by David Peace
‘I understand that,’ I tell the chief. ‘Then would it be possible for me to speak with former Chief Inspector Mori…’
‘You know where Mori is?’ laughs the chief –
The Matsuzawa Hospital for the Insane …
‘Yes, but I thought he might still…’
I don’t want to remember …
‘And I thought you would have seen enough of that place…’
The blood-flecked scroll on the wall behind his desk …
‘Inspector Mori might know what happened…’
But in the half-light, I can’t forget…
‘What happened is in the file. What he knew is in the file. There are no shortcuts, detective. Not any more,’ says the chief –
The best friend my father ever had …
‘Now go back to your men –
‘Go back to your men,’ he shouts. ‘And lead your men!’
*
I do not take a different route back to Atago today. I take the same route I took two days ago. I take the same route past the bar in the basement of the three-storey reinforced concrete shell –
I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to …
I walk down the stairs but the door is closed today. I turn the handle and the door opens. I step inside the bar but the room is pitch-black. I look around the place but everything is rubble and ruin. I turn round and I go back up the stairs. I stand at the top of the stairs in the harsh white daylight, finding my bearings –
But everything looks the same …
The concrete shell, the blown-out rooms, the exposed girders. The young man still in his uniform who asks, ‘You lost something?’
‘There was a bar here,’ I tell him. ‘What happened to it?’
‘Can’t you guess?’ laughs the man. ‘A bomb fell on it.’
‘No, no, no,’ I say. ‘I was only here two days ago…’
‘You’ve got the wrong place then,’ he says. ‘This was one of those People’s Bars. More than a hundred people were trapped and burned alive in there when the building took a direct hit…’
‘But I was here two days ago,’ I tell him again.
‘Well, you were drinking with ghosts then.’
I stand in the harsh white daylight –
In the harsh white daylight –
‘Is your watch broken, sir?’
The daylight which looks like raindrops. The raindrops good upon my face. My face to the sky. The sky blue not grey, high not low across the city. The city standing tall and shining bright in a neon night. A neon night reflected on my face. My face wet with the raindrops. The raindrops nothing but my tears. My tears in the daylight. The city fallen and drab, the sky grey and low –
‘You were drinking with ghosts then…’
Fallen and drab, grey and low –
Now he shows me the watch …
In that harsh white daylight –
It still says twelve o’clock.
*
I am late, yet again. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi is standing on the steps outside Atago police station. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi is looking for me. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi is waiting for me. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi wants a word. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi looks like shit. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi looks like he hasn’t slept. I am looking in a mirror. Detective Nishi telling me, ‘Kodaira Yoshio has a mistress. Near Meguro…’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Masaoka told me.’
‘Told you when?’
‘Last night,’ he says. ‘When I took her back to her room.’
‘Why didn’t she mention it before? At the station?’
‘She didn’t think it was of any importance.’
I look at him. I ask, ‘Did you fuck her?’
He looks away. He shakes his head –
‘You’re a bad liar, Nishi-kun.’
He starts to speak. He stops.
‘Did you pay her for it?’
‘I bought her a meal,’ says Nishi. ‘I bought her some drinks. I gave her a pack of cigarettes.’
‘And now that’s all your money gone until the end of the month,’ I say. ‘All your food and all your cigarettes…’
Nishi looks away again. Nishi nods.
I take out one hundred yen from my trouser pocket. I stuff it into his shirt pocket. I say, ‘And you got a screw and a break in the case. Well done, detective…’
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Are you going to tell Chief Inspector Kanehara and Detective Inspector Kai about this mistress?’
‘No,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll go and bring her in ourselves.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ says Nishi and then he adds, ‘There was one other thing; about the Miyazaki Mitsuko file –’
‘What about it?’ I snap. ‘What?’
‘I think I know who took it –’
‘Who?’ I ask. ‘Who…?’
‘I was thinking about that day,’ he says. ‘The day of the case, the day of the surrender last year. Only Detective Fujita and –’
‘You think Detective Fujita took the file?’
