Six Four (59 page)

‘But . . . that’s impossible.’ She was almost crying. ‘They’re not listening to anything we say. They’ll never listen to me—’

‘Tell them individually, one by one.’

‘They’re unanimous in saying they won’t sign an official agreement. They won’t stop shouting. They won’t call their head offices.’

‘They’ll be coming whatever happens. Every paper will send all the reporters they can spare. Most likely, they’re already on their way.’

No answer.

‘You don’t have time to think; do it now. The life of a seventeen-year-old girl is hanging in the balance. We can’t arrest the kidnapper. What we
can
do is make sure the press don’t get her killed.’

He started the engine without waiting for an answer.

‘You’re right. I’ll do what I can.’

Her voice was obscured by the shouting in the background, but her determination was clear.

Mikami accelerated sharply. He pulled past the swirls of dead leaves and out of the Prefectural HQ. He rode the prefectural highway east. If traffic was light, it would take less than half an hour to reach Station G.
The life of a seventeen-year-old girl is hanging in the balance.
The words had left a bitter taste in his mouth. Not because he’d deployed them to coax Mikumo into action. Not because he felt any less concern for C now the idea of a hoax had been planted in his mind. It felt real.
Ayumi’s smile. Shoko’s death
mask. High-school uniforms. Hair decorations, the
shichigosan festival.
Girls walking in the streets. A bright-red coat in a shop window.
Mikami’s vision conjured images, mixing with memory and emotion to give C a tangible reality, furnishing her with warmth and a pulse. And yet . . .

Something was interfering with the picture.

Do they even exist?

Mikami spun the wheel, putting his foot down to overtake two cars ahead of him.

The Investigative HQ were placing too much emphasis on the theory that C had orchestrated the kidnapping herself.
They’d started with the conclusion and worked their way backwards.
Seeing Mikura’s calm detachment, suspicion had wormed its way into Mikami’s head. Under any normal circumstances, it would suggest he was holding some kind of trump card. If they did have some kind of irrefutable evidence that it was a hoax, then there was no case. No need to set up an Investigative HQ. And yet they had staged a dramatic occupation of the assembly hall. They had demanded that the press sign a coverage agreement, and been careful also to float the possibility that the case was a hoax.
We can stop the commissioner’s visit.
Someone had had the idea. They’d decided C could play the role of instigator and were taking advantage of something they knew was a hoax to magnify the disturbance.

Mikami put a cigarette in his mouth. His hand stopped before he lit it.

But was that really it?

Was it really just chance?

It felt too perfect. Why now? The commissioner was due to arrive and claim the director’s head. But a kidnapping occurred the day before the visit. A kidnapping and ransom, the kind of case that happens maybe once in every ten years in the regions. And the kidnapper was imitating Six Four, playing off the ostensible reason for the commissioner’s visit:
Get 20 million yen ready by
midday tomorrow.
Midday was the time scheduled for the commissioner’s arrival. The lines might have been a carbon copy of Six Four, but the timing had to be more than simple chance.

They had made it look as if C was the perpetrator of the hoax, when in fact it was on a completely different scale . . .

Mikami stopped at a red light. He lit the cigarette he had in his mouth.

Do the girl and her family exist?

The answer was perhaps yes
and
no. The family existed, but not as victims of a kidnapping. It seemed possible, because Mikami knew what the police were capable of when they put their mind to something. It wouldn’t be difficult to procure a victim. The investigation was a sham. Or worse . . . He didn’t want to believe it, but the hypothesis stuck because he knew they
could
do it if the decision had been made.

The case was a kidnapping. Their first step would have to be setting up a ‘victim’s house’. As NTT would maintain records of any calls made, they wouldn’t be able to use the phones of police officers or their relatives, or anyone belonging to police-affiliated organizations, for the ‘victim’s phone’. The quickest way to do it would be to use someone already in deep cover. It didn’t have to be someone in the underworld. They would prefer some citizen they had on a leash, someone in their debt who had a weakness they could exploit, someone under their control. That way they would have no reason to fear double-dealing, or the truth slipping out. For this particular role, a married couple who lived outwardly normal lives.

