If I had been alone, I might have run through Hargorli Park to the Tokugawa Nashamori. But I'm inhibited by Kitty's presence. I don't want to do anything that might suggest panic. Furthermore, panic is a real possibility. Valencia's hysteria is threatening to communicate itself to me.
        So we walk, striding out through a day which has become positively hot. I can feel pulses beating in my body. I am alive with a turmoil of energy which could all too easily segue into a loss of self-control.
        As we come up to the door of the Tokugawa Nashamori I can hear Valencia screaming inside. It's a rasping screaming which comes in jolting paroxysms. It does not really sound human. I try first the electric buzzer then the fox-headed brass door knocker but neither draws any response. Is the door open? Yes. I head on into the atrium, with Kitty close behind me.
        As we enter the atrium, we're greeted by a hysterical burst of laughter from the big TV, which is tuned to Delighting Underpants, the play-it-for-laughs current affairs program hosted by Bolpo Haya, the fat man who got his big break by winning the national hamburger eating competition.
        In the atrium, Atakana is slumped on floor, and my first thought is that he must have fallen from the stairway which curves down from above. How? Well, anything is possible if you're drunk enough. That's a disloyal thought. Atakana has embraced sobriety -- hasn't he? Well, let's check. Has he been drinking? I crouch beside him. Smell the liquor. Yes, Atakana has been drinking.
        "Phone an ambulance," I say.
        Valencia gives another discordant wail. I repeat my order. This time at a shout.
        "An ambulance?" says Valencia, slapped into coherence by the force of the shout. "But he's dead."
        "Not yet," I say.
        "But he fell all the way down and hit his head," says Valencia.
        I don't think so. I don't think Atakana slammed his head into the hardwood floor when he fell. Why? Because there are no obvious head injuries. In my judgment he probably landed flat on his back, so quite possibly the fall will prove survivable.
        The TV laughs at us, the cacophony of laughter making it difficult to think. I glance at the screen. Bolpo Haya is standing by a bear-sized syringe, and I gather that today's source of merriment is the death cult, X Cognizance Blanca.
        Unable to stand the onslaught of the TV any longer, I go to switch it off. But there's no remote and, in my confused state, I can't figure out which button does what. Finally, I yank the plug from the power outlet. Deprived of electricity, Bolpo Haya dies.
        I haul out my cellphone and make the emergency call myself. As I wait to be connected, I look around for Kitty and see her standing a few paces away, arms folded, a small smile on her face. Maybe that's what they're trained to do in Merlercia, a notoriously litigious nation -- stay out of the way and don't get involved because you might get sued big time if you lend a helping hand and somehow mess up.
        I can't fault Kitty for holding back but that smile does annoy me. However, in context, the smile could be a stress reaction, an involuntary response signaling a mind on the edge of panic.
        Valencia is saying something, loudly, urgently, but I ignore her, and focus on talking to the emergency services.
        The police arrive at the same time as the ambulance, and are into fact-gathering mode even before the ambulance crew has removed Atakana from the house. I don't want Valencia talking with the police before she has spoken to a lawyer, but she ends up giving an account of what happened to Chobber, who makes no effort to shoo me away as I eavesdrop on the conversation.
        According to Valencia, she was at home with Atakana when two men showed up. One of them was Egishi, my irascible cousin. The other, someone called Harburton Spice. Harburton Spice? I've heard the name, but can't identify the individual. These two, say Valencia, threw Atakana over the balcony.
        "Are you sure of this?" says Chobber.
        "They were wearing hoods," says Valencia, "but I'm reasonably sure."
        "Hoods?" says Chobber. "What kind of hoods?"
        Valencia is unable to describe the hoods, except to say that they were dark and baggy. Even so, she is emphatic that the two men were my cousin Egishi and Harburton Spice, this Harburton being (or so she says) a con man and fraudster with whom Egishi used to be associated.
        As Valencia speaks, I remember the smell of popcorn. For some reason, Harburton Spice is associated in my mind with the smell of popcorn. Don't ask me why. Then it clicks. Noyamasho University! The Menji Ho beer hall! The mahjong sessions which used to go on until two in the morning, fueled by beer, fried chicken and popcorn. How could I have deleted my old buddy Harburton from memory?
        "You recognized these two individuals despite the hoods?" says Chobber.
        "Yes," says Valencia.
        "How?"
        "The way they walked," says Valencia. "The way they talked."
        "What did they say?" says Chobber.
        "I don't remember," says Valencia.
        She doesn't? Well, maybe she is in shock.
        Through all of this, Kitty's part is remarkably small. Although she followed me into the Tokugawa Nashamori, she thereafter hung back, preserving her lipsticked smile, as though Atakana's inebriated state might be contaminating. Chobber questions her briefly, learning that she is a foreign land buyer who is inspecting the Udamana property with a potential purchase in mind. Apart from that, Kitty manages to function as an onlooker rather than a participant.
        This is logical enough. Kitty's status is essentially that of a spectator, and, beyond spectating, there is no contribution that she can make. However, she is possessed of a cool observing remoteness which makes me think of a scientifically distant anthropologist rather than a member of the social world which is experiencing this event.
        When we first met in the lobby of the hotel I had no sense of Kitty being a foreigner. But, watching us as she does, she feels very foreign to me indeed. Alien. Momentarily (and, surely, unfairly) I get the impression that we are being observed as one might observe insects. With interest, possibly, but without compassion. Insects, after all, do not ultimately qualify as human.