Six Four (76 page)

The press had also undergone subtle changes. They were still worked up about having stumbled on to an important case, and that had made them more militant, caused them to talk big as they took their cues from Tokyo, yet they were showing signs of being able to rein themselves in when necessary. They still enjoyed laying siege, yet no longer rejoiced in breakdowns. They still exchanged blows, but they would shake hands afterwards. They’d even begun to exhibit a sense of altruism.

But . . .

. . . the true test of the relationship was still to come. Two days earlier, Mikami had gathered everyone in his department for a talk in a cramped basement meeting room.
This stays between us
. With the proviso in place, he had given them the truth about the investigation. He had talked about how it related to Six Four and told them everything about the cover-up Criminal Investigations had perpetrated.

Our relationship with the press dies the day they announce Mesaki’s arrest.
Those were his exact words.
What I want you to focus on is how we rebuild the relationship after that happens.

Suwa had been thunderstruck. He’d navigated the problem of anonymous reporting and even put himself in the firing line when lobbying to get the Press Coverage Agreement signed. He’d grown in confidence and been ready to continue the fight – and his shock had been all the more apparent for it. Even so, Mikami didn’t feel worried. That Suwa was still ready to battle on had been clear in the way he’d dealt with the press the day before, the way he continued to do so today. He would be the next press director. He’d woken up to his true talents.

Kuramae had listened with a pained look on his face; even
then, it wasn’t until Mikami had explained about Amamiya and the silent calls that he’d looked genuinely crestfallen. Mikami had put a hand on his shoulder afterwards.
We don’t know whether that was what happened with the message on Ryoji Meikawa’s answerphone.
He wanted to believe it as much as Kuramae did. He wanted to believe the call had been someone from home.

Mikumo was the only one to give an opinion, her face blushing red.

‘If I learned anything from this it’s that our relationship with the reporters is always going to be like oil and water. If you stir hard enough we can move together, but only for a moment. I think . . . maybe the key is to engineer as many of those moments as possible.’

‘How so?’

‘We need to reach out to them, always . . . we can’t give up, even if our relationship dies, even if they choose to disassociate themselves from us. We need to keep knocking, even when they don’t answer. We can’t give up . . .’

Directly afterwards, Mikumo had gone to the hospital, complaining of a sore throat. When she returned, Suwa had caught a glimpse of her medicine and saw it was to treat cystitis. She hadn’t been able to use the toilet for the duration of that endless press conference. Mikami sympathized, felt worried even, but he still couldn’t stop himself from chuckling at Kuramae’s impromptu comment.

And all the time I thought Mikumo was like Ken Takakura, unable to lie . . .

He was sitting next to her now, both of them typing on computers. Media Relations had been given another computer following the Mesaki case. No doubt the time would come, as Akama had suggested, when they would get one for each member of staff.

‘I’m going upstairs for a bit,’ Mikami said, getting up.

Suwa was still busy with the reporters, but he managed to give Mikami a quick look.

First floor? Fourth floor?

Even further.

Wind gusted over the roof.

Mikami checked his watch. Two minutes after the arranged meeting time of two o’clock, and Futawatari was still to show.

Maybe he wasn’t planning on coming. If so, that only backed up Mikami’s theory.

Futawatari had been an instigator, too.

Now he’d had time to consider things properly, to run through the whole thing a number of times, Mikami had become convinced. Tokyo’s plan to sequester the director’s post. It had to have been Maejima, already in Tokyo on secondment, and therefore in a position to know, who had first sent word to Arakida. Mikami hadn’t found anything to suggest Futawatari had been acting on instructions from Tsujiuchi or Akama – and yet he’d moved quickly into action. The natural conclusion was that Maejima, a contemporary and close friend of Futawatari, had told him about the development, as well as Arakida.

What, then, had a born-and-bred detective like Maejima expected Futawatari to do? The answer was obvious. Stop it from happening. Stop the commissioner’s visit; make sure he didn’t issue his proclamation from above.

