David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

It is late in the afternoon before we finally find one of Abe Yoshiko’s friends, one of her fūten group, down another Shibuya backstreet, up another Shibuya alleyway, our shirts stuck to our backs and our trousers stuck to our legs –

Five in the afternoon and the girl is still asleep, says the landlady. The girl never rises before dusk. But she always pays her rent. Even brings home extra rations. Not that she should be telling two handsome detectives from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. But yes, she is in her room and yes, the landlady agrees to go up and wake her –

Now the landlady mops her neck with a towel and gets up from her knees to go up the steep wooden stairs, along the narrow wooden corridor to the room of seventeen-year-old Masaoka Hisae –

Masaoka Hisae who follows her landlady back along the narrow wooden corridor, back down the steep wooden stairs to light a cigarette and tighten the belt of her yukata and narrow her eyes and scowl and then sigh and ask us, ‘What do you want this time?’

*

The Shibuya police station is tense. The Shibuya police station is armed to its teeth. Nishi and I should have taken Masaoka to either the Meguro or the Atago police station. But the chief told us to take anybody we find into the Shibuya police station. The Shibuya station is tense. The Shibuya station is armed to its teeth. The Shibuya station raided the headquarters of Kakyō Sōkai, the association of Chinese merchants. The Shibuya station took away Kō Gyoku-Ju, the vice-president of the Kakyō Sōkai. The Shibuya station tense. The Shibuya Station armed to its teeth. The Shibuya station is holding Kō Gyoku-Ju in a cell downstairs. The Shibuya station doesn’t want anyone to know. Shibuya station tense. Shibuya armed to its teeth. But everyone knows what will happen next –

Because they are coming. They are coming …

Nishi and I commandeer an upstairs room to use to interview Masaoka Hisae. Then Nishi and I send a message to Chief Inspector Kanehara at Metro Headquarters. Now Nishi and I leave Masaoka in a downstairs cell to wait until Inspector Kanehara arrives from Headquarters. Until it’s time to begin the interview –

They are coming. They are coming …

Masaoka in the downstairs cell opposite Kō Gyoku-Ju and his bloodied face and his blackened eyes –

They are coming .

*

The night is coming down now. Chief Inspector Kanehara here now. The sweat running in rivers down Masaoka Hisae’s face and neck. The fan in her hand never stops. The scowl on her face never leaves –

Never leaves until Kanehara shows her a photograph –

Masaoka stares at the photograph. Masaoka nods her head and says, ‘Yoshiko and I visited his room in the barracks…’

‘He has a room in the barracks, does he?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Just a futon and…’

‘So you went there for sex?’

‘He promised us zanpan,’ she says. ‘Bread and sausages from Shinchū kitchens. Leftovers and scraps…’

‘Did you screw him?’

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Did Abe?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘At least not while we were there together. She refused him…’

‘And when was this?’

‘May or June…’

‘Where?’

‘The Shinchū Gun barracks down at the old Naval Business and Accounting School in Shinagawa. That was where he worked and that was where he had his room…’

‘Did you stay there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Both of you?’

‘Three of us.’

‘Who was the third girl?’

‘Tominaga…’

‘And did she fuck him?’

‘Maybe,’ laughs Masaoka. ‘He could fuck all night could that one, said he was making up for all the screws he had lost…’

‘But he wasn’t Shinchū Gun, was he?’

‘He had bread. He had meat.’

We have no rice. No food …

‘You fuck for bread?’

We all beg for food …

‘He was kind to us.’

We all beg …

‘Kind to you?’

Beg …

‘Yes.’

‘So, after Abe was murdered, you never thought it could have been this man who killed your friend on the ninth of June?’

‘No, but now you’ve told me all these things and now you’ve shown me his photograph, maybe…’

‘But you didn’t mention him to Chief Inspector Mori at the time of the murder, did you?’

‘No one mentioned him to me and I didn’t think he could have been her killer…’

‘Did he tell you he’d already been convicted of the murder of his father-in-law?’

‘He never said,’ she smiles. ‘Or I would have mentioned it.’

‘He’s also confessed to the rape and murder of a girl.’

‘Well then, maybe he murdered Yoshiko…’

‘But he definitely knew Abe Yoshiko?’

‘He definitely knew her, yes.’

‘He had asked her for sex?’

‘He asked her for sex.’

‘And she refused?’

‘That night, yes.’

‘Thank you,’ says Chief Inspector Kanehara. ‘You have been very helpful, Miss Masaoka.’

Masaoka Hisae narrows her eyes now and scowls at him and asks, ‘Can I go home then?’

‘In a little while,’ I tell her. ‘But I have a few more questions to ask you first…’

Masaoka Hisae folds her arms back in front of her and says, ‘Go on then, please.’

‘I want you to tell me a little bit more about your group.’

Masaoka Hisae laughs. ‘My group? My fūten group?’

There are boots on the stairs now, boots coming …

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Their names and their ages…’

Boots coming down the corridor …

Now the door flies open without a knock, a uniformed policeman falling into the interview room, panting, ‘All hell’s broken loose, sir! The Formosans, the Chinese and the Koreans have all joined forces and they have attacked the markets at Shimbashi and at ōji and they have stoned the Atago and ōji police stations and they have injured Police Chief Hashioka of the ōji police station…’

The Chinks are murdering the Japanese …

‘There are thousands of them and they have come up from Osaka and Kobe and they have got Chinese sailors from a Chinese battleship anchored in Yokohama and they are armed with machine guns and they are firing at the police and the Japanese…’

The Chinks are murdering the Japanese …

‘Now they are all heading this way, heading here to the Shibuya station to bust out Kō Gyoku-Ju…’

*

Kanehara, Nishi and I run downstairs and outside. They are coming . The night is here. They are coming . It is 9 p.m. and the battle lines have been drawn. They are coming . Two hundred policemen standing guard outside the Shibuya police station. They are coming . Inspector Adachi here, a short sword in one hand, a drawn pistol in the other. They are coming . Five trucks full of Formosans approach –

Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves …

‘They are here! They are here! They are here!’

Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves …

Police stop the first truck. Nerves . The driver tells the officers they are heading for the Kakyō Sōkai headquarters. Nerves . The officers make their report to the Shibuya chief. Nerves . The Shibuya chief tells them to let the trucks pass through. Nerves . The first truck is allowed through the checkpoint. Nerves . Then the second. Nerves . Then the third. Nerves . Then the fourth. Nerves . Finally the fifth –

Nerves. Nerves. Nerves. Nerves …

The fifth truck with its tailgate down. Nerves . The fifth truck with a machine gun mounted in the back. Nerves . The machine gun mounted in the back that now opens fire, that cuts through the night, that sends policemen running, hitting two policemen, cutting them down, other officers scrambling for their own revolvers, firing back –