Tokyo Noir: Neon Identity: The first of a Tokyo trilogy

By Nick John

Tokyo, the summer of 1990. Disgraced London Met detective Pete Bond has reinvented himself as an English teacher, but his embarrassing secret is nothing compared to the dark event in Suzi Sloane's earlier life. Suzi, a promiscuous Londoner, who supplements her day job by topless dancing in a Shinjuku Kabukicho hostess bar, is considering an offer from Shigeru, a customer at Club O. Meanwhile, Pete crosses paths with Dieter, a drug-dealing German, who appears to be involved in more than drugs and seemingly has a connection with Shigeru.



Before he can properly investigate Dieter, Pete becomes infatuated by Suzi in Roppongi, the infamous central Tokyo expat bar area.



‘Tokyo Noir: Neon Identity’ is part crime novel, part study of psychosexual obsession, and in noir tradition, the sleazy Kabukicho and Roppongi backdrops effectively become characters as Pete tries to rationalise his growing obsession with his femme fatale and discover the link between her, Dieter and the shady Shigeru. But things are more complicated than they first appear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Conrad Press
• Release date: Jul 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781839785030

Book preview

Prologue

1976

Surrey

I am summoned to the headmistress’s study. What on earth have I done? She asks me to sit down and, after a moment’s silence, tells me she has some bad news for me. Evidently my grandfather has died, although she is not too sure when this happened. I find this ironic given the classic Albert Camus novel I have started in preparation for my literature course. My grandfather died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know. I like the ring to it. It makes me feel a bit special. Maybe I’m going to do well in English Lit.

After a suitably long pause, I say something. ‘How shocking. I suppose I must go home. My grandmother will be expecting me.’

‘She wants you to ring her. You may do so from the secretary’s office, Suzanne. I’ll ask her to leave you on your own.’

‘Thank you. You’re very kind.’

She takes me to the office across the corridor, and two minutes later my grandmother’s voice comes down the line. She’s crying. I’m not sure what to say, so I settle for what a nice man grandfather was. About how lucky I have been to have both of them after what happened to my mother.

I don’t mention my father.

We never do.

ONE

Friday, June 15, 1990

Gyotoku, Ichikawa City. Kasai, Tokyo

PETE BOND

The seasonal rain fell on Tokyo almost that entire weekend, the one when my life changed. I sat in the tiny kitchen listening to the noise as it hammered on prefabricated roofs. Rain and hot weather had always conjured up exotic images of palm trees, beaches and olive-skinned women, but this was different. When it rained in Tokyo, you were grounded.

The front door was open, and I walked to the end of the passage which ran along the front of the flats, the noise reaching an intensity as the rain bounced off the plastic cover overhead. I stood at the end of the path and looked up and down the street. The place looked bleak. Gyotoku needed sunshine.

It was early, but I grabbed some money and an umbrella and headed towards the station and an izakaya nestled in the shade of the overhead tracks.

Dontaku was quiet, but pretty soon the Friday night commuters would pour into the place. I settled into a seat in the far corner with my back to the door and knocked back my first glass of Asahi Super Dry. Before my food arrived, I had finished the whole bottle.

Halfway through my second, a couple of westerners settled into the seat behind me. We were sitting back to back, but I could hear their conversation. One of them was from London, his high-pitched cockney whine suggesting he was unhappy with something. His friend wasn’t English, but his grasp of the language was first class. I could detect the slightest German accent.

‘This is straightforward, Tommy. What’s the problem? Nothing will go wrong.’

I started getting interested. Maybe it was my past life as a detective in London. Maybe I was just the suspicious type.

I tilted my head forward and pretended to concentrate on my food.

‘Easy for you to say that, mate. It’s me in the firing line,’ the Englishman said.

‘For fuck’s sake, you’re acting like a pussy.’ The German banged the table and said something in his own language. I resisted the temptation to turn around and look at them. The German suggested they go out back.

