Tokyo Year Zero (27 page)

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.

Murota Hideki continues to stir his pale drink –

‘One of them was called Tominaga Noriko…’

Murota Hideki stops stirring his drink –

‘We have reason to believe that she might well be the second unidentified body we found in Shiba Park on the same day that the body of Midorikawa Ryuko was discovered…’

Murota Hideki begins to stir his drink again. ‘And what reason is that, then, detective?’

‘The second body found at Shiba was approximately the same age and height as Tominaga. The autopsy of the second body found at Shiba puts the time of death as sometime between the twentieth and the twenty-seventh of July. Tominaga went missing sometime between the ninth and the fifteenth of July. The second body was clothed in a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, a white half-sleeved chemise, dyed-pink socks and white canvas shoes with red rubber soles. Earlier this morning, Tominaga Noriko’s former landlady identified these clothes as having belonged to Tominaga –

I think about her all the time, I think about her all the time
…

‘Tominaga Noriko knew Abe Yoshiko; Abe Yoshiko was murdered by Kodaira Yoshio; Kodaira Yoshio also murdered Midorikawa Ryuko; according to the autopsy reports on both bodies, Midorikawa Ryuko and the second body found at Shiba Park were both murdered by the same man; that man is Kodaira Yoshio –’

‘Never heard of a Tominaga Noriko, soldier
…’

‘I believe the second body is that of Tominaga Noriko and that Kodaira Yoshio was her killer…’

Murota Hideki drains his glass. Murota Hideki claps his hands. ‘So what do you need me for, then?’

‘You knew Abe Yoshiko,’ I tell him. ‘So you might also have known Tominaga Noriko and might then be able to assist us…’

Murota Hideki shakes his head. Murota Hideki says, ‘No.’

‘No, you didn’t know her or no, you won’t assist us?’

Murota Hideki pours himself another drink. ‘Both.’

‘You knew Masaoka, another of Abe’s friends?’

Murota Hideki shakes his head again. ‘No.’

‘You’ve admitted you were fucking Abe,’ I tell him. ‘All I’m asking is if you knew any of the other girls in the same group…’

‘He wasn’t fucking Abe Yoshiko,’ says a woman’s voice from out of the shadows, from out of the shadows behind the shabby curtain, behind the shabby curtain that partitions this shabby room –

Another shabby curtain in another shabby room
…

Murota Hideki is on his feet. ‘Shut up! Idiot! Shut up! Idiot!’

‘He was fucking me,’ says the woman, who now steps from out of the shadows and through the shabby curtain, from out of the shadows dressed in a yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress –

In another shabby yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore
…

Murota Hideki grabbing hold of her bare thin white arms. Murota Hideki pushing her back through the curtain. Murota Hideki shouting, ‘No! No! Shut up! You don’t know what you’re doing!’

Back through the curtain. Back into the shadows –

He is pleading with her now. He is begging her –

‘Please shut up! Please, please shut up…’

Behind the curtain, in the shadows
…

‘But I won’t pretend to be dead,’ she says. ‘I’m not a ghost.’

Murota whispering, ‘But they’ll come for you again…’

I stand up. I walk over to the curtain. ‘Listen to me…’

I can hear Murota groaning, cursing and sobbing –

‘I won’t say anything to anyone,’ I tell them –

Now Murota Hideki pushes the woman out of the shadows, through the curtains and says, ‘Here you are, then, detective. Here –’

He pushes her chin and her face up, up towards the light –

Her chin and her face squeezed between his fingers –

‘This is Tominaga Noriko,’ hisses Murota Hideki. ‘Are you satisfied now, detective? Are you happy now? Are you…?’

