Inspector Imanishi Investigates

by Seichō Matsumoto

  “We do have that name registered.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. We definitely have that family register’s original record.”

  “Is that the authentic record?” Imanishi’s question slipped out.

  “Of course it is,” the clerk said, sounding annoyed. “The original register at the ward office would not be a forgery.”

  “I’m sure that’s the case, but…” Imanishi was thinking that, although there might be no doubt that it was the original register, it might have been created intentionally. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but could you please let me see the original register?” Imanishi requested.

  “Go ahead.” She passed the thick volume through the window.

  Imanishi had imagined that an original family register record would be on old, brown-tinged paper with its edges crumbling away. But this original record was still new. He looked at the entry in question. “Original domicile: Number 120, 2 Ebisu-cho, Naniwa Ward, Osaka City…” Imanishi compared the entry to the notation in his book, but each character was the same.

  “Both the head of household, Eizo, and his wife, Kimiko, have the same date of death, March 14,1945. Does that mean that they died in the air raid?” Imanishi asked for confirmation.

  The clerk peered at the entry and said, “Yes, it does. That day there was a large air raid on the whole of Naniwa Ward. Practically all the houses were burned down. It looks like these two people died in the bombing at that time.”

  Imanishi’s attention went back to the newness of the original family register record book. “It looks like the paper in this volume of original family registers is very new.”

  “Yes. The previous record book was burned in that same air raid, so this was created later to take its place.”

  “Were these records copied from the ones at the Bureau of Justice?”

  “The Bureau of Justice was also completely burned down in that day’s air raid, and their originals were also destroyed.”

  “What?” Imanishi’s eyes glinted. “Then what was this record based on?”

  “This one was recorded from the information provided by the person himself.”

  “The person himself?”

  “Yes. In cases where the original record was destroyed during the war, the law provides for the resubmission of the family register. Please take a look at this.”

  The clerk showed Imanishi the statute printed on the first page of the original family register record book:

  In those census registration areas where the ward offices and prefectural government offices were destroyed by wartime disasters, notifications of resubmission of family registers are to be presented between 1946 and 1947.

  Imanishi raised his eyes. “Then, does this mean that the resubmission for this family register entry was presented between 1946 and 1947?”

  “No, not necessarily. There are cases when it was made later.”

  “I’m sorry to keep bothering you, but could you check when the notification of resubmission was filed in this case?”

  “I can find that out right away.” The clerk took the original record book and leafed through it. “In this person’s case, notification was given on March 2, 1949.”

  “Nineteen forty-nine?” Imanishi thought about this. “Is it necessary to have someone like a guarantor to prove that the claims of the person are correct?”

  “We prefer to have someone like that vouch for the information, but in special circumstances such as war damage, there may not have been anyone to offer such proof. In such cases, we are forced to rewrite the register based on the information the person concerned provides.”

  “Then, in this case, you did a resubmission of the family register according to what the person himself gave as information?”

  “Please wait. I’ll check on that for you.” She left her chair.

  Watching from where he stood, Imanishi could see that the family register section contained several archival shelves. Crouching down to reach under a stack of shelves, the clerk searched for something. It took nearly ten minutes. She seemed to be having trouble finding what she was looking for. At the window, the line grew longer. Imanishi started to feel apologetic. Finally, she returned to the window.

  “I just checked the files, but that request form is one that we only keep for five years, so it has already been disposed of.”

  “I see.” Bowing his head, Imanishi said, “I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time.”

  “That’s quite all right.”

  “I’d like to ask you something in addition about that request for resubmission. Do you fill in the information just as the person himself designates?”

  “Yes.”

  “For example, if someone had registered a domicile falsely, there would be no way to check that?”

  “No, there wouldn’t. Since all the original records have been destroyed, we have no way to tell if a false record is registered.”

  Imanishi thought for a bit. “Is there no way that such a forgery could be found out? Is there some way to uncover it?”

  “There is a way,” the clerk answered, as Imanishi had expected.

  “For example, if this head of household Eizo’s place of birth was recorded, then we could confirm it with that location’s city hall or town office. It would be the same for his wife.”

  “And in this case, did this office go through that procedure?”

  “We must have done it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have accepted the record.”

  Imanishi asked her to verify that this procedure had been followed. The clerk once again asked him to wait. She went to the shelves and searched through a thick, bound volume. It was a long time before she returned.

  “I searched the transaction records for that time, but the clerk who accepted the record no longer works here. According to the transaction records, we accepted the registration with the stipulation that the head of household Eizo’s and his wife Kimiko’s places of origin were for subsequent completion.”

  “Subsequent completion?” Imanishi had no idea what that meant.

  Anticipating his reaction, the clerk explained to him, “It’s my guess that the person who came to record this registration had forgotten the exact locations of the family domiciles of the head of household Eizo, and his wife, Kimiko.”

  “Had forgotten the locations?”

