The Death Ceremony

by James Melville

  "Your baby?"

  "I know I shouldn't call him that. I was only his wet-nurse after all. But I'm the only proper mother the young master ever had." There could in the circumstances be only one "young master". It was enough to enable Otani to risk moving forward and build on what promised to be a sure foundation.

  "How long did you stay with the family after the baby was born?" Mrs Uemura closed her eyes in thought and Otani watched her, impressed by the refinement of her features. Then she opened them again, and Otani thought he saw pain.

  "Just over five years," she said. "So it had been getting on for ten years in all. But I kept in touch on the quiet, and when he got a bit older my baby kept in touch with me. He made sure of that."

  Otani did some rapid mental arithmetic. "The new Iemoto is thirty-two, I believe. So you first worked for the family over thirty-five years ago?''

  "That's right. I was fifteen when they sent me from the country . . . oh, a clumsy child I was, too." A reminiscent smile flitted over her face. "Working as a maid in the Minamikuni house soon taught me a thing or two, though. After a year or so I think I could have passed as a daughter except for my clothes. Of course, I am a distant cousin, after all."

  Otani said nothing, willing her to go on, and delighted with the information that was tumbling out. With his love for hypothesising he had already thought of at least three possible ways in which Fujiwara might come into the picture in due course, all of them wrong.

  "And I stayed until Her Ladyship insisted that I had to go. Said people were talking. I ask you! As though there'd ever been a time when people weren't talking! You know what Kyoto's like."

  Thus appealed to, Otani nodded. He certainly knew of the reputation of Kyoto gossip, much of it elegantly malicious. "So you married?"

  "Yes. They found me a husband and set us up in this place. He wasn't much use and I got rid of him a couple of years later.''

  "Still, it was quite generous of them, I suppose." Otani looked around the room. A simple inn in an unfashionable part of Kyoto might not represent a gold-mine, but was hardly to be sniffed at. He was therefore surprised when Mrs Uemura did in fact sniff and he noticed that the smile on her face was of a different kind from that he had seen earlier. It confirmed the impression he had formed that the proprietor of the Pavilion of the Bamboo Dream was a tough lady.

  "Thank you," he said. "That's very helpful to know. So you were in a position to find out a lot about the whole family, and their friends." He was hoping very hard that she would bring the name of Fujiwara back into the conversation, and cursing himself for not having arranged to have a little elementary research done on the recent history of the Minamikuni family. He had no idea when the late Grand Master had succeeded to the headship of the Southern School; nor did he know anything about the background of the lady who was now his widow.

  "Indeed I was," Mrs Uemura said, the strange smile still in place, and lapsed into silence. Otani was not too worried by this, since during his long and successful career as an interrogator he had found on many occasions that most people are uneasy when the questioner himself falls silent and soon volunteer something, often startlingly indiscreet. Mrs Uemura was so obviously relishing some memory or other that it seemed sooner or later she would want to share it.

  "I certainly was. Of course, the sensei had become Iemoto very young—barely old enough to handle the job, even with a lot of help. I don't know what they'd have done if the old man had died a year or two earlier. But he soon showed what he was made of." Otani sat back, content to let the woman make the running: Noguchi for his part might have been carved from stone, sitting there massively motionless, his tea and cake untouched.

  "Even so, he couldn't marry as he really wanted to. Oh, no. The family would never have put up with that. It had to be arranged, needless to say. I felt sorry for her at first. She was no happier than he was about it. She was really in love with Fujiwara, you see."

  Otani was jolted into speech. "Really! I see."

  The woman looked at him sharply. "No, you don't. They were just a pair of children. The sensei was twenty-six and . . . well, I'd been making him happy for the past four years or so. There were times when I dreamed . . . and I think he did too . . ." Mrs Uemura made a gesture of irritation. "Then they found this young girl for him. Seventeen she was, younger than me. Just finishing high school, but good family, oh, my word, very good. And head over heels in love with young Fujiwara. It would have been just as good a match, except that the Fujiwaras didn't have the money to go with the name, and the Minamikunis did."

  "So the marriage took place." Otani kept his voice flat and neutral.

