Hidden Nexus (8 page)

‘So how can
I
help
you
?’ Hatoyama had asked in a way that suggested that Watanabe must have been in real trouble.

‘I believe there are mutual benefits that can accrue from a discussion - from an understanding.’ Watanabe had been careful not to display any weakness.

‘Mutual benefits?’

‘The world can be a less inhospitable place if we all learn to rub along together, can it not?’

‘But specifically-’

‘Specifically, as you ask, I’m concerned about these rallies from the far right faction.’

‘Go on.’

‘They are disruptive to the Party.’

‘I can see why you might think that but why should that concern me?’

Watanabe had smiled and taken a sip out of his drink that had just arrived. ‘The Party has seen you right over the years, hasn’t it?’

Hatoyama hadn’t replied, instead he’d taken a long sip out of his own drink.

‘I’d like you to tone down the rallies – stop them if you can.’

‘You think I can do that?’

‘I know you can do that!’

Hatoyama had smiled. ‘And why should I?’

‘Like I said, there are benefits that can accrue.’

Watanabe had examined Hatoyama closely. He’d sensed him carefully thinking about what he had just heard. With his right index finger he’d scratched the scar on his forehead as he had a tendency to do when he was thinking. After some time he’d looked back up and smiled briefly.

‘Okay.’ He’d scratched his scar a further time. 'On one
condition. I ask that you pay your respects to my mentor and visit him at the Mejiro temple.’

Watanabe had nodded in affirmation and with that the meeting had closed fairly abruptly.

As Watanabe had
exited the room he'd hoped that such an unholy alliance would come to nothing more than what had been agreed. He knew that in their careers he and Kinjo had played a wily game but never before had he imagined that they would ever have to court the company and support of the Yakuza. Looking back Watanabe was right in his thinking. Looking back Watanabe could pin-point his slide into difficulty to this very meeting.

However for the present he was happily ignorant and according to the evidence of the newspapers the strategy to involve Hatoyama had been particularly effective, substantiated by the reduction in the number of reports from the minions complaining that their rallies were being subjected to harassment and intimidation from the far-right. He had Kinjo to thank and he made a mental note to remind himself to offer Kinjo some kind of bonus-remuneration for his efforts. But still, the vultures circled and his political enemies would be all too pleased to feast on his rotting carcass should he ever give them the chance. This was no time to rest on his laurels.

There was only one item on the agenda for the meeting to come – the possibility of an alliance with the
Ryozo
group, a faction slightly to the left of his own. This particular alliance was another plan and another gem that had spouted from the seemingly unending fount that gushed from within Kinjo’s scheming and manipulative mind. With the strategy carefully explained to him even Watanabe had recognised that if they were able to clinch such an alliance then he really would be one step away from being unassailable once again.

Watanabe’s life had been full of political scheming, the origins of which stemmed from his desperate need to regain power, and a love-hate relationship with the Matsuzaki faction, the biggest and most powerful faction within Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which itself had governed Japan almost continuously since the second world war.

The Matsuzaki faction
basked in its role as puppet-master and king-maker – an oblique aspect of Japanese politics which neatly concealed where the real power rested. Supposedly this lay with the elected Prime Minister and his Cabinet but those who played the system knew that in reality the power lay in the hands of the unaccountable wire-pullers - the faction leaders and modern day Shoguns.

It was this role of ‘Shogun’ that Watanabe coveted, but it was only through a myriad of alliances that he could ever hope to regain such a position now that he was no longer head of the powerful Matzusaki faction.

In a not untypical episode in his political life, two years previously, Watanabe had fought for and lost the chairmanship of the
Matsuzaki
faction. In the election for Chairman the choice between the candidates was fundamentally
simply
one of personal chemistry with
serious matters of policy tending to become mere side issues in the incessant, internal haggling and wrangling that took place within each and between each and every faction. W
hen the Matsuzaki faction failed to return Watanabe, in a fit of pique, he removed himself and his thirty-six followers from the faction and formed his own group. From chairmanship of the ruling party’s most influential faction, from position of ‘Shogun’, he had descended to a situation of relative powerlessness. Sadly, true power was an unfaithful and temporary mistress for him. Sad, too, was that he was hopelessly and addictively smitten. He would do anything to regain his once lofty position – anything at all!

Others recognised that the swings and roundabouts in Watanabe’s political fortune were all too typical for him. Newspapers sympathetic to
him
insisted that there really was a principled method to his apparent madness, that he saw himself as a historical figure who could modernize Japanese politics by increasing the power and accountability of elected politicians as opposed to the unelected bureaucrats. Cynics however, failed to see how colourful rustic politicians making deals in smoke-filled restaurants was any better or more democratic than faceless urbane bureaucrats from Tokyo University making decisions in air-conditioned civil service offices.

Not that Watanabe
really
cared. Deep down Watanabe had few genuine principles.

In the years since his departure from the Matsuzaki faction,
he had
done little to alter this public perception of him as a maverick politician, having traversed a variety of factions, pleaded unsuccessfully to be allowed back into the Matsuzaki faction, alienated countless allies, and engineered a few unexpected electoral victories. Any underlying principles were fiendishly hard to detect – save that of survival and aggrandisement.

But the cycle of Watanabe’s fortune was once again beginning to turn – he could sense it.

Of course he knew the underlying reasons for all this. Of course he did. Hatoyama’s role was all too clear. Kinjo’s plan had been risky – was risky, and Watanabe hadn’t been sure at first. He was now! But all the same, it remained imperative that this particular alliance remained secret. If it ever surfaced that he’d had any dealings with the Yakuza, any dealings at all, then what was left of his political career would come to an immediate and shuddering halt. That much was elementary.

