At that moment Reiko hated Fumiko's father, and Chiyo's husband, as much as she hated the man-or men-who'd assaulted the women. "I'm sorry about what happened to you. It wasn't your fault, no matter what anybody says. You're a brave, good girl. And I want you to know that my husband will catch the man who hurt you."
But even as she spoke, Reiko remembered that Sano's objective was to punish the man who'd kidnapped and raped his cousin. If a different man had kidnapped Fumiko, would Sano avenge her? He had enough else to do. Reiko made a private vow that if Sano didn't deliver Fumiko's rapist to justice, then she herself would. In the meantime, she could offer Fumiko other assistance.
"For now, you're coming with me," she said, then called to her bearers, "Let's go."
They hoisted the beams of the palanquin to their shoulders. As the vehicle began moving, Fumiko looked aghast. "Go where?"
"To my house," Reiko said, "inside Edo Castle."
"I can't!" Fumiko protested.
Reiko thought the girl must be afraid of a strange place. "Yes, you can," she said soothingly. "I'll give you as much food as you want, clean clothes, and a nice place to sleep. You'll be quite comfortable."
"Please stop," Fumiko said as the bearers carried her and Reiko past the market stalls. "I can't leave!"
Bewildered, Reiko said, "Here you have to sleep outdoors; you have to eat garbage. Why do you want to stay?"
"My father knows I'm here." Fumiko was frantic. "His gangsters have seen me. If I go someplace else, he won't be able to find me."
"Why would he want to?" Reiko asked. "He threw you out."
"After he thinks I've been punished enough, he'll take me back." Fumiko sounded desperate to believe it.
"I'll send word to your father that you're at my house, so he'll know to look for you there."
"He might not like that. He might get even angrier."
"You were just attacked by dogs," Reiko reminded Fumiko. "You might not be saved next time. You might not survive until your father decides to bring you home."
Fumiko flapped her hands, as if to ward off Reiko's logic. "I'm not going with you! Here is where I belong!"
She picked up the empty lunchbox and hurled it at Reiko. Reiko flung up her arms. Fumiko bounded out the door.
"Wait!" Reiko cried. "Fumiko, stop!"
The girl ran away into the marketplace, where the throngs absorbed her. Lieutenant Tanuma called, "Should I go after her, Lady Reiko?"
"No, don't."
Sighing, Reiko closed the door of the palanquin. She wouldn't force Fumiko to accept shelter against her will. Perhaps Fumiko was right in her belief that Jirocho would relent, and when he came to fetch her, she had better be here, or he would change his mind. Reiko didn't understand gangsters well enough to know otherwise. And she had another task to perform for Sano.
"Take me to the Keiaiji Convent," she called to her escorts. "Maybe I'll have better luck with the nun."
Chamberlain Yanagisawa's estate was one of many inside the quarter within Edo Castle where the shogun's top officials lived. Guards opened its gate, and out came Yanagisawa, his son Yoritomo, and their guards, all on horse back. Clad in rain hats and capes, they rode down the street amid mounted soldiers going in the same direction.
One soldier wasn't really a soldier. The face under his helmet belonged to Toda Ikkyu. As he followed Yanagisawa and Yoritomo, they didn't notice him. Neither they nor Toda noticed the boy riding a pony, trailing in their wake.
Masahiro wore, in addition to the rain cape and hat that hid his face and clothes, a flag bearing the Tokugawa crest on a pole attached to his back. He carried a leather sack of bamboo scroll containers. The flag, sack, and scrolls were the standard equipment of messenger boys. He'd borrowed them from Father's office. He hoped Father wouldn't mind. The scroll containers were empty; they were part of his disguise.
He'd gotten the idea for the disguise from Mother. She sometimes dressed as a servant, the better to avoid attention when she went out investigating. Masahiro had also taken a hint from the spy who'd come to visit Father last night. Under the scrolls in his sack were a spare hat and jacket.
As he trailed Yanagisawa, Yoritomo, and their procession along the stone-walled passages that wound downhill through the castle, his heart beat fast with excitement. This was his first day as a real detective. He meant to find out what Yanagisawa was up to.
