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

“Hey, there’s Yamada. Look, that’s our guy!” Kagawa, the deputy chief reporter, shouted from the desk behind Kubo. At some point the commercial broadcast’s live coverage had switched over to show the press corps that had gathered along the highway in Jukai, where the search continued for the location where the victim had been held hostage. Kubo glanced briefly at the television. The screen showed a reserve reporter named Yamada standing in front of a road closure, stamping his feet, his shoulders hunched. At his feet the snow had melted to a dirty slush.

“Wonder if we’ll get it in time . . .” murmured Chief Reporter Sugano as he looked askance at the television.

It had been two hours since the forty-some investigators from both the local Fujiyoshida Police Department and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had begun searching the resort area that appeared to be where the victim had been held hostage. There were two such locales that could be accessed from the highway in Jukai, and both consisted of narrow roads that cut through over 800 acres of backwoods, and were dotted with vacation homes big and small. There was hardly a soul to be found there during this season but, according to reporters on the scene, the snow that had fallen three days ago had already melted—any tire tracks along with it—and the fresh snow from last night had frozen over, so the search for footwear impressions and tread marks was probably slow going. It was only a matter of time before the location would be discovered—the question was whether or not this would happen before the deadline for the final edition of the evening newspaper. For the advance article Kubo was working on, so far he had typed: The location where the victim was held hostage has been identified as a residence in the resort area of XX, at [XX address], and the on-scene investigation is in progress, leaving four lines for further description after the words, The location was . . .

The time was now 11:53 a.m. Kubo turned back to his work on the draft, which had been interrupted, and recounted the number of lines in the last paragraph.

. . . With the victim safely in protective custody, yet neither the objective nor motive of the perpetrators known, Investigation Headquarters increased the number of investigators to three hundred, who are dedicated to a thorough inquiry and are gathering information from eyewitnesses. In addition, Hinode Beer held a press conference at their main office at 10 a.m., during which Vice President Sei’ichi Shirai, looking visibly relieved, recounted the details of the incident, and expressed their consternation at being the target of such an unimaginable and heinous crime, as well as their acute outrage toward the perpetrators.

This would add thirteen lines to what had appeared in the second edition. Kubo was unsure about the clause, “yet neither the objective nor the motive of the perpetrators known.” Was it worded too strongly? Did it betray his personal feelings, that the explanation of the victim’s release was unsatisfactory? To hell with it, he thought as he deleted it and rewrote the beginning of the paragraph as, Now that President Shiroyama is reportedly safe in protective custody . . . Then he considered the phrase, “acute outrage toward the perpetrators.” He tried to recall whether the vice president who had appeared at the press conference had really sounded all that outraged and, deciding it didn’t matter either way, he also scrapped the word “acute.”

For the second-edition draft he had submitted an hour and a half ago, he had barely managed to insert the facts and format them into the semblance of an article, but from the looks of it he would not have anything significant to add for the third edition, and this irritated Kubo as he continued to type. Over the last two and a half days, he had been calling every single one of his dozen sources, but his contacts at Special Investigation headquarters remained even more tight-lipped than usual. Meanwhile, thanks to strict confidentiality this time, his sources who did not have any connection to headquarters received no information whatsoever regarding the investigation, and as a result no story reached Kubo from them, either.

What would be revealed in the noon press conference that would start in three minutes? The course of events from abduction to release. The victim’s condition when held hostage. What the crime group had said and done. Whether or not there was a ransom demand. Any clue that could lead to the perpetrators’ profile. If only he knew these things, he’d be able to fill up the third and the final evening editions, but the real problem was the next morning’s edition and every one after that. As he anxiously wondered what the hell he would do tomorrow if he didn’t get his hands on a lead—any lead—Kubo looked at the clock and then, leaving the blank spaces in his draft for the time being, he got up from his desk. Next to him, Kuriyama was hastily laying out a document with a timetable, leaving various parts of the main text empty, while deep in conversation with someone on an outside line; and beside Kuriyama was their junior colleague Kondo, who was constitutionally unfit for these journalistic battles that required him to hit the ground running without even thinking, looking as if he might actually burst into tears as he silently dialed a number on the phone. Kubo called out to these two as well as to Chief Sugano, “I’m going to the press conference,” and he left the nook.

Kubo knew he ought to lend a helping hand to his younger colleague, but despite this inclination, he could never afford to do so. For the two years since he’d been moved to the MPD beat from the Sendai branch office—every second of every day—Kubo couldn’t shake the obsessive feeling that he himself was