Laura Rowland - The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria

“Can we go to her now?” Reiko said anxiously.

Yuya gave Reiko a sour look and held up her half-full bowl. “Wisteria says she’s tired of hiding. She wants to turn herself in and tell what she knows about the murder.”

“What does she know?” Reiko’s heart lurched; she leaned toward Yuya.

The prostitute smirked at her eagerness. “Wisteria saw Lightning kill Lord Mitsuyoshi. Afterward, Lightning took her out of Yoshiwara. She didn’t want to go with him, but he told her that unless she did, he would kill her.”

Reiko felt a rush of exultation, stanched by skepticism. While investigations often turned upon a stroke of luck, this news that would exonerate Sano seemed too good to be true.

“Wisteria hasn’t gone to the police because she’s afraid she’ll get in trouble,” Yuya continued, apparently unaware of Reiko’s doubt. “Whatever she says, people might think she’s lying to protect herself. With Lightning gone, everyone would just as soon blame her.”

The story made sense, and fabricating it would require more imagination than Reiko thought Yuya had; yet misgivings still restrained Reiko’s need to believe.

“I told Wisteria that you came to see me,” Yuya said. “I convinced her that if you talked with her and believed her story, you would convince your husband that she’s innocent. She agreed to surrender to you if the sōsakan-sama will help her.”

Setting down her empty bowl, Yuya raised her eyebrows at Reiko. When Reiko hesitated, Yuya added, “Lightning will be looking for Wisteria, and if he gets to her before you do, he’ll kill her.”

Reiko decided she had less to lose than to gain by taking Yuya at her word. If the story was true, Reiko could deliver Wisteria to Sano today. The courtesan would be safe from Lightning and the authorities, and Sano absolved from charges of treason and murder.

“All right,” Reiko said.

Yuya gave her a smug, conspiratorial smile and held out a hand. “Pay me first.”

“My escorts are coming with us,” Reiko said, taking a packet of money out of her sleeve.

The prostitute shrugged. “That’s fine with me,” she said, tucking the money inside her robes.

They left the noodle shop and climbed into the palanquin. “Go straight ahead four blocks, then turn right,” Yuya said.

Reiko conveyed these directions, and subsequent ones, to her escorts. As the procession wound through the streets, anticipation and anxiety coiled tight inside her. Curiosity about meeting a woman who’d been on intimate terms with Sano vied with dread of a hoax. Yuya lounged against the cushions, yet the sharpness of her gaze belied her body’s relaxed posture. Reiko alternated watching her companion and watching the scenery. Dingy neighborhoods that all looked alike made it hard for her to measure their progress.

“How much farther is it?” Reiko asked.

“We’re almost there,” Yuya said.

After almost an hour had passed, Reiko said with growing suspicion, “Do you really know where Wisteria is?”

“Of course I do.” Yuya bristled indignantly. “You’re a high-class lady, and I’m a lowly whore, but if you want Wisteria, you better be nice to me.”

The palanquin turned onto the main east-west road that crossed Edo. A mounted daimyo, escorted by many troops and attendants, filled the broad avenue. Pedestrians fell to their knees and bowed, while Reiko’s procession slowed behind the daimyo’s rear guardsmen. An inaudible sigh issued from Yuya; her body relaxed slightly. This tiny lapse of self-control struck ominous certainty into Reiko’s heart.

Yuya was taking her on an aimless ride. If they ever reached an inn, they would find no Wisteria, and Yuya would say the courtesan had run away. And Yuya was glad of a delay because she wanted the fraud to last as long as possible.

“Your story about Wisteria was a lie,” Reiko said, adamant in her conviction. “This is a trick.”

“No, it’s not.” Yuya regarded her with incredulity. “Why would I trick you?”

Suddenly Reiko’s amorphous fears crystallized. Incidents that had previously seemed to have neither relationship nor significance now fell into a chilling pattern. Yuya’s sudden readiness to cooperate; an uninvited friendship at an opportune time; strange behavior and a generous gesture with a hidden motive-all centered around Reiko’s memory of O-hana standing inside the estate while Reiko left it. Logic drew connections across gaps where facts were absent, forming a picture of a madwoman’s brilliant treachery.

“You want to lure me away from home,” Reiko said, stunned. “How much did she pay you?”

“Who? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But guilt quickened in Yuya’s heavy-lidded eyes, and she sat up straight. Now Reiko understood that the danger she’d sensed was not here, nor to her own person; she had never been the direct target of malice. The awful truth horrified her.

Grabbing Yuya’s wrist, Reiko demanded, “What is she doing while you occupy me?”

“Let go!” Yuya cried. She and Reiko struggled together, rocking the palanquin.“You’re talking nonsense. Why are you attacking me? Have you gone mad?”

“Tell me,” Reiko shouted, wild with panic.

Detective Marume rode up beside the palanquin. Peering through the window, he said, “What’s going on in there? Lady Reiko, are you all right?”

Reiko’s instincts blared a warning that no amount of reason could quell. She didn’t know exactly what would happen, but she could guess the consequences. The street had cleared, and her procession speeded up, carrying her farther away from home, where she needed to be.

“Stop!” she called to Marume.

The procession halted. Yuya twisted out of Reiko’s grasp, pushed open the palanquin’s door, and jumped out. As she ran away down the avenue, the soldiers started chasing her.

“Never mind her,” Reiko shouted. “Take me home!”

The procession laboriously turned in the direction of Edo Castle. Reiko sat desperate and frantic, her heart pounding with the fear that she was making a mistake, yet transfixed by the certainty that she was right about everything, despite the lack of any proof.

She hoped she hadn’t thrown away her chance to solve the murder case and save Sano. She prayed she would arrive home in time to avert disaster.

Lightning and the Mori gang are on the run,” Sano said to Hirata as they rode across the Ryogoku Bridge, which connected Edo to the suburbs east of the Sumida River.

“That would explain why they’re not in any of their usual places,” Hirata said.

Below the bridge’s high wooden arch, ferries and barges tossed on choppy gray waves. Behind Sano and Hirata, on the eastern bank, lay a popular entertainment district known as Honjo Muko-“Other Side”-Ryogoku. Sano and Hirata had spent the early afternoon searching teahouses, shops, and gambling dens frequented by the Mori, but found no trace of the gangsters.

“We can’t just keep roaming around, hoping to run into Lightning,” said Sano. “There’s not enough time, and too much area to cover.”

He gazed ahead toward Edo. Windblown clouds obscured the hills and misted the entire sky. Around the castle spread the houses where a million people lived. Somewhere in the teeming city were the detectives Sano had ordered to hunt for Lightning. Sano thought of his men slowly, laboriously combing the streets. Despair filled him.

“Lightning may have already left town,” Sano said.

“The detectives we sent out on the highways will watch for him at the checkpoints,” Hirata said.

“He won’t use the highways. Men like him travel by secret routes,” Sano said. “To catch him outside Edo, we’d need an army spread across the country, searching every forest, mountain, and village. I still have allies who might lend troops for a nationwide manhunt. That may be our only option, now that we’ve run out of contacts and places to look.”