Detective Maki raised his eyebrows. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Nina. She’s a psychiatrist from Norway.’
He took off his overcoat and put it on the back of the chair. ‘Very nice!’
I hadn’t seen him close up since that time he came to the house. But he was older than I remembered and as he sat down he sighed. ‘You want to be mum?’
I poured the tea and he took out his notebook. Then he opened a file and looked at it. ‘Did they tell you I was coming?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s just a formality before we close the case. You want to get it out the way?’
‘Sure.’
He took a slurp of his tea. ‘Hey, can I see the scar?’
I stood up and raised my T-shirt. He cringed and looked away. ‘Sorry I asked!’
I sat down and he looked at me as though wondering what sort of kid I was. Then he picked up his notebook and got started. ‘OK, here we go. Did you kill anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘Did you have an accomplice?’
‘No.’
‘Were you paid by anyone to do what you did?’
‘No.’
‘Did anyone put you up to it? Or incite you in any way to commit murder?’
‘No.’
He made a note in his notepad and picked up his tea. ‘No. I know they didn’t.’
‘So why did you come?’
‘A final humiliation before I fade into retirement.’
‘I don’t understand. You were the one who found me, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, but I was also the one who had interviewed you. And in my report I stated that no further questioning would be required.’ He shook his head. ‘What was I supposed to think? I spoke to your grandmother, and I asked her: had you ever become violent, did you own a samurai sword, and would you know how to use one if you did? To all three questions she said no. She even said she stayed up late and would definitely have heard you if you went out. I mean, if it was just the Kako killing I would have suspected she was lying, because you were Miko’s boyfriend. But like everyone else, my superiors included, I thought the Psycho Killer was a professional assassin.’
‘But you followed me to the cemetery that day. And you spoke to Natsuko.’
‘My wife’s buried there! And it was Obon, don’t forget. And I spoke to the nun because she knew the twins. And even she said you were a good kid. No, there’s no way I could have known, but you try telling my superiors that! They must really believe that every detective has a sixth sense.’ He looked angry then and he was quiet for a time. Then he looked at the door. ‘Hey, kid, you mind if I smoke?’
‘No.’
‘They’ve got no-smoking signs all over the place. What do they expect you to do? Go outside and freeze.’ He got up and looked through the gap in the door like a schoolkid. Then he lit up.
‘So how did you know it was me?’
He chuckled as he sat down. ‘We questioned over three hundred yakuza, but no one knew anything. I mean, gangsters always tell you they know nothing. But after a while it dawned on me that they didn’t. The night after you hit Uncle Benni’s I stayed late at the office. I just couldn’t get it out of my head! And so I went back to the drawing board. Who was the first victim? Kako. Who had a motive to kill Kako? You. But that was a dead end because there was nothing connecting you to the rest of the murders. But I’d had a couple of drinks, and for some reason, I don’t know why, I googled your name. A dojo came up, and searching the site I found a photograph of you. A picture can often reveal things that hide in real life. You were wearing your body armour and holding your headset. As soon as I saw it, I felt sure that you were the Psycho Killer. But when I enlarged that photograph I knew you were.’ His eyes fixed on mine. ‘There was just something of the killer about you!’ He took a long drag on his cigarette and drank some tea. ‘I got my boss out of bed and told him I needed an armed unit. I mean, I’d seen what you’d done at Uncle Benni’s. There was no way I was going to arrest you by myself.’
‘And so you were a hero.’
‘Are you kidding? I was reprimanded. I never even got credit for the arrest! Ah, to hell with them. I’m retiring in three days and I can’t wait. Heading down to Okinawa. Bought a nice little place by the beach. And it’s so quiet down there, you know. For close to forty years I’ve been a cop in Tokyo. All those people! I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to the peace and quiet.’ Then he shivered. ‘Boy it’s cold in here!’ He got up and put on his overcoat. ‘You should see them about some heat.’
‘I’m OK.’
‘Anyway, where were we up to?’ He sat down, and opening the file he read from it. ‘“Yukio claims that he was standing up for the Buraku, because they are persecuted in Japan.” Do you still stand by that?’
‘No. But I do think they are persecuted.’
‘They’re not persecuted, Yukio. They are discriminated against. It’s a different thing. But times are changing and things are getting better for them.’
‘But if you found out that Hiroshi threw the brick then—’
‘Then he would have been arrested. And he would have faced the same justice as a regular Japanese. Look, if there was anyone attacking the Buraku in the street I’d be the first to arrest them. But that’s just not the case.’ He went back to reading the file. ‘It says here: “Yukio had a mental breakdown after the death of his friends and came to believe he was a samurai reborn. He also believes he was consumed by chi energy, which gave him the power to strike down his enemies.”’ He looked up at me. ‘You still believe that?’
‘No.’
He made a note in his notebook. ‘Good, because that wasn’t chi energy you were consumed by, Yukio, that was hatred. And I’ll tell you something about hatred.’ He took a long drag on his cigarette and thought about the best way to put it. ‘When my wife was alive I loved her. It was absolute and final. But hatred has no end. It’s an abyss as vast as the universe. And no matter how many people you killed you never would have filled it. You’re lucky we caught you when we did. You went from being an avenging angel, to a vigilante, to a cold-blooded killer. What would you have done next, Yukio? Joined the Red Brigade? Released nerve gas on the Tokyo subway?’
‘I’m no terrorist!’
‘No? I’m sorry to tell you this, kid, but that’s exactly what you are!’
