I Parker - The Masuda Affair

He saw that her dress was a brilliant copper red, and that she wore white paint and rouge on her face. She smiled at him with red lips and blackened teeth. An upper-class lady would not have revealed an open mouth to a strange male visitor, nor stood so close to him that he could smell her scent. He moved away a little.

‘How silly of me to be frightened of you, sir,’ she simpered. Only, we never have company here. It’s very dull. But why did you visit Lord Masuda? He never says anything. He just sits there like a statue.’ She lifted the tray a little. ‘I was just going to feed him. He’s like a baby.’ She heaved a sigh.

He looked at her round face with its round, childish eyes, and at her half-open mouth, and disliked her stupid coyness. It seemed unfair to take advantage of a silly woman, but there had been murder, and Akitada had no more patience with family secrets. He put on a smile and made her a little bow. ‘You’re right, Lady Kohime. He didn’t speak to me either. What a pleasure, therefore, to see you.’

She giggled and fluttered her lids. ‘Oh, I’m nobody. A widow with two daughters. Not much more than a servant here, really.’

He let his eyes travel over the rich silk of her gown, which covered lush curves underneath. If he was not mistaken, she was flirting with him. Lady Kohime had struck him from the first as a silly and shallow woman of common background. Clearly, she was bored with her life, even if it entailed wearing fine silks and living in a great mansion. Putting aside his remaining scruples, he said, ‘Surely not. You are entirely charming. It would have given me much greater pleasure to chat with you, but I’m afraid I brought bad news. Dr. Inabe is dead.’

She gave a small gasp. ‘Dead? But then he was quite old, so… I mean, old people die, don’t they?’ She cast a glance towards Lord Masuda’s room. ‘Eventually.’

More than shallow, thought Akitada, she is as blatantly self-centered and uninhibited as a small child. He wondered if Inabe’s murder had been news to her. Something had not rung true in her reaction. He said, ‘Sometimes even young people die. Forgive me for raking up old pain, but I understand you lost your husband last year. Was it some illness?’

‘Something he ate didn’t agree with him.’ She eyed the covered bowl on her tray thoughtfully and added, ‘My husband was very fond of warabi shoots. I used to gather them and cook them for him the way my mother and grandmother did. He loved that, especially warabi mochi. Perhaps someone was careless.’

It was artlessly said. Fern shoots were a springtime delicacy, but if they were not picked at the right stage and cooked properly, they could make a person very ill… and possibly kill them.

‘He died from eating warabi shoots?’

Her eyes widened in shock. ‘Oh, no. I didn’t say that.’

‘You said someone may have been careless in the preparation of his food. He didn’t die here?’

‘My husband had gone elsewhere when he became ill.’

A vague answer, and uttered primly. Akitada asked, ‘Was it in Peony’s house that he died? In the house by the lake?’

She cast a glance over her shoulder. ‘Shh! We’re not to speak of her.’

‘Was a doctor called?’

‘Dr Inabe. He couldn’t help.’

‘Did the doctor suggest your husband had been poisoned?’

The sound of a sliding door, then quick firm footsteps and more silken rustling: Lady Masuda appeared. Akitada almost took her for a ghost because she wore a very dark gown today, so dark that it looked black, and her narrow, pale face seemed to float across the hall, disembodied.

Lady Kohime gasped and moved away from Akitada with a small nervous laugh. ‘Just look who’s here, sister,’ she cried in a girlish voice. ‘I was just taking Father’s gruel when Lord Sugawara surprised me.’ She made it sound as if he had made improper advances.

Lady Masuda changed course and approached like an angry spirit. Giving Akitada a hostile glare, she said sharply, ‘I wondered what had happened to you, Kohime. That gruel must be quite cold by now.’ She whisked the lid off the bowl and bent over the pale rice broth. ‘Just as I thought. Back to the kitchen and reheat it. Hurry. Father must be quite famished by now.’

Lady Kohime pouted, but she made a small bow in Akitada’s direction and danced off towards the kitchen, her colorful gown fluttering around her as if she were a bright butterfly.

The contrast between the two women could not be greater. Kohime had been all childlike softness and gayety, while tall Lady Masuda, for all her well-bred elegance, was stern discipline. The eyes that regarded him coldly were intelligent. He would not be able to trap this woman into indiscretions.

Her silence meant that she waited for him to account for his presence. He cleared his throat and said, ‘As I explained to Lady Kohime, I brought news of Dr Inabe’s death. Lord Masuda’s servant admitted me.’

She frowned. ‘Foolish man.’ For a moment Akitada took the comment personally, but she went on: ‘He should not have done so. Servants get old and make mistakes. My father does not receive visitors.’

He thought it interesting that she had not seen fit to comment on the doctor’s death. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I could see that it was a mistake.’

‘He actually took you to meet my father?’

Lord Masuda was not really her father, though it was customary for a wife to accept a husband’s parents as her own. Still, the emphasis was unnecessary here. She was establishing her position in the household. Akitada nodded. ‘It was an honor to meet him, though I’m afraid he took little notice of me.’

She said nothing, but her eyes were wary.

‘I understand that Dr Inabe treated his son, your husband, during his final illness?’

Was there a flicker of fear in her eyes? But she only said, ‘Yes.’

Lady Masuda was not a type Akitada admired: unemotional, intelligent, and with a man’s authority in her voice and manner that was confrontational. On the whole he preferred the silly and seductive Kohime. What were these women hiding? For he was convinced, by now, that there was a dangerous secret in their past. And what had possessed the dashing young Masuda to choose two such dissimilar women as his wives and then rush off to the arms of a former courtesan?

‘Well,’ Akitada said, retreating after a moment of being stared down, ‘I shall be on my way then. I regret having been the bearer of bad news. I understood Dr Inabe was the family physician and Lord Masuda’s friend.’

She waved this away with an impatient hand. ‘Naturally, it is sad. I am sorry you were troubled. We do not receive visitors. This arrangement seems much safer for two women and an ailing old man.’

And what did that mean, apart from the fact that she had just warned him away from future visits? His face set, and without acknowledging her words, he gave her the merest nod, and left. Let her think she had offended him. He was irritated with both the Masuda women.

He was walking down the winding road, through the trees and past the small shrines and modest houses, wondering what he should do next, when it struck him suddenly that the one name that had cropped up again and again, the name that linked Peony most closely to the Masudas, was that of Dr Inabe.

The morning after Tora returned from Otsu, he went back to the Willow Quarter. His first visit was to Ohiya. He disliked this intensely, but Ohiya knew everything that happened in the quarter. He was admitted by a boy servant who wore a woman’s red silk gown and a condescending expression.

Ohiya was at breakfast. He greeted Tora with unexpected courtesy and accepted his apologies graciously, then invited him to have a cup of wine with him. Tora relaxed a little, but kept a wary eye on the servant. The fellow was wearing make-up, he decided. They locked eyes, and the boy blew him a kiss. Tora flushed and glared at him.