Page 59 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

There was another long pause. Then, finally, Uncertain. Perhaps next year.

I know she isn’t on sabbatical. Where is she? Her family in England have reported her missing.

The reply was only one word.

Classified.

There was no diplomatic trick to get around that. Unacceptable to have no information whatever about a British citizen, he tried.

Can confirm Dr M alive and well.

Provide proof or I’ll open a murder inquiry.

The line went silent.

Bizarre. He pulled a pen and a pad over to write Matsumoto a quick letter, to say what had happened. He was halfway through when something brushed his sleeve and made him jump. The curtains were silk, and they rippled towards him like something alive and hopeful.

TWENTY-FOUR

Abashiri, Hokkaido, 10th January 1889 (one month ago)

The prison was simple.

Upstairs, in a sparse office, were the warden and the warden’s secretary. Below were the guards. There should have been thirty. There were only ten. Then there was Horikawa, the gatekeeper; the cook, whose name nobody knew; and now Takiko, to clean. In the cells were nine hundred and seventeen prisoners.

It was easy to get lost. The four wings, arranged like wheel-spokes connecting to the entrance hall, all looked identical. From that midpoint, they were long, dark, quadruplet corridors whose length she could only make out from the specks of lamps burning at the ends. High, high windows, darkened by the snowfall, let in some light from above the rafters, but only just enough to cast shadows. The guard told her not to talk to the prisoners, and certainly not to say her name. A man – and as he said it, he pointed out to the miserable wooden shed in the courtyard – had escaped and killed one of the guards.

Once she had found a brush and a bucket, Takiko edged downstairs to investigate the kitchens. There were taps close to the door and no sign of anyone else. She filled up the bucket, tipped in some cleaning salt, and struggled back upstairs with it, then along the long wing to start at the far end. It was difficult to see into the cells. Most of the doors were only bars, but all the light, what there was of it, was from the corridor. The men inside must have been able to see her, because some silhouettes came close to the bars as she went by. At the end, a friendly voice said,

‘Make sure you keep rubbing your nose.’

‘My nose?’ she said slowly.

‘Or you’ll get frostbite. Shame if it were to fall off.’

‘It would be a shame,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you.’ She turned away from him and lit a cigarette so that she would have a clear excuse not to speak.

‘Who are you, then?’

‘I’m not meant to talk to you, I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not a murderer, don’t worry. I’m here because I wrote rather an ill-advised book.’

She kept a few feet away from the cell. The bars were wide enough for a slim person to fit their arms through. ‘And how long have you been here?’

‘Nine years. It wasn’t even that interesting a book. One wishes one could at least go to prison for something spectacular. Do you know who the Marquis de Sade was?’

‘I’ll stop you there,’ she said.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ he protested. ‘I meant he went to prison for a spectacular—’

‘Stop scaring the girl,’ a rougher voice said.

‘I was just telling her about the frostbite—’

‘She doesn’t look stupid, she can probably work it out. Miss, you wouldn’t have got any of those cigarettes spare, would you? I’d bloody kill for one. We can never get them in winter.’

‘Don’t tell her you’d kill someone!’ the Marquis de Sade man squeaked.