Lady Joker, Volume 1 by Kaoru Takamura (lightest ebook reader .txt) 📕

external defenses would strengthen, he would wise up, and he would develop a new face. There were likely to be more opportunities to see Kyosuke Shiroyama at press conferences and such events, but by then he might look like a completely different person. Now, as he returned to Tokyo from Fujiyoshida, could be the last possible time to see his true face—that of a victim freshly embroiled in the incident, before the heap of emotions changed shape. The only chance to catch a glimpse of this version of his face would be when he arrived at Omori Police Department. Shiroyama’s face was not material to the investigation, of course, and it wasn’t even close to the level of what might have been encouraging—Goda simply wanted to see it for his own sake.

“Not everyday you get to gawk at the president of a trillion-yen company.” Goda went for a noncommittal answer, and left it at that.

It was now 10:32 a.m. As soon as the train carrying Goda and his partner pulled into Tanashi Station on the Seibu Shinjuku Line, he was on his feet and running off ahead toward the south exit, in the opposite direction of the bus stop where they were going. Television screens in the train station and nearby cafes were dominated by news of the case, but since he’d been constantly on the move while he was doing legwork on stolen vehicles, it had been rather difficult to come across the desired broadcast at just the right time. Goda dashed into a private clinic not fifty meters from the station and stood before the television in the waiting room.

As he had expected, the commercial broadcast showed the press corps clustered outside the entrance of Omori Police Department. The president had not yet arrived. Goda sat down on an empty bench and jutted his neck out toward the TV, relieved that he’d still be able to get a look at his face, as long as the president came to the front door. Goda’s partner walked in a moment later and took a seat next to him, the corners of his mouth twisting into a snicker. “Don’t you feel sorry for yourself? Glued to the TV in a place like this?”

“I’d be sorrier if they didn’t have a TV.”

“You’re a strange one.”

His partner fell silent, and Goda stared at the screen.

The familiar scenery surrounding his police department—the elevated highway with the Dai-ichi Keihin and the string of office buildings beneath it—for Goda, this all symbolized suffocation, to put it plainly. His eyes were not necessarily focused on the press corps with their stepladders lined up in the street or on the stream of traffic along the Dai-ichi Keihin that every one of the cameras was trained upon. He had simply fallen into futile self-scrutiny, questioning his own existential purpose, as he wondered how his heart could go on beating so placidly despite this feeling of suffocation.

Except, in the depths of this suffocation, his gloom was a pool of lava, part of which was still molten, and every so often it would erupt out of nowhere. He told himself not to think about it but he couldn’t help it, he tried not to expect anything and yet he still did, his legs moved on their own, his frustration mounted out of his control, until all of a sudden he was overwhelmed by strange desires, like laying eyes on the face of the victim. These impulses came over him with a fierceness he could not have imagined back when he was still at MPD, and at times he scared even himself.

After a few more minutes’ wait, the press corps surrounding the entrance to the building began to swarm en masse, and the footage from the broadcast revealed the patrol car that appeared in the lead at the intersection opposite the police department, then the jet-black Toyota Crown that followed. The cameras began flashing at once. The image wobbled. A uniformed police officer obstructed half the screen, leaving visible only the roof of the car that had stopped in front of the entrance.

The car doors opened. The heads of three or four plainclothes policemen parted and a cap of silver hair appeared among them. He was taller than expected, with a small head. He shook it to the left and to the right, as if giving a little bow, and as he stepped onto the few meters of sidewalk, glimpses of his profile and torso flashed through the gaps within the crowd. Kyosuke Shiroyama was wearing a decidedly well-tailored dark gray suit with a golden brown necktie, and the collar of his brand new dress shirt was dazzlingly white. His short hair was parted on the side and appeared to have been combed. His face, visible a number of times, bore little trace of a victim who had just been released from fifty-six hours of captivity—like the rest of his appearance, it seemed to have been promptly scrubbed clean of any scent of the case. His cheeks were considerably more hollow, and his jaw more pointed, than in the photos, but Goda thought these looked different from the wounds of mind and body—like terror or exhaustion—that the victim of a crime usually suffered. Was his mind occupied with particular thoughts that made him seem either abstracted or resolute? At the very least, the physical effects of any fear experienced while he was held hostage seemed minimal.

Altogether it took no more than ten seconds for Goda to gaze upon Kyosuke Shiroyama’s face and to imprint in his mind the man’s meticulous appearance—which did not resemble the victim of a heinous crime—along with his expression, which could be interpreted as sincere as well as formidable. In particular, what caught Goda’s eye was the steady look Shiroyama gave the surrounding horde of press and police, which reminded him of those company men who were occasionally arrested for financial crimes. At first, such men would use their triple layers of armor—corporate, civilian, and personal—to confront the