Dying to Tell (23 page)

"I don't have the leisure to prolong this conversation indefinitely," said Ledgister. "So, maybe I ought to lay it on the line for you. Unless '

"Put your gun down." The man in the tracksuit had spoken. Ledgister half-turned and saw him and saw also the gun trained on him from no more than a few yards away.

"Who the..."

"Put it down."

"OK." Ledgister held up his free hand in surrender as he lowered himself onto his haunches and laid his gun on the ground. "No problem."

"Stand up."

Ledgister did so. "Now, I don't know who you are, friend, but '

"No kind of friend to you."

"Hey, don't be so sure. We might get along real fine if we ... compared interests. How about money, for instance? Are you keen on that? Earning it, I mean. As easily as possible."

"Untie Mr. Bradley."

"Who is this guy, Lance?" Ledgister glanced round at me. "Shouldn't you introduce us?"

"Untie him. Now." Tracksuit moved closer still, his gun pointing straight at Ledgister.

"OK, OK. I'll do it."

Ledgister walked slowly round to the other side of the tree, Tracksuit circling after him. I felt a tugging at the ropes, then they slackened and fell away. I rolled away from the trunk and scrambled unsteadily to my feet.

"I'll bet there's not a single rope-burn to reproach me for. Isn't that right, Lance?"

"Sit in Mr. Bradley's place," said my anonymous saviour, his voice unwaveringly calm. Tie him up, Lance."

Ledgister sat flouncily down at the foot of the tree and grinned defiantly at me. I gathered up the ropes, settling for the relatively easy course of dumb obedience while struggling to understand this sudden turning of the tables. Ledgister's question had been a good one. Who was this guy?

"What goes around comes around, Lance," Ledgister whispered as I tied his hands behind his back. "Luck like yours doesn't last for ever," he added when I looped the second rope around his chest. "When it runs out, I'll be waiting."

Waiting was soon about all he was in a position to do. I tightened the ropes until I'd forced a grunt out of him, then tied them off.

"Good," said Tracksuit as he checked the knots. "We go now." Catching my questioning look, he added, "Not here, Lance. I explain at the car." Then he stopped in front of Ledgister and checked his pockets, presumably for concealed weapons. He didn't find any. But, as he looked, Ledgister noticed something.

"Hey, you're missing a pinky, friend." He was right. The little finger on the man's left hand ended at the first joint. "You're Yakuza, aren't you?" He got no reply beyond the briefest glare. "You've taken out some expensive insurance, Lance. Let's hope you can afford the premiums."

"Enough." Tracksuit stood up and looked at me. Nothing in his expression implied that he had heard a single word Ledgister had said. "We go."

I hesitated, scanning the ground for my wallet. There it was, not far from where Ledgister had dropped the gun. I moved towards it.

"Don't touch it." I stopped and looked round. "Leave the gun where it is."

"He's thinking of fingerprints," said Ledgister. "Cerebral stuff for a Yakuza."

"It's my wallet I want." I pointed to where it lay.

"OK." (Ledgister's sarcasm didn't seem to have had the slightest effect.) "Take it and walk to the road."

I did as I'd been told, looking straight ahead as I hurried through the trees. I couldn't hear my nameless companion behind me, but I felt sure he was there. "Sayonara, guys," called Ledgister.

I stopped when I reached Ledgister's car and turned round. Tracksuit was within a stride of me, his gun no longer in view. "My car is back along the road," he said softly. "A short walk."

"Do you know what's in the boot of this car?" I nodded towards it.

"Yes. I saw. I heard. Do you know where the ladies are?"

"Not a clue. They were being sheltered in a farmhouse, apparently. But they're not there now."

"They may return there."

"But I don't know where it is. Only Ledgister knows that."

"He will not tell us. Check the car. There may be something."

I opened the driver's door and checked the side-pocket and dashboard shelves. Nothing. I leaned across and yanked down the flap of the glove compartment. There, inside, was a map, folded back on itself. I lifted it out and stared helplessly at a jumble of roads and rivers and contour lines, neatly labelled in Japanese. Then I saw it: a cross in red ink, added by hand. "This could be it."

