The Secret Meaning of Blossom: a fast-moving spy thriller set in Japan Page 5

  Very interesting. He was right about the irises, then.

  He checked out the prices, thinking of picking some up to take back for the kids, and pursed his lips. Not cheap. It was only cash from now on, he’d decided, and he had a limited supply to last him goodness knows how long. Better not. He’d check them out back home, if he was going home any time soon, that was.

  Outside he carried on, time for a turn around the block then back to his kennel again, he supposed. Frankly, these capsule hotels weren’t meant for spending any time in, and for someone a bit bigger than the average Japanese they were poky to say the least. Moving about involved an inelegant shuffle that always rucked up the bedding. Besides, time weighed on the hands without a laptop or phone, when it seemed impossible to find an English-speaking channel on those drop-down televisions they had. So he wasn’t in a desperate hurry, late though it was.

  Half way down a quieter street a glare of fluorescent light caught his eye. Tinny chimes, dinging and rattling, people lined up on bar stools staring into glass screens. This must be pachinko! He’d say something for this city, there was always something to look at. He gazed in at the window for a while, then a chap came to the door.

  “Come! Come!” He beckoned James in with a smile of rather brown teeth. There was no hiding here. If you looked foreign, you stuck out like a sore thumb.

  “I’ve no idea how to play!” said James.

  “I show! I show!”

  Oh, why not, then? He followed the man in. Okay, this was cash as well, but not very much of it, surely. And the man was being so terribly friendly it would be rude not to oblige. A couple of turns or whatever wouldn’t do any harm.

  The chap took him over to the cash place where he was apparently required to hand over a few hundred yen for some silver balls. The man oversaw this transaction, grinning and nodding encouragingly. He had matching tie and braces in a striking orange colour, and his trousers were somewhat stained. He led James to a machine and sat him down beside him. He put on an energetic display with levers and flippers, not unlike pinball really.

  “Now you!” He moved aside.

  James’ first try was terrible, but things got better after that.

  “Ah! You win!” The man seemed quite excited, patting down his greased-back hair. “Where you from?” he asked between games.

  “England.” No point saying Carshalton or even Surrey – he’d learned that at the conference.

  “Ah, England! Beautiful. Island. Like Japan.” He beamed, exposing a gap in his teeth.

  “Well, it’s an island. Britain, anyway.”

  “You play again.” He had little interest in Blighty and its complicated nomenclature. A few games and the balls had gone but it seemed James was quids up somehow. He was presented with a prize, a little box of sweets with a cute cat on it. Sophie might like it, he supposed, but the man beckoned him to the door.

  “Come.”

  “Oh no, I’d better not. Places to be, you know.”

  Pachinko man raised his finger knowingly. “Not far, not far. Come!” Then the chap actually grabbed James’ sleeve and pulled. What happened to all that formality? Well, he’d better go, then. He could always walk away if things felt untoward.

  But actually it wasn’t far. About ten feet from the entrance they stopped at an unmarked hatch in the wall.

  “Here! Here!” The gentleman was pointing to James’ prize. “You want cash? Cash prize? Cash better, yes?”

  “Oh, I see!” Some exchange was apparently possible. Well, tell the truth, cash was what he needed right now. He pushed the sweets into the hatch, and after a few seconds a pile of yen was deposited there. Somewhat more than he’d paid in the first place. Handy.

  “Why you in Japan? Business? Holiday?” The man looked more curious now.

  “Business. Well, it was business. Not sure what it is now. Pending further developments, I suppose.”

  That was all he could say really. He urgently needed to have a chat with Fiona and somehow set all this straight, but the necessary ditching of all his tech gear was rather making that difficult. Still, a solution would no doubt present itself in the fullness of time. No point worrying over-much. Pachinko man looked blank, not surprisingly.

  “Well, thank you very much,” said James, offering a hand. Time to move on. A bite to eat somewhere then back. Enough excitement for one day. As he wandered off, he glanced back to see pachinko man standing by the parlour door gazing after him curiously.

