Hidden Nexus (37 page)

‘A staff member?’

‘That’s right.’

Inspector Saito turned in his tracks. ‘And are you able to account for Watanabe san’s movements?’

‘Usually.’

'And to your knowledge do you know if Watanabe would have been at a Diet session late last Thursday?'

'I doubt it, sir.'

'You seem pretty sure.'

'I'm almost certain. I tried to locate him at the Diet building myself but I couldn't find him anywhere.'

'Really?'

'Really!'

‘Listen! We might have some work for you,’ said Saito smiling and putting his arm around Mitsui. ‘Perhaps we need to find a convenient bar to hear more of your story.’

It was always good to have a man on the inside.

Tuesday 4
^th
January 5:43pm

It had been a painstaking job to work through the now numerous plastic bags containing samples of Hideki Yamada’s clothing and it seemed, at least to forensic scientist Satoshi Otsuba, that the faster he worked the larger the pile became. Be that as it may he persevered with his task working as steadily and methodically as he could.

The clinical environment of the lab was a sealed environment but not just in terms of biology and chemistry. Little of what went on in the investigations was ever transmitted to the forensic team. They remained therefore quite literally objective, dictated solely by what the pure science was telling them.

Otsuba san opened up what he hoped would be the last bag containing one of Hideki Yamada’s ties. At a first glance it appeared different to the others he’d been handling. For one thing the tie appeared to be of a different quality. Most of the others, if not all of the others had been of a quite fine silk, purchased from a variety of high-class concessions. The tie he now had in his hand, at first touch, felt to be of a lot lower quality. It also appeared stretched and taught whereas the others had lain quite flat.

It was with a keener interest therefore that he examined the tie a lot more closely and could see quite clearly that at its centre was a definite area of trauma to the material. Breathing harder now he first scanned over it with his magnifying glass and then with a lot more precision with his microscope.

Fifteen minutes later he was quite readily able to confirm that the tie had been used to knot a stone within it – at its centre, and that more conclusively than that, the same tie had traces of skin quite clearly upon its surface.

Without doubt this was the murder weapon that Inspector Sakamoto and his team had been searching tirelessly for.
 

Tuesday 4
^th
January 10:43pm

Kenta
Fujiwara stood unbalanced, tottering to and fro, with his shirt removed, attempting to admire his back tattoo in the mirror behind him. It wasn’t something he did often nor out of vanity, but more out of an act of dogged reassurance.
Usually this was a simple act of merely turning his head, but saturated in alcohol he drunkenly swayed like a tree in a typhoon.

In complete contrast to the
sakazuki-goto
the tattooing had been excruciating – a near mutilation, as tradition had dictated that it be carried out with a bamboo needle, something that was at least five times as painful as any tattoo gun. The work had taken a number of years and dozens of sessions to complete but to have his back adorned with a master's work was more than enough to earn the respect of his peers.

That’s what he had hoped.

His red, swollen eyes traced the intricacies of the dragon motif getting lost in the mottled colours of the dark blue and green. In times of doubt scanning his tattoo in such a way assisted in reminding him of the hard work he had put in and his commitment to the cause, but he desperately needed to re-discover that commitment – quickly, and he so urgently needed to regain the respect of his peers. Like rice slipping through a hole in the sack then down cracks in the floor, both commitment and respect were scattering fast
.

The plans that he’d had were reaping scant reward. Rumi Park was still missing and as for the other woman… and Junko Iida… well… he no longer wanted to think about it.

The brash ringing tone of his mobile phone cut through his troubled thoughts.

‘
Moshi Moshi
’

‘Fujiwara?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re required at Headquarters.’

‘What? Now?’

‘
Ima!
Immediately.’

The phone went dead.

Twenty-five minutes later he cautiously entered the spacious and well appointed office building in central Yokohama, branch office of the Yoshihara Yakuza.

Unlike other criminal organisations that tended to hide in the dark, the Yoshihara Yakuza were open about their existence and their business and had offices open to the public, complete with signs out front proclaiming their name and membership lists made available for scrutiny.

He took the elevator to the third floor office of his
Oyabun
as ever noting the affluence of his surroundings and as ever struggling to hide his growing and deep-seated resentment. He knocked on the door and entered the room and was surprised to find a number of men sitting within, chief of whom was Hatoyama himself – head of the whole organisation.

