The Aosawa Murders

by Riku Onda

  Feeling a shade more composed, he turned this over in his mind and soon realized what had triggered his reaction. While all the other furniture in the room had been knocked out of place by the agonized death throes of the occupants, that seat alone was in the right position. Amid the chaos which had engulfed the room, only that seat remained untouched. Did this mean that the person who had been sitting in that chair was unharmed? With so many people in the room, somebody must have sat there. Had that person stood up immediately after sipping the poison drink and moved away from the seat?

  Woman trouble. The words underneath his teacup. For no reason they flashed into his mind. The memory startled him. And then he realized that he had unconsciously assumed that the person who had sat in this chair was a woman.

  He ran his eyes over the room once more, then gently withdrew. Out in the dim corridor he took a moment to compose himself before continuing his exploration of the house, casting his gaze all about him as he trod carefully. When he reached what he guessed must be the kitchen he peered in and saw plates of food covered in plastic wrap, a stack of sushi bowls, bottles of beer and soft drinks, and ceramic serving bottles of sake neatly arranged on the table. Obviously this was where everything was prepared before being carried to the other room.

  Then something on the table caught his eye, a sheet of plain, white notepaper held down by a vase holding a single withered Asiatic day flower. Something was written on the paper in unremarkable handwriting. He read it. What the hell is this? he wondered.

  VI

  Outside, the noise level had ratcheted up with the arrival of the medical and crime scene units. With more and more people arriving, the cacophony of voices drowned out the clamour of rain. His instincts told him that the media were there too. Now things would get complicated.

  Crime scene staff streamed noisily into the house, amongst them a colleague, also soaking wet, who whispered into his ear, “It’s no good. Three died on the way to the hospital.”

  “Any survivors?”

  “One might pull through. Still unconscious, though.”

  “No chance of an interview, then. Who raised the alarm first?”

  “A nearby police box put the call through. There was a party on today and some of the neighbourhood kids were here. One came late, saw what had happened and ran to get help.”

  A neighbourhood kid. He felt an ache in his chest. Several dead children were in there.

  “Any suspects?”

  “There was a young guy wearing a yellow raincoat who delivered sake and soft drinks. Someone saw him bring them. Never been seen here before, apparently. Their deliveries usually came from a local liquor shop.” His younger colleague looked troubled. “This is going to be a shitstorm,” he said in a low voice.

  “Certainly looks that way.”

  “This is the Aosawa Clinic.”

  “The Aosawa Clinic?” So far the detective hadn’t paid much attention to the name of the place.

  “Yep,” the colleague continued, “old medical family. The founder was a graduate of the Fourth High School at the Imperial University. Used to be head of the Prefectural Medical Association too. The son took over a long time ago, though.”

  “I see. Then all these people…”

  “Yep. The wife, son, his wife, grandchildren – all dead. The whole family was killed. Ambulance guys knew their faces.”

  The detective frowned. People of social standing. He knew what that would mean, all the extra attention it would attract. After what he had seen inside he also had a sense of the complexity of the case, the tangled, nerve-fraying reality of it, and could foresee the enormous workload it was going to bring down on him. Already he felt tired at the thought.

  Something else occurred to him. “Hey,” he said, looking his colleague in the face.

  “Yeah?”

  “You said three died, didn’t you? And one was unconscious, likely to survive.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about the other person?”

  “Other person?”

  “Five people were taken to hospital.”

  “Huh, really? I didn’t hear that.”

  At that point another older, veteran detective came through the front door. He too was wet through, and his thinning comb-over was in a tragic state.

  “The TV and newspapers are already here. Their ears are sharp,” he complained in place of a greeting.

  “Taro, do you know anything about the victims taken to hospital?” the younger detective asked. Taro was short for Taromaru, the man’s full family name.

  “Three dead. Two survivors, but no visitors allowed.”

  “Two? Two survived? Both unconscious?” he asked eagerly.

  Taromaru shot him a bleak look. “One’s unconscious. The other’s physically unharmed, but is under sedation due to severe shock.”

  The younger detective’s heart pounded. Survivors. There were survivors who had seen what had happened from the very beginning.

  Taromaru looked at him pityingly, as if he’d divined this thought. “It was the granddaughter. Hisako Aosawa. A middle-school student, I think.”

  “Aosawa. A grandchild? She survived?” His heart rent with pity. Her grandparents, parents and siblings had all been in there.

  “But I doubt we’ll get any testimony from her.” Taromaru looked glum.

  “Why not?” he asked, puzzled. “She was there the whole time – she must have witnessed it.”

  Taromaru shook his head. “Ah, but you see, Hisako Aosawa is blind.”

  VII

  The typhoon had passed on, but overnight a storm of another kind had descended. A peculiar atmosphere pervaded the streets of the city as a steady stream of journalists from Tokyo began converging on it.