  Chapter 9

  Rose got lost on the way to James and Fiona’s house from the station. She’d walked it before and thought she could remember it, but one tree-lined residential Carshalton street looked much like another to her. Eventually she showed up at about four thirty, after the school run but before dinner.

  Fiona opened the door. Her customary track suit bottoms and sporty top made her look thin and energetic, but there was also a vagueness around her eyes. When she saw Rose she frowned.

  “What do you want?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About the fact that my brother’s gone missing. That little matter. You remember, I’m sure.”

  She sighed and let Rose in. “Come into the kitchen. The kids are in the living room doing their homework.”

  She led the way and stood the other side of the granite-topped island unit, arms folded.

  Rose sat on a stool. “I went to his office. They wouldn’t tell me anything. What exactly does he do there, Fiona?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. IT stuff. He doesn’t talk about it.”

  Rose had made some enquiries. Whatever Viziontecc did, it wasn’t on behalf of any secret intelligence service, as far as her sources knew.

  “They didn’t seem to have any idea when he’d be back. Do you?”

  A flash of something crossed Fiona’s face, haunted and unsettled, evaporating into nonchalance. “What’s it to you?”

  “You’ve already played that card. I admit I’m a terrible sister-in-law, but I’m here now, aren’t I? In actual fact I seem to be taking this a lot more seriously than you are.”

  Fiona flicked her head and gazed at the sink, which featured one of those designer taps that probably cost more than most people spent on a holiday.

  “Fiona, I can help with this. I work for the Foreign Office, remember? If something’s happened to James I can help look into it. But I need to know everything. Is there anything else you can tell me about this?”

  In the silence that followed, children’s voices drifted in from the living room. It didn’t sound like they were doing homework.

  Fiona sighed. “I looked at his emails. He’s got himself involved with some girl he met at the conference.”

  Rose almost fell off her stool. “James? James Clarke? Some girl?”

  “Well, the emails were pretty conclusive,” sniffed Fiona. “They weren’t exactly subtle.”

  “Since when have you been reading his emails?” This aspect of marriage made Rose’s flesh creep. No way could she share her life with someone who didn’t respect her privacy.

  “A while,” said Fiona. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Does he read yours?”

  “Well – no.”

  “I see. And you confronted him about this?”

  “Absolutely. He denied it, which is pretty silly given I’ve got it in black and white. I mean, does he think I’m thick or something?”

  “This was a phone call, was it?”

  “Yes, for what it was worth.”

  “And how did it end?”

  “I told him not to come home.”

  Rose blinked. “What – never?”

  “No, not never! I just said something like, if you find Japanese customs so fascinating why don’t you stay on for a while and experience some more?”

  “So you were being sarcastic?”

  “No! Well, yes, but I meant it as well. I don’t want him here, I don’t even want to set eyes on him right now
. Especially if he’s just going to deny it all.”

  She picked up a couple of plates from the drainer and stacked them. “You probably don’t get it, Rose, you probably don’t realise how much of a betrayal that is. We have a marriage. We both committed to this, to each other, and for the kids. I gave up my job for the family.”

  Rose tried to remember what Fiona did for a living. Something medical, that was all she could recall. “So you just throw him off at the first sign of trouble? Fiona, has he ever, I mean ever, done anything like this before?”

  “Well, not that I know of! But I can’t be sure, now, can I? He could have been sneaking around behind my back for years.”

  There were tears in the woman’s eyes. The plates clattered. The children’s conversation seemed to have stopped. Fiona wasn’t being rational. But she was so invested in the family that she was touchy, super-sensitive – always had been.

  “And you’ve had no contact with him since that phone call?” Rose asked.

  “Nope.” She was running water now, with her back to Rose, even though there was nothing to wash. “No email. No text. No call-back.”

  “No call-back? You mean you called him?”

