Opening chapters from "The Ishii Legacy"

Chapter 1

Captain Zhao and a grim-faced Japanese man of about forty hovered in the doorway of Lin’s office.

Zhao loudly cleared his throat and said “Inspector Lin, I’d like to introduce you to Captain Chikuma Ota of the Tokyo police department.”

Lin raised his head slightly and peered over the laptop PC.

Without wishing to be rude to the captain’s new friend an unsmiling and disinterested Lin said a brief “Hello”, lowered his head and resumed reading Guo’s case notes.

To Lin’s dismay, instead of leaving Zhao stepped fully into Lin’s small office. He said in a firm voice intended to get Lin’s full attention “Captain Ota has recently arrived in Guangzhou. We have a request from the highest levels to provide him with every assistance.”

Groaning inwardly Lin raised his head again. His eyes found Zhao’s. He decoded Zhao’s meaning in them “This guy has been foisted onto me and I am foisting him onto you.”

Lin’s raised left eyebrow asked the unvoiced question “Why me?”

Zhao’s curled lip answered it “Because you speak Japanese.”

Lin’s compressed mouth silently defied “So what, I’m in the middle of an important case. I’m preparing for trial. Why would I be interested in babysitting some Japanese cop?”

Zhao’s hard glare said “Because I’m your boss and I’m telling you to.”

Lin’s defeated look said “Ok. You have a point.”

Then his right eyebrow asked a question “What’s this all about?”

Having won the silent battle of wills Zhao was now anxious to leave the field before Lin found a way to win the war. He said with barely contained relief “Captain Ota will explain why he is here.”

Zhao checked his watch, something Lin knew was an affectation. The man knew what time it was to the millisecond without needing to look at any timepiece.

Zhao addressed himself to Ota “Captain, I’ve got to go. I’ll leave you in Inspector Lin’s most capable hands.” He skipped gleefully out of the room and Lin reluctantly waved a hand for Ota to take the only other chair in the room.

In Japanese Lin asked Ota “Do you speak Chinese?” Ota shook his head and replied in poorly accented Putonghua “Zhi yi dian dian.” Only a little.

Lin’s Japanese was rusty. He did not use it much. He used it now to explain this to the Japanese police officer. Ota nodded and said that that was fine; he did not intend to be a drag on Lin’s precious time.

Ota declined Lin’s half-hearted offer of tea but accepted the proffered chair. Lin closed the document he had been reading, pushed down the screen of his new department-issued laptop and looked neutrally and levelly at Ota.

In Tokyo-Japanese Ota said slowly “I am here looking for a Japanese citizen, Riku Yamada. He is missing. He left Japan two days ago. He flew here to Guangzhou from Tokyo via Shanghai.”

Lin fought to keep his lack of interest from showing. He investigated serious crimes - murders and racketeering mostly. Missing person cases were beneath him. His new captain, Zhao, had only involved him because his personnel file said he spoke Japanese. Lin knew that the thorough Zhao had read his file because he had never told, would never have told, his new boss that he spoke the language.

It was true. He did speak Japanese. Reluctantly more than fluently.

Lin held out a hand. Ota was confused for a moment then reached into his briefcase and extracted a sheet of paper. It was in Japanese and contained details on the man Ota was looking for.

Lin told Ota to wait. He left his office and read the document as he walked down the hall to the squad room. He saw his sergeant, Guo, standing at the water dispenser talking to another detective. Guo saw Lin approaching and immediately hurried back to his desk rudely leaving the other man’s sentence hanging in mid-air. Normally, Chinese people did not do rude.

Not for nothing did the other detectives call Guo Lin’s lapdog. Behind Guo’s back.

Lin and Guo both arrived at Guo’s desk at the same moment. Lin told Guo he needed him to locate a Japanese visitor. Guo sat down at his desk and pulled his PC’s keyboard toward him. From the sheet of paper Lin read out the missing man’s name and passport number. Guo clicked on a program icon and, when the program’s search form appeared, typed in the man’s passport number. He got a hit straightaway.

