so proud of. Maybe she drank too much at the bar she ran—her face became all red, and she didn’t mind going out in unfashionable, even shabby, clothes.

  It was obvious that life wasn’t easy for her. Still, she did a great job taking care of Yuto.

  She always brought his pajamas back home from the hospital to wash them. I remember seeing them flapping on the drying rack on the second-floor balcony, a bigger size every year. I felt bad about the burden I was putting on my sister, but the knowledge that my boy was growing up made my chest go all warm.

  And now—

  I’d murdered another man. I’d insured my life again—for fifty million yen this time—but there was no way that money would make it to my sister now.

  Dying held no terrors for me. I’d always thought that dying a second time was the only way I could give any meaning to this phony life of mine.

  Now I’d blown that chance.

  Or had I…?

  Perhaps I could sort this mess out.

  Maybe it was simple after all.

  I knew that Tobe and I shared the same blood type: type A. That was nothing wildly unus
ual, but to me, at that moment, it was a precious ray of hope.

  What if I exploited that coincidence and stage-managed the crime scene? If I did a good job, I could make it look like I was the one who’d been killed and he was a murderer who’d made his getaway.

  The first thing I needed to do was to complete my repair of the saw. When that was done, I pulled on a pair of cotton gloves and set to work chopping Tobe’s body up to make it easy to carry.

  I decided to start with the head. Using a box cutter with the blade at full extension, I sliced around the neck just below the jaw. The mechanics of the job were the same as stripping the power cord of the saw. That, at least, was what I told myself to encourage myself as I began to carve him up.

  When I cut through the main artery, the blood spurted out and spread all over the cement floor. It reminded me of honey pouring out of a knocked-over jar—viscous, sticky, unstoppable.

  The muscles and cartilage were hell to cut through. Just beneath the skin there was this layer of fat. The fat made its way into my gloves and stuck to my fingers; it made my tools slippery and hard to grip; it really slowed me down.

  Thanks to the circular saw, cutting through the bones was simple. All I had to do was squeeze the trigger and push. It would grind its way through even the thickest bones in a matter of seconds.

  Switching between the cutter knife for the soft parts and the circular saw—occasionally supplemented by a chisel—for the bones, I manage to chop Tobe into pieces. I was careful to save some of his blood as I knew I was going to need it later. I found a plastic shopping bag in the garage, so I collected as much blood as I could in that.

  By the time I’d finished cutting Tobe up, the garage floor was awash in gore. I slipped and fell a couple of times. I was covered in blood and as red as a daruma doll.

  I wrapped Tobe’s body parts in the plastic we used for protective sheeting. I’d stripped the body before I started working on it and stuffed the clothes into a paper bag. I put Tobe’s shoes on my own feet: the footprints I left would help create the illusion of Tobe still being alive.

  Then I opened the shutter of the garage and reversed the van so it was about halfway into the garage. I opened the back hatch and carefully slid the body parts onto the lower deck, leaving the head and the left hand on the floor for the time being. They were in line for special treatment.

  Now for the crucial stage!

  I drove the van outside and parked it in the street. Then I went back into the garage and pulled the shutter down behind me.

  I removed the glove from my left hand. I stuffed it into my mouth. I then twisted a towel I’d got out of the van into a rope and put it over my mouth to make a makeshift gag. I tied a knot in the towel at the back of my head and pulled it as tight as I could. The glove in my mouth was sodden with gore. As Tobe’s blood and fat forced their way oozily down my throat, I imagined that I was drinking a toast to all the crimes that the two of us had committed together.

  I wound thick annealing wire around my left wrist, over and over again. I pulled it so tight that the hand felt ready to drop off right there and then—and then I used a pair of pliers to twist it even tighter.

  I reached for the cutter knife.

  My hand was numb and heavy. I held it over a bucket positioned to catch the blood.

  Here goes.

  I made an incision. I was planning to use the same technique on myself I’d used on Tobe, but I kept losing my nerve. My wrist was quickly crosshatched with abortive cuts. My heart was pounding audibly; the blood was careening madly around my veins.

  It’s no good. I can’t do it.

  I forced myself to take a series of deep breaths. I started counting. I told myself I would make the cut when I got to the twentieth breath.

  I heard myself moaning. I had sliced halfway around my wrist.

  Every pore on my body burst opened and gushed vile, greasy sweat. The nerve endings inside the wound were screaming. Screaming. Screaming.

  I had to stay conscious.

  Summoning my reserves of strength, I picked up the electric saw. I carefully slipped the blade into the gaping wound in my inert wrist as it spurted blood.

  I’d already come so far. Why was I being such a pussy now? I wiped my face on my upper arm to get the sweat out of my eyes, then stared at my drooping wrist and the blood-soaked saw blade.

  Do it! Just fucking do it! Squeeze the trigger and push.

  My teeth closed on the glove inside my mouth.

  I screamed.

  My throat ruptured.

  My head split.

  My guts turned over inside me.

