Hidden Nexus (15 page)

Friday 31st December 4:15pm

‘Bad news bitch!’

He roughly drew the curtains shutting out all the light so that the flat was drenched in darkness, took a step back, placed his hands on his hips and bent over her.

Junko Iida looked up, blinking into the shadows. She was sitting on the floor, her hands were tied behind her back and her mouth was covered in masking tape. Her small, black eyes, darting back and forth within their sockets, spoke of terror – sheer terror and confusion.

He took a menacing step forward and slapped her around the face laughing manically as he did so. He appeared to be quite mad. The slap did everything to add to the bruises that already, painfully, existed.

The man, despite his physical dominance and obvious position of strength, was not necessarily in complete control of his actions. There was the semblance of a plan – a brief outline, but the specifics were sketchy at best. He was marching
down the road without a route map. He slapped her again for no other reason than it appeared to expedite his own pain and that unexpectedly he seemed to derive a great deal of pleasure from it.

Not for the first time she cried out in pain.

He turned and stumbled
into the kitchenette, promptly locating a bottle of sake that he knew must be there. With fumbling hands he unscrewed the top and sloshed a generous measure into his mouth, allowing it to spill all over his face. It made little difference to his state of mind. He was already quite drunk, but he experienced a sense of self-indulgent release – in fact all his recent actions had been designed with liberation in mind.

‘You want some?’ he said teasing her. ‘Water maybe?’

Junko Iida just glared back – fear and loathing were her only thoughts.

‘You forced this upon yourself,’ he shouted. ‘None of this needed to happen.’ He waved his arm haphazardly around him and then staggered back into the room
and slumped down beside her. He studied her face, surprisingly alarmed at the severity of the bruises he had inflicted upon her. With the back of his index finger he gently traced around the edge of one particularly painful-looking bruise and tucked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear.

‘You're pretty,’ he said in a low, emotionless voice slipping effortlessly into a pitying monologue, ‘and sexy. I suppose you are aware of the kind of effect you have on me? Of course you are. However, you no doubt desire to attract much younger men than me, but you seem to insist in wearing short skirts and revealing tops. But you women always know what you’re doing, don’t you? How many times have you looked with seduction in your eyes? How many times do you lean in front of men allowing them to glance down your top? You’re a calculating bitch, aren’t you? But you got more than you bargained for, didn’t you?
You maybe sexy but you
are
stupid!’ He pushed his face into hers and Junko Iida instinctively tried to pull away but she only succeeded in unbalancing herself and toppled over.

‘Do you know what’s happened to me? Do you know what I’ve
become
? I…’ he collapsed, head in hands, and not for the first time in recent days struggled to hold back his emotions. Snot dribbled
from his nose as tears trickled
down his face. He slipped pathetically to the floor like a tantrum child. The bottle of sake also tipped over and its contents drained out over the floor.

For a while all three remained in this position - the woman prone and shaking; the man overcome by a toxic mix of anger and hopelessness and the sake bottle – just as horizontal. All three were drained and empty.

Then suddenly, as quickly as he had slipped into this whining, he snapped out of it. A severe coldness spread across his features at the same time that a dirty thought crossed his mind. What had he to lose, after all? It was stupid that he hadn’t considered it before?

He sat up and then roughly pulled at Junko Iida’s skirt laughing at the way in which she squirmed helplessly.

This was power!

There was nothing she could do.

‘You sexy bitch! You slut!’ he whispered in her ear. ‘You know you want to!’ He grabbed at the elastic of her knickers and tore them off, delighting at the aggression and the sound of the light material ripping and at the sight of her now exposed vagina.

But his raising lust quickly turned to a feeling of utter disgust.

‘You’ve soiled yourself, you dirty bitch!' He slapped her once again. 'But don’t worry.’ The tone of his voice suddenly altered to one that was much softer. ‘We can sort that. I can soon clean you up.’ He tottered back into the kitchenette gingerly holding the mucky knickers between his thumb and forefinger with one hand and with the other pinching his nose. He tossed them into the bin and then returned clutching a damp towel and then proceeded to dab it up and down her legs and around her bottom – back and front, carefully cleaning her thoroughly, being quite tender and gentle as if she were a new born babe. It was completely incongruous given his planned violent intent. Once again Junko Iida squirmed futilely. ‘There now, that’s better,’ he said once he’d finished. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have a change of underwear, but you won’t be needing them anyway, will you?’

He stood back as if admiring his work. ‘Yes – that’s much better, much more to my – taste!’

Of course there was no going back. After what he was going to do it would be foolish not to finish the job.