If Mikami could establish the link, that would at least explain Futawatari’s mysterious behaviour. He was the ace of Administrative Affairs, the secret overseer of personnel decisions with a modus operandi of working in the shadows, yet he’d jumped brazenly from detective to detective, spreading fear in his wake.
Like a serial arsonist, he’d ignited flames of hatred and directed them towards Administrative Affairs. He’d set off alarm bells. To incite an uprising.

Driven by his actions, Criminal Investigations had stepped up the intensity of its retaliation. They’d drawn closed the Iron Curtain and leaked details of misconduct to the press. They’d even made the misguided threat to set off a ‘letter bomb’ in Tokyo, a final notification of their intent. What, Mikami wondered, would they have had in waiting for the day of the commissioner’s visit if the ‘kidnapping’ had never taken place?

Futawatari’s machinations hadn’t ended there. He’d set his sights on the press. Judging that a Criminal Investigations uprising would be insufficient to secure Prefecture D’s status as Dallas, he’d opted for a double-pronged approach. Relations with the press had been falling apart. The troubles stemming from anonymous reporting had caused the press to threaten a boycott. Futawatari’s goal had been to make powerless anyone trying to defuse the situation, thereby averting the boycott. Media Relations. He’d made Mikami – the press director – his target. Sure, they’d been pieces on the same board, but their repeated meetings had been no coincidence. Usually, it was a toss-up that they would meet once, twice a year. Futawatari had engineered each collision to pique Mikami’s irritation. When Mikami’s anger for the NPA was at its peak – having learned of their plans to take over – Futawatari had gone in for the kill, gunning straight at Mikami’s sympathies as a detective.

Cool down. Nothing bad is going to come of this. If anything, it’ll be a boost for efficiency.

You shouldn’t take it so seriously. It’s a symbol. It hardly matters who actually sits there. The detectives will do their job, regardless of the top. Isn’t that right?

What else had he said?

You’re a perfect example, Mikami.

A fine member of the Secretariat, in anyone’s eyes.

Don’t take it the wrong way. I meant it as a compliment.

Futawatari had wanted Mikami to dwell on his place in the organization. He’d known everyone would assume he was an agent for the NPA, and had used the misunderstanding to full effect. He’d been convinced that Mikami would side with Criminal Investigations, despite his posting in Administrative Affairs. He would have concluded that Mikami would forgo his duties as press director and take action to help his erstwhile department, letting the boycott go ahead and therefore completing Prefecture D’s transformation into Dallas. He’d been single-minded in his efforts to push Mikami into taking action. It was no doubt how the man worked. Even so . . . had all those words – each one a burning-hot poker – been necessary for him to reach his goal? When he found out he’d lost, he hadn’t accepted the defeat, masking his surprise at finding out Mikami had prevented the boycott with a single utterance:
I’ll admit, there was some misjudgement on my part.

All this time, Futawatari had been trying to save Criminal Investigations. He’d been trying to protect the Prefectural HQ. But Mikami felt no obligation to offer him praise or thanks. He’d fulfilled his duty as a member of Administrative Affairs. Nothing more, nothing less.

At least it ended well.
That was what he’d said. After all the planning, all the strategizing, the kidnapping had robbed him of his endgame. Even so, when Mikami retraced it all back to the start, it was Maejima he saw, smiling and waving his hand. He felt no more anger. Everything had come together to cancel everything out; Mikami’s emotional needle hung at zero.

But . . .

One mystery remained. One thing he still couldn’t understand. The weapon in Futawatari’s possession. Where could he have got wind of the Koda memo? It couldn’t have been Maejima. The information was top secret, the knowledge restricted to Matsuoka and the last eight directors of Criminal Investigations.
Urushibara, Koda, Kakinuma, Hiyoshi . . . Mikami felt sure Futawatari wouldn’t have succeeded in getting anything from the four members of the Home Unit. Who did that leave?

If he had to suggest a name . . .

