The implacability of these people was terrifying. Always they seemed to be one step ahead. Steadily, their pursuers, despite all their resources, were being whittled down. One of the most powerful men in Japan had been murdered and the bloody trail of death never seemed to stop. Their opponents were people who considered themselves above the rule of law. Adachi, a senior officer of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, had been slain with contempt. No one was safe.
Chifune gave a cry of anguish and then fell to her knees, her hands scrabbling for something. Pieces of multicolored plastic were thrown up on the bed and then she started to arrange them, crying softly all the while. The shape of a parrot emerged, and then Fitzduane could see that it was a clock. A rather ugly clock.
Chifune looked up at him and gestured wordlessly at the pieces of the clock, and Fitzduane understood. The attackers had got everything. Whatever was hidden in the parrot was long gone. Every facet of Adachi's life seemed to have been ravaged. He had been killed, stripped, eviscerated as if in an abattoir, and then his home and his personal possessions had been destroyed. He had not just been killed. He was being erased. His killers were without pity, arrogant beyond belief.
Fitzduane took Chifune in his arms and held her. With her defenses down, she felt slight and vulnerable. At first she just pressed against him, seeking reassurance from the warmth of his body, and then she started to shake and sob, and then terrible anguished cries came out of her.
Fitzduane held her and stroked her, and long minutes passed and then it was over. She pulled away and then kissed him on the forehead and went into the bathroom to wipe her eyes.
The Spider and Yoshokawa stood in the living room when Fitzduane came out. Clearly they had been there for a little time. Both wore expressions of concern and grief.
"Tanabu-san?" said the Spider.
"She'll be..." Fitzduane started to say, and then realized that he did not know what to add except platitudes. This was a wound that ran very deep. Chifune was as resilient as anyone he had ever met, but this was something, he felt, against which she had no defenses. This was the death of someone she had loved. She would not recover from this loss easily. Nor was it something she would ever forget.
Chifune emerged from the bathroom, her face washed and her composure restored, and only spots of water on her blouse betraying her recent outburst.
The four stood there in the wrecked room and there was an awkward silence, and then the Spider started to speak. Fitzduane held up his hand for silence. In it was a plaster-covered, miniature black rectangle with a hair-thin wire protruding from it.
The Spider, puzzled for a moment, put on his reading glasses and took the small object and examined it more closely. Almost immediately, he gave a nod of comprehension.
They left the bugged apartment and by mutual agreement headed immediately to police headquarters. It was now after four in the morning, and the streets of Tokyo were as quiet as they ever get. It started to rain, and that added to the somber mood.
Chifune stared straight ahead as Fitzduane drove, but her hand rested on his thigh, not in a sexual gesture, but merely as if to seek reassurance. From time to time, she shivered. Fitzduane glanced at her with concern, debating whether he should stop the car and put his jacket around her, but the journey was short and soon she would be in warmth again.
They assembled in the Spider's office around the huge conference table, and tea and other refreshments were brought. The Spider also poured four large brandies. Chifune demurred at first but then drank, and some color came back into her cheeks.
It was strange, Fitzduane thought, that although there had been no discussion of why they had assembled, all knew why they were there. Adachi's death had marked a turning point. There was now a common imperative for immediate and drastic action. Adachi's death was not going to go unavenged. It was not merely a police matter. It was personal.
The Spider began the discussion. "Adachi-san and I met yesterday," he said heavily, "and I think you should know what transpired."
"The superintendent was determined to solve the Hodama murders. He clung to this objective, despite all else."
"Immediately following the Hodama killings, the evidence pointed toward the Namaka brothers. First of all, a Namaka identity pin was found in the cauldron itself, and then a series of other clues were discovered, all of which pointed towards the Namakas. The puzzle was the motive. Hodama was the Namaka's political mentor and had been such for many decades, so why would they turn on him after all this time? And then some tapes were found and they purported to show that there had been a falling-out between Hodama and the brothers and that he was going to abandon them politically.
"On the face of it, the steady buildup of evidence against the Namakas was damning, but Adachi-san was not convinced. Instinct is an important part of a good detective's skills, and Adachi-san's instincts told him that something was wrong. He would have been delighted to bring down the Namakas, but he felt that, paradoxically, the one crime they were innocent of was the Hodama affair.
"The aspect of the case that caused Adachi-san most concern was the manner of Hodama-san's death. Of course, the method could have been an attempt to confuse the investigators, but overall, murder by boiling someone while still alive was such a horrible technique that the superintendent felt it must be personal and that the true motive for the killing was revenge.
"A great many people had reason to be revenged on Hodama-san, of course, but Adachi-san focused on the flaws, in the chain of evidence involving the Namakas, as he saw them. Investigation here showed a common denominator. In virtually every case, there was a Korean connection. Eventually, it looked to the superintendent as if a Korean or someone with strong Korean connections was behind the hit. Accordingly, he narrowed his search to looking for such a person or organization who might harbor a grudge against Hodama, even from many years ago. He further qualified that by looking for some particularly vicious incident. Some action that would result in a response as excessive as that meted out to Hodama-san.
"Adachi-san's search was not easy. The postwar period was a confused time, and initial record-keeping left much to be desired. Additionally, Hodama was rarely involved directly in violence. Almost always, it was his practice to have such acts carried out by intermediaries, and, of course, in the early postwar years his favorite enforcers were the Namakas. Later on, the Namakas also became too respectable for much direct involvement and they, too, started to use someone else for their dirty work.
"The superintendent was eventually pointed towards Katsuda and his organization, when an elderly sergeant he had worked under told him the story of a rival Korean gang being burned to death by the Namakas at Hodama's instigation. This was the kind of crime Adachi-san was looking for. Here was the motive, and it came clearer when it transpired that a survivor of that Korean gang, Katsuda-san himself, was now running the second-largest yakuza gang in Japan. In other words, Katsuda not only had the motive but he also had the means. The Hodama attack smacked of a well-drilled yakuza operation, the kind that only one of the larger organized-crime groups could mount. Naturally, the Namakas could have carried out such an exercise, too, but at least Adachi-san now had another suspect and one that, in his judgment, made more sense.