‘Throw some stuff in a bag and tie up any loose ends. I’ll be back in half an hour.’
‘What?’
‘There’s too much heat on you,’ said Sumida. ‘You need to stay somewhere safe.’
‘My flat’s not safe?’
‘Not any more. Get your stuff – I’ll be back soon.’ He drove off.
Fucking great. My only place of respite was being taken away from me too.
I made my way up and down the small stairway bridge that separated the end of the alley from my block of flats. I went through the entrance of the building and hauled myself up the stairs to my front door. I wondered where I’d be going next. I opened the door, took off my shoes and started to take off my jacket. I didn’t do anything else because at that point everything went black.
I came to, face down on my sofa, my legs hanging over the end, my face in a puddle of drool. I started to lift my head but gave up when I felt a hammering pain.
‘What the—?’
I put my hand to the back of my head to find a huge bump oozing blood. That brought it up with a start. The last time something like this happened, I’d found myself facing two yakuza and lost a finger soon after that. But the room was empty. I groaned, wheeled my legs around and heaved myself up. I looked around the room to check again. Apart from the back of my head, there was nothing to suggest anyone had been there at all.
‘What the fuck?’
I was in no way happy with the amount of times I’d been hit in the last month but at least with the rest of them there’d been a point. Who the hell knocks someone out in their own flat and then leaves without doing anything else?
I put my hand to my face. It was slathered in dribble. I forced myself up from the sofa and went to the bathroom off the short hallway at the entrance to the flat. I stopped outside it to steady myself on the handle when I started to sway. They’d have to start using my head on marksman sights – as far as I could make out it was impossible to miss.
I opened the door.
And that’s when I realised my recent journey had seen me floating in paradise. Only now would I know what it was like to be dragged through hell.
I dropped to my knees, my efforts to steady myself nullified by the sight. I didn’t even notice when one of them cracked against the small step, even though it would bother me for another week. It was as though all the feelings and senses had been ripped from me, leaving just the shell of my body behind. A body that was numb and unresponsive. A body almost as lifeless as the one curled in the small space of floor under the basin, between the toilet and bath.
Then the pain hit. It may have started at my knee but I only felt it when it had coursed through my body and taken hold in my heart. From there it rose through my chest seeking escape, clawing its way up my throat. But even though my throat contracted and my head rolled back, and even though my mouth opened and my lips drew wide, no sound came out with the silent scream and the pain remained within.
I looked back at the body, forced by the small space into the foetal position in which it had entered life. A body that had once been a person. A person who had lived a gamut of emotions and had an energy force of their own. An ex-person, who was now just an object under my sink, its previous fluidity mocked by the rigid tangle of limbs it had become.
I was transfixed by it and my paralysis forced me to drink in the full horror of the sight. The white of the body’s rubber skin was broken by a shadow of pubic triangle, just visible from the way it was curled. A brown nipple protruded from a breast pressed unnaturally against the floor. And a deep red welt ran around the neck of what would once have been an exceptionally attractive girl. Except now her face was propped forward on its chin, facing me, her death mask holding me with its eternal stare.
I couldn’t look away, even though I wanted to more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. But it was impossible to break from her haunting gaze. For as difficult as it was to reconcile the lifeless body with a vibrant, living person, I had no choice.
I’d been looking for the person the body belonged to.
I’d known her.
I’d loved her.
It was Tomoe.