Mikami looked up. The first thing he did was check his watch. Twenty-three minutes late. He looked back up. The man’s slight frame seemed to cut through the wind as it approached.

‘All done cleaning up?’ Mikami called downwind, choosing to use the line he’d already prepared.

Futawatari stopped, leaving about three metres between them. He put a hand on the viewing pillar. No one came to see it, but the concrete cylinder was marked with the bearing and direction of every city and town in the prefecture.

‘Not everything, not yet. People do like to leave a mess.’ From his expression, it was clear his mind was already grappling with the next issue. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

‘No apologies for being late?’

‘You’ll know the reason why soon enough.’

‘Uh-huh.’

Mikami moved closer and put a hand on the pillar. Futawatari was looking away from the wind.

If he had to suggest a name . . .

. . . it would be Michio Osakabe. With his own eyes, Mikami had seen Futawatari come and go from the director’s house. He couldn’t think of two men more diametrically opposed, but there was one point to connect them. Before too long Futawatari would assume his place as director of Criminal Investigations. They had met as one director to another, reaching beyond the constraints of time. They must have . . .

Mikami knew Futawatari wouldn’t admit to anything, even if he asked. Besides, that wasn’t why Mikami had called him to meet up.

‘Have you started work on next spring’s transfers?’

Futawatari showed no signs of a response. He became a brick
wall. It was no doubt a habit he’d developed over time. Erecting a barrier the moment anyone raised the subject.

‘You know you made a right monkey of me with all this.’

‘Hmm?’

Futawatari’s eyes came up. Mikami stared right into them. Black and white, distributed evenly.

‘You had me jumping all over the place.’

‘I see.’

‘I’d say you owe me one.’

‘I don’t ask for favours, and I’m in no one’s debt.’

‘There was that one time, when I lent you money for a train ticket.’

‘I paid that back.’

‘The day we went to see the Giants play in the Eastern League.’

‘Definitely paid that back, the next day.’

‘Anyway, are you getting ready for the spring?’

The corners of Futawatari’s mouth came up, catching the meaning. ‘Maybe you’d do better to focus on how many balls Matsui hits this season.’

Mikami grunted, laughing.

‘All this time I’d had you pinned as an Ichiro fan . . .’

Ha!
This time it was Futawatari who laughed. He went to say something but stopped before any words came out.

‘I hear it gets cold in New York.’

Futawatari didn’t answer.

The conversation had ended. They stood side by side but apart. Futawatari’s eyes were narrowed, his jaw slightly raised. He might have been enjoying the breeze. He might have been thinking up solutions for whatever problem was next on his list.

The kind of people who made it to the top, the
survivors
, were those who kept their secrets close. The moment you let go of them, whether they were your own or someone else’s, was the moment you lost. Standing next to Futawatari, Mikami couldn’t help but think that was how it all worked.

But . . .

Futawatari was still standing there. He looked to be deep in thought, his hand still resting on the viewing pillar. Mikami glanced down to the man’s feet. Spotless. His shoes weren’t new, but the well-polished black leather reflected clearly the dull light of the overcast sky.

‘Maybe you don’t owe me anything. How about you let me owe you, for a change?’

The man’s keen features came around, as though he’d been waiting to hear the words.

‘I’m not going anywhere. Don’t transfer me out of Media Relations.’

The Six Four investigation would continue, at least beyond the window for drawing up the plans for the next batch of transfers. The time would come, however, when Prefecture D would find itself cast fourteen years into the past, when it would make an enemy of the press. Mikami would be there to see it through. As press director, he would stand with Matsuoka at the announcement.

Futawatari was already walking away. He’d said nothing, and his expression had remained unchanged; all he’d done was flick his jacket collar up against the wind.

His insubstantial frame passed through the doorway. Mikami watched him go before he started to walk. Their shoes had been mirror images. No doubt the same was true of the weight of their convictions.

Mikami’s hand came up to his forehead. He looked up at the sky.

Snowflakes, dancing.

The white brought to mind his discovery of the Christmas rose.