The name of the hospital sounded familiar to Sasagaki, but he couldn’t place it at first, until he remembered his recent conversation with Eri Sugawara about how a client at Imaeda’s office had been a pharmacist at the Imperial University Hospital.
‘Would a pharmacist at the hospital have access to those computers?’ he asked.
‘Yes, they would all have access,’ Kazunari explained. ‘Except, even though our computers are connected to these external networks, not all of our information is available through those channels. There are some walls put up here and there in the system, to protect sensitive material from getting out. Which means that our criminal would have a considerable amount of know-how. A pro.’
‘A professional hacker?’ Something was tugging at the back of Sasagaki’s mind. He knew at least one professional when it came to computers. He also wondered if there was a connection between whoever set a trap for Kazunari Shinozuka and the pharmacist from the Imperial University Hotel who had gone to Imaeda’s office. But it could well be a coincidence.
‘Is something wrong?’ Kazunari asked, a suspicious look in his eyes.
‘No,’ Sasagaki said waving his hand. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘I’m sorry, that phone call really took us off track,’ Kazunari said, stretching in his seat. ‘Please, go on with your story.’
‘Right, where was I?’
‘You were talking about motives,’ Kazunari said.
‘Ah, right,’ Sasagaki said, sitting up straight and taking a deep breath.
Saturday afternoon was like an air pocket, a little bubble of tranquillity protected from the rest of the world. Mika was in her room listening to music and reading magazines as she always had before things changed. An empty teacup and a saucer with a bit of cookie left on it stood on the bedside table. Taeko had brought them in for her about twenty minutes earlier.
‘I’m heading out for a bit, Mika,’ Taeko had said. ‘You’re in charge.’
‘You’ll lock the door, right?’
‘Of course.’
‘Fine. Bring a key, ’cause I won’t answer even if you ring,’ Mika had said, snuggling under the covers of her bed and opening a fresh magazine.
Mika was all alone in the big house. Her father was out playing golf and Yukiho was at work. Masahiro had gone off to their grandparents’ for the night. After her mother died, Mika was often left to her own devices at home. It felt lonely a bit at first but these days she preferred it to company, especially if it involved being around Yukiho.
She was just getting up to swap in a fresh CD when she heard the phone ring in the hallway. Mika frowned. She welcomed calls from her friends but she doubted this was one of those. There were three lines in the house: one for her father, one for Yukiho, and the last one was for everyone to use. She’d been asking her father for her own line for some time now but hadn’t made much progress.
Mika went out into the hallway to pick up the cordless phone from its cradle on the wall. ‘Shinozuka residence.’
‘Hello? Is a Mika Shinozuka there?’ It was a man’s voice.
‘Speaking,’ she said.
‘I have an overnight delivery here from a Miss Tomoko Hishikawa? Would it be all right to bring that by now?’
That’s strange, Mika thought. The delivery people had never called in advance before, but then again, she’d never received an overnight delivery before. She didn’t wonder long, however, as her excitement over the prospect of something from her friend Tomoko drove all concern out of her mind. She hadn’t seen her since Tomoko’s father got transferred last spring and the family had moved down to Nagoya.
‘Sure,’ she said. The delivery man told her he’d be right over.
Several minutes later the doorbell rang. Waiting in the living room, Mika picked up the intercom. The security camera showed a man dressed in a delivery uniform. He was carrying a box about the size of an orange crate.
‘Yes?’ she spoke into the intercom.
‘Package for Miss Shinozuka?’
‘Come in,’ Mika said, pressing the button to undo the latch on the gate.
She went out to the entrance hall and opened the door. The man with the box was standing right outside.
‘Er, where should I put this?’ he asked. ‘It’s a little heavy.’
‘Right here is fine,’ Mika said, pointing down at the floor of the entrance hall.
The man put the box down. He was wearing dark glasses, and a hat with a brim that went low over his forehead. ‘Can I get your signature here?’ He handed her a pen and took out a small sheet of paper.
‘Where do I sign?’ she asked, leaning forward.
‘Right here,’ the man said, also taking a step forward.
Mika was about to put her pen to the paper when the slip suddenly disappeared.
‘Huh?’ she said as something soft pressed over her mouth. Mika gasped in surprise and felt the world slip away.
Time seemed to be slowing down and speeding up in fits and starts. There was a ringing in her ears but only when she was awake enough to hear it. She kept fading out, like a radio with bad reception. She couldn’t move at all. Her arms and legs didn’t feel like her own. Everything seemed dreamlike and unreal, except for the pain. That was real. It took her a while before she realised the pain was coming from a specific place inside her body. It was so strong her entire body felt numb with it.
There was a man immediately in front of her. She could see his face clearly. He was breathing on her. Hot, quick breaths.
I’m being raped.
Part of her understood this, yet another part of her felt as if she were watching the horror unfold from a great distance. And there was another part of herself, a higher level of consciousness, wondering why she was so spaced out, why she wasn’t reacting.
Then fear such as she’d never known before gripped her in its clutches. It was the fear of falling into a deep hole, of not being sure what was at the bottom. The fear of not knowing how long this hell would go on.
She wasn’t entirely sure when it ended. She’d fallen unconscious at some point.
It was her vision that came back first. She saw flowerpots in a line. Cactuses – the ones that Yukiho had brought from her home in Osaka.
Next her hearing returned. She heard a car somewhere nearby and the sound of the wind blowing. With a start, she realised she was outside, in the garden. She was lying on the grass. She could see the net that her father had set up for practising golf.
Mika sat up. She hurt all over. She was cut and bruised and there was another, dull pain near her lower belly. It felt like something had scooped out her insides. The air was cold on her skin. Only then did she realise she was mostly naked. What clothes remained on her had been torn to rags. Her other consciousness was still there too, coldly observing, upset that her favourite shirt had been ruined.
She was still wearing her skirt, but she didn’t have to look to know that someone had taken off her panties. She looked into the distance and saw the reddening sky.
‘Mika!’ a voice called out. She turned her head slowly to see Yukiho running toward her. Mika stared, lost in a dream.
Nothing seemed real. Nothing at all.
Noriko struggled to open the front door. The plastic handles of the convenience-store bag were digging into her fingers with the weight of a big bottle of mineral water and bag of rice. She stopped herself from saying, ‘I’m home.’
Noriko put her bag down in front of the fridge and opened the door to the back room. It was dark, the air still and cold. In the back corner, the white computer case seemed to float in the dim light. She missed the glow of the monitor, the slight whirr of the fans.