Masako Togawa - The Lady Killer

“So someone goes around collecting these tubes? For example, a nurse?”

“No, we usually hand it over to the registrar in person.”

Whilst talking, they had moved away from the crowd and were now standing by a window next to a shoe locker. To the casual observer, they would have been seen as two men holding a light conversation.

“Look,” said Shinji. “A man’s life depends upon this. You won’t have to go into court and give evidence if you don’t want to, but please just tell me the truth. On or just before the fifth of November, did you not give a test tube of sperm to someone other than the registrar—even, a faint possibility that occurs to me, to a strange nurse?”

A cool breeze, chilled by the shade of the trees outside, blew in through the window. Kotaro Yamazaki had turned his back on Shinji, causing the latter to reflect on how such a gesture symbolizes rejection. After a pause, Yamazaki turned and faced Shinji again.

“How much do you think the hospital pays me?” His voice was low and challenging. Shinji did not reply.

“Nothing, that’s the answer! No matter how long you’ve worked, nothing. You’ve got to be rich to become a doctor, you know! A lot of the others are themselves sons of doctors, so they can afford it and don’t mind working like horses for nothing. I’m not complaining; that’s the way it is. I’m just saying it’s easier to qualify if you are rich, if you’re a doctor’s son like those others, so I ask you to spare a thought for people like me who have to make it on our own. Yes, I did sell a test tube of semen for ten thousand yen on the fifth of November last year, if you must know.”

“Ten thousand yen! That’s a lot of money! What’s the normal rate?”

Yamazaki again turned his back on Shinji and answered over his shoulder. “A thousand or fifteen hundred.” His voice seemed to be full of self-contempt.

“And what did the person look like—the one who came to collect the tube?”

“A nurse in a white uniform. It was in the afternoon, I think. I had just had lunch, and was walking down the corridor when a strange nurse carrying a test tube appeared and, having identified me, offered me ten times the usual rate to make an urgent donation under conditions of strict secrecy. I accepted without hesitation. I mean, ten thousand yen. And in other ways it was not such an unusual request.”

The nurse had waited for him to make the donation and had then left. She had introduced herself as being from the K Obstetric Clinic in Setagaya.

“And you got the payment all right?”

“Oh, yes, she gave it to me in a brown envelope together with the test tube.”

“And what did you do with the envelope?”

“I threw it away.”

“Can you remember what she looked like?”

“Not particularly. A small woman in a nurse’s uniform, which contributes to anonymity. When she turned to go, I saw that her hair was braided under her cap.”

“Did she have a mole at the right base of her nose?”

Shinji touched his nose to refresh Yamazaki’s memory.

“Yes, she did, now you mention it. Quite a big mole. She was wearing a mask at first, and I didn’t see it.”

So the woman with the mole had come here, too. She had collected semen; her criminal intent now seemed clear.

“And she took her mask off?”

“Yes. She apologized for having a cold and blew her nose. That’s when she took the mask off and I saw the mole.”

So she invariably tried to conceal the mole, and thereby drew attention to it. Was the criminal fighting a losing battle with fate?

“Did she give you the impression of being disguised?”

“Not at all. A white uniform in a hospital is most natural, after all, so I thought nothing of it.”

“But didn’t you think it a bit peculiar—coming from so far to collect semen?”

“Not really—she could have used a taxi.”

“Do you usually keep donations so secret?”

“Our professor tells us to. And it’s an important principle, don’t you agree? Can I go now? Frankly, by nature I don’t like discussing things that are over and done with.” His face had grown cold.

“Of course, and I’ll treat everything you have said in strict confidence, don’t you worry. But just one last question before you go. Yesterday, you told me that blood donation is a stale topic and that artificial insemination is more interesting. You even mentioned an interview with a popular magazine. Frankly, it seemed to me that you were being evasive. Now I want you to be perfectly frank with me. Did it not later occur to you that there was some connection between this incident and Ichiro Honda’s case? Didn’t there seem to be some linkage, perhaps more than coincidence, between the date of your donation and the rape-murder in Kinshicho?”

“No, not for one minute. Your hypothesis lacks scientific substance.” He looked disdainfully at Shinji and went on. “Human beings are divided into secretory and nonsecretory types, you know. It is only in the case of a secretory type that the semen and saliva are identical in type to the blood. And I am a nonsecretory type. So although my blood type is AB, my semen and saliva will not show up as AB but as O. If you don’t believe me, look it up or go and ask an expert.”

“And how do you know you are nonsecretory? Most people wouldn’t, would they?” Shinji made a last effort to catch him out.

“We were experimenting in the forensic lab at university, and they used a cigarette butt that I had smoked. Do you know that you can detect a saliva type from one-third of a postage stamp that someone has licked? So that’s how I know.” And without further ceremony he turned away from Shinji, hurrying down the corridor with long strides.

Could this really be true? Could the semen found in the body of Kimiko Tsuda not belong to Yamazaki after all? So was he wrong in his theory about the woman with a mole who collected samples of AB Rh-negative blood and sperm? His supposition, which had seemed to be 99 percent probable, seemed on the point of collapse. But then, why would the woman with the mole bother to collect Yamazaki’s semen?

Shinji felt that he was still blundering in the dark.

Shinji came to the end of his report, but even then the old man did not raise his hooded eyes. He was gazing down at the scrap of paper that the Turkish bath girl had given to Tanikawa, tapping it absently with his fingertip. Was the old man silent because the case had turned out to be as he had expected? Was he stunned by this or merely satisfied? And yet, was there not an enormous hole in his theory—the matter of secretory and nonsecretory types, which Yamazaki had explained?

“The fact that Yamazaki is a nonsecretory type, and that his fluids are type O, does not matter at all,” said Hatanaka at length. “Indeed, it only goes to prove that the woman with the mole did use his sperm.”

“Why?”

“Well, go back and read the trial transcript. You will find that the semen found in Kimiko Tsuda’s body was originally classified as type O. However, a later submission by the prosecution to have it reclassified AB was upheld by the judge. It was partly due to this doubt that Honda was acquitted of that murder. However, it now seems plain to me that the original assessment was correct and that the semen found in the corpse must have indeed been type O.”

“But surely it is a matter of scientific fact rather than surmise?”

“Not a bit of it. Expert evidence is often just as subjective as lay evidence. Two different professors are quite likely to come up with two different views.”

“So you are convinced that the woman with the mole is the person who entrapped Ichiro Honda?”

“Can there be any doubt? I am quite convinced that the woman with the mole collected the semen and deposited it in the women’s bodies. And furthermore, I have proof that these crimes were premeditated for a long time. You see, last night I went to a bar called Boi in Shinjuku.” The old man’s eyes were like curtains; he paused and lit a fresh cigar.