“So until the end of January, they’re paying rent for an empty apartment?”

“Correct,” the real estate agent said. “They said they will pay the entire amount owed on the lease so they would like us to keep the apartment as it is. As long as they pay the rent, we can’t object.”

“It’s a strange thing—wasting money to pay for an empty apartment.”

“Well, I was concerned myself, so I had the owner accompany me and let me in to take a look at the place. I wouldn’t want there to be a mummified body in the closet or anything. But nothing was there. The place had been nicely cleaned. It was simply empty. I have no idea, though, what the circumstances are.”

Aomame was obviously no longer living there. But for some reason they still wanted her listed as nominally renting the place, which is why they were paying four months’ rent for an empty apartment. Whoever they were, they were cautious, and not hurting for money.

Precisely ten days later, in the early afternoon, Bat called Ushikawa’s office in Kojimachi.

“Mr. Ushikawa,” the hoarse voice said. In the background, there was the usual emptiness—a complete lack of any sound.

“Speaking.”

“Do you mind if we talk now?”

“That would be fine,” Ushikawa said.

“The Witnesses had very tight security. But I was expecting that. I was able to get the information related to Aomame okay.”

“No homing missile?”

“Nothing so far.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Mr. Ushikawa,” the man said, and he cleared his throat a few times. “I’m really sorry, but could you put out the cigarette?”

“Cigarette?” he asked, glancing at the Seven Stars between his fingers. Smoke silently swirled up toward the ceiling. “You’re right, I am smoking, but how can you tell?”

“Obviously I can’t smell it. Just hearing your breathing makes it hard for me to breathe. I have terrible allergies, you see.”

“I see. I hadn’t noticed. My apologies.”

The man cleared his throat a few times. “I’m not blaming you, Mr. Ushikawa. I wouldn’t expect you to notice.”

Ushikawa crushed the cigarette out in the ashtray and poured some tea he had been drinking over it. He stood up and opened the window wide.

“I put out the cigarette, opened the window, and let in some fresh air. Not that the air outside is all that clean.”

“Sorry for the trouble.”

Silence continued for about ten seconds. A total, absolute quiet.

“So, you were able to get the information from the Witnesses?” Ushikawa asked.

“Yes. Quite a lot, actually. The Aomame family are devout, long-time members, so there was plenty of material related to them. It is probably easiest if I give you the whole file, and then at your end you decide what is important material and what isn’t.”

Ushikawa agreed. That was what he had been hoping for.

“The sports club wasn’t much of a problem—just open the door, go in, do your job, shut the door, that’s it. Time was kind of limited, so I grabbed everything I could. There’s a lot of material here too. I’ll send over a folder with both sets of material. As usual, in exchange for the fee.”

Ushikawa wrote down the fee that Bat gave him. It was about twenty percent higher than the estimate. Not that he had a choice.

“I don’t want to use the mail this time, so a messenger will bring it over to your place tomorrow. Please have the fee ready. And as usual, don’t expect a receipt.”

“All right,” Ushikawa replied.

“I mentioned this before, but I will repeat it just to make sure. I was able to get all the available information on the topic you asked me to look into. So even if you aren’t satisfied with it, I take no responsibility. I did everything that was technically possible. Compensation was for the time and effort involved, not the results. So please don’t ask me to give your money back if you don’t find the information you’re looking for. I would like you to acknowledge this point.”

“I do,” Ushikawa replied.

“Another thing is that I wasn’t able to obtain a photograph of Miss Aomame, no matter how much I tried,” Bat said. “All photos of her have been carefully removed.”

“Understood. That’s okay,” Ushikawa said.

“Her face may be different by now,” Bat commented.

“Maybe so,” Ushikawa said.

Bat cleared his throat several times. “Well, that’s it,” he said, and hung up.

Ushikawa put the phone back in its cradle, sighed, and placed a new cigarette between his lips. He lit it with his lighter, and slowly exhaled smoke in the direction of the phone.

The next afternoon, a young woman visited his office. She was probably not yet twenty. She had on a short white dress that revealed the curves of her body, matching white high heels, and pearl earrings. Her earlobes were large for her small face. She was barely five feet tall. She wore her hair long and straight, and her eyes were big and bright. She looked like a fairy in training. The woman looked straight at Ushikawa and smiled a cheerful, intimate smile, as if she were viewing something precious she would never forget. Neatly aligned white teeth peeked out happily from between her tiny lips. Perhaps it was just her business smile. Very few people did not flinch when they came face-to-face with Ushikawa for the first time.

“I have brought the materials that you requested,” the woman said, and extracted two large, thick manila envelopes from the cloth bag hanging from her shoulders. As if she were a shamaness transporting an ancient stone lithograph, she held up the envelopes in front of her, then carefully placed them on Ushikawa’s desk.

From a drawer Ushikawa took out the envelope he had ready and passed it over to her. She opened the envelope, extracted the sheaf of ten-thousand-yen bills, and counted them as she stood there. She was very adept at counting, her beautiful, slim fingers moving swiftly. She finished counting, returned the bills to the envelope, and put the envelope in her cloth bag. She showed Ushikawa an even bigger, warmer smile than before, as if nothing could have made her happier than to meet him.

Ushikawa tried to imagine what connection this woman could have with Bat. Passing along the material, receiving payment. That was perhaps the only role she played.

After the small woman had left, Ushikawa stared at the door for the longest time. She had shut the door behind her, but there was still a strong sense of her in the room. Maybe in exchange for leaving a trace of herself behind, she had taken away a part of Ushikawa’s soul. He could feel that new void within his chest. Why did this happen? he wondered, finding it odd. And what could it possibly mean?

After about ten minutes, he finally took the materials out of the envelopes, which had been sealed with several layers of adhesive tape. The inside was stuffed with a jumble of printouts, photocopies, and original documents. Ushikawa didn’t know how Bat had accomplished it, but he had certainly come up with a lot of material in such a short time. As always, the man did an impressive job. Still, faced with that bundle of documents, Ushikawa was hit by a deep sense of impotence. No matter how much he might rustle around in it, would he ever arrive anywhere? Or would he spend a small fortune just to wind up with a stack of wastepaper? The sense of powerlessness he experienced was so deep that he could stare as much as he wanted into the well and never get a glimpse of its bottom. Everything Ushikawa could see was covered in a gloomy twilight, like an intimation of death. Perhaps this was due to something that woman left behind, he thought. Or perhaps due to something she took away with her.

Somehow, though, Ushikawa recovered his strength. He patiently went through the stack of materials until evening, copying the information he felt was important into a notebook, organizing it under different categories. By concentrating on this, he was able to dispel the mysterious listlessness that had grabbed hold of him. And by the time it grew dark and he switched on his desk lamp, Ushikawa was thinking that the information had been worth every yen he had paid for it.