The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories

by Kyotaro Nishimura

  “Excuse me, but are you Detective Tasaka?” asked Ichiro Yoshimuta.

  “No,” replied Ono. “He’s out on an investigation at the moment. I’m his colleague, Detective Ono.”

  “Well, please tell him when he returns to stop harassing her.”

  “Harassing?” Ono’s expression wavered.

  Yoshimuta continued unperturbed, “It’s clearly suicide, yet the police are still sniffing around as if there was something more to it. Look, show business is all about popularity ratings, so it’s causing us a lot of bother.”

  “We don’t know that it’s suicide, you know,” said Ono.

  “It is suicide. There was even a suicide note, wasn’t there? Didn’t you see it yourself?” pressed Yoshimuta.

  “Yes, I saw it,” replied Ono. “But there remains some doubt as to whether a six-year-old child is capable of committing suicide. So we are investigating, just in case.”

  “But Detective Tasaka’s method of investigating seems to be to interrogate Kyoko Igarashi as if she herself had killed her own child.”

  “Surely not.”

  “It’s true—just now she came to me in floods of tears to tell me about it. Detective Tasaka came barging in on her while she was at work at a TV station and started treating her like a criminal right under the noses of a bunch of reporters there. This is absolutely going too far.”

  Shit, thought Ono. He really was overdoing it. This was not officially a murder case, and there was not even an incident room set up for it. In other words, it was an under-the-table investigation. They should be treading warily, yet here was Tasaka aggressively confronting the woman head on.

  Apparently emboldened by Ono’s silence, Yoshimuta continued, “Show business is precarious, and if any weird rumors got around it could be fatal. I really must ask you to consider this. If anything like this happens again, we will have no choice but to defend ourselves and take legal action against Detective Tasaka. Please tell him that,” he added threateningly.

  When Yoshimuta had left, Ono went to report to the Chief and said, “I would like to pay a visit to Ueno police station.”

  With arms folded, the Chief considered this and then queried, “You mean, to find out about Detective Tasaka?”

  “Yes. I happen to have a friend from my police academy days stationed there; he’s bound to know something. Tasaka’s behavior on this case is really unlike him. If he carries on like this, things are bound to end badly. I’m concerned about him. If I can just find out why he’s behaving like he is, I think I’ll be able to help him.”

  “You’re probably right. Okay, you’d better get going,” replied the Chief.

  Ono made his way through the slush-filled streets to Ueno with a heavy heart. He was about to inquire into Tasaka’s secrets. Even if he was doing it for a good reason, to help Tasaka, there was nothing pleasant about it.

  His old friend Detective Yokoi looked pleased to see Ono as he came out to greet him. It had been four years. After catching up with each other’s latest news, Ono said casually, “I’m partnered with Detective Tasaka these days. He was here before, wasn’t he?”

  “Tasaka?” repeated Yokoi. “Ah, right, Detective Tasaka.” He smiled. “He’s extremely trustworthy, isn’t he? A very serious man.”

  “Yes. But there’s something that’s worrying me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How come he’s still single? He’s already thirty, after all.”

  “Why? Have you got a bride in mind for him?”

  “Well, you know…” said Ono evasively. “I heard that he was married before, but is that true?”

  “It’s true. But they didn’t get along. In the end they split up— even though they had a child.”

  “A child?” Ono was surprised. Given Tasaka’s behavior during this case, he had assumed that he did not have any children of his own.

  “She was a really cute little girl.” A shadow passed over Yokoi’s face.

  “Did she die?”

  “Yes. It was a horrible death, too. Tasaka’s never been the same since.”

  “How did she die?”

  “His wife was a bit flashy. After their daughter was born, she had an affair with a TV celebrity. And she went running after him, leaving the kid behind. She’d always wanted to be in showbiz, or something. The day she left, Detective Tasaka was busy with a murder investigation. The little girl—she was two and a half at the time—apparently tried to follow her mother, but fell down a drain. She couldn’t get out again, and she died down there.”

  “Did she know her daughter had died?”

