Lady Joker, Volume 1, Kaoru Takamura [best affordable ebook reader TXT] 📗

following line in his notebook: A highly skilled driver or one with professional driving experience. On the night of the incident, a kei-car had been stranded after colliding with a guardrail on the frozen-over downhill slope of the two-lane Daibosatsu Pass, and although the driver had sought help from a Nissan Homy that came along, the other driver sped past without stopping. The skill of a driver who could navigate so many curves along an icy road at sixty kilometers an hour without chains on the tires was nothing short of extraordinary. It was also certain that someone had selected the perpetrators’ getaway route taking into account rapid surveillance cameras over highways and toll booth ticket passes.

Fruit-flavored milk—a child? This related to a hunch of Goda’s, the note punctuated with a question mark. As Goda had continued to ponder the combination of food items that the perpetrators had given the victim while he was in captivity—fruit-flavored milk, cream buns, matchbox-size blocks of processed cheese, mandarin oranges, and bananas. Fruit-flavored milk and cream buns were not something that the perpetrators themselves would eat; these had been popular children’s snacks a decade ago. He surmised that one of the perpetrators had a child—now grown up—and that there may be a particular attachment to that child.

His notebook also included the words “wireless radio,” which he had jotted down right after the incident. This idea, that someone in the crime group had been listening to the police radio, had remained in midair with nowhere to alight. All he could see was the vague image of a police officer hovering on the far side of an impossible divide—a divide that he knew was “outside his territory”—but he was sure that the man belonged to one of the two police departments, and that on the night of March 24th, he had been on active duty, carrying with him a shortwave 101 receiver.

Flipping through his notebook, Goda felt the needle of his internal compass struggle to find a compromise between a compulsion to conform to the discipline of the system and the desire to rebel against it. For now, the needle was barely holding still in a delicate balance, one that required no small effort to maintain.

Goda liked to use a fresh notebook for each case, but within a month the pages would be filled up, 99 percent of which consisted of the records of hundreds of dead-end visits, each one a variant of: 3/27, 11:15a.m., 152 Hibarigaoka Housing Complex, Tanashi City, Katsushi Ono, License plate: Tama 54RA412 x Toyota Sprinter Carib, White. Owner not home. Every word was written precisely, and every line ended with a period, pressed down with extra force. A habit he had formed over the last thirteen years as a cop, each dot was filled with a genuine desire “to behold the perp’s face.” This case notebook was no exception.

But, undoubtedly, he would only ever “behold the perp’s face” indirectly this time. Wherever the clues—the fruit-flavored milk, the Nissan Homy—led, the tools necessary to identify Suspect A or B were on the other side of the divide, along with the ability to arrest him—someone else would have that satisfaction. He knew this was the nature of police work, but it was quite difficult to continue his dogged pursuit of a single vehicle while actively compensating for his emotional wellbeing. This itself had become his main challenge.

At 8 p.m., they were called to order, and Goda put away his notebook and stood up with the assembled investigators. When Chief Kanzaki of First Investigation, who hadn’t been seen around for a while lately, came through the door with the director of SIT, the conspicuously empty meeting room became slightly agitated. The tension transformed to anticipation as all the officers craned their necks.

As expected, the chief’s first announcement was that the suspects had made their move. He then took out the letter that had been tossed onto the grounds of Hinode’s Kanagawa factory on Friday, April 28th.

“ready to make the payment? if so, take out an ad with the words, ‘father forgives kyoko’ in the may 5th issue of nikkan sports. —lady joker,” the chief read aloud. “Now, it is still unclear whether ‘Lady Joker’ is the name of the crime group.”

Next, after it was reported that Hinode had, as instructed in the letter, taken out an ad in that day’s issue of Nikkan Sports, one of the investigators opened a copy of the newspaper that happened to be on hand and passed it around the room.

Goda ruminated on the enigmatic name, “Lady Joker,” and in his mind’s eye he saw an unstoppable procession of silhouettes—those of the still anonymous perpetrators. Feeling unreasonably excited by this name, Goda sensed that the perpetrators had also been excited to sign the letter with it. They were enjoying themselves.

They asked, “Ready to make the payment?” They’re more cold-blooded than businesslike. They’re fueling the victim’s anxiety by withholding the exact amount of their monetary demand. They don this bizarre “Lady Joker” mask and assume a cool indifference—in no hurry to carry out their purpose, reveling in perverse pleasure. They may have made a monetary demand, but they are more fixated on the act of squeezing the money out rather than on the money itself. With antipathy toward corporate society at large, they brim with confidence that they’ll be able to bring a trillion-yen corporation to its knees . . . It had been a while since such distinct intuitions had surged over Goda.

Chief Inspector Kanzaki’s briefing continued. “After seeing today’s ad, the suspects will most likely issue instructions about the money exchange. Our next move will be toward arresting the perpetrators, but it goes without saying that we must maintain confidentiality with the utmost care, in order not to betray the victim’s trust. If word gets out to the media, the perpetrators will not make their move. Hinode is giving the police their full cooperation on the condition that there will be no leaks whatsoever to the media. Bearing