David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

‘The Miyazaki Mitsuko file,’ I tell him –

He shakes his head again. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You mean, you don’t know where it is?’

‘No, I don’t know the file you mean.’

‘But you remember the Miyazaki Mitsuko case?’ I ask him. ‘The murder on the day of the surrender? The body in an air-raid shelter near Shinagawa? You remember?’

Nishi nods his head. Nishi says, ‘Now you tell me, yes.’

‘So where is the file you took from Headquarters?’

Nishi shakes his head. ‘I didn’t take any file.’

‘I saw your name in the log,’ I tell him.

Nishi says, ‘It wasn’t me. Really.’

There are questions in his eyes …

‘Then someone has used your name, used your seal, to sign out the Miyazaki Mitsuko case file?’

Nishi shakes his head again. Now Detective Nishi asks, ‘But why would anyone do that? Why?’

Innocence in his eyes …

‘It wasn’t even our case,’ he says. ‘It was the Kempeitai…’

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

‘So there’ll hardly be anything in the file…’

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

‘Surely just the barest of details…’

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

‘The date and time of the crime…’

Ton-ton. Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

‘The names of the witnesses…’

Ton-ton. Ton-ton …

‘The names of the officers…’

Ton-ton …

I step back from him. I step back from the cell wall. I turn towards the cell door. I start to walk out of the cell –

‘Boss?’ asks Detective Nishi. ‘What do you want me to do?’

I don’t turn back to him. I just tell him, ‘Wait upstairs…’

‘What if Detective Fujita comes back?’ asks Nishi –

‘Fujita is not coming back,’ I tell him and now I start to walk quicker, now I start to run, to run to the toilets upstairs –

I vomit. Yellow bile . I vomit again. Grey bile . Four times I have vomited. Black bile. Brown bile, yellow bile and grey . Four times I have stared into that mirror. Four times I have screamed –

No one is who they say they are!

*

In the ruins, among the rubble with a cigarette. Two little boys crouch down and watch me smoke, waiting for the dog-end. Two little boys in grey undershirts and baggy trousers, their faces and their arms as black as pitch. This ruin was once a printing shop that produced a newsletter showing daily rice prices. During the Shiba festivals, the owner would give away coloured paper to the local children and teach them how to make origami elephants and cranes. Now three little girls appear among the rubble and call to the two little boys. The little girls with their short hair and dirty faces. The two little boys ask for my dog-end and ask for my newspaper. I hand them the dog-end and I hand them the newspaper and the two little boys run over to the three girls. I watch the two little boys spread out my newspaper. I watch them crease and fold the paper into two GI hats. The three little girls stand among the rubble and call to the two little boys. In the ruins, the two little boys march up and down with their dog-ends in their mouths and their paper hats on their heads –

‘Asobu?’ call the three little girls –

‘Asobu …? Asobu …?’

*

I knock on the door of the interview room at Meguro police station. I open it. I bow. I take a seat next to the stenographer. Chief Inspector Kanehara and Inspector Kai do not look up but the wife of Kodaira Yoshio glances up at me and then looks away again –

Mrs. Kodaira is younger than her husband, a large woman with full round breasts and a round full face. Mrs. Kodaira is wearing her best summer dress, clutching her handbag –

‘I know he knew this Midorikawa,’ she is saying. ‘But I’m sure he did not kill her. I’m sure there is some mistake…’

‘Your husband has already confessed to the murder,’ says Inspector Kai. ‘And you’ve read his confession. There’s no mistake.’

‘But I want to see him,’ she says. ‘To ask him myself.’

‘Later,’ says Kai. ‘If you answer our questions…’

‘But in the confession it says that the murder occurred at around noon on the sixth of August,’ she says. ‘My husband was working at the laundry until half past two that day and then he came straight home and stayed there with us until the next morning…’

‘How can you be so sure of that?’ asks Inspector Kai.

‘Because it was on that exact day that he asked me to start keeping a diary,’ she says. ‘To write down the times that he worked and the times he came home and the times he went back out…’

‘And why did he ask you to do that?’ says Kai.

‘Because he was worried that the laundry was not paying him for all the overtime and all the night shifts,’ she says. ‘That’s why.’

‘And the first record was made on the sixth of August?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘On the sixth of August and I wrote something like, Came straight home from work at 2:30 p.m.’

‘And you still have this diary, then?’ asks Kai.

‘Yes,’ she says again. ‘Back at the house.’

Now Inspector Kanehara places a piece of paper on the table. Now Inspector Kanehara asks her, ‘Do you know what this is?’

Mrs. Kodaira shakes her head and says, ‘No, I don’t.’

‘This is your husband’s time sheet from the laundry,’ says Inspector Kanehara. ‘This piece of paper records the actual days and shifts that your husband worked in August at the laundry…’

Mrs. Kodaira stares down at the piece of paper.

‘And as you can see,’ continues Inspector Kanehara, ‘the sixth of August was actually your husband’s day off that week.’

‘But you see, this is why he wanted me to keep a diary,’ she says. ‘Because they were always making mistakes like this…’

‘It’s not a mistake,’ says Kanehara. ‘We’ve checked.’

Mrs. Kodaira clutches her handbag a little tighter –

Questions. Questions. Questions. Questions …

‘Why would he kill?’ she asks. ‘Why would he?’

‘You’ve read the confession he made,’ says Kai. ‘In the confession he says that he was driven by lust for Midorikawa…’

‘She wanted my husband to get her a job,’ says Mrs. Kodaira. ‘And so she seduced him in order to persuade him to help her.’

‘He approached her,’ says Kai. ‘At Shinagawa…’

‘He gave her food,’ she says. ‘She was hungry.’

‘He told us he put his hand up her skirt,’ says Kai. ‘He told us he put his fingers inside her as they rode on the train…’

‘Exactly!’ shouts his wife. ‘She wanted him…’

‘He raped her,’ says Kai. ‘He murdered her.’

‘He raped her?’ laughs Mrs. Kodaira. ‘You’re joking! This Midorikawa girl seduced him, just like all those others…’

Now I lean forward. Now I ask, ‘What others?’

‘The ones that hang around the barracks,’ she says. ‘He’s told me about them, the shameful way they dress, the shameful way they speak. How they will do anything for food or cigarettes…’

I ask her, ‘Does your husband often talk about women?’

‘Of course he doesn’t,’ says Mrs. Kodaira. ‘And I know you’re trying to make out he’s some kind of sex maniac, raping and killing young women, but he’s just a normal Japanese man…’

‘We haven’t said anything about raping and murdering anyone else other than Miss Midorikawa,’ I tell her. ‘Have we?’

She shakes her head. She clutches her handbag –

Questions. Questions. Questions. Questions …