Death of a Doll Maker (27 page)

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This place was more and more like the horrors of exile he had dreaded in the capital. Far from his true home, where his wife might even now be struggling to give birth to their child, and while he tried to come to grips with losing Tora, Akitada had nothing but pain to show for this appointment.

As tired as he was, he could not sleep. Instead, he lit as many oil lamps and candles in his room as he could find to keep the menacing darkness away and then sat at his desk to reread Tamako’s letters and to smile at the scrawls and drawings the children had included. He missed them all. His utter loneliness overwhelmed him, and he almost wept.

But his despair reminded him of Fragrant Orchid’s supposed suicide letter. He rummaged among his papers and finally found the note still in the sleeve of the robe he had worn the day Maeda had given it to him.

Unfolding the scrap, he read again:
“Unmindful that ships must wait for high tide, I parted from you too soon . Oh, for a vermilion boat and a pair of jeweled oars so that I might row across to meet you on the other side.”

It sounded like a death poem. “The other side” was a standard reference to the afterlife. But the words still seemed vaguely familiar. And another thing struck him. It read as if it had been written by the one who had left, yet it was in Fragrant Orchid’s hand, and she had not left. It had been Lord Tachibana who had left her.

Biting his lip, he rose to scan the books he had brought with him from home. The poem must be something he had read somewhere. Fragrant Orchid had copied it down, perhaps to send to Tachibana. Women did such things; it proved how well-read they were.

An hour later he found the lines in the
Manyoshu
, that compendium of sadness and loneliness expressed by men and women parted from each other while in government service. It was not a suicide note but simply an expression of regret that the lovers had missed a few more hours together.

Of course, they had already come to the conclusion that Fragrant Orchid had been murdered, but now he had proof the note was not what it seemed to be. The murderer had been a little too clever trying to make her death appear to be suicide.

Akitada sat back down and stared out the open door at the night sky. What sort of man was this killer of a governor and a reigning courtesan?

He wondered briefly if a woman could have killed Fragrant Orchid. Jealousies among courtesans were common enough, but in this case it seemed unlikely. The timing of Fragrant Orchid’s death shortly after she had sent for him linked her murder with that of Tachibana—assuming he was dead.

Where was his body?

Akitada got up again and started pacing the floor of his room, thinking furiously. Surely Tachibana had been killed just before he embarked for the capital. He had disappeared somewhere between the tribunal and the harbor of Hakata, most likely in the city. His body might well be in Hakata.

Against all logic, Akitada thought of the abandoned well. It was too much of a coincidence. But why not? The tangled web of crimes in Hakata had been marked by ruthlessness as well as carelessness. He doubted the killer who had dealt with Tachibana and Fragrant Orchid was ignorant. The ruse he had used to separate Tachibana from his servants and the message sent to the captain were the work of a clever and plotting mind. The same mind was likely to leave a
poem to convince provincial police that the courtesan had killed herself. But he had been forced to use underlings because he did not want to dirty his hands or thought himself above menial chores. Arrogance had dulled his caution. Yes, such a man existed, and tomorrow Akitada would ride back to Hakata and ask Lieutenant Maeda to investigate the abandoned well more thoroughly.

Feeling slightly less defeated, Akitada went to take his bedding out of its trunk. Under it he saw his flute, and on an impulse, he took it out. He went into the small courtyard outside and sat down on the narrow ledge. The blossoms on his little tree shimmered pale in the darkness. The night air was scented, and the starry sky stretched northward. Far away, above the black band of forest, a faint hazy glow marked the city, and beyond that stretched the Inland Sea with its islands.

He played from memory the songs that had pleased his own family, now far away, and also two that had been Tora’s favorites. Perhaps this way he might reach out to them and let them know how much he cared. But tears rose to his eyes again, and eventually he lowered the flute.

It was too much like playing a dirge for the dead. Wiping his eyes, he rose, went inside, closing the shutters, and lay down to sleep.

*

“I heard you playing your flute,” Saburo said the next morning as he came into Akitada’s room just as his master was brewing himself a cup of tea. “Here, let me do that, sir.”

