Epigraph

rōnin

noun, historical

Landless or masterless peasant soldiers or samurai who through dishonour or the loss of their masters were forced to wander Japan until some other lord would accept their services.

Oxford English Dictionary

Prologue

Miyasato Nishimoto clutched the straps of the bag a little tighter as he negotiated the crowds around the Sensō-ji Temple in Asakusa. It was the day of the Sanja Matsuri festival, and the streets were busy with people. He saw women in traditional kimonos, schoolkids with their parents drinking smoothies from paper cones, and a handful of tourists who looked bemused at the spectacle. He saw men wearing nothing but fundoshi, thongs that left little to the imagination, as they hauled mikoshi—portable shrines—on their shoulders, stopping every few steps to clap their hands and chant to the spirits of their ancestors who were reputed to live within the palanquins.

He made his way to the Ishibashi bridge and a long line of market stalls that sold street food and local delicacies. The stall he wanted specialised in matcha kakigori—shaved ice topped with matcha syrup atop red bean paste—and he found it at the end of the line. He shared a glance with the man who was in charge and waited as he said something to his teenage assistant.

Miyasato watched as the kid dashed back into the building behind the stall, returning after a short pause to gesture that Miyasato should follow. The boy led the way through the crowd, going into and then passing through a restaurant and emerging in an alleyway on the other side. A large man, almost big enough to be a sumo, blocked the way ahead. He approached Miyasato and frisked him, then gestured that he should continue along the alley to a folding table where an al fresco meal was in progress.

Satoshi Furokawa was sitting at the table. He was an important man, the leader of the Chinese Dragons, yet he was not interested in the ostentatiousness that characterised some of his peers who had recently found infamy with their arrest, trial and imprisonment. Furokawa was cannier than that. He dressed simply, without wishing to draw attention to himself with clothes that were obviously expensive. He did not wear jewellery, and it was only the extensive tattoos that were visible between the folds of his simple robe that identified him as a gangster.

Miyasato took a deep breath to compose himself and waited for Furokawa to look up from the bowl of udon that he was eating.

“Come,” he said, beckoning him with his fingers.

Miyasato approached the table and waited for an invitation to sit in the empty chair. Furokawa smiled at him and gestured again. Miyasato sat.

“Nishimoto-san,” he said, “how are you?”

“I’m well.”

“Your wife?”

“She’s well.”

“And your son? It is Yamato—yes?”

“That’s right,” Miyasato said, his mouth dry.

Furokawa smiled benignly. “He just had a birthday.”

Small talk with a man as ruthless and dangerous as Furokawa was not pleasant. Miyasato knew that he was making a point: I know everything about you and your family.

“He did,” Miyasato said.

“How old is he?”

“Five. He’s five.”

Furokawa put his chopsticks together and rested them in the empty bowl.

“What does he like?”

Miyasato started to sweat. “Sorry?”

“What does he like to play with?”

“Godzilla. Power Rangers. Wrestling.”

Furokawa smiled, his leathery skin crinkling at the corners of his thin, mean lips. He dispensed with the small talk now, revealing by doing so just how inconsequential he considered it.

“Do you have it?”

“Yes.” Miyasato indicated the bag. “I do. In here.”

“Was it easy?”

It had been easy—ridiculously so—but Miyasato did not think it was in his interest to say that. Furokawa was paying him well, and Miyasato knew there was value in his encouraging the misapprehension that the item he was so keen to have had been difficult to acquire. In reality, all Miyasato had had to do was wait for his father to go to sleep and then take the item from the wall in his apartment where it was displayed. It had taken less than a minute, and the fact was not lost on Miyasato that those sixty seconds would change his life beyond all recognition.

“Not easy,” he lied.

Of course, the fact that it had been easy to remove the item was neither here nor there. He was being well paid because of who he had stolen from. His father would not tolerate thievery, and his rage would not be tempered by the fact that the thief was his son. There would be a reckoning, and Miyasato had arranged to be remunerated well enough to avoid it. He didn’t just plan to take his family out of Tokyo; he planned for them to be out of the country entirely.

Furokawa leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. “Show me.”

Miyasato took the bag and set it on the table. He opened the zip and, with careful hands, withdrew the bundle from inside. He had wrapped the item in newspaper, but, before he could uncover it, Furokawa held up his hand and indicated that he wanted to do it himself.

