Mo Hayder - The Devil of Nanking aka Tokyo

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.

Food arrived at the table: slabs of tuna piled like dominoes on beds of nettle; bowls of walnut tofu sprinkled with seaweed; grated radish, crunchy as salt. Bison sat immobilized, staring down at a plate of yakitori chicken, as if it posed a huge problem, his face pale and sweaty, as if he might be sick. I watched him in silence, thinking of how he’d been last time at the club, his expression of amazement, the way he’d been transfixed by the residue on the sides of Fuyuki’s glass. Just like Strawberry, I thought. He doesn’t want to eat the meat. He’s heard the same stories she has…

I licked my dry lips and leaned over to Fuyuki. ‘We’ve met before tonight,’ I murmured in Japanese. ‘Do you remember?’

‘Have we?’ He didn’t look at me.

‘Yes. In the summer. I was hoping to see you again.’

He paused for a moment, then said, ‘Is that so? Is that so?’ When he spoke, his eyes and his odd little nose didn’t move, but the skin on his upper lip adhered to his teeth and lifted to reveal strange pointed canines in the top corners of his mouth, just like a cat’s. I stared at those teeth. ‘I’d like to see your apartment,’ I said quietly.

‘You can see it from here.’ He felt in his pocket and pulled out a cigar, which he unwrapped, clipped with a discreet silver tool taken from his breast pocket, and inspected, turning it this way and that, picking flakes of tobacco off it.

‘I’d like to look around. I’d like to…’ I hesitated. I gestured to the room where the prints were hung and said, in a low voice, ‘To see the prints. I’ve read about shunga. The ones you’ve got are very rare.’

He lit the cigar and yawned. ‘They were bringed to Japan by me,’ he said, switching to clumsy English. ‘Back to homeland. My hobby is to – Eigo deha nanto iu no desuka? Kaimodosu kotowa – Nihon no bijutsuhinwo Kaimodosu no desuyo.’

‘Repatriate,’ I said. ‘Repatriate Japanese art.’

‘ So, so. Yes. Re-pa-tri-ate Japan art.’

‘Would you like to show them to me?’

‘No.’ He let his eyes close slowly, like a very old reptile at leisure, vaguely resting his hand across them, as if that was enough conversation for now. ‘Thank you, not now.’

‘Are you sure?’

He opened one eye and regarded me suspiciously. I started to speak, but something in his look made me think better of it. I dropped my hands into my lap. He must never know, Shi Chongming had said. Never suspect.

‘Yes.’ I cleared my throat and fiddled with the napkin. ‘Of course. Now is the wrong time. Quite the wrong time.’ I lit a cigarette and smoked, turning the lighter over and over in my hands, as if it was utterly fascinating. Fuyuki watched me for a few more seconds. Then, seeming satisfied, he closed his eyes again.

After that I didn’t speak to him much. He dozed for a few minutes, and when he woke up the Japanese girl on his right took over from me, telling him a long story about an American girl who went out jogging braless, which made him laugh and shake his head enthusiastically. I sat in silence, smoking cigarette after cigarette, thinking, What next, what next, what next? I had the distinct idea I was getting near, that I was circling something closely. I drank two glasses of champagne very quickly, stubbed out my cigarette, and took a deep breath, leaning towards him. ‘Fuyuki-san?’ I murmured. ‘I need the bathroom.’

‘ Hi hi,’ he said distractedly. The hostess on his right was demonstrating a trick with a book of matches. He waved a hand vaguely behind him to a double glass door. ‘Through there.’

I stared at him. I’d expected more. Some resistance. I pushed back my chair and stood, looking down at his small brown skull, expecting him to move. But he didn’t. No one at the table even glanced up, they were all too absorbed in their conversations. I crossed the patio, got through the glass doors, and closed them quickly, standing for a moment, my hands flat on the glass, looking back. No one had noticed me leave. At a table near the far end of the pool I could see the back of Jason’s head between two hostesses and nearer me was Fuyuki, exactly as I’d left him, the back of his thin shoulders moving as he laughed. The hostess had set light to the match book and was standing, holding it above the table like a beacon, waving it to a round of applause from the other guests.

I turned away from the door. I was standing in a panelled corridor, the mirror image of the one we’d entered earlier, full of more lighted glass cabinets – I could see a Noh actor’s costume, samurai armour glinting in the low lights. Countless doors stretched into the distance. I took a deep breath and started to walk.

The carpet muffled my footfalls; the noise of the air-conditioning made me think of the enclosed, capsular atmosphere of an aeroplane. I sniffed – what was I expecting to smell? Don’t eat the meat… There should be more stairs on this side of the apartment. I passed doorway after doorway, but no staircase. At the end of the corridor I turned smartly at right angles into another corridor, and my pulse quickened. There it was, up on the right: the staircase, heavy double doors standing open, hooked back to the wall.

I was about ten yards away from it when a long way up ahead, at the next corner, a shadow appeared at the foot of the wall.

I froze. The Nurse. It could only be her, approaching from the next corridor. She must have been walking quickly because the shadow was getting bigger, climbing rapidly up the wall until it almost met the ceiling. I stood, paralysed, my heart thumping furiously. Any minute now she’d reach the corner and see me. Now I could hear her shoe leather squeaking efficiently. I groped blindly at the nearest door. It opened. Inside a light came on automatically and, just as the shadow dropped to the floor and shot sideways along the wall towards me, I stepped in, closing the door behind me with a discreet click.

It was a bathroom, a windowless room all in a fabulous blood red marble, veined like fat in beef with a hot tub surrounded by mirrors and a stack of immaculate starched towels on a ledge. I stood for a few moments, shaking uncontrollably, my ear pressed against the door, listening to the corridor. If she had seen me I would say what I’d said to Fuyuki: I was looking for the bathroom. I breathed cautiously, trying to pick up a sound from outside. But minutes passed and I could hear nothing. Maybe she had gone into a different room. I clicked the lock, and then, because my legs were weak, sank on to the toilet lid. This was impossible, impossible. How did Shi Chongming expect me to deal with this? What did he think I was?

After several minutes, when nothing had happened, no sound, no breath, I pulled a cigarette from my bag and lit it. I smoked silently, biting my nails and staring at the door. I checked my watch, wondering how long I’d been in there, whether she’d still be out there. Slowly, slowly, the trembling subsided. I finished the cigarette, dropped it into the toilet and lit another, smoking it slowly. Then I stood and ran my fingers up and down the edge of the mirrors, wondering if there was room behind them to hide a surveillance camera. I opened drawers and rummaged through stacks of soap and little complimentary toiletry sets embossed with JAL and Singapore Airlines logos. When an age seemed to have passed, I flushed the toilet, took a deep breath, clicked the door open and put my head out. The corridor was empty. The Nurse was gone and the double doors to the staircase had been closed. When I crept across the passage and tried the handle, I found they’d been locked.