Puppet Master vol.1 Read online

  　Now Machiko was crying with great convulsive sobs. Yoshio shifted his grip on the receiver. His hands felt slippery from the caustic soda. They were always like that even though he wore rubber gloves.

  　“Have the police been in touch?”

  　“No, they haven't,” Machiko answered sniffling, her voice tremulous. “I just saw it on TV. But it was a woman's body.

  　“On the morning news, was it?”

  　“Yes.”

  　“Where?”

  　“Somewhere in Sumida, Okawa Park I think they said.”

  　Yoshio blinked. He knew Okawa Park. It was only about twelve or so minutes away by car. It was a well-known spot for cherry blossoms, and he'd been to a hanami party there with the Association─the year before last, wasn't it?

  　“It's been madness there all morning,” Machiko said in a small voice. “Crawling with reporters.” She sounded a little calmer now. She was always like this lately, getting all worked up and weepy, then suddenly appearing to resign herself to the situation and going quiet again. Then getting upset again. This wasn't a good tendency, thought Yoshio.

  　“That, um … I mean …” he mumbled, unwilling to say the word “body.” “You said it was a woman. Was it a young woman?” He couldn't bring himself to ask if she was around the same age as Mariko.

  　“Seems so. But it was only a part of her …”

  　“A part of her?” Yoshio repeated, his voice louder than he'd intended. His voice bounced off the concrete floor in the hush of the kitchen.

  　“You heard right. What they found this morning was an arm.”

  　Kida was standing in the doorway looking at him anxiously, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. He must have overheard. Soundlessly he mouthed, “Is it Mariko?”

  　Yoshio shook his head, and said aloud, “Don't know. Machiko's a bit confused.”

  　“No I'm not,” said Machiko at the other end of the line. Her voice began to break again, “It's just that what they found this morning was a woman's arm.”

  　“But we don't know that it's Mariko. Don't get so worked up, hey.”

  　“But Dad─”

  　“Look, if there are any developments the police will be in touch, so we'd better just wait, okay? Don't think about it too much.”

  　“What do you mean, don't think about it?” Machiko's voice rose to a wail.

  　Yoshio closed his eyes. They were close, but still Yoshio was seventy-two and Machiko forty-four and they often felt self-conscious with each other. While he could feel the raw pain she was suffering, he struggled to find the right words to comfort her.

  　“M-m-my daughter's been gone for … it's been three months now─and you're telling me not to think about it?”

  　“Look, I know. I know!”

  　“Don't tell me you know─you have no idea what it's like to have a daughter gone missing.”

  　Machiko was becoming incoherent, her voice rasping, and although he couldn't see her face, he knew very well that tears were rolling down it. He also knew that she had no one else left to open up to, which just made her even more unhappy. And made it harder for him to know what he could say to soothe her.

  　“Shall we go to see the police?” he cut in. “If it was in Okawa Park, the police in this area must be handling it. I'll go with you. Or shall I give Detective Sakaki a call first?”

  　“Okay,” Machiko said in a small voice. “I'll call him. He might know something.”

  　“He should at least be able to tell us how to go about confirming … uh … what they found.”

  　“Yes, I'll be sure to ask him. After that I'll go over to your place. Will the shop be all right?”

  　“Sure, Taka's here to take care of things.”

  　“Oh, right. Of course he is,” Machiko's voice caught in her throat. “What am I saying?”

  　“Just try to calm down. Have you let Shigeru know?”

  　Machiko didn't answer. Yoshio said nothing and waited. After a while, she said, “No need.”

  　“You should. He's her father, after all.”

  　“I don't know where he is now.”

  　“What about calling his workplace?”

  　“Even if I tell him,” Machiko said obstinately, “he won't come. It's just wasted effort. It's okay, Dad, if you come with me I can do it without him.”

  　Yoshio glanced at the old Rolodex cardholder beside the phone. It looked good, but wasn't much use as a phone directory. Still, the contact number for Shigeru Furukawa, Machiko's husband, must be in there somewhere. Maybe he should call him himself …

  　Machiko added sharply, “And don't you call him either, Dad.”