"Yes." He peered over my shoulder. "Near Kamiyuge. About fifteen kilometres from here. Good. Bring the map with you."

"What about Loudon?"

"He is dead." The man stared at me blankly. "We must go."

"Ledgister hired this car in my name."

"But the description the agency give to the police will fit him, not you. And a bullet from his gun killed Loudon."

"Yes, but '

"I could have killed Ledgister, but that would make the police think you killed both men. You understand? This is the best way. We will call the police and send them here. OK?"

"Are you .. . YakuzaT

"Yes. But I'm not here for them. I'm here for my brother. Toshishige."

"You're .. . Yamazawa's brother?"

"Yes. Shintaro Yamazawa. That is me. We have to go, Lance. It is dangerous for us here. If we are seen ..."

"All right. I understand."

I didn't, of course. Not the half of it. But leaving made sense. That I couldn't fail to grasp. Yamazawa led the way at a trot back down the track. His green Range Rover was parked under the trees beyond the second bend. We climbed in. Then he threw it round in a five-point turn and we drove away.

"How much do you know?" I asked, wondering just what he and his brother were up to.

"Toshishige asked me to watch your back. This is all. So, I stuck with you from the station yesterday. I saw Ledgister. He didn't see me."

"Couldn't you have stopped him killing Loudon?"

"If I'd been there, maybe. But I was in Kyoto. Watching your back."

"Did Toshishige tell you what this is about?"

"He told me some. Your friend put the Hashimotos in danger. The American, Loudon, was hiding them. Toshishige was worried about you. But he should have been more worried about them. You brought the danger with you."

It was true. I'd trailed a line behind me and Ledgister had followed it. He'd killed twice that I knew of. And if it hadn't been for Loudon's self-sacrifice, it would have been more. "I have to find Mayumi and Haruko."

"If they've gone back to the farmhouse, we will find them. But we cannot wait there long. You must not be seen in places that connect you to this."

"I can't just walk away."

"Better than being carried, I think."

"Look, I'm grateful, but '

"Thank Toshishige, not me."

"He didn't risk his life back there."

"No risk. I was more careful for me than you."

"Even so '

"I saved your life. Yes. I think so. And I like to finish things I start. We still have the death penalty in Japan for murder. So He glanced at me without the least flicker of a smile. "We will go on being careful."

We rejoined the main road and headed north. Within a few miles, we descended into a valley and came to a village, where Yamazawa stopped at a call-box and phoned the police with his anonymous tip-off. Then we carried on, climbing again into the wooded mountains.

"Do you often do Toshishige favours like this?" I asked, when some of the shock had begun to drain out of me.

"Never one like this before. It is a ... special case. Your friend, Rupert Alder .. ."

"Yeh?"

"Did not Toshishige tell you this?"

"Not sure. What was it?"

"Toshishige and I both had a fine education, Lance. Our father worked himself to death to make sure we did. He was specially keen for us to learn to speak English fluently. He thought it would help us make good careers. You can guess I was a disappointment to him. He forgot there are openings for fluent English speakers in organized crime as well as big business. He was proud of Toshishige, though. A respectful son. A straight, honest guy. And a hard worker. That was my brother. Until he was gassed on the subway. After that, he changed. He ... got to like the wild side. That is why Yoshiko left him. She did not approve of me. Toshishige started drinking and gambling. Other women too, I think the expensive kind. He needed money. More than he earned, you understand? So, I ... set up a few deals for him."

"What sort of deals?"

"Smuggling, mostly. A brother in shipping can be useful. Then .. . your friend found out."

"Rupe knew?"

"Yes. He stopped it, of course. But he didn't report Toshishige. He let him off. It was their secret."

Toshishige said Rupe had saved his life."

"Could be true. The sack. Maybe prison. That would have finished him, I reckon. Maybe your friend realized that."

"And I'm the beneficiary of the debt of gratitude Toshishige owed him?"

"Yes. That is it. We Yamazawas believe in honour. Lucky for you, I think."

We went through another village, this one smaller and more scattered, then turned off along a side-road where the going wasn't much better than on the route Ledgister had taken. But the woods were thinner, the views more open and extensive of the hills and mountains around us. Yamazawa stopped to check the map, drove on a short way, then stopped again where a track led down off the road. We were in a shallow valley, with overgrown fields to either side.