I shake my head. I say nothing. I wait for him –

For him to let go of her face and her chin –

For him to sit down. To pull her down –

To pour himself another drink –

For her to look up at me –

Tominaga Noriko
…

‘It was never Abe Yoshiko,’ whispers Murota Hideki now. ‘It
was always her, always Noriko, but it was always a secret and it always would have been had my luck not run out. But then again, my luck had already begun to run out before I even met Noriko…’

‘It was always a secret … It was always a secret
…’

‘I suppose it’s funny, really, in a way, I survived the whole of the war and then, on the very morning of the surrender, the very last day of the whole of the war, my luck finally ran out…’

‘My
luck finally ran out… finally ran out
…’

‘Towards the end of the war, that very month in fact, I had been transferred to the Shinagawa police station and so that was where I was working when, early that morning of the fifteenth of August last year, some boiler-man comes in saying he’s discovered the naked body of a woman in an air-raid shelter…’

Miyazaki Mitsuko. Miyazaki Mitsuko
…

‘And so that was my first piece of bad luck, being at Shinagawa that morning when this man comes in, because now I and an Officer Uchida are sent up there to get the details and to wait for your mob to arrive from Headquarters…’

I have seen this man before
…

‘But it turns out the air-raid shelter is on naval property and so the case belongs to the Kempeitai. It’s not your business. Not our business. The Kempeitai take the case…’

Eyes I have met before
…

‘Me and Officer Uchida were sent back down to Shinagawa police station to request an ambulance and that was that. Finished. Never heard anything more about it and never expected to. Case closed, as far as I was concerned…’

Now Murota Hideki points at Tominaga Noriko and says, ‘Then I met her this last winter, on my beat. She’s got no one and she’s got nothing. I feel sorry for her and yes, I fancy her. I find her a place in Ōimachi. I give her money and I give her food –

‘I take care of her and yes, I sleep with her…’

Murota Hideki looks over at Tominaga Noriko now and says, ‘We both had nothing and now we have something.’

She haunts me here. She haunts me now
…

Now Murota Hideki shakes his head. Murota Hideki sighs, ‘But then two months ago, when this friend of hers, this Abe Yoshiko, was murdered, and in a similar manner and in a similar place to that body in Shinagawa last year, that was when I made my first mistake
and that was when my luck finally ran out for good…’

‘My
luck finally ran out for good … finally…’

‘I tried to be a policeman. I tried to help. I was at the Mita police station by then but I went across to Takanawa, where the Abe team was based, and I asked to see the officer in charge…’

‘Who is unfortunately no longer with us
…’

‘I met this officer, man called Chief Inspector Mori, and I told him about the body in the air-raid shelter at Shinagawa. Chief Inspector Mori thanked me and, again, I thought that was that. I’d done what I could. I’d tried to help. Finished. And I never expected to hear anything more about it. Case closed again for me…’

Case closed … case closed … case closed
…

‘But then, the very next day, this Chief Inspector Mori is down at the Mita police station, to question
me
…’

I don’t want to remember
…

‘Can I remember any further details? Can I remember who was working with me at Shinagawa on that day? Can I remember the two detectives who were sent out from Headquarters? Can I remember the names of the officers from the Kempeitai? The witnesses? And so on and so on and so on…’

But in the half-light
…

‘All I can tell him though is what I told him the day before, same as I just told you, but that’s when I should have known, that’s when I should have guessed…’

I can’t forget
…

‘Because no sooner is Mori gone than some other Metro detective is down at Mita to see me, hauling me back up to HQ, telling me I’ve been a bad cop, that he’s heard all about me, screwing
pan-pan
girls on my beat, like I’m the only cop in the city who’s ever had a whore on his beat, like he hasn’t got better things to do than chase after me, but he’s relentless, this detective, he never gives up, asking me to confess to this, to confess to that, asking me for the name of my girl, for Noriko’s name, and now I get the picture –

‘He is here to punish me. He is here to warn me –

‘And I don’t know why I ever thought it would work, or why I ever thought it was a good idea, but there’s no way I’m ever going to give him Noriko’s name, so I tell him I was seeing Abe, that I fucked her but I never killed her, and guess what… ?

‘He bought it, believed it was Abe –

‘And so they fired me –

‘For conduct unbecoming a police officer, but I didn’t care because they didn’t know about Noriko and that meant she was safe. Safe. Ten days later, I read that this Chief Inspector Mori has been purged by the SCAP and gone insane. Mad. Then I knew I’d made the right decision, knew I’d made the right choice…’

The Matsuzawa Hospital for the Insane
…

‘Until today. Until you turned up…’

‘My
luck finally ran out
…’

‘I knew we should have run, we should have gone as far away as we could from here …,’ and now Murota Hideki’s words trail off, trail off back into the shadows, back into the shadows behind the shabby curtain, behind the shabby curtain that partitions this shabby room, the shadows from the light and the light from the shadows –