The ninth netsuke, p.7
The Ninth Netsuke, page 7
"Oh, let's see. Teramoto and Urami from the old days, and Shimozawa you'll remember from Kobe. We'll probably pick up one or two from the Agency too."
It was really quite difficult to have a proper conversation in the restaurant, and before they parted Otani was able to do little more than discover that Kinoshita was keeping busy, that the politicking and rivalry between the senior officers of the metropolitan force and those serving in the National Police Agency was as lively as ever, and that his son had gone to America on a newspaper scholarship to study business management at a university Otani had never heard of but of which Kinoshita seemed to stand in some awe.
The hotel, tucked in behind the impressive shopping plazas of Akasaka, was conveniently near both the Agency and a whole range of bars and restaurants, and was as clean, impersonal and unpretentious as the so-called "business hotels" always seemed to be. Otani briefly wondered how they managed to keep the prices so moderate, but gave no further thought to his surroundings as, freshly bathed and fortified for the ordeal ahead of him, he left the hotel and descended into Akasaka Mitsuke subway station to take the Marunouchi Line back to Kasumigaseki, two stations away. It was Otani's first visit to the splendid new building which now housed the National Police Agency, and in spite of his preoccupations he was interested to see what it would be like. A far cry, no doubt, from the long low red-bricked building which he had grown to know quite well over the years and which now stood forlorn and deserted nearby.
Notwithstanding the riot police bus nearby, the two men on duty near the gate and the normal reception arrangements in the ground-floor entrance hall, Otani was not required to show his official identity card until he had taken the lift to the third floor and walked along a series of modernistic corridors to a special small lobby at the entrance to the suite of offices housing the Superintendent General of the National Police Agency and his most senior staff. Otani had not confided as much to Kinoshita, but his appointment was not in fact with the SG himself. It was with one of the Chief Superintendents of the third echelon at the Agency, under the SG and the Superintendent Supervisor.
The Agency was much more like a Ministry than a police headquarters, and its principal officials were served not by uniformed police officers but by civilian administrative and secretarial staff.
Behind a plain desk innocent of papers at the entrance to the Office of the Superintendent General sat a pretty girl in a neat red polka-dot blouse with a plain dark blue skirt of a brevity rather ahead of the current Kobe fashion. It reminded Otani of the miniskirts of the late sixties which had so shocked Hanae when their daughter Akiko took to them. He himself had thought them greatly preferable to the dirty jeans and sweatshirts of her student militant days, and he glanced with some satisfaction at the high-heeled shoes and slender legs of the SG's receptionist as she stood up to lead him into a reception room after politely asking to see his warrant card and checking the photograph on it with an intent frown. Tokyo legs, like Tokyo driving habits, seemed to be on the upgrade.
Otani had timed his arrival so as to be scrupulously punctual, but there was already quite a little reception committee waiting for him, standing in- a cloud of cigarette smoke by the window. As he entered, the Chief Superintendent broke away and welcomed Otani with a perfunctory nod of the head. Otani had met him once or twice before, and though his grizzled, dried-out appearance reminded him of his own tedious assistant Inspector Sakamoto, he knew that Chief Superintendent Kawai had a reputation for astuteness which poor Sakamoto could never aspire to.
Kawai introduced the three other men in the room, by name and rank only. The trendily elegant one who might have been Kimura's twin brother was Superintendent Okada; the bald man with the rubbery comedian's face was Senior Superintendent Nitta, and the much younger fellow with a supercilious expression on his immature face was Assistant Inspector Morihara. Otani had never met Okada before, though he had heard about him as an up-and-coming younger man of his own rank tipped for a prefectural command before very much longer. He had over the years seen a good deal of Nitta, however, and his presence in the room came as a surprise. As the Chief bustled them all into the heavily brocaded armchairs round a shiny coffee table, cigarettes were handed round and the girl from outside came in with cups of green tea. Otani had time to wonder why the Senior Superintendent in charge of the Criminal Investigation Bureau had thought it worth diverting his attention from the probes going on into accusations of bribery and corruption in the highest political circles to spend even an hour over a tetchy complaint from the National Museum.
