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and nudge forward, the traffic-crossing man is red, I get an angry blast from a bus, but I leap to the far bank without bouncing off a bonnet. My quarry is already at the PanOpticon steps. I dodge upstream through the crowd, clipping insults out of people and scattering apologies – if she gets inside I’ll lose my chance to meet her on neutral territory. But Akiko Kato does not enter PanOpticon. She carries on walking towards Shinjuku station – I should catch her up and detain her, but I suddenly feel that accosting her on the street would make her less sympathetic, not more, to my cause. After all, I am asking her the favour. She would think I was stalking her – she would be right. What if she misunderstands before I can explain? What if she starts screaming ‘Rapist!’? However, I can’t just let her melt into the crowds either. So I follow her at a safe distance, reminding myself that she doesn’t know the face of the adult Eiji Miyake. She never turns around, not once – why should she? We pass under a row of scraggy trees dripping dry. Akiko Kato flicks her long hair and puts on sunglasses. An underpass takes us beneath rail tracks, and we emerge into strong sunshine down traffic-and-people-crammed Yasukuni Street, lined with bistros and mobile phone shops blaring guitar riffs. Following people is difficult in real life. I clang my shin on a bicycle. The sun steam-irons the street through its rain-washed lens. Sweat gums my T-shirt to my skin. Past a shop that sells ninety-nine different flavours of ice cream, Akiko Kato turns and ducks down a side street. I hack through a jungle of women outside a boutique, and follow her. No sun, bins on wheels, fire escapes. A Chicago film set. She stops outside what appears to be a cinema, and turns around to make sure she isn’t being followed – I increase my stride, as if in a tearing hurry. I avoid her eyes and swivel my baseball cap as I pass to hide my face. When I double back, Akiko Kato has vanished into the Ganymede Cinema. The place has seen much better days. Today’s presentation is a movie called PanOpticon . The poster – a row of screaming Russian dolls – tells me nothing about the movie. I hesitate. I want a cigarette, but I left my packet at Jupiter Café, so I make do with a champagne candy. The film starts in under ten minutes. I go in, at first pulling the door instead of pushing. The deserted lobby swarms with psychedelic carpet. I don’t notice the step, trip and nearly twist my ankle. All is tatty glitz and putty-odoured. A sorry chandelier glows brownly. A woman in the ticket box puts down her needlepoint embroidery with obvious annoyance. ‘ Yes? ’
    ‘Is this the, uh, cinema?’
    ‘No. This is the Battleship Yamato.’
    ‘I’m a customer.’
    ‘How pleasant for you.’
    ‘Uh. The film? What is it, uh, about?’
    She feeds a thread through a needle’s eye. ‘Do you see a sign on my desk that reads “Plot Synopses Sold Here”?’
    ‘I only—’
    She sighs, as if dealing with a moron. ‘Do you, or do you not, see a sign on my desk that reads “Plot Synopses Sold Here”?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘And why, pray tell, do you suppose no such sign exists?’
    I would shoot her but I left my Walther PK in my last fantasy. I would walk out but I know Akiko Kato is somewhere in this building. ‘One ticket, please.’
    ‘One thousand yen.’
    There goes my budget for the day. She gives me a raffle ticket. Lumps of plaster lie here and there. By rights this place should have gone out of business decades ago. She returns to her embroidery, leaving me to the tender mercies of a sign reading SCREEN THIS WAY – THE MANAGEMENT ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ACCIDENTS ON THE STAIRWELL . The steep stairs descend at right angles. Posters of films line the glossed walls. I don’t recognize a single one. Each flight of stairs I expect to be the last, but it never is. In the event of fire, the audience is kindly requested to blacken quietly. Is it getting warmer?