CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Shinkansen super-express lived up to Yamazawa’s billing and delivered me to Kyoto on the button of the timetable just after one o’clock. The dawn sunshine in Tokyo had flattered to deceive. It was a cold, grey, autumn day in the former capital.
There was nothing in the least venerable about its futuristic railway station, but the taxi ride to Nijo-jo took me past a couple of ancient temples and it was pretty obvious the city beat to a less frenetic drum than its brash young cousin.
There were a couple of tour buses parked at the front of the castle and a steady stream of visitors filing past the ticket barrier, across the moat and in through the high-porched gate. Those nightingale floors were still pulling in the punters. But relics of the shogunate weren’t what had brought me. Clutching Rupe’s photograph in my hand, I started off round the perimeter, following Yamazawa’s directions.
It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. A double-roofed structure – some sort of guardhouse, I supposed – soared above the wall at its south-eastern corner. I’d only to cross the road to the south and look up to match it to the photograph. And I’d only to turn round to see several modern blocks of flats with balconies commanding a good view of it. I was there.
At any rate, I was close. But which block exactly did Smiler live in? I covered fifty yards of the pavement three times before I reckoned I had the right angle on the guardhouse. It led me to a six-storey, ochre-coloured block with railinged balconies. Among the bicycles propped near the entrance stood a big old Harley-Davidson motorbike. As transport favoured by the locals it didn’t convince. But as an exiled American’s token of his easy-riding youth it was a different matter. I took a look at the names next to the bells beside the combination-locked front door. And standing out like a butte in an Arizona of Japanese script was LOUDON, M. I pressed the bell.
No answer. And repetition didn’t change that. Loudon, M., was evidently out. Sans motorbike, but out. I tried the next bell down, but only got a Japanese woman who didn’t speak any English. She had the good sense to cut me off. I tried another bell, with pretty similar results. It looked like I was just going to have to wait for Loudon to return, as he was bound to, sooner or later. At least I’d recognize him when he did.
Half an hour slowly (very slowly) passed. Traffic trundled by. Nobody came or went. I started to feel hungry and was giving some serious thought to shoving off in search of food (and drink) when a young woman cycled to a halt at the roadside and wheeled her bike in towards me.
‘Excuse me,’ I ventured. ‘Do you speak English?’
‘A little,’ she said, bowing and beaming at me.
‘You live here?’
‘Yes. I live here.’
‘Do you know Mr Loudon?’ I flourished the photograph. ‘American guy. Here he is. Loudon?’
‘Ah, Miller.’ It seemed they were on first-name terms, which had to be good, even if she didn’t pronounce Miller the way they would in Arkansas. ‘You friend of Miller?’
‘More friend of a friend.’ She gaped at me uncomprehendingly. ‘Do you know where I can find him?’
She frowned. ‘He live here.’
‘But he’s not in.’
‘Not in?’
‘Not at home.’
‘Ah. Sumimasen. Sorry.’
‘Any idea where he might be?’
She thought for a moment, then said, ‘Probably . . . he is teaching.’
‘He teaches?’
‘Yes. How do you say? Some of the time? Part of the time?’
‘Part-time.’
‘Hai. Part-time. Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘Doshisha most, I think.’
‘Doshisha?’
‘University. Doshisha University.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Ah, two kilometres.’ She gestured vaguely behind her. ‘This way. But you can take the subway. It is near Imadegawa station.’
‘Right. Thanks a lot.’
It wasn’t the subway for me, of course. I picked up a cab that had just unloaded a few more visitors to Nijo-jo and took the overland route.
I tracked our progress on a map I’d bought at the railway station. We headed east, then north along a wide, straight road past the old Imperial Park. The Doshisha University campus was clearly marked, dead ahead at the northern end of the park.
The taxi dropped me in a leafy driveway that filtered off into a maze of red-brick courtyards across which students were hurrying, on foot or cycle, to their next uplifting class. I stopped a couple of them long enough to try the name Miller Loudon and see if it rang any bells. They talked it over and finally decided that, yes, there was a Loudon on the staff.
‘Faculty of Letters,’ one of them concluded, pointing towards a triple-arched entrance to one of the buildings on the other side of the courtyard. ‘Ask inside.’
I did. Happily, the receptionist turned out to speak excellent English. ‘Mr Loudon is one of our part-time teachers,’ she agreed. ‘That is right. American literature.’ She studied a timetable, then the clock. ‘He has a class now. Until four.’
‘I must see him. Urgently.’
‘You can see him. At four. I will give you the room number.’ She smiled. ‘And you can meet him when he leaves.’
She was right, of course. Bursting in on him in the midst of his students wasn’t a smart idea. Four o’clock it would have to be.
