29

After recovering from the shock and returning to her lab, Atsuko made some coffee and drank it as she planned her next move. She tried to think as calmly as she could. Finally, she telephoned the hospital and asked the duty nurse to arrange a vacant room for Himuro, then to bathe and feed him.

Next, she called the Administrator’s Office. Shima wasn’t there.

Or was he? Atsuko had a nasty premonition. She decided to go to his office anyway. As she stood to leave, the telephone rang.

“I think he’s from the press,” the switchboard operator said uneasily. “He’s already called several times this morning.”

“So why didn’t you refuse as usual?”

“He says it’s an emergency. Not an interview or anything like that. He said his name was Matsukane and you’d know what it was about.”

“Ah. Him. All right, put him through.”

“Doctor Chiba?” Matsukane of the Morning News said in a tone of great urgency as soon as the operator put him through. “Can I talk to you somewhere? I’m not far away.”

“Where are you? What’s it about?”

“I’m in the café near the front entrance. Corcovado. But I can’t really say anything … Not on the phone … Has anything untoward happened?” he added hurriedly, as if he was worried Atsuko might hang up on him.

“What do you mean ‘untoward’?” Atsuko returned his question warily, stiffly. She’d started to feel she could trust no one, but at the same time thought it an unwise policy. She risked losing an ally and turning him into an enemy for no good reason.

“Well, if nothing’s happened, that’s fine. One thing I can say is that, well, I’m a friend of Morio Osanai, you see. Well, no. I don’t mean a friend as such, rather that we went to the same university.” Matsukane paused for a moment, as if he expected Atsuko to draw her own conclusions.

“So is that who it was? Your informant at the Institute, Morio Osanai?”

“Yes.”

It was Osanai who’d leaked the information to Matsukane about Paprika’s identity, about Tsumura being infected with schizophrenia and everything else.

“And now he’s told you something new? That’s why you’re calling?” Atsuko could imagine how Osanai saw Matsukane as a trusted ally. He’d won his confidence by leaking information, and was now boasting of the plot he’d set in motion.

“Er, is this telephone safe?”

“No.” Atsuko couldn’t be sure that the operator wasn’t listening in. “And I don’t have a direct line.”

“I wouldn’t be allowed in the building, would I. Can you come and meet me in the café?”

“I can’t go there. The nurses from our hospital use it. Come to the parking lot in half an hour. I’ll meet you where we spoke last time.”

“All right.”

Atsuko replaced the receiver and got up immediately. Matsukane’s call had given her ample cause for worry about Shima, as she’d suddenly remembered his odd behavior in the Junior Staff Room the other day. That was certainly what she’d call “untoward.” She hurried to the Administrator’s Office, hoping beyond hope that Matsukane’s phrase didn’t refer to Shima.

The door to Shima’s office was slightly ajar, as always. I wish he wouldn’t do that, Atsuko thought with a sigh. Only recently she’d seen an employee going into the office without knocking. Though most of the staff liked Shima’s easygoing personality, others were happy to take advantage of it.

Atsuko knocked, then opened the door wide. There was no one in the office. Anyone else would have given up and walked out again, but not Atsuko. Not today. She closed the door firmly behind her and went toward the back room, where Shima took his naps.

There, Atsuko’s fears took physical shape with the sight of Shima in his underwear. Just as Tokita had the night before, Shima was sitting on the edge of the bed, deeply withdrawn and gazing vacantly into space. His right arm was raised diagonally in front of him. He showed no reaction when Atsuko called his name.

Judging from Shima’s raised-arm posture, he must have been fed the same images as had been implanted in Tsumura’s mind. Atsuko felt reassured to recall that Tsumura’s condition had only been mild. She searched Shima’s head but found no sign of the DC Mini. It must have been attached and removed intermittently, as it had in Tokita’s case. That meant his condition could definitely be treated.

Why had the perpetrators set out to drive Shima insane in stages? They could have destroyed his mind instantly by projecting intense images, as they had with Himuro. They must have wanted people to think that the timid Torataro Shima had lost his mind naturally, under the strain of internal disputes at the Institute. His eccentric behavior in the Junior Staff Room, caused by the initial stages of image projection, had given that very impression. As such, the plot had been more than successful so far.

Shima couldn’t be left as he was. Pandemonium would break out if it were known that the Institute Administrator had been infected with schizophrenia. Even the internal conflicts would then become public knowledge.

Atsuko thought things over for a few minutes before deciding to take Shima back to her apartment. What he needed above all, before any thought of treatment, was a refuge. This was a war. A filthy, nasty war in which, instead of actually killing each other, the combatants would destroy each other’s personalities along with their human dignity. Atsuko urgently needed to foresee the enemy’s movements, yes, but the need to secure Shima’s safety took priority over that.

Using the outside line in Shima’s office, she called the operator to find Corcovado’s number, then phoned the café in the hope that Matsukane would still be there. A waitress called him to the phone.

“Something terrible has happened,” Atsuko explained. “I don’t want anyone in the Institute to know about it. Will you help me?”

“By all means.” It was an answer that encapsulated the pride and righteous enthusiasm of a major newspaper reporter.

“I need to take Doctor Shima from his office without anyone noticing.”

“This is a direct line, isn’t it. What’s happened?”

“He’s been infected.”

“Ah.” Matsukane groaned as if to say “Just as I thought.” “Damn. Too late. What do you want me to do?”

“Can you drive?”

“Of course.”

“You’ll find my car in the parking lot. You know? The moss-green Marginal. Bring it to the goods-loading bay at the rear of the Institute.”

“What about the key?”

“I’ll take it to the entrance. But listen. I can’t find the key to Shima’s office. That means I can’t lock it from outside. So I don’t want to leave him on his own for a second more than I have to.”

“Come down in ten minutes. I’ll be there – count on it. Then give me the key and go straight back to Doctor Shima. What about this loading bay? How do I get in from there?”

“Go through the side door. That’ll take you to the garden at the back of the Institute. Shima’s window faces the garden. I’ll be standing there. That’s where we’ll get him out.”

“Understood. I’ll see you in ten.”

Atsuko replaced the phone and searched Shima’s desk for the key. She couldn’t find it. She pushed open the window that faced onto the back garden, checked the state of the side door some eight meters away, then looked under the window. There was a drop of about two meters from the window ledge to the ground. Atsuko took a spare chair that was normally used for visitors, and lowered it to the ground as a foothold for Matsukane.

Ten minutes later, Atsuko made her way to the parking lot. She hurried along the corridor, expecting to see Matsukane waiting on the other side of the glass door at the far end. But he wasn’t there. Atsuko stopped by the door and peered through the glass into the covered lot.

Morio Osanai was getting out of his car. He looked as though he’d just arrived. Matsukane must have held back because he’d spotted Osanai.