  Fiona turned the tap off and faced Rose. “Yes, I did. I left a message saying let’s talk. That’s what he said he wanted. But he hasn’t phoned back, Rose! He hasn’t even done that. What am I supposed to make of it?” She turned back to the sink and blew her nose gently.

  There was nothing else for it. Either James was in trouble or he’d undergone some kind of personality transformation. There was only one way to find out.

  Walking back to the station, Rose dialled Walter’s number. Asking for time off didn’t come easily to her. But it was the only way. At least she wouldn’t be missed in London. She hadn’t even started in the analysis team yet.

  Japan. Of all places, it had to be Japan.

  Chapter 10

  Timothy Gardner, Tokyo’s MI6 Station head, took Rose to a tiny but crammed noodle bar for lunch. Rose had got off the plane that morning and was feeling very other-worldly.

  “Been here before?” Gardner asked.

  “Nope.” Rose stared at the pictures on the menu of eggs and pickles and seaweed.

  “I’ll order. It tastes better than it looks. This is one part of the world where you can eat out twice, three times a day and not put the weight on.”

  He patted his stomach. He was quite trim, admittedly. Gardner had been here a long time, long enough to remember Fukushima. She asked him about it.

  He waved a hand. “That! It’s the only thing people hear about back home. You know how many people died from radiation-linked effects? One. A couple of thousand died from the evacuation and length of displacement. The tsunami killed fifteen thousand. But the meltdown itself…still, never let the facts get in the way. You worked for Peter Craven, you said. How is he these days?”

  “He’s okay. I was in Moscow when he got shot. He’s recovering well but back in the UK, probably for good now.”

  “He’s a sound man.” Gardner’s blue eyes looked thoughtful. “You work for Walter Tomlinson, is that right? Not someone I know a lot about. Salisbury I’ve crossed paths with.”

  “Yes, well, who hasn’t?”

  “Not that it’s got me anywhere. I’ve still seen my budget cut year on year for the last ten years. I do say to him, Japan may not be in the news much but it’s still the third biggest economy in the world. And it hasn’t moved. It’s got Korea on one end and Russia on the other, Taiwan bottom left and China top left. Can’t get more strategically significant than that. The Americans know it. They’re maintaining their presence in the area as much as ever. Me, I’m on a skeleton staff. A couple of decades of economic stagnation and no one wants to know any more. Take a look out of that window. Does that look stagnant to you?”

  Dark-haired heads were speeding past on the crowded street in both directions. There wasn’t an empty seat inside, either. A shout, and a man in a white chef’s hat and apron placed two bowls in front of them. He was wearing wellies, Rose noticed. They all were, in fact, as they rushed around the galley kitchen in a good-natured frenzy.

  “They throw themselves into things,” observed Gardner. “Quite an endearing feature of the place. The world could do with some more of that innocent enthusiasm.” He looked at Rose’s face as she stared into her bowl. “Raw egg. It’s surprisingly tasty. It has a sweetness to it. Give it a jab and stir it in.”

  He handed her a pair of chopsticks. Rose did as he suggested and slurped some juice with the spoon. “Not bad.”

  “Yes, really,” said Gardner, demonstrating some innocent enthusiasm himself. “I love the food. Love the whole place, actually. As I said, it gets a bad press. No press at all most of the time. Some people got stung with this slump. All through the eighties Japan was the wonder-kid of the world. All those books on the Japanese economic miracle. Then it devalued, and people assumed what went down would come back up. In other words, that the economy would behave like a western economy. But why would it? This ain’t the west.”

  He sucked a good length of udon noodle into his mouth, the thickness of worms. “You’d think from the commentary these days it’s a disaster. It’s fine. It’s just not growing, that’s all. Plenty of places in the world would be envious of a recession that looks like this. There have been changes of course. An ageing population. It’s not all salarymen. Getting on forty percent of workers are now ‘non-regular’, no job for life and so on. Not much has changed for women, unfortunately. Still massively under-represented at senior levels. The ‘office lady’ is very much at large. Though I have to say, if I had to choose between being a Japanese woman or a Japanese man, I’d be a woman.”

