Page 88 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

The silence crackled. The chalk sifted down, and Mori’s ghost got up and went away. Steepleton stayed still for a while, and then curled down small as if Mori had punched him in the gut.

Kuroda knew the feeling. He had increased his security detail at home, at the Ministry, everywhere, and he had four bodyguards with him now, but, like an imbecile, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might just have walked smack into a trap here.

‘If,’ Kuroda said softly, fighting hard to keep his voice level, ‘he’s been seeing us all along, if our ghosts were visible to him in the past, then we are not safe. He could have set something up. We have to get out. He’s a watchmaker, for fuck’s sake; what if there’s a clockwork bomb in the cellar?’

Tanaka shut his eyes for a second. ‘Yes. Right – everyone out.’ He raised his voice to carry through the house. ‘Everyone out now!’

Two of Kuroda’s bodyguards caught his shoulders and hustled him fast towards the front door. Tanaka ran to keep up.

There was no bomb. Nothing exploded. No one was hurt. They all stood out in the snow, and the house stayed just as it had been, the timbers cackling as they settled in the cold.

‘Burn it down,’ Kuroda said at last.

‘We don’t know if fire will destroy the ghosts—’

‘Then at least it will be harder to look for them.’ His heart was cantering. ‘If one single fucking journalist takes a photograph …’

‘We’ve not let anyone in. Just in case.’ Tanaka looked wearily glad he’d got that right, at least. ‘Problem with gas lines, we said.’

‘Perfect, then no one will be surprised if it burns.’

Tanaka hesitated. ‘People will start asking questions, though, when Mori doesn’t turn up to ask where his house has gone. The Duke will know something’s happened to him.’

‘Yes, I know. Where’s the body?’

‘In that graveyard in the woods. No one would look in a grave.’

‘Good. Let the fire die down, then take it to the Duke. We found it here when we heard about the fire. Let him come up with his own theory. Then keep this place cordoned off. Gas leaks, investigations, whatever.’

Tanaka nodded. ‘One thing though.’

‘What?’

‘Mori’s gaijin. He’s a diplomat. He could come in here and ignore any police, any cordon, and we can’t touch him. He’s going to hear about this. He’ll come looking. He knows it might be us, as well.’

‘Hit him over the head with a brick and drop him in the sulphur well, then. Bloody hell, Tanaka, have some initiative,’ Kuroda said, knowing he was being unfair. Tanaka was built of initiative.

Tanaka was shaking his head. ‘Sir, we can’t risk killing a diplomat. The British would come here straightaway with cameras, looking for any ghosts that might show what happened to him, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop them.’

‘No, you’re right.’ Kuroda sighed. ‘Fine. Keep up the cordon. If he comes, you go straight to the Duke. Tell him we think Steepleton did it. Jealousy. He went back to Yoruji to move the body when he realised the place had burned down, in case people started looking too closely. He might be a diplomat, but he looks like he’d mug you and steal your shoes. The Duke isn’t going to listen to a word he says, even if he has it all bang on.’

Tanaka puffed his breath out, relieved. ‘Yes, sir.’

Yoruji burned fierce and brilliant once Tanaka’s men set the fires. Kuroda stood watching at the edge of the woods. After a while, he caught himself knocking his hat against a tree over and over again. He’d begun to do it to dislodge the chalk dust in the brim, but never stopped. His internal spring was wound up more tightly than ever. Something was going to happen, and Mori was just making him wait, and wait, and wait.

THIRTY-FOUR

Aokigahara, 15th February 1889

The cabins were tucked along the tree line, just on the far bank of the dam. A soldier opened one and gave Thaniel the keys, and a wooden box full of rice and vegetables.

The cabin roofs, heavily insulated under thick sheets of rubber, went down almost to the ground. Thaniel had expected an empty room inside, but there was a futon and blankets in the cupboard, a piano, phonograph, and shelves of books, all about bird-watching. The only thing to say that nobody had lived there for a while was a deep dusty smell, and the wallpaper that was peeling near the door. He pushed the paper down absently, then paused when the wall underneath felt too springy. It was insulated with a thick sheet of rubber too.

He went to see what was in the phonograph. He wound up the handle and waited. Handel bloomed out into the little room. It wasn’t until he saw how bright the colours looked that he noticed how dark it was getting outside. He took the monk’s lightbulb from his coat pocket and set it on the low kotatsu table. The filament made a gentle buzz, which haloed the glass. It was homely.

He settled back against the wall. The air was still mountain-thin and electric-coppery, and it was still hard to inhale all the way, but apart from that, it was a nice evening and the sun was going down. After he’d eaten, he felt better. He got up again and brought in some wood from the pile by the door, and lit the old-fashioned stove under the table. Once it was going, he put the grate back over it, a blanket over the table, and tucked himself under the edge of it to catch the heat, basking in how good it was to have stopped walking and to be warm.

A tiny sound uncoiled somewhere on his left. It was so faint that it was on the edge of being imaginary, but he straightened up and heard it again, a slightly different shade of red. It was just the pitch of a man’s voice.