David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

‘This man discovered the body,’ says one of the uniforms.

I squat down beside the old man. I swat at a mosquito with my hat. I miss. I wipe my neck. I say, ‘It’s hot today, isn’t it?’

The old man stops his chanting. The old man nods.

‘This man is a lumberjack,’ says the uniform.

‘And you found the body?’ I ask the man.

The old man nods his head again.

‘Found her just like this?’

He nods his head again.

‘Are you sure you didn’t find any of her clothes, a bag or a purse or anything else near her?’

He shakes his head.

‘You haven’t stashed away her things to sell later, have you? Not put away some of her things to come back for?’ Again, he shakes his head. ‘Not her ration card?’

The old man looks up at me now. The old man says, ‘No.’ I nod and I pat him on his back. I apologize to him and I thank him. I put my hat back on and I stand up again –

I see her out of the corner of my eye …

Detectives Hattori, Takeda, Sanada and Shimoda are sat down in the shade of the trees with their Panama hats in their hands, fanning and wiping themselves, swatting at flies and mosquitoes –

In the shade with the Shōwa Dead …

The two uniformed policemen from Atago shifting from foot to foot, foot to foot; Detectives Nishi and Kimura still stood over the body, still staring at her, waiting for me –

In this City of the Dead …

I walk over to the body –

She is here …

‘I knew it,’ Kimura is saying. ‘Knew it’d be murder.’

‘And she’ll have been a whore,’ agrees Nishi.

‘I doubt that,’ I tell him, tell them both.

‘But this place is notorious for prostitutes,’ says Nishi. ‘We know the ones from Shimbashi bring their men up here…’

I stare down at the body, the pale grey and decaying body, the legs parted, raised and bent at the knee –

‘This woman was raped,’ I tell them both. ‘Why would you rape and then murder a prostitute?’

‘If you had no money,’ says Kimura. ‘There are a lot of destitute and desperate men…’

‘So just rape her and leave her, beat her if you must, but she’s not going to tell anyone.’

‘Unless she knew him,’ says Nishi. ‘Knew his name…’

‘We need to find her name,’ I tell them now, tell them all, my men and the two men from Atago. ‘And we need to find her clothes and any other belongings she might have had with her.’

‘Just a moment!’ barks out a voice from behind me, and everyone jumps to attention, to bow and to salute –

I turn round. I know this voice . I bow and I salute. I know this face well . I greet Chief Inspector Adachi –

Adachi or Anjo or Ando or whatever he calls himself this week; he has changed his name and he has changed his job, his uniform and his rank, his life and his past; he is not the only one …

Now no one is who they say they are …

No one is who they seem to be …

Behind him stand Suzuki, the First Investigative Division photographer, and two men in white coats from the Keiō University Hospital with a light, wooden coffin –

They are all sweating.

Adachi points at Suzuki and tells everyone, ‘Move out of the way and let this man get on with his work, then these other two can get this body out of here.’

Everybody steps back into the taller grasses, among the taller trees, to watch Suzuki load his film and start his work –

Click-click-click. Click-click-click …

I look at my watch –

Chiku-taku …

12:30 p.m. –

Everything is lost; there will be a meeting of all the section heads of the First Investigative Division; there will be verbal and written reports; there will be the assignment of command, the delegation of responsibility, the division of labour, of investigation and of evaluation; more lost hours in more hot rooms …

‘Bad luck, your room pulling this one,’ laughs Adachi. ‘Twenty-one days straight. No time off. You all stuck down here in Atago, knowing you’ll never solve the case, never close it, knowing no one cares but knowing it’s yet another failure on your record…’

‘It’ll be just like the Matsuda Giichi case then,’ I say.

Inspector Adachi leans closer into my face now –

No one is who they say they are …

‘That case is closed, corporal,’ he spits.

No one who they seem to be …

I take a step back. I bow my head. I apologize.

‘You’re two men short,’ says Adachi –

I bow again. I apologize again.

‘Where’s Detective Fujita?’

Another bow, another apology.

‘That’s not an answer,’ says Adachi. ‘Just an admission.’

*

The photographer has finished his work. The ground beneath her is crushed and darker . The two men from Keiō Hospital have lifted up the body. The ground is infested with insects . The men from Keiō have lifted the body into the wooden coffin. She is stiff and refuses to bend . The two uniforms from Atago were called to help and the arms were folded, the lid fitted and secured with ropes and knots, bound. She is resisting the box . The two men from Keiō Hospital have taken her back down the hill. She is no longer here …

Now I take out my watch again –

Chiku-taku. Chiku-taku …

It is almost 3 p.m. –

I am stood on the top of a wall behind the ruined Tokugawa tombs, looking up the hill and out over a sea of bamboo grass and zelkova trees, islands of fallen stone lanterns and broken down graves; I am searching for her clothes or her bag, when suddenly I see it –

I jump down from the top of the wall into the long, long grasses and I wade through the dead leaves and weeds towards it –

Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida …

The white cloth grinning through the long, long grasses –

Namu-amida-butsu. Namu-amida-butsu …

White cloth around white bones –

Namu-amida-butsu …

I curse myself again!

Another body …

A second body wearing a white half-sleeved chemise, a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles; a second body ten metres from the first; a second body now nothing but bones –

Tangled up in the weeds and leaves …

I curse her and I curse this place –

I curse and I curse again …

This place of shadow, of forgotten graves and lost paths, of foxes and badgers, of rats and crows, of abandoned dogs and human flesh, of prostitutes and suicides in this place of assignation –

This place of silence. This place of death –

In this place of defeat and capitulation. This place of surrender and occupation. This place of ghosts –

The body now nothing but bones …

In this place of no resistance.

*

It takes three hours for us to report the finding of the second body to Metropolitan Police Headquarters. I stare at her white half-sleeved chemise . Three hours for them to send Suzuki back here to photograph the second body. I stare at her yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress . Three hours for the Keiō University Hospital to send out another ambulance to take away the second body. I stare at her pink socks . Three hours for my men to seal off the crime scene and the immediate area around the second body. I stare at her white canvas shoes . Three hours for us to requisition the necessary uniformed men from the Atago, Meguro and Mita police stations in order to secure the area where the bodies were found. Their red, red rubber soles . Three hours sweating and swatting, itching and scratching, gari-gari , while I stand and I stare at this second body –