“He’s checked into the Garden Hotel. He’s been there since yesterday.”

Lin smiled with relief and thanked Guo. Pleased at how easy it had been to track down the supposedly missing man he turned to leave but stopped. He turned back toward Guo and bluntly told him that he had omitted some important details from his case notes. He told him to complete his notes before leaving for the evening. Finally he told Guo he was going to go to the Garden Hotel and then head home. He would see him in the morning.

Guo nodded and said with a half smile “Unless someone dies suddenly of course.”

Guo chuckled. Lin did not. This said it all about both men.

Lin returned to his office. He told Ota he had located the man he was looking for and that they could go and talk to him now. Ota said that would not be necessary. He explained said he did not want to put Lin out and would talk to Yamada on his own.

Lin looked carefully at Ota. The Japanese man was a little shorter than him, well built, fit and trim and, cocky. No, Lin checked himself, not cocky. More than cocky. The man’s demeanour was superior, almost imperial. He was obviously used to getting his own way.

That was Ok with Lin.

Lin was used to getting his own way too.

Lin did not argue the point. He did not need to. This was Lin’s city. Ota had no rights here.

He told Ota they were leaving now, together.

Chapter 2

Lin parked in the car park at the rear of the Garden Hotel in downtown Guangzhou. As he cut the engine he noticed one of the detectives from his unit sitting hunched low in the front seat of an unmarked police car two rows away. A Hong Kong crime-lord was in town, Lin surmised.

Lin got out of his car, waited for Ota to do likewise, locked the car and strode toward his fellow detective’s vehicle. The man was nodding off. As Lin walked alongside he slapped a palm against the driver’s door window. The detective jerked upright in his seat. He laughed when he recognized who had hit his car then felt embarrassed that his surveillance had been made so easily. He cursed Lin quietly.

Lin marched confidently into the hotel through a rear door with Ota alongside rushing to keep up. Lin walked through the shopping arcade and into the hotel’s enormous gorgeously decorated lobby.

He stopped suddenly as a bitter memory engulfed him.

He had not been here for several months. That last time had been one of the saddest and most difficult occasions of his life. Ota noticed. Lin noticed Ota noticing and shook himself. As if Ota was somehow to blame for how Lin felt he brusquely told the Japanese man to stay where he was.

Lin approached a receptionist at the front desk, showed her his ID and asked her to page the head of hotel security. The man arrived within a few minutes. During his wait Lin carefully studied Ota who stood twenty metres away apparently engrossed in the details of the amazing frieze on the foyer’s wall behind the reception desks. The man projected an air of outward calm but Lin saw through it. He saw subtle tell-tale signs that Ota was agitated and anxious. Lin wondered again why Ota would describe a man who had left Tokyo only two days previously as missing. Two days was a very short period in which to declare a person officially missing though long enough for Ota to catch a flight and follow his man, Yamada, here.

Lin took in every detail about Ota. The Japanese policeman’s face displayed an intelligent awareness that matched his regal bearing. The twist to his lower lip also revealed that he would have been much happier to have come here alone.

Lin flashed his badge and told the security man that he and his colleague - he chinned toward where Ota was standing - were anxious to talk to one of the hotel’s guests. Lin told him that the guest might not share this anxiousness and that a key card for his room might help persuade him. Lin gave the chief Yamada’s name. The security chief asked the receptionist for Yamada’s room number and got her to make a duplicate electronic key card.

Ota joined them as they made their way to the lift.

Yamada’s room number was 1017. They reached it and Lin knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, more loudly. Ota stepped near to Lin and hissed that this was not a problem, he would wait for Yamada to return, alone. Lin smiled a mirthless smile and told Ota that he could not display any less courtesy to Ota in his city than he knew Ota would extend to Lin if Lin was visiting Tokyo in search of a missing Chinese citizen.