  Early information about the crime had been so confused that a full picture had only emerged late the previous night. The general gist being reported in various newspapers was that a mass murder by poisoning had occurred at a party held to celebrate the birthdays of three generations of the Aosawas, a well-known medical family in K— city. Police had begun to search for a man aged around thirty who they believed may have information of interest. The man had delivered sake and soft drinks to the house at approximately 1 p.m. on the day, wearing a black baseball cap and yellow raincoat. Seventeen people in the house that day died from what was thought to be a cyanide-based compound. One person was unconscious and in a critical condition. Six of the dead were from the Aosawa family, four were relatives, and the remainder were local residents. Prefectural police had established an investigation headquarters and announced their intention to make a swift arrest due to the heinous nature of the highly unusual and serious crime. More than fifty officers were assigned to the case. The deaths in such a prominent local family had sent shock waves through the medical fraternity and given rise to much speculation.

  Against the backdrop of this maelstrom, the detective and his colleague set out with anticipation for the hospital. They sat in the car in silence, arms folded, stomachs churning with pressure and anxiety. The Prefectural Medical Association had issued a statement calling for the crime to be solved as quickly as possible. There had been many calls from the public offering information, but the majority had been to simply express fear of an invisible poisoner in their midst.

  After a while his colleague spoke.

  “Come to think of it, those people’s birthdays became their date of death too,” the colleague said.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “What are the chances of three generations having a birthday on the same day?”

  “Me, my youngest brother and cousin have the same birthday. It can’t be that uncommon.”

  “But three generations? That has to be unusual,” the colleague continued desultorily, still looking out of the window.

  One full day after the incident, Hisako Aosawa was now awake and calm enough for doctors to grant permission to interview her. Although the detective had been disappointed to learn she was blind, she h
ad undeniably been present at the scene and so he clung to the hope that there was some kind of lead to be obtained from that. Something that would lead to the arrest of the killer.

  “Teru, what would you do if everybody in your family died, everybody except you, all at once?” his colleague asked, still with her face averted.

  “Hmm… I can’t say,” he hedged. He didn’t even want to think about it.

  “Me, I’d be lost. To be the sole survivor… I couldn’t handle it. I’d follow them.”

  The detective glanced over at his colleague in the seat next to him. He couldn’t see her expression, nor could he tell if she was in earnest or simply speaking to fill the silence.

  In the corridor of the hospital the nurse cautioned them repeatedly. “She looks calm enough, but don’t put too much store by that.” Her voice was filled with emotion. “Please don’t forget this patient’s circumstances. That child was in the same room, from beginning to end, while her whole family died in agony around her and she heard it all. She’s been through a horrific experience.”

  They stood in a cool, white corridor. In tandem with the rise of an inward tension at the prospect of meeting the surviving witness, the detective was also experiencing something else, a sudden stir of agitation at the memory of the enormous, indifferent malice that he had perceived fleetingly in the party room the previous day. Something hitherto unknown to him, beyond anything he had ever imagined or encountered before.

  That’s right. It was like there was something in there beyond the realm of human understanding. But immediately he dismissed this thought as foolish.

  The detective stood before a white door at the end of the corridor. The nurse opened it with a click, and he and his colleague nodded as they entered the room behind her. He saw the girl sitting up in bed, and somewhere in the back of his mind he heard his wife’s voice: Can you tell the first time you meet a criminal whether or not that person is guilty?

  He stared at the girl before him. The interview began, and he confirmed from her that she had been sitting in the rattan chair in the party room, the chair that was not out of place. Then, in his head, he silently answered his wife: It’s never happened before, but in this case, yes. I knew immediately that the girl in front of me was the culprit.

  6

  INVISIBLE PEOPLE

  Sei-ichi, the author’s eldest brother

  I

  You don’t mind if I help myself to a drink, do you? Have one too if you like. You must be thirsty after coming all that way in this heat.

  Yes, I’m more relaxed like this. Don’t stand on ceremony.

  Would you like a glass?

  Sure? It’s a bit rough, but let’s drink like this.

  I make sure we never run out of canned beer. It’s my one pleasure, you might say. I like a quiet drink during the day when I’m not working.

  The wife’s at a friend’s house. She knows I’m happier left to my own devices, so she goes out to do her quilting and leaves me to it. Her friend is some kind of textile artist. I went to one of her solo exhibitions once with the wife – social obligation and all that – and it curdled my blood to see the amount of work she puts into it. Made me think of a girl I knew in high school who once gave me a sweater she made. I wasn’t interested in her at all. If I was I might have been touched, you know, going to all that trouble to make something specially for me, but that wasn’t the case. When someone devotes all that time to you for their own pleasure, all it does is make you wary.

  I’ve watched them work on the quilts, and it’s beyond me how they can be so absorbed by such fiddly, tiring work. To be honest, I prefer to rattle around alone on my days off, so I’m grateful to my wife for going out. The kids have left home too.

  I never drink much except at home. Everyone at work thinks I’m a teetotaller, even though I’m quite partial to a glass or two. I have a couple of close friends I drink with outside the house, but that’s all, and they have nothing to do with work.

