Masako Togawa - The Lady Killer

“I’m Yamazaki. What can I do for you?”

“I would like to ask you a few questions, as I understand that you have been the donor of a rare type of blood. Can I begin by asking if your involvement is in any way due to the fact that you yourself are a doctor?”

Yamazaki stared at the reporter’s name card, which Shinji had given him, turning one corner down before replacing it on the table.

“Well, as I told you on the phone, I haven’t given blood for years.”

“And back then? Did you donate often?”

“No. Only two or three times in all.”

“And you haven’t given blood recently?”

“Not for at least a year. And even then it wasn’t voluntary. I received a specific request from the blood bank because of my unusual blood group. They were out of stock, it seems, and there was some emergency—a newborn baby, I believe.”

“Other than that?”

“Never.”

“What about between October last year and January this year?”

At this question, Yamazaki gazed at Shinji sharply, but the latter maintained his bland countenance and Yamazaki relaxed. He replied sulkily, “If I say never, I mean never! Why are you so inquisitive, might I ask?”

Shinji felt that there was nothing more to be gained from the conversation and stood up to leave. Yamazaki leaned back in his chair and, gazing up at Shinji, drawled, “Blood is a boring subject, don’t you think? Now sperm, that’s quite a different matter. The other day I gave an interview to a journalist from some third-rate rag or other on the topic of sperm donation. That’s much more interesting, wouldn’t you agree? But of course we donors are not allowed to talk about it—ethics of the trade, you might say.”

He was now bantering, and so Shinji totally overlooked the significance of what he was saying and paid up and left the shop.

He went back to his office, where he found Mutsuko Fujitsubo filing papers. The old man was at the prison talking to Ichiro Honda.

“How’s the reconstruction of the diary going, I wonder?” he asked, meanwhile glancing at a sheet of information from the detective agency that Mutsuko was about to file. It revealed that amongst Honda’s victims there had been an elementary school teacher. The secret stains of humanity could be found in every life.

“Not too well, I’m afraid,” Mutsuko replied. “It seems that Honda can’t recollect as much as the old man had hoped he could. And the detective agency isn’t making much progress, either. They’ve got literally dozens of people out on the case, but without much effect.”

Shinji reflected that finding someone with a motive by reconstructing the lady killer’s diary would not be as easy a task as the old man had hoped, and he sensed that Mutsuko felt the same way. If this was true, the old man would have to go to the appeal court with nothing new to present. The day for the hearing was drawing close, and Shinji felt that he had no time to lose. The murderer had left a faint footprint at the blood banks; it was up to him to go out and collect the most precise details that he could and give them to the old man.

Evening came, and the sun went down. On the pavement outside the cheap pub called “Renko,” someone had sprinkled water in a vain attempt to lay the dust.

Shinji pushed his way through the mean rope curtain that separated the dive from the outside world. He quickly identified Yuzo Osawa as being the old man sitting by himself at the U-shaped counter and drinking shochu , a cheap and potent white spirit. As the researcher had suggested, there was a plate of mincemeat and bean curd in front of him. The pub was almost full, and nearly everyone was engrossed in the television screen, but when Shinji sat down beside Osawa he discovered that the screen was half hidden by a pillar from that seat. He ordered a bottle of beer.

Osawa sat next to him, cradling his glass of shochu in his hands as if trying to warm it. Occasionally, he would raise the glass to his lips and take a slow and careful sip. His fingernails were engrimed with oil and dust.

“Hey, old fellow! Haven’t we met somewhere before!” said Shinji with forced joviality.

Osawa turned and gazed at him blankly. He cupped his ear and said, “What?” His several-day growth of stubble, peppered with white, contributed further to his generally slovenly appearance.

“I said we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“Oh yeah?” replied the old vagrant in negative tones, and he returned his attention to his shochu . He was withdrawing into his shell, and Shinji had to move quickly.

“I remember where it was. We were both in line at the same blood bank… let me see, the Komatsu Laboratory on the Keio line, wasn’t it? I’ve just sold 200 cc today, so let me buy you a drink, gaffer.”

“Really? Very kind, I’m sure.” His voice softened perceptibly. He gulped down the remainder of his glass in one mouthful, as if afraid that this stranger might change his mind. But still the way in which he wiped his mouth with his hand betrayed how precious the liquor was to him.

With the new glass in front of him, he relaxed. “It’s O.K. for you young guys, I expect,” he opened defensively. “They’ll still buy your blood, I expect. But an old man like me… they don’t want us any more. Say it isn’t thick enough or something.”

“So you aren’t selling any more? When did you last sell, then?”

“Over a year ago. The person in charge was shifted, and the new one doesn’t take me seriously.”

“But would you still sell if you could? I mean, if someone, anyone, came to buy, would you sell?”

“Sure I would. I’m quite healthy and besides, my blood is a rare type. Valuable, it is. Not the blood most people have, you know. I’m AB Rh-negative—only one in two thousand, you know. But still nobody comes to buy it.”

The old man’s speech was beginning to slur. Shinji ordered him another drink and stood up to go.

“Buy you another one sometime, old fellow,” he said. The old man, his mouth full of shochu , almost choked as he said goodbye. Shinji left and headed toward Shinjuku Station. Well, he thought, the old laborer was no longer able to sell his blood. Who would want it, thin and alcohol-soaked as it was? Anyone seeking blood would try to get it from a younger man, someone around Ichiro Honda’s age. He deleted from his mind the day laborer and the medical student. And, he reflected, X was unlikely to have approached the intern because of his medical knowledge.

At Shinjuku Station he took the Chuo line and headed for Kanda. Once the train started, he thrust his head out of the window, letting the rushing air drive the beer fumes out of his head. But as the train gathered speed, he found that the buffeting slipstream deadened his thinking. The palace moat, glittering in the summer night, flashed before his eyes; he just took in the lovers and others in gaily lit boats bobbing on the waters. Even after the sight was long gone, the white shirt and matching blouse of one such couple lingered in his eyes.

The Turkish bathhouse, Alibaba, lay about five minutes’ walk from Kanda Station. Indeed, Shinji could see its garish, red neon sign from the train as it drew into the platform. However, getting to it was much more difficult than he had anticipated. He had to walk down a narrow alleyway crowded with cabarets, cheap bars, and low-class eating houses. Passing one such establishment, which specialized in skewered chicken, he had to wade through the heavy white smoke that flowed down from its extractor grill. He felt trapped. And rather than the smell of oil, he began to sense the scent of sexual desire and immorality. There was also a row of small textile wholesalers, all of whom had closed and pulled down their shutters long since, leaving the approach to the Turkish bath in pitch darkness. Alibaba stood immediately next to a public bathhouse; what a contrast, Shinji thought, between the physical cleanliness of the one and the moral pollution of the other. For, although he had never been inside such an establishment, he was well aware that they were no more than the thinnest of veils for prostitution.