David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

I wipe my face. I wipe my neck. I step back out into the corridor. I ask Tominaga Noriko’s landlady to please step into the autopsy room. Tominaga Noriko’s landlady follows me back inside. Now the landlady glances up at the autopsy table –

She is here. She is here. She is here …

The landlady collapses into tears –

She is here. She is here …

The landlady nods –

She is here …

‘Yes,’ whispers Tominaga Noriko’s landlady and I turn, then I walk and now I run back down the corridor, past the walls of sinks and drains, past the warnings and the signs, into the elevator and into the dark, into the dark then back out into the light, out into the light –

Nishi waiting for me. Nishi with an address.

*

My skin is not red. Nishi can’t wait to ask . My skin is not raw. What happened? My hand does not ache. She identified the clothes . My body does not sweat. The yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress? The city smells of flowers. Yes . Of flowers and blossom and perfume. The white half-sleeved chemise? The blossom and the perfume that coats my clothes and coats my skin. Yes . That tickles my nostrils and that caresses my throat. The dyed-pink socks? With every disappearing jeep and with every disappearing truck. Yes . I take out my handkerchief. The white canvas shoes with red rubber soles? I take off my hat. Yes, yes, yes . I wipe my face. She identified all the clothing as belonging to Tominaga Noriko? I wipe my neck. Yes . I stare up at the hint of blue in the sky. Really? The breeze in the air. Yes . The perfume on the breeze. Then our body has a name? The blossoms on the breeze. Yes . The flowers on the breeze. Our body is Tominaga Noriko? My skin is not red. Yes . My skin is not raw. And her killer is Kodaira Yoshio? My hand does not ache. Yes . My body does not sweat. And you think he will confess? The city smells of flowers. Yes . The city smells of garlands. And then the case is closed? The city smells of victory. Yes . My victory! My victory! My victory!

Not his victory. Not Fujita’s victory. Not Adachi’s victory. Not Kai’s victory. Not Kanehara’s victory. Not Kita’s victory –

‘This is my victory!’ I shout. ‘Mine! Mine! Mine!’

*

Murota Hideki is originally from Yamanashi Prefecture. But after he was fired from the police for his inappropriate behaviour, after he was left without a job, Murota Hideki did not go back to his family’s home in Yamanashi. Murota Hideki stayed on in Tokyo. And so Murota Hideki still lives in an old wooden row house in Kitazawa, not far from the Shimo-Kitazawa station, the same old wooden row house that Detective Nishi found listed as his address in his personal records, the same old wooden row house before us now –

The knock, the bow and the introductions …

Murota Hideki comes to his doorway in his underwear. Murota Hideki is red faced. Murota Hideki looks at my identification. Murota Hideki is sweating heavily. Murota Hideki wipes his thick neck with a grey towel. Murota Hideki looks up into my eyes –

Eyes he has met somewhere before …

Murota Hideki stinks of alcohol. Murota Hideki knows he has no choice. Murota Hideki listens to what I have to say. Then Murota Hideki looks at Nishi and then back at me and now he says, ‘I know I’ve no choice, but only one of you is coming inside.’

The spit and then the curse …

Murota Hideki turns back inside his house. Murota Hideki pads back across his old worn tatami. Murota Hideki sits back down at his low wooden table to wait for me –

In another shabby room …

For me to close the door on Nishi. To follow him inside his house. To pad across his tatami. To sit down at his table. To watch him pour himself another drink from the tall glass jug on the table –

Murota Hideki stirs the pale white mixture with a chopstick. Murota Hideki raises his glass. Murota Hideki takes a long drink. Now Murota Hideki asks, ‘Come on, what do you want this time?’

‘I want to talk to you about Abe Yoshiko,’ I tell him –

‘Not again,’ he groans. ‘What more is there to say?’

‘Only you know that,’ I say. ‘Is there any more?’

‘I fucked her just the once but I did not kill her,’ he says. ‘That’s all I know. I fucked her but I did not kill her…’

‘I know,’ I tell him. ‘We caught her killer.’

Now Murota Hideki looks up. ‘Really?’

‘You heard about the two bodies we found in Shiba Park last week? Well, one of the bodies was identified as a seventeen-year-old girl named Midorikawa Ryuko. Her family told us she was going to meet a man called Kodaira Yoshio on the day she went missing –

‘We pulled this Kodaira in and now he’s coughed…

‘The Midorikawa girl had been raped and strangled and so now we’re looking into any similar unsolved cases…’

‘Abe Yoshiko,’ says Murota Hideki –

‘ I fucked her but I did not kill her …’

‘It’s the first case we’ve reopened,’ I tell him. ‘And we’ve already been back through the statements, back to the witnesses and one of Abe’s friends, a girl called Masaoka Hisae, she recognized this Kodaira and told us Abe knew him…’

‘How did she know him?’

In another shabby room …

‘The suspect Kodaira works in the laundry of a Shinchū Gun barracks in Shinagawa. As you know, Abe was part of a fūten group and they did their business with Americans at the same barracks. But not only Yankees; Kodaira would take them to a room he had there where they’d fuck him for food.’

‘As you know …’

‘And this Kodaira has confessed to killing Abe?’ asks Murota.

‘Yes,’ I nod. ‘When he was presented with this girl Masaoka’s statement, Kodaira confessed to killing Abe Yoshiko…’

‘What exactly did he say?’ asks Murota. ‘I want to know everything he said. I want to hear Kodaira’s confession.’

‘Everything he said… everything he said…’

‘Why?’ I ask him. ‘What difference does it make to you?’

‘What difference does it make to me?’ he laughs. ‘I only lost my job because of her, because of him, because he murdered her.’

‘Because of him … because of her …’

I put up my hand to stop him. I nod. I take out my notebook. I flick through the pages of coarse paper. The pencil marks. And I say, ‘It’s not verbatim, but Kodaira confessed that on the ninth of June this year, he met Abe Yoshiko who had been coming to the barracks regularly for zanpan . That day, Kodaira felt a strong sexual urge and so he told Abe that if she came with him, he knew where he could get her some bread. Kodaira says he then took her to the scrapyard of the Shiba Transport Company, about two hundred metres from the barracks. Kodaira gave her some bread and then asked her to have sex with him. Abe refused and tried to run away. Kodaira caught her and throttled her. Kodaira then strangled her with her own neckerchief and fled. So far he has denied raping Abe and denied hiding the body under the burnt-out truck where it was found…’

‘I fucked her but I did not kill her … I fucked her …’

Murota Hideki nods. Murota Hideki thanks me. Murota Hideki drains his glass. Murota Hideki pours himself another drink. Murota Hideki begins to stir it and stir it and stir it and stir it –

‘I fucked her … I fucked her … I fucked her …’

‘There were other girls in the fūten group,’ I tell him.