  Coffee shops? I’m not one for those much, either. If I couldn’t avoid going to one in my student days, I’d order something but not touch it. The staff never liked that, of course. And friends thought it was strange, too. But nowadays there are more places where they pour the drinks right in front of you, so I’m a bit more relaxed about it.

  Why?

  This may sound foolish, but in a bar or coffee shop there are any number of opportunities for someone to slip poison into a drink while it’s being brought to you. That’s why.

  II

  Ah, what can I say? That may have had something to do with it. I don’t know for sure. I had a slight germ phobia to begin with and might have turned out like this in any case. As a boy I never ate rice crackers or manju buns that had been touched by anyone. I couldn’t share drinks with friends, and I couldn’t abide using the same hand towels as the rest of the family.

  My brother couldn’t touch soft drinks either for a long time afterwards, but he got over that once we moved away. He had no qualms then about accepting food or drink from other people if what was on offer tempted him. So to come back to your question, I don’t think the murders were a turning point for me in that respect.

  The way I see it now is that it’s a natural form of self-defence.

  You hear of lots of food and drink tampering incidents these days. They’re on the increase. You never know what people will do. Even in the office kitchen, anyone could do anything. You never know who’s holding a grudge or is unhinged and waiting to spring.

  Men are particularly at risk. They’re so used to having their mothers do everything for them, they’re under the illusion drinks appear whenever they want – just like that. They don’t realize that every single thing that goes into their mouths has been handled by any number of nameless people first. Many women might be just as vulnerable too these days.

  I have a bit to do with foreign executives through work and, let me tell you, those people are surrounded by invisible servants. They don’t think twice about letting maids or tradesmen from residential management services into their homes while they’re out.

  No, it’s not because they have absolute trust. It’s because they’re like kings with underlings to do everything for them, even down to changing their clothes, so they’re completely unembarrassed about being seen in the nude by the people who wait on them. It’s the same thing. To someone like that, other people are invisible.

  III

  Ah, I barely remember the murders. After all, it was decades ago.

  I was busy studying for my high-school entrance exams at the time, and only went to that house reluctantly because my brother and his friends made so much fuss about it. And yes, I admit, probably because the parents also told me to put in an appearance. I was in a foul mood because the weather was so damn hot and I couldn’t concentrate.

  It was insanely hot and humid – very strange weather.

  I remember that some key or other didn’t work.

  You know how difficult it can be to turn a key in extreme humidity? Because the metal shrinks and expands. And the humidity that day must have been off the scale. The foehn winds were blowing and the temperature was way up as well.

  Ah, now I remember – it was the key to my school satchel. As I said, I was very sensitive about my things being touched by strangers, so I had a lot of locks in my room. Obviously I didn’t have much of value, only being at middle school at the time. A strongbox for my toys and my school satchel, that was about all.

  My satchel had a tiny, cheap lock, and I couldn’t get the key to turn at all that day. So I was even more irritated because of that. I don’t remember if I managed to lock it in the end.

  Anyway, I was still fuming over it when we arrived at that house.

  The minute we got there I could tell something was wrong.

  I don’t know how else to express it – something wrong.

  All hell had broken loose? No, it wasn’t like that. When I picture it now, I see people lying on the floor, like bl
ack amoebas. I can’t recall their faces or facial expressions. The thing that sticks in my mind is black amoebas writhing about on the floor.

  I don’t remember hearing any screaming or groaning, either. There was noise, of course, but it sounded more like the house rumbling than voices. I use the word rumbling, but that’s because I don’t know how else to describe it. The whole house sounded like it was wailing and shaking. Maybe it’s a trick of memory, but that’s how I remember it. It was like my bones were vibrating, and I just knew that something very bad had happened.

  I think I might have yelled at my brother and sister to stay put. Told them not to move.

  Then I ran. All I could think was I had to get help.

  Ah, the nearest police box was about ten minutes away, I guess.

  But truth be told, I simply wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. Put as much distance as I could between that place and me, even if it meant abandoning my brother and sister.

  When I got to the police box I’m pretty sure I said something terrible had happened at the Aosawa house, and that people were lying on the ground in pain. The officer on duty was confused at first, but soon caught on when I repeated myself. He leapt into action, made lots of phone calls, people started appearing, and in no time a huge commotion had started.

  The thing I remember most is the anxiety I felt. I was the one who had pushed the switch to set all that in motion. A train of action suddenly moving at high speed. If anything, that frightened me more than when I had entered the house. Whatever had happened in there became acknowledged fact, and the world was reacting to it because of me. The way I see it, it was like a merry-go-round had started, spinning faster and faster, and though I was the one who had started it, I was instantly left behind. I’m not someone who ordinarily initiates action. I’m an opportunist, you could say, someone who always looks to see what other people are thinking before taking any action myself. That way of thinking is so ingrained in me that when I started running for the police I was already having doubts in a corner of my mind about whether it was a wise thing to do.