Содзи Симада - Murder in the Crooked House

“Ah, yes, I suppose so… And I’ve just realized myself about the blood on the string when Ueda was killed. The string had absorbed some of the red blood then, but in the case of Kikuoka there was nothing. Even though in both cases the string ought to have touched the blood. I should have noticed.”

“Right, then. If there are no more points that need explaining, let’s get to the thing I want to hear the most. I’m ready to ask the big question.”

I felt that Kiyoshi’s emotionless, businesslike way of talking was particularly cruel right now. It felt like a punch to the guts. This was his usual way of doing things. Except that, unlike the police, he never seemed to look down on the criminals that he caught. Kozaburo Hamamoto had been a worthy opponent, and he had treated him with respect to the very end.

“Yes, of course. Where to begin…?”

Kozaburo seemed to find it hard to speak. It was clear he had a heavy heart.

“Everyone is no doubt wondering why I wanted to kill Eikichi Kikuoka, a man with whom I had no close relationship. Well, that’s a reasonable question. We hadn’t grown up together, we hadn’t even met when we were young men. I had absolutely no personal grudge against him. But I feel no remorse—I had a perfectly good reason to kill him. My only regret is that I killed Mr Ueda. I really didn’t need to. That was my own selfishness.

“I’ll tell you the story of why I had to kill Kikuoka. It won’t be moving, or beautiful, or just, nor for some admirable cause. It was the atonement for a mistake that I made back in my youth.”

He broke off there, as if trying to deal with some unbearable pain. It was the face of a man tortured by his own conscience.

“The story begins almost forty years ago, when Hama Diesel was still Murata Engines. I’ll keep it short. Back then Murata Engines was just a simple office—nothing but a row of desks in the dirt-floor entrance way of a hut hastily constructed in the ruins of burnt-out Tokyo. Nothing but a backstreet workshop, really. Anyway, I had confidence in my own abilities and was promoted from apprentice up to head clerk. The boss had great trust in me, and although I say so myself, the company wouldn’t have run as smoothly without me.

“The company president had a daughter—his only child. He’d once had a son too, but the young man was killed in the war. This daughter and I got on very well. Back in those days I couldn’t say we were going out together, but she made it clear that she liked me and it seemed that I had her father’s approval. I can’t deny that I had ambitions to marry the boss’s daughter and inherit the business, but my intentions towards her were always pure. While I’d been away fighting, my parents had been killed in an air raid, so there would be no objections from my family to taking my wife’s name.

“And then a man by the name of Yamada turned up. He was the second son of a certain politician, and had been at school with Tomiko. (That was the name of my boss’s daughter.) It seemed that he’d had an eye for Tomiko for a while.

“I can attest that this man was a fully fledged member of the yakuza. At that time he was already living with a woman of dodgy repute. All I wanted was for Tomiko to be happy, and if he’d been a good man, I would have been able to deal with the rejection. If by marrying this man from a good family, the small company could have profited and done well, then I would have been happy to step aside. But this Yamada was just a worthless punk, and totally unworthy of Tomiko. Unfortunately, her father was into the idea of his daughter marrying a politician’s son.

“I couldn’t understand my boss’s attitude at all, and worried day and night. But now that I’m a father myself, I understand him much better. A father doesn’t want his daughter to marry purely from love. There are other considerations.

“Anyway, I wanted to save Tomiko from the misery of becoming this man’s wife. I swear that I didn’t only have the ulterior motive of making her my own. Back then, it never even occurred to me.

“Around that time I bumped into an old childhood friend of mine by the name of Noma. I’d thought he’d been killed on the front line in Burma. It was a joyous reunion, we went out drinking and caught up. Noma was in a bad way—nothing but skin and bones, sick and weak.

“I’ll get to the point. Noma had turned up in Tokyo at that time because he was hunting down a man. This man was a few years younger than him, but had been his commanding officer in the army—an unspeakably cruel man. Noma had managed to survive but he couldn’t forget the suffering he had endured at the hands of this officer.

“I heard the story of what happened to him many times over. But what was slightly different in his case was that to him this officer was a double murderer—he’d been directly responsible for the death of one of Noma’s comrades-in-arms and also the woman Noma loved. In time of war, this officer had got kicks out of inflicting private punishment on his subordinates. It was an everyday occurrence with him. In fact, there were some of Noma’s fellow soldiers who ended up permanently scarred from his cruelty.

“Noma had become involved with a local Burmese girl, an extremely beautiful young woman. He’d decided that once the war was ended, if he managed to survive, he would marry her and remain in Burma.

“But with the misfortune that comes in wartime, his commanding officer captured this woman, accusing her of being a spy. Noma knew it wasn’t true, desperately tried to stop him, but the officer merely replied that ‘All beautiful women are spies.’ Utterly ridiculous reasoning. He made her a prisoner of war, and proceeded to subject her to worse abuse than any human being could possibly imagine.

“Finally, when the order to retreat came, the officer ordered all of the prisoners to be shot. And later, when Japan surrendered, he threatened all of his men to keep quiet about it—I mean the fact that he had had all the prisoners of war killed. As a result, one of Noma’s fellow soldiers ended up being executed for having carried out those orders, while the officer, after a brief detainment, went scot-free.

“Noma was an academic type, not physically strong at all. The way he was living his life, constantly plotting revenge on his commanding officer, was destroying him. He had started coughing up blood. It was clear to me that he didn’t have long to live. Noma told me he wasn’t afraid to die, but that if he did he would die with regret in his heart, because just a few days earlier he had finally managed to find that commanding officer.

“Noma used to carry a concealed pistol around with him at all times. But it only contained one bullet. He used to say that it was impossible to get bullets any more, but he was ready for the day when he faced off with his enemy. He wouldn’t hesitate.

“After being demobilized, this commanding officer had apparently lost everything he ever owned, and spent his days drinking. He used to hold his bottle of cheap sake and look Noma in the eyes, telling him, ‘Oh, it’s you. Make sure you shoot me right in the heart.’ If Noma hesitated, he’d say, ‘I’ve got nothing left to lose. I don’t care if I die. Death would be a release.’

“Noma used to tell me, with tears pouring down his face, that because of all the pain this man had inflicted on him, his fellow soldiers and the woman he’d loved, he didn’t want to give him such an easy death.

“There are probably many stories like this one, but this is one of the worst I’ve ever heard. I was furious, and even thought of getting revenge on his behalf. Noma then asked how I was doing and I told him about my own troubles, all the while aware that mine were nothing in comparison to his.