And four o’clock it was, or a few minutes after, with the first shadows of dusk gathering in the corridor, when the relevant door opened on the second floor of the Faculty of Letters and a dozen eager-eyed students spring-heeled their way out and past me.
I stepped into the doorway as the last of them left. Miller Loudon, white-haired and paunchy likeness of his photographed self, was shovelling papers into an old canvas knapsack. He was wearing jeans and a tweed jacket over a checked shirt – part academic, part cowboy.
‘Miller Loudon?’
‘Yuh.’ He looked up at me. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Not sure. But I believe you know the Hashimotos. Mayumi and Haruko.’
‘You believe?’ He walked over to me with a stiff-hipped limp. ‘Who are you?’
‘Lance Bradley. A friend of—’
‘Rupe Alder’s.’ He nodded grimly. ‘That’s whose friend you are, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. How did you—’
‘Never mind. What in God’s name are you doing in Kyoto?’
‘We need to talk, Mr Loudon.’
‘I was hoping we’d never need to. But you’re right. We do now. Not here, though.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Follow me.’
We took the lift down. ‘My hip doesn’t care for stairs,’ said Loudon as we descended. ‘I keep asking them to schedule my classes for the first floor, but at my age you don’t have a lot of bargaining power. I should be retired by rights, but where else would they find someone who can see inside Hemingway’s soul?’
The patter seemed genial enough, but I had the impression it was just a holding operation and that something far less genial was simmering beneath the surface of his remarks. He led the way out of the building, across the courtyard and down the drive towards the road that ran along the northern side of the Imperial Park.
‘Mind telling me how you found me, Lance?’ he asked as we went.
In answer, I held up the photograph for him to see.
‘Holy shit. Where’s that come from?’
‘It was among some things Rupe left with a colleague at Eurybia in Tokyo for safekeeping.’
‘What colleague might that be?’
‘Name of Yamazawa.’
‘Never heard of him. And let’s hope no one else has either.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you can follow the trail, so can others.’
‘And that might lead those “others” to Mayumi and Haruko?’
‘Shut up until we’re off the grounds, can’t you? At least try to be careful.’
‘All right.’
So, chastened into silence, I said nothing as we crossed the road and entered the park. The outer wall was separated from the inner wall surrounding the old Imperial Palace by a vast expanse of gravel, where a few dog-walkers and strollers were dotted about – blurred figures in the encroaching twilight. Loudon took a scarf from his knapsack and draped it round his neck as a concession to the deepening chill, his breath misting as he crunched along.
‘There’s something I have to tell you . . . Miller,’ I began. ‘About Mayumi’s brother.’
‘Oh, there’s plenty, yeh, Lance. But if you’re honing your breaking-bad-news technique, I ought to let you know that we do get TV and newspapers in this city.’
‘You’ve heard?’
‘Take a look at this.’ He opened his knapsack and pulled out an English newspaper. At least, it looked to be English, but then I saw the title: The Japan Times. And a fraction of a second later I saw Kiyofumi Hashimoto’s photograph low down on the front page. Japanese businessman slain in Berlin ran the headline. ‘The Yomiuri Shimbun made a bigger splash of it,’ Loudon went on, reading the surprise on my face. ‘When you’re on the run, you really should pay more attention to the news-stands.’
‘On the run?’
‘Well, what would you call it?’
‘Something that doesn’t sound so guilty, I suppose.’
‘But you are guilty, Lance, aren’t you? The German police obviously think so, even though they haven’t come out and said it.’
‘Guilty of what?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Look, OK, strictly speaking I should have stayed and helped the police with their inquiries, but I reckoned Berlin wasn’t a safe place to hang around. And would you really have wanted me to anyway? There was nothing I could do to help Kiyo.’
‘I’m not talking about Kiyofumi.’ He stopped and stared at me. ‘Hold on. Are you saying . . . you didn’t do it?’
‘Didn’t do what?’
‘Kill Eric Townley.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘Oh yeh. Well and truly. Found battered about the head—’
‘In my hotel room. Oh my God.’
‘So you do know.’
‘No. He wasn’t dead. Not when I left. I mean, I hit him, yes. With a lamp. But—’
‘That’s the trouble with German furniture. Heavy.’
‘He wasn’t dead, I’m telling you. Unconscious, but breathing. And it was self-defence, for God’s sake. He had a gun.’
‘No mention of that in the papers.’
‘What do they say?’
‘See for yourself.’ He handed me The Japan Times and I held up the article to read in the dwindling light.
JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN SLAIN IN BERLIN
Kiyofumi Hashimoto, 47, a senior manager with the Fujisaka Microprocessor Corporation, was shot dead on Tuesday while aboard an open-top tour bus in the center of Berlin. German Police say the killing appears to have been the work of a professional assassin.
They believe it is connected with another death in the city on Tuesday, the apparent murder of Erich Townley, 45, a dual German-American citizen found dead from head injuries in a room at the Hotel Adlon. They are trying to trace the person who had been staying in the room, Lancelot Bradley, 37, a British citizen believed to have been with Hashimoto at the time of the shooting.
They are also seeking witnesses to both deaths, especially those who may have seen a man behaving suspiciously in or near the Hotel Botschafter, opposite the bus stop in Tauentzienstrasse where Hashimoto was shot. The hotel has been undergoing refurbishment and its rooms facing Tauentzienstrasse have been empty during the work. It is thought the assassin fired from one of these rooms during the builders’ lunch break.
In Tokyo yesterday, Ryozo Moriguchi, Executive Director of the Fujisaka Corporation, paid tribute to Hashimoto, saying—
‘Bloody hell,’ I mumbled, handing the paper back to Loudon. ‘On the run is right.’
‘’Fraid so, Lance.’
‘None of this was my fault.’
‘Reckon not.’
‘It could just as easily have been me as Kiyo who died on that bus.’
‘Kiyofumi was a good man. A loyal brother to Mayumi. A loving uncle to Haruko. I knew him. I don’t know you. So, you’ll understand if I personally regret that it wasn’t you.’
‘I was trying to help.’
‘So Kiyofumi said.’
‘He told you about me?’
‘He told Mayumi.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I’m not sure you need to know that.’
‘But you are sheltering her – and Haruko?’
‘I’m doing my best to protect them, yuh. The question is: do I need to protect them from you?’
‘I’m no threat to anyone.’
‘No? What happened to Kiyofumi doesn’t exactly confirm that, now does it?’
‘It wasn’t my fault. Kiyo was calling the shots.’
‘Unfortunate choice of metaphor, Lance.’
‘Look, what I mean is—’
‘Why are you here?’
‘Why? Because the Townleys have to be stopped. Can’t you see that? Hiding won’t cut it.’
‘Brave words.’
‘Desperate ones, actually.’
‘Yuh. Well, I can see how you might be desperate. But not bereaved. And not betrayed. Mayumi and Haruko are two up on you there.’
‘I can’t change what Rupe did. And I can’t bring Kiyo back to life.’
‘True enough.’
‘But I can do something to stop the Townleys.’ (Though God alone knew what.) ‘And you can help me.’
‘How – exactly?’
‘By telling me what this is really all about. Beginning with what’s in the Townley letter.’
‘Didn’t Kiyofumi let you in on that?’
‘He did not.’
‘Because Mayumi swore him to secrecy.’
‘So I gathered.’
‘Well, it’s the same here, Lance.’
‘For God’s sake. We’re in this together. Whether any of us like it or not. I think I’m entitled to know what it is that I’m in.’
‘You have a point.’
‘Well?’
‘It’s not my decision.’
‘Take me to Mayumi, then.’
‘No can do.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because that might be just what they want me to do.’ Loudon sighed and cast a glance behind and in front of us. ‘Has it occurred to you that the “professional assassin” who shot Kiyofumi was almost certainly professional enough to account for you as well?’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘I’m getting at the disturbing possibility that you were allowed to escape. For the specific purpose of doing exactly what you have done.’
‘You think I’ve been followed?’
‘Maybe.’
‘That’s crazy. On the plane? Everywhere I’ve been? No way.’
‘A professional assassin is a stalker as well as a shooter, Lance. The whole point of the operation is that you don’t know it’s happening.’
‘I’d know.’ (But that was whistling in the wind. Would I really have known?) ‘Besides, if you’re right, why did Erich try to stop me?’
‘Disobeying orders, maybe. You and Kiyofumi were putting the squeeze on him.’
‘All right.’ I shrugged theatrically, more annoyed by the thought that I could well have been followed than I was prepared to admit. ‘In that case, what do we do?’
‘We go to a little bar I know a few blocks from here and talk it through over a drink.’ Loudon grinned disarmingly. ‘There are some things I am allowed to tell you.’
The bar was a cavernous basement under a dry-cleaner’s shop. Custom was thin at just gone five on an autumn afternoon and, apart from us, entirely Japanese. ‘They don’t speak much English here,’ Loudon told me as we entered, before exchanging greetings with the mama and her few customers in their own tongue. ‘And any strangers following us in are going to stand out like Mount Fuji on a clear day. This is as confidential as it gets.’