  “Probably not,” Yokoi continued, “And don’t say anything of what I’ve told you to Detective Tasaka.’’

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” responded Ono.

  Ono felt he now understood why Tasaka was so abnormally interested in the current case, and why he was so quick to judge it as murder. Deep in his heart, this case must be superimposed on his own daughter’s death and his wife’s betrayal. But the knowledge did not lighten Ono’s heart at all— in fact it made it heavier.

  The official at the Public Health Office could not recall whether he had warned Kyoko Igarashi’s son about the rat poison or not. His evasiveness emboldened Tasaka further. It seemed increasingly possible that it was murder.

  By the time he left the Public Health Office, the sun was high in the sky and the snow was quickly melting. This morning the landscape had been pure white, but now it was converted into grubby slush.

  Bit like Kyoko Igarashi, Tasaka told himself repeatedly as he headed for the kindergarten attended by Kyoko’s son. She might be beautiful on the surface, but inside she was full of filth. So much so that she had sacrificed her own child without a qualm. Just like Misako, the wife that had abandoned Tasaka.

  A “Closed” sign hung outside the kindergarten, no doubt due to the snow, but the headmistress and a teacher were there so he was able to ask about the dead child.

  “It seems he was very attached to his deceased father,” commented Tasaka.

  “Oh yes,” nodded the teacher. “Whenever we do drawing, he always does a picture of an airplane, and then explains that it’s Daddy’s jetliner. He really loved his father.”

  “What about his mother?”

  “You mean Kyoko Igarashi?”

  “Yes. Did he ever draw pictures of his mother?”

  “If he was told to draw one, yes.”

  “Only then?

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it usual for small children to draw pictures of their mothers?”

  “Yes, well…” Suddenly the teacher became vague, apparently worried that Tasaka might infer something from what she said.

  “What did you think when you heard about the suicide?”

  She seemed relieved at the change of subject. “I was shocked!”

  “Just that? Didn’t you think it was odd? Weren’t you a little doubtful as to whether a six-year-old child would commit suicide?” The teacher clammed up at Tasaka’s barrage of questions. He turned to the middle-aged headmistress. “What do you think?” he queried. “Is there any record of a six-year-old child having committed suicide?”

  “In this country, the youngest recorded suicide was actually seven years old.” The headmistress, a slim woman, spoke in sincere tones.

  “Not six, right?”

  “Right. Only—”

  “Only what?”

  “With children it is very difficult to judge whether a death is suicide or not. There’s rarely any suicide note, unlike with adults. And there are cases abroad of suicide at age six.”

  “However, in Japan, the youngest suicide on record was at age seven,” insisted Tasaka. Statistics didn’t lie, he reasoned with himself. According to the statistics in Japan, the youngest suicide on record was at age seven, so wasn’t that proof that it was strange for a six-year-old to have killed himself?

  One more to me, he thought as he left the kindergarten. One step at a time, he would track down
the proof of murder: he repeated this over and over to himself as he walked through the slushy streets.

  Later that night, however, on his way back to the home that lay empty with nobody waiting for him, his fervor gave way to a profound weariness. He himself did not know why. As he climbed the dark concrete staircase to his apartment, he even began to feel there was no point in hounding down Kyoko Igarashi. He shook his head lightly in confusion. Wouldn’t it be just as futile as chasing after his own wife when she had left him?

  Get a grip! Tasaka grimaced at himself. He already had the door key ready in his hand when he noticed with a start that there was a light on inside.

  The door was unlocked, too. It was no laughing matter for a detective’s home to be burgled. Bracing himself, he took a deep breath and opened the door, then stood rooted to the spot, stunned.

  There, in the small room, was Misako, the wife who had walked out on him two years earlier.

  She looked up at Tasaka with a tearful smile. “Welcome home,” she said hoarsely.

  Tasaka hastily shut the door. A savage feeling welled up in his chest. He wanted to hit her, hard. But instead he stared at her, his eyes cold. He did not restrain himself out of any kindness to her, but because he was scared that if he did hit her, he might end up forgiving her.

