Three Tales of Love and Murder (Akitada Stories)

by I. J. Parker

  “Since we found what is left of it in his brazier, it stands to reason he committed the murder.”

  Tadahira gasped. “You think I murdered the poor child?”

  His voice unsteady with nervousness, Akitada turned to Lord Kiyowara, “How did you know what your daughter wrote in her diary?”

  Kiyowara stared at him blankly. “What?”

  “You just said that she suffered from an over-heated imagination and that girls write foolish notions in their diaries. That means you read what she wrote. You also referred to a few visits your brother made to her room. How could you have known that if not from her diary? It was you who took the diary, wasn’t it? And you who tried to burn it in your brother’s room.”

  “That’s an outrageous lie. I repeat, I knew of no diary.”

  Tadahira struggled with the constables. “But that’s not true. You came and told me that you knew all. You said you would destroy her diary to protect me.” His eyes widened with sudden horror. “Oh, say you didn’t kill your own child to protect me!”

  “Of course not, you fool! Stop ranting before you destroy us both.” Kiyowara’s features were distorted with rage.

  Akitada could not restrain himself any longer. “Lord Kiyowara, you did kill your daughter,” he cried. “It had to be you. She wouldn’t have remained calmly at her toilet in front of the mirror if your brother had visited her. Only her father could have come close enough to her to reach for the razor and slit her throat.”

  Tadahira became hysterical. “Dear heaven, it’s true. I heard you in her room last evening. I wanted to speak to her, to apologize and wish her well, but when I got to the door, I heard you shouting. I was afraid you’d found out what had happened. Oh, dear heaven, why did you do this?”

  Kiyowara stood frozen. For a moment he looked murderous, then the fight went out of him. He sank to the floor. “You fool!” he muttered. “I tried to cover for you and you have ruined me. You miserable drunkard! Yes, I found out. Not only did you sleep with my daughter, but you got her with child. When I went to inform her that the marriage contracts were signed, the silly girl told me. She wanted me to tell Masanobu. When I refused, she threatened to tell him herself. You know I couldn’t allow that.”

  Akimitsu gave a choking cry and jumped up. Looking at the Kiyowaras, he cried, “She would have done better to clutch a stone and leap into a deep pool than to come here, hoping for a father’s love. Only lust, cruelty, and death reside in the hearts of the great.” He turned and plunged into the rain outside.

  A chilling silence fell in the banquet room. Kiyowara Toyashi sat, his head in his hands, and Kiyowara Tadahira stared down at him in horror. “Monstrous!” he whispered. “To kill your own daughter and my unborn child! But why, Toyashi, why did you burn the diary in my room?”

  Kiyowara muttered, “There was no brazier in mine.”

  Tadahira heaved a deep sigh, then sagged to the floor beside his brother and wept.

  Later, after the Kiyowaras had signed confessions and been taken away, Ishida and Akitada walked through the garden toward the stables. The rain still misted steadily, and from the dripping trees fell showers of wet petals. Akitada was filled with sadness. Frail as the cherry blossoms had been Lady Umeko’s chance at happiness, brief as their season her place in her father’s house, and cruel as the rainstorm his rage when she proved a liability rather than an asset.

  Compared to such tragedy, his own troubles seemed trivial, and he hesitated before he spoke. “It was very lucky,” he finally said shyly, “that enough of the diary remained. Otherwise it would have gone hard with me for meddling again. There was only my word against Kiyowara’s, and he’s a good friend of my superior.”

  “Hmm,” said Ishida, glancing up at the denuded branches. “Actually there was just that page with some lines of bad poetry.”

  Akitada stopped. “But,” he stammered, “but you said …”

  Ishida regarded him quizzically. “You have good instincts, Sugawara, but you’re still very young. It’s much better to let a fish swim into the net than to throw stones at him.”

  “Oh.” Akitada flushed and hung his head. “I suppose you will report to the minister …”

  “That you’ve been most helpful and cooperative. You have, you know.” Ishida smiled a little, and put his hand on Akitada’s shoulder. “Come along, son. I’m an old man, but we’ve both had enough of cherry blossoms, I think.”