Akitada handed over the utensils. Saburo appeared drawn and tired. “I’m very glad to see you,” he said. “Did you get in late?”

“Just before you finished playing. I didn’t want to trouble you, seeing it was late.”

“Thank you. I don’t suppose either of us got much sleep. Any news?”

Saburo passed Akitada his cup of tea and made himself one. “Nothing, sir. I broke into Feng’s store. Nobody was there, and no sign that Tora had been there.” He reached into his gown and brought forth a slender book. “I took one of the account books. I hope I did the right thing?”

Akitada stretched out a hand. “At this point nothing matters but Tora. You had a reason to take it, I assume?”

“Yes. My knowledge of the finer points of keeping business records is sketchy, but this was buried under a mass of trivial paperwork in a locked chest in Feng’s office.”

“Ah!” Akitada opened the slender book. It was in Chinese, but not the type of Chinese characters he had learned in his youth and employed when writing official documents. He frowned as he tried to make out the columns of words and numbers which covered every page. The words must be names, he thought. Customers? Suppliers? Occasional comments were added in smaller, less careful brush strokes. He guessed this had to do with orders, customers, and amounts, but he had no idea what the goods were. He laid the book aside and said, “It may well explain what Feng has been up to, but it will take time to decipher. You had reason to think it contained illegal transactions?”

Saburo nodded. “The ordinary account books lay stacked by date on a bamboo stand. I thought these entries might not be for the eyes of others.”

“Yes, why else hide them? Excellent work.” Akitada finished his tea, picked up Feng’s account book, and rose. “Well, I’m going back to Hakata today. It occurred to me last night that the well may contain other surprises.”

Saburo got up also and collected the cups. “Surely the police would have found those, sir. The constables have climbed down there twice.”

“I don’t have much faith in the local constables, especially if assigned to an unpleasant task. The body of the woman was apparently well advanced in decay, and Tora’s clothes positively stank of death.” He suppressed a shudder and bit his lip. “They would not have stayed down there any longer than they absolutely had to. You know how most people feel about death.”

Saburo stared at his master. “You are thinking of your predecessor, sir?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me, given that all the murders and abductions seem to be connected to a handful of the same people.”

*

In the tribunal office, Akitada asked Mori if he had any knowledge of the Chinese spoken by the immigrants. To his satisfaction, the small clerk nodded.

“We have to work with registers and reports from Chinese merchants and local businessmen,” he explained with a smile. “Their Chinese writing bears little resemblance to our own official documents. I’ve often wondered if that is because they are poorly educated, or if official Chinese dates back to a long time ago while the people now speak differently.”

“A very acute comment, Mori. I suspect it’s a little of both. But in any case, will you have a look at this?” He passed Feng’s private account book to the old man. “I’d like to know why Feng kept this well hidden.”

Mori blushed with pleasure and bowed. “I’m honored, your Excellency. Who would have thought I might be asked to provide assistance in such a difficult case?”

*

Lieutenant Maeda looked as weary as Akitada and Saburo, but he listened with raised brows to Akitada’s request. “The men would have mentioned such a thing, sir,” he said dubiously.

“Don’t forget they had little light to see by and were sent down for a very specific thing, the body of a woman in the first instance, and a bundle of clothes in the second. Also, some time had passed. For all we know, other debris may have been dumped there.”

Maeda nodded. “Yes, it’s possible. But the murder of a high-ranking government official? Surely it will bring the army down upon us.”

“Frankly, Maeda, that’s the least of my worries. With a string of murders and the disappearances of a governor and my assistant, Hakata and its inhabitants deserve no less.”

The police chief hung his head. “I’ll get to it right away, sir. Do you care to witness the search?”

“Certainly.”

They set out for the abandoned well, followed by a group of disgruntled constables carrying ropes, pulleys, shovels, and lanterns and pulling a cart for anything of interest they might find.

