David Peace - Occupied City

‘OK. Go on …’

‘Apparently she was trying to get to the local liquor store to telephone for ambulances and the police, so one local woman ran to the liquor store to call for the ambulances and police while another local stayed with the young woman who was losing consciousness, meanwhile other locals rushed up the road and into the bank …’

‘Great,’ I say. ‘What did they find? What did they see?’

‘A death chamber,’ says Tomizawa. ‘Bodies lying everywhere. In the corridors, on the floor, in the bathroom. A line of corpses by the sink. All of them with their eyes still open. Their mouths running with blood and vomit…’

‘Fantastic,’ I say. ‘Go on …’

‘Some of them were still alive …’

‘Any of them talking?’

‘No,’ says Tomizawa. ‘Coughing, spitting, losing consciousness. And then the police and the ambulances arrived.’

‘The locals say how many were alive?’

‘Six, but two were very bad.’

‘Have you been inside?’

‘Yes. When I got there it was still chaos, so I flashed my wallet, making out I was a detective, and I was in there for about ten minutes before they realized and threw me out.’

‘So go on, what did you see?’

‘Well, the bodies were still there, and there were loads of police, but there was a strange calmness, yeah calmness. All the desks were just as you’d imagine them, with ledgers and papers spread out. Stacks of cash on the desks as well…’

‘Stacks of cash?’

‘Yeah, just sitting there, untouched. A tray of cups as well. It was just as if it was a normal working day in a normal bank. Apart from the bodies and all the police, the police drawing chalk marks around the bodies, their photographers taking their pictures. There were even some of the locals in there, trying to tidy up …’

‘And the police? What were they saying?’

‘Well, you know the police. Not much. Muttering about it being food poisoning, not murder. And then of course they twigged who I was and they threw me out…’

‘So the cops, they don’t think it’s murder? Is that what you’re saying? They still think it’s food poisoning?’

‘Not any more,’ says Tomizawa. ‘Back outside, I was stood among the crowd — massive crowd by now — finding out what I could, when the Big Boys from the MPB arrived. Minute they got inside the bank, they threw out all the locals. But some of those locals had heard the detectives saying it was mass murder and that the bank was a crime scene and it had to be protected …’

‘You know what made them change their minds?’

‘Well, one of the uniforms who’d been inside the bank and was then sent outside to keep people away, I asked him what was going on, and he said one of the victims up at the hospital, she was talking and had told them some kind of doctor had come to the bank and given them some kind of medicine for dysentery, that they’d all drunk this medicine and that was when they’d all collapsed. No mention of food, only a doctor and some medicine.’

‘Just the one man, not a gang?’

‘Far as I know, just the one.’

‘Description?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Right then,’ I tell Tomizawa. ‘You stay where you are. I’m going to finish off the piece for the Boss and then head up to the hospital. Call us in a couple of hours …’

I replace the receiver. I turn around. The rival eyes of all the other reporters are no longer watching me, their rival ears already at the other phones, their rival fingers already writing in their notebooks, every other reporter either listening or writing –

In the Fictional City, I go back to my desk in the press office. I re-write the story:

MASS MURDER IN SHIINAMACHI —

Ten Workers of Teikoku Bank Slain In Broad Daylight — Robbery Behind Killing?

TOKYO, Jan. 26 — Ten were killed and 6 others are in critical condition as a result of the attempted robbery and poisoning of the entire staff of the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank at Nagasaki-chō, Toshima-ku, Tokyo by a cold-blooded criminal who apparently tried to snatch away heaps of bank notes in broad daylight on the afternoon of January 26 .

The sensational ‘poison bank holdup’ case was perpetrated about 4 o’clock Monday afternoon shortly after the bank had closed for business for the day when a man entered the building posing as a health official. The fiendish doctor told the entire staff to drink a dysentery preventative medicine .

In no time the bank turned into a veritable death chamber with all the victims writhing in agony. When the relief party arrived at the scene, 10 of the victims had already died. 6 others were rushed to the Seibo Hospital in the neighbourhood and remain in a critical condition .

According to the police, who are strictly keeping away outsiders in an effort to find a clue, an intensive search is now being conducted across the city for the bank robber .

I stop writing. I file the story. I get my hat and my coat. I tell Shiratō to wait where he is, that I’m going to the Seibo Hospital, and I’ll be back in a couple of hours.

IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, in the Seibo Hospital, I am wearing a stolen white coat, I am pretending to be a doctor –

Pretending, impersonating, deceiving…

I smile at the policeman. I open the door. I step inside the room. She is alone in the room, lying in the only bed, her eyes closed. I walk to the end of the bed. I read the name above her head –

I write it down in my notebook:

Murata Masako …

I sit down in a chair beside the bed. I see her hand on top of the blankets. I sit forward in the chair beside the bed. I reach for her hand on the blankets. I hold her hand. I lean towards her face. I whisper in her ear, ‘Miss Murata, Miss Murata …’

I see her swallow in her sleep –

‘Can you hear me, Miss Murata …?’

I see her eyelids flicker –

‘Can you tell me what happened to you, Miss Murata?’

I see her eyes opening. I see her looking at me now –

‘Can you tell me what happened to you in the bank?’

Now her body starts to tremble. Her mouth begins to open — ’

Get away!’ she shouts. ‘Get away from me!’

I let go of her hand. I stand up. I want to apologize. I want to explain. But I turn away. And I walk away –

‘Get away! Get away from me!’

Out of the room. The hospital.

IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I walk her streets and I hear her stories, telephones ringing and voices whispering, along the wires and down the cables, a telephone and a voice with a time and with a place –

An hour later, I turn a corner off the main street, and I walk down an alley of pawnshops and mahjong parlours. Half-way down the alleyway, I push open a frosted-glass door. A bell above the door rings and five pairs of eyes glance up from the shadows of the dark and narrow room. I walk through these shadows, past their glances that are now stares, and I sit down on a sofa at the back of the room. Across a large porcelain brazier, a man is sitting opposite me, reading a newspaper, my newspaper –

The Yomiuri…

The man slowly folds up the newspaper. He takes off his glasses. He puts the glasses in the breast pocket of his jacket. He sits forward in his chair. He stretches out his hands over the edge of the brazier. He looks up at me and he says, ‘I hope you brought your wallet with you?’

IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, the MPB have made a statement, and then another, and another, and so I write a story, and then another, and another:

WIDE MANHUNT ON FOR POISON KILLER; INVESTIGATORS WORK ON DESCRIPTION GIVEN BY 4 MASS MURDER SURVIVORS