or a while Ushikawa had to give up collecting more information on the elderly dowager in Azabu. The security around her was just too tight, and he knew he would come smack up against a high wall whatever direction he went in. He wanted to find out more about the safe house, but it was too risky hanging out in the neighborhood any longer. There were security cameras, and given his looks, Ushikawa was too conspicuous. Once the other party was on its guard, things could get a bit sticky, so he decided to stay away from the Willow House and try a different approach.

The only different approach he could come up with, though, was to reinvestigate Aomame. He had already asked a PI firm he had worked with to collect more information on her, and he did some of the legwork himself, questioning people involved with her. Nothing suspicious or opaque surfaced. Ushikawa frowned, sighing deeply. I must have overlooked something, he thought. Something critical.

Ushikawa took out an address book from a drawer of his desk and dialed a number. Whenever he needed information that could only be obtained illegally, this was the number he called. The man on the other end lived in a much darker world than Ushikawa. As long as you paid, he could dig up almost any information you needed. The more tightly guarded the information, the higher the fee.

Ushikawa was after two pieces of information. One was personal background on Aomame’s parents, who were still devout members of the Witnesses. Ushikawa was positive that the Witnesses had a central database with information on all their members. They had numerous followers throughout Japan, with much coming and going between the headquarters and the regional branches. Without a centralized database, the system wouldn’t run smoothly. Their headquarters was located in the suburbs of Odawara. They owned a magnificent building on a generous plot of land, and had their own factory to print pamphlets, and an auditorium and guest facilities for followers from all over the country. All their information was sourced from this location, and you could be sure it was under strict control.

The second piece of information was Aomame’s employment record at the sports club. Ushikawa wanted to know the details of her job there, and the names of her personal clients. This kind of information wouldn’t be as closely guarded. Not that you could waltz in, say, “I wonder if you would mind showing me Miss Aomame’s file, please?,” and have them gladly hand it over.

Ushikawa left his name and phone number on the machine. Thirty minutes later he got a call back.

“Mr. Ushikawa,” a hoarse voice said.

Ushikawa related the particulars of what he was looking for. He had never actually met the man. They always did business by phone, with materials sent over by special delivery. The man’s voice was a bit husky, and he occasionally cleared his throat. He might have had something wrong with it. There was always a perfect silence on the other end of the line, as if he were phoning from a soundproof room. All Ushikawa could hear was the man’s voice, and the grating sound of his breathing. Beyond that, nothing. The sounds he heard were all a bit exaggerated. What a creepy guy, Ushikawa thought each time. The world is sure full of creepy guys, he mused, knowing full well that, objectively speaking, this category would include himself. He had secretly nicknamed the man Bat.

“In both cases, then, you’re after information concerning the name Aomame, right?” Bat said huskily, and cleared his throat.

“Correct. It’s an unusual name.”

“You want every bit of information I can get?”

“As long as it involves the name Aomame, I want it all. If possible, I would also like a photo of her, with a clear shot of her face.”

“The gym should be easy. They aren’t expecting anyone to steal their information. The Witnesses, though, are a different story. They’re a huge organization, with a lot of money, and tight security. Religious organizations are some of the hardest groups to crack. They keep things tight to protect their members’ personal security, and there are always tax issues involved.”

“Do you think you can do it?”

“There are ways to pry open the door. What is more difficult is making sure you close it afterward. If you don’t do that, you’ll have a homing missile chasing you.”

“You make it sound like a war.”

“That’s exactly what it is. Some pretty scary things might pop out,” the man rasped. Ushikawa could tell from his tone of voice that this battle was something he enjoyed.

“So, you’ll take it on for me?”

The man lightly cleared his throat. “All right. But it’ll cost you.”

“How much are we talking about, roughly?”

The man gave him an estimate. Ushikawa had to swallow before he accepted. He had put aside enough of his own funds to cover it, and if the man came through, he could get reimbursed later on.

“How long will it take?”

“I assume this is a rush job?”

“Correct.”

“It’s hard to give an exact estimate, but I’m thinking a week to ten days.”

“Fine,” Ushikawa said. He would have to let Bat determine the pace.

“When I’ve gathered the material, I’ll call you. I’ll definitely get in touch before ten days are up.”