Nobody did follow us in. We took a pair of stools at one end of the curving bar next to a papier-mâché badger and ordered some drinks. Sapporo and a shochu chaser for me, Coca-Cola for Loudon. A surprise, given that I had him down as a hard-liquor man.
‘I’ll need to keep a clear head,’ he explained, without going on to explain why. ‘So, you’re Rupe’s boyhood friend come to find him and atone for his misdeeds, right?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Tough assignment.’
I smiled – less ruefully than I might have done. ‘Apparently so.’
‘Kiyofumi did tell you exactly how your boyhood friend deceived Haruko, didn’t he? How – and why?’
‘He made it very clear. So clear I’d have been tempted to give up – but for the fact that by then it was too late.’
‘Yuh. Too late. A bitchy little point in time, that. You never see it coming. I surely didn’t.’
‘When was it for you?’
‘When I got too buddy-buddy with Rupe and let him top me up with bourbon till I was ready to spill the beans on the Townley letter. Once bitten, twice shy, Lance. I’ll do right by Mayumi this time round if I do nothing else.’
‘How long have you known her?’
‘More than forty years. From my first visit to the Golden Rickshaw, though I can’t exactly recall the occasion. I can’t recall her taking my picture for the wall either. But she did. That’s how Rupe traced me.’
‘This picture?’ I took out the wallet of photographs and showed him the one of him with Townley and some other guy as young military men.
‘Yuh. That’s the one.’
‘What was the Golden Rickshaw?’
‘Just a bar. A popular one, thanks to Mayumi. She was . . . radiant . . . back then. We came like moths to a lantern. And, like moths, one or two of us got burned.’ He chewed over the past for a silent moment before continuing. ‘Then again, of course, it wasn’t just a bar. Townley and his outfit made sure of that.’
‘What was his outfit?’
‘Something called a DetMIG – Detached Military Intelligence Group. Linked with the CIA. Their role was to identify soldiers, airmen and sailors who had the skills and aptitude to perform special duties – during and after their military service. They used the Rickshaw as a place to size people up. Evaluate them when they were at their most relaxed, with a view to possible recruitment.’
‘Did they recruit you?’
‘Only as a scout. I was done a few favours and handed a few greenbacks in return for acting as a talent-spotter. I wasn’t on the payroll. Not officially. But I was in the loop. You could say I was Townley’s snitch if you weren’t in the business of sparing my feelings.’
‘What sort of talent were you looking for?’
‘Oh, the grim, dedicated, intensely anti-communist, faintly manic kind, of course. What other kind?’
‘To do . . .’
‘Dirty work, Lance. Very dirty work. I never asked for the specifics, but I didn’t need to. I understood what the object of the exercise was.’
‘I’m not sure I understand. Exactly.’
‘Well, you can take it – I surely took it – that killing people was going to be on the agenda. As part of any undercover work the recruit was deemed fit for. All in the general and noble cause of defending the United States of America against its enemies.’
‘Is this one of those recruits?’ I pointed to the third man in the photograph.
‘Yuh.’ Loudon gave a rubbery grimace. ‘Reckon he’d have to be counted as such.’
‘Spotted by you?’
‘Ah, actually, no. He came by a different route. But Townley certainly had his eye on him. No question about that.’ Loudon squirmed in his seat, as if this particular subject made him uncomfortable. ‘Least-ways, I think so. With only the back of his head to go by, I may have the wrong guy.’ Then he relaxed again. ‘Look, Lance, it pans out like this. I get drafted in the ranks because I’m too bloody-minded to join the officer cadet corps while I’m at college. I soon realize what a frigging idiot I’ve been, but by then it’s too late. Like we were saying earlier. Anyhow, I wind up here in Japan and Townley and his sinister band of brothers make me feel . . . important, I guess. So, I do a few things for them. I mark a few cards. I oil some wheels. Then I move on. Out of the Army. Back to that privileged existence I should never have left behind as heir to my uncle’s furniture business. I forget Townley and his DetMIG. I even try to forget Mayumi. I put it all behind me. I walk away. End of story. Or should be. But . . .’
‘Not the end.’
‘No. Nothing like. Thanks to Rupe.’
‘He didn’t force you to come back here.’
‘I can’t deny that.’
‘Why did you?’
‘Because the country had got its claws into me. Well, the people had. They’re a beguiling nation. So gentle, so . . . private. I guess the American way of life just wasn’t for me. I sure wasn’t cut out for the furniture trade. When my uncle died, I cashed in my share of the business and came here to settle. It’s more than a little ironic, let me tell you, me living in the old Imperial capital and revering Japanese culture and all, since this gentle race, as I just described them, were responsible for my father’s death when I was only six years old. He was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, December seventh, nineteen forty-one. But . . . well, I’ve made my peace with them on his behalf, so to speak. This isn’t my home. But it is where I belong.’
