‘What’s that place?’ I asked the driver in Japanese. ‘The temple?’
‘That’s Zojoji temple.’
‘Zojoji? What are all the children for?’
The driver looked at me hard in the rear-view mirror, as if I was a surprise to him. ‘Those are the Jizo. The angels for the dead children. The children who are stillborn.’ When I didn’t answer he said, ‘Do you understand my Japanese?’
I turned back to gaze at the ghostly lines under the trees. A little shudder crossed my heart. You can never be sure what’s going on in your subconscious. Maybe I’d always known what the statues were. Maybe that was why I had chosen the park to sleep in.
‘Yes,’ I said distantly, my mouth dry. ‘Yes, I do. I understand.’
Fuyuki lived near the Tokyo Tower, in an imposing apartment building set in private gardens behind security gates. As the Continental swept down the driveway, the wind coming off the bay made the big palm trees rustle. The guard roused himself from behind a low-lit reception desk, crouched to unlock the bottom of the glass doors, and escorted our party through a quiet marble lobby to a private lift, which he opened with a key. We crammed in, the Japanese girls giggling and whispering behind their hands.
When the doors opened at the penthouse the man in the ponytail was waiting for us. He didn’t speak or meet anyone’s eye as we filed out into the small hallway, but turned smartly and led us into a long passage. The apartment was arranged round a square. A long walnut-panelled corridor linked all the rooms and seemed to go on for ever; concealed lighting dropped round pools of light in front of us, like a runway, inviting us into the distance. I walked cautiously, shooting looks around me, wondering if the Nurse lived here too, if she had a lair behind one of these doors.
We passed a ripped and stained Japanese flag hung in a lighted frame, a ceremonial ashes box carved from wisteria, painted white and displayed in a glass cabinet. No locks, I noticed. I allowed myself to drop to the back of the group. We passed a military uniform, battle-worn and mounted so that it appeared to have flesh and substance. I bent a little as I passed the glass cabinet, keeping my eyes on the group ahead, and trailed my hand up inside the open base of the case, brushing the hem of the uniform.
‘What’re you up to?’ asked one of the hostesses, as I caught up with the group.
‘Nothing,’ I murmured, but my heart was picking up speed. No alarms. I hadn’t dared hope that there would be no alarms.
We passed a flight of stairs that led down into darkness. I hesitated, staring down into the gloom, resisting the urge to break from the group and slip down the steps. The apartment was arranged over two floors. What sort of rooms would be down there? I wondered, suddenly and inexplicably picturing cages. It is not a plant that you’re looking for…
Just then the group stopped up ahead and were depositing their bags and jackets in a small cloakroom. I had to leave the staircase and catch up with them, pausing to leave my coat too. Soon we could hear low music, the gentle clink of ice in glasses, and presently came into a smoky, low-ceilinged room, full of carefully lit alcoves and display cabinets. I stood for a moment, my eyes getting used to the light. The hostesses from the earlier cars were already seated in large oxblood chesterfields, balancing glasses and talking in low murmurs. Jason was in an armchair, comfortably reclined, one bare ankle resting lightly on the other knee, a cigarette burning in his fingers – just as if he was relaxing at home after a long day’s work. Fuyuki was at the far end of the room in a wheelchair. He was dressed in a loose yukata, his legs bare, and he was backing and shunting the wheelchair along the edges of the room, leading Bison around. They were looking at erotic woodcut prints on the walls, long-bodied courtesans with skeletal white legs, embroidered kimonos swirling apart to reveal oversized genitals.
I couldn’t help it. I was immediately mesmerized by those prints. I could sense Jason a few feet away, watching my reaction with amusement, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. This one showed a woman so aroused that something was dripping from between her legs. At last, when I couldn’t stop myself, I turned. Jason raised his eyebrows and smiled, that long, slow smile that showed just the corner of his chipped tooth, the smile he’d given me in the corridor in Takadanobaba. The blood rushed to my face. I put my fingers on my cheeks and turned away.
‘This one,’ Bison said in Japanese, tilting his cigar at a print. ‘The one with the red kimono?’
‘By Shuncho,’ Fuyuki said, in his cracked whisper. He planted the cane on the floor and rested his chin on it, looking ruminatively up at the print. ‘Eighteenth century. Insured for four million yen. Beautiful, isn’t it? Had a little chimpira from Saitama liberate it for me from a house in Waikiki.’
The ponytailed man coughed discreetly and Bison turned. Fuyuki rotated the motorized wheelchair to look at us.
‘Come with me,’ he whispered, to the assembled girls. ‘This way.’
We went through an archway to a room where, under two samurai swords suspended from the ceiling on invisible wires, a group of men in Aloha shirts sat drinking Scotch from crystal tumblers. They half stood, bowing as Fuyuki glided past them in his chair. Sliding glass doors stood open to reveal a central courtyard lined entirely with gleaming black marble, the night sky reflected in it like a mirror. In the centre, black as jet, as if hollowed from the same block, was a spotlighted swimming-pool, a faint chlorine steam hanging above its surface. Several gas-powered heaters, tall, like lamp-posts, were dotted around, and six large dining-tables were arranged beside the pool, each set with black enamel place mats, silver chopsticks and heavy glass goblets, napkins stirring in the breeze.
Several of the places had already been taken. Large men with cropped hair sat smoking cigars and talking to young women in backless evening dresses. There were so many girls. Fuyuki must know a lot of hostess clubs, I thought.
‘Mr Fuyuki,’ I said, coming up behind him as we crossed to the tables. He brought the wheelchair to a stop and turned to look at me in surprise. None of the girls had dared to speak to him yet. My legs were wobbly and the heat from the burners made the side of my face red. ‘I – I want to sit next to you.’
He narrowed his eyes at me. Maybe he was intrigued by my rudeness. I stepped closer, standing in front of him, near enough for him to be aware of my breasts and my hips, taut inside the dress. On an impulse, the vampire in me stirring, I took his hands and placed them on my hips. ‘I want to sit next to you.’
Fuyuki looked at his hands, pressed into the folds of my dress. Maybe he could feel the French knickers beneath it, the slither of silk on silk, the elastic stretch under his fingers. Maybe he just thought I was crazy and clumsy, because after a moment or two he laughed hoarsely. ‘Come, then,’ he whispered. ‘Sit next to me, if you want.’
He propelled his wheelchair into a place under the table and I sat down shakily, pulling my chair up next to him. Bison was already settled a few seats away, picking up a napkin, flicking it out and tucking it into his collar. A waiter in black jeans and T-shirt hovered around us with chilled vodka cocktails in cloudy white glasses, vaporous trails coming from them like dry ice. I sipped, surreptitiously surveying the courtyard. Somewhere, I thought, looking at the windows, some lit, others in darkness, somewhere in this apartment is the thing that keeps Shi Chongming awake at night. Not a plant. If not a plant, then what? There was a red light set high up on the wall. I wondered if it was an alarm.