The Death Ceremony

by James Melville

  Again Lady Hurtling opened her mouth to speak but was swept aside by the relentless staccato monologue of the ambassador.

  "Must have been about three weeks ago. I remember, I had the Clean Government Party Diet members to a stag lunch that day, just before everything packed up for the holidays. It was very irritating, only three of the eight I'd asked actually came. I don't see how they could all be tied up with year-end parties in the middle of December, do you? I'm sure I don't know how this legend about the Japanese being workaholics arose. Good Lord, I had our junior Industry Minister to cope with the following week even though I keep telling them in London that this endless stream of Ministers and mandarins from Whitehall coming to Japan is counter-productive and that if they'd only read my despatches they could save themselves a lot of trouble, not to mention the taxpayers' money. Anyway I don't think my wife and I managed more than a couple of days to ourselves over the entire Christmas period, and then there was the Twelfth Night party to get ready for . . . Thelma!" He paused with such portentousness that she actually had time to respond.

  "Yes, Roddy?"

  "Remind me to talk to Oliver about that singularly tasteless skit the Commercial Section put on last week. One is all in favour of a certain amount of good-humoured teasing, but that hardly justifies representing me as a pompous bore."

  They had passed the Osaka interchanges and in another twenty minutes or so would be leaving the motorway at the point where motorcycle police from the Hyogo force would be waiting to take over from their Kyoto counterparts to escort the ambassadorial Rolls to the centre of Kobe and the Oriental Hotel.

  Determined to make the most of the time remaining to him, Kimura raised his voice somewhat. "Roughly between mid-November and mid-December last, then, Ambassador. And have there been any actual attempts before last Sunday?"

  "Attempts? What attempts?" Again Lady Hurtling managed to get a word in edgeways. "There was the petrol bomb at the Consular Section, wasn't there, Roddy?"

  "Oh really, Thelma, I hardly think that constituted a bomb. Now I see what the Inspector was getting at. You didn't make yourself very clear, you know," he added, glasses flashing intimidatingly. "You mean attempts. On my life."

  "And mine." Kimura heard Lady Hurtling's subdued contribution, but doubted if her husband had.

  "Let me think, now. No. As my wife points out, there was a very incompetent attempt to set fire to our consular offices a couple of months ago. Someone set a small fire in the early hours with the aid of a bottle of petrol outside the main door, but it was a trivial affair and caused negligible damage. Hardly IRA style, I'd say, Inspector. My private opinion is that it was some disgruntled Brit with a grievance, like that chap in Bangkok years ago, you remember, Thelma, the bigamist with the wooden leg." Sir Rodney chortled, this time with an appearance of genuine merriment, and Kimura seized the opportunity to put in another question.

  "I presume that the threatening letters you mentioned were handed over to the police in Tokyo, sir? Or at least photocopies of them?''

  "Oh, I really couldn't say, my dear fellow. I shouldn't be surprised."

  "But you saw them, sir. They did seem to you to be the work of a foreigner—I'm sorry, I mean a native English speaker, rather than a Japanese?"

  For the first time the ambassador seemed actually to try to think about what was said to him, rather than dashing off on a tangent. "I took it for granted, really," he said after a while. "Can't remember the exact wording, but one of them at least seemed to indicate a detailed knowledge of place names and particular incidents in Northern Ireland, as I recall."

  "We're nearly at the interchange, sir. One last question, if I may. Do you know of many Irish people living in Japan?''

  "There's no need for you to change to the Kobe escort car, you know, Inspector Kinoshita."

  "Kimura, dear. Inspector Kimura. You're awful with names." Lady Hurtling sounded positively annoyed.

  "Kimura. Terribly sorry. All I meant to say was, we can go on chatting as far as the hotel, by all means. Irish in Japan? I haven't the slightest idea really. A few dozen at most, I should think. But whoever fired that gun on Sunday might not necessarily be Irish, you know. From Ireland, I mean. Good Lord, there are hordes of Irish in Liverpool, London and all over the place. Not to mention America. Why the American authorities don't take action, I can't imagine. I find their attitude pusillanimous in the extreme, but then with a man with a name like Reagan in charge and another called Kennedy after the job what can you expect? Not that Kennedy will ever have a chance in my opinion after that shady business with the girl in the car, and his elder brother seems to have been a man of inordinate . . . well, you know what I mean, Inspector, you're a man of the world ..."