The well was only wide enough to allow one man to work with a shovel. The rest of the constables crouched in a circle above, peering down and shouting encouragement. Now and then, they lowered a large basket to remove dirt and garbage. Nothing else happened for a long time. They dug in shifts and brought up the basket filled with assorted debris many times. Not only garbage was down below, but also rocks, broken tiles, and other building debris. Akitada was about to call the effort off. It had been too far-fetched. But before he could admit having mad an embarrassing mistake, there was a shout. He and Maeda pushed into the circle of constables and looked down.

The upturned face of the unfortunate constable, who had been sent down by the luck of the draw, was a pale circle with shock-widened eyes. “Another corpse, Lieutenant,” he reported. “And this one’s wearing a fine silk robe.”

Maeda said heavily, “It seems you were right, sir.”

Akitada nodded grimly. “Bring him up.”

But first the constable who had made the discovery emerged, looking green and walking away a few steps before vomiting into a bush.

Akitada peered down into the darkness of the pit. He thought he saw some faint colors below, a bit of white and some green, and a pale round object that might be a skull.

Two more constables descended the ropes with a large piece of cloth. A short while later, a shout from below caused those above to start pulling on the rope. Slowly the body rose to the daylight, wrapped in the cloth and tied securely. They swung it out and lowered it to the ground, where one of the constables untied it and opened the cloth. The smell of decomposition was strong and nauseating.

Both Maeda and Akitada looked at the partially decomposed body of a nobleman. The type of clothing the dead man wore made that much certain. Identifying him as a particular person was no longer possible. The features had lost any resemblance to a living human being. Apart from a few patches of moldy, darkened skin, the face had become a skull, its bones showing pale against remnants of black hair and the folds of a green, shell-patterned silk robe. The formerly white silk trousers were stained and clung loosely to the bones beneath.

Given the clothing and the fact that no other member of the nobility had gone missing, it must be Tachibana. It seemed shocking that a powerful and fortunate man at the height of his career and in the full enjoyment of a privileged life should end up like this.

Not only had much time elapsed since the governor’s death, but the recovery of the body had involved clumsy handling by the constables. Akitada and Maeda both knelt beside the body for a closer look. Akitada refrained from touching anything, but Maeda lifted a fold of clothing here and there, searching for signs of wounds. He pointed to dark stains and tears in the outer robe and matching black stains on the white silk undergarment. These were on the front and left side of the body’s chest area.

“Knife wounds, I think,” Maeda said softly. “He was stabbed.”

“They cut off his hair,” Akitada commented, looking at the short strands. “Possibly he was also tortured. Someone enjoyed killing him.”

The constables had all come to stare at the corpse. Contact with the dead made them all ritually unclean and prohibited their taking part in certain Shinto observances. Their profession should have inured them to this, but they looked morose and muttered.

Maeda asked the two constables who had been in the well, “Did you find a weapon?”

They shook their heads. One of them said, “We looked good this time, Lieutenant.”

Akitada rose. “Will your coroner be able to confirm the cause of death?”

The police chief nodded. “I think so. He’s a good man. What will happen next, sir?”

Akitada glanced at the corpse of Lord Tachibana. “Identification of the body as that of Lord Tachibana. It should be easy, given his clothing. People will have seen him and remember. It was murder, and the murderer is here in Hakata. He must be found. I shall report to the assistant governor general and to our government in the capital. You carry on with the investigation.”

But as they loaded the ex-governor’s corpse onto the cart and gathered their tools, another of Maeda’s men arrived at a run. He was flushed with exertion and gasped, “We found Hiroshi.”

Akitada asked, “Where is he? Did you arrest him?”

The man was breathless and just shook his head.

Impatiently, Akitada turned to Maeda. “Come, we must question him at once. This is about Tora.”

But the constable finally managed, “He’s dead, your Excellency. Murdered.”

Akitada’s disappointment was staggering . With Hiroshi dead, chances of Tora being alive had just shrunk to nothing.

27

THE ISLAND

T
he green water boiled around the black rocks, tossing men and parts of the ship mercilessly against the sharp teeth of the island. Most of the men were already dead, drowned or killed by the battle on board.