David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

‘How do you know that?’

‘Masaoka told me.’

‘Told you when?’

‘Last night,’ he says. ‘When I took her back to her room.’

‘Why didn’t she mention it before? At the station?’

‘She didn’t think it was of any importance.’

I look at him. I ask, ‘Did you fuck her?’

He looks away. He shakes his head –

‘You’re a bad liar, Nishi-kun.’

He starts to speak. He stops.

‘Did you pay her for it?’

‘I bought her a meal,’ says Nishi. ‘I bought her some drinks. I gave her a pack of cigarettes.’

‘And now that’s all your money gone until the end of the month,’ I say. ‘All your food and all your cigarettes…’

Nishi looks away again. Nishi nods.

I take out one hundred yen from my trouser pocket. I stuff it into his shirt pocket. I say, ‘And you got a screw and a break in the case. Well done, detective…’

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Are you going to tell Chief Inspector Kanehara and Detective Inspector Kai about this mistress?’

‘No,’ I tell him. ‘We’ll go and bring her in ourselves.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ says Nishi and then he adds, ‘There was one other thing; about the Miyazaki Mitsuko file —’

‘What about it?’ I snap. ‘What?’

‘I think I know who took it —’

‘Who?’ I ask. ‘Who…?’

‘I was thinking about that day,’ he says. ‘The day of the case, the day of the surrender last year. Only Detective Fujita and —’

‘You think Detective Fujita took the file?’

‘Well, I didn’t even go to the scene of the crime,’ he says. ‘And so I had no idea there was even a Metro file on the case. But Detective Fujita was there. Detective Fujita would have known…’

‘So you think Fujita signed the file out using your name?’

Nishi nods. ‘Who else could it have been?’

‘Detective Fujita’s face is well known,’ I tell him. ‘The duty officer wouldn’t record your name instead…’

‘Unless he had an incentive,’ says Nishi. ‘Or unless Fujita used a stooge to sign for it using my name.’

‘A stooge?’ I ask. ‘Like who?’

‘Detective Ishida, maybe.’

‘Have you spoken to Ishida about the Miyazaki file yet?’

Nishi shakes his head. ‘I wanted to speak to you first.’

‘Good man,’ I tell him. ‘Now leave it to me.’

But Nishi won’t leave it to me. Now Nishi says, ‘Yet I still don’t understand why Detective Fujita would want that file —’

‘I’ll find out,’ I say. ‘So you forget the file now.’

‘But you do believe it wasn’t me who took it?’

I nod. I say, ‘Only because you’re such a bad liar, detective.’

*

Back up the stairs. Lead your men. Lead your men . Back to the borrowed second-floor room. I must see Ishida . Back to the questions and the doubts in their eyes. Lead your men. Lead your men . Back to the dissent and the hate. I must find that file . But there’s no drop in temperature here. Lead your men. Lead your men . No change in circumstances. No Ishida. No file . This room is still an oven, their breakfast still zōsui; zōsui still their only meal. Lead your men. Lead your men . Unwashed and unshaven, they have not seen their wives or their children, their lovers or their bastards, in well over a week –

Lead your men! Lead your men! Lead your men …

Sanada, Hattori, Takeda, Shimoda, Nishi and Kimura; I count my men again and then ask them, ‘Where is Detective Ishida?’

They shrug their shoulders. They shake their heads –

I say to Takeda, ‘I thought he was with you.’

‘He was yesterday,’ says Takeda.

‘He was with you all day?’

‘Yesterday, he was…’

‘What about today?’

Detective Takeda shakes his head. Takeda looks at the others. Takeda says, ‘Not today.’

The other detectives shake their heads again. The others agree, ‘Not seen him today.’

Now Hattori says, ‘Maybe he’s looking for Detective Fujita.’

‘What do you mean by that remark, detective?’ I ask him –

Hattori shrugs his shoulders. Hattori says, ‘Nothing.’

‘Forget about Ishida,’ I tell them all. ‘But, if you do see him, you tell him to remain here until he has spoken to me. And you tell him, if he leaves again, then he leaves for good…’

The detectives nod their heads.

‘Anyway, I have some much better news for you now,’ I say. ‘I have a possible name for our body; Tominaga Noriko –

‘Tominaga was a friend of Abe Yoshiko who, as you know, we believe may also have been murdered by the suspect Kodaira. Tominaga has been missing since the second week of July and she was known to wear clothing the same as that found on our body…’

But there is no applause. There are still only doubts –

Lead your men! Lead your men! Lead your men …

Now I divide them into pairs again. Lead your men . I send Detectives Takeda and Kimura back to Tominaga Noriko’s landlady in Ōimachi. Lead your men . I send them back to find out every last detail she knows about her former tenant’s life. Lead your men . I send them back to arrange for her to come to the Keiō University Hospital tomorrow in order to view the clothes found on the body –

Lead your men! Lead your men …

I send Detectives Sanada and Shimoda back to Masaoka Hisae in Shibuya. Lead your men . I send them back to find out every last detail she knows about her friend’s life –

Lead your men …

I leave Hattori in the borrowed second-floor room to wait for Ishida. Lead your men . Then I tell Detective Nishi to come with me.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ says Detective Hattori. ‘But what about Ishihara Michiko and Ōzeki Hiromi? What about Tanabe Shimeko and Honma Fumiko? What about Konuma Yasuyo and Sugai Seiko?’

Lead your men! Lead your men! Lead your men …

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘What did you find out?’

Lead your men! Lead your men …

‘Nothing,’ spits Hattori –

Lead your men…!

‘Thank you, detective,’ I say. ‘Thank you very much.’

*

Masaoka Hisae gave Detective Nishi the name of Kodaira’s mistress as one Okayama Hisayo and her address as being somewhere near Meguro, near the police station where Kodaira is now being held. Detective Nishi worked quickly and found a current address for an Okayama Hisayo, listed as living in an apartment building half-way between Meguro and Gotanda, so we walk down to Hamamatsu-chō station, take the Yamate loop train, getting off at Gotanda station –

Another shabby neighbourhood, another shabby building …

Kodaira Yoshio’s mistress lives in an apartment building on a bluff overlooking the Meguro River. There are Western-style houses near here but they have all been requisitioned by the Victors and are now tightly guarded. Okayama Hisayo’s apartment building is on the very edge of the bluff, level with the elevated line of the National Railway, level with the noise of the trains. And, while we are climbing the stairs to her apartment, it finally dawns on me that this building is one of the addresses we have listed for Kodaira Yoshio, that he and his wife used to live in this very building –

Another shabby apartment …

Nishi and I knock on the door of Okayama Hisayo’s apartment, opening it and apologizing for disturbing her, for calling on her unannounced, introducing ourselves –

Another shabby room …

Okayama Hisayo is a plain, pale-skinned woman in her forties. She kneels down in the entrance to her apartment. She bows. She welcomes us. She apologizes for the poor state of her apartment. She invites us in. She has been expecting us, waiting for us –