  The ambassador was well away, and Kimura kept him going effortlessly for the rest of the drive, merely by putting in the odd word now and then.

  Chapter 11

  Hello?"

  "Moshi-moshi! Is that you, Atsugi-san?" Momentarily put off by the English word, Otani wondered if he had misdialled on his private line and failed to reach the Foreign Ministry man in Osaka.

  "Hai. Atsugi here. Who's speaking?"

  "Otani, Hyogo police. I thought you might have left, or that I'd got the wrong number when you answered in English."

  "Sorry, Otani-san, old habits die hard. What can I do for you?"

  Otani settled back in his chair and held the phone more comfortably, idly tracing a complex series of triangles on a Ministry of Justice circular with the point of his letter-opener as he talked. He was very fond of that letter-opener, which was fashioned in the shape of a miniature samurai sword, complete with its scabbard and beautiful braided purple silk sling.

  "Just one thing, but I'll come to that. We now have the British Ambassador safely installed at the Oriental Hotel here, and I thought you might like to know that Superintendent Fujiwara of the Kyoto prefectural force is every bit as annoyed as I told you he would be. It's been a fairly productive day, though, on the whole. I shall be better pleased when we get this opening ceremony business over tomorrow. We have altogether too many ambassadors to protect for my liking."

  Otani distinctly heard Atsugi's baritone chuckle over the line from his office twenty-five miles distant. "Come now, it's no very big deal, Superintendent. There are many occasions when a dozen or more all attend the same function in Tokyo. And what about the Emperor's Birthday, when every one of them goes off to the Palace to pay his respects? It's not like you to over-react."

  Otani added a little flag to the tracing of the triangles, then pushed the paper away from him. "It was you who got excited about the business on Sunday," he pointed out. "Supposing our friend with the rifle has another try at the Trade Centre and misses again? He might get the Governor or the Mayor next time, and then I'd really be in trouble."

  "Well, we shall just have to hope for the best, won't we? How did things go in Kyoto, though? Really."

  Otani was quite glad of the opportunity to marshal his own thoughts by talking to Atsugi. "A little progress, I suppose. I took my two senior colleagues, Noguchi and Kimura, with me to call on Fujiwara. You've met them both, I think."

  "Well, let's say that I know about them both, shall we?"

  "Quite. Well, as I've already told you, Fujiwara was very cool indeed. I can't say I blame him in the least, even though I must admit he irritated me."

  "I dare say he did. High and mighty, I expect. You know his family background, I take it?"

  "I know the rumours. Anyway I was with him for only ten or fifteen minutes. I did my duty in making the courtesy call, but I don't expect to have any further contact with him. There's an inspector there who's liaising with me and I'm finding him extremely helpful. A complete contrast, in fact."

  "Good. So, what have you learned?"

  A smile flickered over Otani's face as he shifted his position and stared unseeingly at the gloomy old oil painting which hung on his office wall, put there presumably decades before by one of his predecessors
. It was only when he and his principal lieutenants were at a loss for inspiration that they looked properly at the picture and speculated in a desultory way about it.

  "Well, Noguchi found the case of what was almost certainly the bullet which killed the Iemoto. We shall know for sure tomorrow when we get the report after the lab has compared it with the slug they took out of his head. Not that we're likely to stumble on the rifle, so it might not be of all that much help. All the same, it's a lead."

  "It is indeed. So? You said there was something I could do for you."

  "Yes. Inspector Kimura has been telling me about the IRA death threat letters to the British Ambassador."

  "Really? How did he find out about them?"

  "Sir Rodney Hurtling told him all about them on the way here this afternoon—Kimura was in the car with him and his wife. Said the ambassador hardly stopped talking all the way. Of course you mentioned the IRA to me last night anyway . . . but not the letters." Otani let the silence hang between them for a moment before continuing. "The point I'm leading up to is that there was an Irishman staying with the Iemoto's family until Sunday, and he moved out after the killing."

