Perhaps it was the presence in the room of Akama – a career officer from Tokyo – that worsened the effect. It was embarrassing to bear witness to Ishii’s obvious excitement. The commissioner general, the National Police Agency. The commissioner was a man who sat at the very top of the pyramid, above the 260,000 officers in the police force. To the regional police, he was like an emperor. And yet, was an official visit really something to get so worked up about? It was at times like this that Ishii showed his limitations. He held the National Police Agency in awe, looking on with an artless longing, just as a youth raised in the country might dream of the city.
‘What’s the purpose of the visit?’ Mikami asked, his mind already on the job. He had been summoned as press director, which meant there was probably a strong PR element to the visit.
‘Six Four.’
This time, it was Akama who replied. Mikami looked at him, taken aback. There was an expectant smirk in Akama’s eyes.
Six Four. The term for a fourteen-year-old case, the kidnapping and murder of a young girl named Shoko.
It had been the first full-scale kidnapping to take place within the jurisdiction of Prefecture D. After the kidnapper had successfully made away with the ransom of 20 million yen, the police had tragically discovered the corpse of the kidnapped seven-year-old. The identity of the kidnapper remained unknown. The case was unsolved even after all these years. At the time, Mikami had been working for Special Investigations in First Division and, as a member of the Close Pursuit Unit, had followed Shoko’s father as he drove to the ransom exchange point. It was enough to have the painful memory revived, but the greatest shock was to hear Akama – a career bureaucrat and an outsider who’d had nothing to do with the investigation – use the term Criminal Investigations had privately adopted to describe the kidnapping. Behind his back, people referred to him as a data freak, a compulsive researcher. Was Mikami to take it that Akama’s network of informers had, after only a year and a half of him being in the post, already infiltrated the inner workings of Criminal Investigations?
Even so . . .
The question was replaced by another. It went without saying that Six Four was the Prefectural HQ’s greatest failure. Even in Tokyo, at the level of the National Police Agency, it still ranked as one of the most significant cases that had yet to be closed. At the same time, no one would dispute the fact that, as fourteen years had slipped by since the kidnapping, the memory of the case had begun to fade. What had once been a two-hundred-strong Investigative HQ had, over the course of time, undergone a process of downsizing so that now only twenty-five detectives remained on the case. While the Investigative HQ hadn’t been shut down, it had been downgraded internally to Investigative Team. Just over a year remained until the statute of limitations came into effect. Mikami no longer overheard the case being discussed in public. And he’d heard that information from the general public had dried up a long time ago. It was the same for the press, who seemed only to remember the case in one article a year, a token gesture to mark the date of the kidnapping. It was gathering moss; why, now, had it become the focus of a commissioner’s visit? We intend to do everything we can before the statute comes into effect. Was that what it was, a show of fireworks for the public?
‘What is the visit for?’ Mikami asked, and Akama’s smile deepened in response.
‘To make an appeal, inside and outside the force, and to give a boost to the officers still investigating the case. To reinforce our intention never to let violent crime go unpunished.’
‘The kidnapping took place fourteen years ago. May I assume the visit is related to the statute of limitations?’
‘What could have more impact than the commissioner’s message relating to this old case? I am told it was the commissioner’s own idea. Although, I do believe his appeal is intended more to reach an internal audience than the general public.’
An internal audience. With those words, everything seemed to fall into place.
Tokyo. Politics.
‘Anyway, here’s the detailed schedule for the day.’
Ishii picked up a sheet of paper. Mikami quickly pulled out his notebook.
‘Note that this isn’t official as yet. Right – so the commissioner is due to arrive by car at noon. After lunch with the station captain, he will go directly to Sada-cho and visit the site where the girl’s body was discovered. While there, he will make an offering of flowers and incense. Following that, he will go to the Investigative HQ in Central Station and give praise and encouragement to the team. From there he would like to pay a visit to the bereaved family’s home in order to pay his respects. There, another offering of incense. After that he wants to take a walking interview between the house and his car. That’s the overall picture, as it is now.’
Mikami had stopped scribbling his notes. ‘He wants a walking interview?’ A walking interview meant the press gathering around him to ask their questions as he stood – or continued walking – outside the house.
‘Exactly. That’s what the Secretariat has requested. No doubt they feel it will have a more dynamic feel than a formal session, say, in a conference room.’
Mikami felt his mood darken. The unforgiving faces of the reporters flashed through his mind. ‘Where does he want the photographs? At the site where the body was found?’
‘No. Those would be at the family home.’
‘He wants the reporters to come inside?’
‘Would it be too small for that?’
‘No, not really, but . . .’
‘The commissioner paying his respects at the altar, the bereaved parents in the background. That’s the picture he wants for the TV and papers.’
The chief executive of the police giving the bereaved his assurances that the kidnapper would be caught. It certainly had impact.
‘There isn’t much time; make sure you get the family’s permission in the next day or two,’ Akama said from one side. He had reverted to his normal way of issuing orders.
Mikami made an ambivalent nod.
‘Hmm? Is there something you wish to raise?’
‘No . . .’ He doubted the family would decline to accept the commissioner’s visit. At the same time, he felt uncomfortable with the idea of visiting them to make the request. They had hardly exchanged words at the time of the kidnapping. Only the members of the Home Unit had spoken with them in any real detail. And then he’d been transferred. His posting to Second Division had come only three months after the kidnapping had taken place; he had completely lost touch with the progress of the case.
‘Okay. I’ll check in with the Six Four team first, to see if they can provide me with an update on the family,’ Mikami said, choosing his words carefully.
Akama frowned in disapproval. ‘I shouldn’t think that is necessary. My understanding is that you are already acquainted with the family. No, your request is to be made directly. There’s no need to involve Criminal Investigations.’
‘But that’s . . .’
‘This is the remit of Administrative Affairs. Surely it would only complicate matters to bring Criminal Investigations into the fray? Once you have the groundwork in place, I will contact the director personally. Until then, you are to treat this matter as confidential.’