  “Why are you here?” he asked still standing there, his voice emotionless. Misako wore heavy makeup, but beneath it he could see she was looking haggard.

  “I want to apologize to you,” she said. “Please forgive me.”

  “You’re saying it to the wrong person, aren’t you? What about that TV star beau of yours?”

  “Don’t talk about that man—”

  “He dumped you, then?”

  Tears welled up in Misako’s trademark huge eyes. It was no exaggeration to say that Tasaka had been charmed by those beautiful eyes and had married her for them. He felt himself vacillate and chewed his lip.

  “Do you think it serves me right?”

  “Yeah,” he said curtly. “Any reason I shouldn’t?”

  “No. Everyone thinks so,” she said meekly, then looked around the room. “Where is she? Let me see Mika.”

  “Mika’s not here.”

  “Not here?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, dead.” Tasaka felt the rage building up inside him all over again, and his voice turned rough. “Mika died the same day you ran off. By the time I got home from work, she was already dead. She went after you and fell in a gutter, and couldn’t climb out again. She was only two! When I pulled her out, she was curled up like a fetus, dead. You killed her.”

  For a moment Misako stared into space, her eyes hollow. Then, all of a sudden, she collapsed in tears. Tasaka watched her back quivering, before abruptly storming out of the apartment and into the night.

  He had no clear memory of where or how he had walked. When he returned to his apartment, still not in charge of himself, his legs were covered with mud up to his knees.

  The light was still on inside. But there was no sign of Misako.

  Ono was taken aback at Tasaka’s appearance. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and he clearly had not had enough sleep.

  “You’re looking rough,” he commented, worried. “Is the investigation going badly?”

  “Not at all. I’ll have conclusive evidence of murder within two or three days,” Tasaka responded, his expression grim. Ono felt the defensive hunch of his shoulders belied his confidence.

  “Hey, take it easy,” he said, but Tasaka rushed out the door without replying.

  Ono felt uneasy. Tasaka’s attitude to this case had been abnormal from the start, and today it was excessively so. Had something happened last night?

  This is looking bad, he thought. Just the fact that Tasaka was not pursuing Kyoko Igarashi purely out of a sense of justice was dangerous. If he went too far, it could prove fatal to him. Wouldn’t it be best to go after Tasaka and take him off the case?

  Ono was in two minds about it. He started to get up, but just then the telephone rang beside him. He picked it up.

  “This is K—— Hospital. May I speak to Detective Tasaka?” A woman spoke urgently, her voice dry.

  “Hospital?” echoed Ono, then added, “Detective Tasaka is out at present. May I ask what it’s about?”

  “Well, when he comes back, please tell him that his wife is in hospital. She attempted suicide.”

  “Attempted suicide?” Ono instantly recalled what he had heard from Detective Yokoi at Ueno police station. It must be the wife who had run off with that TV celebrity. But why on earth would she have tried to kill herself?

  After hanging up, Ono tried to think where Tasaka might have gone, but he had no idea. Waiting impatiently for him to return, Ono began fretting about going to the hospital himself. He wanted to know what sort of woman Tasaka’s wife was.

  The hospital was in Aoyama. On the door of the third-floor room, there was a brand new name tag “Misako Tasaka.”

  When he opened the door and went in, a middle-aged nurse warned “Quietly!” in a low voice. “Are you her husband?”

  “No, a friend,” replied Ono.

  Misako Tasaka lay with her eyes closed, asleep. It occurred to Ono that her pale face actually resembled that of Kyoko Igarashi.

  According to the nurse, Misako had been found under a tree in the outer gardens of Meiji Jingu shrine, having taken an overdose of sleeping pills. She had been found quickly, so they had pumped her stomach and managed to save her life.

  “A while ago she came to, and kept calling out her husband’s name,” added the nurse.