I watched them disappear, waited twenty seconds and followed. They had gone through the door that opened on to the small yard. I went through the toilet one. I left the light off. I could see them through a gap between the window and the frame. The German took a couple of big drags on a cigarette and appeared to calm down.

I listened.

German: I tell you, there’s nothing for you to worry about. You’ve done this before. Why are you so worried?

English: It’s my head on the line, Dieter.

German: All you have to do is come round to my place now, pick it up and take it there tomorrow morning at ten. Take the money back to your place. We’ll meet at my apartment after you’ve rung me from the station at eight that evening. What could be simpler?

English: You always make it sound so easy.

German: It is.

English: Okay. When are we going? I want to get back to Kasai.

German: Let’s do it now.

I went back to my seat at the bar. When they came through the door, I was concentrating on my food. I didn’t look up until they had paid their bill and were leaving. They went right towards Minami Gyotoku, not left towards the station. I paid my bill and followed.

As I walked beside the overhead railway line, I could see them in the distance. I kept sixty or seventy yards behind, closing the gap slowly. As they turned left just before Minami Gyotoku station, I broke into a sprint. My timing was perfect. I could see them go into a similar apartment block to mine.

I waited twenty yards up the road from it. Five minutes later, Tommy appeared carrying a bag and headed in the direction of the station. I had my train pass with me, so I didn’t have to buy a ticket, and when I reached the station, Tommy had bought his and was going up the steps to the southbound platform. I waited until I could hear the train approaching and ran up them, reaching the top as it stopped. I jumped on. I could see Tommy in the next carriage. Two stops down the line at Kasai, he got off.

I followed him out of the station. He crossed the main road and soon reached his apartment which was in an unusually narrow building. I waited until I could see a second floor light go on. As convenient as it could be given the izakaya on the first floor.

I got the train back to Gyotoku and headed along the main street towards home. Within a couple of minutes, the automatic doors of a 7-Eleven were opening. Irasshaimase. Sebun Erebun. Ii-ki-bu-un. Automated politeness, gratitude in stereo. I was in and out in a minute.

Back at the apartment, I boiled a pan of water on the two-ring gas stove, poured it on to the Lipton tea bag and waited. Home consisted of a lino-floored kitchen with a small sink next to the stove. On the other side of the entrance was a toilet; next to that, a tiny bathroom. Behind the kitchen, and separated from it by a shoji screen, was my bedroom, a four-and-a-half-tatami mat affair, and next to my room was a six-mat with a proper door.

My flatmate was Emanuel from Ghana, and he was still at work at some sweatshop in Chiba. Emanuel and I enjoyed an unusual flatmate relationship. We rarely saw each other. By the time I got back from work, he was in bed. By the time I got up, he was at work. I occasionally saw him late on Friday nights as he didn’t always work Saturdays, but sometimes the only time we had contact was around six thirty on a Sunday morning when I was on my way home from an all-nighter in Roppongi, and he was heading to the station in his Sunday best on his way to the Catholic church in central Tokyo for Mass. So the flatshare worked well.

The cup of tea finally looked strong enough to drink, although the low wattage strip light shed such a small amount of light it was difficult to tell. It was necessary all day as Maison Yu was hemmed in by two other buildings which were only yards away. As we were on the bottom floor, we received no natural light.

I grabbed my tea, switched the light off and went to the end of the passage. The rain had stopped earlier, and the top step was already dry. I sat down and contemplated the only bit of greenery in the area, the wasteland opposite.

Before I was able to run the earlier events through my head, I was joined by Charles, an American, who shared the end apartment with an English bloke. Of all the people in the apartment block, Charles was the one I seemed to chat to most.

‘What’s your week been like?’ I said.

‘Work’s as dull as ever but otherwise no real problem.’

He worked for one of the cowboy outfit language schools which had sprung up in the 1980s to relieve the Japanese of some of their surplus income. I worked for one of its rivals.

‘Money still tight, Pete? No chance of you working Fridays?’