The procession stopped at a checkpoint, two gates that led in and out of a square enclosure designed to trap invading enemies during war. In peacetime, the guards merely eyed the folks who came by and let them pass. Yanagisawa rode through with his party. Masahiro waited impatiently, stuck behind the people who blocked his view. He mustn't lose track of Yanagisawa. He worried about whether his disguise would pass inspection. Would the guards notice that he was too young to be a messenger? He drew himself up to his full height, held his breath, and silently prayed.
The guards let him through without a second glance. Relieved, Masahiro hurriedly rode after Yanagisawa. But as they approached the castle's main gate, he felt serious qualms.
He'd never gone outside the castle by himself. Father and Mother said it was too dangerous. He didn't want to admit that he was afraid to go out, but he was. The city was a big place filled with scary people. Masahiro carried a dagger hidden beneath his cape, but what if he got attacked by someone too big and strong for him to fight? He also worried about what would happen when Father and Mother found out he'd broken their rule.
Ahead loomed the gate. Masahiro saw Yanagisawa's procession riding through the portals. What should he do?
He drew a deep breath for courage and followed Yanagisawa.
Tonight, when he told Father and Mother what he'd learned about Yanagisawa, they would be so proud of him that they wouldn't be angry.
Inside the bedchamber at the convent, two novices held the nun Tengu-in, who sat on a futon atop a wooden pallet. Another novice spooned miso soup into her mouth. The old woman struggled weakly, spat, and whispered prayers.
"It won't do you any good to talk to her," the abbess said, standing in the doorway with Reiko. "See for yourself."
Reiko watched with dismay as Tengu-in coughed and retched, while the novices poured water into her. The force-feeding seemed like torture, but it had probably kept the old nun alive. "I must try," Reiko said.
She walked toward Tengu-in across the big room where the other nuns slept at night on the pallets laid out in a row. The abbess and the novices bowed and left. Tengu-in lay on her bed, eyes closed, exhausted. In the misty daylight that shone through the paper windowpanes she looked like a corpse. Her face was sunken, her skin so thin that the spidery blue veins pulsed through it on her bare scalp. Her skeletal hands clutched a rosary of round, brown jade beads strung on a thick leather cord.
"Tengu-in?" Reiko said, kneeling beside her. "Can you hear me?"
The nun's lips formed silent prayers. Her fingers counted beads. Chiyo and Fumiko seemed well off compared to her. At least they were more physically and mentally sound, no matter how they'd been treated.
"I'm sorry to bother you," Reiko said, "but my husband sent me to talk to you. He's Chamberlain Sano. He came here yesterday. Do you remember?"
Tengu-in didn't answer. She continued her wordless praying as her fingers slid beads along the cord.
"I need to know what happened to you when you were kidnapped," Reiko persisted. "Maybe if you tell me, you'll feel better."
No response came. Reiko tried a different tack. "Two other women besides you have been kidnapped and attacked. My husband and I think it was the same man." Although Reiko wasn't so sure, after hearing Fumiko's story and comparing it to Chiyo's. "We want to catch him. You may be the only person who can help us. Can you try, for their sake as well as your own?"
As moments passed and the nun seemed unaware of Reiko's presence, Reiko had the eerie feeling that she was alone. Tengu-in's spirit had retreated into another, faraway realm. How could Reiko bridge the distance?
&n
bsp; "I'll tell you what I think happened," Reiko said. "Can you give some sign whether I'm right?" It was like talking to herself, but she began to recite the story she'd learned from Sano. "You went to the main temple that day. With the novices. You couldn't keep up with them. They left you behind. That's when he came and took you."
Did Tengu-in stiffen with anxiety? Reiko wondered if it was only her imagination.
"He pretended he was hurt and he asked for your help," Reiko suggested, recalling the ploy that had lured Chiyo.
Tengu-in's expression of stoic suffering didn't alter.
"He had a pet monkey. He said he would let you play with it if you went with him." Even as she spoke, Reiko knew that although the monkey trick had worked for Fumiko, it probably wouldn't have for an old woman, and the kidnapper was smart.
A hoarse whisper came from the nun. Her eyes opened. Filmy and blank, their lids crusted, they gazed at nothing.
"What did you say?" Reiko kept her voice gentle; she hid her excitement.
"Place of Relief," whispered Tengu-in.
