Hidden Nexus (31 page)

Tuesday 4
^th
January 12:15am

The small team of investigative detectives met up in central Yokohama in one of Inspector Saito’s favourite
Shabu-shabu
restaurants. Saito ordered for the three of them, selecting a variety of choice slices of
tender
rib eye
 
steak.

‘Would you like some tofu with it?’ he asked the others.

‘Sounds good,’ said Mori.

‘And some Chinese cabbage, chrysanthemum leaves, onions, carrots and shitake mushrooms.’ He passed the menu back to the waitress.
‘It’s a long time since I’ve eaten out with friends.’

Mori sat with a mix of feelings. On the other hand he felt strangely flattered to be described as a friend but equally as concerned for his colleague that having not seen him for three months he still fell into that category.
Junsa
Saito said nothing but wondered what the protocol was surrounding the payment of the bill. She’d never been in such an expensive place before. She expected that Saito would pay but he was so unconventional that she didn’t know really what to expect.

The waitress came back not soon after and placed a heater on the table upon which she then placed a pot of boiling broth made with kelp. In front of each of them she put down a dish of sesame seed sauce into which the thin slices of meat or vegetable would be dipped, and eaten, typically, with steamed
 
white rice. Once the meat and vegetables were eaten, the leftover broth from the pot was customarily combined with the remaining rice, and the resulting soup eaten last. It was one of Inspector Saito’s favourite winter meals.

‘So Mori, come on, what did you find?’

‘Nothing that helps, I’m afraid, sir. At least nothing that helps to pin things on Ozawa. Aside from the fact that he lied to us again, it appears he’s completely innocent?’

‘How so?’

‘Well, after his ‘meeting’ in Tokyo he was definitely picked up by his chauffeur and he was taken straight home.’

‘And where is that?’

‘Ofuna. They got there around eight, after which he spent the rest of the evening with his father. I even confirmed that with his father, too.’

‘The only change to the story is that he says he was with Yamada Eri in a hotel – the Ginza Bellevue hotel. The meeting he talked about was entirely fictitious. They made love – rough sex, he confirmed, before they went their separate ways.’

‘Okay-’ Inspector Saito tilted his head back and stroked his neck and chin. ‘Yamada Eri still had the note in her diary... Ozawa has lied to you previously and also got his staff to mislead us. Is there a chance that he’s still lying to you?’

Mori thought about this for a second. ‘The chauffeur seemed quite honest to me. I’m more inclined to believe him than Ozawa, but also Ozawa’s father confirmed his alibi, remember. The times seem to check out. I do need to confirm his reservation at the hotel, however. That’s the only bit to confirm, but his story pretty much does seem to hang together now.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure. It’s always possible that he’s got to both his chauffeur and his father. I wouldn’t bet my house on it but I’d still back both of them over Ozawa.’

‘So Ozawa definitely didn’t kill her then,’ clarified Inspector Saito.

‘It seems not,’ confirmed Mori. ‘Or at least if they made love, rough love, whatever, it wasn’t Ozawa that went after her and killed her. I think we can count him out of the equation completely.’

'Okay, so what? This leaves us back with the Yoshihara Yakuza as being the perpetrators. We're now discounting the whole rape motive?'

'It looks like this to me, sir?'

Saito lapsed into a deep period of thought and the other two knew better than to disturb him. For several minutes they focussed on their eating, picking the meat and vegetable out of the broth and dipping it into the sesame sauce.

'So all we have then is the Yakuza link then,' Saito repeated. 'It was the Yakuza who killed her off, under instruction from Ozawa.'

'But why?' asked
Junsa
Saito.

'Like I said before - Ozawa saw her as a risk. She runs away from their love-making, perhaps she was running away from the whole 'project' to draw in YPB.'

'I'm still not sure,' said sergeant Mori.

'So what do you suggest? Yamada Hideki!' responded Saito angrily, slamming his chop sticks on the table.

Mori looked disconsolately back at the other two. It couldn't possibly be right that Sakamoto had been right all along, could it?

'There must be some third party that we're just not aware of yet.' he suggested lamely.

'Well I hope so - but need I remind you we only have one and a half days before the Chief Super pulls the plug on us and we seem to be as far away from the truth now as we were yesterday morning.’

