Mimori Takenaga has been released from the psychiatric clinic her family had consigned her to. It didn’t prove as difficult to achieve as Wada had anticipated. She suspected the original arrangements had been made at Hiroji Nishizaki’s request and probably his expense. Following his death in England in mysterious circumstances, the Takenagas suddenly found it convenient to distance themselves from his affairs, so they put up little resistance to Mimori being discharged. She’s left her husband and moved to Tokyo. Wada’s met her a couple of times and told her as much as she feels she can about her father’s death, almost certainly at Nishizaki’s hands, back in 1977.

What Wada hasn’t disclosed to her is the full story behind Driscoll’s death in the explosion on Porthtowan beach that also claimed Nishizaki’s life. There was speculation in the Japanese media at the time that they’d been the targets of a yakuza assassination. Many who’d have thought twice about saying so while Nishizaki was alive suggested there’d always been a sinister side to his business operations. As predicted by Driscoll, Hiroji Nishizaki junior has shown himself to be a very different proposition from his father, setting the company back on a legitimate footing and emphasizing that in future its activities will be free of the remotest taint of scandal. How he appeased the victims of the Emergence fraud has remained unknown for the simple reason that the Emergence fraud itself has remained unknown to all but those directly involved in it. Wada’s made no effort to find out the details. She assumes large amounts of money must have changed hands. Where the Nishizaki Corporation is concerned, she’s more than happy to leave well alone.

She entirely understands, therefore, why Michaela Morrisette decided not to report her kidnapping to the police. It’s much safer for her if the fallout from Emergence stays between Nishizaki junior and his father’s aggrieved clients. They’re united in one thing at least: an extreme aversion to publicity.

Nick Miller helped Dr Morrisette stay out of the picture by telling the police he’d been kidnapped and held alone by captors who’d never said who they were working for or why they were holding him, although the fact that Driscoll was his natural father obviously had something to do with it. The British and Icelandic police are still supposed to be investigating the tangled web of connections between the explosion at Porthtowan and the fire at Stórí-Asgarbær, but there have been few signs of progress. Driscoll has covered his tracks well, even in death.