  “That’s what I think. After all, the person who submitted the registration was sixteen at the time. His parents had passed away suddenly in a war disaster, and he may not have known the exact location of his parents’ places of origin. There was no way that he could fill in those sections, so the registration was probably submitted as is. I would suppose that we accommodated him by having him promise that if he found the places of origin of his parents, he would report that to us. That procedure is what we call ‘subsequent completion.’ ”

  So that was it. Imanishi thought that a bright boy could easily have submitted such a registration.

  “Thank you so much for all you’ve done.”

  Imanishi headed for the high school. He had thought that it would be close to the city of Kyoto, but it was near the Osaka prefectural border. The high school stood on a hillside in the outskirts of the city. Imanishi took a taxi to just below the school and walked up the lengthy stone steps, perspiring.

  The school principal, a thin, short man in his mid-fifties who seemed kindly, received him. Imanishi stated the purpose of his visit.

  “Hmm. What class was this student in?”

  “He didn’t actually graduate,” Imanishi responded.

  “He left partway through? Then what grade was he when he left?”

  “I’m afraid that’s not clear.”

  “Do you know what year he left the school?”

  Imanishi scratched his head. “Actually, that isn’t clear either.”

  The principal looked perplexed. “That’s a problem. Then we’ll have to go by his age. What year was he born?”

  Imanishi told h
im the date of birth.

  “That means he attended this school under the prewar system of education, when it was a middle school. That is a problem,” the principal said, with a grimace. “Our school was destroyed during the war, and all the records of the prewar middle school were burned.”

  “What, here, too?” Imanishi felt dejected. “Was it the March 14, 1945, air raid?”

  “No, this city was bombed earlier. A munitions factory was located here, so we were an earlier target. There was a massive air raid on February 19, 1945. It was then that the major part of the city was reduced to ashes. Our school was then located in the center of the city, so it was destroyed as well.”

  “Then the directories of graduates and students during the middle school era were…”

  “Yes, they were all lost. We are in the process of trying to reconstruct the records, but the older the record, the harder it is.”

  “That’s a shame.” It was unfortunate for Imanishi as well.

  “Yes, it is a shame. The school was founded around nineteen twenty, so it is a blow to us to have lost those records.”

  “Is there any way that I might find out? I mean, regarding the person I’m inquiring about?”

  “Let me see. You gave me his birth date, so one way might be to figure out when he entered the school.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have a fairly good idea of where the graduates from that time are now. There might be some classmates around who remember him.”

  That sounded hopeful.

  “Would there be someone like that in this neighborhood?”

  “Yes, there is. He’s a sake brewer now. I think he was a student at just about that time.”

  Imanishi retraced his steps to the city. The downtown area was made up of newer buildings. The outlying areas, however, retained the older houses. There was a clear demarcation as to which areas of the town were razed and which had remained standing. Following the high school principal’s suggestion, the destination Imanishi headed for was a sake brewery called Flower of Kyoto. He could see the sake warehouses from outside the wall. The front entrance was decorated with latticework common to traditional Kansai-style shops. A large “Flower of Kyoto” sign topped the roof.

  Entering the shop, Imanishi asked to see the owner. Imanishi explained that he had been referred here by the high school regarding a possible classmate of his, one who had left partway through.

  “Wait a moment,” the young brew-master said, crossing his arms and looking up at the ceiling. He made an earnest effort to recall. “I’ve got it.”

  “Do you remember? Was there such a person?” Imanishi looked intently at the young man’s face.

  “Yes, I’m sure there was. Yes, yes, he quit partway through. I think it was during the second year,” he said.

  “Do you know where this student lived?”

  “Let me see… I think he was boarding somewhere in town.”

  “Boarding?”

  “Yes. He said that his family lived in Osaka, so he was boarding here.”

  “Do you know where he boarded?”

  “It’s not there anymore. That area was completely burned down, so there’s no trace of it.”

  “Do you know the name of the family he boarded with?”

  “No, I don’t. He quit school soon after the second year started, so I don’t think any of the other classmates would know either.”

  Here, too, the effects of the war proved a stumbling block in the investigation. At this point, Imanishi asked if he knew that a person with the same name had become well known in Tokyo.

  “No, I didn’t know that,” the young master shook his head.

  Imanishi took from his notebook a clipping of a newspaper article that was accompanied by a photograph.

  “He looks like this now. Does this face look familiar to you?”

  The young master took the clipping in his hand and gazed at it for some time.

  “He was at school just for a short time, so all I can remember is that his face looked vaguely like that. So the fellow has become that prominent in Tokyo?” He expressed his surprise.

  “Is the teacher who was in charge of your class still around?” Imanishi asked, putting the clipping back in his notebook.

  “Our teacher unfortunately died in the air raid.”

  That evening Imanishi went to Kyoto Station. There was still some time before the 8:30 limited express to Tokyo. He entered a diner across from the train station and ate some curry and rice.