Tuesday 4
^th
January 1:00pm

The forty-storied, 170-meter tower was proud to revel in its imperious role, standing as it did as the tallest building amongst the cluttered high-rises that spanned out haphazardly from around the Yokohama station complex. It was an impressive monolith of shimmering metal and reflecting glass that made its surrounding, but less dominant, siblings appear like the doomed-to-be-single frump at a country wedding. To add to its magnificence the building was also equipped with some of the world's fastest elevators with their maximum speed of 40 km/h, which could take the gawping visitor from ground to top floor in a matter of seconds. There were many taller buildings than the Princess Tower in Yokohama, but none more proud of the advanced engineering techniques that had been employed to proof the glimmering structure against the threat of earthquakes, a wise precaution given that Japan could be shaken by as many as a
thousand a year.

It wasn't the impressive nature of the architecture however, that occupied the minds of the twelve men, or more accurately, the two groups of six men who sat facing each other across the table of business. The two sides had met ten minutes previously, had bowed and exchanged business cards before entering the plush and somewhat over-indulgent, perhaps corpulent, meeting room of the twentieth floor of the Princess Tower. There was little tension in the faces of the men - there was little of anything in the faces of the men. Each of them were in their fifties and wore their hair combed back, in varying degrees of thinning, in varying shades from black to grey. Some creamed their hair into place, some not. Some wore glasses, some not, but all sat apparently impassively, their countenance severe, blank and inscrutable. At an initial glance that was how it appeared. At an initial glance that was what was assumed - twelve men meeting, twelve men sitting down to business, twelve men serious in their intent. That was how most meetings of this type always appeared – be-suited men, solemn faced, hunched and clutching creased documents within buff folders within polished, leather briefcases.

It was, nether-the-less, abundantly clear who the senior players on each ‘side’ were. These two particular men sat back in their seats, opposite each other, allowing their younger and more thrusting counterparts to do the talking and as the meeting progressed they even appeared to have nodded off, both sitting with their eyes gently closed, while their colleagues, on either side continued their discussions unperturbed.

The circuitous conversation, embroidered with compliment and courtesy, centred on the re-engagement in talks concerning merger between the two companies which the twelve people represented. Nothing had been agreed - indeed to the outside observer nothing much would be agreed in such definitive terms and yet the two sides would come away with a thorough understanding as to how the future ground lay.

Right from the off Kenji Ozawa sensed that his counterpart – Kagawa, Deputy Chief Executive of YPB was nervous and withdrawn. His countenance and demeanour reminded him exactly of how his predecessor had been. He was instantly reminded of his final conversation with Noboru Nakasone which he was able to recall in some detail.

‘What about the other issue?’ Nakasone had incessantly asked at their last meeting. ‘The licences!’

Ozawa had nodded but had remained composed. ‘The licences are very important – integral to a successful expansion,’ he’d agreed.

‘And?’

‘I know of some investment opportunities that may help us.'

‘Investment opportunities?’

‘Investment opportunities!'

There had been a slight pause as the two men had looked at each other, not directly in the eye, but as near as they were ever going to get.
'So desu ka
- I see,’ Nakasone had said leaning back in his seat once again and glancing sideways to his colleague.

'I’ve set up a meeting with Watanabe san,’ Ozawa had continued. ‘It’s useful to know his opinion on things.'

‘Watanabe?’

‘Watanabe!’

‘
So desu ka.
’ Nakasone had slipped into a thoughtful silence again, stroking his jaw and chin as he did so. ‘And his opinion is important?’

Ozawa had taken a sharp intake of breath. It had been fairly typical of Nakasone to prevaricate and pause at every single step up the mountain.

‘The licences are pivotal,’ he’d quietly insisted again.

It had been like a boxing match, but one where neither man had moved a muscle. The protagonists had sat opposite each other trading blows but each man had remained essentially still and talking not much beyond the monosyllabic.

‘
So desu ka
. Watanabe – the politician!’ Nakasone had repeated and repeated, returning to the theme of the conversation.

‘He’s a useful man to know.’

‘No doubt!’ Yet again Nakasone had looked decidedly uncomfortable. ‘When you say useful… you mean-’

‘-He’s useful. Good returns! I understand he is loyal to his business associates.’

‘Business associates!’ Nakasone had looked away with a barely hidden look of disgust written across his solemn face, indeed the whole meeting had then descended once more into silence with each man, and one woman, thinking through what had just been discussed. 'Watanabe san, you say,' Nakasone had continued sucking his teeth considering what he knew about the politician. ‘Patronage!’ He’d added for emphasis.