That was the polite term for the privy. "Do you need to go?" Reiko asked.
Tengu-in's lips moved, and for a moment Reiko thought she'd resumed praying. But her words were audible now, although barely. Reiko leaned closer to hear.
"I went to the Place of Relief," she said. "I was inside. He opened the door."
Reiko realized that she was talking about that day she'd been kidnapped. Finally her silence had broken. Reiko didn't know why. Perhaps the time had simply come. Reiko pictured Tengu-in crouched over the hole inside a public privy in the temple grounds, and the door opening. The kidnapper had cornered the helpless old woman there.
"Who was he?" Reiko asked urgently.
Tengu-in's head rolled from side to side on the pillow.
Reiko said, "Was he a big man with a shaved head and a scab on his cheek?"
"… I don't know."
If he wasn't the suspect sighted outside the convent, maybe he was the one Hirata's witness had seen by Shinobazu Pond. "Did he have teeth missing?"
"Couldn't see," whispered Tengu-in. "The light…"
The daylight behind the man must have left his features in shadow. "What happened next?" Reiko asked.
The nun's gaze shifted rapidly; her eyelids lowered.
"Then you woke up," Reiko prompted, anxious to prevent Tengu-in from withdrawing beyond her reach. "You were in a place filled with clouds."
"Clouds," Tengu-in echoed in a voice like the wind sighing.
"You couldn't move. The man was there."
A low, fearful whimper resonated through Tengu-in. Her body quaked.
"He nursed at your breasts," Reiko suggested. "He called you 'dearest mother,' and 'beloved mother.' "
Again Tengu-in's head tossed.
Reiko ventured, "He forced you to suck on him. He said you were naughty and beat you?" Tengu-in mumbled something Reiko couldn't hear. "What was that?"
"Pray," whispered Tengu-in. "He made me pray while he had me." Her voice rose to a loud, shrill pitch: "Namo Amida Butsu! Namo Amida Butsu!" I trust in the Buddha of Immeasurable Light. She was praying to be delivered from this life of suffering and reborn into the Pure Land, a heaven of beauty and enlightenment. Her voice trailed off while her lips kept moving. Her eyes closed as she withdrew behind the barrier of her private hell.
19
"I'm bringing these prisoners in for interrogation," Sano told the sentries outside Edo Jail. Behind him, the two suspects knelt in their oxcart, their wrists and ankles bound with rope, guarded by Detectives Marume and Fukida and Sano's other troops. Above him loomed the jail's high, mossy stone walls and guard turrets. "Let us in."
The guards obeyed. Sano and his entourage crowded into a courtyard surrounded by barracks. His soldiers brought in the oxcart and unloaded the two prisoners. His party marched into the dungeon, a building whose dirty, scabrous plaster walls rose from a high stone base. It was a reflection of Edo Castle in a dark mirror-one edifice designed to safeguard the regime's highest society, the other to cage its lowest.
The interrogation rooms, situated along a dank passage that smelled of sewers, had ironclad doors with small windows set at eye level. Hirata marched the young suspect with the missing teeth into one room. Sano, Marume, and Fukida took the other suspect into a room at the passage's opposite end. Shouts, moans, and weeping emanated from the rooms in between. Sano's room was just large enough to hold four people and swing a sword. Dim light seeped from a barred window near the ceiling. The walls were marred with cracks and gouges, discolored by old bloodstains. Marume and Fukida shoved the suspect down on the straw that covered the floor. Sano smelled urine on the straw, which was trampled and grimy; it hadn't been changed since the last interrogation. He stood over the suspect.
The big man stared at the wall behind Sano, his gaze sullen beneath his heavy brow. His unshaven face was mud-streaked from his tussle with the detectives. Sweat plastered his blue kimono against his muscles. He hadn't uttered a word since he'd been captured.
"What's your name?" Sano asked.
The suspect tightened his jaw. Marume kicked his thigh and ordered, "Speak up."
"Jinshichi," the suspect said. His deep voice was thick and raspy, as if he'd swallowed sand mixed with pitch.
"Well, Jinshichi," Sano said, "you're under arrest for kidnapping my cousin."
"Didn't kidnap anybody."
He spoke with conviction, but Sano didn't believe him. Something about the man didn't smell right.
