The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories

by Kyotaro Nishimura

  Ono was baffled. “What a shocking thing to say! I would never have thought you knew anything about actresses.”

  “I don’t. But with that sort of woman—well, you can just tell.”

  “Why?” It was unusual for the mild-mannered Ono to be so insistent, so he must have been really taken aback by Tasaka’s comments.

  “No reason. But it’s murder, I’m telling you. That woman killed her six-year-old child,” said Tasaka firmly.

  Back at the station, the Chief looked somewhat bemused by their report.

  “It seems you have quite different views,” he commented, stretching back in his chair. The wooden swivel chair groaned under the weight of his considerable bulk. “First, let’s hear what you have to say, Ono.”

  “Whichever way you look at it, it must have been an accident,” he told the Chief, then glanced over at Tasaka as if to check his reaction. Tasaka was gazing out of the window. Looking back at the Chief, Ono continued, “I think the child had probably forgotten his mother’s warning when he ate the rat poison. It often happens with children of that age. In fact, just a few days ago there was a case of a five-year-old girl who died after eating rat poison even though her mother had warned her not to. It must have been in the papers.”

  “Ah yes, I read about that,” nodded the Chief, lighting up a cigarette. The cigarette looked disturbingly thin against his enormous hand. “But then, if it was an accident, what do you make of this suicide note?” He lightly tapped the child’s drawing on the desk before him with the tip of his finger.

  Glancing at the crayon drawing of an airplane, Ono answered, “There are various possibilities, but I don’t think it is a suicide note.”

  “But the meaning is clear from what’s written here, ‘I’m going to join Daddy,’ isn’t it?”

  “Yes, you can take it that way, but I think it’s more likely to be an explanation of the picture. If you look closely there are only two people in the plane, no doubt the boy and his father. Therefore he probably just wanted to explain that the drawing was about his desire to go flying in an airplane together with his father. At six years old, there isn’t such a clear distinction between reality and imagination. I really don’t think it’s all that strange for the boy to have had the feeling he and his dead father were in a plane together.”

  “So his mother—Kyoko Igarashi—is mistaken?”

  “I think so, yes. Any mother would be upset at coming home from work to find their child dead. Even more so, given that today was the boy’s birthday. In her agitated state, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for her to have taken it for her child’s suicide note.”

  “And what do you think?” the Chief turned to look at Tasaka. The chair beneath him creaked again. Ono also looked at Tasaka.

  “I’m afraid I disagree,” said Tasaka, looking squarely into the Chief ’s eyes. “From what I saw, that woman was not in an agitated state, and she wasn’t even upset. She was quite composed. I can only think that she was putting on a skillful performance of the role of a pitiful mother who had just lost her son. In order to cover up for murder—”

  “It struck you as a performance?” Ono stared at Tasaka, shocked.

  “Yes,” said Tasaka simply. “Did you think she was really weeping?”

  “Those were real tears!”

  “No, she isn’t that sincere.”

  “You seem to have a peculiar prejudice, that because she’s an actress anything she does is a performance,” retorted Ono.

  “Hang on,” said the Chief with an ironic smile. “In any case, let’s hear Tasaka out. So you think it’s murder?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “But he was her own son, wasn’t he? And he was only six. Kids are at their most adorable at that age. Could she really have killed him?”

  “There are people who don’t adore their children, you know.” Tasaka stopped speaking and looked out of the window. To Ono, his profile looked terribly cold. True, Tasaka was usually exceptionally serious, and could even be stubborn and inflexible, but Ono had never once considered him heartless. Today, however, there was something abnormal about him. His behavior even seemed unreasonably cruel.

  The Chief contemplated Tasaka with a rather puzzled look. “So you’re saying Kyoko Igarashi is that sort of mother?”

  “Yes. She’s that type, yes.”