That particular meeting had continued for a further hour after which it had finally broken up.

Two days later Nakasone had confirmed that he was formally withdrawing from the merger talks. At that point Ozawa had not been surprised. Disappointed rather than surprised. It had simply resulted in putting plan B and plan C into action – and that is exactly what he had done.

Of course he rued the collateral. That had been unfortunate. But the plans had been worth it, after all YPB were back around the table and although Kagawa appeared nervous Ozawa was confident in his abilities to bring him around.

But the collateral had been unfortunate
.

His thoughts wandered away from the present discussions that were taking place around the table. As per usual he closed his eyes whilst the others continued. Instead he pondered on the questions he’d been asked by Sergeant Mori not two hours before and considered whether or not his strategy had been the correct one.

He cast his mind over the events of that pivotal day – the events of 30
^th
December.

Was his deceit the correct way forward? He had made too many mistakes already!

He and Eri Yamada had entered the building through the smoothly opening electric doors and walked across to the elevators with their footfall echoing over the green, blue and white mosaics of the tiled floor.
 
From the outside the building had looked like any other. On the inside everything had been done to give the visitor the impression of entering a place of power with stained, oak-panelled walls adorned with portraits of stern-faced men, each looking identical to the next.

Whether or not it was the building that had spooked her he hadn’t known but Eri Yamada had definitely appeared jumpy and disconnected.

'But he's dead! Don't you understand?' she’d whispered, as they’d stood in the elevator.

'It was just his bad luck. His death had nothing to do with us.'

‘Nothing to do with us! You instructed me to arrange it.’

‘Did I? Did I say that in such explicit terms?’

‘You said that you wanted him to have an accident.’

'And you really think the gas explosion was down to us?’

‘Well, yes, which means it's partially my fault that he’s dead?’ Her voice had wavered as she'd spoken.

‘I don’t think there is any proof of that. How do you know that the gas explosion didn’t just happen anyway? He was just unlucky, that’s all. Still I can’t help thinking that this is fortunate for us.’

Eri Yamada had looked back at him in total disbelief.

'Is that the way you think? You were only dealing with the man a few weeks ago. I suppose you’re going to say that it was a dog’s death. Have you so little compassion that you can only see the business angle?’

Ozawa had smiled, recalling the conversation they’d had concerning Kumi Kizaro. ‘Of course I have compassion. I just don’t need to show it like you do. But he was an idiot not to have joined with us and therefore a problem that needed to be solved. Like I said it is fortunate for us that he has died. That’s the truth of it whether you like it or not!’

‘You talk as if his death had nothing to do with us. You talk as if my discussion with Fujiwara was of no consequence at all. Do you really believe that Nakasone’s death wasn't anything to do with us?'

'It almost certainly wasn’t. Our 'friends' prefer something a little more personal – a gentle warning, a threat not dissimilar to
Sokaiya
. I’m not convinced that they would go in for anything so dramatic as an explosion. It’s far too public and you’re far too jumpy. You need to calm down.’

‘I can’t calm down, I-’

At that he’d suddenly pulled her roughly aside and spoken severely into her ear. ‘Look! Pull yourself together. We have business to attend to here and whatever you might think and whatever you might feel you need to keep your opinions to yourself. You’re playing with the big boys now. This is business. This is survival. Whatever falls our way we take it, whether or not we engineered it!’

It was the first time he had ever spoken angrily to her and she’d appeared shocked at his response. No doubt she’d been desperately hoping for an understanding and comforting arm around her shoulder – maybe even a reprieve from the high-stakes meetings. He hadn’t been about to relent.

‘I don’t think I can. I don’t think I can do this anymore.’ She’d turned away from him, her head in her hands.

‘What did you think you were getting yourself into when all this began?’

‘I don’t know,’ she’d looked back at him, her eyes large and red and her face streaked with tears. ‘It was just work, I didn’t think-’

‘How do you imagine I managed to grow the company so quickly over the past decade? It wasn’t through playing by the rules, that’s for sure. Every single terminal, every single route has had to be fought for and I mean fought for – not just polite cups of coffee in company meeting rooms but deep down, dirty and physical. Why do you think I hire muscular street kids? They have to intimidate and deal with any threats and any violence that comes their way.’