It was clear from the tension in the room that the captain was back. Secretariat Chief Shoichi Sakaniwa was in the visitors’ room to the right. One of the small room’s primary functions was to shield the captain, at least temporarily, from unwanted guests. The cups of tea on the table inside told Tsuge that Sakaniwa had just finished dealing with one such guest.
‘Can we talk?’
Sakaniwa glanced up from his notebook when Tsuge called from the door. His expression stiffened when he saw the look on Tsuge’s face. ‘What is it?’
‘We might have an issue, sir.’ Tsuge closed the door behind him and took a seat. He gave Sakaniwa a brief summary of events.
‘A time bomb? What kind of time bomb?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can we change his mind?’
‘That might be difficult. He seems quite determined.’
Sakaniwa folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling. ‘We need to know what he’s going to ask.’
‘It could be some kind of dirt, sir. Maybe to do with the executive.’
Sakaniwa gave Tsuge a wide-eyed stare before looking away. Dirt. It was a catch-all word for the hidden misbehaviours of the force. There was some on Sakaniwa, too. Seven years ago, he’d drunk too much and laid into a taxi driver. The driver had been a high-school classmate of Tsuge’s, and Tsuge had stepped in on Sakaniwa’s request and convinced the man to settle the matter privately. Internal Affairs never heard of the incident, and Sakaniwa had maintained his position in the race to the top.
That spring, Sakaniwa had cleared his debt by bringing Tsuge into the fold. While such transfers were usually the domain of Administration, the man’s proximity to the captain afforded him certain privileges and allowed him to essentially handpick his staff.
Tsuge had welcomed the move. He’d been a dyed-in-the-wool member of Security, having spent his whole career in the department, but the Secretariat was special, the domain of the captain, and his sense of ambition had been tickled by the chance to work with the assembly. It would serve him well to become expert in its matters, to gain the confidence of its members, especially in the context of a force that was weak in its external relations. Sakaniwa had himself spent years working with the assembly. One of the main reasons he’d made it to chief of the Secretariat, despite his obvious lack of social nous, was because the captain, together with the bureaucrats in Tokyo, needed someone who could maintain the relationship between the assembly and the force.
Still, it was a double-edged sword to work with the assembly. While success guaranteed a bright career, failure was certain to end one.
‘If Ukai won’t tell us. . .’ Sakaniwa seemed to consider something for a moment. He looked Tsuge in the eye. ‘I seem to remember you have a contact in Internal Affairs?’
‘Yes.’
Inspector Shindo. The man had effectively been a go-between for Tsuge’s marriage, having introduced him to the daughter of a distant relation when they’d both been in Security.
‘I want you to see if he knows anything about this. If he’s hesitant to commit, tell him this is the direct concern of the captain.’
‘Understood.’
‘And try the assembly again, see if you can’t get some more details.’ There was a sudden buzzing sound. Sakaniwa jumped from the couch. The captain. ‘Make sure you stay on top of this,’ he muttered, fiddling with his tie as he rushed out.
Tsuge walked to the corner of the room and picked up the phone. He called Shindo and asked to meet on the roof. The usual play would be to visit his home at night but speed was of the essence.
Shindo had not yet got there when Tsuge arrived. He sat himself down next to the concrete viewing pillar. The cylindrical object was two metres wide and marked with the name of every city and town in the prefecture and the direction in which they lay. It was modelled after the original in the Metropolitan Police Academy, which pointed at the prefectures. When it gets hard. When you don’t know where to go. You come here and you think of home. Tsuge had been here just once, eight years ago, but he hadn’t looked towards home. He’d glared, instead, in the direction of Tokyo. He could still picture the vast blue sky he’d seen that day.
‘Hey.’
Shindo walked into view. He stopped and lit a cigarette.
‘You’re smoking again? That can’t be any good for your stomach.’
‘Isn’t much left to damage.’ There was something in his voice that suggested he’d started to let go. It was harder, since the operation on his stomach and his subsequent transfer to Internal Affairs, to see in this man the high-flying officer from Security. He looked as though he’d grown old suddenly. Maybe he’d given up his aspirations to reach the top. ‘Now, tell me what’s so important that you had to call me all the way up here.’
Tsuge proceeded to give him a quick summary of events.
‘Attack the police?’ Shindo repeated, sounding genuinely surprised.
‘Can you think of anything he might have been able to dig up?’
‘Nothing that’s new. Sorry, can’t think of a single thing.’
Shindo told him that Internal Affairs had nothing that could be pinned on the executive. If that was true, it was perhaps an organisational issue that Ukai had come across, something that concerned the force itself. It would be too much work to track down something like that. Of course, Tsuge would still have expected word that Ukai was sniffing around to have reached Internal Affairs, even for something like that.
Yet Shindo was adamant that they’d heard nothing.
Tsuge wondered if it wasn’t to do with someone in the executive after all. He knew there were other cases like Sakaniwa’s. It was possible that Ukai, with his reach as an assemblyman, had managed to unearth something that even Internal Affairs didn’t know about. And Ukai’s motivation was a factor to consider. The man was looking to exact revenge. He wouldn’t draw the line at exposing some past transgression and presenting it as if it were brand new.
At three o’clock, Shindo got to his feet. Looking off to the distance, he started to speak, quietly, as though to himself.
‘You could do worse than check in with Administration.’
‘Sorry?’
‘With the ace. It’s possible he’ll have something we don’t.’
Tsuge watched Shindo’s diminished frame get up and leave, seeing a different side to the man as he did so. Shinji Futawatari. The ace. As part of Administration, he specialised in personnel. He also held the record for being the youngest officer to make superintendent in Prefecture D, having secured the promotion at forty. Still relatively new to Administrative Affairs, Tsuge had hardly spoken with the man. Yet he couldn’t help feeling irked whenever the name came up in conversation. What had he done to be the subject of such universal praise? Sure, he was good at what he did. But his strengths were applicable only inside the force. How, Tsuge wondered, would he fare in the outside world? His influence meant nothing in the assembly, in the halls of government. Surely the project to rebuild the headquarters, left now to gather dust for three years, was a case in point.
Tsuge was still sitting next to the pillar.
I’ll get it moving.
He would be the one to rally the conservatives; with Misaki at the front, he would be the one to get the stalled plan back on track. The result? He would be the first officer in the prefecture to make superintendent in his thirties, bringing him ever closer to claiming Futawatari’s position as ‘ace’.
He walked back down the stairs, taking his time as he made his way along the corridor on the first floor of the main building. The door to Administration was open. A slim man with sloped shoulders sat at a desk towards the back. His peaceful, delicate features angled briefly upwards. Tsuge hadn’t been ready for the sharpness in the man’s eyes.
He’d already disregarded Shindo’s advice. The Secretariat would deal with Ukai. Futawatari’s piercing stare had done nothing to shake his resolve.