‘Right on both counts. I’ve never been as hard up. I can’t stand the school, but there’s no chance of Fridays, anyway. Why haven’t you been at work?’

‘I’m owed a day’s holiday from last year. Thought I’d stay home and enjoy the weather.’ He laughed.

‘Turning out quite nice now. How long does the rainy season last?’

‘Until sometime in July, then the heat and humidity crank up.’

‘Going to be murder without air conditioning,’ I said, pulling at the bottom of my T-shirt in an attempt to get some air to my body.

‘That’s what the fans are for.’

‘Can’t imagine them making much difference.’

‘Be hell without them. You’ll have to watch the tatami. It goes green if you leave your futon on it. Hey look, Pete. I’m going to have a shower and turn in. I want to be up early tomorrow.’

‘You don’t fancy a beer? I was thinking of going to Mama-san’s for a couple, and I’m hungry.’

‘No, but thanks for the offer.’

As I wandered along the side street, it hit me that the quietly spoken, thoughtful Charles destroyed the image I seemed to have of Americans. Maybe I had seen too many American films.

TWO

Friday, June 15, 1990

Takadanobaba, Tokyo

SUZI SLOANE

She closes the door to her room in the gaijin house, locks it and walks down the stairs to the shared kitchen. She decides on a glass of water and fills a mug from the cold tap. When she turns away from the sink, he’s looking at her. She feels sorry for him. She can almost taste the desire, the yearning for something he can never have. Perhaps she shouldn’t tease him, lead him on, but it amuses her. She can feel his eyes on her body. She turns her head to the left away from him, and allows him a long, lingering look. She picks her gym bag up and leaves the building without talking to him.

This little game has been going on for some time now, but it’s building in intensity. Maybe leaving her bedroom door ajar the other day when she was changing was taking things too far, but she stood with her back to him. She could sense he was there, though. She could feel his eyes burning into her. As she walks the short distance to the gym, she reflects she has always been like this. And she knows why.

She heads for the changing room. It is the first time she has been here as she has only lived at the gaijin house for three weeks. The women’s changing room is divided from the men’s section by a curtain. It is made of a stiff plastic material so it can’t blow open. Where she’s changing in the end cubicle, the curtain fails to close. She peeps through, aware she has changed from exhibitionist to voyeur. A muscular Japanese man is standing almost naked with his back to her, a parody of herself the other day in the gaijin house. He pulls his vest on. She changes into her gym clothes, a T-shirt replacing her blouse, shorts instead of jeans, and hurries into the gym.

It is big with a karate mat at one end. Further over are a number of machines and free weights. She does a few stretching exercises on the mat and a couple of sets on a lats machine: light weights, high reps.

At the end of her fourth set, the muscular Japanese appears. It is as if she is invisible. She isn’t used to this. She labours through some different exercises, beads of sweat forming at the top of her chest. By the time she has done four sets, the Japanese has moved away to a different part of the gym. She decides to wear herself out with free weights. She loads the bar up lightly and lays on the bench with her hands gripping it about eighteen inches apart. A voice behind her.

‘Do you need help?’

‘Thanks.’

She does three sets with him standing behind her. On the last set, she can’t manage the final repetition. The Japanese reaches down and pulls the bar up to the starting position. No contact has been made with her.

‘You are a strong woman.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, you have good arms.’

She looks at her slender but toned arms and says, ‘Thank you.’

‘Do you live near here?’

For some reason she lies. ‘No. I live in Gotanda,’ she says, naming the first station that springs to mind.

‘Are you a teacher?’

Another lie. ‘I work at a club in Shinjuku. Club O.’

She says this simply because it exists. A young woman in the gaijin house is a hostess there and has been trying to convince her to work there.

‘Ah, Club O. Interesting.’

‘Is it?’

‘Hmm. Maybe I will come to the club. You could pour my drinks.’

‘Have you been?’

‘Once or twice.’ A smile turning into a knowing smirk.

