Page 65 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

‘What are they saying?’ Mrs Vaulker asked, a little sharp. ‘Are they talking about Tom?’

‘No, they’re talking about a …’ Thaniel stopped. ‘Arinori. What was that about Kuroda?’

‘Oh, we think he might have vanished an actress and a glamorous nobleman, but there’s a press embargo and obviously Akiko is now only all the keener,’ Arinori said wryly. ‘I don’t believe I’ve had a single conversation at home since New Year that has not in some way involved Takiko Pepperharrow.’

‘Like it or not, my dear, famous actresses and their husbands vanishing is news much more than ministers huffing at each other,’ said his wife. She had a fur coat over a gorgeous kimono, but Western boots, which she was tapping together now to knock off the snow.

‘Sorry,’ said Thaniel, ‘but I – you said Kuroda might have killed them both?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘It’s all very hush-hush and no one’s admitting anything, but—’

‘I know them.’ Thaniel interrupted without meaning to. ‘I mean – I know her husband. I came here with him.’

Arinori pointed at him. ‘Scoundrel. He taught you Japanese. I knew it was someone good.’

His wife sharpened, attentive. ‘How do you mean, you came here with him?’

‘What in the world is going on?’ Mrs Vaulker demanded.

Thaniel should have been dragging Vaulker down the stairs by the back of his shirt, but he had no idea when he was going to see Arinori again.

‘Sorry, yes. I’m going,’ he said to Mrs Vaulker, who looked suspicious to have such a sudden and unexpected victory. ‘See you in a few hours.’

As they left the embassy district, the buildings became more and more traditional, all wood and paper. Open doors let out cooking steam and light into the deep gloom of the morning, and tiny snatches of the people inside. The roads followed a long curve, skirting the Palace moat. Every now and then the water gleamed black through a gap between houses. There were rivermen out despite the holiday, poling barges beneath single paper lamps. Under the storm clouds, the dark hadn’t quite gone away. It felt like evening. Purple banners hung everywhere.

‘How could they have disappeared?’ Thaniel asked Arinori’s wife. ‘People would know. She’s – quite famous. Isn’t she?’

‘Well, the actors at her theatre say she’s on holiday, but no one knows where,’ she said. ‘When you say you know Keita Mori …?’

‘But then why don’t you think they’re on holiday?’ Thaniel pressed.

‘How much do you know about what Mori used to do here?’ she asked.

‘Um – he was civil service. An intelligence officer.’

She and Arinori both laughed.

‘No, he ran every intelligence officer in Japan. And then he went to live in England. Everyone thought he defected. And then back he comes, just as the Russians begin to look like they might invade. Now, call me cynical, but no pragmatic Prime Minister – and Kuroda is the most pragmatic man I’ve ever met – would let such a person wander about free to chat to whoever he likes. Either he’s dead or Kuroda has him somewhere,’ Arinori said.

‘Could I interview you, later?’ his wife asked Thaniel.

‘What? No,’ said Thaniel, with a shot of fear that he had to scramble to cover over. ‘I don’t know him that well, I just rented the spare room. Has Kuroda said something?’

‘No. And he hasn’t started any kind of investigation. If he didn’t already know what was going on, he would have started a manhunt.’

‘But really it’s the fact that Takiko Pepperharrow has vanished too that persuades me,’ Arinori said. ‘She owns the Shintomi-za. That’s like our version of the Royal Opera House,’ he added when Thaniel looked blank. ‘If she thought anything had happened to Mori, it would have been on a stage inside a week. She doesn’t care about injunctions.’

Thaniel hesitated. In the small quiet, the driver’s voice reached them, trying to soothe the horses, whose hoofbeats were getting more and more skittish. The carriage bobbed, and slewed them to the left. ‘Well – all right, but even spies and actresses go on holiday. You still haven’t said why you think they haven’t.’

Arinori glanced at his wife.

She nodded. ‘Because of their house. You can’t get in. Can’t get near it. There’s a police cordon, and when I tried to go, I was firmly escorted away by a man who said he was with a gas company. Some kind of problem, dangerous, they’re fixing it, but I went to see the gas company. Yoruji isn’t even connected to their lines.’

‘That hasn’t been in the papers,’ Thaniel said incredulously.

She drew an imaginary needle through her lips. ‘Court order. We can’t print it. A man barged into the office to tell us so.’

Thaniel could only stare at her. If she’d told him that somebody had stolen his own left arm, it wouldn’t have been much stranger.