“Do you know the story of Yoshida Shōin?” he asked as he peeled back one corner of the sheet.

“Not really.”

“He was born in 1830. The Americans arrived when he was twenty-three, and he looked at their fleet and their guns and then at what Japan had to offer in return, and decided that we were lacking. They say it was at that moment that he decided that the old ways—the ways of the samurai—were no longer relevant. That they held Japan back. What is a sword to a gun, after all? Shōin tried to stow away on one of the American ships so that he could visit their country and learn from them, but he was found before they could set sail. He was imprisoned, yet he still made his case for reform. They executed him for it. He was just twenty-nine when they decapitated him. A tragedy. If he had lived for another nine years, he would have seen the changes for which he had campaigned come to pass. The end of the Tokugawa shogunate. He didn’t know it, but Shōin was one of the last samurai.”

Furokawa opened the newspaper slowly and reverently, peeling the leaves away to reveal what was hidden beneath. It was a tantō, a blade not quite long enough to be considered a sword yet too long to be a dagger. It was double edged, around thirty centimetres in length and with inscriptions on the hilt.

Furokawa held it up and turned it so that the light caught on the dull metal blade. “It is a shinshinto,” he said. “You know anything about them?”

Miyasato shook his head. He didn’t and wasn’t interested in learning. He wanted to get his money and go. The longer he waited to collect Sakura and Yamato, the better the chance that his father would find out what he had done. But he couldn’t insult a man as prone to offence as Furokawa. He had to hear him out.

“A samurai would carry a katana while on the battlefield and a tantō for close work. This blade would have been ceremonial for Shōin. And the most ironic thing of it all? Shōin never had the chance to go to America, but his tantō did. No one knows how it got there, but it was found in the attic of an academic in California. The inscription here, on the nakago”—he turned the sword so that Miyasato could see the hilt core—“confirmed that it was his.” He held it up. “This sword symbolises the moment that Japan changed, the moment we looked outwards rather than inwards. It is progress. That is why I want it.”

And it will look very nice on your wall, Miyasato thought.

“Now,” Furokawa said. “You need to be paid.”

Furokawa looked over to the big man, who was observing from the other side of the alley, and gave a shallow nod of his head. The man disappeared into the restaurant, and when he returned, he was carrying a small sports bag. He brought it over to the table and set it down in front of Miyasato.

“Your turn, Nishimoto-san,” Furokawa said. “Open it.”

Miyasato took hold of the zip and pulled it toward him, opening the mouth of the bag as he did so. He looked inside: the bag was full of banknotes. He had agreed to a fee of ¥10 million—around $100,000—and he hoped it would be enough to get him and his family to the United Kingdom and then set them up there.

“I’ve given you a little more than you asked for,” Furokawa said. “You’ve taken a risk for me, and I believe in rewarding those who take chances. There’s another million yen there. I give it to you with my thanks.”

“Thank you,” Miyasato said. “I’m grateful.”

Furokawa bowed his head. He took the tantō, admired it for a moment, and then gave it to his bodyguard. “Take it back to the house.”

The man bowed, took the sword, and walked away.

Furokawa smiled at Miyasato. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you with a glass of sake to celebrate a job well done?”

“That’s very kind,” Miyasato said, “but I’d rather be on my way.”

“Of course. You’ll be leaving the city, I expect. Your father will be unhappy when he finds out what you’ve done.”

Miyasato fought his nerves, stood, bowed his head respectfully, and took his leave. Unhappy? That was an understatement. He would be murderous, but that didn’t matter. Miyasato did not intend to be anywhere near the old man ever again.

* * *

Miyasato hurried back through the festival crowds to the parking lot where he had left his car. He looked over his shoulder as he made his way through the busy streets, convinced that he would see someone that he knew following him. He knew that his father would find out that he was responsible for taking the sword and, when he did, his reaction would be violent. The only thing that kept him going, and put strength in his legs, was the thought of returning to Sakura, collecting Yamato and then heading straight for Narita and the ANA flight that would deliver them to their new life abroad.

He opened the driver’s side door, tossed the bag of money into the footwell of the passenger seat, and got in. He started the engine and pulled out. Traffic was heavy, just as it usually was at this time of day, and it took him thirty minutes to negotiate it. He slowed down as he ran into congestion and, trying to save time, he took out his phone and called his wife.

She picked up on the second ring. “Where are you?”

“Five minutes away,” he said.

