‘They will have moved on, I expect,’ she said, handing me the slip of paper.
I nodded. ‘Thank you, I am very grateful.’ I rose and gave her a deep bow. She bowed in return and would have spoken, but I shook my head and stepped away. ‘Please do not trouble yourself. I can find my own way out,’ I said, turning and heading for the doors, unable to bear the sympathy in her eyes.
In the corridor I leaned my head against the cold tinted glass of the window. Night had fallen over the city and the ward of Shinagawa lay sprawled out before me. I could see my reflection sharply delineated by the fluorescent lights, and beyond it the expanse of Tokyo prickling in the darkness. I looked at my face in the glass, a young woman with large dark eyes and high cheekbones. Around my neck was a string of pearls that had belonged to my mother. Under the glare of the lights the opalescent orbs gleamed as I touched them.
For so many years I had not known what I was, that there is a term that defines me, even today. I had first seen it while studying in the library at Tōdai, not realising at the time that I was studying myself – a ‘forgotten party’.
During the investigation of a crime, the family of a victim may be questioned repeatedly by police and prosecutors preparing their cases for trial. At the time of my mother’s death, the legal system determined that after the interviews, these people and their descendants should be ‘forgotten’, so as to protect the criminal defendants. Families were not informed of court proceedings so they could not attend. They were not told the outcome of sentencing or even the perpetrator’s date of release from prison. My grandfather and others like him were required to bury their dead and continue with their lives with no knowledge of what befell the people who had harmed them.
Today the newly bereaved are still known as forgotten parties, but they have more rights. Families can access trials and even hire a lawyer, such as myself, to defend them in court or influence sentencing, and there is one final privilege that is also available to them.
In the Imperial district, where mirrored offices and skyscrapers surround the royal park, and the palace that nestles shrunken at its centre, is the Public Prosecutors Office. On the ground floor, set back from the reach of the sun, is a room filled with single desks and chairs. For up to three years after a criminal has been sentenced, case records and court judgements, even redacted trial documents, can be accessed there by a victim’s family. I had reviewed several cases during my training with the Supreme Court. But as I stood alone in the corridor of the police station in Shinagawa, I knew that I would never be granted access to that room on my own account. For those of us who live in the past, whose loved ones were murdered years ago, old cases cannot be reopened or their content released. Everything I needed to know – who Kaitarō Nakamura was, what he had meant to my mother, how she had died – would remain filed away out of reach, and nothing, neither emotional nor legal appeals, would retrieve them.
I am a forgotten party. That day I realised that I had been forgotten twice: once by the law and once by my grandfather, who had taken away my history and erased it from view.
Alone in the corridor, I shivered; the adrenaline of the afternoon had left a film of sweat on my skin that had cooled in damp patches beneath my clothes. I was tired of storeys. I wanted the facts themselves, unadulterated and clear. I wanted to get as close to my mother’s life as possible. I wanted to witness the events that led to her death.
Looking across the city, I knew that there was one person who would still have the case files, but I would not find them in the Public Prosecutors Office and I could not appeal to the state, the police or my grandfather. If I wanted to know how my mother had really lived and how she had died, I would have to contact the last person I wanted to see – the woman who had defended my mother’s murderer at his trial: Yurie Kagashima, attorney at law.
A Legal DefenCe
The morning was bright and clear; the wind had stilled and the air was like glass, refracting each ray of the sun. In the business district, buildings shone ochre against the dawn and a haze of heat shimmered on the tarmac. As the sun rose higher, the wide avenues and overhead expressways filled with traffic and the lanes roared with noise, but deep in the city, where the office blocks huddled together separated only by tiny alleys strung across with telephone wires, was the office I sought. Walking through the shadows, I stopped outside a building faced in pale grey tiles and took the lift up to the third floor. A young girl led me from the firm’s reception into a boardroom. Inside was a round table, a white bookcase, and an ikebana of paradise flowers in a narrow window. ‘Ms Kagashima will be in shortly,’ the girl said, placing a bottle of tea from a vending machine in front of me. The bottle was warm to the touch and the heat soothed me as I took a sip, willing myself to calm and focus on the confrontation ahead.
When she finally came in, I rose to my feet and smiled, but in spite of all my rehearsals I could not control my shock at seeing her. There were things about her that galled me: she had laughter lines at the corners of her eyes and dimples in her cheeks. There was no grey in her hair, which glistened under the lights, jet-black and professionally set. When she reached out to me, she had a warm, firm handshake that belied her thin frame. She wore a spotted scarf around her neck and a golden phoenix brooch on her lapel – licence to dress up now that she was a partner.
Few attorneys choose to work in criminal defence. The government will usually appoint counsel but, even for those who are chosen, this work takes up a fraction of their time. Prosecutors ensure that each year 99.9 per cent of those brought to trial are convicted and sentenced. If only the guilty should be charged, then by that same logic the charged are almost certainly guilty. Thus, the lawyers who defend these criminals are viewed with suspicion, poorly paid, and shrouded in shame, but I saw none of this as I looked at the prosperous Yurie Kagashima. She had matured and thrived since I saw her last, that much was clear.
