The ferry at the far end of the pier glided away on schedule. One way or the other, Aya had decided whether to go or stay.
Hoping the neon lights of the harbour would not catch her, Ouka crouched on the edge of the pier and whistled softly.
She waited for a few long moments. Just when she thought Aya must have gone back to Hokkaido with her mother and brother, she caught a very soft plashing heading toward her. From the water Aya-chan's voice whispered her name.
If Ouka wondered whether she'd done the right thing in helping Aya duck out of the trip back to Hokkaido, she could reassure herself the other girl would have done it anyway. It was the first time in her life Ouka had met someone she couldn't out-stubborn.
It wouldn't be necessary if Fujimiya's mother hadn't suddenly announced their departure five days before Ouka and Aya expected. They could have done a lot with a whole week. But for some reason – Ouka thought it had something to do with Jaeger-san – Mrs Fujimiya had suddenly announced they were off that very night. The two girls were simply obliged to resort to desperate measures.
Ouka helped Aya flop herself out of the water. It was a rather noisy process, and they froze for a minute, trying to check if anyone had heard them. Aya scrambled into the dry clothes Ouka handed her. That was rather noisy too, and Ouka shushed her a couple of times.
Breathless from both swimming and excitement, Aya whispered, "I made a bundle of my clothes in my bed just like the comics! I told nii-san I needed a long sleep, so he won't disturb me till the ferry docks at Hakodate."
They scrambled up to the road level. With a giddy sense of step one accomplished, they held hands and giggled.
Ouka had never had a best friend before. She liked it.
Best friends weren't just sucking up to a richer girl when they listened to your troubles. They sympathised about how that dreadful American seemed to be corrupting your father, and tempting him into crooked ways. They understood your worries about your elder brothers, and even found practical suggestions. At least practical to a sheltered sixteen year old. They offered to help you, while you helped them to clear their father's name and revenge him.
Still holding hands, Ouka and Aya-chan crept off on their crusade.
"Your father's still alive," Aya had said. "Besides, Tousan wasn't killed by some stranger, not with that fake suicide note."
They'd looked at each other and nodded. Ouka spoke for both, "If Fujimiya-san had found out something about Crawford and was going to tell Tousan..."
So now they were breaking into Crawford's office. It was easy even for rank amateurs. Hard worker though he was, Crawford had left long before two in the morning, and the few security guards were sure of their police protection.
Ouka triumphantly produced two pairs of rubber gloves. "Bravo, Ouka!" said Aya-chan, who'd obviously never thought of them.
Ouka said smugly, "I think I've a real knack."
They sailed into the unguarded office. An hour or so later they weren't feeling quite so pleased with themselves. It must have been much easier in the old days when everything wasn't on password protected disks.
"I've got a new boyfriend who knows everything about computers!" said Ouka. "We can bring him in tomorrow night if we can't find anything tonight."
Aya looked up, not noticing she'd bumped Crawford's antacids into his fax machine. "Will it be safe?"
"They won't be expecting us to come back the very next night. That would be a crazy thing to do!"
Nor had Crawford made things easier by writing the more private stuff in English and German. Ouka tried to put things back the way they'd found it. Aya whispered, "We'll have to take some stuff anyway."
"No, we won't." Ouka proudly displayed her tiny camera.
"Cool! Where'd'you get it?"
"Tousan gave it to me." Her voice faltered. "He didn't even ask me why I wanted it!" Not so irrelevantly, "I hate Crawford!"
Ouka laid out everything she thought interesting for the camera and went back for more. She wasn't sure she could put everything back exactly, but after all Crawford was a man, and would probably never notice.
Crawford didn't have a girlie magazine in a bottom drawer like the stories. In fact at first she couldn't find anything personal. Ouka had just decided this proved he must be up to something when Aya called out, "A map!"
Immediately afterward Ouka said, "A little black book!"
Aya said, "All men have little black books."
Ouka pouted. Crawford was the villain. His little black book had to have some importance. Looking contrite, Aya said hastily, "Never mind. We can use it if there's nothing else. But I'm sure this map means something."
Ouka didn't want to hurt her feelings, but she felt if the map meant much it would have been on disk. "It's just a standard Tokyo road map."
