The Isle of South Kamui and Other Stories (15 page)

Contemporary Poetry Appreciation Society
…
?
Taguchi felt the young man had bitten off rather more than he could chew.

When he knocked on the door, a young woman peered out. She was not wearing any makeup, but she was clearly a bargirl. As soon as she realized Taguchi was a detective, she turned and called into the room, “Sensei, it's the police here to see you.”

Sakakibara, naked from the waist up, was lying on a pile of unmade bedding in the corner of the tiny room staring up at the ceiling. His hippyish beard stood out starkly against his hollow chest. As Taguchi stepped into the room, he raised himself sluggishly and said in a sleepy voice, “Ah, come in, come in!”

The girl stood by the door looking from one to the other, and then took her leave telling Sakakibara in a low voice, “It's about time to go to work, so…”

“She's a hostess at Julie's,” Sakakibara said, pushing an ashtray over to Taguchi. “She lives next door, but she sometimes comes over to cook dinner for me or to have a chat.”

“I don't remember her being at the bar last night.”

“She'd taken the night off. Hostesses may look like they're having fun, but in reality it's hard work. If they're feeling tired, they're usually told to go home. Nobody's going to look after them if they fall ill, after all.”

“She's the sort of sweet girl you were talking about, right?”

“That's right,” nodded Sakakibara, flinging the window wide open. The gray wall of the building next door was close enough to touch, preventing much of a breeze from coming in. Instead, they were sprayed with rain.

Sakakibara tutted in irritation and closed the window again. “She's a nice girl. She's suffered so much hardship, but she's always surprisingly cheerful. And even if her talk is a bit coarse, deep down she's simple-hearted, childlike even.”

“Sounds pretty angelic, coming from you,” said Taguchi somewhat sarcastically.

Sakakibara frowned. “You don't understand,” he retorted. “You lot judge people only by their job title. As far as you're concerned, the only people innocent of wrongdoing are ministers or the bosses of big companies. On the other hand, if you come across a bargirl or a tramp, you're immediately under the illusion that they have a sinister criminal feel about them. You'll never be able to understand how magnificent they are.”

“Meaning that you do, I suppose.”

“Of course. I possess a free spirit. It was only the obscure poets and painters who saw the heart of an angel in the whores of Paris's Montparnasse.” His face flushed with triumph, Sakakibara went on to list the names of French artists Taguchi had never heard of.

“This sort of talk is beyond me,” grimaced Taguchi. “Today I've come to see if I can get you to recall where you were yesterday between two and three in the morning. How about it?”

“My alibi, you mean?” Sakakibara shrugged. “I work at night. All I can tell you is that I was alone writing poetry. Writing is solitary work, so of course I don't have anyone to back me up. I suppose that, in your words, I don't have an alibi.”

“Not so much that you don't have one, but it's rather weak, I'd say,” Taguchi reassured him, then glanced around the room. It was small, and the unmade bed and lack of a view made it seem all the more cramped. It was a tiny room that reeked of poverty. There was a small desk facing the wall, upon which was placed a mimeograph stencil; a disordered heap of magazines and manuscript paper; underwear hung up to dry on a bit of string attached to the ceiling. It was a far cry from the bombast of the sign proclaiming the Contemporary Poetry Appreciation Society.

“You said you sold collections of your poetry, right?”

“I don't suppose you'd like to purchase one?”

“Yes, if you've one to spare?”

“I never expected to come across a detective interested in contemporary poetry,” commented Sakakibara sarcastically, before taking down a book from the shelf and placing it in front of him.

It was a flimsy mimeographed copy, with “The Poetry of Tetsuya Sakakibara, published by the Contemporary Poetry Appreciation Society” printed on the cover. Noting the price on the back, Taguchi placed a fifty-yen coin next to the ashtray.

The last page featured a brief résumé of the author. Taguchi had just noted the birth date of 1942, realizing that made Sakakibara twenty-seven, the same age as Detective Suzuki, when the caretaker came upstairs to inform him of a telephone call.

The call was from Suzuki, who had gone to check up on Yoshimuta's alibi. As Taguchi picked up the receiver, his agitated voice came rushing out, “Yoshimuta's been run over.”

“Is he dead?” Involuntarily, Taguchi raised his voice.

“He's in hospital, but the doctors don't hold much hope.”

Suzuki gave him the name of the hospital. Senselessly, Taguchi rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “What the hell happened?”

“I'm not really sure. I was in the middle of questioning him when his face suddenly drained of color and he ran straight out of the house and into the road and—”

“And was hit by a car?”

“Yes. It was all so sudden I couldn't do anything about it.”

“Okay, I'm on my way.” Taguchi replaced the receiver and turned round to find Sakakibara standing there behind him.

“Has something happened?”

“Are you worried?” spat Taguchi.

“Not especially.” Sakakibara's lip curled as he turned his back.

Taguchi observed him climb back upstairs, limping. His expression hardened. He had not noticed it before, but Sakakibara was clearly dragging his left leg behind him.

By the time Taguchi arrived at the hospital, the owner of Yoshimuta Packaging was already dead. Detective Suzuki was white as a sheet, and apologized as if it was his personal responsibility. Taguchi clapped him on the back and told him he was not to blame.

“More to the point, did he say anything before he died?”

“In the ambulance on the way here he just kept repeating that he hadn't killed her. That's all he said.”

“So what do you think?”

“When he suddenly ran off like that I thought he must be guilty, but now I don't think he was.”

