Year of the Talking Dog: A Hana Walker Mystery (The Hana Walker Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

walking or where I am, except it’s nowhere I’ve been with Steve. I walk too close to the shops. The great automatic glass doors slide open and my ears are blasted by assistants screaming their welcomes at me. I retrace my steps as best I can until I hit a main road and head up the hill. The streets are crowded even as I walk further away from Shibuya Station. But I like it better this way, with people around. I keep my eyes down, but scour the pavements. If I move and stay out of other people’s line of sight, maybe I’ll be OK. I’m at the top of the hill and near the police station again.  
    The crowd begins to thin out. I see a sign in English for Yoyogi Park and follow it along a two-lane road thick with traffic. An old man is walking backwards down the hill. I have to get out of his way, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. I watch him continue down the street. How will he cross the road? I follow his movements down the hill. In every case a pedestrian darts out of his way. A woman with a chihuahua in a pushchair walks out onto the street. A girl looking at a smartphone sidesteps him without a moment’s hesitation. And further down the hill in the distance I spot a big man wearing a mask and carrying a walking stick. And he has pink socks.

CHAPTER FIVE

    I turn down the first side street and slip through the backstreets. Can’t be sure if he knows I saw him, I don’t want to stare or tip him off that I have. There’s no mistaking his stick and his mask. A pair of pink socks could be a coincidence. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but given the pink socks, the mask and the stick, this seems unlikely.
    Now I’m close to Yoyogi Park. In front of me is a building that looks like an old cinema in the centre of a car park. I run over the asphalt and go in the first entrance. I don’t think the masked man has seen me, but there is no way to be sure. I dart into the first door. An ugly squiggle and the letters NHK. This must be where they film all the boring stuff that goes on the TV.  
    Maybe a few hundred old people are standing in the lobby, two old men are sitting on bar stools on a stage, chatting on microphones. They are on a stage all lit up. The crowd stand in their coats to watch the conversation. The celebrities on stools keep talking to themselves and don’t seem to notice that there are hundreds of old people standing around watching them. They could just as well have missed their last train home and been sitting on bar stools in a hole-in-the-wall salaryman bar in Shimbashi killing time before the morning trains start up again, but for the stage make-up and bright lights. One of them must be 80 years old. His eyes blink in the glare of a spotlight.
    A bronzed old man is talking loudly to the blinking one. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him on TV telling celebrities that they were the Queen of Sheba or Napoleon Bonaparte in a previous life. It’s amazing how many celebrities on his show were famous people in their past lives, though they never seem to be that surprised by it. I wonder how the Queen of Sheba feels about being a daytime soap-opera star now, or what it must be like for Napoleon to be reborn as a Japanese TV talent who spends his days marvelling at how delicious bowls of ramen are. There’s no understanding the gods, Aunt Tanaka says.
    I push my way through the crowd. Half of them are wearing masks. Can’t see what colour their socks are. I walk past a TV screen that displays my face. I try to work out where the camera must be. When I stare at the screen it shows my profile. My hair is matted, my face is dirty and I look old, like I’m 25. I don’t want to be on TV. I hate TV. What the hell was I thinking coming in here? I turn and walk back toward the entrance, but a hand comes out and a smiling girl shakes her hand at me. The entrance is not an exit.
    I turn back and storm through the route laid out for visitors. A black-and-white volleyball match with girls in bob haircuts is on a screen.