Fuminori Nakamura - Evil and the Mask

I showed him a photograph.

“I’d like you to find this woman. Her name is Kaori Kuki. She’s the adopted daughter of Shozo Kuki, your former employer.”

The investigator glanced at me briefly.

“Born April 8, 1982. She took the name Kuki when she was adopted, and no one knows her original surname, or if her parents are alive or dead. She was left outside an orphanage called Kusunoki Nursery in Nagoya. Then she was transferred to the Kusunoki Children’s Home next door, and when she was eleven she was adopted by the Kuki family. All I know at the moment is that she’s working in a club in Tokyo. I don’t know where, nor whether it’s a high-class club or a floor show or what. This photo’s very old.”

He studied the picture closely.

“I want you to find her, and then give me regular reports on her life. I don’t care how trivial it seems. Her day-to-day life. What she eats, what she wears, where she goes, any insignificant details. If you can get photos or video, that would be great. Also whether she’s married, or if there’s a man in her life.”

I felt a bit jittery. I could still get rattled, I realized.

“Then I want you to find out her dreams. What she wants to do with her life. What job she wants to do. What vague visions she has for herself ten years from now. Her hopes for her life. That will need care and discretion. Have you got a woman you can ask to get close to her, become her friend? I’d like her to get close to Kaori and find out her secrets. Is that possible?”

He nodded slowly.

“Maybe you think I’m crazy,” I added.

He was observing me calmly. The ceiling fan continued silently slicing the air. He paused a beat before answering.

“Is there anyone who isn’t?”

“That’s a tricky question.”

Finally he picked up his coffee.

“Our job involves looking at things that people usually can’t see.”

His voice was slightly hoarse.

“People ask us to find out things which can’t be detected in daily life. In other words, we break the rules.”

“I heard that same expression, breaking the rules, from someone else just the other day.”

His face relaxed a little.

“If there’s anyone apart from us who breaks the rules, I think it’s God. That is, if there is a God. Of course we do it on a much smaller scale.”

Outside the thick hotel windows a train made its way quietly past. Its distant lights stood out vividly in the darkness.

“I’ve put myself right in the middle of those violations, of my own free will. If you’re crazy, then so am I.”

When I stood up from the sofa, he rose as well.

“Steer clear of Kaori’s past, please. What I want to know about is the present. Boyfriends too, just stick to her current ones.”

I could feel that my face was gradually losing its composure. The television, its sound turned down low, was reporting a dull story of rocks being placed on railway lines all over the country at the same time. I watched him leave and then went back inside.

WHEN I LEFT my room and followed my father down to the cellar, my insides were churning violently. It felt as though something was dragging me. I was conscious of the backpack on my shoulders, and the knowledge that if I didn’t pull this off I had no future echoed through my head. In a disordered state of mind I stalked him, thinking that if I hesitated it would be all over, if I faltered even for a second I’d find some convenient excuse, like waiting for a better opportunity.

If my plan to lock him in the underground room failed, I’d hit him with a metal pipe or whatever came to hand. I would do whatever it took to end his life. I was still only thirteen, but I was tall for my age and his body had shrunk. If it came to a hand-to-hand struggle, I knew I could overpower him. The fact that as a minor the law couldn’t punish me, despite my superior strength and murderous intent, gave me a modicum of courage.

Father went down the stairs, opened the door and entered the cellar. I waited for the light to peek through the gap, waited for him to move away from the entrance. Then I cautiously opened the door. I had oiled it in advance so it would make as little noise as possible. In the last year Father had grown extremely deaf, so he probably wouldn’t have heard it anyway. He walked slowly through the area used as a storeroom, past old furniture and timber. I watched from the shadow of an enormous wardrobe, its decoration peeling and faded. My breath disturbed the dust that clung to the woodwork like threads. Scratches on the drawers flickered in the corner of my eye like bare skin, as though they were trying to tell me something.

Even in my distracted state, I wondered why he ventured to that hidden basement room. In the past he’d hardly ever gone there, but in the last couple of years he’d started visiting almost every month. What was he doing there? Returning to the matter at hand, I followed him with my eyes. What he did there wasn’t important. What mattered, I told myself, was destroying the life force that was driving his thoughts and actions. He shifted the cloth and lifted the boards leading to the lower level. My vision grew blurry, as though I’d been hit over the head with something. Before me was the opportunity to kill a person. I was face to face with murder. I dug my nails into my knees, trying to convince myself that it wasn’t murder. I was just confining him, and the decision to die would be entirely his own. All I was doing was blocking the path by which he would take Kaori and me to hell. He went down the stairs to the secret chamber. I edged closer, my heart beating painfully, taking care to muffle my footsteps.

The boards of the hatch had no soundproofing, so even if I closed it and covered it with furniture, if he kept pounding on it from underneath someone might hear. No one came here usually, but it wasn’t completely beyond the bounds of possibility. I held my breath and strained to listen, but all I could hear was my own heartbeat. From the bottom of the stairs came the faint sound of the door opening and then closing. My hands were growing numb, but I forced them to move and took a few deep breaths.

Now I had to go down the stairs myself, take the case containing the death caps out of my bag, open the door for an instant, throw them in and slam it shut again. Then fasten the handle with the bar I’d brought with me to lock him inside. After that I’d replace the bar with the broken air conditioner, sliding it tightly under the lever to block the door. The unit was exactly the right height, as if it had been made for that purpose, and fit with curious precision in the gap between the handle and the stairs. Finally I’d race back up the steps, close the hatch, move some heavy furniture on top of it and it would all be over. All I had to do now was do it. It wasn’t murder, I told myself over and over. I was just stopping his access to me and Kaori. For the first time in my life, there was something that I absolutely had to do. He was like a massive stone blocking my way, and if I didn’t remove it my future would be ruined. I took the fungi from my backpack and crept quietly down the steps. My legs were shaking, but that couldn’t be helped. My throat was dry and sore, and for some reason I knew I’d remember that pain. Deep cracks ran along the concrete wall beside the stairs, and I knew I’d remember how deep they were as well. I could dimly make out the door handle. Just as I was about to jerk it open, however, it opened by itself and my eyes were struck by a blinding light. Father was standing there, his back to the light. Heart racing painfully, I cried out and shoved him with both hands.