‘I’m going to have to go now. I’m meeting my boyfriend.’ She blurts it out: an imaginary man the saviour.

‘Ah, you have a boyfriend. That is nice for you.’

‘Suppose it is,’ she says, almost tongue-tied.

‘I have to go. Goodbye.’

He turns and, with a sideways glance, gives her another smile/smirk.

She sits on the bench. ‘Damn!’ she says to herself out loud. ‘Who does he think he is?’

She lays back on the bench for a minute. She gets up and walks to the changing room and sits down. She waits until she is sure he has gone and changes into her clothes.

Outside the gym, she checks he isn’t around and walks back to the gaijin house.

THREE

Saturday, June 16, 1990

Kasai/Aoyama, Tokyo. Gyotoku, Ichikawa City. Boso Peninsula

PETE

As I was preparing to leave for Kasai, Emanuel appeared out of his bedroom. He was a wiry character of medium height, perpetually cheerful, despite having to endure twelve-hour days in a factory.

‘How are you, Mr Pete?’

‘Fine, Emanuel. And you?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. I am free this Saturday.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I will go round to some friends. We are having a meal. Chicken. They are cooking it.’

‘Sounds nice. I hope they have a better stove than we do,’ I said, nodding at it.

‘Just the same. They will cook it in a big pan. What are you doing today, sir?’

‘You could say I’m going to see a man about a dog.’

‘You want a dog?’ Emanuel was wide-eyed. ‘Not to eat, Mr Pete, surely. I never eat dog.’

‘A figure of speech, Emanuel,’ I said, enjoying his confusion. ‘I’m not actually going to buy one.’

‘Oh, I see, sir. You only want to see one.’

‘Something like that, Emanuel. Will you be in church this Sunday?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good man.’

‘And you will be coming home from drinking as I am leaving, Mr Pete?’

‘Quite possibly.’

Gyotoku station was already busy. Commuters on the platform standing in queues behind the line, only to shuffle all at once in perfect unison when the train came into view, followed by stillness as the train stopped, the doors precisely coinciding with each queue. It was bizarre but impressive. More people got on at Minami Gyotoku, and even more were waiting at Kasai as I got off. I pushed through the crowds aware of a problem. If we were heading to the centre, the train was going to be packed. And on a Saturday. I was going to have to stick closer to Tommy than I had planned.

I had a twenty-minute wait before he appeared. I let him get halfway to the station and dropped in behind him. We were indeed heading into the city, and on the train I found myself four commuters down from him and standing. After about twenty minutes, Tommy pushed his way through the other passengers and got off at Otemachi. We were heading on to the Chiyoda line and, as it turned out, a place called Nogizaka in west central Tokyo.

We emerged at street level into thick drizzle. I followed Tommy thirty or forty yards behind. He entered a run-down apartment block on the left just before a cemetery. I took up a position thirty yards past the block and waited. I checked my watch. Tommy had entered the building at nine fifty.

It didn’t take long. He came out of the block carrying the bag and headed back towards the station. The trains were busy again, and I got on the same carriage as him. As the density of passengers decreased, I moved further along towards the end of it. The change on to the Tozai line went smoothly. I was certain he would get off at Kasai and not before, so I got in the carriage one down from him. The train was much quieter and by the time Kasai arrived, I was one of three people in my carriage. Tommy got off and disappeared down the station steps. I accelerated so he was in sight as he went through the ticket barrier. He exited the station and headed for home across the busy Kannana Dori. I followed and gradually closed the gap. Tommy walked across the small square and up the steps to his apartment. I pulled my motorcycle balaclava out of my pocket and put it on as I walked up the steps. Only my eyes could be seen. I waited until he had opened his door and hit him in the middle of the back with a piledriver. He went down but recovered, swivelled and was trying to get on his feet when my second punch cannoned into his solar plexus. He fell backwards and banged his head on the kitchen table. He lay on the floor motionless, the bag by his side. I shut the door, picked the bag up and checked the contents. Yen. Lots of it. Too much to fit in my pockets. I decided on taking the bag. I looked down at Tommy. He was still not moving. Eyes open. Staring. I squatted beside him. I shook him. He didn’t respond. I put my face to his open mouth. He wasn’t breathing. I sat on the kitchen chair to compose myself. I was shaking. I waited a couple of minutes and shook him again. Nothing. No movement. I checked his pulse, but there was no sign of life.