  The Incense Murders

  Heian-Kyo (Kyoto): 11th century; during the Clothes-Lining Month (March).

  ON a gray spring morning in a week of cold, drizzling rains, Akitada was summoned by his mother.

  Their relationship was strained at the best of times, but on this occasion she would get him involved in a case that nearly ended his career and perhaps his life. He would forever after fear dealings with his parent and doubt himself.

  But that morning, unsuspecting, he walked along the covered gallery and saw that the roof had sprung another leak. He expected to be told to fix it and sighed. They had no money to spend on workmen and no servants able to carry out the heavy work.

  Lady Sugawara was at her morning devotions, kneeling and bowing before the small Buddha statue on a shelf in her room. Akitada sat down to wait and looked around. At least the roof was solid here. The house might be falling down around their ears, but his mother’s quarters would remain as comfortable as ever. She would not have it any other way.

  She made her final bow and turned. “Ah. Akitada, I want you to go to your Cousin Koremori.”

  Otomo Koremori was a cousin on Akitada’s mother’s side and no connection to the Sugawaras, a fact for which Akitada was grateful. Koremori was past fifty now, a wealthy man who had married well and was a recent widower. Since he had lost his only son Akemori a few years earlier and was now childless, Akitada’s mother had initiated more cordial relations. She expected Koremori to leave his property to her or to her children when he died. Koremori knew it and behaved accordingly. Akitada could not abide Koremori.

  He said, “I cannot go immediately, Mother. I am due at the Ministry.”

  His mother raised her brows. “Nonsense. Why should you not make time for a close family member? Please remember who you are.”

  What he was was a junior clerk in the Ministry of Justice and in enough trouble already. “I could go after work, Mother,” he said reluctantly.

  She frowned. “Very well, but don’t forget again like last time. I want you to take him this fan. He admired it the last time he was here. Tell him it’s a small present to cheer him up. Oh, and write a suitable card for it.”

  The fan was his mother’s favorite and dated back to better times. That she was willing to part with it meant she was embarking on a new campaign to influence Koremori’s final arrangements.

  Akitada took the fan, bowed to his mother, and retreated.

  He arrived at the Otomo residence that evening, feeling resentful. The weather had worsened. Wet, cold, and tired from an unprofitable day in the archives, he did not look forward to this visit and hoped to make it a short one.

  Koremori sat behind the large desk in his elegantly furnished study. Handsome shades were lowered to keep the room cozy, and silk cushions awaited guests. Above him hung a scroll with the admonition: “Remember your duty to past and future generations.” When the servant admitted Akitada, Koremori looked up and stared at Akitada with his usual unpleasant expression.

  As a child, Akitada had thought of him as a fat toad because of his bulbous eyes and broad face. Today he looked more than usually toadlike.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Koremori said ungraciously and gestured toward a cushion.

  Akitada sat down and sniffed the air. The room reeked, but the smell was not unpleasant, just powerful. Some of the redolence came from his cousin’s perfumed robe. Sandalwood and cloves. But other scents mingled, and Akitada saw that a table held preparations for an incense guessing game.

  The game was an aristocratic pursuit in which the part
icipants submitted their own concoctions anonymously, then guessed the ingredients and chose a winner for the best fragrance. Akitada disapproved of such waste of money, time, and intelligence.

  He bowed and said stiffly, “My mother sent me, Cousin. She recalled that you admired this trifling object on your last visit and asked me to present it to you.” He took the fan from his sleeve and passed it to Koremori.

  Koremori’s wide mouth twitched. He glanced briefly at the words Akitada had written on his visiting card and attached to the gift, then laid fan and note aside.

  “Tell your mother I am obliged for her thoughtful present.” He stared at Akitada. “So. Still a clerk in the Ministry, are you?”

  “Yes, Cousin. I hope I find you well?”

  “Never better.” Koremori’s lip twitched again. “Be sure to tell your mother. She takes a great interest in my health.”

  Akitada flushed. Koremori never missed an opportunity to make him feel small and his mother mercenary.