  　Yoshio sighed. “All right.”

  　They lapsed into silence. Yoshio was just thinking about bringing the call to an end, when Machiko said in a shaky voice, “Dad?”

  　“Mmm?”

  　“It is Mariko, isn't it … the body they found. It has to be.”

  　Fighting back a rising lump of emotion, Yoshio said quietly, “Look, don't jump to conclusions. You shouldn't be fretting about something that may not even have happened.”

  　“But it's got to be Mariko. What am I going to do if it's her?”

  　“Machiko─”

  　“I know it's her. Call it a mother's intuition. It's Mariko. That's why─”

  　“Well, let's talk to Detective Sakaki and go to see the police. Get yourself ready, okay?”

  　“Okay,” Machiko said meekly, just as she had as a child, and then hung up. Yoshio put the receiver down with a sigh.

  　“Hey Boss,” said Kida, “Have they found out something about Mariko?”

  　Yoshio shook his head. He couldn't trust himself to speak immediately and stood there blankly, his arms limp at his sides. Kida stood waiting in the doorway, clutching the towel around his neck in both hands as if steeling himself.

  　“You know Okawa Park in Sumida?”

  　Kida immediately nodded. “Sure I know it. We went to a hanami party there once, didn't we?”

  　“They found an arm there this morning. Seems it's big news on TV. It's a woman's, might be Mariko's.”

  　“Ah,” said Kida noncommittally. He wiped his face with the towel, then repeated, “Ah.”

  　“We don't know that for sure, but anyway Machiko's worked herself up into a state.”

  　“I'm not surprised. After all, it's her daughter─” Kida started, then hung his head. Of course, Yoshio already knew that only too well. “It's tough on you too, Boss, I know.”

  　Yoshio glanced at the TV, thinking that perhaps he should turn it on and watch the news─but then he thought better of it. Anyway they'd be going right over to the police station. If he saw something awful before that, he'd end up as shaken as Machiko, and that wouldn't do either of them any good.

  　“It's getting on for three months now since Mari went missing,” murmured Kida, looking at the Tofu Maker's Association calendar on the wall.

  　“Today it's exactly ninety-seven days,” replied Yoshio.

  　Kida looked like he'd been slapped in the face. “You're counting the days, Boss?”

  　In the living quarters upstairs there was another calendar like the one hanging in the office. Ever since his only granddaughter had gone missing, Yoshio had been marking off the days with diagonal strokes, one by one.

  　“I hope Mari'll come home,” said Kida, then hurriedly added, “She will, I'm sure of it.”

  　Yoshio looked at Kida, but couldn't think of any appropriate words to say in response. He'd used them all up. So he said just, “Let's finish up. Have you turned off the boiler?”

  It had been ninety-seven days earlier, June seventh. Mariko Furukawa, a young woman of twenty, had called home from a public phone outside Yurakucho Station on the JR Yamanote Line. It was half-past eleven at night, a Friday. Even in the busy Ginza shopping district, which closed up much earlier than, say, Shinjuku or Roppongi, there were still a lo
t of people in the street, and the station was brightly lit. Her mother Machiko had answered the phone, and had had to repeat her questions several times. Mariko could barely hear with all the noise going on around her.

  　“Sorry, I hadn't intended to be so late,” Mariko had told her. “I'm at Yurakucho now. I'm on my way home.”

  　“Are you alone? Aren't you with anyone from work?”

  　“Not today,” Mariko said. Her voice was clear and untroubled, but she sounded slightly drunk.

  　“Take care, okay?”

  　“Yeah, will do. Run a bath for me, will you? And I could really do with a snack too─how about some ochazuke? Please Mom!” she said, and hung up. She must have used a coin rather than a telephone card, since Machiko remembered hearing the beeps indicating her money had run out.

  　Afterwards Machiko had turned on the bath, and since rice and green tea on its own wasn't nourishing enough, had prepared some extra food that could be heated up when Mariko got home. She'd then gone through to the living room to watch TV. The late-night news show was running a feature on smart ways to save money during a recession.