Lin thumped on the door once more. When Ota again tried to convince Lin to leave, Lin lost his cool. He told Ota that he was not interested in a missing person case. He was, first and foremost, a homicide cop. But, since, as a Tokyo cop, Ota had no, he repeated, no, rights in China, Lin had a duty to help him.

He did not add that, besides, Captain Zhao had told him to.

He took the key card from the security chief and opened the lock. Lin pushed the door open and bright late afternoon sunlight flooded out of the room, temporarily blinding them. Lin entered with Ota following. The security chief remained outside.

The bed was made but the crumpled duvet was evidence that it had recently been lain on. To the right of the bed a mirrored wardrobe door was half open and Lin could see clothes hanging inside. Yamada might be out but he would be back. Lin looked around the rest of the room. Nothing seemed amiss. Then, on an instinct, Lin stepped around to the side of the bed and his breath caught.

Yamada lay face up on the floor space between the bed and the wardrobe. The corpse sported two gaping wounds clearly visible at the neck and chest. They were recent. The once pure-white Garden Hotel bathrobe was a sodden red rug trapped underneath the body. The robe’s open front revealed the massive chest wound. The neck wound was gratuitous overkill. His violent death had carved a last look of excruciating pain onto Yamada’s face.

Lin sighed.

Ota came up from behind, looked around Lin and saw the body lying on the floor. He emitted a strangled cry and sat down on the end of the bed.

Lin said brutally “Get off that. This is a crime scene. Get out of the room.”

Ota silently obeyed. Lin thumbed his cell phone open and called it in. He snapped the phone shut irritably. His plans for this evening were as dead as the man on the floor in front of him.

Lin had told Ota he was not interested in missing people.

Dead people were a different matter.

Lin was very interested in dead people.

Chapter 3

Lin’s patience was wearing thin. Ota was lying but he was not very good at it.

Lin had sequestered the guest room next to Yamada’s and was standing over Ota, questioning him. Little of what Ota said made sense.

“Captain Ota” a frustrated Lin said in rapidly returning Japanese “I need answers, honest answers. Let’s go through this one more time. Who was Yamada?”

Ota’s tone was irritated defiance “I’ve already told you. He was a recently retired accountant with Toyota. He worked in their finance department in Tokyo.”

Lin made a note in his notebook. He believed this, but little else the Japanese man said.

“Why was he here in Guangzhou?”

“I don’t know.”

Lin was brutally direct “I don’t believe you. Why would you come to Guangzhou looking for this man, if you did not also know why he had come here?”

Ota lowered his head, shook it and did not answer.

“Why did you describe him as missing when he left Tokyo only two days ago?”

Now, Ota made a mistake. He changed his story.

Lin knew this was because the man had had some time to think and he thought that this second version was more believable than the first one.

It might have been. If it had been the first one.

Ota said “Mr. Yamada’s wife is related, distantly, to Tokyo’s commissioner of police.”

He made another mistake. He embellished this second story.

“I didn’t tell you earlier because I didn’t want you to think that our police force is open to…civilian influence.”

Lin checked a laugh. He could conceive of nothing less likely than the imperious Ota’s concern at what a Chinese cop he had just met thought about the ethical standards of Tokyo’s far away police force. He said nothing and Ota dug the hole deeper  “She convinced him that her husband had had a mental breakdown and that someone needed to find him immediately and bring him home before he hurt himself. The commissioner ordered me to come here and take Yamada back to Tokyo.”

Lin’s anger rose. It was a terrible effort at a lie. If his wife had had concerns about Yamada’s safety she had been proved correct but the danger had not been from within. The body next door had not been self-harmed. Yamada had been brutally murdered. And why would a man allegedly suffering a mental breakdown choose to leave his home and fly thousands of miles to a strange city, Lin’s city? Why would he, anyone, do such a thing?