The young man Morihara seemed to have been brought in to keep some sort of record, since he positioned himself at a distance from the others and produced a notebook and ballpoint pen from his pocket. Kawai cleared his throat noisily and the desultory remarks being made comparing the weather in Tokyo with that of Kobe and commenting on the exorbitant cost of tickets on the super-expresses of the New Trunk Line died away. Even then it took a little time to approach the real business of the meeting, for it was necessary first to apologise at some length to Otani for having intruded into his no doubt very busy schedule, and to thank him most sincerely for making the long journey to Tokyo.
Otani for his part then had to deny strenuously that he had been put to the slightest inconvenience, and counter by apologising for disrupting the Agency's arrangements at short notice and bothering senior colleagues with the affairs of a remote and insignificant provincial police force. The preliminary courtesies disposed of, Kawai cleared his throat again even more energetically, and there followed another short silence, broken only by Assistant Inspector Morihara, who sucked in his tea in a perfectly polite fashion but, in the absence of normal background noise, attracted general attention. He coloured slightly and put the cup down.
"Actually," Kawai continued with the inevitable cliché introducing a subject of some delicacy, "there has been a small problem about which we should like to have some discussion."
Otani nodded. "A formal compliant about me, I understand." A slight frisson evidenced itself among the men round the table at his bluntness, and the Chief nodded in his turn.
"That is so. A direct approach from the Cultural Affairs Agency to the Superintendent General. It is alleged that you have in your possession an object designated as a National Treasure and that you have declined to hand it over to the authorised representative of the Cultural Affairs Agency, namely the Director of the National Museum of Kyoto."
Morihara was scribbling busily, and Otani waited until he had finished before replying. Now that the thing was out into he open he felt both calm and confident. "The allegation is unfounded, sir. Both in substance and in detail." Kawai said nothing, and merely rubbed the lobe of one ear. "I have had no request from the Director of the Museum to hand over the object in question, nor is there any evidence that it has been designated as a National Treasure. The object in which the Museum is interested is in police custody as an item of evidence related to a criminal investigation, and will remain in such custody until the investigation is completed."
"In police custody?" Nitta's voice was fatly warm, like his whole manner. "There is no reference to this, ah, netsuke, in the Hyogo headquarters inventory." The old devil must have been on the telephone that morning. Otani was discomfited. "Don't you mean it's in your personal possession? This isn't really a formal disciplinary enquiry, Superintendent. I think we must ask you to be rather more forthcoming. I take it you're not accusing the Museum people of deliberate falsehood?"
Otani shook his head and sat back in his chair. "No, sir, I am quite willing to explain the position informally. I wish the Director there had indeed approached me before the matter was taken up in this way. I have in my personal custody—in Kobe—an ivory netsuke which was found in a room in which a woman was murdered. In the process of establishing whether or not the object should indeed be regarded as material evidence I consulted not the Director but his assistant the Curator of the Kyoto Museum. I accept that there is a strong presumption that the netsuke is one of two missing from a set consisting originally of nine pieces. The remaining seven were, I understand, transferred to State ownership some years after the end of the Second World War, and these were designated as National Treasures. No such designation was made in respect of objects which at the time were not known to remain in existence: it could not be. Now, as is clear from my action in approaching the Museum authorities in the first place, I have made no attempt to conceal the fact that this netsuke has come to light. Nor will I put any difficulty in the way of the preparation of a properly framed submission by the Cultural Affairs Agency that it should now be designated as a National Treasure. If such a submission is upheld, the netsuke will of course be handed over forthwith."