"Let me refresh your memory," Sano said. "My cousin is the woman you met at Awashima Shrine. She'd gone there with her new baby. You hid in the bushes and called to her that you were hurt. She came to help you. You took her and left the baby."
"I never," Jinshichi said, adamant.
"You gave her a drug that put her to sleep." Sano kept his voice calm, but anger mounted inside him. "You locked her up."
"Never."
"Then you raped her," Sano said, controlling an urge to lash out at Jinshichi for hurting Chiyo, to wipe that hard, defiant look off his face.
"You're wrong." If Jinshichi was afraid, it didn't show.
Standing on either side of him, Marume and Fukida exchanged glances. They looked at Sano, who saw that they had doubts about the man's guilt.
"You kept her for two days," Sano said. "When you were finished with her, you dumped her in an alley, as if she were a sack of garbage."
Jinshichi muttered. Fukida smacked his head, and he said, "Wasn't me. I'm innocent."
"I suppose you didn't kidnap Tengu-in, either," Sano said.
"Who?"
"The nun. She was taken from the Zj Temple precinct on the first day of the third month. You were seen outside her convent the day before."
"Couldn't have been," Jinshichi said. "Wasn't there."
"Then where were you?" Sano demanded.
Jinshichi eyed Sano with incredulity. "That was a long time ago. Damned if I can remember. Working, probably."
"Working where?"
"Around town. Hell if I know!" Jinshichi grew loud, impatient. "I didn't do anything wrong. Can I go now?"
"If you really want to," Sano said. "You can go straight to the court of justice and be tried for two kidnappings and two assaults."
For the first time, Jinshichi's face showed fear. It was common knowledge that almost every trial ended with a guilty verdict.
"Better yet," Sano said, "we'll just skip the trial and take you straight to the execution ground."
"But I didn't kidnap those women." Jinshichi strained against the ropes that bound him. "I swear!"
Sano burned with rage at the man's denials. But even though Sano was sure Jinshichi was lying, he couldn't ignore the obvious reason that the man might not be.
There was a second suspect right down the hall.
In the other interrogation room, Hirata studied the prisoner who knelt on the straw at his feet. "Tell me your name," he ordered.
"Gomb
ei, Honorable master." The man bowed and grinned.
He was slender and wiry, the type that was far stronger than he looked. He could probably lift loads as heavy as himself. Even with his wrists and ankles tied up, he exuded a bounding energy. Hirata could hear his rapid heartbeat, his blood swift beneath his skin. Despite his missing teeth, his face wasn't unhandsome. Long, wavy hair, fallen from his topknot, grazed his shoulders and framed ro guish features. His eyes sparkled with vitality and cunning.
Trained perception and samurai instinct told Hirata that Gombei had plenty to hide.
But even as Hirata prepared to extract Gombei's guilty secrets, only half of his attention was focused on the job at hand. He couldn't stop thinking about the presence he'd sensed at Shinobazu Pond yesterday. Who was it? What were the man's intentions?
Now, half of Hirata's mind was attuned to the world beyond his sight, waiting for the mysterious presence to return. He believed that even though he didn't know who it was, it knew who he was. He found himself constantly glancing over his shoulder, sensing that he was being watched. He felt like a coward rather than the best fighter in Edo. The presence had planted a seed of fear in him. Hirata felt the seed growing, feeding on his confusion, against his will.
What would happen the next time he encountered the presence?
There would be a next time, but when?
Gombei's voice brought Hirata back to Edo Jail and the investigation. "Honorable master, please believe me when I say that I am a decent, honest citizen who's never broken the law." He had the kind of earnest, charming manner that Hirata automatically distrusted. "Ask anyone who knows me. My family, my friends, my neighbors, my boss, they'll tell you that I'm-"
"Quite the talker," Hirata interrupted. "Well, let's talk about the little girl you kidnapped."
Amazement snapped Gombei's eyes wide. His full lips silently repeated the word kidnapped. "What little girl?"
"The one at Shinobazu Pond."
"With all due respect, I didn't do it." Gombei oozed earnestness. "I would never hurt a child. In fact, I would never even hurt a fly. Except if it's the biting kind."
The Cloud Pavilion si-14 Page 12