“How did it go?”

“It went well. I’ll tell you later. Have you seen your father?”

“Yes,” she said. “He wouldn’t talk to me.”

“I’m sorry, Sakura.”

She didn’t reply. Her relationship with her father, Hachirō, had soured after their marriage. Hachirō and Takashi were brothers and Takashi was father to Miyasato and Katsuro. There had been a time when Hachirō and Takashi had got along, but then Hachirō had suffered a crisis of conscience that stemmed from his role in the family business, and a fissure had developed between them.

Miyasato had agreed with Hachirō’s decision to step away, but felt that his uncle’s refusal to give his blessing to his marriage to Sakura made the old man a dreadful hypocrite. Hachirō might have forsworn the yakuza now, but that had not always been so. He had been wakagashira, or first lieutenant, just as Takashi had been. Miyasato had chosen a different path when he had decided that he could not stomach the things that he was asked to do. Takashi had not suffered the same qualms and had risen to the top.

The choices made by Miyasato and his own brother, Katsuro, mirrored those of the two old men. Katsuro was all-in with the yakuza, determined to impress his father and rise to the top of the clan. But Miyasato had rejected them, just as Hachirō had rejected them. Miyasato wished that Hachirō would approve of him, if only to prevent Sakura from having to choose between her father and her husband, but, on reflection, he supposed that it didn’t matter. She had chosen.

“Where are you?” he asked her.

“Ogikubo,” she said. “Outside Otaguro Park.”

“On my way.”

“Be careful, darling.”

“I will. We’re nearly there.”

They had been planning their escape for a month, but had only felt confident enough to make the final preparations—packing their cases and purchasing their flights—yesterday. Miyasato was fearful—and rightly so—that his father or brother would find out what he had done, and had insisted that there must be nothing in their lives that would provide any evidence to back up their possible suspicions. That meant they could not leave packed cases around the apartment in Hiroo on the off-chance that anyone else from the clan might visit and see them. It was only now, when the die had been irretrievably cast, that he had told Sakura to get started.

He pulled up outside the entrance to the park and saw that Sakura was waiting for him. He reached over, opened the door and pushed it back for her.

“Well?” she said. “Did you get it?”

“Open the bag,” he said with a grin, nodding to the bag in the footwell.

She sat down in the seat, hoisted the bag up onto her lap, unzipped it and looked inside. “Oh, my goodness.”

“That’s what our new life looks like. It gets us away from here, away from my father, your father, my brother—all of it.”

She leaned over and kissed him. “I can’t believe it.”

“Did you transfer our savings?”

“I did.”

“But you left a little for emergencies?”

She said that she had. They had a little money themselves, and, rather than lose it, they had agreed to move it into a Swiss bank account, where it would be difficult to trace. It felt like another definitive step on the way to their departure, the severing of one of the final ties to Tokyo and their old lives.

Miyasato put the car into drive and pressed down on the accelerator.

They just had one more thing to do.

* * *

Miyasato reversed the car into the space that came with their nanny’s house and turned off the engine.

“We need to be in and out,” he said. “No delays. We get Yamato, pay Ichika and go.”

“I know,” Sakura said. “You don’t have to remind me.”

“I know I don’t.” Miyasato leaned across the car so that he could kiss his wife. He held his palm against her cheek and looked into her eyes. “Nearly there. This time tomorrow, we’ll be in London.”

She nodded and smiled at him. He could see the uneasiness in her eyes and couldn’t really blame her for it. He was uneasy too, but, he reminded himself, the worst of it was over. The transaction was done, he had the money they needed, and now they just needed to collect their son and get to the airport.

He got out of the car and waited for Sakura before they both walked quickly to the front door. He wondered, again, whether he should have suggested that Sakura take Yamato to the bank with her, but then discounted it as fruitless second-guessing. They had talked about it, and Sakura had argued that she would be much faster without him. She was probably right, he thought, although it was difficult not to think that they could be on the way to Narita now if Yamato had been with her. Never mind.

Miyasato opened the door and stood to the side so that Sakura could go in first.

“Ichika? We’re here. Where—”

Sakura screamed.

Miyasato stepped to the side so that he could look around her.

Their nanny, Ichika, was lying face down on the carpet in the middle of the living room. Blood had gathered around her head and shoulders, and Miyasato could see from the bloody furrow beneath her chin that her throat had been slit.