Mikami thought back to one of the guards outside the assembly hall – Ashida from Organized Crime. Goggle Eyes. He had once saved a family who were running a
ryokan
business from going through with a suicide pact. The man had liked to play around and had got himself involved with a girl who was part of a Yakuza scheme; they had started blackmailing him. They raped his wife, took photos, filmed every last detail. The man had
approached Ashida in private, and he worked behind the scenes to settle things with the Yakuza. They agreed to leave the man alone, but on the condition that Ashida turn a blind eye to the blackmail and violence. Ashida received a commendation from the station captain when, three months later, a couple of guns were found in one of the Yakuza group’s lower-ranking offices. Mikami had later heard that Ashida had his own private room in the
ryokan
, and that the photos and tape of the owner’s wife were kept there in a safe.

The case wasn’t even unique. There were many couples out there hiding an unsavoury background or running from debt who would suddenly find life difficult if their secrets got out. The longer your service as an officer – particularly in the case of detectives – the greater the number of potential ‘collaborators’ in your network. Most crimes would never happen without there first being some kind of secret.

Yes, it would be easy enough to get a couple to act as parents.

All they needed then . . .

Mikami stubbed out his cigarette and started forwards. The road was looking busy; he pulled in front of a truck, then back into the left lane.

All they would need then . . . was a daughter. A son would have worked just as well. If necessary, they could have got by without a kid at all, just used three different phones. One could be designated as C’s, and a detective could use it to call in as the kidnapper. If they wanted to avoid the risk of using an active police officer, they only needed to ask their network, or someone already retired.

There was another possible scenario. If there
was
a ‘C’, someone who hadn’t come home and who didn’t know that her parents were collaborating with the police, the whole kidnapping could have been created around her disappearance. She would have had to ‘misplace’ her phone after leaving home two nights ago. People dropped their guard; it wouldn’t have mattered whether
she kept it with her or in a bag, and people aren’t as sensitive as animals when they’re asleep. Getting the phone would have been easy for a detective working theft, someone who knew every trick in the book. If that was the case, she might have gone to a
koban
to report the phone missing. Or stolen. Whatever the case, she would remain ‘kidnapped’ unless the Investigative HQ decided actively to seek out the information.

Mikami realized he was moving into territory beyond normal speculation. That, if anything, the theories were closer to pure fancy. But, even then, he couldn’t laugh them off.

Because the report was anonymous.

Any tale of make-believe, however far-fetched, could come alive when hidden behind a screen of anonymity. It could walk freely. Any and all developments were plausible. When it came to weaving a tale, anonymity was omnipotent, a delusion itself, one that allowed for an infinity of choice.

Through force of habit, Mikami eased off the accelerator. The billboard for the Aoi Café swept into the corner of his view. The starting point of the Six Four pursuit. If the kidnapping was real and not a hoax, if the kidnapper genuinely hoped to re-enact Six Four, then, come tomorrow, the café would be filled for the first time in fourteen years with investigators posed as couples.

If the kidnapper was Criminal Investigations, the café would be empty. The kidnapping wouldn’t progress to the stage of the ransom. They only had to maintain the pretence until midday tomorrow, the time of the commissioner’s scheduled arrival; at that point, they could be certain the visit would be cancelled. Still, it was likely that everything would be decided before the day was even out. Once word came in of the commissioner’s decision to cancel, the case would suddenly begin to resolve itself.

Mikami let the car pick up speed again. Twenty-five to four. It was taking longer than expected.

Their objective achieved, the Investigative HQ would turn to damage limitation. Having used and enraged the press, they
would use disappointment to sedate them. First, they would announce that they had taken C into custody, that the kidnapping had been fake, organized by her. That was where the idea of the hoax – already seeded – would come into its own. They would issue statement after statement, until the press were sick and tired of it all.
The girl had been acting alone; no one had forced her. She’d only wanted to hurt her parents. She’d copied an old case she found on the internet. She’d got the helium cans playing bingo at a party. She was sorry; she regretted what she’d done.

