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  'I won't give up,' she called. 'But I want to know why you're after me.'

  'Because of what you did to me.'

  'Then you've got the wrong person. It's Yayoi Yamamoto you want.'

  'I'm done with her.'

  'Done how?' she said. Her voice was trembling now, with fear or from the cold. She must be cold; her feet were bare and she had nothing on but a T-shirt and underwear. Moving quietly over to the ramp, he bundled up her clothes and tossed them in a corner to make sure she didn't get them back. Just then, she spoke again from the darkness. 'You took her insurance money, didn't you? Then why isn't that enough? Why've you got it in for me?'

  'I'm not sure myself,' he murmured in her direction.

  'Because you lost your business?'

  'That's part of it,' he said. But it's also because you're the only one who knows the real Satake, the one who tore off the scab that had formed over all that time.

  'But not the whole story,' Masako said, her voice calmer now. 'You also like me, don't you?' This time he didn't answer, but he edged toward her through the dark. 'It seems a bit weird, doesn't it? I'm forty-three, past the age when men notice you; and I was never that kind of woman. You must have some other reason.' His heavy boot clattered against a can and Masako fell silent. He listened, trying to tell where she'd gone.

  There was a faint noise behind him, and he spun around and began hunting her in the other direction. She was trying to force open the shutter at the delivery bay and slip out. Lunging through the dark, he caught her just as she'd managed to get her upper body through the opening. He grabbed her legs and dragged her back in, then slapped her hard across the face. As she collapsed on the dirty concrete floor, he shone his flashlight on her, wanting to see her face. She shook back her hair and glared at him. It was the same - the same look as before. He grabbed her by the hair and forced her to keep looking at him.

  'You are a fucking bastard!' she said, spitting the words at him.

  'Yes, I am.' He peered into her angry eyes. 'But I've been waiting for you.'

  'You're dreaming,' she said in a steady voice.

  'No, I'm not,' he said, studying her face for a moment. The other woman's features had been as sharp as a knife, not really like this one's at all. This was Masako Katori staring at him now, her eyes loaded with hostility. Their faces were different; Masako's lips were thinner, more severe. But the eyes were identical. His heart filled with joy and anticipation, like a rising tide. How high could she take him? Would the pleasure he'd kept locked away for seventeen years return again? Would she be able to show him what that other experience had meant?

  He ripped off her T-shirt, leaving her in nothing but her plain white bra and panties, but she continued staring at him.

  'Stop,' she said. 'Kill me now.' Ignoring her, he stripped off her underwear. At this, she began to struggle again, but he held her arms and, lifting her up, carried her to the rack. He lay on top of her to stop her thrashing. She gasped under his weight and then went limp. He found the rope he'd brought with him, tied one end to each wrist, and then pulled her arms over her head to fasten them to the rack. 'It's cold!' she yelled, her body writhing on the icy metal. He watched her for a moment in the beam of the flashlight. Her body was thin, almost desiccated, and her breasts were small. He slowly began undressing.

  'Go ahead and scream,' he told her. 'No one'll hear you.'

  'You may not know it, but they're tearing down the building next door,' she said.

  'And you're full of shit,' he said, slapping her again. He'd meant to hold back this time, but her head snapped to one side from the blow. He didn't want to overdo it, to have her die before he was ready; and it would be boring if she were unconscious. He was worried for a moment, but then her head turned and she fixed him with her cold eyes again. Blood was trickling from her lips.

  'Kill me quickly,' she said. The other woman had been just as insistent, screaming at him to kill her while he was beating her. His excitement built as his mind raced back and forth between the two women, between reality and dreams, as if it were riding a highspeed elevator. He bent over her and bit her bloody lips. Then, with her cursing through clenched teeth, he forced himself between her legs.

  'Dry as a bone,' he muttered.

  'Bastard!' She thrashed about, trying desperately to fight him off, to keep her legs closed, but he forced her open and entered her. It felt amazingly hot, but she screamed with pain, perhaps because she was too dry. When he saw the look in her eyes, he realised she must have less experience than he would have thought. He began to move, ever so slowly. He hadn't been with a real, flesh-and-blood woman since that day in Shinjuku, since that dark dream. The thing deep in his soul began to writhe, rise up and become real, promising to take him with it wherever it was going. To hell, and heaven. It was only in the final moments of sex with her that the gap between them could be bridged. This was what he'd been born for, and this was what he would die for.

  But then, suddenly and too soon, the first time was over.

  'Pervert!' she called him, spitting bloody saliva at him. He wiped the spittle off his face and rubbed it back in hers. Then he bit her breast to punish her. She tried to scream, but the sound died in her throat behind her chattering teeth. The first light of dawn was shining through the windows above them.

  -

  As the sun rose higher in the sky, light came streaming into the factory, and their surroundings slowly became visible. The panelling had fallen from the walls, exposing the bare concrete underneath. The partitions that had separated the kitchen and bathrooms had come down, leaving only the bare faucets and toilets. Oil cans and plastic buckets littered the floor, and a mound of empty soft-drink bottles lay near the entrance. But even in the light, it was still a bleak, cement coffin.

  Hearing a noise behind him, Satake turned. A stray cat had wandered into the factory, but when it caught sight of him it ran off. There must be rats. He sat down on the floor, crossed his legs, and lit a cigarette. Then he watched Masako struggling on the rack, her whole body shivering in the cold. In a while, the light would reach them; and when it did, he would rape her again, only this time he'd be able to see her face as he did it. He would wait until then.

  'Cold?' he said.

  'Of course I'm cold.'

  'Sorry, you'll just have to wait.'

  'Wait for what?'

  'For the sun.'

  'I can't! I'm freezing!' she said. There was rage in her voice, but

  her words were slurred now from the beating. Her cheeks were swollen and the lower lip was puffy. Even from a distance, he could see that her body was covered with goose bumps, and he remembered that he'd thought of using a knife to scrape them off. But it was still too early for that. That was for the very end.

  He pictured the thin, sharp blade sliding into her. Would it give him the same deep thrill it had all those years ago? It was that thrill alone which had defined him ever since, and he longed to feel it once again. He pulled a black leather sheath from his bag and put it quietly on the floor.

  The sunlight had at last reached Masako's body. As it crept over her, she seemed to relax, and her pale, bluish skin began to take on colour, as though it were thawing out. Satake stood up and came closer.

  'Did you make all those lunches on something like this?' he said. Masako just stared at him. 'Did you?' he said, grabbing her jaw.

  'Why do you care?' She was too cold to speak clearly, but her anger was unmistakable.

  'I bet you never thought you'd be tied up on one.' She twisted away. 'Tell me,' he said. 'How do you cut up a body? Like this?' He held her neck and ran his finger down her front, pretending to cut from her throat to her pubic bone. The pressure of his hand left a pale purple line on her skin. 'How did you come up with the idea of chopping him up? What did it feel like when you were doing it?'

  'What does it matter?'

  'Because you're just like me. You've gone too far to go back.' She looked into his eyes.

  'What happened t