Hashiba found himself subconsciously averting his eyes from Kagayama. Why? There was no reason for him to be feeling guilty about anything. When all this was happening he had been at Kitazawa’s office, listening to his report on the progress made in their ongoing investigations. If he’d been at the TV station he’d no doubt have heard the news, but he’d been engrossed in his date with Saeko. Since he didn’t work in news but rather in the variety show division, he wasn’t expected to be on call. After all, he and Saeko were the ones who had linked the dots between the other disappearances and this case here in Atami, and no one else on the payroll could see the connection. It was his own quick thinking to get Kagayama to come down early, knowing that he lived in nearby Odawara.
“The police investigation went up a whole load of notches early this morning,” Kagayama continued. “Not a single person turned up come dawn … Spending a night out in the hills in this season could be catastrophic especially for elderly folk. The fire and police departments are up there now combing the whole area with search parties.”
A waitress brought their lunch as Kagayama wound up his update on events. While wielding his knife and fork, Hashiba asked a slew of questions that popped into mind. “Do we have an exact figure for the number of people that disappeared?”
“Let’s see …” Kagayama pulled a notebook out from his bag, flipped through the pages, and began reading from his notes. “There were seventy-nine passengers on the tour buses. Nine people had come in their own cars. There were also the three janitors. That makes a total of ninety-one people. Most of the passengers on the tour bus were elderly women.”
“Ninety-one … And the police? What’s their view of all this?” Even if they were utterly at a loss, they needed a hypothesis to conduct an effective investigation.
Kagayama picked up one of the menus from the table and positioned it so that it inclined at a roughly thirty-degree angle. “Let’s say this is Herb Gardens. Basically, the flow of visitors is one way from the parking spaces at the top all the way down to the main entrance at the bottom. There are a number of paths that crisscross with each other, and the visitors can choose any particular route they want. Now, there’s a point right here, in the center, where all of these paths converge. So, let’s imagine that there was a group of kidnappers waiting here for the passengers. They could, potentially, order the passengers to go back to the top, instead of continuing down. Just shouting orders wouldn’t be enough, of course, so we have to assume that they threatened the passengers in some way. Perhaps they were armed. They could have, in theory, sent all the passengers back up without letting a single one through. Then they could have forced them all down a mountain path away from the garden.”
“Kidnappers? What kind of group would do that?”
“It’s just a hypothesis. Maybe it was some new religious cult. They’re also considering the possibility that some members of the group were among the passengers from the beginning. But then again they were mostly elderly women …”
Hashiba snorted. Why would anyone want to lead ninety-one people out of an herbal garden? Besides, there were no signs that cars had been used. It was impossible to pull off such a deed without leaving a trace.
“But there’s no other explanation. Unless, of course, a UFO landed and spirited them all away. I’ve asked around on that but haven’t come up with anything we can use. Some people did joke that they saw a bluish light in the sky above the garden …”
Kagayama himself didn’t seem to be joking at all. Hashiba remembered that during the meeting with Saeko, when one of the writers had suggested the possibility of a link between UFOs and the disappearances, Kagayama’s face had betrayed interest in that track.
“There was an old road that linked Shimoda and Atami since the Kamakura period several centuries ago.” Saeko’s voice sounded relaxed and graceful, as though floating down from somewhere on high. She’d interrupted the flow of the conversation but looked quite serious.
Both Hashiba and Kagayama turned to her, surprised. “An old road?” Hashiba asked.
“It’s more like an overgrown footpath now, but it used to be one of the region’s arteries. There were no coastline roads back then, nothing where Route 135 is now. I think there’s a shrine up top of the garden, the Soga Shrine. The path that winds off it heads towards the Atami Nature Resort.”
“The Soga Shrine? Of the Soga Brothers?”
Saeko nodded. “That’s right, the same Soga Brothers of the Kabuki vendetta. They avenged their father not too far from here.”
She didn’t seem to be proposing that the disappearances had anything to do with the vendetta. Rather, given that no one’s imagination was up to the task of explaining the mystery, she was adding a bit of local historical flavor to the conversation.
Yet, having heard this, Hashiba could not but picture ninety-one people, in single file, being forced along an ancient path that had once been trod by many. They progressed silently, apart from a subtle rustling of the undergrowth, the occasional snapping of a twig underfoot. Like spellbound rats mindlessly plunging into the sea, or ants instinctively swarming around food, each was robbed of individual will. Nevertheless the march had a solemn mood because some heavenly force dominated them.
“Let’s take a look up there, afterwards,” Saeko said.
Her suggestion sounded out of sorts, but they would definitely end up going. Once the cameramen, sound people, and equipment arrived, they would wait for the psychic Shigeko Torii to arrive, and begin filming.
Just then Hashiba’s cell phone, which lay on the table, began to ring.
Probably Nakamura, Hashiba guessed and glanced down at his phone, but the name flashing on the screen caught him completely off guard.
“Err, excuse me for a moment,” he said, snatching up the phone and getting up from his seat. Even while doing so, he worried whether his sudden movement had struck Saeko as unnatural. He was making it quite obvious that the call was private; if it were work-related, there would be no reason to get up. Hashiba glanced over towards Saeko and was relieved to see that she registered no suspicion.
Hashiba stopped outside the bathroom next to the register and answered the call.
“Where are you, darling?” the voice of his wife sounded from the other end of the receiver.
“Sorry,” Hashiba started with an apology. He felt a surge of guilt wash over him, bringing him back from his passion for work. He realized that he hadn’t called home last night when he’d stayed over at Saeko’s place, and now his wife was gently reproaching him for forgetting to call.
“I know you’re busy with work, but couldn’t you find time for just one phone call?”
Hashiba could handle it better when his wife raised her voice at him. When she was really angry, her voice seemed to seep viscously into the wrinkles of his brain matter instead. Hashiba switched the phone to his other hand and swallowed hard.
Recently, there had been a number of times where he’d had to stay out working all night. Last night had been different; he hadn’t called because he didn’t want to alert Saeko. Thinking back to it now, he felt as though he hadn’t been himself. Why had he lied about his marital status? It hadn’t been simply out of lust for her. When she asked the moment had already passed, their sexual longing dissipated.
A devilish whim had won over. There was no other way to put it. He remembered a program he had worked on about a politician who had lied about his academic record. Now Hashiba could understand how the man must have felt. Forced to answer with a yes or a no, to tick a box, knowing very well that he shouldn’t, he had pushed the truth away.