Koji Suzuki - Spiral

SPIRAL

KOJI SUZUKI

Translation

Glynne Walley

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

Copyright © Koji Suzuki 2004

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2005,

First published in the USA by Vertical, Inc 2004,

Originally published in Japan as Rasen by Kadokawa Shoten, Tokyo, 1995

Cover photograph © pierre d’alancaisez/Alamy

Koji Suzuki asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007240142

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2015 ISBN: 9780007331581

Version: 2015-10-06

Contents

Cover

Title Page SPIRAL KOJI SUZUKI Translation Glynne Walley

Copyright

Prologue

Part One: Dissecting

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Part Two: Vanishing

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Part Three: Decoding

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Part Four: Evolving

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part Five: Foreshadowing

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Epilogue

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

Mitsuo Ando awoke from a dream in which he was sinking into the sea. The trilling of the telephone insinuated itself into the sound of the surf, and the next minute he was jerked into wakefulness, as though the waves had taken him.

He stretched his arm out over the side of the bed and picked up the receiver.

“Hello.”

He waited, but no sound came through the line.

“Hello,” he said again, sternly this time, urging the caller to reply. There came a woman’s voice, so morose it made him shudder.

“Did you get it?”

The voice filled Ando with fatigue. He felt as if he were being dragged into a dark ditch. The dream from which he’d just awakened flashed before his eyes. A huge wave had suddenly sucked him up off a beach: as he sank to the bottom of the sea he lost all sense of up or down, right or left, until he was helpless against the current … As always, he’d felt a tiny hand grasping at his shin. Every time he had the dream, he felt on his feet the touch of that little hand, those anemone-like fingers slipping away to vanish into the depths of the ocean. There was absolutely nothing he could do to prevent it, and it tortured him. He stretched out his arms, sure that he should be able to reach the body, but he just couldn’t get a grip on it. It eluded his grasp every time, leaving behind only a few soft, fine strands of hair.

The woman’s voice reminded him with unpleasant vividness of the soft feel of that hair.

“Yes, it arrived,” Ando answered, annoyed.

The form for their divorce. It had arrived two or three days ago, with his wife’s signature and seal already affixed. All Ando had to do was sign it and stamp his own seal on it, and the paper would have fulfilled the purpose of its existence. But he hadn’t done it yet.

“And?” There was weariness in his wife’s voice as she prodded him. How could she be so blasé about putting an end to seven years of married life?

“And what?”

“I want you to sign it, stamp it, and return it to me.”

Ando shook his head. How many times had he tried to make it clear to her? He wanted to start over. But every time he told her so, she would set terms he couldn’t meet, as if to prove to him the strength of her determination. He’d been perfectly willing to give up all self-respect and grovel, but lately, he was getting a bit tired of even that.

“Alright. I’ll do what you want.” Ando surprised himself, giving in so easily.

His wife was silent for a moment, and then rasped, “I think you owe me an explanation.”

“About what?” It was a stupid response.

“About what you did to me.”

Still clutching the receiver, Ando squeezed his eyes shut. Is she going to harangue me every morning even after she gets her divorce? It was a crushing thought.

“It was my fault.” But he said it too easily, without putting feeling into the words, and that set her off.

“You never cared for him.”

“You’re talking nonsense. Listen to yourself!”

“Well, then, why …”

“Don’t ask. You already know the answer.”

“How could you do such a thing?” Her voice trembled, a harbinger of the frenzy she was warming up to. He wanted to tell her never to call again and then slam down the receiver, but he restrained himself. This was the least he could do. The only reparation he could offer was to silently bear his wife’s recriminations, to allow her to vent her grief.

“Say something.” She was in tears now.

“Like what? For a year and three months now, we’ve talked about nothing else. There’s nothing left to say.”

“Give him back to me!”

It was a cry of pain totally devoid of reason. He didn’t need to ask whom she wanted back. Ando wanted him back, too. It was what he’d been praying for every day knowing full well how useless it was. Bring him back, I beg you! Give him back!

“I can’t,” he said simply, trying to calm her down.