Takashi looked at his old friend and, for the first time, wondered if their long association had much longer to run. Takashi was traditional, but he was practical, too. Fumio was right about the ninkyodo, but Takashi had concluded that the code was increasingly irrelevant. It forbade the selling of drugs, theft, robbery and anything that might be considered shameful; but how could a yakuza who observed the ninkyodo hope to compete with rivals who did not, with men like Satoshi Furukawa who had no honour? Takashi had survived this long because he was a pragmatist. He had been able to balance honour and ethics with the ability to compete and make money; without the latter, there would be no yakuza, and then there would be no honour at all. If Fumio could not see that, then perhaps it was time that he retired to the villa in Shizuoka of which he had always spoken so fondly.

“No, Fumio. I will not kill her. This is her fate. It is what she deserves.”

“And the boy?”

“I will bring him up as my own. We both know that Katsuro does not have it in him to succeed me. This week has removed all doubt of that. I am fit and well. If I can live another fifteen years, another twenty, then that should be enough to mould him into the man that Miyasato would have been.”

“And his mother? What will Yamato say when he finds out what happened to her?”

“He will know by then what she was and what she did. He won’t care.”

“This is your decision, Oyabun?”

“It is.”

Fumio nodded. “Then I will see that it is done.”

He bowed, dipping at the hip, but, when he straightened back up, Takashi noticed that he would not look him in the eye. He knew then, for sure, that Fumio’s time had come. The villa, perhaps. But he was his first lieutenant—his wakagashira—and had been in the business for decades. There was nothing that he didn’t know. Perhaps, Takashi mused, it would be safer to bring his service to an end with a little more finality. Katsuro had never liked Fumio. The order to end him would be one that he would be happy to follow. Katsuro was, at least, good for that.

Fumio bowed again. “Good night, Takashi.”