  　The Furukawa household was about a five-minute walk from Higashi-Nakano Station on the JR Chuo Sobu Line. The road from the station to their house ran alongside the railway tracks, and was quite deserted at night. Like any mother Machiko fretted about her daughter coming home alone late at night. Mariko had just begun working that April. Though she was still finding her feet, she had started going out more with her colleagues and rarely came straight home at the end of the week.

  　Machiko, too, was finally beginning to get used to the changes in her daughter's lifestyle, and accepted that she'd been enjoying a Friday night out on the town. At first, she hadn't paid the clock any particular attention. From Yurakucho to Higashi-Nakano, even accounting for changing trains, late-night service, and the walk at the end, Mariko should be home within the hour. Mariko had called at half past eleven, so should be home by half past twelve.

  　When it was after half past twelve and she still hadn't arrived, Machiko wondered whether the silly girl hadn't missed her stop. She looked at the clock. Twelve forty. Then she went back to watching TV. She looked at the clock again. Twelve fifty-two. She stood up and went to the front door to make sure the outside light was on. Then she went back to the living room and lit up a cigarette. She was a light smoker, getting through about ten Caster Milds a day.

  　Again she looked up at the clock, this time not taking her eyes off it. The second hand silently made two rounds from twelve fifty-three to twelve fifty-five. Then for the first time she thought, She's really late.

  　She couldn't concentrate on the TV anymore, and in any case, now that the news had finished, all that was on were shrill, boring programs. Come to think of it, Mariko had said just that morning over breakfast that there was an interesting late-night movie on that night. You have to see it, she'd said. Machiko wasn't confident she could stay up until two thirty, and said she'd have to record it. Mariko had said in that case she'd need a new videotape. The only tapes we have here have been reused so many times the quality isn't any good, so I'll pick up a new one.

  　Oh right, she said she was going to get a tape, Machiko thought. There was a convenience store on the way home from the station. Maybe she'd gone there? That's why she was a bit late. That must be it.

  　One o'clock. Ten past. Twenty past. Could the convenience store be all that crowded? Could it take that long, really?

  　Machiko went to the front door, slipped on some sandals, and went outside. The streetlights glowed blue-white in the deserted street. Turning around, she saw the television screen flickering through the lace curtains over the living-room window, and the clock next to it: it was almost one thirty.

  　A bright house. A dark street.

  　My daughter isn't coming home.

  　“Mariko!” she murmured out loud. And that was the start of a long, long night.

  Two hours after Machiko had called, Yoshio was in the walk-in refrigerator next to the kitchen when he heard the sound of a car outside. He poked his head out of the door to see a white Corolla backing into the parking space there.

  　It was Machiko, with Tatsuo Sakaki in the driver's seat. Twisting his body to look behind him, he caught sight of Yoshio and his frown deepened as he bobbed his head in recognition.

  　Yoshio felt a solitary weight drop in his chest. It wasn't a terribly heavy weight, more like the small lead lump used in carp fishing that you kneaded into shape with your fingertips. The really heavy weight was the one that had sunk to the depths of his chest when Mariko had gone missing. It had not moved or floated up or even remotely ruffled the surface of the water since. It had simply been there, always visible in the dark water whenever he cared to check. Pulling it up would just make it heavier, and beneath it slept something that had been terribly and cruelly crushed─if he did pull it up this thing would come up with it and he'd be forced to face it. And so he had just continued staring at the unchanging surface of the water.

  　But now, the small weight he felt when he saw Sakaki had formed tiny ripples on the surface of that water. Ripples that not even Machiko's agitated phone call two hours earlier had raised. Sakaki also thinks that it might be Mariko who they found in that park. Otherwise he wouldn't have gone to the trouble of coming here together with Machiko.

