False Impression (26 page)

1971-73,
MA Economics.
Joined Maruha Steel Company 1974,

Director
1989, Chief Executive Officer 1997, Chairman 2001.
Anna scrolled
down to Maruha Steel. Last year’s annual balance sheet showed a turnover of
nearly three billion dollars, with profits of over four hundred million. Mr
Nakamura owned 22 per cent of the
company,
and according
to Forbes was the ninth richest man in the world.
Married
with three children, two girls and a boy.

Under other
interests, only two words appeared, golf and art. No details of his fabled high
handicap or his valuable Impressionist collection, thought to be among the
finest in private hands.

Nakamura had
made several statements over the years, saying that the pictures belonged to
the company. Although Christie’s never make such matters public, it was well
known by those in the art world that Nakamura had been the under-bidder for Van
Gogh’s Sunflowers in 1987, when he was beaten by his old friend and rival Yasuo
Goto, chairman of Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Company, whose hammer bid
was $39,921,750.

Anna hadn’t been
able to add a great deal to Mr Nakamura’s profile since leaving Sotheby’s. The
Degas she had purchased on his behalf, Dancing Class with Mme Minette, had
proved a wise investment, which Anna hoped he would remember. She wasn’t in any
doubt that she had chosen the right man to help pull off her coup.

She unpacked her
suitcase and selected a smart blue suit with a skirt that fell just below the
knees, a cream shirt and low-heeled navy leather shoes; no make-up, no
jewellery. While she pressed her clothes, Anna thought about a man she had met
only once, and wondered if she had made any lasting impression on him. When she
was dressed, Anna checked herself in the mirror. Exactly what a Japanese
businessman would expect a Sotheby’s executive to wear.

Anna looked up
his private number on her laptop. She sat on the end of the bed, picked up the
phone, took a deep breath and dialled the eight digits.

‘Hai,
Shacho-Shitso desu,’ announced a high-pitched voice.

‘Good afternoon,
my name is Anna Petrescu. Mr Nakamura may remember me from Sotheby’s.’

‘Are you hoping
to be interviewed?’

‘Er, no, I
simply want to speak to Mr Nakamura.’

‘One moment
please, I will see if he is free to take your call.’

How could she
possibly expect him to remember her after only one meeting?

‘Dr
Petrescu, how nice to hear from you again.
I hope you are well?’

‘I
am,
thank you, Nakamura San.’

‘Are you in
Tokyo? Because if I am not mistaken it is after midnight in New York.’

‘Yes, I am, and
wondered if you would be kind enough to see me.’

‘You weren’t on
the interview list, but you are now. I have half an hour free at four o’clock
this afternoon. Would that suit you?’

‘Yes, that would
be just fine,’ said Anna.

‘Do you know
where my office is?’

‘I have the
address.’

Where are you
staying?’

The
Seiyo.’

‘Not the usual
haunt for Sotheby’s, who, if I remember correctly, prefer the Imperial.’ Anna’s
mouth went dry. ‘My office is about twenty minutes from the hotel. I look
forward to seeing you at four o’clock. Goodbye, Dr Petrescu.’

Anna replaced
the receiver and for some time didn’t budge from the end of the bed. She tried
to recall his exact words.

What had his
secretary meant when she asked, ‘Are you hoping to be interviewed?’ and why did
Mr Nakamura say, ‘You weren’t on the interview list, but you are now’? Was he
expecting her call?

Jack leant
forward to take a closer look. Two bell boys were coming out of the hotel
carrying the same wooden crate that Anna had exchanged with Anton Teodorescu on
the steps of the academy in Bucharest. One of them spoke to the driver of the
front taxi, who jumped out and carefully placed the wooden crate in the trunk.

Jack rose slowly
from his chair and walked across to the window, making sure he remained out of
sight. He waited in anticipation, realizing it could well be another false
alarm. He checked the taxi rank, four cars waiting in line. He glanced towards
the entrance of the health club and calculated he could reach the second taxi
in about twenty seconds.

