“It wasn’t us,” Milton said. “I was very careful on the way here and I didn’t see anyone.”

“So? My father?”

“More likely. Would your uncle have put him under surveillance?”

“How would he know to do that?”

“Katsuro knew we were headed here. He would have reported that.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “My father didn’t know that he might be followed. He didn’t know anything about this.”

“I’m not blaming him,” Milton said. “But it’s the only explanation I can think of. It doesn’t matter. I spotted them easily enough, and that tells me that they’re not very good—it should be simple enough to lose them.”

“What do we do?”

“We behave perfectly normally,” Milton said.

“And then?”

“And then I’ll take care of it.”

Milton had considered losing them with a quick direction change to which they wouldn’t have time to react, and knew that would be an easy enough way to ensure that they were clean before they went back to the hotel. But, the more he thought about it, the more their presence suggested an opportunity.

“You’ve done this before?” Sakura said.

Milton smiled. “Now and again. Just do what I tell you and we’ll be fine. Okay?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good.”

* * *

Milton led the way back to Monzen-Nakacho Station. They bought tickets, passed through the gates and descended to the track. They had to wait a minute for a train and Milton took the time to check that the two men were still with them; they were, standing at the other end of the platform and doing a bad job of pretending not to be observing them.

“They’re still there?” Sakura asked.

“They are. That’s good. That’s what we want.”

The train arrived and they got on and sat down. Milton looked down the carriage to make sure that the two men had embarked with them; they had, taking seats next to the second set of doors. Milton looked away again, keen to ensure that they didn’t realise that they had been made.

Sakura turned her head to look in their direction.

“Don’t look,” Milton said. “Pretend they’re not there.”

The train set off to the east, crossing the Sumida River by way of the Eitai Bridge. They rolled into Kayabachō Station. Milton looked out of the window and saw that the platform was busy with people, too busy for what he had in mind. He looked up at the map of the line that had been fixed to the wall of the carriage.

“How far are we going to go?” Sakura asked him.

“I need a quiet place to get off,” he said. “What do you think?”

“This is Tokyo,” she said. “It’s hard to find somewhere quiet.”

“Quieter, then,” Milton said.

“Somewhere like Kagurazaka or Waseda?”