David Peace - Occupied City

Across the street, her house is no longer dark, the lights on and the curtains open, a face at the window –

Her face at the window, afraid.

IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, in a dancehall on the Ginza, with its heavy drapes and broken ventilation, its bad perfume and cheap pomade, through the cigarette smoke on the sticky floor, young men in zoot suits and aloha shirts are cheek-to-cheek with the hostesses and their cracked faces, their acne-scars, dancing to a swing band in the reflecting lights, in this dancehall on the Ginza, in this Fictional City, I am waiting for a character, waiting for their story, looking at the door and fiddling with my watch, but tonight he does not show, tonight he stands me up, no character, no story, not tonight, but here in the cigarette smoke, tonight in the reflecting lights, I open my notebook and I read through my pencil-marks, for there is always a character, always a story somewhere in the Fictional City.

IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, a new day, a new story, another story for another day; there is always another day, there is always another story in the Fictional City:

NEIGHBOURHOOD INVESTIGATIVE HQ

A local organization named Mejiro Chian Kyōkai Nagasaki Shibu has founded a ‘Civil Investigative Headquarters’ because ‘the locals will be upset unless the [Teigin] case is solved quickly,’ said the Chief of the HQ, Mr Shimizu .

The HQ is located in the office of the Nagasaki Shrine, and their investigation is mostly focused on the killer’s tracks. They summon those who had been in the vicinity of the crime scene, and who had hurried to rescue the victims, as well as local children who may have also witnessed the crime. Shimizu and his team plan to gather up all these testimonies and give their reports to Mejiro Police Station .

Each member of the Interview Team runs a separate district of the neighbourhood and witnesses are summoned to the Nagasaki Shrine HQ, even in the night, to be questioned by these amateur cops. For now, Chief Shimizu ignores his own business and devotes himself entirely to the investigation, twenty four hours a day. ‘I take 5 or 6 Hiropon injections per day but, what-the-heck, I’ll do beyond my best till we get him,’ said Mr Shimizu, and he will not disband the HQ until the killer is caught .

However, one local housewife complained, ‘I really wish the killer would be caught very soon, or he [Mr Shimizu] will be back to ask us for another donation to his association!’

In the Fictional City, I put my head down on my desk, I close my eyes, and I pretend to sleep.

IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I knock on her door and I try to open it, but her door is locked and so I knock again, and I wait –

‘Who is it?’ she says from behind the door.

‘It’s Takeuchi,’ I say. ‘From the Yomiuri.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Well, I just wondered if you’d come for a coffee with me.’

‘Why?’ she asks.

‘Well, actually I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I suppose I just wanted to see you, to see how you are, not for a story. Just…’

The lock turns now. The door opens –

Miss Murata Masako stares at me –

I ask, ‘Do you remember me?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I remember you, Takeuchi Riichi of the Yomiuri , in your white coat, pretending to be a doctor.’

I bow and I say, ‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘So you want to take me for coffee as an apology, is that it?’

I smile and I say, ‘Well, maybe. Yes …’

‘OK, then,’ she says and, in the genkan to her house, she reaches for her coat and puts it on, then steps out of a pair of sandals and into a pair of shoes, and finally she ties a scarf around her face, over her hair, and says, ‘Come on, then.’

In the Fictional City, we walk in silence through the streets of Shiinamachi, in silence through the mud and the sleet, in silence to a coffee shop by the station. We open the door to the coffee shop and we step inside, the coffee shop filled with customers and conversation, and we sit down at a table and she takes off her scarf. Now the conversations stop and the customers stare, and she looks down at the table, at the sugar bowl and the ashtray, and she says, ‘I’m sorry. I want to go home.’

IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, he walks through the cigarette smoke, across the sticky floor, and he sits down and he says, ‘Sorry about the other night. I tried to call you, but you’d already left the office.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘Forget it. You’re here now. So what have you got for me, Detective?’

‘Well, it’s not something you can probably print, not for now, but I think it’s something you should know. What they’re not saying in their statements is that there’s a growing feeling among many of the detectives that this case is connected with the Tokumu Kikan and their operations in Occupied China during the war. There are rumours of similar cases to the Teigin case that occurred in Shanghai during the war, that the culprit is ex-Tokumu Kikan, with experience handling medicines and civilians, and that’s who we should be looking for. On the other hand, there are some detectives, particularly the older guys, who think all these rumours are just a distraction, that it’s nothing to do with Tokumu Kikan and Occupied China. So there are almost two rival lines of inquiry now. But, as I say, what I’m telling you is nothing you can print, but there’s also nothing to stop you looking into the China connection, is there?’

IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I have walked her streets, I have heard her stories, her stories of old soldiers, her stories of new poisons –

In the Fictional City, her stories in my notebook.

Now I take these stories from my notebook and I write them out. I write them out in letters. In letters, on grids –

TEIGIN POLICE CHASE POISON SCHOOL LEAD

SCAP Assistance Sought In Hunt For Mass Murderer

TOKYO — Police investigating the Teikoku Bank ‘Poison Holdup’ case are now actively pursuing two new lines of inquiry in their frantic efforts to catch the cold-blooded fiend responsible for the diabolical poison-murders .

Senior detectives have requested the assistance of the SCAP Public Safety Division in locating a Lieutenant Hornet and a Lieutenant Parker, both names being used by the mass killer and associated with typhus disinfecting teams in the Tokyo area .

Witnesses at the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank reported the suspect as saying, ‘I came here with Lieutenant Parker in a jeep because a new typhus case happened in the vicinity.’ While at the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank, the same individual is reported as saying, ‘I came here because there have been many dysentery cases in the area. Lieutenant Hornet will be here soon.’

Police believe Lieutenant Hornet to have been associated with the Toshima Team in the Ōji and Katsushika Wards, while Lieutenant Parker was associated with the Ebara Disinfecting Team .

Investigators have requested that the Public Safety Division of SCAP provide any information, names and addresses of Japanese individuals either connected with or having knowledge of the disinfecting work done by either of the above lieutenants, particularly interpreters or individuals who speak English .

Meanwhile, police are also checking a new lead concerning ex-personnel of the former Japanese Imperial Chemical Laboratory in Tsudanuma, Chiba-ken .

It is known that experiments were conducted at the Tsudanuma Laboratory with prussic acid as a poison. Police believe that the modus operandi of the Teikoku Bank ‘Poison Holdup’ case and the use of prussic poison by the criminal are very similar to the training developed by Tsudanuma Arsenal .