19

“Toshimi. Toshimi!”

Noda had made his usual brief appearance at a business party and was heading toward the hotel lobby, firmly intending to make a swift exit, when he’d spotted Toshimi Konakawa stepping out of the hotel pharmacy. Konakawa was a friend from his university days. Tall and well built, he now sported a mustache and looked thinner than before. In fact, Noda was surprised that his friend looked even thinner than when they’d last met two years previously.

Konakawa reacted to Noda’s call with a faint smile and a nod.

“What’s up? Aren’t you well?” asked Noda. There had never been any reserve between them, however exalted their careers.

Konakawa grimaced and looked up at the ceiling. “Is it that obvious?”

“Of course it is! You’re too thin! What are you doing here, anyway?”

Toshimi Konakawa worked for the Metropolitan Police Department. He’d graduated in the same year as Noda, passed the Civil Service exams, and started his career as a trainee detective constable. He’d then worked his way up through the ranks of detective sergeant and inspector before joining the Met. There, he’d risen to chief inspector and superintendent to cement his place as one of the elite members of the force.

“Well, it’s the Chief Commissioner. He’s retired now, you see, and …” Konakawa spoke diffidently with downcast eyes. For some reason, he seemed to be finding things difficult to express. “We’ve just had the … er … farewell party.”

“Oh, I know. That guy who’s standing for parliament or something. Is the party over, then?”

“Aha.” Konakawa was still stuck for words. “I was invited to the, you know, second party, the informal one, but … Well, I didn’t feel like it.”

He seemed in very low spirits, unable even to look his friend in the face. Noda could see right away that he was ill.

“Let’s go to Radio Club,” Noda said in a tone that offered no room for refusal. “I’ve just come from a party myself.”

This was too good a chance to pass up. Noda used to love cruising the nightlife scene with friends in his university days. Sometimes, made brave by drink, he’d pick fights with thugs and hoodlums. Konakawa, a martial arts expert, had saved him from certain injury on many an occasion. If it weren’t for his good friend, Noda might easily have lost an arm, if not more. He still shuddered to think back on those days.

“But …” Konakawa was decidedly lukewarm to the idea. Normally, he would have accepted any invitation from Noda without question. But now he was reticent, even toward the friend who put him most at ease. Noda instinctively felt that something was wrong.

“Come on! Just a quick drink. Yes? I’ve got a car waiting outside. Let’s use it. All right? Jinnai and Kuga have been asking after you …”

“Really? Well …”

As they made their way to Roppongi in the hired limousine, Noda managed to extract one piece of information from his oddly taciturn friend: Konakawa had been promoted to Chief Superintendent about six months earlier.

“Wow! So you’re up to three stars now? Congratulations! And I suppose you’ll be up for Chief Commissioner next?”

This man, once his best friend, had risen so high in society that there was hardly any higher he could climb. Noda was overcome with emotion – so much that he could hardly speak. So much that he could have wept.

Konakawa sighed. It was a dark, mysterious sigh, one that seemed to spring from the depths of his soul, one that spoke of sorrow and remorse, despair and rejection. Noda thought this must have something to do with his promotion. He had to find out about it. Do something to help this precious old friend who stood on the verge of greatness.

Radio Club was still playing old songs like “My Generation” and “Lola,” amid the nostalgic wine-hued atmosphere produced by its teak-clad interior. It still retained its air of tranquillity, thanks largely to its customary absence of customers.

“My!” gushed Kuga, smiling like a Buddhist icon as he bowed solemnly. “Mr. Konakawa! How delightful to see you again!”

“We’ve missed you,” Jinnai called from behind the counter, his whitish teeth contrasted against his darkish skin.

Noda and Konakawa would normally have sat at the counter, to be joined by Jinnai for some light, congenial conversation. But tonight they would need a more select location. The intuitive Kuga instantly understood this from the air that hung about them. He led them to the booth at the back, the one that was like a private room of its own.

“So what’s caused all this?” Noda started without further ado, as soon as their twelve-year-old Wild Turkey on the rocks had arrived.

“Well, you know. I can’t sleep at night.” Konakawa had kept up the same faint smile from the outset. Noda took it to indicate a lack of facial expression.

“Yes, but why can’t you sleep at night?”

Konakawa gave his friend a slightly mysterious look. “No reason.”

“Ah – I see. Cause unknown.”

Konakawa said nothing for a moment, but seemed to be ruminating over what Noda had said. Then he straightened his back and slowly shook his head. “There is no ‘cause,’ known or unknown. There’s nothing that could be remotely described as a cause.”

Noda had read books about psychopathology when looking for the cause of his own anxiety. From his knowledge of the subject, Konakawa’s reply immediately suggested clinical depression. One particular characteristic of depression, the type most prevalent at the time, was that it occurred without reason. Of course, Noda couldn’t suddenly tell his friend that he was suffering from depression. He remembered that, in the field of clinical psychiatry, it was considered taboo for a patient to be told the nature of his illness.