I sat back down for another couple of minutes to calm myself and think. I had a big problem, and I had until early evening to solve it. I checked my watch. It was eleven twenty. I picked up Tommy’s door key and bag and left, leaving him as he was. I locked the door and went back to the station.

A few weeks ago, when riding my motorcycle through central Tokyo, I had noticed a van hire place. I got on the train, changed on to the Toei Asakusa line at Nihombashi and got off eight stops later at Gotanda. It didn’t take me long to find it.

The middle-aged Japanese man at the counter looked at me and sucked air in between his teeth. ‘Hmm.’ More sucking.

I knew about twenty Japanese words, so I had to use English. ‘Hire van, yes? Now?’ I said and pulled a few Japanese notes out of my wallet, along with my International Driving Permit. It seemed to do the trick.

‘Toyota Hiace okay? Good van.’

A Toyota Hiace was exactly what I wanted.

‘Yes, that’s fine. Thanks. How much?’

I pushed some yen towards him. Fifteen minutes later, I was on my way.

It took longer to drive home than it had to get down on the train, but once I hit Route 357, I was almost back. In Gyotoku, I parked the van up from the station near the raised tracks. I walked to a hardware store five minutes away. I was soon back at the van. I loaded the spade and rake in the back and headed back to Maison Yu on foot.

I got my helmet and jacket and fired up the motorbike. I knew where I was going and hoped like hell it was still there. I was in luck. I put the bike on its side stand, rummaged around in the top box for my tools and nipped back around the corner. The van, the same Toyota model as my hire van, was parked in the quiet street, and I went to work undoing its registration plates. It only took me five minutes. In another five, I was back at the flats. I dumped my bike gear and, as I was putting the plates in a bag, Emanuel came out of his room.

‘Ah, Mr Pete. You do not have a little dog in your bag, do you, sir?’

‘Just picking up a few tools, Emanuel. I’ve got a small problem with the bike.’

‘Would you like some help, sir? I worked on many bikes in Ghana.’

‘No, no, don’t bother yourself, Emanuel. I know what I’m doing.’

He went back into his bedroom, and I left. I walked back to the van. I jumped in and drove up to the river, found a quiet spot and swopped the plates over. I put the originals under the driver’s seat and headed back to Maison Yu. On the wasteland opposite the flats, I found a discarded rug and loaded it into the back of the van without Emanuel coming out to see what was going on.

I checked my watch: twenty to three in the afternoon.

The road to Tommy’s in Kasai involved driving east to the 357 and south to the other side of the Edogawa River. From there, it was about a mile to his apartment. It had started raining with perfect timing. I parked rear doors to his apartment block, put the balaclava and gloves on as I ran up the steps and let myself in. I rolled Tommy up in the rug and heaved him on to my shoulders. Sweat dripped down my back. I stood at the door and listened. Silence. As I loaded the rolled rug containing Tommy’s body into the van, the rain reached an intensity. No one was outside. I went back to his apartment, locked his front door and set off. I pulled my balaclava and gloves off and swung on to the road that led to the 357. I was on what felt like an amphetamine rush.

I picked up Route 16 after fifteen minutes heading north on the 357. The road was good, but the traffic was heavy and the going slow. The rain made visibility poor. At one point, despite sitting high up, the spray from a truck in front caused me to panic-hit my brakes as I couldn’t see a thing.