“Unless a missile catches up with you,” Ushikawa said.

“Exactly,” Bat said, totally blasé.

After he hung up, Ushikawa hunched over his desk, turning things over in his mind. He had no idea how Bat would gather the information via some back door. Even if he asked, he knew he wouldn’t get an answer. The only thing for sure was that his methods weren’t legal. He would start by trying to bribe somebody inside. If necessary he might try trespassing. If computers were involved, things could get complicated.

There were only a few government offices and companies that managed information by computer. It cost too much and took too much effort. But a religious organization of national scale would have the resources to computerize. Ushikawa himself knew next to nothing about computers. He did understand, however, that computers were becoming an indispensable tool for gathering information. Earlier ways of finding information—going to the National Diet Library, sitting at a desk with piles of bound, small-sized editions of old newspapers, or almanacs—might soon become a thing of the past. The world might be reduced to a battlefield, the smell of blood everywhere, where computer managers and hackers fought it out. No, “the smell of blood” isn’t accurate, Ushikawa decided. It was a war, so there was bound to be some bloodshed. But there wouldn’t be any smell. What a weird world. Ushikawa preferred a world where smells and pain still existed, even if the smells and pain were unendurable. Still, people like Ushikawa might become out-of-date relics.

But Ushikawa wasn’t pessimistic. He had an innate sense of intuition, and his unique olfactory organ let him sniff out and distinguish all sorts of odors. He could physically feel, in his skin, how things were trending. Computers couldn’t do this. This was the kind of ability that couldn’t be quantified or systematized. Skillfully accessing a heavily guarded computer and extracting information was the job of a hacker. But deciding which information to extract, and sifting through massive amounts of information to find what is useful, was something only a flesh-and-blood person could do.

Maybe I am just an ugly, middle-aged, outdated man, Ushikawa thought. Nope, no maybes about it. I am, without a doubt, one ugly, middle-aged, outdated man. But I do have a couple of talents nobody else has. And as long as I have these talents, no matter what sort of weird world I find myself in, I’ll survive.

I’m going to get you, Miss Aomame. You are quite clever, to be sure. Skilled, and cautious. But I’m going to chase after you until I catch you. So wait for me. I’m heading your way. Can you hear my footsteps? I don’t believe you can. I’m like a tortoise, hardly making a sound. But step by step, I am getting closer.

But Ushikawa felt something else pressing on him from behind. Time. Pursuing Aomame meant simultaneously shaking off time, which was in pursuit of him. He had to track her down quickly, clarify who was backing her, and present it all, nice and neat, on a plate to the people from Sakigake. He had been given a limited amount of time. It would be too late to find out everything, say, three months from now. Up until recently he had been a very valuable person to them. Capable and accommodating, well versed in legal matters, a man they could count on to keep his mouth shut. Someone who could work off the grid. But in the end, he was simply a hired jack-of-all-trades. He wasn’t one of them, a member of their family. He was a man without a speck of religious devotion. If he became a danger to the religion, they might eliminate him with no qualms whatever.

While he waited for Bat to return his call, Ushikawa went to the library to look into the history and activities of the Witnesses. He took notes and made copies of relevant documents. He liked doing research at a library. He liked the feeling of accumulating knowledge in his brain. It was something he had enjoyed ever since he was a child.

Once he had finished at the library, he went to Aomame’s apartment in Jiyugaoka, to make sure once more that it was unoccupied. The mailbox still had her name on it, but no one seemed to be living there. He stopped by the office of the real estate agent who handled the rental.

“I heard that there was a vacant apartment in the building,” Ushikawa said, “and I was wondering if I could rent it.”

“It is vacant, yes,” the agent told him, “but no one can move in until the beginning of February. The rental contract with the present occupant doesn’t expire until the end of next January. They are going to be paying the monthly rent the same as always until then. They have moved everything out and the electricity and water have been shut off. But the lease remains intact.”

“So until the end of January, they’re paying rent for an empty apartment?”

“Correct,” the real estate agent said. “They said they will pay the entire amount owed on the lease so they would like us to keep the apartment as it is. As long as they pay the rent, we can’t object.”