  Koremori added, “Apart from her ill-advised marriage, she has always shown proper family feeling.”

  Akitada resented the reference to the Sugawara family. Though innocent of the charge against him, his most famous forebear had been found guilty of treason and had died in political exile to the subsequent ruin of his descendants. Akitada reminded himself, as always, that he had nothing in common with Koremori, either in his values or appearance. Akitada, tall and as slender as a whip, regarded Koremori’s short, fat body as just punishment for over-eating and indolence. His cousin’s luxurious lifestyle was, to Akitada’s youthful idealism, immoral and indecent. But remembering his mother, he suppressed his anger and said nothing.

  Instead he averted his eyes from the offensive Koremori to look around the room and noticed the incense table again.

  A man given to excess in everything from family pride to fine food, Otomo Koremori was a connoisseur and passionate practitioner of the incense cult. He spared no expense in this pursuit and was counted among the most knowledgeable experts on exotic ingredients.

  The paraphernalia on the table included packets of incense in neatly labeled envelopes or twists of expensive papers. The lacquer-ware utensils were dusted with gold and silver and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Small ladles of silver and gold lay beside burners of gilded bronze.

  Akitada jumped when Koremori suddenly clapped his hands and shouted, “Out, vile creature!” Flushed with anger, his cousin had risen to throw his ink stone at a small black and white kitten. The stone brushed the little animal, which squealed and scurried under the desk.

  Akitada said quickly, “It’s only a kitten.”

  “I hate cats. Is it gone?”

  “It’s gone,” Akitada lied. From the corner of his eye, he saw the kitten emerging and stretching a tentative paw for his red visiting card that dangled over the edge of Koremori’s desk.

  Koremori sat down again. He clearly wanted Akitada gone as much as Akitada wanted to leave. He said, “As you see, I’m quite busy at the moment with preparations for another incense party, and the cat could spoil everything if it disturbed the samples.”

  The kitten snagged the card and withdrew with it under the desk.

  Akitada said politely, “Your expertise in that field is well known, Cousin. Under the circumstances, I won’t take up more of your time …”

  But Koremori had heard the rustling of paper and peered under the desk. He roared, “Kenzo!”

  A young boy ran in. His black hair was tied into two fat brushes over each ear and his bright eyes took in Akitada in a single measuring glance before he told Koremori, “Kenzo’s busy, Master. Will I do?”

  “Why is this cursed cat running loose in my room?” Koremori pointed under the desk. “Take it back to its mistress this instant. If I ever find it here again, I’ll have you whipped.”

  The boy got to his knees and scooped out the kitten, detaching Akitada’s card from its teeth and putting it back on the desk. “Come, little tiger,” he crooned, “let’s go into the garden and watch the goldfish.”

  Koremori glowered after them. “Did you see that? Not so much as a bow!”

  Akitada got to his feet. “I shall give Mother your message, Cousin,” he said.

  Koremori nodded. “I wish I had more time to chat,” he said grudgingly. “My household has been standing on its head all day.”

  As if on cue, the door flew open again, and a beautiful young woman came into the room, silk gowns fluttering and long, glossy hair trailing on the floor behind her. Her clothes were exquisite, the short sleeves of her embroidered Chinese coat revealing many layers of exquisitely hued robes of the thinnest silk.

  “Oh, darling,” she cried, “Have you seen my kitten?” She stopped abruptly and looked in consternation at Akitada.

  Koremori turned a deep red and cleared his throat. “Forgive the interruption, Akitada. This is Yoshiko. Yoshiko, my dear, do not worry. No harm is done. Akitada is only a cousin and he is leaving.”

  Akitada bowed to the young woman. He wondered what his mother would make of the news that Koremori had taken a mistress.

  The pretty Yoshiko blushed, fluttered her lashes at him, then sank gracefully on a cushion. “Cousin Akitada,” she murmured. “How very pleasant to meet you.”

  “He is leaving,” snapped Koremori.

  Akitada bowed again, to both this time, and departed.

