‘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 –