  Otani distinctly heard Atsugi's intake of breath. "I thought you'd be interested. He's been studying the tea ceremony very seriously, it seems, to the point where he's about to receive a teacher's licence. It may be pure coincidence, but I'd like you to have a word with your people and pass me anything they have on a man called Casey. Patrick Casey." Otani did his best to pronounce the name in the way Kimura had done, and Atsugi seemed to grasp it. "I could put in a request through the National Police Agency, but I expect you could get a quicker response."

  "I expect I could, Superintendent. My, you have been working hard. I presume you've already checked him out with immigration records?"

  "Of course. And with the Alien Registration Section in the local ward office in Kyoto, of course. His papers seem to be quite in order, and there's no mystery about where he's gone. He checked in in the proper way at a low-budget hotel used mostly by foreigners in the northeast of the city. Not far from the Temple of the Silver Pavilion."

  "Plenty of time to get from there to Kobe for breakfast, shoot Sir Rodney and be back in Kyoto for an afternoon's sightseeing before dinner, all the same."

  "No, no. You misunderstand me. There's no question of Casey having fired the gun on Sunday." Otani found himself becoming irritable. "He was assisting at the tea ceremony. But I suppose he could conceivably have been an accomplice. On the other hand, he has been in Japan on a cultural visa for two years or more, and may well be exactly what he claims to be. All I want to know is whether this man has been in any way an object of interest to the Public Security Investigation Agency in Tokyo. Urgently."

  "Right. I'll get on to it right away and call you back. It's after six now. Are you on your way home?"

  Otani looked at his watch. "I'll be here till seven."

  "Okay. By the way, are you free for lunch tomorrow? It's the Osaka Rotary Club's regular meeting. I know you like to get over here and mingle with the top men once in a while." Otani was tempted, in spite of Atsugi's good-natured taunt. It was quite true that the Osaka club boasted some very important members indeed compared with his own Kobe South club, highly respectable though that of course was, but it was impossible for him to get away.

  "Not this week, I'm afraid, Ambassador. I mustn't leave Kobe tomorrow. Later in the month, perhaps." He rang off and set to work to deal with the routine papers which had accumulated on his desk, hardly expecting Atsugi to call back before he left, but waiting until seven-fifteen anyway. Otani had already notified his driver that he would go home on the train, and on leaving the headquarters building he decided to look in at the Oriental Hotel, no more than five minutes walk away.

  There was no reason whatever to question the arrangements made by his staff for the protection of the British Ambassador, and at the back of Otani's mind there was the notion that, by delaying his arrival, he could ensure that Rosie Winchmore would be well clear of the bathroom. He had no more scruples about holding up the evening meal than any other Japanese husband. Whether he turned up at seven or ten in the evening, he knew that Hanae would have his supper ready almost by the time he had settled down in the living-room.

  The New Year holidays well and truly over at last, downtown Kobe had reverted to normal, and there was plenty of bustle in the main streets where the shops routinely stayed open till nine in the evening. As he passed the Daimaru Department Store he made a mental note to remind Hanae to take back some of their unwanted New Year gifts, as most people did, and exchange them for coupons to the same value to be spent on other goods in the store. He was particularly anxious to get rid of the ornately embroidered orange house slippers sent by Detective Junko Migishima and her husband, a rank and file patrolman serving as a plainclothes assistant to Kimura, not to mention the cufflinks presented by Kimura himself. When manufacturers took the trouble to put buttons on shirt-sleeves, Otani saw no need to gild the lily.

  He had just paused in front of a display of Morozoff chocolates in a confectionery shop window with the vague idea of buying some for Hanae to share with Rosie when he felt a hand on his arm and, turning, saw the young lady in question grinning broadly at him.