I passed through Chiba and on towards Ichihara. As it was still light, I stopped at one of the many roadside diners, parked the van in the car park and waited inside the entrance to a Denny’s despite there being no one in front of me and only half a dozen people sitting at tables. I didn’t mind. I was getting used to how they did things in Japan, and I had time to kill.

Time to kill after the kill.

I was shown to my table and ordered a bowl of ramen and a side dish of gyoza.

I checked my watch: five past four, and looked out of the window. The rain had eased to a drizzle.

My meal arrived, and I ate slowly. Despite my predicament, the food tasted good. Was it the last meal of a condemned man? All it would take was a police check at the side of the road, but I didn’t see it in this weather. I ate my food and dragged the ‘bottomless’ coffees out for the best part of two hours.

Before I left, I used the toilet and walked out into the car park.

And almost froze.

Two police motorcyclists were parked next to my van talking to each other. As I approached, one of the policemen looked towards me. I dug my hands in my pockets to stop them shaking. I bowed as I passed them. They bowed. I got hold of my ignition key, steadied myself and unlocked the van. A voice behind me.

‘Excuse me, sir.’

I turned and faced the policeman.

‘Driving licence, please.’

I pulled my International Driving Permit out of a pocket and gave him it. ‘Okay, officer?’

The next twenty seconds felt like twenty minutes, but he gave me my IDP back without a word and bowed again. I bowed and got in the van, fired it up, pulled out of the car park and headed southwest, keeping an eye in the driver’s side wing mirror. The motorcyclists weren’t following. Within ten minutes, I had got to the beach.

I parked a few hundred yards further south and walked back across the dunes. There was no one around. The heavens opened again. I selected a spot where Tommy would rot and walked back to the road. I retraced the route I had taken down the coast. By the time I reached the van, I was soaked, and the light was fading.

I sat in the van for a further ten minutes before it was dark enough and drove back up the coast. It was deserted. I reversed the van as far as I could to the back of the dunes, killed the engine and lights and wound the window down. I sat for a few moments and listened to the rain and strapped a camping light to my head, went to the back of the van, opened the doors and hauled Tommy out. Being encased in the thick rug gave his body some rigidity, along with the early stages of rigor mortis. I heaved him up and across my right shoulder and headed across the dune. I threw him on to the sand, returned to the van and got the spade and rake.

By the time I had dug a trench big enough, I was gasping for breath. It took me almost an hour, but it had to be deep enough to stop animals smelling the corpse and digging. I heaved Tommy into the pit and filled it. I raked all the footprints away, pulling the rake behind me as I walked to the van and drove the short distance to the road. I returned, raked the tyre marks and the rest of the footprints and got the hell out of the place.

Before I turned on to the 357, I pulled into a siding, killed the lights and swopped the plates over.

When I got to Gyotoku, it was eleven fifteen. I left the van along the road from where I lived, took off my death clothes, showered and went to Mama-san’s in time for the last couple of hours. I ate a mountain of food and drank six large bottles of Asahi Super Dry in an attempt to obliterate the memory of the day I became a murderer.

FOUR

Sunday, June 24, 1990

Takadanobaba/Harajuku, Tokyo

SUZI

For the next few days, she finds it difficult to stop thinking about the man at the gym. He is so much more attractive than all the salarimen she sees on a daily basis. She keeps replaying the events. The more she thinks about it, the more she is convinced he wasn’t interested in her. He was simply being polite when he stepped in and helped her lift the bar off her chest. It is a new feeling for her. A man showing indifference.

The work week passes uneventfully. On the trains, she is aware of men’s eyes on her. She enjoys the attention. At the gaijin house, the young man who pays her special attention is, on alternate days, given encouragement and the cold shoulder. Two Doors Down, as she has come to think of him, is clearly bemused.

What she needs is a man. A physical exchange with no emotion. She gives thought to her sexual history. Since her teens, she has never gone more than a month without sex. She has been in Japan for three weeks. Following an encounter with a man soon after arriving, she was busy finding work and accommodation. She has had two weeks with no such concerns. None of the young men in the gaijin house are worthy contenders, especially the lusting Two Doors Down. He can look occasionally, but he can never touch.