Friday 31st December 7:10pm

The Tokaido line train stopped briefly at Totsuka forcing Sergeant Mori to look up from his evening paper to check the stop. It had been a long time since he had alighted here - it was where he might get out if he was to visit Inspector Saito. On this occasion he simply looked up, noted the stop and then returned to his paper, with only the most fleeting of thoughts as to the doings of his former boss fluttering across his mind. He got out at the next stop – Ofuna.

He'd for once left work quite early having completed yet another questioning session with Yamada. As he'd left Sakamoto had gone in. There was to be no let up for the wretched Yamada, who so far had stuck religiously to his story. Mori was grateful to be away from the centre of operations. It was almost as if his proximity to the interrogation had begun to cramp him. His mind was no longer capable of thinking of new questions to ask or angles to pursue. He was therefore glad to be 'free' and to take time to attend to personal matters.

It had been over a month since he had last paid a visit to his parent’s house. It didn’t seem that long ago that he called on them regularly each Sunday but somehow he’d lapsed mainly due to his increased level of responsibility that kept him at the office, or on the case, at times he’d rather not have to be. In fact it used to be quite usual for him to join them for an evening meal, usually sushi, stay late and often stay over for the night. Recently he hadn’t been able to take them up on their offers – recently, as well as work, he’d had Narase Ren to look after him. But tonight was New Year’s eve and he thought that he ought to make the effort.

From Ofuna station he took a ten minute bus ride and then arrived a further five minutes later, cutting through the shrine and its grounds that backed onto his parent’s house. Their house was a modest building, tucked into a row of equally modest houses but it represented home and it gladdened his heart whenever he approached it. He opened the gate, recognising its familiar ‘clunk’ as it closed to and then rang the doorbell.

A few seconds later his father opened the door, suspiciously first and then with gusto second. He was surprised to see his son. ‘Good to see you Keita, I didn’t know you were coming,’ he exclaimed.

‘Ignore him,’ shouted Mori’s mother from inside the house. ‘I did tell him. He’s obviously forgotten.’

Mori smiled and pressed a bottle of Sake into his father’s hands which he’d picked up in the liquor store at the station. Mr Mori looked it up and down approvingly.

‘My favourite! Let’s crack it open!’

‘Not until you’ve finished the one you’ve already started!’ yelled his wife again from within the kitchen.

‘She’s got hearing like an owl,’ grumbled Mr Mori. Mori smiled again. The constant bickering between his parents was a given.

Mr Mori reluctantly placed the new bottle of sake in the sideboard cupboard out of which he then took out two small glasses.

‘The bath is heated if you want one.
O-Ka-san
how long till dinner? Does Keita have time for a bath?’

Mrs Mori popped her head round the concertinaed door that separated the kitchen from the living room. She was wearing an apron over her clothes and her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. ‘We’ll be ready in about twenty minutes. There’s plenty of time.
Tempura
ok? And of course
soba
noodles.’

‘Lovely!’ said Mori.

He exited the living room and skipped up the stairs, feeling like a young boy once again, to a small airing room where the washing usually hung to dry in winter. He picked out a bath towel and then returned to the ground floor and entered the bathroom at the back of the house.

His head cold was still in full, fluidic flow and so consequently he sat with a feeling that his energy levels were getting weaker and his thought processes were slowing to the point of complete in-action. He was grateful for the chance to relax in a hot bath and grateful that he could really stretch out both physically and mentally. His own bath was really far too small but his parent’s was much more comfortable and he realised how much he’d missed it. However, he didn’t think of much as he lay back allowing himself to simply watch the steam rise to the ceiling and the condensation dribble down the window pane.

Try as he might however, in this relaxed state he couldn’t avoid his thoughts returning to the case and whether or not it was the right decision to be holding Hideki Yamada. All his instincts still lead him to believe that Yamada was innocent, whatever Sakamoto might think.

He was all too aware of the problems of working under Sakamoto and it was these problems that succeeded in bypassing the phlegm-filled passages to penetrate his mind. Unlike Inspector Saito who tended to shield his team from whatever wrath may cascade down from the higher ranks, Sakamoto was, in the pursuit of his endless self-promotion, quite shameless in skirting around any blame by subtly deflecting it onto his staff. These were always understated actions played out in a game of delicate balance and counter balance where an imperceptible shift in weight could tip the scales effortlessly so that Sakamoto always came out either creaming off the glory or sheltering from culpability. From Sergeant Mori’s point of view it was an entirely different proposition compared to working with Inspector Saito – Sakamoto was a proposition he never, ever enjoyed.

Sakamoto, typically, had dismissed the complete lack of corroboration in terms of incriminating clothing in a manner that suggested that Mori was entirely incompetent not to have discovered the correct items. Either that or Yamada was even more cunning than Mori (of course Mori!) had giving him credit for. To add to the lack of clinching evidence Yamada’s steadfast declaration at his innocence was twisted in a way that made it the questioner’s fault for not being brutal or wily enough during the hours of interrogation - questioning, that of course Sakamoto was curiously absent from for a large proportion of the time.

