Page 74 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

He eased across the corridor and opened Six’s door. She was asleep; so were the twins. He closed it again and didn’t want to go back into his own room. But he couldn’t wear this shirt either, so he left his door open and changed, painfully slowly because he could only move one arm, looking around all the time, his heart straining, and came straight back out again. Absurdly, crossing the threshold and onto the differently coloured wood of the corridor floor felt like reaching safe ground. Still no sign of anyone else. Despite the new shirt, he couldn’t stop rubbing at the places on his upper arms where the black handprints had been. He stood out in the dim corridor, lit by nothing but snowy moonlight, trying to decide what to do with himself. He couldn’t imagine sleeping.

There was no reason he couldn’t do some work. It was sedentary and boring, two things that would probably be quite helpful.

Light spilled reassuringly from the translation office. Mrs Nakano had forbidden Kelly lamps, because of the flames, but she had provided lightbulbs. They were tied onto the metal pipes now with neat little coils of copper wire, and they worked perfectly. He sat down at his desk and felt much easier bathed in electric light. It was shocking how fast he’d got used to the dim whale-oil lamps here, with their greasy smell that put him in mind of an oven that needed cleaning. The brighter light made everything clear and ordinary. The stacks of newspapers, the two telegraphs, Pringle’s little geisha doll, the clean papery smell of any office where nobody smoked. He sat still for a while and let it soak in.

He translated a few bits and pieces from the Foreign Ministry. Telegraph messages had come in through the day. The first wave were party invitations; the second, sent in the afternoon, more sombre congratulations that everyone had carried on through the ceremonies despite the disruption.His stomach snapped itself into a knot when the telephone rang . The bell was deafening white in the silent office. He snatched it up. He hated the telephones and on principle he never used them. Vaulker had had them installed because he said it was civilised, but Thaniel couldn’t think of anything less civilised than making a terrible noise at somebody until they answered you. Everyone else on the Tokyo lines must have felt the same, because nobody ever telephoned unless they wanted to be rude.

‘Hello?’ he said.

‘Prime Minister’s office,’ said an exhausted clerkly voice in Japanese. ‘Is Mr Steepleton there?’

‘Speaking. You know it’s two in the morning?’

‘Hold for the Prime Minister,’ the clerk sighed.

Thaniel pushed his hand over his forehead. There was a click, and then Kuroda’s shale voice said, ‘Did I wake you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Shame. Just calling to make sure you know you’re a fucking useless sow. Mori must have put you there because you were supposed to save Arinori.’

‘Yes, it’s definitely all my fault. What have you done with Mori and Takiko Pepperharrow?’

‘I haven’t done a damn thing. I thought you’d got jealous and murdered them both.’

‘I’m pretty sure you’re the one with that kind of record. Where are they? Are they all right?’

‘Take that tone with me again and I’ll tell your Foreign Office you got your insipid little heart broken and now I’m missing a high ranking samurai and his lady. No? Didn’t think so. Coward,’ Kuroda said, and banged his receiver down.

The bullet wound was burning as if someone had washed it out with vinegar.

Kuroda was lying about Mori. Arinori and his wife had been right; if Kuroda really hadn’t known where he was, he would have turned half of Tokyo upside down. Thaniel sat looking hard at the telephone, thinking about how you went about finding someone who the Prime Minister didn’t want found.

He’d go to Yoruji in the morning. Diplomatic immunity was handy when you had to duck a police cordon. He wasn’t going to think about what he might or might not find there. He was no use to anyone if he let himself turn into a hysterical mess. Least of all Mori, who was probably fine, and who would probably consider any effort to be found by some hulking gaijin he used to live with barely more acceptable than stalking.

Mrs Nakano must have heard the telephone, because she came in with coffee and the silver bowl of icing sugar. In place of the lid, she’d put a lightbulb on the kettle. It cast a friendly glow.

‘Did you see one?’ she said.

He looked up. ‘Did I wake you up?’

‘No, no, lad, I was watering the door-hinges.’ She didn’t pause to explain what she meant. ‘You had a fire lit. Did you see one?’

‘I … no, I just had a nightmare.’ Which he must have. When he went back upstairs, there would be no soot handprints on his other shirt. He was ill, injured, and someone had been killed in front of him yesterday. It had been a nightmare.

She gave him a schoolmistress look and left. The floorboards squeaked something savage, because at some point through the day, the nails must have overheated. Someone had taken them all out and put them in a glass vase on the floor, over which there was now a heat shimmer. As she passed through the dining room, she picked up a watering can from the corner, and watered the door-hinges. They steamed.

It was possible to make quite a good coffee-flavoured icing in the saucer, so Thaniel tipped out some of the coffee and then sprinkled the sugar into it as softly as he could with his left hand. Some of the sugar missed the plate and snowed onto the desk instead, exactly where the draught could catch it. It skittered off the edge and into the air. He watched it twist.

But the ordinary twisting was disrupted before it could fade off to nothing. It was outlining the perfect shape of a hand, in nothing but the air. He could even read the manufacturer’s mark on the button in the sleeve. It was from Shirokiya’s, the big department store opposite the bank in Ginza.

Thaniel flinched back but it only hung there. The sugar fell gradually and the image faded.

He took the silver bowl up again and blew over the surface of the sugar, then held his breath so that he wouldn’t disturb it while it fell. The sugar billowed into the air and showed other buttons, a waistcoat, a watch chain, hands hidden in trouser pockets and then the neat sweep of Arinori’s hair. He was looking out the window. As Thaniel watched, the sugar ghost sighed noiselessly and turned away. He stared at it, then threw another spray of icing sugar at it. It seemed not to see him at all, and only stood propped in the doorway, reading over ghost papers.

Thaniel snatched up the telephone. He plugged in the wire for the line to Vaulker’s room. While it rang – he could hear it upstairs – he watched the space where Arinori was fading again. He had never gone cold with fear before, and he’d always thought it was just a figure of speech. But he could feel the blood creeping away from his fingers, which were white around the receiver, his nails an unnatural, dead grey.

‘Hello?’ Vaulker sounded puzzled, but not like he had been asleep.