I Parker - The Masuda Affair

The old servant’s voice was now quite loud. ‘Lord Sugawara says the doctor has been murdered! Do you wish to speak to him, Master?’

Apparently not. The eyes remained shuttered behind the thin lids. Another bead was released and made a tiny clicking noise. Some wax spilled over, a drop sliding slowly down the candle into the holder where it congealed. The old servant sighed. He bowed again, touching his head to the polished floor, then rose and came to Akitada.

They left the room without speaking. The servant slid the door to very softly and said, ‘I’m sorry, sir. This is not one of his good days.’

‘Is your master deaf?’

‘No. His spirit has left.’

‘But he was praying.’

‘Maybe.’ The servant shook his head. ‘I bathe and dress him every morning. Then I feed him some gruel and put the rosary in his hand, and he sits like this all day. If I don’t give him his rosary, he weeps.’

‘Dear gods. How long has he been this way?’

‘Ever since the young lord died. A year or more. Some days he’s a little better. The doctor can get him to open his eyes and speak a few words. Oh, dear. What will happen to him now? They used to sit together, and the doctor would tell him what was happening in the town and what the weather was like and what he planned to have for his supper that night. I always listened, for the master would eat a little of that same food that night. He doesn’t eat well as a rule. And now, who knows? Maybe he’ll just give up and die.’

The darkness of the heart. The death of his son had taken the father’s will to live.

Akitada suppressed a wave of empathy for the old lord and asked, ‘You do all this work by yourself? Are there no other servants?’

‘There’s only Mrs Ishikawa. And she’s not really a servant. The ladies help.’

‘But surely there’s enough money for a large staff.’

The old man turned away and started back towards the front of the house. ‘The first lady pays people from the town to come and clean the rooms and do odd jobs,’ he said. ‘A cook comes every day. Sometimes there’s a seamstress. But nobody lives here except the family.’

‘Do His Lordship’s daughters-in-law keep him company during the day?’

‘No.’ It was a statement of fact, neither rancorous nor complaining.

Akitada wondered at the strangeness of this household run by women. The fact that only workers from outside were being used suggested that the family had something to hide. Surely that something was Peony and her relationship with the younger Masuda. When they reached the main hall, Akitada asked, ‘Was the picture of Lord Masuda’s son?’

The old man’s face softened. ‘Yes. It’s just like him. Wasn’t he handsome?’

‘I expect the ladies thought so. What did Lord Masuda think about his keeping a courtesan from the Willow Quarter in the lake villa?’

The old man’s face closed and he shuffled away. Akitada caught up and stepped in his path. ‘Come, you know very well what I mean. Young Masuda fell in love with the courtesan from the capital and installed her in the lakeside villa. Everyone knows.’

The servant bowed his head. ‘We’re not to talk about it, sir.’

Akitada said acidly, ‘Yes, I heard. His first wife has forbidden the subject. She who also holds the purse strings. She had reason to be jealous of the beautiful woman from the capital who took her husband’s heart and gave him a son.’ The old man said nothing. Akitada snapped, ‘There was a son, wasn’t there?’ Silence. ‘Why did his father not take care of the young woman and her child, his own grandchild?’

To his surprise, the servant became angry. ‘The first lady doesn’t tell me what to do,’ he said. ‘I’ve served His Lordship since we were boys. It was His Lordship who forbade mention of the woman’s name in this house.’

‘But why in heaven? She gave him an heir.’

‘Because she killed the young lord.’

‘What?’

‘That devil woman – that cursed demon…’ The old man trembled with fury and choked on the words.

Akitada put a steadying hand on his bony shoulder and said, ‘Calm down. The story I heard is that he deserted her and his son and later died of an illness. Now you tell me he was murdered?’

The servant dabbed his sleeve to his eyes, sniffed, and said fiercely, ‘He left her when his father insisted, but she bewitched him with her tears, and he went back to her. That’s when the vengeful demon poisoned him. He died at her house.’

Akitada stared at the old man. ‘He died there? When?’

‘My young master died on the tenth day of the third month after many days of pain and suffering. Oh, the she-devil!’

‘But she was not accused of the crime or arrested. In fact, she stayed on in the house for another year.’

‘They couldn’t prove it. She was too sly. Called the doctor in. But it was too late. The young master died, and his father lost his mind. There was nobody left to punish her. The first lady’s son was still a baby, and he died, too. They said it was the curse.’ He suddenly raised a finger towards the coffered ceiling. ‘Heaven’s net is large, and nothing escapes it.’ Giving an odd dry chuckle, he hobbled away.

Akitada looked after him, appalled. The humble and devoted old man had sounded positively malevolent. He pieced this new information together with what he already knew. If the servant was right, then someone other than Sadanori had had a motive to kill Peony, a much stronger motive. It certainly explained the puzzling behavior of the Masudas towards Peony and her son. If Peony had murdered the Masuda heir, then it was far more likely that her death was the work of someone in this family.

Had Peony really killed her lover? Akitada decided that it did not matter if she had, so long as the killer thought she had. And who in this household would have had such a motive? The old lord? His servant? One of the wives?

The empty hall lay dim and silent around him. He thought of the passions that had torn this family apart and the guilty secrets they hid from the outside world. The dead man’s wives must have hated the beautiful woman from the capital. His father seemed to have disliked the relationship from the beginning, and he certainly hated her after his son’s death. And, being loyal in every way, so did his servant. What about Mrs Ishikawa? Her role seemed negligible, but she had visited Peony and her son. Why had she done so, when the ladies she served were hostile to their husband’s concubine?

And what was her son’s role in all of this? Akitada knew Ishikawa well enough to be convinced that he would look for profit in a situation of this sort. Ishikawa was a blackmailer.

And there was another thing. Whatever had happened, whatever Peony had done or someone had done to her, nobody here would claim her son. Akitada heaved a deep sigh. Perhaps this was, after all, just another interesting murder case, and he would return home with a small boy.

He started to leave when he heard a silken rustling in the dark recesses of the hall. A moment later, a woman entered the back of the hall on soft feet. She came from the left and headed towards Lord Masuda’s room. She carried a footed tray and vaguely resembled one of the Buddha’s handmaidens as she glided across the polished floor towards the corridor.

The younger wife. What was her name again? Lady Kohime.

When he spoke her name, she gave a little cry and stopped, peering at him through the gloom.

‘I’m sorry if I startled you,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m Sugawara. We met a few days ago. I paid a visit to your father-in-law and was on my way out.’

She came, still clutching the tray, her eyes on his face. ‘Oh, it is you,’ she cried, as if she had not believed him.