He reached for his pistol just as he became aware of movement behind him. He was too slow to prevent the crushing blow that caught him just above his left ear, and he stumbled forwards, his head ringing, and fell to his knees. He put out his hands to break his fall and looked back to see Katsuro standing there. His brother had been waiting in the bathroom for them to come inside. He had a pistol in his hand and he pointed it at Miyasato’s head.

“Stay down,” he said, a spiteful leer on his lips.

“You don’t have to do this,” Miyasato said.

“Where’s my son?” Sakura said, panicking. “Where’s Yamato? What have you done with him?”

“He’s safe,” Katsuro said. “He’s with his grandfather.”

“No,” Sakura said. “No, no, no…”

“Too late for that,” Katsuro said, grinning at her. “You should have thought of that before you allowed my idiot brother to do something as stupid as steal from our father.”

“Please,” she begged. “Katsuro, please.”

“Be quiet.”

Katsuro took a step forward and booted Miyasato in the ribs.

“Where’s the tantō?” Katsuro barked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. You took it. Father wants it back.”

“I would never do that,” Miyasato said, although he knew that it was hopeless.

There were footsteps at the door and Miyasato turned his head, painfully, to see two other men step inside. He recognised them: Tsukasa and Wakabayashi, both of them shatei—little brothers—foot soldiers who were loyal to Katsuro. They made their way to Sakura; Tsukasa forced her hands behind her back while Wakabayashi secured them with a cable tie.

“Leave her alone,” Miyasato said. “She has nothing to do with this.”

“She has everything to do with it,” Katsuro said. “It’s her fault. You were never like this before you met her. You would never have thought about leaving.”

“I’ve wanted to leave for months. It’s nothing to do with her.”

Katsuro smirked again. “You can say that if you want, but I know better. It’s Sakura’s fault. She’ll pay for her actions, just as you will.”

Miyasato felt a bloom of anger that quickly became rage, and, fists clenched, he started to his feet. But before he was halfway upright, Katsuro kicked him flush on the chin. It was a hard blow; the ringing in Miyasato’s ears intensified, and darkness gathered at the edge of his vision. He fell onto his face and stared into the unblinking eyes of their nanny, at her blood smeared across the carpet, just inches away.

Katsuro knelt down and leaned in close enough to hiss into his brother’s ear, “She’s ruined you, brother, and now you’re both going to pay for what she made you do.”

I. Sunday

Part I

Sunday

1

John Milton ran his fingers across the roof of the car, down the windshield and across the hood. It was a 1970 Pontiac Le Mans, specified as a two-door convertible with an interior from the Luxury Le Mans but with the front seats swapped out for Strato buckets. She was painted in royal blue with a big V8 engine that had been a joy as it had eaten up the miles.

The man who was interested in buying the car sucked his teeth. “She’s a beauty.”

“She certainly is,” Milton agreed.

He had placed an ad on eBay when he arrived in Panama, and the very first offer had been at the asking price. The prospective buyer—a man called Durán—was the owner of a used car dealership specialising in American cars, and Milton had driven the Le Mans across town this morning to close the deal. The business was not quite as grand as the website would have had him believe, but there were some nice cars in the lot of a similar vintage to the Pontiac. That had given Milton some encouragement. He knew that it was foolish, but he had grown fond of the car during the long drive, and he was pleased that it might be going to a purchaser who would appreciate it.

Durán scratched his chin. “And you’ve driven down from where?”

“Mexico.”

“Like—a road trip?”

“That’s right.”

“How many miles did you put on the clock?”

“Quite a few. And I didn’t have a single problem.”

That was the truth. Milton had driven over four thousand miles during the last three weeks, and, in that time, the car had behaved perfectly. It had started every time he turned the key, and had not complained as he navigated the mountain switchbacks through Guatemala and Honduras, then down through Nicaragua, Costa Rica and, finally, into Panama.

“I didn’t know you’d come so far,” Durán said. He winced. “I’m not sure I can offer quite what I said in the email.”

“I gave you the mileage when we spoke,” Milton replied patiently. “I actually overestimated it by ten miles. It’s a perfect runner. And the price is the price—take it or leave it. If you don’t want it, someone else will.”

Durán exhaled, feigned reluctance, and then—after seeing that Milton was not going to budge—he caved in. “Fine. Twenty thousand. Come through into the office and we can sort out the paperwork.”

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