He looked back
at the hotel’s sliding doors, wondering if Petrescu was about to appear. But
the next person who caused the doors to slide open was Crew Cut, who slipped
past the doorman and out onto the main road. Jack knew she wouldn’t take one of
the hotel taxis and risk being remembered – a chance Jack would have to take.

Jack switched
his attention back to the hotel entrance, aware that Crew Cut would now be
sitting in a taxi well out of sight, waiting for both of them.

Seconds later, Petrescu
appeared, dressed as if she was about to attend a board meeting. The doorman
escorted her to the front taxi and opened the back door for her. The driver
eased out onto the road and joined the afternoon traffic.

Jack was seated
in the back of the second taxi before the doorman had a chance to open the door
for him.

‘Follow that
cab,’ said Jack pointing ahead of him, ‘and if you don’t lose it, you can
double the fare.’ The driver shot off.
‘But,’ continued Jack,
‘don’t make it too obvious,’ well aware that Crew Cut would be in one of the
numerous green vehicles ahead of them.

Petrescu’s taxi
turned left at Ginza and headed north, away from the fashionable shopping area,
towards the city’s prestigious business district of Marunouchi. Jack wondered
if this could be the appointment with a potential buyer, and found himself
sitting on the edge of his seat in anticipation.

Petrescu’s green
taxi turned left at the next set of lights and Jack repeated firmly, ‘Don’t
lose her.’ The driver switched lanes, moved to within three cars’ length of her
car and stuck like a limpet. Both cabs came to a halt at the next red light.
Petrescu’s taxi was indicating right and, when the lights turned green, several
other cars followed in her wake. Jack knew Crew Cut would be in one of them. As
they swung into the three-lane highway, Jack could see a string of overhead
lights awaiting them, all of them on green. He swore under his breath. He
preferred red lights; stopping and starting was always better when you needed
to remain in contact with a mark.

They all moved
safely through the first green and then the second, but when the third light
turned amber Jack’s taxi was the last to cross the intersection. As they passed
in front of the Imperial Palace gardens, he tapped the driver on the shoulder
in appreciation. He leaned forward, willing the next light to remain green. It
turned amber just as Petrescu’s taxi crossed the intersection.

‘Go, go,’
shouted Jack as two of the taxis in front of them followed Anna across, but
instead of the driver pressing hard down on his accelerator and running the
lights, he came meekly to a halt. Jack was about to explode, when a police
patrol car drew up beside them. Jack stared ahead. The green Toyota had come to
a halt at the next light. He was still in with a chance. The lights were
running in a sequence and all changed within seconds of each other. Jack willed
the patrol car to turn right so they could make up any lost ground, but it
remained resolutely by their side. He watched as her green taxi swung left onto
Eitai-dori Avenue. He held his breath, once again willing the green light not
to change, but it turned amber and the car ahead of them came to a halt, having
no doubt spotted the patrol car in its wake. When the light eventually returned
to green, the longest minute Jack could remember, his driver quickly swung
left, only to come face to face with a sea of green. It was bad enough that
he’d lost Petrescu, but the thought that Crew Cut was probably still on her
tail caused Jack to turn and curse the patrol car, just as it turned right and
drifted away.

Krantz watched
attentively as the green taxi edged across to the inside lane and drew up
outside a modern, white marble building in Otemachi. The sign above the
entrance, Maruha Steel Company, was in Japanese and English, as is common with
most international companies in Tokyo.

Krantz allowed
her taxi to pass the front of the building before she asked the driver to draw
into the kerb. She turned and watched through the rear-view window as Anna stepped
out. Her driver walked to the back of the taxi and opened the trunk. Anna
joined him, as the doorman came running down the steps to assist. Krantz
continued to watch as the two men carried the wooden box up the steps and into
the building.