  “You’re awfully confident about this, aren’t you? But if it was murder as you’re saying, why did she deliberately attract suspicion by saying the child had committed suicide? Don’t you think that’s odd? The safest thing would have been to burn this picture and claim the child had eaten the poison by mistake, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s true. However, Kyoko Igarashi is no ordinary woman. She’s an actress.”

  “What has that got to do with it?”

  “What matters most is her popularity. It probably would have been safest to claim it was an accident, but then she would have come under fire as a mother for not having paid enough attention. If the mass media wrote something like that about her, it would have been fatal to her career. However, if it transpired that the six-year-old boy had been so attached to his dead father that he committed suicide, then it would be just the sort of melodrama that people love to follow. And if she was convincing in her portrayal of a grieving mother who had just lost her only son, far from being criticized she would become the darling of the mass media in one fell swoop.”

  “Are you really suggesting that Kyoko Igarashi went to such lengths to work everything out in order to kill her child?”

  “A woman like that is certainly capable of it. Even this thing she claims to be a suicide note, we don’t know when it was written. I think it was written at least a few days ago, but she just chose to use it today. Let me investigate this case. I’ll strip away the disguise and reveal her true nature. Her dead child at least deserves that much.”

  The Chief did not respond right away. After thinking a moment, he told Tasaka, “There is something I’d like to ask you.” His tone was rather formal. “Why are you so sure that it is murder? Common sense tells me it must be an accident, like Ono here says.”

  “It’s murder. I’m absolutely convinced.”

  “It sounds to me as though perhaps you’re a bit biased.”

  “Biased?” Ono noticed Tasaka blanch slightly.

  “That’s right,” nodded the Chief. “You haven’t got a grudge against Kyoko Igarashi that might have led you to believe she’s a murderer, have you? Of course, I don’t suppose you have, but I have to ask just in case.”

  “Of course I haven’t.” Tasaka was still pale.

  “That’s okay then.” The Chief smiled. “In that case, I’ll ask you to investigate.”

  “I’ll definitely find proof of the crime,” said Tasaka, the excitement showing on his face.

  Ono was on his way out of the Chief ’s office with Tasaka when the Chief called him back. “Have you got a minute?” the Chief inquired, as if he had remembered something.

  Even though Tasaka had gone, the Chief did not say anything straight away, but sat for a while, his chin resting on his hands, thinking. After a while, he raised his face and, looking somewhat hesitant, asked Ono, “What do you think?”

  “You mean about the case? In my opinion—”

  “No. I’m talking about Detective Tasaka. Has he got a grudge against Igarashi, do you think?”

  “Are you asking my honest opinion?”

  “Naturally.”

  “I don’t know if he’s got a grudge or not. All I can say is that he’s been a bit abnormal today. He’s usually a bit more cautious about judging a murder case.”

  “What is it about this case that is making him behave abnormally?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I need to know.” The Chief ’s chair creaked unpleasantly, as if reflecting his unease. “And I want you to find out,” he continued.

  “If Detective Tasaka thinks this case is murder due to some preconception of his, then
he needs to be stopped—for the sake of the police as well as his own sake, too.”

  “Understood.”

  “I’m sure I don’t need to stress to you that I’m not telling you to follow Detective Tasaka’s every move. I want you to work alongside him and to assist him. If things go wrong, he’ll be meat for the media.”

  Having said all of this, the smile returned to the corners of the Chief ’s mouth. There was another loud groan from his chair, and he commented, “This chair’s really seen better days, hasn’t it?

  The next morning, the case was all over the newspapers, much as Tasaka had predicted. All the headlines used virtually the same wording, clearly showing how the media were treating the story. A typical example was, “Boy of six commits suicide? Actress Kyoko Igarashi’s only son dies.”

  The question mark indicated the doubt as to whether a six-year-old child really could commit suicide, while the fact that they expressly mentioned her by name indicated the status of the story as celebrity gossip.

  Tasaka was in the office reading the reports in the papers.

