I Parker - The Masuda Affair

‘Sadanori keeps a watch on it.’

‘Nobody mentioned his name. Too bad that old woman took to her heels. She would have known. I wonder where she went.’

‘To report to him that another one got away,’ said Tora grimly.

‘Let’s go home. Tomorrow we’ll go back to Otsu to see if that Peony and this one are the same woman.’

The next day was one of those delightful early autumn days when the summer heat has broken and the world looks deceptively fresh and young again. They rode to Otsu with lighter hearts than perhaps they had any right to.

Tora, the memory of Hanae’s lovemaking vivid in his mind, whistled. If Akitada felt any regrets that his own bed had remained empty, he put them aside as he thought of the child. He still wished with all his heart that he could bring him home, but his conscience insisted that he at least try to uncover the child’s parentage.

Akitada did remember fleetingly, and with a pang of guilt, that he should be at work. A whole week had passed since his return from Hikone, and he had yet to report to the ministry. Of course, he had a free hand nowadays – daily tasks were in the capable hands of a large staff of clerks and scribes, and the minister was in office – but they would wonder sooner or later what kept him in Hikone. He must try to settle affairs in Otsu today so that he could take up his duties again.

They reached Otsu by midday. The lake stretched before them like an invitation to eternity, its far reaches melting into a blue horizon, and black-headed seagulls shrieked and spun in the air above. The brisk autumnal wind filled the sails of boats, moving them along swiftly. It was a day when it seemed easy and tempting to leave behind all one’s troubles.

They left their horses at the post stables and walked to the warden’s office. Tora was still a fugitive until his status could be cleared. They met Warden Takechi as he hurried out, his face grim and his mustache bristling with excitement. Three constables trotted at his heels and shouted, ‘Make way.’

The warden stopped. ‘It’s you, sir,’ he cried. ‘The answer to a prayer. Would you mind coming along on a murder case?’

Akitada said cautiously, ‘I’m Sugawara, Warden Takechi. I brought my retainer to answer the charges against him.’

The warden waved an impatient hand. ‘I know.’ His eyes flicked over Tora. ‘He can come along too.’

Bemused, Akitada looked at Tora, who grinned, no doubt relieved that he was in no immediate danger of arrest. They followed the warden and his constables down the busy main street of Otsu and into a residential quarter.

The warden turned to speak to Akitada on the way. ‘I wouldn’t have troubled you, sir,’ he said, belatedly apologetic, ‘but it’s Dr Inabe who’s been murdered. He’s the only doctor in Otsu. I’m told he’s been bludgeoned to death in his home. I want to get my hands on the killers quick.’

Akitada hoped to settle his own affairs and return to the capital before dark, but he could not afford to alienate the warden. He said, ‘I’m not sure I can be of much use, but I’ll gladly take a look.’ Then he asked, ‘Is the boy well? Is he still with the widow Yozaemon and her son?’

‘No problems there. The Mimuras have made no trouble.’

‘I’ve decided to settle the matter with them.’

‘Much the best way, though they don’t deserve it.’

‘I’d like to see him.’

‘Go ahead. The judge is satisfied that you mean the child no harm.’

Tora gave a snort. ‘About time.’

Fortunately, Warden Takechi seemed to take this as an expression of loyalty and only nodded. Akitada was grateful; he suspected that the warden had put in a good word for him. ‘Tell me about your victim,’ he said.

The warden’s face fell. ‘He’s… he was a good man. Everybody loved him. Getting on in years – past fifty – but still strong and healthy. No family. Never had children, and after his wife died he lived alone, like a monk almost, with only one old servant. He tended to the sick and served as our coroner. He’ll be sorely missed.’

‘I’m very sorry. Any idea who did this?’

‘None. It makes no sense at all.’

The doctor’s house was not far from that of the dead courtesan, though it was not on the lake. It lay hidden among thick, rustling trees. Birds chirped and chattered, and here and there a late cicada still sounded its shrill rasp. Outside the open gate a group of neighbors waited. To the side stood one of the itinerant monks. The neighbors greeted the warden with anxious questions, but he brushed off them off and left a constable at the gate to take their information.

The house had once been a fine one, but it was as sadly neglected as the Sugawara home. Shutters hung loose, and big wads of thatch were missing from the main roof; a kitchen building leaned crazily, and weeds grew everywhere. But the whole place was alive with birds. Swallows nested under the eaves, scattering bits of straw and thatch; doves cooed in the trees, suddenly swooping down in a swarm to fly across to a neighboring property and back again; somewhere finches chittered; and the courtyard’s gravel seemed covered with tiny chirping sparrows, pecking and fluttering up at their approach.

‘He loved the birds,’ muttered the warden.

A distraught and trembling old man in a dusty robe and with a small black cap on his white hair waited for them. The warden nodded to him. ‘Where is he?’

‘The studio.’ The old man led the way, shuffling in worn straw sandals through a derelict garden, where more birds fluttered and rustled in the shrubbery, to a small pavilion in better repair than the rest.

They took off their shoes at the door. ‘This is where he lived,’ Warden Takechi explained. ‘His study, library, pharmacy, and living quarters all in one.’

The pavilion was small. Odd, Akitada thought, how the man’s life had contracted to living in one room and with only one servant. Being childless, Inabe was alone in the world. He suddenly had a vision of himself, years from now, dying alone in his study while the Sugawara mansion lay in ruins about him. The image depressed him.

Leaving the constables and the servant outside, they stepped into a dim, oppressive space. Sickly sweet odors of rotting fruit, stale wine, and of something stranger and more upsetting hung in the warm air: the cloying smell of blood and death. There was an odd sound, a faint sibilant hum. The room was crowded with dimly seen objects.

Skirting something on the floor, the warden crossed the space and pushed open the shutters to the rear garden. Sunlight poured in, slanting through the branches and falling across the body as if to focus attention on it. The dead man lay face down near the center of the room, his head towards the garden, his arms and legs flung out like those of the rice straw manikin in the peasants’ harvest rites. His black silk physician’s gown was neat and the white socks clean, but the back of his head was covered by a strange black cap that was horribly alive and buzzing.

Hundreds of flies, disturbed in their feeding frenzy, hovered and clung, fighting like tiny vultures over their carrion.

All around, the necessities of Inabe’s simple life cluttered up the modest space. Like most men, he had either not been a good house-keeper or had not really cared about such things. The walls were lined haphazardly with shelves, some crammed with books, others with a jumble of jars of ointments and boxes of powders. Bundles of drying herbs hung from ceiling beams. On a small, low desk, notes, papers, scrolls, used wine cups, dirty rice bowls, and, incongruously, a straw rain hat kept disorderly company. A bamboo stand in the corner held more cups, chopsticks, a wine flask, three overripe plums in a chipped bowl, a burnt-down candle in a holder, and a dirty brazier. Several old leather-covered trunks probably contained his clothes and bedding. The doctor’s case stood beside his walking staff at the door by which they had entered.