  “Why?” managed Rose. Her mouthful of noodle turned out bigger than she’d expected.

  “In a lot of ways they have more freedom. A salaryman is stuck in a work environment dominated by deference and seniority. You’re expected to work long hours even if you don’t produce anything worthwhile and your boss is an idiot. Men hand over their salaries to their wives and get a bit of pocket money back. It’s the women who manage the household, make all the decisions about the home, spend time with the kids, go on holiday while the man stays behind working in the sweltering Tokyo summer.” He shuddered. “Can’t say I’m a fan of the summer weather. You came at a good time from that point of view. Anyway. You have a bit of a family situation, you said?”

  Rose put down the chopsticks, happy to take a break from the cultural noodle experience. “My brother came here for a conference. He works in IT. Something to do with security.”

  “Oh yes, well, Japan’s often at the forefront of tech innovation. Something else that’s overlooked. So what happened?”

  “He seems to have disappeared. He didn’t go home as planned and wasn’t returning any messages. I got a postcard from him. Which is odd, as he never sends postcards. And this one is particularly odd. Here.”

  She got it out of her bag and handed it to Tim, who scanned the message.

  “The cherry blossom is lovely at this time of year? It’s December. Cherry blossom season’s May. It’s as far from cherry blossom season as you can get.”

  “Quite. When I got here this morning I went to his hotel. He stayed an extra four nights beyond what his company had booked, then apparently left without checking out. His laptop and mobile phone were still in the room. Believe me, Tim, that is not normal behaviour for James. He’s welded to his gadgets.”

  “Hmm. I hate to ask, but—”

  “Trouble at home? Well, his wife thinks so.” Rose told him what Fiona had said about the emails and subsequent conversation. “I tell you, this isn’t James. He missed his daughter’s birthday party, for goodness’ sake!”

  “Mid-life crisis?” suggested Gardner. “I hate to probe, but most missing people turn out to want to be missing.”

  “How does that explain the postcard? Or the gear he left in the hotel? That would only happen if he didn’t
leave of his own accord. Or he’s hiding from something.”

  Gardner pulled a face. “Are you sure you’re not thinking too much like a clandestine? He’s just an ordinary chap, isn’t he?”

  “Well, yes. Although when I went to his workplace I got a seriously frosty reception. I don’t know what they do, but they really don’t want to talk about it. Viziontecc, they’re called. Heard of them?”

  Gardner shook his head.

  “I’ve never had any real idea what he does for a living,” admitted Rose.

  Gardner lifted his bowl and slurped the dregs of his noodle soup directly into his mouth. He put it down. “Excellent. Well, naturally, you’ll need to report it at the Embassy through the proper channels. As for anything I can do, of course we’re enormously under-staffed…”

  “Any way of finding out if his laptop and phone are being traced?”

  “We can check for bugs, but you don’t necessarily need those to locate a device these days. GCHQ would be a better bet for that.”

  “Well, if they are being traced, no harm in whoever’s doing it knowing his gear’s been moved to the British Embassy. It might send a message that he’s being looked for. Do you have any way of finding out if he’s left the country? I’ve asked for a flag if he re-enters the UK. Or if he’s used a credit card anywhere?”

  “Probably, but Japan is still very much a cash society. If he really thinks he’s being tracked he could simply pay for everything with cash. Easy to disappear, really, especially in a city this size.”

  “Even for a foreigner?”

  “Well, we are more noticeable, though there are quite a lot of us about.”

  “If he’s using cash, he must have quite a lot of cash on him. Do you have any friends in the Japanese banking system who can see where he’s withdrawn cash?”

  “I’ll give it a try. This isn’t going to be easy, though. If he’s determined not to be contactable—”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  Gardner was shaking his head. “There’s so little to go on. With a proper network of contacts it would be worth spreading the word, but we’re down to a handful now.”