Kawai permitted a tight smile to flit over his narrow mouth. "You know quite well that those procedures would take months at the very least, Otani-san. Why do you insist on hanging on to it yourself? Properly handled, this discovery could bring great credit to the Hyogo force and to you personally. Imagine the headlines: Police Discover Lost Treasure. Not perhaps of world-shaking importance, but pleasant none the less in these disagreeable times. Instead of which you seem to be going out of your way to upset the Museum people."
Otani shook his head. He realised that he no doubt looked as mulish as he felt. "What I cannot understand is why the Museum people seem to be in such a great hurry," he said. "They've done without the netsuke for thirty years or so, and had no reason to suppose they would ever have it: sooner or later they almost certainly will. In the meantime the more excitement it seems to generate the more convinced I am that it must be regarded as a piece of evidence, perhaps an important one." He picked up his own cup of tea, now stone cold, and looked up just in time to intercept a flicker of the eyes between Nitta and Okada.
Chief Superintendent Kawai sighed gently. "You put us in a difficult position, Superintendent," he said. "Technically, I cannot dispute your argument. Clearly you are not, as has been suggested, in breach of the Cultural Properties Protection Law. You seem in general to have acted within your powers of discretion, though I am bound to point out that they do not include the right to hold what is on any reckoning a valuable item without entering it on your official inventory. In your own interest the custody position must be regularised. If you insist that the netsuke remain in the hands of the police for the time being, I for my part must insist that it be transferred to the custody of this Agency. Responsible officers of the Hyogo force will have access to it as and when you can justify it."
He stood up and all the others followed suit. "That is an order, Superintendent," he said sadly. "It is unfortunate that you did not bring the object with you. Personal custody means exactly that. It does not mean leaving something in your safe at headquarters." Otani bowed in silence, wondering what Kawai might have said if he knew that the netsuke was not in the safe at headquarters, and that Otani had no idea exactly where it was at that moment. "You will return to Kobe tomorrow? Good. An order for surrender will be sent to you. It will be up to you to ensure the safe delivery of the object to Senior Superintendent Nikata— the CIB will assume responsibility for custody until the legal position is clarified."
The Chief Superintendent bowed curtly and led the way out of the room with Morihara in close attendance. Nitta lingered a moment as though about to speak, his mobile features comically contorted, then grinned broadly and himself left the room in silence.
Superintendent Okada remained. "I'm glad to meet you at last," he said amiably.
"Hardly a jolly occasion," Otani replied. He was conscious of having won a minor victory, but at a considerable cost. Although Kawai couldn't nail him on a real charge, the irregularities of which he was obviously guilty were enough to justify a formal admonition; the first he had ever received. It all depended on how Kawai reacted to his unrepentant attitude. It had been impossible to judge from his manner whether he would in due course throw the book at him or forget the whole thing.
Okada smoothed his expensively barbered hair in a gesture strongly reminiscent of Kimura. "Shimozawa over at the Met is a friend of mine," he said a little shyly. "He told me some of your old friends are taking you out for a drink later. Um, he suggested I might come along. Would you mind?"
Otani looked him up and down, his spirits rising. It was quite obvious to him that Okada wanted to talk, and he could think of a number of things he wanted to ask him. "I'd be delighted," he said. "Shall we walk over to the Met building together?"
Chapter VI
OTANI COULDN'T QUITE REMEMBER WHETHER THE BAR they were sitting in was the fourth or the fifth they had visited in the course of the evening, even though he established after a protracted and bleary study of his watch that it was still only a little after nine-thirty. The party had started out something like a dozen strong, laying down a solid basis of Korean-style barbecued beef with plenty of rice and a certain amount of beer at a noisy but cheerful place down a side street in Akasaka, and his former subordinate Shimozawa had kept everybody in fits of laughter with his descriptions of life at the British police college somewhere called Hendon. It seemed that he had just returned from training attachment there, and he was affecting a vaguely British style, mumbling comically with a pipe in his mouth.
