Fishing for Stars (43 page)

Anna remained stern-faced and composed. ‘I believe you wish me to sign something. I should like to read it first, thank you,’ was all she said.

‘My dear, of course, always wise, though I’m sure you’ll find it isn’t too onerous, just taking care of the details, tying up the loose ends, what? Haw-haw-haw!’ The tiny man who barely came to my waist seemed entirely in control as he withdrew two copies of a document from a scuffed old-fashioned leather briefcase and handed them to Anna, who flicked through the dozen or so pages of each of the two legal missives.

‘There must be ten pages or more,’ Anna said, surprised.

‘Load of rubbish, my dear. Ignore all the First Party, Second Party gibberish. Just read the first and the last pages.’

‘If it’s not pertinent, then why is it included?’ Anna asked.

The question seemed to surprise
Miyazaki-san
for he paused and scratched the side of his head. ‘Damned if I know. Ah, yes, it’s because the law is an ass! Haw-haw-haw! Confounded nuisance, what? Shouldn’t worry, harmless jabberwocky.’

‘First and last pages did you say?’ Anna repeated with a hint of a smile. She sat at the boardroom table and took a fountain pen from her handbag, read the first and last pages, and wrote her initials after the full stop at the end of both pages to prevent anything being added, then signed her name to both documents, handing the four pages to
Kinzo-san
to witness. Once he’d done so, she slowly tore the remaining pages into several smallish pieces, gathering them into a neat pile.

I waited for the explosion but instead Konoe Akira’s tiny lawyer chuckled, a look of genuine admiration on his face. ‘I say, jolly good! Well done! Bravo! I’ve been simply
dying
to do that for thirty-five years! I shall tell my client that he was very foolish to trifle with a woman like you. I don’t suppose you’d care to have lunch with me, would you?’

Despite herself, Anna laughed, though I could see she was close to breaking point. ‘Thank you, not today,
Miyazaki-san
,’ Anna said quietly, refusing in impeccable Japanese.

‘Then I live in hope,’ he replied, still in a genial voice, signing the documents and then tucking his copy back into his briefcase. Instead of bowing we shook hands all round, and as he took Anna’s, he declared, ‘I say, you are a simply splendid specimen of a woman! Haw-haw-haw!’ Then, thoroughly pleased with himself, he turned abruptly and marched out of the boardroom.

Comic opera though this proved to be, I wanted to pick the arrogant runt up by the scruff of the neck, dangle him from the window, spats gleaming in the sunshine, and drop him onto the pavement ten storeys below. I was simply confounded by the little man’s astonishing sangfroid. Though he couldn’t have known about the multiple murders Anna had witnessed just a couple of hours before, the fact that she’d endured three days in captivity should have alerted him to her acute distress. I will forever admire her for her extraordinary self-control. If I hadn’t realised before, I now knew Anna was capable of achieving anything.

‘I’m sorry, darling. I should have straightened his teeth or at the very least thrown him out of the boardroom window.’

‘Thank you for abstaining, Nicholas. It’s been a very strange day. I’m not sure I could have handled another murder.’

Kinzo-san
, who spoke no English, seemed to think all had gone well. Pointing to the pile of paper on the boardroom table he started to chortle then to laugh. ‘
Hai
,
Anna-san
, that was very amusing. You are a strong woman.’

‘Thank you for your help,
Kinzo-san
. We are greatly in your debt, but I must now ask permission to leave,’ Anna said firmly.

‘Your suit, with the . . . er . . . stains, we will have it cleaned and sent to the hotel?’

‘No, please, throw it away!’ Anna cried, her expression suddenly changing. ‘Nicholas, let’s get the hell out of here, I’ve had my fill of gauche Japanese males for one day. Isn’t there a park near the palace? I need to sit in the sunlight,’ she said in English.