“Because of what he said? There are people who tell lies on their deathbed, you know.”

“Of course I don't think he's innocent just because of what he said. There's another reason.”

“Which is?”

“I found out he was headed for bankruptcy. His workshop was mortgaged, and he had loans amounting to almost a million yen. In other words, he really needed that million and a half yen from the victim.”

“I suppose he, of all people, would have known that he would get that money when they married, but he wouldn't get anything if she died.”

“That's right. And what's more, the victim had told him right from the start that she wanted the money to be capital for his business, so he had no need to kill her anyway. Even if we concede that he was only after her money, surely he would have married her and got his hands on the money before killing her?”

“I see,” nodded Taguchi. He recalled Yoshimuta's face when they had gone to see him in his matchbox of a workshop to inform him of Kazuko Watanabe's death. He had been so upset that he wept. At the time, Taguchi had been astonished to see the tears well up in his eyes, but in hindsight it had probably been less due to his grief over having lost his girl, as his utter despair at the inevitable bankruptcy he faced having lost that million and a half yen. It was unlikely a grown man like him would have been moved to tears merely on hearing his fiancée had just died. But Yoshimuta's livelihood had been staked on this marriage.

“So the reason he ran out in front of a car is also clear, isn't it? It was obviously suicide. It's not your fault.”

“I hope not, but…” A trace of self-reproach remained in Suzuki's face. He was young, and somebody had just died before his eyes—it would not be easy to recover from such a shock. The best way to help him to get over it would be either to take him off the case altogether and force him to rest, or alternatively to keep him on the case and work him to the bone.

Considering Suzuki's youth, Taguchi decided on the latter course. It was by far the better plan to send a young bloodhound off in pursuit of a quarry.

“There's no need to worry about Yoshimuta any longer,” he asserted in a deliberately forceful voice. “In fact, now that he's out of the way, we've got our rat.”

“You mean Sakakibara?”

“That's right. The trail's gone cold on Yoshimuta, which leaves just him. He's so damn cocksure that we'll never get him, but I'm gonna nail him. I want you to stake out his apartment.”

Taguchi patted Suzuki on the shoulder and ushered him out of the room, then he too went out. It was still raining. As he walked to the alley where the murder had taken place, Taguchi visualized Sakakibara's face and started talking to him.
You're on your own now
.
You can't hide behind that grown man Yoshimuta any longer
.
I'll smoke you out of your hole in no time
.

The alley was sodden with rain. As always it stank of booze and cooked offal. The squeals of women and raucous bellows of customers spilled out of the bars and drinking houses; drunken men getting wet in the rain bawled out war songs as they reeled past Taguchi. It hardly seemed possible that just yesterday a young woman's body had lain here. But it had, and the murderer was still wandering around free.

Taguchi pushed open the door to Julie's and went in. Luckily there were no customers, and the hostess he had met at Sakakibara's was leaning on the counter, her chin resting on her hands, and she looked bored. “You're the detective, right?” She introduced herself as Mineko Igarashi, but wariness showed in her eyes.

“I'd like to ask you about Sakakibara.” When he said this, her expression became even more guarded.

“What would you like to know about Sensei?”

“Why do you call him Sensei? Are you learning about poetry from him?”

“I don't know anything about poetry. But I respect him—that's why. Anything wrong with that?”

“Did Kazuko Watanabe, the girl who was murdered, call him Sensei too?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What does he do for you girls?”

“He's a good listener and gives us advice.”

“What can he do? He doesn't have any money or influence, does he? You say he gives you advice, but all he can really do is listen, right?”

“That's enough for us.”

“Really? That's enough?” Taguchi just didn't get it. If it was simply a matter of listening to their woes, wouldn't their drunken customers do just as well?

When he suggested as much to her, she retorted scornfully, “You haven't got a clue, have you? The customers here are only interested in hearing about our lives for the fun of it. Either that, or they pretend to sympathize in order to get close to us. You can see from the start they've got an ulterior motive. But Sensei's not like that. He really listens to us. Who wouldn't want a friend like that?”

“You don't think he's putting on an act?”

“An act?” Mineko tilted her head to one side. She was no beauty, and perhaps that was what made her look very young. In some respects she looked terribly grown-up, but somewhere in her heart she had been hurt. If you made out you were soothing over that wound, it would probably be easy to deceive such a woman.

“Don't you think he just sympathizes with you so as to give a good impression of himself, when in fact he really despises you?”

“No, he's not the type,” she said hotly.

“Have you any proof of that?” prodded Taguchi nastily. When Mineko retorted that she did, his eyes widened. “What sort of proof?”

“A while back, Kazuko was being stalked by some yakuza lowlife. Everyone was too scared to stick up for her, but Sensei went to her aid and stood up to him.”

“What happened?”

“Sensei's no match for a guy like that. He got a thrashing, but the yakuza was arrested. Thanks to him, Kazu was safe. That really got to me! Anyone just putting on an act couldn't possibly do anything like that. He could have gotten himself killed!”

As she talked, her wariness of Taguchi melted away and she started enthusing about how compassionate Sakakibara was. “And that's not all. Sensei's got a bad leg, you know that, right?”

“I'd noticed.”

“He got that from saving a child about to be run over by a car, a child he'd never even seen before!”

“Did you see it happen?”

“No, but I heard about it from Sensei's friend who came over to the apartment.”

“And you believed him?”

“Of course. He's famous, after all. You've heard of Kyo Sasanuma, haven't you?”