‘Townley obviously didn’t feel the same way.’
‘No. He left as soon as he could and never came back.’
‘Leaving behind only his face in this photograph, which Rupe spotted on the wall of the Golden Rickshaw,’ I began reasoning. ‘He recognized Townley, who he was already interested in because of his connection with Rupe’s own family, then—’
‘I know nothing about that.’
‘It doesn’t matter. The point is that Rupe saw his chance to find Townley by romancing Haruko. And she no doubt pretty soon let slip that one of the other people in the photograph was living here, in Kyoto.’
‘I got back in touch with Mayumi after leaving the States. And I’ve stayed in touch since. So, yuh, Haruko mentioned me when Rupe showed an apparently innocent interest in the picture and the history of the bar. Then Rupe suggested a visit. Well, Kyoto’s an attractive destination in its own right. Looking me up just seemed to her like a natural add-on to a tour of the temples. It seemed that way to me too. I was pleased to see them.’
‘Certainly looks like it.’ I held out another photograph for him to see – the snapshot of him with Haruko on the balcony of his flat.
‘Yuh. There I am, grinning like the sap he played me for.’
‘At some point, you told him about the Townley letter.’
‘I was boasting. That’s the truth of it. Making myself feel important – and look important to Haruko’s future husband, which is what I thought he was – by shooting my mouth off about the old days. I can’t say more than that without breaking my word to Mayumi a second time. And that I will not do. But, thanks to me – and Haruko’s blindly adoring trust in him – Rupe was able to steal the letter and make his move on Townley. Which put Mayumi and Haruko – and me, for that paltry matter – in more danger than you can possibly imagine.’
‘Me too now, I assume.’
‘Yuh. That’s right, Lance. You too. His friends and his lovers and the friends of his lovers. Rupe’s done a thorough job of shafting anyone who ever trusted him.’
‘Not intentionally.’ (Was I sure about that? I certainly didn’t feel it.)
‘OK. Inadvertently, then. I’m not sure that doesn’t make it worse. He just didn’t care what the consequences were. Oh, he put himself in danger too, I grant you. But that was his choice. We didn’t get a choice.’
‘What sort of man is Townley?’
‘Hard, calculating, ruthless.’
‘Why does he need to be?’
‘Because he isn’t in control of this. It’s beyond him. Beyond all of us.’
‘But you’re not going to tell me what it is.’
Loudon gave a weary sigh. ‘That’s Mayumi’s decision, not mine.’
‘When can I meet her?’
‘Not sure. I have to weigh up the risks, Lance. If you’ve been followed, taking you to her would be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve done enough stupid things already. Besides, what sort of help can you offer that would make the risks worth running?’
‘Townley is tied in with a murder in England in August nineteen sixty-three. I don’t know how exactly. Or why. But if I knew what was in the letter, maybe it would all make sense. Then we might have something on him. The same something Rupe put together.’
‘And what would we do with it?’
‘Go to the authorities. Make a case. Strike back at him any way we can.’
‘That’d never work.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because—’ Loudon made a swatting gesture with his hand and sipped his Coke. ‘God, I wish there was vodka in this.’
‘Don’t they sell vodka here?’
‘Oh yuh. They sell it. Sometimes to me. But not this evening.’ He leaned back on his stool and stretched, then relaxed again. ‘OK. Let’s lay it on the line. Everything we do from here on in is risky. Even doing nothing is risky. And a damn sight harder on the nerves than . . . striking back, as you call it. Temperamentally, I’m a retaliatory kind of guy. Not a skulker in corners. I’ll speak to Mayumi. She’ll decide.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight. That’s why I’m off the sauce. It’s a long ride.’
‘You’re going to see her?’
‘Yuh. And if I’m followed, well, on that road I’ll surely know it.’
‘And if not?’
‘Then I’ll come back for you in the morning. You can bed down at my apartment. I’ll phone Mayumi from there and set it up.’
‘When did you decide all this?’ (It certainly seemed sudden to me.)
‘Oh, around the time you walked through the door of my class at Doshisha and introduced yourself.’
‘Then why have you been giving me such a hard time about risk assessment?’
‘Because there are risks. And because I wanted to see what you had to offer in the way of a game plan before I committed myself.’
‘So, I’ve persuaded you, have I?’
‘No, Lance, you haven’t. Not remotely.’ He gave me the same grin he’d worn in Mayumi’s photograph – and in Rupe’s. ‘But I’ll do it anyway.’