Once they were
out of sight, Krantz paid her fare, stepped out of the car and slipped into the
shadows. She never kept a cab waiting unless absolutely necessary. That way,
they were unlikely to remember her. She needed to think quickly, in case
Petrescu suddenly reappeared. Krantz recalled her brief. Her first priority was
to repossess the painting. Once she had done that, she was free to kill
Petrescu, but as she had just got off a plane she didn’t have a weapon to hand.
She was satisfied that the American no longer posed a threat, and briefly
wondered if he was still roaming around Hong Kong in search of Petrescu, or the
picture, or both.

It was beginning
to look as if the painting had reached its destination; there had been a full
page on Nakamura in the file Fenston had given her. If Petrescu reappeared with
the crate, she must have failed, which would make it that much easier for
Krantz to carry out both of her assignments. If she walked out only carrying
her briefcase, Krantz would need to make an instant decision. She checked to
make sure that there was a regular flow of taxis. Several passed her in the
next few minutes, half of them empty.

The next person
through the door was the taxi driver, who climbed back behind the wheel of his
Toyota. She waited for Petrescu to follow, but the empty green cab swung onto
the street, in search of its next customer. Krantz had a feeling that this was
going to be a long wait.

She stood in the
shadows of a department store on the opposite side of the road and waited. She
looked up and down a street full of designer label shops, which she despised,
until her eyes settled on an establishment that she had only read about in the
past and had always wanted to visit: not Gucci, not Burberry, not Calvin Klein,
but the Nozaki Cutting Tool Shop, which nestled uneasily among its more recent
neighbours.

Krantz was drawn
to the entrance as a filing is to a magnet. As she crossed the road, her eyes
remained fixed on the front door of the Maruha Steel Company in case Petrescu
made an unscheduled reappearance. She suspected that Petrescu’s meeting with Mr
Nakamura would last some considerable time. After all, even he wouldn’t spend
that amount of money without expecting several questions to be answered.

Once across the
road, Krantz stared into the window, like a child for whom Christmas had come
three months early.
Tweezers,
nail clippers,
left-handed scissors, Swiss Army knives, long-bladed tailor’s shears, a
Victorinox machete with a fifteen-inch blade – all played second fiddle to a
ceremonial samurai sword (circa 1783).

Krantz felt that
she had been born in the wrong century.

She stepped
inside to be met with row upon row of kitchen knives, for which Mr Takai, a
samurai’s descendant, had become so famous. She spotted the proprietor standing
in one corner, sharpening knives for his customers. Krantz recognized him
immediately, and would have liked to shake hands with the maestro – her
equivalent of Brad Pitt – but she knew she would have to forgo that particular
pleasure.

While keeping a
wary eye on the Maruha Company’s front door,

Krantz began to
study the hand-forged Japanese implements razor-sharp and deceptively light,
with the name NOZAKI stamped into the shoulder of each blade, as if, like
Cartier, they wished to emphasize that a counterfeit was not acceptable.

Krantz had long
ago accepted that she could not risk carrying her preferred weapon of death on
a plane, so she was left with no choice but to pick up a local product in
whichever country Fenston needed a client account closed indefinitely.

Krantz began the
slow process of selection while being serenaded by suzumushi, bell crickets, in
tiny bamboo cages suspended from the ceiling. She stared back at the entrance
door across the road, but there was still no sign of Petrescu. She returned to
her task, first testing the different categories of knife – fruit, vegetable,
bread, meat – for weight, balance and size of blade. No more than eight inches,
never less than four.

In a matter of
minutes, Krantz was down to a shortlist of three, before she finally settled on
the award-winning Global GS5 fourteen centimetres, which it was claimed would
cut through a rump steak as easily as a ripe melon.

She handed her
chosen instrument to an assistant, who smiled – such a thin neck – and wrapped
the kitchen knife in rice paper.

Krantz paid in
yen. Dollars would have drawn attention to her, and she didn’t possess a credit
card.
One last look at Mr Takai before she reluctantly left
the shop to return to the anonymity of the shadows on the other side of the road.