For a brief moment his heart experienced a pin-prick of joy.
Was this promotion?
But it was only a pin-prick of joy. Immediately he clocked the seriousness of each and every face.

His demotion came swiftly.

‘
Baka!’
shouted his
Oyabun
spitting in his face, his fiery eyes piercing what cosy thoughts Fujiwara had momentarily possessed. Fujiwara’s own eyes widened in disbelief and then dulled to a picture of subservience.

‘I carried out the orders as they’d been given!’ he stammered.

‘
Baka
!’ his
Oyabun
stated again. ‘What have we said about unwarranted attention! The police will be all over us.’

‘I-’ he dropped to the floor prostrating himself in front of his superiors, ‘
Gomenasai!
Honto ni gomenasai
.’

‘
Yubitsume
!
’ ordered his
Oyabun
coldly
laying down a small, clean cloth on the table.

Fujiwara looked firstly to the cloth and then back to the eyes of his
Oyabun
. He dared not look at the others, least of all Hatoyama.
He drew in a deep breath and then laid his hand onto the cloth, face down. His
Oyabun
then pushed an extremely sharp-looking knife across the table. Once again Fujiwara looked at the cloth and then at the knife and once again back to his
Oyabun
. He knew he had to go through with it. To refuse would be unthinkable. He picked up the knife, tensed every muscle in his body and then cut off a portion of his left little finger from just above the top the knuckle. There was a sickening crunch as the knife cut through the bone. He then wrapped the severed portion in the cloth his hand had been resting on and submitted the ‘package’ graciously to his
Oyabun
.

The origin of the
Yubitsume
stemmed from the traditional way of holding a Japanese sword. The bottom three fingers of each hand were used to grip the sword tightly, with the thumb and index fingers slightly loose. The removal of digits starting with the little finger moving up the hand to the index finger progressively weakened a person's sword grip. The idea was that a person with a weak sword grip then had to rely more on the group for protection - reducing the freedom for individual action.

It was a very rapid and very public demonstration of demotion and apology.

Wednesday 5
^th
January 3:30am

A short, stocky man sat outside shivering in the cold morning, nervously smoking cigarette after cigarette. The snow still lay in the street. It gave him no sense of child-like joy. His evaporating breath mingled with the cigarette smoke but he was beyond noticing such things. His heart was racing for no apparent reason, as it usually did nowadays, while his mind struggled to keep pace with a series of depressing, out-of-control thoughts.

Minutes earlier, he had been on the phone with his closest confident, who had now finally turned against him – cast him astray, just like the rest of the world seemed to have done.
It was all too apparent that he was facing a painful and shameful future, cut loose from the organisation he had worked so tirelessly for over the years. He had let them down and now they were letting him down. Betrayed and betrayal! The future
, finger bent and beckoning, only promised imprisonment in a cell of unbearable misery that he could no longer see a way out of.

Fujiwara was struggling to stay in one piece.

He had struggled to stay in one piece over the course of the past week.

He was
trying
not to recoil against the looming world which had suddenly appeared to be unrecognisable. Normality was something he associated with the past - something he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

That inner sense that contented itself with the existence of a happy marriage, good kids, lovely home and a bearable job had become lost in a mist of fear and sadness. There was some point, some line, that he had crossed, which had transformed him into a person he no longer understood.

Images of his disturbing past flashed unpleasantly through his mind.
Little things from his childhood - misplaced values, self-esteem issues, betrayals by trusted people, humiliations and events he had missed out on suddenly appeared to be uppermost in his mind. They twisted the reality.

He’d been cut loose then and he was being cut loose now.

All the contentment had drained away. All the commitment and resolution had drained away.
All of a sudden he was angry, scared, confused and helpless all rolled into one. He saw himself a worthless person, a person who was no good, a person who attracted errors and misjudgements.

A person who made mistakes!

Sweat poured readily from his body despite the freezing air. His breathing became more rapid as his shaking hand pulled once more at the rapidly diminishing cigarette. Who would miss him? No-one! He was doing those few, who meant something to him, a favour. He was a burden. He was a piece of crap. He was unlovable. He didn't know if he had a soul or if it would ascend to a better place, but what he was sure of was that he had to leave his tortured mind that had so unexpectedly turned on him.
The pain of living had overcome the will to live. Unless an idiot dies he won't be cured. There was no choice here, not really – there was only one way out of this unbearable situation.