She motioned for me to sit and unscrewed the lid on her bottle of tea. Setting a leather portfolio in front of her she leaned forward to look at me. ‘Ms Mizuguchi,’ she said, using the false name I had given her, ‘how can I be of assistance? My secretary said you wanted to consult with me about a divorce?’ She smiled. ‘You look very young, if I may say so.’
‘I wanted to talk to you about my mother.’
‘I see. Are you here on her behalf?’
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Please,’ she said, gesturing to my tea, ‘make yourself comfortable.’
‘My mother’s name is Rina.’ I paused before I said her married name – her last name. ‘Rina Satō. She died in 1994.’
Yurie Kagashima looked at me and the warmth faded from her face.
‘You defended the man who killed her,’ I continued, ‘Kaitarō Nakamura.’
She looked down at the portfolio in front of her; she spread her fingers across it, the flesh bulging around her wedding ring.
‘You realise,’ she said, ‘that I cannot talk about my clients.’
‘But you remember the trial?’ I asked. ‘Do you still have the documents relating to it?’
‘I am not at liberty to discuss them.’
‘But you do have them?’
‘I do.’ She lifted her chin and looked me straight in the face. I admired that.
‘Do you still represent Kaitarō Nakamura?’ I asked.
For a moment she studied me, glancing at my hair crammed into a tight chignon, wisps already escaping, and then at my eyes and the dark shadows beneath them. ‘I no longer represent him,’ she replied.
I reached for the bottle in front of me and took a sip of my tea. ‘I recently qualified as an attorney,’ I said, looking at her closely. ‘I have just finished the apprenticeship in Wakō.’
She nodded and leaned back in her chair, stretching the distance between us.
‘I have always wanted to be a lawyer,’ I continued, ‘like my grandfa
ther.’ I watched as her right hand clenched on the tabletop. ‘Did you know him?’ I asked. ‘Did you meet with him? You must have spoken to him.’
She hesitated and glanced towards the door. ‘Ms Satō, I cannot help you.’
‘Were you a good broker?’ I asked. ‘Did you manage to negotiate a jidan?’ She was striving for calm, but she flinched when I mentioned the solace money that can be offered to a victim’s family, financial reparations paid in exchange for forgiveness and, sometimes, an appeal to the courts for a lighter sentence.
‘Your grandfather refused,’ she said.
‘To accept the money or to write an appeal?’
‘Everything.’
I leaned towards her, holding her gaze. ‘I just want to know what happened.’
‘Please – I cannot assist you in this.’
‘Did he kill her?’ I asked.
She frowned and looked down at her hands now clasped in front of her. She was not immune to emotion or to me, and I was glad.
‘I do not care what happened to him,’ I said slowly. ‘His fate was determined a long time ago. I will not do anything further to Kaitarō Nakamura. But I do want to know what he did to me; I want to know why he came into my life.’
This time she leaned towards me and for a moment she reached out, taking my hand in hers. ‘It is still privileged information,’ she said softly. ‘I cannot break confidentiality.’
Her words infuriated me, the smug hypocrisy of them. ‘You know me,’ I said, enveloping her fingers with my own. ‘We’ve met before.’ I tightened my grip and pulled her across the table. ‘Don’t you remember? You cradled me on your lap?’
‘Ms Satō, please—’
‘Sarashima,’ I said, releasing her hand. ‘I changed my surname.’
She withdrew into her chair. Her gaze dropped to the leather portfolio, unopened in front of her, and the small badge pinned to its rim. My eyes followed hers to the golden sphere, noting the carved individual petals and the tiny device that lay encircled at its centre: the Sunflower and Scales.
Upon qualification, each attorney receives this pin with their personal number engraved on the back. Mine had not yet arrived. I imagined it in a storeroom at the Japanese Federation of Bar Associations, gleaming gold in its black velvet case, waiting in the dark.
In the beginning these badges are shiny and bright, their gold plate untarnished, but over time the gold wears away, fading first over the central scales, to reveal the plain silver beneath. Friends of mine planned to store their badges in coin purses to accelerate the ageing process and acquire a veneer of experience – in that moment I did not know if I would ever use mine – but the badge on the table in front of me, however it had begun its life, was now tarnished only by age: the sunflower signifying freedom, and the scales, justice for all men.
Yurie Kagashima looked at me and she did something that I hadn’t expected then; she smiled.
‘The case is closed,’ I said. ‘If I do not care what happens to him, what does it matter if you help me?’
She said nothing.
‘I know the risks you face in sharing your knowledge, but I will not expose you.’
She glanced at her fingers, the skin still pink where I had gripped her hand.
‘You must know how difficult this is for me,’ I said. ‘To ask you for help.’ At this last I could not keep the vehemence out of my voice. ‘Is he such a monster that he would deny me the truth of what happened?’ I asked. ‘Would he want me to live like this?’
For a moment she looked down at her portfolio and then she drew it towards her, her fingers closing over the badge at its edge. ‘Come with me,’ she said.