“It’s a strange thing—wasting money to pay for an empty apartment.”

“Well, I was concerned myself, so I had the owner accompany me and let me in to take a look at the place. I wouldn’t want there to be a mummified body in the closet or anything. But nothing was there. The place had been nicely cleaned. It was simply empty. I have no idea, though, what the circumstances are.”

Aomame was obviously no longer living there. But for some reason they still wanted her listed as nominally renting the place, which is why they were paying four months’ rent for an empty apartment. Whoever they were, they were cautious, and not hurting for money.

Precisely ten days later, in the early afternoon, Bat called Ushikawa’s office in Kojimachi.

“Mr. Ushikawa,” the hoarse voice said. In the background, there was the usual emptiness—a complete lack of any sound.

“Speaking.”

“Do you mind if we talk now?”

“That would be fine,” Ushikawa said.

“The Witnesses had very tight security. But I was expecting that. I was able to get the information related to Aomame okay.”

“No homing missile?”

“Nothing so far.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Mr. Ushikawa,” the man said, and he cleared his throat a few times. “I’m really sorry, but could you put out the cigarette?”

“Cigarette?” he asked, glancing at the Seven Stars between his fingers. Smoke silently swirled up toward the ceiling. “You’re right, I am smoking, but how can you tell?”

“Obviously I can’t smell it. Just hearing your breathing makes it hard for me to breathe. I have terrible allergies, you see.”

“I see. I hadn’t noticed. My apologies.”

The man cleared his throat a few times. “I’m not blaming you, Mr. Ushikawa. I wouldn’t expect you to notice.”

Ushikawa crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray and poured some tea he had been drinking over it. He stood up and opened the window wide.

“I put out the cigarette, opened the window, and let in some fresh air. Not that the air outside is all that clean.”

“Sorry for the trouble.”

Silence continued for about ten seconds. A total, absolute quiet.

“So, you were able to get the information from the Witnesses?” Ushikawa asked.

“Yes. Quite a lot, actually. The Aomame family are devout, long-time members, so there was plenty of material related to them. It is probably easiest if I give you the whole file, and then at your end you decide what is important material and what isn’t.”

Ushikawa agreed. That was what he had been hoping for.

“The sports club wasn’t much of a problem—just open the door, go in, do your job, shut the door, that’s it. Time was kind of limited, so I grabbed everything I could. There’s a lot of material here too. I’ll send over a folder with both sets of material. As usual, in exchange for the fee.”

Ushikawa wrote down the fee that Bat gave him. It was about twenty percent higher than the estimate. Not that he had a choice.

“I don’t want to use the mail this time, so a messenger will bring it over to your place tomorrow. Please have the fee ready. And as usual, don’t expect a receipt.”

“All right,” Ushikawa replied.

“I mentioned this before, but I will repeat it just to make sure. I was able to get all the available information on the topic you asked me to look into. So even if you aren’t satisfied with it, I take no responsibility. I did everything that was technically possible. Compensation was for the time and effort involved, not the results. So please don’t ask me to give your money back if you don’t find the information you’re looking for. I would like you to acknowledge this point.”

“I do,” Ushikawa replied.

“Another thing is that I wasn’t able to obtain a photograph of Miss Aomame, no matter how much I tried,” Bat said. “All photos of her have been carefully removed.”

“Understood. That’s okay,” Ushikawa said.

“Her face may be different by now,” Bat commented.

“Maybe so,” Ushikawa said.

Bat cleared his throat several times. “Well, that’s it,” he said, and hung up.

Ushikawa put the phone back in its cradle, sighed, and placed a new cigarette between his lips. He lit it with his lighter, and slowly exhaled smoke in the direction of the phone.

The next afternoon, a young woman visited his office. She was probably not yet twenty. She had on a short white dress that revealed the curves of her body, matching white high heels, and pearl earrings. Her earlobes were large for her small face. She was barely five feet tall. She wore her hair long and straight, and her eyes were big and bright. She looked like a fairy in training. The woman looked straight at Ushikawa and smiled a cheerful, intimate smile, as if she were viewing something precious she would never forget. Neatly aligned white teeth peeked out happily from between her tiny lips. Perhaps it was just her business smile. Very few people did not flinch when they came face-to-face with Ushikawa for the first time.