  Tears exploded from my eyes.

  But I kept squeezing, kept pressing down.

  The frenzied vibration of the saw traveled up through my elbow to my shoulder and from there around my whole body.

  Aargh!

  I screamed.

  Aargh!

  I bit deeper into the glove.

  Aargh!

  I wanted to escape into madness.

  Aargh!

  At long last, the hand dropped.

  Escape into madness? There was no need. I was mad enough already.

  * * *

  Reiko, Kusaka, and Mishima all climbed into a taxi outside the police station. Reiko asked the driver to take them to the Tama River embankment.

  Throughout the journey, Mishima didn’t say a word. Nor did Kusaka, who was in the passenger seat beside the driver.

  Reiko got the driver to turn right off National Route 15 after Zoshiki Station. Did the road lead to a temple right by the river? He shot a quick glance at the GPS. “That’s right,” he replied. “Anmyoji Temple.” That was the temple the investigators had used as a base the first night of the case.

  The road ended at the base of the sloped embankment. It stretched off in both directions. “Let us out here,” said Reiko. The taxi came to a stop.

  While Kusaka paid the driver, Reiko and Kosuke got out. They walked a few meters until they found some stone stairs. They began to climb them while, behind them, Kusaka ran to catch up.

  From the top of the embankment, they all looked down on the riverbank. It was pitch black.

  While the surface of the river reflected a few lights from the buildings on the opposite side, the area below them was unlit; it was a dark, flat, silent expanse.

  Kusaka pulled out a flashlight. It only lit the ground around their feet, but that was all they needed. Reiko felt conflicted: half of her wanted to solve the case fast, half of her wanted to delay the resolution as long as possible. Whatever happened, she needed to take things one step at a time.

  She discovered that she was still holding Mishima’s hand. Had she been doing so ever since she’d dragged him out of the interview room? No. She’d let go of it when they got into the taxi, then grabbed hold of it again when they got out.

  The skin was rough, the palm thick, the fingers chunky. Reiko’s overwhelming impression was one of warmth.

  It’s the hand of a man who truly works for his living.

  They went down the stairs on the other side of the embankment and then walked left across the flat bank. Reiko was confident that they were heading more or less in the right direction. They could use the flashlight to figure out exactly where to go once they got to the overgrown patch of ground.

  Reiko slipped and nearly lost her footing. Mishima tensed his arm, held her upright. She thanked him. He didn’t reply.

  When they arrived at the overgrown area at the river’s edge, Reiko soon found the gap where the grass was all trodden down. She stopped, turned, and nodded at Kusaka. She’d been intending to go first, but when Kusaka lifted the flashlight and plunged into the gap, she was happy enough to follow him.

  Kusaka was a black silhouette against the white side of the tent. He raised a hand, gesturing for Reiko and Mishima to halt.

  Reiko noticed that the three pairs of socks from her last visit were still hanging on the line. Kusaka stepped up onto the raised patch of ground o
n which the tent was pitched and peered cautiously inside.

  The flaps at the front of the tent were open, just as on Reiko’s previous visit. Kusaka pointed his flashlight inside. The dancing beam was swallowed up. The whole tent emitted a hazy glow.

  It looked like a cube of white light on the riverbank. Reiko thought of those floating lighted lanterns people set adrift in memory of the dead.

  Mishima squeezed her hand.

  Kusaka went in. The beam of his flashlight worked its way methodically around the tent’s interior. A foul stench suddenly assailed her nostrils. Had the wind changed direction? Today she wasn’t going to breathe through her mouth. She was going to take whatever came her way.

  Kusaka eventually stuck his head out of the flap. He nodded wordlessly at Reiko.

  She let go of Mishima’s hand. He turned toward her, a questioning look on his face.

  “Go,” she murmured. Mishima walked toward the tent. Fearfully. Slowly.

  He climbed up onto the raised patch of ground and squeezed past Kusaka into the tent. Kusaka remained by the door, directing the flashlight inside. When Reiko climbed up and stood next to him, he turned to face her, then looked down and quietly shook his head. Reiko noticed that he had a white latex glove on one of his hands.

  “Boss!”

  The cry, which sounded like it had been torn from the physical fabric of Mishima’s body, slowly sunk into the dark waters of river.

  “Oh my God, boss!”

  The wailing became gradually quieter, as if the damp ground were absorbing the sound and breaking it down.

  Kusaka stepped to one side. He gestured for Reiko to come and hold the flashlight for him. She held it pointed into the tent, illuminating Mishima and the area just behind him.

  Kusaka went a short distance away and pulled out his cell phone. Reiko could see his profile against the screen light. His jaw was clenched tight.

  “Kusaka here. We’ve located the suspect, Kenichi Takaoka. He’s dead. Looks like he died several days ago.”

  Reiko heard Imaizumi’s tinny voice at the other end of the line: “Hand the scene over to Forensics and come back here,” it said.

  Kusaka snapped his phone shut and walked back to where Reiko was standing. He sighed.