  Ono sat with his arms folded, watching Misako sleep. There was no way that he, an outsider, could know why she had tried to kill herself. But he imagined that if things between Tasaka and her had gone well, then Tasaka would not be behaving like he was now. According to what Detective Yokoi had told him, she had left her husband and daughter, but to Ono’s eyes she didn’t look like that sort of woman at all. She looked very ordinary. Maybe it was because she was so ordinary that she had become infatuated?

  Suddenly Misako opened her eyes wide. For a while she gazed at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused, but eventually she noticed Ono at her bedside and absently turned her gaze to him.

  “Tasaka will be here soon,” said Ono, looking closely at her. “My name is Ono, I work with him.”

  Misako just looked at Ono with her vacant eyes, apparently not yet completely recovered from the effect of the drug. From her expression he could tell that her consciousness was gradually becoming clearer.

  “Did you meet Tasaka last night?” Ono said what was on his mind. It was the only reason he could think of to explain Tasaka’s unnatural appearance this morning.

  “Tasaka…” Her voice caught in her throat. “He won’t forgive me!”

  “You know, he’s a kind man at heart,” Ono smiled at her. He hoped he was right. Not for her sake, but for Tasaka’s own sake. If Tasaka could forgive his wife, he would also probably be able to take a more tolerant, reasonable attitude towards Kyoko Igarashi. “I’ll bring him here,” he added, trying to set her mind at rest.

  Meanwhile, Tasaka had at last caught up with Kyoko Igarashi in a restaurant in Ginza. She was with an overweight, middle-aged man, but as soon as Tasaka approached, the man rose slowly to his feet and left the restaurant.

  Kyoko glared at Tasaka, her eyes fierce. “What do you want now?” Her voice shook. Her face was a blend of fury and scorn, but Tasaka also detected a note of fear. She was frightened. Indeed, having the truth exposed was scary.

  “I just want you to tell me the truth,” said Tasaka slowly, deliberately needling her. He lit up a cigarette.

  “But I’ve already told you the truth!” Kyoko’s voice became shrill.

  Tasaka shook his head. “A six-year-old’s suicide? Whoever would believe such a thing!”

  “But it’s true. You saw his suicide note yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Do you
really expect the police to credit something like that?” Tasaka gave a snort of laughter. “I know what you did. That child had become a nuisance to you. A child of six is extremely gullible, especially with someone as close to him as his mother. No doubt you used that. If you just kept telling him that if he ate these pellets, he would be able to go to join his father in Heaven, a child of six would believe you, wouldn’t he? Small children don’t have any clear image of death. He would just believe that if he ate those pellets, he’d be able to meet his father.”

  “Are you saying that I killed my son?” Kyoko’s lip quivered.

  Tasaka slowly stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray before asking, “Didn’t you?”

  “I shall instruct my lawyer to file a complaint against you. I will not tolerate you treating me like a murderer.”

  “Be my guest,” said Tasaka curtly.

  Kyoko rose to her feet with a clatter and ran out of the restaurant. The other customers and the waitresses stared after her in astonishment.

  Instead of following her, Tasaka instead caught one of the waitresses and quizzed her about the man who had been with Kyoko.

  “Actually, he’s the boss of a real estate agency,” the waitress told him. She could not say what kind of relationship Kyoko had with him, but Tasaka felt it would probably be worth meeting him.

  Saijo Real Estate in Yotsuya was easy to find. It was not one of the usual small neighborhood offices plastered with ads, but a fine three-storied building.

  Mr. Saijo looked at Tasaka, then commented with a smile, “We met a while ago in that restaurant in Ginza, didn’t we?” When Tasaka mentioned Kyoko Igarashi’s name, he said simply, “Yes, I know her well. A friend introduced me to her in a nightclub. I’m still single despite my age, so I was keen to get to know her.”

  “How close are you?”

  “She asked me to marry her,” he grinned. He seemed part proud, part bashful.

  “Oh!” said Taguchi, his eyes wide. “And when was that?”

  “A couple of weeks ago. She was more enamored of my fortune than of me personally, for sure. She’s pretty hard up, it seems.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “She told me herself. She didn’t have much work, and with no money coming in, things were pretty tough.”