“I have brought the materials that you requested,” the woman said, and extracted two large, thick manila envelopes from the cloth bag hanging from her shoulders. As if she were a shamaness transporting an ancient stone lithograph, she held up the envelopes in front of her, then carefully placed them on Ushikawa’s desk.

From a drawer Ushikawa took out the envelope he had ready and passed it over to her. She opened the envelope, extracted the sheaf of ten-thousand-yen bills, and counted them as she stood there. She was very adept at counting, her beautiful, slim fingers moving swiftly. She finished counting, returned the bills to the envelope, and put the envelope in her cloth bag. She showed Ushikawa an even bigger, warmer smile than before, as if nothing could have made her happier than to meet him.

Ushikawa tried to imagine what connection this woman could have with Bat. Passing along the material, receiving payment. That was perhaps the only role she played.

After the small woman had left, Ushikawa stared at the door for the longest time. She had shut the door behind her, but there was still a strong sense of her in the room. Maybe in exchange for leaving a trace of herself behind, she had taken away a part of Ushikawa’s soul. He could feel that new void within his chest. Why did this happen? he wondered, finding it odd. And what could it possibly mean?

After about ten minutes, he finally took the materials out of the envelopes, which had been sealed with several layers of adhesive tape. The inside was stuffed with a jumble of printouts, photocopies, and original documents. Ushikawa didn’t know how Bat had accomplished it, but he had certainly come up with a lot of material in such a short time. As always, the man did an impressive job. Still, faced with that bundle of documents, Ushikawa was hit by a deep sense of impotence. No matter how much he might rustle around in it, would he ever arrive anywhere? Or would he spend a small fortune just to wind up with a stack of wastepaper? The sense of powerlessness he experienced was so deep that he could stare as much as he wanted into the well and never get a glimpse of its bottom. Everything Ushikawa could see was covered in a gloomy twilight, like an intimation of death. Perhaps this was due to something that woman left behind, he thought. Or perhaps due to something she took away with her.

Somehow, though, Ushikawa recovered his strength. He patiently went through the stack of materials until evening, copying the information he felt was important into a notebook, organizing it under different categories. By concentrating on this, he was able to dispel the mysterious listlessness that had grabbed hold of him. And by the time it grew dark and he switched on his desk lamp, Ushikawa was thinking that the information had been worth every yen he had paid for it.

He began by reading through the material from the sports club. Aomame was a highly skilled trainer, popular with the members. Along with teaching general classes, she was also a personal trainer. Looking through the copies of the daily schedule he could figure out when, where, and how she trained these private clients. Sometimes she trained them individually at the club, sometimes she went to their homes. Among the names of her clients was a well-known entertainer, and a politician. The dowager of the Willow House, Shizue Ogata, was her oldest client.

Her connection with Shizue Ogata began not long after Aomame started working at the club four years earlier, and continued until just before she disappeared. This was exactly the same period during which the two-story apartment building at the Willow House became a safe house for victims of domestic violence. Maybe it was a coincidence, but maybe not. At any rate, according to the records, their relationship appeared to have deepened over time.

Perhaps a personal bond had grown between Aomame and the old dowager. Ushikawa’s intuition sensed this. At first it started out as the relationship between a sports club instructor and a client, but at a certain point, the nature of this relationship changed. As Ushikawa went through the businesslike descriptions in chronological order, he tried to pinpoint that moment. Something happened that transformed their relationship beyond that of mere instructor and client. They formed a close personal relationship that transcended the difference in age and status. This may even have led to some secret emotional understanding between the two, a secret understanding that eventually led Aomame down the path to murder Leader at the Hotel Okura. Ushikawa’s sense of smell told him so.

But what was that path? And what secret understanding did they have?

That was as far as Ushikawa’s conjectures could take him.

Most likely, domestic violence was one factor in it. At first glance this seemed to be a critical theme for the older woman. According to the records, the first time Shizue Ogata came in contact with Aomame was at a self-defense class. It wasn’t very common for a woman in her seventies to take a self-defense class. Something connected with violence must have brought the old lady and Aomame together.