  　Tatsuo Sakaki was an MPD detective in the Community Safety Division at Higashi-Nakano Police Station. He'd told Yoshio he was forty-five, but he looked older, possibly due to his thinning hair. He was about the right age to be Yoshio's son, and since they were both stocky and shared similar physiques, they had been mistaken for father and son on more than one occasion.

  　Machiko had phoned Yoshio the morning of June eighth when Mariko still hadn't come home. By that time she had already called around to all of Mariko's new friends. She knew that Mariko wasn't with any of them. Yoshio had told her to contact the police right away.

  　Mariko was an only child, and with no siblings to compete with she had grown up utterly spoiled. Surrounded by adults, she'd been everybody's pet. As a result, she often gave people the impression of being self-centered. On the other hand, she was only too aware of how important she was to her parents, her grandfather, and everyone else in her life. Therefore, whenever she was running behind schedule she'd developed the custom of always, without exception and to the point of being neurotic about it, informing anyone and everyone who might possibly have reason to be upset with her. If she was going to be late, even by just ten minutes, she would let the person concerned know. It was ingrained in her that lots of people worried about her. If it hadn't been for that, there was no reason why a twenty-year-old woman out with her friends or on a date would make a point of calling her mother when she was on her way home.

  　In short, it was strange for Mariko to just not come home without saying anything. No, it was more than strange. If the boyfriend she had just waved goodbye to had come back wanting to spend more time with her tonight, and Mariko herself felt the same way, she would definitely have called her mother back to let her know her plans had changed and that she would be much later coming home. That was Mariko. Even at the height of her period of adolescent rebelliousness, she'd been incapable of leaving the house without saying anything. And that time when she'd gotten into a big fight with her mother and gone to spend the night at a friend's place, she had called home─just to say belligerently don't worry, she wasn't hanging out in the entertainment districts. That was the sort of daughter she was.

  　Then, at the end of last year Machiko's husband Shigeru had walked out, leaving mother and daughter alone together. Their daily lives didn't change all that much as a result, but it did mean that Machiko's life centered even more on her daughter. Mariko was irritated by this, but not to the point of breaking her usual custom and causing her mother undue worry.

  　This was why Yoshio had told Machiko to go straight to the police. They might not take he
r seriously, but she should hammer it home to them that in this regard Mariko was meticulous and it was unthinkable that she would stay out the night without calling home. Then he'd asked Kida to look after the shop and had rushed over to Higashi-Nakano Police Station himself.

  　That was where he had met Tatsuo Sakaki. He was sitting in a small interview room facing Machiko, whose eyes were red from crying, hanging his head as though it were all his fault. Yoshio had taken an instant dislike to him, partly because he looked so scruffy, but mostly because he worked for the Community Safety Division. A twenty-year-old woman had suddenly disappeared right in the heart of Tokyo. Why the hell was the Community Safety Division─a lightweight department set up to handle complaints, little better than the ward office─dealing with this? It wasn't like they'd come about a lost kitten. When Sakaki further explained that his division investigated runaways, Yoshio hit the roof. “What kind of idiot would run away after purposely calling to say she was on her way home? She had intended to come home, but never made it!” He barely managed to stop himself from saying out loud that something must have happened to her. Machiko had her face buried in her handkerchief.

  　“I fully understand how you feel,” Sasaki said. What a dim-witted thing to say, thought Yoshio. And the way he constantly blinked his small eyes─wasn't there a more competent detective they could talk to? “But young people have their own way of thinking. If you kick up a fuss too quickly, you could end up embarrassing your daughter.”

  　“But that's what we're telling you. Mariko isn't like other young people.”

  　“That's what all parents say, you know.”

  　“But─” Yoshio, never one to say much, was at a loss for words.

  　Detective Sakaki looked from weeping Machiko to stony-faced Yoshio, then pushed his chair back and shifted in his seat, continuing calmly, “However, it's terrible when a young woman suddenly goes missing. It is also possible that something has happened to her. We do of course realize this. If there is any suggestion, however small, that that is the case we will launch a full-scale investigation. But at this stage I think it is still too soon. As her mother and grandfather─you are her grandfather, right?”