We bought two expensive bento boxes and cartons of iced green tea, then took a taxi to the small park beside the Imperial Palace. Seated on a bench we ate lunch and Anna, in a calm, almost dispassionate voice, recreated the scene of the beheadings and the shotgun blast. I kept glancing at her to see if she was all right, reaching for her hand, trying hard to control my emotions, worried that she appeared rather too calm. But she looked fine, totally in control, occasionally stopping to chew or take a sip of tea. I listened as much as possible without comment, wincing at some parts, but trying my best to conceal my shock and horror at what she’d so recently endured. Finally she rose and placed what remained of her lunch in a nearby rubbish bin. ‘Let’s go back to the hotel, Nicholas. I think I need a rest,’ she announced in a voice she might use after a busy morning’s shopping.

I rose and took the three or four steps to where she stood, the sun silvering her dark hair. ‘Oh, Anna, Anna!’ I put my arm around her.

I sensed her resistance. ‘Nicholas, please, can we go back to the hotel now? I need to lie down.’

‘Yes, of course, darling. While you rest I’ll pack and phone the airport. Let’s get the hell out of this bloody country.’

It was as if an electric shock ran through her body. She pushed me from her, crying, ‘No! No, Nick, I have unfinished business!’

‘Anna, what are you talking about?’ I said, shocked at her sudden reaction, then all my pent-up emotions burst from me in angry protest. ‘Ferchrissake! Haven’t you had enough? Let’s get out of this godforsaken fucking city! The shit hasn’t stopped hitting the fan since we got here!’

‘No, Nick! I’ve waited too long. I’m not giving up now!’ she said, her voice cold.

I struggled to stay calm. ‘Anna, you’ve been through a torrid time. Take it easy, darling. We’ll talk about it further when we get to the hotel.’

‘Nick, I won’t change my mind. Never! You understand?
Never!
’

‘Wait, I’ll hail a taxi. Wait there!’ I repeated, running towards the park gates. Three Nicks in a row – she was in a bad way. Shit, what next? She was going to collapse! Gotta get her back!

Despite my attempt at small talk Anna remained stubbornly silent on the way to the Imperial Hotel, her arms crossed and her head turned away from me while she steadfastly gazed out of the taxi window.

I knew, of course, what her ‘unfinished business’ meant; she was determined to front Konoe Akira, and I didn’t know how to persuade her to drop this absurd notion, to walk away, let sleeping dogs lie, bury the hatchet and all the other clichéd metaphors for giving up. I trembled to think what might happen next, and for a moment I thought of asking
Fuchida-san
to use his influence to have the authorities deport us, frogmarch us onto a plane and ban us from entering Japan forever and ever and ever! Until hell froze over! But I reminded myself that I’d already screwed up big time by using the
yakuza
without first thinking things through.

There had to be another way to persuade Anna to abandon her plan to confront the man who had so perversely affected her life over the past twenty-five years. Konoe Akira was slow poison and now I knew, or rather, felt certain that more of the same wasn’t going to be therapeutic. So far he had compounded her problems. Despite her almost detached description of what had happened to her kidnappers in the warehouse, I was soon to discover that witnessing such horrific violence had further damaged her psyche.

On our return to the hotel we were greeted with the usual subservience by the doorman and the instant petrification of anyone in hotel livery we passed. Anna marched ahead to the lift in silence, we rose in silence, and walked to our suite in silence. Anna went directly to the bathroom, washed off her make-up, creamed her face and slipped into her nightgown. I realised the heroin was acting as a powerful sedative and that was probably why she had seemed so calm in the park.

I began to sense that her sudden anger wasn’t only a reaction to her kidnapping; she’d made up her mind to go through with the assignation with her former mentor and simply wouldn’t tolerate being thwarted. Despite or perhaps because of the fact that she now knew for certain Konoe Akira was behind the kidnapping, she was determined to face up to him. It was going to take much more than my most determined efforts to change her mind. With the silent treatment continuing she slipped into bed, adjusted the covers, and within a couple of minutes fell into an exhausted sleep.