"Yes, but..." Aya tossed it and let it fall open on the table. It was a heavy map, and knocked several important looking pieces of paper to the floor, but both girls were too excited to notice. "Look, it falls open on some place outside Tokyo proper."
"The beach! Why should he be interested in the beach? It's nothing to do with work."
"Maybe he likes the beach," objected Aya feebly. But Ouka checked the map again. It had pencil markings on several pages right on the shoreline. There was writing, too. She wailed, "Hasn't he been in Japan long enough to learn kanji?"
Aya brightened slightly. She'd sometimes helped Ran with his English homework and at least knew the alphabet. "Let's see it." She read out the English words. "Full tide five feet..."
Ouka dived for Crawford's English-Japanese dictionary.
They puzzled out that Crawford had been recording sea depth and tide height around the Greater Tokyo Bay area. Some of the figures were repeated in the notebook . "Told you so," said Aya.
There were some astrological notes they recognised from other schoolgirls's notebooks. The odder notations, with occasional mention of moon, sunset, and sunrise, must relate to navigation.
"He must be a smuggler," Ouka beamed. "I can take this to Tousan and he'll see..." She looked at Aya and they laughed ruefully.
Aya suggested, "That he's a very careful sea bather?" She flickered through the otherwise blank pages of the notebook. She showed Ouka one didn't look as smooth as the others. "I think there was a list of names and addresses written on the page above."
Of course Crawford's modern office wouldn't have a pencil. Still, Ouka would have plenty at home. They'd just have to hope Crawford didn't notice the notebook was missing.
"His smuggling contacts," agreed Ouka. "But, really, Aya, what do we do with it? Knock on the door, and ask them to tell Tousan about their smuggling?"
"We could take this to the police. I'm sure they'd do something."
Ouka wailed, "We can't go to the police!" In explanation, "Uncle Shuichi!"
Aya had obviously been raised to respect the police. "I'm sure the police won't hold a crooked uncle against us."
"Uncle Shuichi is the National Police Agency Commissioner General."
"Well, that's good."
"And he and Tousan hate each other. I think it's on account of that awful woman."
"Ouka-chan?"
"Well, Tousan can't have loved her. And if she'd divorced him, my parents would be living happily together. Instead of Tousan getting mixed up with American crooks."
Aya looked impressed. She and Ouka had been best friends for days, and she hadn't known this important fact about her. "She's a bad woman? Maybe she'll divorce your father if he gets involved in scandal."
"Kaasan says she was to be pitied. She was a weak, clingy woman. She killed herself when her youngest son died." For the first time it occurred to Ouka that might explain something about her two brothers. She soon dismissed the thought. They were unpleasant guys, and that was that. "Kaasan wouldn't marry Tousan afterward because she didn't want to be a politician's wife." The thought it might not be Kikuno's fault Ouka's parents were unmarried hung on determinedly. She shoved it to the back of her mind. "Anyway, Tousan would rather anything than let Uncle Shuichi rescue him. Anything," she repeated unhappily. She didn't like remembering how ruthless her beloved Tousan was.
"Well, I'm sure we'll find something to do." The two tried to hide the signs of their search. Surely he wouldn't notice unless he was already suspicious, and why should he be? Unless he missed the notebook. And why should he think it was stolen? Ouka was always losing notebooks, and she didn't think they were stolen.
Being in Tokyo they didn't need to go home to get a pencil, which was a good thing, since they would probably have burst with suspense. They had a refreshing quarter of an hour in the arts shop and came out laden with stuff they assured each other was bound to come in useful. Among them were pencils.
"Gosh," said Ouka. "It does work. Just like the spy movies."
"I know that," said Aya. "I used it on nii-san's Japanese homework when he had to compose poetry. I had lots of fun quoting the stuff at him." She smirked. "He wasn't that bad at poetry, you know." Her expression softened. "I hope he and Kaasan aren't too worried."
"You could send a telegram to Hokadate for when they arrive."
Aya beamed. "That's a great idea! Can you lend me the money? I haven't any."
"If only," Ouka groused, "Crawford had bothered to put their telephone numbers." She settled down against the wall, and let Aya take her turn at a strained position craning her neck out of the emergency stairwell.