  "Otani-san! What a nice surprise!" Otani bowed a little awkwardly, for Rosie was not alone. She was indeed quite openly holding hands with a young man, a foreigner like herself. Both were wearing jeans and what Otani thought of as running shoes but which in recent years seemed to have become normal footwear for anyone under the age of twenty-five. Over a T-shirt with the large Chinese character for "Good Fortune" emblazoned on it in red, Rosie wore a large shaggy knitted waistcoat which drooped almost to her knees, while her escort had on a bright blue plastic padded jacket over a roll-necked sweater.

  Rosie was not very skilled in the social graces and became stuck in repetitious expressions of surprise at seeing her host; until the young man at her side let go of her hand, bowed and intervened in pleasantly courteous Japanese.

  "How do you do, sir. I am honoured to meet you. Thank you for your many kindnesses to Winchmore-san." He pronounced the name correctly, as Uinchimoa. "My name is Casey."

  Otani had no idea how common a name Keishii might be, but was distinctly jolted by hearing it for the second time that day. "How do you do. I am pleased to meet you. You speak Japanese very well. May 1 ask if you are a fellow student of Rosie-san at London University?"

  At this Rosie found her tongue again. "Oh, no. That is, he was. But Patrick was in his final year when I started. And now he's a tea ceremony master, what do you think about that?"

  Otani muttered clichés as he surveyed the young man with very keen interest. Patrick Casey was, for a foreigner, a pleasant-enough-looking sort of person. Under the bulky jacket he seemed to be slightly built, and was not much taller than Otani himself—perhaps 170 or 172 centimetres, Otani thought. He now knew that Casey was twenty-three years old, but thought that he looked older, since there was a thinness about his soft hair which augured baldness within comparatively few years. His demeanour was gentle, and his features, though thin, were well-modelled and regular. In normal circumstances Otani left such judgements to Kimura but, temporarily bereft of his support, he came to the rapid conclusion that Patrick Casey did not on the face of it look like the stuff of which assassins' accomplices are made.

  On the other hand, what was he doing in Kobe? Otani wanted very much to know, but this casual encounter scarcely gave him the opportunity to find out. Rosie's remark at least called for some sort of response, so Otani professed admiring surprise and waited to see what would happen next. In fact Casey seemed embarrassed, and hastened to modify Rosie's enthusiasm.

  "Hardly that," he said. "At least, not yet." His Japanese was really very easy and assured. "I've been studying the tea ceremony for some years now, and was privileged to be accepted as a pupil by Minamikuni-sen-sei, the head of the Southern School. The late head, I should say
. Unfortunately he died very tragically the other day."

  "I know," Otani said briefly. At this point Rosie burst in again.

  "He was there, Pat!" she cried in English as Otani looked on uncomprehendingly. "And never said a word about it when they got home!" She turned to Otani and reverted to her eccentric Japanese. "You didn't tell me about it," she said reproachfully. "I had to find out from the paper. And Patrick told me today."

  The three of them constituted a significant obstacle to the flow of passers-by on the narrow sidewalk, obstructed as it was anyway by displays spilling out from the shops on the one hand and the massive electricity supply poles, which disfigure every Japanese town and city, on the other. People strolling by made their way round them tolerantly enough, but Otani came to a bold and adventurous decision, and asked the two young people if they would like a cup of coffee. Rosie hesitated, but Patrick Casey not at all, and they were soon crowded round a tiny table in Coffee Etoile.

  Otani asked his guests purely as a matter of form whether they would like anything to eat. Rosie declined with a shudder, gazing round her in horror at the other patrons busily demolishing huge toasted sandwiches, elaborate cakes and, in the case of one diminutive girl in a miniskirt, a mountain of American-style hotcakes drenched in syrup and surmounted by a ring of canned pineapple, the whole liberally anointed with whipped cream. Casey also turned down his offer, but Otani thought he detected some regret in his manner.

  The service was, as always, prompt and efficient, and there was little necessity to revert to the conversation outside the coffee shop until Otani and Casey were stirring their cups of strong blended coffee and Rosie was sipping at her lemon tea. Then Otani spoke directly to Casey. "You know of course that I am a police officer?"

  He nodded. "Yes. Winchmore-san, I mean Rosie-san wrote to me to say that she was coming to Japan and that you and your wife had kindly offered to have her to stay with you."