Putting down his pen, Kaitarō pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger; a headache had begun to build behind his eyes and he shook his head to clear it. He scanned the details of the file once more: the main assets were the properties owned by the wife or her family, and there was also one child, a girl. He’d seen it before, this form of acquisition. His clients used whatever they could to gain an advantage in negotiations, and some found purchase within the law itself, for only sole custody of children was ever awarded; joint custody was illegal. And so a child could become a point of leverage. Of course, there were some situations in which a separation was best for all involved, including the children, but the cases he saw did not often revolve around welfare. He was no longer surprised at the lengths to which people would go to secure what they wanted, but then he didn’t have to approve of his clients, only manage them.
Glancing up from the file, he caught sight of his business cards in their plastic box on the desk in front of him. They were plain white, necessarily discreet, detailing only his name, current telephone number, and fax. For some reason in the harsh light of the office, the characters of his name seemed to stand out in sharp relief, the name his parents had chosen for him with such hope: Kaitarō, composed of the characters for ‘sea’ and ‘firstborn son’. For a second he could almost feel that he was back home in Hokkaido, walking through the tall grass with his uncle, the weight of a camera heavy and steadying on his neck, and all around them the wheeling of the gulls and the roar of the ocean.
Once, in a rare quiet moment, after no more than two or three beers, his father had told him how his parents had chosen his name, how they’d sat at the kitchen table in their tiny bungalow and debated between two versions. His father had been pensive when he told this story, recently home from a stint on the trawlers and strangely mellow. He liked ‘son of the sea’ and had insisted until it was chosen. He hoped that his boy would follow him onto the boats, or perhaps get a job at the fisheries; the family had lived off the ocean for so long that to his father the choice had seemed inevitable.
But his name had always meant something different to Kaitarō; it meant the vastness of the open water by his home, the sand glinting silver as it melded with the waves; it was the feel of his uncle’s camera in his hands as he learned to capture the vibrant world around him. His uncle visited only sporadically, but when he’d been able to secure photography jobs that would pay enough for both of them, he had taken Kaitarō with him and together they travelled Hokkaido, falling into narrow beds at rural guesthouses or hostel bunks in towns at the end of long days, exhausted but free. What was inevitable was that Kai would eventually disappoint his father, so he learned quickly to read his moods, analysing his face the moment he came home for signs of drink or temper.
His mother preferred the alternate version of his name, the combination of characters for Kaitarō that contained the one for ‘mediator’. She liked the agency and capability this implied, arguing that their boy could get onto a managerial track at the local seaweed plant or go into business. Staring at his card in the tiny office in Shibuya, Kai doubted this line of work was what she had in mind. She’d had other hopes too, of course, other mediator roles for him to fill, but he had failed her there as well. He had not been able to smooth over the rough edges of her marriage, had not been able to protect her or even himself. He had survived to become a mediator indeed, though not the kind anyone would necessarily aspire to. Kaitarō reached for his coffee, but a thick skin had formed on the top and it was lukewarm on his tongue. He shook his head, trying once more to clear it and dislodge the headache gathering there. There was no point thinking this way; he was none of those once-hoped-for people and he could not go back.
His eyes felt raw in the dry fug of the office and he rubbed a hand over his face before returning to the case file in front of him. The job before him was lucrative, not merely a ‘survey’, the swift surveillance of an errant boyfriend or spouse, but a relationship job, a break-up. A survey might take no more than a couple of weeks, but it was quick work, more in the line of what a private eye does, involving tailing, photographs of infidelity, and a report to the client who could then decide what to do with their spouse. This job could take months and the fees would be worthwhile to whomever his boss, Takeda, chose to undertake it; it might even buy him some time for himself.
The case itself looked fairly simple. Kaitarō sketched out a ‘bait and switch’ over a period of two months: one month to engage the subject and another to collect the evidence – perhaps photographs of him and the woman exiting a love hotel or, if it would do, a kiss in the street. After that, he would disconnect the phone number he’d given her and rotate to work in another ward of Tokyo; the firm might even move him to a different prefecture for a while. But, as he looked over the file and flipped to the back, one detail began to bother him, a detail barely relevant for the seduction of a housewife. It was her photograph, a passport shot, the only one they’d been given. The lighting was harsh and she wore no make-up. She was looking at the camera straight on, but it was the way she stared at the lens that struck him, as though she were more interested in the camera than anything else in the world. Her eyes and the look within them lifted off the page and into his head.
He was still holding the photo in his hands when Mia swung around the door to his office. Takeda had her managing the company calendar, but Kaitarō had asked her to meet the husband in this case. Mia was sharp and subtle, she was patient and could break through personal barriers with ease, but when she knocked on his door that afternoon she looked openly annoyed.
‘He won’t talk to me,’ she said. ‘He wants to meet the agent he’ll be working with.’
Kaitarō looked up from the file. ‘What did Takeda say?’
‘He’d like you to go in.’
‘What do you think of him?’
Mia handed him a single sheet of paper. ‘Your call,’ she said as he glanced over her notes.
Kaitarō put on his tie, smoothing it down over his shirt, and followed her into the conference room. He bowed low to Satō and handed him a business card, holding it in both hands. As Mia poured iced water into two glasses, Kaitarō sat down and assessed his new client, measuring the man he’d read about in the file against the one before him now.
‘My colleague tells me you’re not interested in reconciling with your wife?’ he said.
‘I’ve told the young lady I would like a divorce,’ Satō replied, gesturing at Mia, who sat beside him picking lint off her stockings.
‘We can certainly offer you some preliminary investigations before you decide,’ Kaitarō continued. ‘Mia could take your wife’ – he glanced down at the sheet – ‘Rina, out for a drink? See how she feels about your marriage, perhaps gauge her reaction to the two of you separating.’
‘She doesn’t believe in divorce.’
‘Why is that?’