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

hand is burning red from the effort and I’m only halfway up the hill from the Shibuya Hachiko exit, having to dodge out of the way of faster kids with little bags not weighed down with everything they own.  
    A short stocky woman weaves past me through the crowds. She has bad skin, green tights, a green tube dress and a green foam crown. In one hand she’s holding a long stick with a torch. I follow the curve of her hips and watch the slither of skin between the tights and the dress disappear into the crowd. There was something about the way she walked that didn’t quite fit in. She walked like a man. But there’s nothing unusual about cosplayers in Shibuya, and this one is no exception: she was wearing a hay fever mask.
    Steve’s flat, my flat, is just ahead. Turn right at Tower Records, go under a rail bridge and walk up a steep hill. I hate his flat except for about 15 minutes a day. It’s tiny, no more than one room, a kitchen sink and a toilet, concrete grey and walls as thin as paper like every flat I’ve ever seen in Tokyo. But at sunset the room is bright with yellows and reds and everything that once was grey is now golden. The balcony, useless for drying clothes, suddenly becomes the most beautiful place to be. If you don’t look down. Lit up like that by the ball of fire in the sky, you see past the dirty watercolour paints in wine glasses and takeaway boxes strewn across the floor and really believe it’s what Steve calls it, an artist’s studio. But then the sun disappears behind the skyscrapers of Shinjuku and all that is left are dirty wine glasses and empty takeaway boxes.
    I tap the four digit code into the building and ram my shoulder up against the stiff glass door until I feel the click of the latch give way and I haul the case through the doorway. I’m in the empty lobby, sweating and pressing my thumbs into my raw palms. Of the 24 tin pigeonholes for mail, half are overflowing with bright adverts for loan offers, karaoke shops and pachinko parlours. I peer into Steve’s. I don’t have a key but you can squeeze your fingers into the gap for letters and pull out anything. I unfold the only pieces of mail in there, a glossy leaflet for a 24-hour-manga café and another with a picture of a woman in green and an address and business name, Liberty Pachinko. And in bright red letters, “Let’s Play!” I screw them both up. I want to toss them on the floor, but I smooth them out and stuff them in my back pocket to throw away when I find a bin.
    The suitcase. I should take it with me to the ninth floor, but I’m not good with lifts, and my hands can’t take the weight of it up the stairs. I wheel it under the mail slots. I pass the lift with a shudder and start up the concrete steps. After one flight I’m out in the open as the staircase winds around the building. I feel the chill of the air, the smell of mould on the stucco walls. On the second floor the smell of fat frying on a gas stove and soy sauce boiling is so strong I could sit down and tuck in to the fried eggs right there on the stairs. By the ninth floor the smell of breakfast is gone. I make it around the last corner of the stairs without looking down. Now I just have to survive the outside walkway. I pass the lift and doors to three flats. Steve’s place is the fourth door along. The last but one of the single apartments. He’s written his name in katakana as you are supposed to do on the outside of the door, but the slip where his name should be is empty. The wind must have blown it out. But I can’t see it along the passageway. I feel in my pocket for the spare key Steve secretly made for me. I slip it into the barrel of the lock in the steel handle.
    But it doesn’t turn.
    I try again. Maybe I have the wrong flat. I have to be certain. I steady myself with both arms against the balcony wall and peer over the edge. My muscles spasm and, instantly, I’m filled with panic. I know that at that moment if I do not fall to my