Or maybe Aomame herself had been the victim of domestic violence. And Leader had committed domestic violence. Perhaps they found out about this and decided to punish him. But these were all simply hypotheses, and these hypotheses didn’t square with the image Ushikawa had of Leader. Certainly people, no matter who they are, have something hidden deep down inside, and Leader was a deeper person than most. He was, after all, the driving force behind a major religious organization. Wise and intelligent, he also had depths no one else could access. But say he really had committed domestic violence? Would these acts have been so significant to these women that, when they learned of them, they planned out a meticulous assassination—one of them giving up her identity, the other risking her social standing?

One thing was for sure: the murder of Leader was not carried out on a whim. Behind it stood an unwavering will, a clear-cut, unclouded motivation, and an elaborate system—a system that had been meticulously crafted using a great deal of time and money.

The problem was that there was no concrete proof to back up his conjectures. What Ushikawa had before him was nothing more than circumstantial evidence based on theories. Something that Occam’s razor could easily prune away. At this stage he couldn’t report anything to Sakigake. Still, he knew he was on to something. There was a certain smell to it, a distinctive texture. All the elements pointed in a single direction. Something to do with domestic violence made the dowager direct Aomame to kill Leader and then hide her away. Indirectly, all the information Bat had provided him supported this conclusion.

Plowing through the materials dealing with the Witnesses took a long time. There were an enormous number of documents, most of them useless to Ushikawa. The majority of the materials were reports on what Aomame’s family had contributed to the activities of the Witnesses. As far as these documents were concerned, Aomame’s family were earnest, devout followers. They had spent the better part of their lives propagating the religion’s message. Her parents presently resided in Ichikawa, in Chiba Prefecture. In thirty-five years they had moved twice, both times within Ichikawa. Her father, Takayuki Aomame (58), worked in an engineering firm, while her mother, Yasuko (56), wasn’t employed. The couple’s eldest son, Keiichi Aomame (34), had worked in a small printing company in Tokyo after graduating from a prefectural high school in Ichikawa, but after three years he quit the company and began working at the Witnesses’ headquarters in Odawara. There he also worked in printing, making pamphlets for the religion, and was now a supervisor. Five years earlier he had married a woman who was also a member of the Witnesses. They had two children and rented an apartment in Odawara.

The record for the eldest daughter, Masami Aomame, ended when she was eleven. That was when she abandoned the faith. And the Witnesses seemed to have no interest at all in anyone who had left the faith. To the Witnesses, it was the same as if Masami Aomame had died at age eleven. After this, there wasn’t a single detail about what sort of life she led—not even whether or not she was alive.

In this case, Ushikawa thought, the only thing to do is visit the parents or the brother and ask them. Maybe they will provide me with some hint. From what he gathered from the documentary evidence, he didn’t imagine they would be too pleased to answer his questions. Aomame’s family—as far as Ushikawa could see it, that is—were narrow-minded in their thinking, narrow-minded in the way they lived. They were people who had no doubt whatsoever that the more narrow-minded they became, the closer they got to heaven. To them, anyone who abandoned the faith, even a relative, was traveling down a wicked, defiled path. Who knows, maybe they didn’t even think of them as relatives anymore.

Had Aomame been the victim of domestic violence as a girl?

Maybe she had, maybe she hadn’t. Even if she had, her parents most likely would not have seen this as abuse. Ushikawa knew very well how strict members of the Witnesses were with their children. In many cases this included corporal punishment.

But would a childhood experience like that form such a deep wound that it would lead a person, after she grew up, to commit murder? This wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but Ushikawa thought it was pushing the limits of conjecture to an extreme. Carrying out a premeditated murder on one’s own wasn’t easy. It was dangerous, to begin with, and the emotional toll was enormous. If you got caught, the punishment was stiff. There had to be a stronger motivation behind it.

Ushikawa picked up the sheaf of documents and carefully reread the details about Masami Aomame’s background, up to age eleven. Almost as soon as she could walk, she began accompanying her mother to proselytize. They went from door to door handing out pamphlets, telling people about the judgment to come at the end of the world and urging them to join the faith. Joining meant you could survive the end of the world. After that, the heavenly kingdom would appear. A church member had knocked on Ushikawa’s door any number of times. Usually it was a middle-aged woman, wearing a hat or holding a parasol. Most wore glasses and stared fixedly at him with eyes like those of a clever fish. Often she had a child along. Ushikawa pictured little Aomame trundling around from door to door with her mother.