His voice dripping with sarcasm, Lin said “So, the Tokyo commissioner of police was so concerned about a distant relation’s non-specific fear for her husband’s mental well-being that he sent no less a person than a captain of detectives to China to personally track Yamada down.”

Ota’s only response was to sit silently immobile.

Lin shot out questions but gave Ota no chance to answer any of them. He did not need any answers. He was letting Ota know that he did not believe a single word of Ota’s feeble tale.

“Why did you rush here?

Did your commissioner read Yamada’s mind?

Had he somehow known that Yamada had only a couple of days to live?

Let’s see, what is it about our wonderful city that compelled Yamada to choose Guangzhou as the venue for the last act of his life?

Why here?

What are GZ’s specific attractions for the would-be suicide?

Let’s see, em…he could climb the Citic tower and jump off or…” Lin leaned over the Japanese man, Ota looked away, Lin’s voice dripped vitriol “…stab himself in the chest and throat before carefully hiding the knife afterwards.”

Ota pushed his chest out and looked squarely up at Lin “Be scornful if you must Inspector. I am telling you the truth.” Lin held the other man’s stare until Ota once more dropped his eyes to the floor.

Lin blew out his cheeks in exasperation. He went to the door, opened it, took a couple of paces into the corridor and bellowed loudly for Guo. Guo arrived from next door at a run and followed Lin into the room. They walked over to where Captain Ota sat with his head still lowered to the floor. Lin held out a hand, he growled at Ota “Give me your passport.”

Ota’s head snapped up, his mouth fell open and he stammered “My…my…passport.” He quickly regained control and demanded “What do you want it for?”

In no mood for further games Lin replied harshly “Give me your passport now or I will have Sergeant Guo take it from you forcibly. Do not underestimate my sergeant. His muscles only look like fat.”

Behind Lin, Guo’s face displayed uncertainty. Had Lin’s remark been a compliment about his physique or not?

Lin had said it.

Guo’s face fell.

Not.

Glowering at Lin Ota angrily and reluctantly retrieved his passport from a jacket pocket. Lin whipped it out of his hand. He signalled Guo over to the door. In rapid Putonghua he told him “We can’t play too rough with this guy. He’s a senior cop from Tokyo. I will tell him we are holding his passport to prevent him from leaving the country. I will say that we are treating him as an accessory to murder. Of course we can’t do that but he’s not telling me everything he knows and I need to shake him up a bit. Here, take this from me. Act surprised. Make sure he sees how shocked you are and then leave.”

A confused Guo did as he was told best he could.

In the corridor outside the room Guo shrugged and put the passport in a jacket pocket. Lin was going soft. Of course Lin could hold Ota as an accessory if he thought the man was holding back information about Yamada’s murder.

This was China. Lin was a cop. Lin could do whatever he wanted to.

Guo gave up wondering what Lin was up to and went back into room 1017 to supervise the technician’s processing of the scene.

In room 1016 Lin took a seat in front of Ota. In Japanese Lin told Ota what he had told Guo he would say. The man was a poor actor. Ota pretended to be outraged but his body language revealed his lack of concern. He had understood perfectly everything Lin had said to Guo.

Lin’s little charade with Guo had served its purpose. When they had first met Ota had said he understood Chinese yi dian dian - just a little. Ota was a liar. He lied about everything.

Lin tore a page from his notebook and wrote a short note on it. He took out a name card from his wallet, wrapped it in the note and handed them to Ota. Ota asked what they were for. Lin told him that Chinese law required foreigners to carry their passports with them at all times. If a cop or an immigration official asked to see Ota’s passport, he was to show them Lin’s note and business card instead.

Ota thanked him for his thoughtfulness but said he would rather have his passport back.

Lin smiled a small smile. Ota was not just a liar, he underestimated people. Until he started telling the truth Lin would indeed treat Ota as an accessory to Yamada’s murder.

Lin had no intention of giving Ota his passport back.

Not even if one of the Tokyo police commissioner’s relations begged him to.

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