"The farmhouse must be down this track," Yamazawa announced after a further squint at the map. "Hidden by the trees maybe."

"It certainly looks like the track's been used recently." My deduction was hardly Sherlockian. There were plenty of tyre tracks and wheel ruts in the mud.

"OK. We go in." Yamazawa nosed the Range Rover cautiously off the road and we rolled gently through the potholes as the track wound in a meandering curve round the long-grassed margin of a wood bordering the fields.

The farmhouse, which had clearly ceased to play host to any active farming for quite a while, appeared ahead of us. The roof was partly thatched, partly tiled, as if the original building had been extended. There was a veranda out front, with weed-choked flower beds beneath it. Away to one side was a rusty-roofed barn of some kind. In its open doorway stood a Harley-Davidson motorbike.

We pulled up in the yard and got out. Yamazawa spotted at once that the sliding door leading into the house was half-open. We moved towards it, then stopped at the sight of what were obviously bloodstains on the planked floor of the veranda, smudged as if the person doing the bleeding had been dragged across them.

Yamazawa stepped gingerly past the marks and slid the door fully open. There were more of the same inside. "Loudon died here, I guess," he said. "Then Ledgister dragged him to his car."

"Mayumi and Haruko?"

"Gone. That is certain. But I will check. You stay here."

Yamazawa went inside, leaving me to stare down at the bloodstains and across at Loudon's abandoned motorbike. I was partly to blame for what had happened to him, no question about it. Not as much to blame as Rupe, though. I wasn't thinking kindly of my old friend in that moment. "Why didn't you just leave it alone?" I muttered under my breath. "You bloody fool."

Yamazawa was back within a couple of minutes. "There is no one here," he announced.

"Loudon telephoned them last night," I explained. "I don't know what he said. The conversation was in Japanese. But I think I can guess. He told them to clear out. They're hiding somewhere, probably waiting for a call from him to say everything's all right."

There will be no call."

"No," I agreed, glancing down again at the bloodstains. "No call."

"If you are right, they will not return here. They will wait and wait. And then they will learn what has happened from the TV, the newspapers."

"We must find them."

"You may be safer on your own."

"I can't just leave them to fend for themselves." (Besides, though I didn't propose to mention it, there was still the question of the Townley letter. More than ever, I needed to know what was in it.)

"You are determined to look for them?" Yamazawa frowned at me, as if weighing me up.

"Yes."

"Then ask yourself: what did Loudon plan? He must have realized he was in danger. So, he must have thought about what would happen to them without him. Who would he ask to protect them?"

"There's no one that I know of. Except me."

"But he did not tell you where he was sending them."

"Of course not. He was afraid that Hold on." I stopped and thought. The only way Loudon could have pointed me in the right direction without letting me in on what he was planning to do was to give me a cryptic message that I wouldn't recognize as such until after the event. Then, if he didn't come through, I'd be able to work out what he meant. "He recommended a book to me. For Whom the Bell Tolls:

"Ernest Hemingway."

"You know his work?"

"No. But I am an Ingrid Bergman fan. Therefore I have seen the film. It is disappointing, of course, with that terrible haircut she has in it. But the story is OK."

"Hemingway's not really my cup of tea. Frankly, as a Hemingway specialist, Loudon should have been able to tell that. The chances of me actually opening the book .. ." I stopped. Of course. Loudon had chosen something he'd been sure I'd ignore until I turned his remarks over in my mind later. That was the whole point. "We have to look at that book. It's at the flat."

"Going there is too risky."

"I have no choice."

"You have, I think."

"No." I looked straight at him. "Believe me, I haven't."

In one of the long tunnels on the road back to Kyoto, we were passed by a car moving at close to the speed of a bullet train in the opposite direction, flashing its headlights in warning. "The murder boys from Police HQ in Kyoto," said Yamazawa.

"If Loudon has identification on him, it will not take them long to trace his address."

"I know what you're saying, Shintaro. But I have to do this." "Then we do it quickly, OK? And I am in charge.