Hands jammed in pockets, she headed to the highway, where rush-hour traffic streamed towards Oita, the larger city to the southeast, further along the bay. She’d expected Kyushu to be warm, a southern oasis, but it was bleak and rather shabby. The sky was a dirty pigeon grey and even the hills themselves looked cold, their desolate flanks showing above the line of trees.

The town should have been familiar. Should have been but wasn’t. It took fifteen minutes to walk downtown, passing the dated trappings of a pleasure destination: souvenir shops, hotels, a triple-storey pachinko parlour, the sort of places the Family regarded as dens of sin and weakness. The streets looked more down-at-heel than those she’d seen in Osaka. She passed a cocktail bar; a sign gave its name as the Tropicana. She was drawn to the tiki decor, which promised warmth and fruit cocktails, the music and film posters plastering the walls, and a blackboard showing drinks chalked up in English, but the bar was closed.

At the train station she gravitated to the Mister Donut counter, where she bought two steaming donuts and devoured them on the spot. Looking back the way she’d come, she realised with a jolt that she knew this street. From a different angle – this angle – the town was familiar again, the place of that childhood visit. She knew the way from here.

Brushing cinnamon sugar from her mouth, she eagerly backtracked half a block, turned at an antiques store and cut through an arcade. Emerging in the old part of town, she found what she was seeking. A hulking wooden house, two storeys, tiled roof.

She knocked.

No answer.

Knocked again.

Something didn’t seem right. A pane of glass by the door was broken; she saw shards on the floor inside. She wasn’t going to stand there for the neighbours to see her, so she wrapped her hand in her jacket, reached in and unlocked the door.

‘Hello?’

Still no answer. She stepped inside, past the neat row of shoes along the wall, and went up the stairs to the main part of the house. The house was too big for her grandmother, and she had long ago closed up the rooms downstairs. Upstairs, June started opening doors. The formal sitting room was shuttered and dark and crowded with heavy Manchurian furniture. Imperialist loot, June’s mother had observed the last time they were here. June’s father had agreed, saying he’d never liked the pieces.

No one had been here in a while, from the look of it. Something else had, though – the couch gave off a foul smell, as though an animal had soiled the cushions. A cat?