I felt some of that old hatred boil up. ‘I was trying to stand up for the people!’
‘Tell it to the family of the cop you killed! Or that guy outside the Mitsubishi Building who you thought was the director. Or the guy you gunned down in the street because he got in your way! You can’t go around killing people, Yukio. And I see from the file that your heroes are the samurai swordsmen Musashi and Bokuden. Don’t you know that their way is over? And let me tell you something else, kid – if they were alive today, they’d be in here with you. They were a pair of psychopaths.’
‘I’m not a psychopath.’
‘You’re not evil either. But you don’t have to be evil to commit an evil act. Good people do it every day.’
‘The yakuza do evil things!’
‘I’ve never known a yakuza to kill a Buddhist nun.’
I felt bad about that and he knew it.
‘Look, Yukio, if the yakuza weren’t there we’d have foreign gangs selling drugs outside schools.’
‘You sound like you agree with them.’
He sucked on his cigarette and thought about it. ‘It might sound strange, coming from a cop, but I do. You see, in every society there’s crime. We have one of the lowest crime rates in the world for two reasons: one is because we’re brought up with Shinto morals that teach us to put the community before ourselves; the other is because the yakuza keep crime under control.’
‘But they mix with politicians.’
‘And by the same degree, politics merges with their world. They know that certain things will be tolerated. But if they step out of line we’ll have them!’
>
We were quiet then. All you could hear was the wind howling.
Then he smiled a little. ‘I’ll bow down to you in one way, kid. It took real guts going into Uncle Benni’s like that. And facing that Yama. I wouldn’t have liked to have met him at a police convention, let alone a dark night!’
I tried not to feel it, but some of the old pride came back.
‘I saw the aftermath. What a battle that must have been! The only one you didn’t kill was Uncle Benni, and now he’s dead.’
‘Dead?’
‘Gunned down outside an Italian restaurant, of all places. And you know who killed him, don’t you? … Matsu! Revenge for her brothers Tomi and that other one whose name I can never remember. She must have been sitting in her padded cell planning it for months.’
‘I didn’t know she was out.’
‘She’s not only out, she’s running things! For the first time ever the yakuza have a woman boss. They should never have given them the vote, if you ask me. But she has all of the Yamamotos behind her, and the rest of the clans are falling in line just to avoid an all-out war.’ Then he looked happy. ‘But I tell you, kid, that’s a fine-looking woman. She’s forty and she’s still got it. I interviewed her once. She has the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen, darkest heart too. She’s cutting heads off all over the place – you’re lucky you’re in here. But boy what a good-looking woman. I wouldn’t be frightened of going down to Okinawa if she’d come with me.’
He looked sorry as soon as he said it. And then he looked a little sad.
‘I don’t know. I went down there last week. It’s so quiet. I sat outside my small house and watched the sea. And all of a sudden I felt frightened. You hear about it all the time. Men who’ve worked all their lives, and within a few years of retirement they’re dead. Funny, isn’t it? I’ve dealt in death for twenty years as a homicide detective. And now I have to go down to Okinawa and wait for it to come for me.’ He looked tired then and he stared down at the table.
‘You might meet someone,’ I said.
He looked up at me and tried to smile. ‘Thanks, kid. But chance would be a fine thing … Anyway, I’ll have to get going if I’m gonna catch that sleeper back to Tokyo.’
He drank the last of his tea and collected his things. ‘Well, I probably won’t see you again, Yukio, but I hope things turn out for you, despite what you’ve done. Who knows – they might let you out one day.’ But then he cringed because he knew that they wouldn’t.
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I hope things work out for you in Okinawa.’
‘I hope so too. Goodbye, Yukio.’ He turned to leave but then he saw my photographs on the wall. He looked at the one that Yoshe took of me, Mikazuki and Grandmother, the night we went to dinner. ‘Hey, whatever happened to your little friend? Tummy Trouble?’
I felt sad when he asked me that, I really did. But then all of a sudden I felt uplifted. ‘She’s safe and well,’ I said.
He looked relieved. ‘I’m glad.’
I bowed to him as he left and surprisingly he bowed back.
Then Lee came. ‘You OK?’
‘Sure.’
‘We’ll play backgammon later,’ he said, and locking the door he walked back down the corridor.
I returned to the window and watched Detective Maki make his way through the main gate. I hope things do turn out for him. I really do. I watched the setting sun turn Mount Shokanbetsu a glowing orange colour. It was as nice a sunset as you’d ever see – ‘Beautiful!’ as the Lump would say. Sometimes I dream of her. I see her running through a field of flowers that seems to be floating in butterflies. She comes to the side of a hill where the twins and Natsuko are having a picnic, and kneeling down she starts to eat. It’s such a beautiful dream and it’s so nice to see them all happy. But I am never in the dream. And I don’t think I ever will be. I’ve built up too much bad karma to be with them.
But they’re all long gone now in that summertime of the dead, and I am left alive, if alive is what you can call it. Because I know I will never run in Yoyogi Park. Or see the cherry blossoms bloom in my beautiful Tokyo. Never again will I ride my bike through the bright lights of Shinjuku, or compete in a kendo competition. That life is over for me, and rightly so. I know I deserve to be in here. But when the sun sinks and the darkness comes I can’t help but be filled with sorrow. Because I view the world now through steel bars, wire mesh and reinforced glass. As though life is something I look at rather than live.
Summertime of the Dead Page 21