We left the meeting room and crossed the open-plan office to her cubicle. Files were stacked against the flimsy walls and her desk was covered with notes and documents, much like mine. In the corner was a wheeled grey suitcase. The law is still very much paper-based. Information is rarely transferred or even available online, and so, if we are taking work home or meeting a client, we use these bags to transport our files. At her desk Yurie Kagashima opened a small box and drew out a key. ‘Follow me please,’ she said.
We walked across the office and she nodded to those she saw, stopping to murmur a few instructions to her secretary. As we passed the reception desk, I picked up the black roller bag I had left there. She raised an eyebrow at my confidence and preparation and I smiled.
At the end of the room was a painted screen that concealed a set of double doors. She unlocked one and gestured for me to precede her. The room that I entered was so dimly lit it was almost sepia. At the end of it, rows of rolling stacks, like the ones you might find in a library, rose to the ceiling. Breathing in the cool, musty air, I looked from them to the cabinets resting against the walls.
‘Do you remember the case well?’ I asked.
‘I do,’ she said, turning on the main lights.
I walked forward, my footsteps muffled by the dark brown carpet. There were so many files in that room, decades of them, everything arranged by year and in alphabetical order: 1994 A–J, K–R. S.
‘What you need is here,’ she said, moving to stand in front of a series of cabinets lining the wall. ‘These deep trays at the bottom.’ She separated a key from the ring in her hand and unlocked one of the drawers. ‘They contain the tapes.’
‘Tapes?’
‘Kaitarō Nakamura refused to sign his confession,’ she said. ‘For days after his arrest he did not even speak. In the end they filmed him.’
She held my gaze, daring me to look away. Upon arrest, a suspect can be held for twenty-three days without charge or recourse to an attorney.
‘How many days before he was charged?’ I asked.
‘Twenty-three,’ she said, and I did the calculations in my head: 552 hours, 33,120 slow minutes in the power of the state.
‘Is there . . .’ I paused. ‘Is there anything I should be prepared for?’
She turned back to the drawers.
‘Did he sign it?’ I asked. ‘The confession?’
‘See for yourself,’ she said, extracting several VHS tapes and placing them on the counter. For a moment I stood staring while she walked to the end of the room and rolled out the stacks to reveal a narrow corridor filled with paper files. ‘Don’t read any of this here.’
‘Can I take the videos?’ I asked, and she nodded, her eyes on my face.
‘I will give you two weeks,’ she said. ‘But I must have everything back.’
‘May I take a quick look at the papers?’ I asked. ‘Just for a minute?’
She nodded and in my sudden relief I smiled, the tension easing out of me for the first time since I’d entered her office. I stepped forward, allowing my gratitude to show through. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘You should know what happened.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And you cannot harm Kaitarō.’
I flinched at the sound of his name and the sentiment behind it.
‘Sumiko,’ she murmured, looking over me as though seeing the child I once was in the woman I had become.
I glared at her as she walked back towards the exit.
‘Yurie,’ I said, and she turned. I can still see her face beneath the glowing brightness of the strip lights. ‘Did it help him, whatever you found out from me?’
She considered for a moment and then opened the door. ‘You decide,’ she said. As the latch clicked behind her, I turned towards the rising stacks and all the files they held.
I could not stay long, and I would take the papers with me, but before I left there was one document that I had to see. Having lived for so long without my mother, without true knowledge of her, I needed to know how she had died. I wanted the facts. So I searched for the procedure derived from the Greek ‘to see with one’s own eyes’: her autopsy.
It would
not be the first that I had seen. During Supreme Court training, each and every aspiring lawyer spends months in court, assisting prosecutorial teams and investigating crimes. We sat with judges and drafted custodial sentences, and in each homicide case we attended the post-mortem. I will always remember my first – standing in a hospital basement, my nostrils coated in the sharp menthol of Vicks Vapourub and seeing my pallor mirrored in the faces of others as we waited for the medical examiner in our white latex gloves.
The MEs were careful and diligent, eager to explain human anatomy and announcing discoveries as they made them. They encouraged us to participate. On one occasion the doctor beckoned to me and the other apprentices moved aside as I joined her. She had deviated from the traditional Y incision across the body and focused instead on dissecting the larynx and throat in order to investigate the damage sustained there. I leaned forward as she showed me the ligatures, the musculature and bone, the fabric of the person we were fighting for. I had read the files on the case, but I understood it differently when I was invited to touch the body, pressing down through the open flesh to the white of the mandible.
It is a crucial element of our training: to look life and death in the face. From all sides of the courtroom – as a judge, a prosecutor or an attorney – every lawyer must know what is at stake and each of us must decide what is just. These lessons made us appreciate our lives and our families. They were designed to give us courage to do what was right, to assess the people who did the unspeakable and be fair to them and those they had harmed.
Standing in the archives of Yurie Kagashima’s firm, I wondered if she had attended my mother’s autopsy, if she had looked at her on a slab and understood, in the clearest terms, how my mother had come to be there. I wondered if she had touched her with a gloved hand and felt in her limbs the life she had lived and lost. I believe that she had. I believe that finally, when the forensic assistants were done and each mark on the skin had been analysed, she stood beside my mother and watched as they opened her up and cut down to the bone.
What's Left of Me is Yours Page 6