The following morning I woke with a start to find Anna sitting up in bed beside me howling like an infant. I reached over to embrace and comfort her but she resisted furiously, then threw herself onto her stomach and began to sob uncontrollably. I switched on the bedside light, then got up, opened the curtains to let the first of the sunshine in and walked around to sit beside her, feeling pathetically redundant and not knowing what to do next. Each time I attempted to touch her she pulled away. ‘Please, Anna, tell me what happened again, tell me everything. Get it off your chest properly, darling,’ I begged, but all to no avail. Two hours passed and still she sobbed and wailed and resisted every effort to comfort her.

Finally I grew impatient, stood up and shook her shoulder. ‘Come on, enough!’ I urged. ‘Sit up!’ Instead she lashed out blindly, her arm catching me square in my already injured and plum-coloured crotch. I leapt backwards clutching my manhood with both hands, gasping and biting back the agonised tears. Anna continued sobbing, her face buried in the monogrammed hotel pillow. If she heard my anguished groans she ignored them.

It took several minutes before I could hobble from the bedroom to the lounge to get to a telephone where Anna couldn’t hear me. I dialled the number on the card Dr Honda had given me the previous evening, and asked him in a loud whisper to come to the hotel as he had previously advised he would and to bring a strong sedative or sleeping potion with him, explaining that my partner, I think I said my wife, was severely traumatised by the sight of my injuries and needed to sleep. I would wait for him in the foyer, I said, and rang off.

Dr Honda, in full morning suit minus top hat, appeared half an hour later, although this time a blue and white polka-dotted silk handkerchief spilled from the breast pocket of his coat. In addition, a gold chain, presumably attached to a fob watch, stretched across the ample expanse of his waistcoat. Either I hadn’t noticed it previously, or he’d neglected to wear it the previous day. I immediately thought of Anna’s calling card from Konoe Akira, the fob watch given so generously to her mentor so long ago, which had been the beginning of all our recent trouble.

I stood to greet him. ‘Thank you for coming, doctor. I hope I didn’t take you from your breakfast?’

He replied to my greeting with a
‘Hmmph!’
.

‘It was good of you to come at such short notice,’ I said in a second attempt at amelioration.

He responded to this with a further
‘Hmmph!’
then added, ‘It is of no importance,’ reminding me that in Japan all decisions are based on fear or respect. The rules of precedence were so rigid that, with my supposed
yakuza
connections, Dr Honda would possibly, had he been a surgeon, have left the operating theatre mid-incision to attend to me.

‘Do you have the sleeping tablets . . . er . . . the sedative, doctor?’ I anxiously enquired.

On the previous occasion we’d met he’d hardly said a word. Whether this was because he was intimidated by the surroundings and the presence of
Fuchida-san
, I couldn’t say. This time, in the neutrality of the hotel foyer, he replied, ‘As far as I am concerned I have come to treat you,
Duncan-san
. With this in mind I have brought the necessary dressings. The sleeping potion is quite another matter and I will need to see the patient. If you please, can we proceed to your hotel room?’

‘My partner is deeply distressed, doctor. Perhaps you can attend to me in the male toilet here in the foyer and leave me to give her the tablet?’

Dr Honda turned slowly, looking down at the shiny caps of his black shoes protruding from his white spats. He said firmly, ‘I must remind you that I am a medical doctor and the answer to your question is no! We will proceed to your room please, otherwise I must return immediately to my half-eaten breakfast.’

I had quickly grown so accustomed to authority, so infected by my own self-importance, even though it was merely borrowed from my association with the
yakuza
, that I found myself unjustifiably angry. I had learned in a matter of days how to dish it out (how easily the characteristics of the bully are acquired), and now I was being disobeyed, challenged, or more truthfully, my bluff was being called and I didn’t like it. Then, almost immediately, I felt ashamed and then grateful that the little doctor, with his sartorial taste fixed firmly in the 1930s, was using his authority as a conscientious medical practitioner, regardless of who I might be or the threat I might present to his welfare.

‘Of course, immediately,’ I replied, suitably chastened.

He examined Anna by turning her onto her back after she had ignored his request to do so herself. He took her pulse, peeled back her eyelids, took her temperature and put his stethoscope to her breast.