And so on . . .

They would use the girl’s age as a shield, maintaining the family’s anonymity. The story would never make the mainstream news.
Press and police led on wild-goose chase during alleged kidnapping
. The papers would write sullen, anecdotal articles at most. Their anger would wither away, as would any desire to follow up the story. Even if they did want to chase it up, they would lack any direction to explore it with.
Genbu. A self-employed father. Second-year student at a private high school. Seventeen years old.
The city council and the school would be bound by confidentiality and would function as brick walls. And Criminal Investigations could convince the family to leave the prefecture.

More than anything, they had the power of fiction on their side. There was nothing to guarantee that the girl’s age, or the information pertaining to her schooling, matched anything on record. There was no proof she even existed.

This isn’t Admin’s business. Nobody needs to know, ever.

Mikura’s words would become fact. The press would never know the truth, not to mention the public. They’d chosen kidnapping. They’d known they would have to stage a kidnapping. It felt more and more plausible. The public wouldn’t hear about it until it was all over. A tornado was raging in the Prefectural HQ, but it was nothing more than a storm in a teacup. No one would die and no one would be hurt. It would be reported as a hoax, so there would be no public outcry. It had impact enough to stop the
commissioner in his tracks, but it carried no risk of future recrimination. It was the only viable option.

Criminal Investigations was getting ready for the endgame. Tokyo would find itself in the midst of a hurricane. They would recoil in blind horror when they were told the hoax had been the final play of the Prefecture D Criminal Investigations Department.

That’s right . . . they’re planning to tell Tokyo the truth.

Keeping the deception hidden was like not telling an enemy state that you’d successfully developed weapons of mass destruction. It meant nothing unless it convinced Tokyo to abandon its plans. Criminal Investigations would find a way to confess, in the process making sure Tokyo never suggested another Six Four inspection. They would send Tokyo a decapitated head, force the conclusion. How would the NPA react? Would it take it in silence, bury it deep in the ground? Or would it seek revenge and take Arakida’s head, put it on public display?

Mikami gazed upwards.

The apex of Station G was visible in the distance, the
Hinomaru
flag twitching in the wind. Two minutes past four. The heavy clouds meant it was already half dark.

Matsuoka’s the key . . .

Mikami muttered the words. He was sure Matsuoka would help unlock the truth, put Mikami’s delusional theories to rest with a single word. It went without saying that he would have nothing to do with the sham investigation. Thinking back, it was from Matsuoka that he’d first heard the phrase.
We’ve been accorded the hands of god. We wash in dirty water but that doesn’t mean we let it taint us. No matter how desperate you are to make an arrest, regardless of if the detention cells are empty, the one thing you must never do is permit a sham investigation.

It came down to this: if Matsuoka was in Station G, heading up the front line of the investigation, and if his expression was that of a man hard at work, Mikami could dismiss the idea of Criminal Investigations staging a fake kidnapping.

He’ll be there. I need him to be.

Matsuoka would refer to his own personal morality when choosing whether or not to divulge the family’s details. That was why Mikami thought he had a chance. Regardless of whether or not he had proof that it was the girl’s hoax, Matsuoka’s core ideal was that a person had to reap what they sowed. He wouldn’t treat the girl any differently because she was young. If Mikami confronted him one on one, honestly and rationally, there was a chance he’d cave in. And his position meant he could make the decision alone.

Mikami lit a cigarette.

He had no intention of repeating his earlier mistake. Barging into Criminal Investigations would only result in a repeat performance of the fiasco outside the assembly hall. But how was he to secure a private meeting? He needed somewhere to catch the lead commander of a kidnapping investigation by himself. It was possible that would be more difficult than getting him to talk.