  Of course, there was nothing in any of the papers to suggest the possibility of murder. And almost all had included a photo of Kyoko beside herself with grief. The overall tone was one of melodrama. This was also just as Tasaka had predicted. The mass media was fêting her as a tragic heroine.

  Tasaka threw down a paper and looked out of the window. The snow that had been falling steadily all day and night had at last stopped, and the morning sun shining through the window was dazzling.

  He rose to his feet saying he would pay a visit on Kyoko Igarashi, while Ono warned him, “Don’t overdo things.” Tasaka was well aware of Ono’s concern that he might be too heavy-handed, but he merely replied, “I won’t,” and left.

  It was almost ten o’clock. He had expected there to be a media scrum around Kyoko Igarashi’s house, yet when he arrived there was no sign of it.

  He rang the bell and the same young maid as before stuck her head out to say that the actress was not at home.

  “NTV sent a car around to take Sensei to the studio,” she told him. That would explain the absence of any media around the house, but he was outraged that Kyoko could calmly carry on with her television work the day after the death of her only son. It merely convinced him even more that yesterday’s tears had been all show.

  That’s one to me, Tasaka told himself.

  “Did she really warn her son not to eat those rat poison pellets?” he asked the maid.

  “Why would you ask such a thing?” she retorted with studied formality, her face rigid. She had probably been cautioned by Kyoko Igarashi to watch what she said.

  “I’m just asking. So?”

  “Sensei loved her son very much.”

  “That’s not an answer. I asked about the rat poison.”

  “There’s no reason she wouldn’t have warned him.”

  “But you did not actually witness her do so?”

  “But—”

  “That’s all I wanted to know.” Tasaka turned on his heel and walked off, ignoring the maid’s protests.

  He arrived at the NTV studios in Kojimachi to find Kyoko Igarashi busy with a drama series due to start in the middle of the following month.

  He decided to wait for her outside studio number two where the “On Air” sign was lit up. A group of showbiz reporters was sitting nearby, also evidently waiting for her. Feigning indifference Tasaka listened in on their gossip.

  “She’s done pretty well out of her kid’s death, hasn’t she?”

  “It sure landed her the lead role in this TV drama.”

  “I heard it was all set to go to Fujiko Arakawa.”

  “Yeah. The thing is that her acting is great, but she’s not all that well known and that worried the TV station bosses.”

  “And then this goes and happens. A widow loses her only son— it’s exactly what the drama series is about, isn’t it? If it’s covered in all the big papers, it’ll be full marks on the promotion front.”

  “Then I heard the director called her up late last night.”

  “What I heard was that he actually drove over to her place in heavy snow and begged her to take it.”

  “I’ll bet she jumped at it.”

  “Of course she did. This drama will likely be broadcast during the Sunday golden hour. If the audience ratings are good, she’ll be an overnight star.”

  “But she’s just lost her only son! Wasn’t she a bit reluctant to start work on the drama the very next day?”

  “That’s an ordinary person’s way of thinking. Celebrities are a different breed—even if their old man was kicked to death, they’d find a way to benefit from the situation. And she had money problems, too.”

  “She was short of money?”

  “Pretty bad, from what I heard. You don’t make much money from scandals.”

  They all burst into gales of laughter. Just then, the “On Air” sign went out. They all got up en masse, opened the heavy door to the studio and went in.

  Tasaka did not immediately follow them, but sat for a while replaying their conversation in his mind.

  To some extent, lies were part and parcel of showbiz reporting, but it was unlikely that all of what they said was just irresponsible talk; they were generally alert to people’s secrets. Even the rumor about Kyoko Igarashi being in financial difficulty probably had some basis in fact. If so, it might well have some bearing on this case.

  Having thought this much, Tasaka got to his feet and went into the studio.

  In the studio they were holding a press conference for the cast, who were still in full costume. At the center of it all, dressed in a subdued kimono, sat Kyoko Igarashi amidst a shower of camera flashes.