“Otherwise you’re in good health, then?”

“Physically? Sure. We have a health check every year,” Konakawa replied firmly. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“I’m sure there isn’t …” Noda noted that Konakawa’s thrift with words hadn’t changed.

“Sounds as if you’re interrogating me …”

Noda laughed out loud, but Konakawa still wore the same faint smile.

“But anyway, it can’t be good for you to be losing sleep all the time …”

Even the expressionless Konakawa nodded sadly at this. “That’s true. My sleeping and waking rhythms are all over the place. And I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Your appetite too?” That explained why he was so thin. “So this must be getting in the way of your job? …”

“Right,” Konakawa said, almost as if to mock his own predicament. “But you know … In the force, once you’ve got your qualifications, you just continue on your set path. Promotion, promotion, promotion. Unless you have to stand down because of some blunder.”

“Really …” Noda stared vacantly at Konakawa’s face. He’d never imagined that working for the Metropolitan Police Department could be so undemanding as Konakawa seemed to suggest. But now it sounded like the kind of place where “blunders” were committed all the time. By all except the most talented, that is.

They drank on in silence for a minute or two. Kuga served the next round of drinks without a word, a smile of great joy on his face.

“So your work’s going well, then?”

“Well, you know …” Konakawa clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but started to let his story out in morsels. “The Chief Commissioner is always meeting government officials, top people, you know. But the Deputy Chief Commissioner – I mean, the one who’s just been promoted to Chief Commissioner – well, he not only lacks charm but he’s also a poor talker. So, more and more, I’m being asked to attend functions in his place.”

“You cut quite a commanding figure, that’s for sure.” Noda cast an eye over his friend’s appearance – all proper and correct in a manly way, the very image of the classic Japanese male. “So is that a problem for you?”

“Well, it’s getting in the way of my main job,” said Konakawa. “And anyway, I’m not exactly a great speaker myself, am I.”

“No, but I’d say that’s your strong suit,” Noda laughed. “I mean the fact that you’re not always yakking on about things. People may say you’re the silent type, but surely that’s desirable in your line of work?”

Konakawa declined to answer. He was clearly dissatisfied with himself.

Eventually he spoke again. “All I want is to be good at my job.”

“And aren’t you?” Noda decided to remind his friend of his past exploits. “What about the serial shootings in Kami Kitazawa?”

“That’s the only case I ever solved,” Konakawa said with a grimace. “Why do people keep going on about it?”

“Come on. You’re being too hard on yourself, aren’t you? After all, you just said you’d get promoted without doing anything.”

Konakawa fell silent again. Noda felt there was nothing more he could do to help. “Of course, you do know that sleeplessness and loss of appetite can be caused by psychological factors?” he said slowly, choosing his words with care.

“Yes. I’m sure they are,” Konakawa replied lifelessly.

“Right. And do you want to cure your condition?”

“I’ll be in trouble if I don’t.” A look of skepticism started to appear in Konakawa’s eyes.

“All right then. Would you let me arrange the treatment?”

“Treatment? You mean a psychiatrist?” Konakawa gave his friend a withering look and shook his head. “Or a psychoanalyst? Out of the question. I’d be finished if people knew I was seeing one of those.”

“Yes. I know exactly what you mean,” Noda said, nodding vigorously. “That’s why I’m asking you to let me arrange it. Do you think I’d suggest such a thing without considering the delicacy of your situation? Of course not. But what if I could guarantee that no one would ever know about it? Come on. Let me introduce you to someone. What have you got to lose?”

“You seem very confident!” Konakawa laughed, letting down his guard. “Who, then?”

“A therapist,” Noda replied as he leant across the table. “Have you ever heard of Paprika?”

“Paprika? The spice?”

“Paprika, the therapist.”

“Strange name for a therapist. No, I haven’t.” Konakawa shook his head as if it were of no concern to him. That was his customary way. He appeared not to have heard the rumors about Paprika.

“All right, you must have heard of the Institute for Psychiatric Research?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that.” Konakawa showed a spark of interest this time. “It’s got one of the best psychiatric hospitals in Japan. As a sister facility, that is. And two of its staff have been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.”

“Physiology or Medicine.”

“Aha.”

“And do you know the Administrator, Torataro Shima? He did medicine at our university. I’ve known him since senior high.”

“I don’t know anyone who did medicine.”

“Well, there’s this woman called Paprika who works for him. She’s actually the best psychotherapist there is.”

“Woman?” A bald expression of uncertainty suddenly appeared on Konakawa’s face. Noda remembered that his friend had always held a certain mistrust of women.

“Shima introduced me to her. She cured me of a mental illness.”

Even Konakawa had to be interested now. He cast a questioning look at Noda. “Mental illness?”

“Don’t worry. It was only anxiety neurosis,” Noda said, and proceeded to tell his friend the whole story.