He cast his mind back once more to that initial meeting with Hatoyama. He’d been confident that Kinjo had made suitable security arrangements – he’d trusted Kinjo after all. He was his right hand man.

But then Kinjo had passed on his suspicions surrounding a young woman, one of the attendants who’d served the drinks, and about what he thought she might, or might not have noted, particularly about the significance of the meeting. Watanabe had felt that familiar cold shudder crawl up his spine. The meeting had to remain a secret and now someone unreliable had sensed its importance. He’d chewed his lip with particular vigour on hearing the news.

Watanabe though, was equally confident that Kinjo would take care of it. It was what Kinjo was good at – tidying up. Typically he would pay them off or ensure silence through other means – usually fictitious claims of patronage, promotion or work within the faction. Kinjo was expert at utilising his situational power, if not his charisma.

It had not been a surprise therefore when Kinjo had pointed the girl in Watanabe’s direction – with recommendation! ‘Keep your friends close but your enemies closer,’ some foreigner had said. Watanabe had followed that and Kinjo’s advice.

‘You can keep a check on her and… well, she has a nice arse. Enjoy her. She’s harmless. Trust me!’

Watanabe had surprisingly little difficulty in getting together with the girl. She’d been more than eagerly acquiescent and he had become more than quickly aroused. ‘Your turn,’ she’d said as Watanabe had lain back on the futon, closed his eyes and listened to her slipping off the rest of her clothing. It hadn’t taken him long to reach a
state of complete and utter abandon and all he could hear and all he could feel had been the soft touch of her hand. He hadn’t objected and imperceptibly had opened his legs to invite her on. As he’d drifted into delirium he’d sensed her lips – sucking.

It was only after that session that he’d become more confident that the woman had been happily taken care of. He was confident that she would remain silent, after all why risk an inside seat with the hottest politician in town?

Then there had been that
other
woman. That had
not
been so nearly as satisfying. She had
not
been acquiescent – there had been
no
gay abandon, rather an eruption of force and only the merest pleasure at the exertion of physical control and power.

Another momentary, ice-cold shudder shot up and down his spine. He poured himself a glass of water, noting that his hand was slightly shaking, paced around the room taking deep breaths attempting to re-group his composure before greeting his colleagues as they entered the room.

He forced
himself to focus. There were important matters to hand concerning the Ryozo group. He drew in his stomach, took further deep breaths and then fixed his mouth into a look of confident assurance.

Friday 31st December 8:30am

Mori made his way alone, somewhat secretively and somewhat more slowly than he wanted to Kawasaki. A full head cold had now descended and he felt weak and heady, was dripping with mucus
and as a consequence was hardly enthusiastic about the task ahead of him. The freezing conditions all around him did nothing to ease his mood. Nonetheless he persisted in his covert duty, not before popping into the local doctor and being prescribed the usual bucket load of tablets, clear that despite Sakamoto’s instruction he wanted at least to talk to a few other people before he pulled in Yamada for full interrogative questioning.

Eri Yamada's parents sat silently around the low table in their guest reception room waiting patiently for Sergeant Mori to begin. The heater above the window gently hummed and sent wafts of warm air into the cold room and Mori, thankfully clutching the cup of green tea he'd been offered, thought carefully about what he wanted to say. To his left he had an emergency pack of tissues to deal with his streaming nose.

Similar to the evening before he was looking into the eyes of those who had suffered loss but even so Mrs Tsuchida, particularly, looked like she'd be a sad looking woman even under less trying circumstances.

Mori opened his small notebook and took out his pen from within his jacket pocket. 'Can you think of anyone who would want to kill your daughter?’

Four heartbreaking eyes stared dolefully back. It was an awful question to ask anybody and it was painfully clear they had no-one or no event in mind. They had no need to speak.

Mori blew his nose, not for the first time, and then tried again. 'Was your daughter happily married Mrs Tsuchida?'

'As far as I know.'

'She didn't confide in you at all? No little secrets?'

'No secrets, no. I'm sure they were quite happily married.' Mrs Tsuchida's tone suggested that even if there were any minor indiscretions she didn't appreciate being asked. 'I'm quite sure they were happy!' she repeated again for emphasis. Mori looked across to Mr Tsuchida who stared passively back - his thick, black-rimmed spectacles making his eyes look unusually blank and glassy. Mrs Tsuchida, it appeared, spoke for both of them and was quite clearly the ruler of the roost.

'Do you know why they didn't have any children? Do you know of any specific reason?'

'None that we know of.'

It was becoming a tiring refrain.

'No issues in their sexual relationship?'

'Look! I don't think that is any of your business! And it certainly wasn’t any of ours.' It was Mr Tsuchida who had unexpectedly stepped in, glancing nervously at his wife as he did so.

'My apologies,' bowed Mori. 'But I do need to ask the question, however impertinent or painful it might be. I just need to be certain that there were no problems in their marriage, that's all.'

'My wife's already told you. As far as we are concerned they were a very happy, hard-working couple.'

‘Okay, okay, I understand.' Mori thought quickly again about other angles that may have led to problems or motives. 'Was your daughter a wealthy woman? Had she inherited any money at all, from you from-’

‘No she wasn’t,’ came the firm reply, this time from Mrs Tsuchida. ‘She was a good girl, she worked hard. She was a good wife-’

‘And you have absolutely no idea why such a good, hardworking wife and daughter might have been so brutally murdered?’ interrupted Mori, losing his patience more quickly than he would have imagined. He blew his nose once more.

‘No, no idea at all.’

'And Mr Yamada... There's nothing you can tell us about him?'

'No nothing. Not really.'

Mori sighed and felt as empty handed as he had the evening before.