Sign of the Dragon (Tatsu Yamada Book 1), Niall Teasdale [books for 20 year olds .txt] 📗

card was a single kanji. It was the same one Tatsu used for her first name. There were numerous ways to write ‘Tatsu,’ but this was the one she used.

‘Where were you between eleven thirty last night and half past midnight?’ Nakano asked.

‘Contemplating the stupidity of detectives in Tokyo through my apartment window. Then sleeping. You can verify that with my building’s security, if you really feel the need. You got me down here to look at a card?’

Nakano glowered at her briefly and then shrugged. ‘Not really. You’re not dumb enough to sign your work, but you needed to see that as well as the victim.’

‘I don’t get it, Nakano. This is way out of my area. Why am I being brought in on a case in this–’ She stopped as her search produced a result. Paintings were always a little off, so the match was only eighty-nine percent, but it was clear enough to her when she put the ID image against the painting. ‘This is Anastas Zima’s apartment?’

‘Yeah,’ Nakano replied. ‘He’s in the kitchen. Come on.’

Anastas Zima had managed to escape Russia with enough gold and jewels to set himself up pretty well when he arrived in Japan. His wife of forty-odd years had, sadly, not made it, so he had consoled himself with Taisiya, the woman in the painting, who was twenty years younger than him and had a bust which gave Tatsu a run for her money. Tatsu knew that Zima ran extortion and drug operations in Chiba, along with some of the less legal forms of prostitution, but she, like all those who had tried, had never managed to pin him for any of it. Rumour had it that he liked underage girls. Under the circumstances, maybe suggesting that she had killed the man was not that much of a stretch…

‘A sword?’ Tatsu asked as soon as she laid eyes on the body. ‘That’s rare these days.’

‘Who said it was a sword?’ Nakano asked in return.

‘You’re smarter than this, Nakano. Stop trying to pin it on me. The visual evidence says it was a sword. Hey, you’re a kendoka, right? Maybe you killed him.’

Nakano gave a sniff. ‘I was at home with my sister last night. I have a solid alibi.’

‘So do I, but I’m only going to use it if you really get pushy about it. Check the security records.’ She narrowed her eyes and looked down at the body which was now lying in a body bag in the middle of the kitchen floor. The kitchen was huge. Somehow, Tatsu doubted that Taisiya was that into cooking. ‘Where’s the wife?’

‘Bedroom. He didn’t quite cut her head off…’

Tatsu gave a small grimace. ‘Anastas goes for a drink of water. Someone cuts him across the chest and then runs the blade through his heart. Then they go to the bedroom and kill Taisiya. Damn, she wasn’t even thirty.’

‘Twenty-eight. No family.’

‘Huh. Rumour says she was no angel, but still… Then they leave that card at the scene. I’ve never heard of any assassin using the sign of the dragon as a calling card. Whoever it is, they’re new.’

Nakano nodded. ‘We haven’t come up with any like-crimes yet, so you’re probably right. “Sign of the dragon,” huh?’

‘It’s the kanji for the astrological dragon. Don’t ask me why my parents used that for my name. And you can’t ask them. You want me to chase up the Chiba end of this? See if any of his, um, business rivals might have decided to take him out?’

‘Not so much that I want you to than that Sakurada Gate wants you to.’

‘Yeah…’

‘Though, if you bend my arm, I’d have to admit this’ll go easier with someone who knows what’s going on up there.’

Tatsu allowed herself a wry grin. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

Chiba.

The Hole was one of the best places in Chiba to gather information, if you were tough enough. Officially, the nightclub was called the Hole in the Wall, but the only people who called it that were the really dumb tourists out of Tokyo looking for a wild experience in the wilds of Chiba. They usually got one. Occasionally, Tatsu was called in to deal with the aftermath.

A multi-level maze of tables, mezzanines, bars, and dance floors, The Hole was dimly lit, and you frequently found yourself walking through clouds of smoke it was unwise to breathe. Dancers of both sexes in various states of undress writhed in cages at numerous locations around the place. Generally, the higher you got, the less clothes you saw, and that applied to a lot of the patrons as well as the cage dancers. Here, Tatsu’s outfit almost appeared tame.

Tatsu walked through the club, listening. She had excellent hearing. To be more precise, she had a really good audio reception system backed up with both hardware and software signal processing, and the combination let her dissect all the conversations in her neighbourhood, picking out the details which might be useful. Izanami had said Tatsu should get out more, but this was probably not what she had meant.

The Hole was a riot of linguistics, which made life a little harder for someone seeking knowledge. Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, English, Russian, Korean, and a smattering of other languages could be heard from various points around the club. When the Russian Measles had struck and then the Cyberwar had kicked off, refugees had come from all over. The majority in Japan had been from America, Korea, China, and Russia – places it was possible to escape by boat from and end up on the Japanese coast. Tatsu was fluent in Japanese and English and could understand Russian and Mandarin well enough. For anything else, she could run a skill package, but she did not expect to need to tonight: Zima’s people were Russian.

There were, of course,