RING
KOJI SUZUKI
Translation
Robert B. Rohmer
Glynne Walley
HarperVoyager
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Copyright © Koji Suzuki 2003
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2004
First published in the USA by Vertical, Inc 2003
Originally published in Japan as Ringu by Kadokawa Shoten, Tokyo, 1991
Cover photograph/illustration © Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy/Getty Images
Koji Suzuki asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780007240135
Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2015 ISBN: 9780007331574
Version: 2015-10-06
Contents
Part One: Autumn
Part Two: Highlands
Part Three: Gusts
Part Four: Ripples
September 5, 1990, 10:49 pm, Yokohama
A row of condominium buildings, each fourteen stories high, ran along the northern edge of the housing development next to the Sankeien garden. Although built only recently, nearly all the units were occupied. Nearly a hundred dwellings were crammed into each building, but most of the inhabitants had never even seen the faces of their neighbors. The only proof that people lived here came at night, when windows lit up.
Off to the south the oily surface of the ocean reflected the glittering lights of a factory. A maze of pipes and conduits crawled along the factory walls like blood vessels on muscle tissue. Countless lights played over the front wall of the factory like insects that glow in the dark; even this grotesque scene had a certain type of beauty. The factory cast a wordless shadow on the black sea beyond.
A few hundred