I Parker - The Masuda Affair

‘Possibly there was a lake nearby. Or the river. Describe the interior.’

She sat up a little straighter. ‘I was in only one room, but it was very luxurious. I’d never seen so many costly things in one place. There were five or six beautiful painted screens and a lacquered curtain stand with mother-of pearl inlay. We sat on a thick grass mat on cushions of red silk. The wine flask and cups on a small red-and-gilt stand were of porcelain. It looked like a room for an empress. I saw a large silver mirror and make-up cases and lovely lacquered and painted trunks. On the shelves were books and games and musical instruments. I kept expecting the lady of the house to appear. That’s when I asked where I was, and the old one said it was “Peony’s house”. The way she said it was… secretive. She kept looking at me and smiling.’ Hanae gave a dainty shudder.

‘Would you say,’ Akitada asked, ‘that it was the sort of place where a very rich man might keep his favorite concubine?’

‘She would have to be very special.’

‘Was there a garden? Could you see outside?’

‘The shades were down and the outer shutters closed. We sat by candlelight.’

‘Hmm. Describe the old woman.’

‘She was about fifty years old, I think. A little taller than I. Broad in the hips, but not fat. She had small hands and feet, and a round face. Her hair was getting thin and gray.’

‘Any recognizable features? Scars, moles, a limp?’

‘No. She looked… respectable.’

Tora muttered something under his breath. Akitada ignored him. ‘So you drank the wine she offered. Did you talk about anything?’

‘I was nervous and chattered about being a nursemaid and how I liked children very much and that I was so happy I was to have one of my own. She just nodded and smiled. Then I got dizzy. I remember that her teeth were blackened and thought that strange for a servant, but then she could have been a relative. I’m afraid I don’t remember anything after that.’

Akitada cleared his throat. It was a convenient tale. ‘When you woke up, you were alone?’

‘Yes. It was completely dark. I was lying on the floor. My arms were tied behind my back and my ankles were tied. I was wearing the silk robe.’

Tora moved angrily and muttered again.

‘Be quiet,’ said his master. ‘Go on, Hanae.’

‘My head hurt. I felt quite sick for a while. But then I began to work on the rope. I thought the woman had gone to sleep and if I was as quiet as a mouse, I might get away. I managed to get the ropes off and felt my way out of the room and down a hallway. The outside door wasn’t locked, but the gate was, so I climbed over the fence and started running. After a while I heard the bell of the East Temple and found my way home just before you came.’

Akitada said nothing for a few moments. Then he asked, ‘Do you mean to say you were unconscious for more than a whole day and night?’

‘I must have been.’

She had looked quite sick, but her story was still hard to believe. What drug would leave a woman unconscious that long? And if Sadanori had ordered her abduction, he had had plenty of time to take his pleasure. Why had he not done so? And how had she escaped so easily? But he said nothing of his doubts and thanked Hanae.

‘Get your sword and saddle two horses, Tora,’ he said, getting up. ‘We’ll look for the house and have a talk with that old woman.’

Akitada doubted the house or the old woman existed, but for Tora’s sake, they had to look. On horseback, they covered more ground in less time, but the sun was setting before they trotted down a quiet residential street just north of the Willow Quarter. They had covered the areas south of both markets without seeing likely houses. This was a quiet area of small but well-kept homes.

And then Tora pointed. He had been scanning the skyline for pine trees and now he said, ‘Look over there, in the next street. See the two pines, and one has a large bird’s nest in it. I bet that’s where a couple of cranes are roosting. Remember Hanae said she heard cranes?’ He spurred his horse, and Akitada followed. In the next street was indeed a house behind a high fence, a fence that was part wood and part woven bamboo.

‘Possibly,’ Akitada said, grudgingly. ‘It looks empty. No smoke.’

They pounded on the gate. Nobody came. Tora kicked at the gate with his foot and it flew back, crashing against the fence inside. A couple of mourning doves flew up with a clatter of wings; otherwise all remained silent. They rode into a small courtyard that looked exactly as Hanae had described it.

Tora dismounted, gave a couple of lusty shouts for servants, then tried the door of the house. ‘It’s open, sir. Let’s have a look.’

The house was empty, and that meant they had lost the old woman, their only witness to Hanae’s story. She would have been likely to run when she found that her prisoner had escaped.

They checked all the rooms quickly. There were five and a kitchen. The house was small, but well appointed. Even the kitchen was equipped to furnish elaborate meals at a moment’s notice. It was exactly the sort of place a very rich nobleman would furnish for a treasured female who was not acceptable in his household. But this house had not been in use for a long time before Hanae’s abduction. A great deal of dust lay everywhere, and cobwebs hung from all the ceilings. Only the main room had been cleaned. And strangely, while the furnishings were not new, they had seen little use, and that suggested that the house had stood empty for years. Was it Sadanori’s? Had he built it for the courtesan Peony, who had ended her life in another man’s secret hideaway in Otsu?

Akitada inspected the main room. The pieces of rope still lay next to a bundle of plain clothing, proof of Hanae’s tale and of the abrupt flight of the old woman. Tora pounced on the bundle and unrolled it. It consisted of a plain dark blue gown, a pair of matching trousers, and a white-and-blue figured sash. ‘Hanae’s,’ he said.

Akitada nodded and raised the heavy reed blinds, bound in green brocade and tied with silk. Then he threw open the wooden shutters, looking out on a small, overgrown garden. More birds flew up. He turned and, in the remaining daylight, he saw the beautiful screens. Shimmering with gold dust and brilliant colors, they were painted with landscape scenes: a pond with a pair of ducks, a mountain gorge under a full moon, a garden scene with a pair of rabbits, and an assortment of baskets and birdcages suspended from a veranda roof. There were peonies on all of them, and colored paper squares covered with calligraphy were pasted into the design. The peonies’ colors were white, pink, and deep red; there were doubles and singles, heavily fringed or plain; they grew from the ground, leaned over water, or filled baskets. The paper squares contained love poems.

‘Peony’s house,’ Akitada muttered and went to read the poems.

Tora came to look. ‘Oh, I see what you mean.’

‘Peonies and love poems,’ said Akitada.

‘That sick bastard didn’t look like a poet to me.’

‘Oh, they’re not Sadanori’s.’

They looked briefly at the musical instruments and feminine possessions – the trunks were filled with exquisite robes – then closed the shutters again and left the house.

‘Let’s talk to the neighbors,’ Akitada said.

They split up to knock on the gates of all the houses on this block. When they met again, they had little enough information. The property belonged to some noble family and had been closed up for years. A caretaker checked it from time to time, but nobody lived there.

‘It’s a miracle thieves haven’t made off with everything the way they did in the villa in Otsu,’ Akitada said.