The first bar they went to after the restaurant was something of a disappointment, and it had probably been a mistake to switch to Suntory whisky and water. Certainly they gained the impression that the bar mama thought it was rather early to start singing in wobbly sentimental voices,
and they left after half and hour or so, at which point three of the men, whom Otani in any case remembered only dimly, reeled off in search of a Turkish bath. The diminished band had a much better time in the next bar, where Teramoto, who seemed to be able to speak English quite well, got into conversation with a visiting American business man and even acted as interpreter between him and the Japanese hostess to whom he wanted to describe his home town in Minnesota in some detail. They all looked at the photographs of his family which the American passed round, and sang a few more songs without attracting adverse comment.
It was after leaving there that they had lost Urami and Teramoto, who lived a long way from the centre, but Otani couldn't recall at what stage the others had peeled off, leaving him now with just Kinoshita and Okada in a small, quiet bar without hostesses. Apart from the young man tending the bar itself there was only the middle-aged mama-san, who seemed to be a pleasant, well-bred sort of woman. After greeting Kinoshita as an old and valued customer and receiving the information that Otani hailed from Kobe with apparently delighted astonishment and many expressions of goodwill, she had settled the three men comfortably at a corner table, brought them their drinks and a small dish of shredded dried squid to nibble on, then returned to sit with the only other customer, an elderly man she addressed as "sensei". From his appearance it was more likely that he was a professor than a doctor, but one couldn't be sure.
"He might even be a member of the Diet," said Okada when Otani asked his opinion. "They like to be called 'sensei' you know." He sat back and lit a cigarette, again reminding Otani of Kimura, though he was much less cocky and self-satisfied in his manner. Otani was uneasily aware that he had either drunk more than his two companions or held his liquor less well. Kinoshita was beaming amiably around, sipping from the glass he raised with a perfectly steady hand, and his broad face showed no signs of the dull flush that he knew suffused his own, having studied himself in the mirror in the tiny lavatory in the last bar. Indeed the hostess waiting for him outside to hand him a little damp hot towel for his hands had commented that he looked very well, and Otani assumed that the phrase had the same euphemistic meaning in Tokyo as it did in his own Kansai area of Japan.
"You must be tired," Okada said then. He had not been particularly loquacious on the way from the NPA to the Metropolitan Police Department headquarters to meet the others, responding rather unsatisfactorily to Otani's attempts to draw him out, and later had kept largely aloof from the boisterous conversation at the restaurant and in the various bars. Otani shook his head, wincing as he did so. His mouth felt dry and sour and his eyes were aching, and even while he was protesting gamely, he knew that he had passed the point of good humour and was beginning to slide down into depression.
"If I may say so, I thought the Chief was very impressed by your reaction this afternoon," Okada went on, his voice quite low. "He had to fetch you here, you know." Fuddled as he was, Otani nevertheless felt uneasy, and glanced at Kinoshita.
"It's all right," Kinoshita said. "I know about it. What Okada-san means is that the Agency has been under strong political pressure." Otani blinked and tried to straighten himself up.
"One particular 'sensei' has been pushing hard from the top," said Okada with a look across at the elderly man in deep conversation with the bar mama.
"Yago?"
Kinoshita looked surprised as Otani said the name, then nodded. "We may pretend to kid each other all the time," he said, "but some of us in the Met kept tight lines across to Okada-san here and a few of his colleagues at the Agency. Especially where the politicos are concerned. The Met has to supply the protection for Ministers and some of the other senior Dietmen, and we . . . let's say, keep an eye on a few more."
Otani began to discern a glimmer of sense through the clouds of alcohol, and he looked from one to the- other of his companions. "Start again," he commanded in a reasonably businesslike voice, briskly enough at all events for the mama-san to look over at them enquiringly. Kinoshita grinned at her and pointed at their empty glasses.
As she waited at the bar for the young man there to prepare three fresh drinks, Okada spoke quietly. "No," he said. "You start. This particular lead begins with you. How did you ever come to hear of Yago in the first place? What do you think this netsuke thing was doing in the room where it was found?"