‘Well, I didn’t even go to the scene of the crime,’ he says. ‘And so I had no idea there was even a Metro file on the case. But Detective Fujita was there. Detective Fujita would have known…’
‘So you think Fujita signed the file out using your name?’
Nishi nods. ‘Who else could it have been?’
‘Detective Fujita’s face is well known,’ I tell him. ‘The duty officer wouldn’t record your name instead…’
‘Unless he had an incentive,’ says Nishi. ‘Or unless Fujita used a stooge to sign for it using my name.’
‘A stooge?’ I ask. ‘Like who?’
‘Detective Ishida, maybe.’
‘Have you spoken to Ishida about the Miyazaki file yet?’
Nishi shakes his head. ‘I wanted to speak to you first.’
‘Good man,’ I tell him. ‘Now leave it to me.’
But Nishi won’t leave it to me. Now Nishi says, ‘Yet I still don’t understand why Detective Fujita would want that file –’
‘I’ll find out,’ I say. ‘So you forget the file now.’
‘But you do believe it wasn’t me who took it?’
I nod. I say, ‘Only because you’re such a bad liar, detective.’
*
Back up the stairs. Lead your men. Lead your men. Back to the borrowed second-floor room. I must see Ishida. Back to the questions and the doubts in their eyes. Lead your men. Lead your men. Back to the dissent and the hate. I must find that file. But there’s no drop in temperature here. Lead your men. Lead your men. No change in circumstances. No Ishida. No file. This room is still an oven, their breakfast still zōsui; zōsui still their only meal. Lead your men. Lead your men. Unwashed and unshaven, they have not seen their wives or their children, their lovers or their bastards, in well over a week –
Lead your men! Lead your men! Lead your men …
Sanada, Hattori, Takeda, Shimoda, Nishi and Kimura; I count my men again and then ask them, ‘Where is Detective Ishida?’
They shrug their shoulders. They shake their heads –
I say to Takeda, ‘I thought he was with you.’
‘He was yesterday,’ says Takeda.
‘He was with you all day?’
‘Yesterday, he was…’
‘What about today?’
Detective Takeda shakes his head. Takeda looks at the others. Takeda says, ‘Not today.’
The other detectives shake their heads again. The others agree, ‘Not seen him today.’
Now Hattori says, ‘Maybe he’s looking for Detective Fujita.’
‘What do you mean by that remark, detective?’ I ask him –
Hattori shrugs his shoulders. Hattori says, ‘Nothing.’
‘Forget about Ishida,’ I tell them all. ‘But, if you do see him, you tell him to remain here until he has spoken to me. And you tell
him, if he leaves again, then he leaves for good…’
The detectives nod their heads.
‘Anyway, I have some much better news for you now,’ I say. ‘I have a possible name for our body; Tominaga Noriko –
‘Tominaga was a friend of Abe Yoshiko who, as you know, we believe may also have been murdered by the suspect Kodaira. Tominaga has been missing since the second week of July and she was known to wear clothing the same as that found on our body…’
But there is no applause. There are still only doubts –
Lead your men! Lead your men! Lead your men …
Now I divide them into pairs again. Lead your men. I send Detectives Takeda and Kimura back to Tominaga Noriko’s landlady in Ōimachi. Lead your men. I send them back to find out every last detail she knows about her former tenant’s life. Lead your men. I send them back to arrange for her to come to the Keiō University Hospital tomorrow in order to view the clothes found on the body –
Lead your men! Lead your men …
I send Detectives Sanada and Shimoda back to Masaoka Hisae in Shibuya. Lead your men. I send them back to find out every last detail she knows about her friend’s life –
Lead your men …
I leave Hattori in the borrowed second-floor room to wait for Ishida. Lead your men. Then I tell Detective Nishi to come with me.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ says Detective Hattori. ‘But what about Ishihara Michiko and Ōzeki Hiromi? What about Tanabe Shimeko and Honma Fumiko? What about Konuma Yasuyo and Sugai Seiko?’