It was still a surprise to Mori, given Sakamoto’s inclination for dishing out blame, that he had yet to pick him up for not bringing in Yamada first thing in the morning as per the original instruction or for the minor breach in security. The little window of opportunity that had opened up to Yamada still nagged away at him and Mori truly hoped that it was not something that he would later live to regret.

As for Yamada he had stuck to his story during the endless questioning, amending only that, yes – he had called into the convenience store. It was, in his opinion, a small oversight during the initial questioning explained away in that he was both in a state of shock and also more than hung-over during their first session. For five and a half hours he had submitted himself to the team's questioning, but the end result had remained the same. He declared himself innocent in equal measure to Sakamoto’s increasing exasperation – a man just as determined to establish his guilt.

Not even the presentation of a falsely mocked-up affidavit from the fictitious Kubota testifying to a secret and steamy affair, and the real existence of semen in his wife’s body, had swayed Yamada from his position of self-proclaimed innocence and ignorance of his wife’s affair. As the screws turned without the expected result – a confession, so it was that the pressure grew on the team in exact and opposite proportion to the degree of blame that Sakamoto himself would accrue for the lack of progress. Either way it was a position that didn’t sit well with Mori.

He looked once more at the rising steam and condensation and did his best to try, once again, to switch off. It wasn’t long before he soon felt that the heat of the bath was too much. Already his skin had turned to a light shade of pink so he eased himself out of the water, stepped out of the bath and took a cool shower. Five minutes later he had dried himself off and was back in the living room just in time to see his mother bringing through a large plate of
tempura
and a dish of various
sashimi
was already on the table.

Sometimes it was just great to be home – to have your dinner served to you accompanied by an expensive bottle of sake. He needed his independence but the home comforts were appreciated when he took the time out to enjoy them.

‘So? Are you working on anything interesting?’ Mr Mori topped up his son’s glass for the umpteenth time.

Mori looked up noting a slight shake in his father’s hand as he poured the drink. He worried about the weight of the bottle and wished that the one he’d bought had been smaller. Next time he’d get two smaller ones rather than one large one. He also wondered how much he wanted to discuss the case. He preferred not to. His father had a habit of offering his own opinion and it was something he could really do without.

‘A murder in Kamioka,’ he replied hoping his tone of voice would deter his father from asking further questions.

‘Now come on
O-to-san
you shouldn’t be bothering Keita with questions about his work,’ chided Mrs Mori.

‘I was just asking – no harm.’

‘No, it’s okay. We’ve picked up the husband, so it should all be tied up quite quickly.’

‘Oh how awful.’ Mrs Mori put her hand to her mouth.

‘What? That we’ll tie it up quickly!’

‘No, I mean the husband. Fancy killing his own wife!’

‘Yes, well, it’s not unusual I’m afraid,' said Mori glumly. 'In ninety-nine percent of cases the murderer is usually someone close to the victim and husbands pretty much top that list.’ He drained his glass and his father immediately topped him up.

‘I’m more interested in Ren. How is she? You haven’t mentioned her all evening,’ asked Mrs Mori.

‘Yes, she’s fine. She’s away at the moment – on secondment down in Osaka.’

‘Oh really! For how long?’

‘Two months in total. She’ll be there for another three weeks.’

‘Will we be hearing wedding bells any time soon?’ asked his father grinning like a cheeky schoolboy.

‘Don’t crowd him
O-to-san
. He’s only just met the girl! Don’t listen to him, Keita,’ she added turning to her son.

‘We’ve no plans,’ mumbled Mori.

‘She’s a lovely girl. You should bring her round more often.’ Mrs Mori collected up the finished dishes. ‘Now do you want some dessert?’

Mori nodded and took another sip of his sake. It was doing wonders for his head-cold but he didn't want to drink too much.

‘How was the woman murdered?’ asked Mr Mori returning once more to the serious topic.

‘Strangled.’

‘Really. What with his bare hands? I don’t know how you could do that. You’d have to be pretty strong, wouldn’t you? Not sure I could do that myself. Not that I’ve had a mind to. Even in our darkest moments.’

‘What? You’ve had dark moments?’ Mori laughed.

Mr Mori smiled at his son. ‘Of course! She’s very demanding your mother. You should know that. Still…’ He looked at his hands and considered whether or not he had the strength if not the inclination.

Mori noticed again that his father's right hand slightly shook. He also thought about his father’s idle musings. It was true that you needed to be fairly strong. Of course in the case a ligature had been used, but even so, it still took some doing. Yamada didn’t strike him as the sort of man with strength in his arms. He looked a bit of a lightweight.