Aomame didn’t attend kindergarten, but went into the local neighborhood municipal public elementary school in Ichikawa. And when she was in fifth grade she withdrew from the Witnesses. It was unclear why she left. The Witnesses didn’t record each and every reason a member renounced the faith. Whoever fell into the clutches of the devil could very well stay there. Talking about paradise and the path to get there kept members busy enough. The righteous had their own work to do, and the devil, his—a spiritual division of labor.

In Ushikawa’s brain someone was knocking on a cheaply made, plywood partition. “Mr. Ushikawa! Mr. Ushikawa!” the voice was yelling. Ushikawa closed his eyes and listened carefully. The voice was faint, but persistent. I must have overlooked something, he thought. A critical fact must be written here, somewhere, in these very documents. But I can’t see it. The knock must be telling me this.

Ushikawa turned again to the thick stack of documents, not just following what was written, but trying to imagine actual scenes in his mind. Three-year-old Aomame going with her mother as she spread the gospel door to door. Most of the time people slammed the door in their faces. Next she’s in elementary school. She continues proselytizing. Her weekends are taken up entirely with propagating their faith. She doesn’t have any time to play with friends. She might not even have had any friends. Most children in the Witnesses were bullied and shunned at school. Ushikawa had read a book on the Witnesses and was well aware of this. And at age eleven she left the religion. That must have taken a great deal of determination. Aomame had been raised in the faith, had had it drummed into her since she was born. The faith had seeped into every fiber of her being, so she couldn’t easily slough it off, like changing clothes. That would mean she was isolated within the home. They wouldn’t easily accept a daughter who had renounced the faith. For Aomame, abandoning the faith was the same as abandoning her family.

When Aomame was eleven, what in the world had happened to her? What could have made her come to that decision?

The Ichikawa Municipal ** Elementary School. Ushikawa tried saying the name aloud. Something had happened there. Something had most definitely happened … He inhaled sharply. I’ve heard the name of that school before, he realized.

But where? Ushikawa had no ties to Chiba Prefecture. He had been born in Urawa, a city in Saitama, and ever since he came to Tokyo to go to college—except for the time he lived in Chuorinkan, in Kanagawa Prefecture—he had lived entirely within the twenty-three wards of Tokyo. He had barely set foot in Chiba Prefecture. Only once, as he recalled, when he went to the beach at Futtsu. So why did the name of an elementary school in Ichikawa ring a bell?

It took him a while to remember. He rubbed his misshapen head as he concentrated. He fumbled through the dark recesses of memory, as if sticking his hand deep down into mud. It wasn’t so long ago that he first heard that name. Very recently, in fact. Chiba Prefecture … Ichikawa Municipal ** Elementary School. Finally he grabbed onto one end of a thin rope.

Tengo Kawana. That’s it—Tengo Kawana was from Ichikawa! And I think he attended a municipal public elementary school in town, too.

Ushikawa pulled down from his document shelf the file on Tengo. This was material he had compiled a few months back, at the request of Sakigake. He flipped through the pages to confirm Tengo’s school record. His plump finger came to rest on Tengo’s name. It was just as he had thought: Masami Aomame had attended the same elementary school as Tengo Kawana. Based on their birthdates, they were probably in the same year in school. Whether they were in the same class or not would require further investigation. But there was a high probability they knew each other.

Ushikawa put a Seven Stars cigarette in his mouth and lit up with his lighter. He had the distinct feeling that things were starting to fall into place. He was connecting the dots, and though he was unsure of what sort of picture would emerge, before long he should be able to see the outlines.

Miss Aomame, can you hear my footsteps? Probably not, since I’m walking as quietly as I can. But step by step I’m getting closer. I’m a dull, silly tortoise, but I’m definitely making progress. Pretty soon I’ll catch sight of the rabbit’s back. You can count on it.

Ushikawa leaned back from his desk, looked up at the ceiling, and slowly let the smoke rise up from his mouth.