Lead your men! Lead your men! Lead your men …
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘What did you find out?’
Lead your men! Lead your men …
‘Nothing,’ spits Hattori –
Lead your men… !
‘Thank you, detective,’ I say. ‘Thank you very much.’
*
Masaoka Hisae gave Detective Nishi the name of Kodaira’s mistress as one Okayama Hisayo and her address as being somewhere near Meguro, near the police station where Kodaira is now being held. Detective Nishi worked quickly and found a current address for an Okayama Hisayo, listed as living in an apartment building half-way between Meguro and Gotanda, so we walk down to Hamamatsu-chō station, take the Yamate loop train, getting off at Gotanda station –
Another shabby neighbourhood, another shabby building …
Kodaira Yoshio’s mistress lives in an apartment building on a bluff overlooking the Meguro River. There are Western-style houses near here but they have all been requisitioned by the Victors and are now tightly guarded. Okayama Hisayo’s apartment building is on the very edge of the bluff, level with the elevated line of the National Railway, level with the noise of the trains. And, while we are climbing the stairs to her apartment, it finally dawns on me that this building is one of the addresses we have listed for Kodaira Yoshio, that he and his wife used to live in this very building –
Another shabby apartment …
Nishi and I knock on the door of Okayama Hisayo’s apartment, opening it and apologizing for disturbing her, for calling on her unannounced, introducing ourselves –
Another shabby room …
Okayama Hisayo is a plain, pale-skinned woman in her forties. She kneels down in the entrance to her apartment. She bows. She welcomes us. She apologizes for the poor state of her apartment. She invites us in. She has been expecting us, waiting for us –
She does not ask why we are here.
Nishi and I sit at her stained, low table in her hot, overcast room. We refuse her offer of tea. We apologize again for disturbing her, for calling on her unannounced –
But she is insisting on giving us tea, apologizing for having no snacks, leaving us alone in her room while she ducks behind a curtain to bring us some tea –
I turn away to look out of her window but the view is partially obstructed by a thick growth of trees near the edge of the cliff, though I can still see the Togoshi-Ebara heights rising beyond the Meguro River, still see the barrack houses going up, the light industry returning, but all else is burnt and ruined; the old feudal villas, their gardens now overgrown parks, their ponds diseased pools –
‘It was originally a place for mistresses, up here,’ says Okayama Hisayo, placing two glasses of cold tea on the low table. ‘The founder of the Shibaura Company was actually the man who first bought this land to build an apartment for his mistress. It used to be quite a fashionable address but the building has changed hands so many times now it has become quite run down…’
‘It must still have some luck left though,’ I say. ‘To have escaped all the bombs and the fires.’
‘Because it’s up on a hill,’ she says. ‘And because of the railway and the river…’
‘Do you see much of the other tenants?’ I ask. ‘Do you know your neighbours?’
‘Not really,’ she says. ‘They used to be quite fussy in their choice of tenants. But the war changed all that. It turned back the clock. It’s all hostesses and mistresses again now, balladeers and gangsters who sublet the rooms for hourly uses…’
‘This building is also used as a hotel, then?’ Nishi asks her. ‘For prostitutes and their clients?’
‘Every evening,’ she says. ‘Different women, different men.’
‘And so do you know where they solicit their clients?’
‘They work the cheap cafés near Gotanda station.’
‘Each night?’ Nishi asks. ‘Different men?’
‘The sound of laughter,’ she says. ‘And then of tears.’
I ask her, ‘And so what do you do, Mrs. Okayama?’
‘I work the cheap cafés near Gotanda station.’
Another plain woman, another shabby room, another shabby apartment, another shabby building, another shabby neighbourhood.
‘Is that how you first met Kodaira Yoshio?’
