‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘Are you Hirasawa Masako?’
The woman looks up from the flowers, the poppies, and wipes her face on a towel and says, ‘Yes. Can I help you?’
‘My name is Takeuchi Riichi,’ I tell her. ‘I’m a journalist for the Yomiuri newspaper. I was wondering if I could talk to you about your husband, Hirasawa Sadamichi? Please?’
‘My husband?’ she says. ‘Why?’
‘Well, I’m very sorry to tell you that he’s been arrested …’
‘Arrested?’ she says. ‘What’s he been arrested for?’
‘The Teikoku Bank murder case.’
‘What?’ she laughs. ‘Don’t be ridiculous …’
But now another car is pulling up outside Number 32, 2-chōme, Miyazono-dōri, Nakano-ku, another journalist jumping out of the car, another journalist shouting ‘Mrs Hirasawa? Please …’
I say, ‘I’m afraid it’s true. But I think we should go inside, if you don’t mind. Then I’ll tell you everything I know …’
The wife of Hirasawa Sadamichi is still laughing, but she is nodding now, ushering me up her path and into her house, calling her daughter out of their kitchen as I turn back now, closing their front door in the face of the other journalist with an, ‘Excuse me …’
‘They’ve arrested Father,’ Mrs Hirasawa is telling her daughter. ‘For the Teikoku Bank murders!’
‘What? Father?’ says her daughter, looking at me, then at her mother, and now she is laughing, too –
‘It must be a joke …’
Laughing but looking at the front door to their house, listening to the banging on the door, the tapping on the window –
‘A joke…’
In the Fictional City, back in my office, back at my desk, I am writing another story:
Wife Refutes Charge
Tokyo, Aug. 23 — Mrs Hirasawa Masako, wife of the latest Teikoku Bank ‘poison holdup case’ suspect, yesterday denied as ‘ridiculous’ reports that her husband was the long-sought diabolic criminal on being interviewed at her residence in Nakano here.
Mrs Hirasawa said that her husband left Tokyo for Otaru, Hokkaido, on February 10 for the purpose of paying a visit to his ailing brother.
She said that whereas her husband’s age and greying hair may fit the description of the wanted man, it was unbelievable that he committed such a diabolic crime.
Mrs Hirasawa added that there was no reason for her husband to commit such a crime to obtain money, as her three daughters were earning a total of ¥15,000 monthly, which is quite enough to support them.
She hoped that the survivors of the Teikoku Bank murder case swiftly would be given an opportunity to see her husband, as she was confident that their judgment would clear her husband of all suspicion.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, it is not yet dawn but it is already hot as I knock on her door. Again and again I knock on her door, banging and banging, until she says from behind the door, ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘Takeuchi.’
‘What do you want?’
‘The police have arrested a man in Otaru,’ I tell her. ‘The police believe this is the man. The train bringing him to Tokyo will arrive at Ueno at 5 a.m. I’ve got a car to take you to Ueno.’
‘Why?’ she asks.
‘Well, I thought you’d want to see him,’ I say. ‘To see if it really is him, really is the man you saw that day …’
‘Wait then,’ she says now and I wait, I wait in the street outside her house. Is she afraid? Her house still dark. Or is she excited? The lights still off. Hoping? The curtains still closed–
Praying it is that man, that man again?
The door opens now. Miss Murata Masako stares at me. Murata Masako says, ‘Are you here as a reporter or as a friend?’
‘Both,’ I say. ‘But mainly as a friend, I hope.’
‘I hope so, too,’ says Murata Masako. ‘Come on, then.’
In the Fictional City, we sit in silence in the back of the Yomiuri car, in silence as she stares out of the window at the city, the city rising, in silence as we are driven through the heat, the heat rising, in silence until we arrive at Ueno Station, at Ueno Station where she turns to me and whispers, ‘In due time, in due time …’
‘Pardon?’ I ask. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing,’ she says and now she gets out of the car in front of the station, out of the car and into the crowds, the crowds that have come in their thousands, in their thousands to see this man, this man who the crowds believe murdered her co-workers and her friends –
This man who tried to murder her, to kill her –
Now she grabs my hand suddenly and she holds my hand tightly as I push and I shove through the crowds, the crowds in their thousands who are pushing and shoving to catch a glimpse, a glimpse of this man, this man called Hirasawa Sadamichi –
This man who tried to murder her –
But the train is late, the train delayed, and the crowd is growing and growing, pushing and shoving, and now the train has arrived, the train is here, and the crowd are pushing and shoving, harder and harder, and I am holding her in front of me, my hands on her waist, tighter and tighter, pushing her forward, raising her up, higher and higher, hoping and praying she’ll see him, hoping and praying she’ll see him and say that this is the man, this is the man who murdered her co-workers –
This man who –
‘I can’t see,’ she whispers. ‘I can’t see him …’
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, in the dancehall on the Ginza, with its sticky suits and sweaty faces, its jungle rhythms and deafening shoes, in this Fictional City, I am shouting, shouting over the drums and the feet, ‘I thought you were my man-on-the-inside, my man-in-the-know, but I’m the last-man-to-know, I’ve been scooped …’
He shrugs. He says, ‘Everyone’s in the dark. Not just me, not just you. They kept the rest of us chasing suspects with military backgrounds, with medical backgrounds, telling us to forget about the name-cards, giving it to Robbery, moving Robbery out of HQ …’
‘But they told us not to write about the military men, the medical men; told us to keep it out of our papers,’ I say. ‘And look where that’s got us? Duped and scooped …’
He laughs, ‘You think you guys, your paper, are the only ones who get censored? Wake up! This is an Occupied Country. They can do what they want. It’s a set-up …’
‘He’s innocent?’
He sighs, ‘Course he is. But they’re desperate. They followed the name-cards and this is where it’s led them. But there are seventeen name-cards which have not been traced, that are unaccounted for. This guy is just one of seventeen and the moment the survivors set eyes on him, that’ll be that…’
‘That’ll be what?’
He laughs again, ‘The end of their case. The survivors won’t be able to identify him and then they’ll have to let him go …’
‘You think so?’
He winks at me now and says, ‘I know so. All of us do, all of us except Ikki and his name-card team. It’s all circumstantial…’
‘But off-the-record, they’re telling us they’re 100 per cent certain. That’s why they’ve gone so public with his arrest…’
‘And, of course, you believe everything you hear,’ he laughs. ‘Everything they tell you. Well, you just watch …’