  When he made his report to his mother, she sat bolt upright. “Who is she?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know, Mother. Just a pretty young woman. I thought she might be his mistress.”

  Lady Sugawara hissed. “Mistress. Or concubine? And you say this so calmly? What if she gives him a child? What then?”

  Akitada did not care, but he said, “He’s no longer young and not at all handsome.”

  “Fool! What difference does that make? He is wealthy and she is beautiful. You did say she was beautiful?”

  Lady Yoshiko was indubitably beautiful. Akitada nodded.

  “Hmm. This is not good.” Lady Sugawara stared through her son, deep in thought. “Of course it may not last,” she finally said, “but meanwhile you must double your efforts to ingratiate yourself. Make yourself indispensable. Prove to him that blood ties outweigh all other bonds. Show a loving concern for his health by mentioning the risk of exertion at his age.”

  Akitada sighed inwardly. “I’ll try, Mother.”

  The following morning, the weather cleared a little and Seimei brought in Akitada’s rice gruel and another urgent summons from his mother. Akitada gulped down his food, and hurried to his mother’s room.

  She looked excited. “Quick!” she said. “Run over to Cousin Koremori’s right away. He needs your help.”

  Akitada shook his head. “I’m due at the ministry, Mother.”

  “It cannot wait,” she snapped. “Someone is trying to kill him.”

  Surprised by his mother’s concern, which was so exactly contrary to her hopes, Akitada asked sarcastically, “Should we interfere?”

  Lady Sugawara stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Sorry. I meant, how do you know?”

  “Never mind. Hurry up and go over there. He will explain. And remember what we talked about. Here is your opportunity to demonstrate your support.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Akitada bowed and went to work as usual.

  When he arrived at his cousin’s house that evening, he found the police there and wondered if Koremori’s fears had been real after all. The servant who met him reassured him. It was not his cousin who had died, but an elderly maid.

  As they passed the room that held Koremori’s ancestral shrine, the door opened and a constable stepped out. He recognized Akitada (who had spent too much time at court hearings and murder investigations, irritating the police captain, Kobe, and his superior, the minister of justice).

  The constable grinned. “Is it you again, sir? It must be murder for sure then.”

  Akitada grinned back and stoppe
d. “Not guilty this time. I’m just paying a visit to a family member. What happened?”

  “His lordship sent for us. He found his wife’s nurse dead on the floor in here.” The constable gestured over his shoulder.

  Akitada peered past him. The tiny room was exquisitely furnished. On its walls were paintings of famous incidents involving Otomo forebears, and on the altar table a finely carved and gilded statue of the Buddha presided over the name tablets of the deceased, prominently among them that of Koremori’s son, Akemori.

  In front of this altar lay an old woman, her body twisted, her hands clutching at her throat, and her tongue protruding from a blue-tinged face. Several of the footed bowls with offerings of food and money, incense burners, and candlesticks that had stood on the altar lay scattered across the floor. Oranges, coins, ashes, and a number of dead flies and moths were among the utensils on the polished boards. It looked as if the poor woman had done the damage before dying in painful convulsions. Her fingers had left fumbling traces in the ashes from the incense burners. A heavy, acrid smell still hung in the air.

  “Was it murder?” Akitada asked, stepping inside and bending over the corpse. He saw no obvious signs of an attack.

  The constable joined him. “I doubt it. No wounds. No contusions. No signs of strangulation.” He moved the body to show Akitada. “She was an old woman with a weak heart. The captain didn’t see anything wrong either, but Lord Koremori keeps insisting that she’s been poisoned by the incense and that the poison had been meant for him. The smell’s still pretty strong, but I ask you, who would die from sniffing incense? His lordship got huffy when we didn’t agree with him.” He gave Akitada another grin. “Maybe you can get this straightened out, sir.”

  Akitada had a sinking feeling that he should not have come at all. Kobe would find out that he had been here and complain to the minister again. He shook his head at the constable’s suggestion and followed the servant to his cousin’s study.

  Today Koremori sat behind his desk, chewing his fingernails. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “I sent for you this morning.”