Mrs. Okayama shakes her head and says, ‘I am a widow now, but my husband was a bus driver. I met him when I worked as a bus girl. Mr. Kodaira’s wife worked as a bus girl too. That’s how I became friendly with his wife and it was her I knew first. Then, when the apartment downstairs fell vacant, I suggested Mrs. Kodaira and her husband move in. She then became pregnant and went back to her family home in Toyama to have the child. Because of the wartime situation, Mrs. Kodaira and the new baby stayed on in Toyama…’
‘And so, when his wife was evacuated to Toyama, that was when you first became intimate with Kodaira?’ asks Nishi.
‘Mr. Kodaira had to stay on in Tokyo,’ says the widow. ‘And so his wife asked my daughter and me to take good care of him. But actually it was Mr. Kodaira who took care of us as he always had some extra food, he always had sweets and tobacco…’
‘And what did he ask in exchange?’ asks Nishi. ‘For his extra food, his sweets and his tobacco…?’
‘His wife had been pregnant,’ she says. ‘And then she was evacuated. He was alone and I…’
‘Did Kodaira ever mention anyone called Tominaga Noriko?’ I ask the Widow Okayama. ‘Did he ever mention an Abe Yoshiko?’
‘I know I wasn’t the only one,’ she says. ‘I know there were even others in this very building. Others who were not widows, like me. Others whose husbands were soldiers…’
‘But did you ever hear Kodaira talk about or ever see him with a girl aged approximately seventeen to eighteen years old; a girl you might have seen wearing a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress over a white half-sleeved chemise?’
I think about her all the time …
‘My daughter Kazuko had a dress just like that,’ she says. ‘Where is your daughter?’ I ask. ‘Does she live here?’ Mrs. Okayama shakes her head. ‘I sent her away.’
‘Where did you send her? When was this?’
‘May last year,’ she says. ‘To Tochigi.’
The place where Kodaira is from …
‘Did your daughter know Kodaira?’ asks Detective Nishi. ‘Did your daughter ever meet Kodaira?’
Mrs. Okayama nods. ‘Why do y
ou think I sent her away?’
‘You sent her away because of Kodaira?’ asks Nishi. ‘Why?’
‘Because I knew he liked my daughter, not me. But she wouldn’t sleep with him and I would. He would screw me while she slept beside us; screw me while he stared at her…’
‘How often did he come here?’ asks Detective Nishi. ‘How often did you let Kodaira sleep with you?’
‘Mr. Kodaira had an appetite,’ says the Widow Okayama. ‘Mr. Kodaira was always hungry…’
‘And was Kodaira violent with it?’ I ask the widow. ‘With his appetite, with his hunger?’
She haunts me …
Mrs. Okayama shakes her head. ‘As long as you lay still.’
‘He never forced you to have sex with him?’ I ask her.
‘We had to be quiet so we did not wake my daughter.’
‘Did Kodaira ever put his hands around your neck?’
‘I said it was like pretending to be dead…’
‘Did he ever try to strangle you?’
‘He said, we already are.’
We’re already dead…
And then she says, suddenly from out of the silence, she says, ‘I think death follows him, it must follow him wherever he goes…’
Death follows us, as we follow death …
‘What do you mean?’ I ask her –
‘After I had sent my daughter away to Tochigi Prefecture, to live with my own mother, her grandmother, Mr. Kodaira kept asking and asking about her, saying we should go and visit her, saying we should see how she was, how we could go there to get kaidashi, to stock up on supplies. You don’t know him, but Mr. Kodaira is a relentless man and he is a persuasive man and so last June, this would have been about a month after my daughter left, Mr. Kodaira and I went to Tochigi to visit my mother and my daughter…’
Death is everywhere. Death is everywhere …
But Nishi can’t wait. Nishi can’t let her finish. Nishi asks, ‘You said death follows Kodaira; what do you mean?’
‘Well, I only accompanied Mr. Kodaira to Tochigi that once,’ she says. ‘But I heard from my mother and my daughter that he has been back there on a number of other occasions…’
Nishi still can’t wait, can’t let her finish. Nishi asks her again, ‘But your mother and daughter are still alive?’
‘Of course they are,’ says Mrs. Okayama. ‘But my daughter told me someone had been murdered…’