  It had been worth his while to come here. He had surmised what had happened; now he had confirmation. The seven-year-old boy who had traveled on foot in the mountain depths of Shimane Prefecture with his father, who had an incurable, loathsome disease, had run away from Kamedake and gone to Osaka. He was taken in by someone there. He spent several years growing up. He was probably not adopted. He might have been a live-in errand boy. That shop and the owner seemed to have been destroyed during the war. At any rate, there was no trace of them now. Following this, the boy went to Kyoto. He left in the second year of middle school and went to Tokyo.

  The names Eizo and Kimiko had been made up by the boy when he had submitted the registration. Proof of that lay in the fact that the place of origin of this couple was not given. It had been very clever of him to establish his supposed parents at Number 120, 2 Ebisu-cho, Naniwa Ward, in Osaka. This was an area where all the original family registers had been destroyed in an air raid. His school and the city had also been largely destroyed during the war. There were traces of his past, but nowhere was there concrete proof to establish his personal history, a history he had taken such pains to hide. Naturally.

  As Imanishi finished his spicy curry and rice and drank his tea, he noticed an evening paper left by another customer. He reached for it. Skimming through it casually, his eyes stopped at an article in the cultural section.

  Excursions Abroad Set for Messrs Waga and Sekigawa.

  Mr. Waga Eiryo announced that he would be departing for his trip to the United States from Haneda Airport at 10:00 p.m., November 30, on a Pan American flight. He plans to visit various locations in the U.S., starting with New York, and to head for Europe afterward.

  Mr. Sekigawa Shigeo will leave for Paris on an Air France flight on December 25. Following his stay in France, he plans to tour West Germany, England, Spain, and Italy, before his return in late February. His trip to Europe is to attend an international symposium of intellectuals as Japan’s representative.

  Reaching Tokyo in the morning, Imanishi returned home.

  “It must have been tiring for you. It would be good if you could take a bath at a time like this, but the public bath doesn’t open until ten o’clock,” Yoshiko said, concerned.

  In order to accommodate a bathtub, the Imanishis would need to add on to their house. It was hard for them to save up enough money to pay for it.

  “It’s all right. I don’t have much time. I’m going to sleep for an hour.”

  Imanishi gave his wife some Kyoto specialty pickles as a present.

  “Oh, you said you were going to Osaka. But did you go to Kyoto, too?”

  “Yes. It’s impossible to predict where we may end up in our line of work.”

  “They say Kyoto is a beautiful city. I’d love to spend some time there,” Yoshiko said as she gazed at the label on the package of pickles.

  “I know. When I retire, let’s take a leisurely trip there with my retirement pay.”

  Imanishi lay down on the tatami.

  “You’ll catch cold. I’ll lay out the futon right away. Why don’t you change your clothes?”

  “No, I don’t have that much time.”

  His wife pulled out a comforter from the closet and placed it over him. His complexion was sallow with fatigue. She awakened him shortly after he had fallen asleep.

  “It’s ten o’clock already.” Yoshiko sat beside him, looking at him in sympathy.

  “Is it?” Imanishi flung off the comforter and go
t up.

  “Aren’t you still sleepy?”

  “No, sleeping even that little bit helped a lot.”

  Imanishi washed his face with cold water. He felt much better.

  “You’ll be home early tonight, I hope?” his wife asked as they ate breakfast.

  “Yes, I’ll come home early tonight.”

  “Please do. Otherwise, you’ll come down with something.”

  “You’re right. I used to be able to spend two nights in a row without sleep on a stakeout without feeling tired.” He was getting on, there was no denying it.

  He reached headquarters after eleven and reported to the section chief.

  Imanishi next went to the Kamata police station to see Yoshimura and bring him up to date on his findings. Yoshimura listened intently, eager to catch every word.

  “That ends the part about Kyoto,” Imanishi said. “Now it’s time for Tokyo. Since we last met I’ve learned something about acoustics.”

  “Acoustics?”

  “The study of sound.” Imanishi described what he had learned.

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Next, it’s this,” Imanishi said, leafing through his notebook. “Look at this.”

  Yoshimura looked at the piece of paper he had picked up near the spot where Miyata had died.

  “Do you think this has anything to do with Miyata’s death?”

  “I thought at the time that someone must have dropped it there by accident, but now I think it was dropped intentionally.”

  “What do you mean, intentionally?”

  “It can be viewed as a challenge by the person who put it there.”

  “A challenge?”

  “When people become arrogant, they feel like sneering at others, certain that they won’t catch on. That’s what I think this represents.”

  “But this is a listing of distributed insurance amounts.”

  “Yes, it is. There’s no mistaking that. I suspected these figures, so I had them checked out. I didn’t think there was any reason to write down patently false figures, but I had it checked out just to be sure. These are the actual figures.”

  “What’s the relationship between these numbers and Miyata’s death, then?”