Interestingly enough none of the exact names with similar addresses were in the telephone book, though often the same family name. The girls supposed it was criminal etiquette. Don't make it too easy for the cops to find you. They decided it was best to deal face to face with at least one, provided he wasn't living in an abandoned warehouse or something. They reminded each other to be very careful about being alone with serious criminals, which gave them a pleasant feeling of common sense for five minutes and then they forgot.
The nearest address turned out to be a poky little flat in a sinister looking block of flats. They watched it for several hours, but no one at all came in or out.
"Stay here," said Ouka abruptly. They couldn't very well spend all day here, could they? She was going to be in enough trouble missing school for a morning, and she still had to make contact with Omi. Persuading the law-abiding Omi to engage in even the mildest breaking and entering was going to take most of the afternoon. "Cell okay?"
Aya nodded. "I bet they don't come out till night."
Ouka raced down to where she could get a wallet, and with extra amounts of charm and cheek had it inscribed the name of the man they were after. She rushed back and found Aya chewing her nails. "It took me ages to kick the habit," she told Ouka, "and here I am again."
"Stay here," Ouka told her. "if they grab me, go for the police." She advanced toward the flat and knocked.
It was opened by a woman who looked as if she'd had a hard life and wasn't expecting it to get better. She squinted suspiciously at Ouka.
Ouka was surprised at how hard it was to smile at that face, but managed it. "Could I speak to Koichi Inadome-san? I found his wallet - "
"You vicious little cow! Drop dead!"
The door slammed in Ouka's startled face.
She returned to Aya, subdued. No adult had ever cursed her like that before. "What do we do now?"
"We can ask the super," suggested Aya-chan.
"He's probably in it too," muttered Ouka, but her heart wasn't in it. The woman's anger had felt like bare flame.
When they got to the man's office Aya said, "My turn!" and advanced and knocked. Ouka stayed poised, ready to come to her aid.
The building supervisor looked innocuous, even pleasant. Aya-chan smiled at him and said, "I'm sorry to bother you. It's about the woman in 402."
"Ah, yes, poor Inadome-san."
"Has she just lost someone?" Perhaps the list of names was of victims?
"Not so much that. But there was an American doctor came round lately promising he could help her son. And then he says things aren't just right, and disappears."
"Help him? How?"
"I'm not a doctor."
"Could you tell me what's wrong with Koichi Inadome?'
"He's severely retarded. A vegetable. Been like that from infancy. But, sorry, what were you wanting help about?"
Ouka helped Aya-chan away. Once they were out of the building, which the girls now thought sad-looking, Ouka got out her cell phone and began calling.
Every legible name and address was that of someone who, for some reason or another, had no mind whatever.
Hanging up on the last one, shivering, for some of those calls had been pretty harrowing, Ouka said, "What in the world could Crawford want with that sort of people?" She blinked at Aya, and saw her friend was also trying valiantly to stifle a yawn. "We better get some sleep. Perhaps when we wake up the answer'll be staring us in the face."
Aya didn't seem to feel optimistic about that. Also about, "Um...your mother won't mind..."
"You heard her, anytime you're back in Tokyo. Kaasan means what she says."
Having taken the subway, the pair walked, rather droopy, through the deserted suburban streets to Ouka's home. They were suffering from bafflement. In addition Aya was trying to stifle thoughts of her brother and mother's distress, while Ouka was wondering the best way to persuade Omi to break into Crawford's office.
They were so wrapped up in these thoughts they never noticed they weren't alone until Aya was grabbed.
Crawford entered his office and growled. He was never sorrier that his talent very seldom showed him anything other than short range visions. He'd have liked to have seen himself throttling whoever did this.
He strode over to the fax machine. There was some highly restricted stuff due in from Rosenkreuz. He reached and at a brief flash of sight withdrew his hand. Was this some politicking from the Elders?
He lifted the in-house phone for security, then paused. He didn't need precognition to see the reception of a report his own office had been broken into would get. Anyway, it might well have been them.
He did have to call Takatori's most trusted electronics engineer. When he arrived Crawford told him, "The fax machine needs to go to the shop."
"With all respect, Crawford-san, if you know as much about them as me, why did you call me?" The engineer flipped on the machine and it made a small fizzing explosion. A panel fell onto the engineer's foot. "It needs to go to the shop."