Read Online Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama - Free Book Online

could drive a minibus in her sleep.
    Clouds of dust blew through the air outside. As soon as he and Mikumo stepped out of the main building, she raised a hand to her forehead and dashed off into the wind, aiming for the parking area. Within a minute, the press director’s car appeared, pulling confidently around to stop alongside the entrance.
    ‘Do you know the address?’ Mikami asked, getting into the passenger-side seat.
    ‘Of course, sir,’ she said without pause, already navigating forwards.
    Mikami supposed he’d been thoughtless to ask. Anyone who worked at the Prefectural HQ but didn’t know the address was, it felt fair to say, a fraud. It was Mikumo’s youth that had caught him off guard. She had just turned twenty-three; she would have been nine at the time of the kidnapping, only a couple of years older than the murdered girl. Now she was driving him to that girl’s home. There was no escaping the fact that an unimaginable span of time had passed.
    They stopped not long after leaving the station to buy a gift of rice crackers. The national highway was quiet. The rows of buildings disappeared after they turned right at the junction to theprefectural road, where even the road-side stores began to taper off. Now they were approaching what had, before the city’s expansion, been the old Morikawa district.
    ‘Um, sir . . .’ Mikumo said, keeping her eyes ahead.
    ‘Yes? What is it?’
    ‘It was a great relief . . . that it wasn’t your daughter.’ She was talking about the day before. ‘I know they’ll find her. I’m sure of it.’
    Her voice sounded nasal. She looked ready to cry. It was at times like this that Mikami always struggled to find a way to respond.
Just . . . leave it be
. That was as close as he could get to what he really felt. Strict rules were in place to guard the privacy of police officers and their families. Yet this was only the case with regard to those outside the force; within it, stories spread in the blink of an eye. Colleagues would approach with no warning and ask after Ayumi. They did it out of kindness. It was because they were concerned. But no matter how often Mikami reminded himself of this, he was still unable to feel genuine gratitude. Akama’s motivations were clearly different, and there were many more who shared his philosophy. Despite the fact that they hardly knew Mikami, these people would assume a concerned expression and worm their way over as soon as they caught sight of him. Some actually seemed pleased, as if Mikami’s distress gave them an opportunity to either mend fences, or angle for something in return. These were the ones who were the most likely to voice what seemed like genuine, heartfelt compassion. They would look on, smug, as Mikami bowed and offered thanks. He felt a growing aversion to other people. It scared him. He’d had enough of it.
    Still . . .
    ‘Thank you,’ he said.
    It went without saying that the young female officer sitting next to him was one of the few who did actually merit his trust.
    ‘Oh, you needn’t . . .’
    She blushed and straightened her back. She was almostworryingly good-natured. Given that she had chosen to become a police officer, she was already likely to be more straight-laced and diligent than the average person; even with that, Mikami knew she was special. She had grown up in a world where morality, sex and even the values of basic human kindness were in chaos; despite this, nothing about her suggested even the slightest pollution. She was beautiful and innocent. In a way, she reminded him of Minako when she was younger. It was only natural that the majority of single officers were infatuated with her; even in the Press Room, more than a few of the reporters had designs on taking her back to Tokyo with them. Suwa had already mentioned that Akikawa was one of them. It was the main reason Mikami still refused to let her be directly involved with them.
    The landscape rolling ahead was rural with a smattering