She has a quick shower and dresses in a short button-through dress that hugs her willowy but curvy frame. She walks to the station. She boards the train for the short journey to Harajuku.

Harajuku and the neighbouring Omotesando and Meijijingumae is the trendy area of Tokyo. It is the place where people come who want to be seen. The avenue is lined with trees, the shops are ultra-expensive, and the bars are full of good-looking young men and women. Western would-be models who have come to Tokyo to reinvent themselves come here on Sundays. And today the rain has stopped, and the skies are blue.

Her first port of call is a bar on the left side of the avenue. She sweeps in, noting the attention she gets. It is like a drug to her. Her sole reason for living is for others to desire her. Sometimes she thinks her beauty puts off potential suitors; men staring but failing to pluck up courage. Right now, a westerner is almost gawping, but he is too young, maybe only nineteen or twenty. Occasionally she goes for youth, but she prefers experience. It was like that when she was younger, and even then she chopped and changed at will, taking delight in seeing older men cry.

She casts an eye around and orders a second beer. Alcohol in the afternoon always makes her feel sleepy, but the lack of company means she drinks too fast. She buys a third and a fourth. She decides she has had enough and needs to lie down. She knows there is a park at the top of the avenue. She has forgotten the name, but she has seen it on a map.

She drains her beer and sets off. The sun is still shining, the sky is still blue. She studies the motif on the back of the jacket of the Japanese girl in front of her: Quartet Grovy Canzone Climax Crystal Quintet Pouze Caravan Climbing 1960. Only one word spelled wrong but two she hasn’t seen before. She reaches the park which is at the end of the avenue. Punk bands play around the perimeter. Bizarre, outlandishly dressed individuals gyrate. But she is too sleepy to take it all in. She walks past all the activity and heads to the top of the park. She selects a place half under a tree so her face is sheltered from the sun, but her body feels the heat. She checks there are no children around and unbuttons the front of her dress as far as the waist. She feels herself drifting off to sleep.

After a while, she feels someone is standing close by. She opens her eyes. It is a man. He is tall, quite athletic-looking, brown wavy hair. He looks down at her.

‘Do you always sunbathe in the nude?

‘I’m not.’

‘Well, nearly.’

She simply says, ‘Just fuck me and stop talking.’

He doesn’t take any further encouragement. After a few minutes build-up and a frantic finale, they see a family approaching. They both stand up and hurriedly do up their clothing.

‘My name’s John,’ he says and formally bows and kisses her hand.

She laughs. ‘And I’m Sonja.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Sonja. Would you like to go for a drink?’

Despite her earlier beers, she agrees. It is the same bar she was in an hour ago. John buys two small bottles of beer and asks her what she does for a living.

‘I work in a two-bit college, and I want to do something else.’

‘You could do all sorts, Sonja. I could make any number of suggestions for jobs that’d pay much more than you’re getting.’

‘Like what?’

‘Hostessing is the obvious one, but you could do better than that.’

‘Go on.’

‘Modelling. There’s loads of opportunities for good-looking westerners and, to be honest, not so good-looking, but you’re stunning. And you’ve got the body. You could clean up. You could even be a nude model if you wanted, although you’d have to get rid of that big bush of yours.’

‘I’m not doing that.’

‘Pubic hair is banned in Japanese porn mags. Haven’t you seen any?’

‘Can’t say I have. And I was talking about nude modelling, not depilation.’

‘Oh well. Anyway, in the meantime, do you fancy a date?’

‘After that introduction…’

‘So when?’

‘We’re here now, John. Relax.’

She takes a long drink of her beer.

‘I am relaxed,’ he says, ‘but I want to see you again. We could exchange phone numbers.’

He puts a hand in a pocket.

‘Sure, only I don’t know mine. I’ve only been in Tokyo three weeks.’

‘Have mine.’

He gives her a