  Tasaka stood at a distance from the crowd and for a while observed her being interviewed.

  The interview appeared to be drawing to a close. She had tended to look down while answering questions, but now, raising her eyes she caught sight of Tasaka. A momentary expression of confusion mixed with panic crossed her face. The reporters also apparently noticed it, for a number of faces turned in Tasaka’s direction following her gaze.

  As if to put them off, Tasaka approached and told them, stony faced, “I’m from the police. If you’ve finished your interview, I’d like to ask a few questions of my own.”

  “So what are the police investigating?” The reporters surrounded Tasaka, undisguised curiosity showing on their faces.

  “It has nothing to do with you lot,” Tasaka said sharply to keep them away.

  Kyoko Igarashi glared furiously at Tasaka. “Come over here,” she said, dragging him to a corner of the studio.

  The reporters refrained from following, but they huddled together and watched intently from a distance.

  “Why did you come barging in here?” demanded Kyoko, her face pale. “My life depends on this job. If any weird rumors start, it’ll ruin everything.”

  “I went to your home but was told you were at work, so I had no choice but to come here. It never occurred to me you’d be working the day after your only son’s death,” said Tasaka with heavy irony.

  “Are you being sarcastic?” asked Kyoko, her eyes stern.

  “I’m only stating the obvious. But then it seems that common sense doesn’t work in your world, does it?”

  “I’m an actress. However sad I’m feeling, I have to work, if only for all my fans. I’m different from ordinary people.”

  “I heard you got the job on this drama thanks to your son’s death.” Tasaka knew he was being nasty.

  “Are you saying I should have turned it down?” Kyoko’s voice became shrill.

  “No,” answered Tasaka curtly, his face as calm as ever. “I’m impressed that you are capable of putting in a good performance. Most would be utterly incapable of doing so. By the way, did you really warn your son not to eat the rat poison?”

  “Of course I did. I’m his mother!”

  “Have you any proof?”

&nb
sp; “Proof?” Her face crumpled. Her slender fingers clutching the sleeve of her kimono trembled. “Are you saying that I’m to blame for my son’s death?”

  “As a police officer, I just want to know the facts.”

  “I warned my son. Now please leave!”

  “The proof?”

  “I’ve got proof!”

  “Your maid didn’t know about it.”

  “There’s the worker from the Public Health Office who brought the poison. My son came back from preschool just after he arrived and he warned him about it. Ask him—he’ll confirm it. Unfortunately for you, I suppose.”

  Tasaka deliberately ignored the gibe, commenting “I guess I’d better go and ask at the health office, then.”

  Kyoko stamped her feet impatiently. “If you’re quite finished, then can I ask you to leave? I have to go over to STV now.”

  “You’re in hot demand, aren’t you?”

  “Anything wrong with that?”

  “No, well, I’ll just ask one more thing before I clear off. Is it true that you’re having financial problems?”

  “Whoever told you such a thing?” The color drained from Kyoko’s face. Tasaka grinned. It seemed it was true. He had found a weak point of hers, although he did not yet know how to connect it to the crime.

  “I just heard a rumor.”

  At that moment, a young girl who looked like a fledgling actress called over, “Igarashi Sensei!”

  Kyoko glanced over at her and then said dryly, “That was all, then?” Without waiting for an answer, she walked quickly out of the studio.

  Igarashi Sensei, is it? Tasaka watched her go with a wry smile. If it transpired that she had indeed killed her six-year-old son, then nobody would be calling her Sensei much longer.

  A visitor had arrived for Detective Tasaka, so Ono went to reception to meet him in his place.

  The man was about forty, and wore a moustache. After glancing sharply at Ono through his thick glasses, he said, “I have come on behalf of Kyoko Igarashi.” He proffered his business card, upon which was written “Ichiro Yoshimuta, Director, ABC Productions.”

  Already? thought Ono, bracing himself.