  "Yes, it took place." The pain was back in Mrs Uemura's eyes, and she paused for a while. "It took place just after I found I was pregnant—" She stopped abruptly, opened her eyes wide and placed a hand in front of her mouth. "That's enough about that," she said then. It was clear that she regretted what she had said, and Otani tried to help her over the painful silence.

  "Let me reassure you that your personal affairs are entirely confidential and will be treated as such. It's Fujiwara I'm interested in. Did he try to maintain contact with Mrs Minamikuni after her marriage?"

  The owner of the Pavilion of the Bamboo Dream sighed heavily. "He tried, yes. And I tried to help him, and I make no apology for that. But it was too difficult. And of course after a few months it was out of the question, anyway, when it became obvious. The baby, I mean."

  "I see. She became pregnant soon after the marriage?" Otani experienced a flash of sympathy for the young, newlywed Grand Master, sharing a household with two young women he had made pregnant, his wife, and his maid and long-time mistress. The smile was resigned this time, and Mrs Uemura shook her head slowly. "No. She became pregnant before the marriage. By Fujiwara."

  Chapter 15

  ALL RIGHT, SO SHE'S GONE," OTANI SNAPPED AND Hanae looked at him in open anger.

  "And that's all you have to say about it? You invited her here, you made it quite obvious that she wasn't welcome, and you drove her out by your clumsiness!"

  In over thirty years of marriage Otani and Hanae had their coolnesses and occasional flare-ups, but they were rare and invariably made Otani's stomach hurt. He paused in the act of removing his shoes and looked up at his wife, looming over him in the little entrance hall. Her anger and distress struck to his heart. He straightened up, one foot still shod, the other tentatively feeling for the wooden step up. "I'm sorry," he said simply. "I'm truly sorry."

  The ritual of arriving home after any absence, whether following a normal day's work or even a couple of hours' stroll, was a minor joy of his life. His cry of "I'm back!" as he rattled open the sliding outer door and the immediate response of "Welcome home!" from Hanae wherever she was in the house, the words were automatic but none the less precious for that, and her silence on this occasion had been like a whiplash.

  Hanae withdrew to the living-room, leaving Otani to take off his other shoe and follow her sheepishly. "I'll go and see her in Nagoya and apologise. I'll explain that it was all a misunderstanding," he said to Hanae's back. He hoped very much that it was. The fact that Woman Detective Junko Migishima had tailed Rosie and her luggage to Kobe Station and watched her buy a ticket to Nagoya was reassuring, but the fact that Rosie had been met before passing through the barrier by a young man answering Casey's description and spent fifteen minutes in what was described to Otani as a seemingly tense and furtive conversation over a cup of tea with him in the snack bar was less so. It was a pity that by the time he had spoken to Junko Migishima and instructed her to tail Casey instead, the young man had disappeared.

  "Hanae! I need to talk to you," he said when she continued to ignore him. "I need your advice. It has a bearing on the killing of the Iemoto in Kyoto. And it's a lot more important than whether or not I have offended an inconsiderate young woman like Rosie-san." His remorse was rapidly giving place to renewed irritation, and he was on the point of launching into a self-justification
of his words and actions when Hanae reluctantly turned to face him. Her expression was still cold, but she no longer seemed quite so angry.

  Otani started talking, describing his visit to Kyoto and his meeting with the late Grand Master's former mistress. He made no attempt to dramatise the story Mrs Uemura had told him, but related it baldly and economically, leaving out any mention of Fujiwara's name. Even so, Hanae's eyes widened as he went on and about halfway through his narrative she sank down onto a cushion, unconsciously indicating another so that he was encouraged to follow suit, still talking. "So what I need to know is this," he concluded. "Could a maid in a house like that know for sure that the young bride was already pregnant when she was married—unless her new mistress had confided in her, I mean? Or could it be pure fantasy on the part of a jealous girl, herself pregnant by the young woman's husband?"

  Hanae rubbed her forehead gently before answering. "Let me make sure I understand the situation. Are you telling me that this woman in the inn is really the mother of the new Grand Master?''

  Otani shook his head. "No. Either she lost her baby at birth, or she has a son or daughter of almost exactly his age. She nursed the new Iemoto. What we don't know is who his father was. Plenty of brides conceive on their wedding night. If this girl had been made pregnant just a week or two beforehand, it wouldn't necessarily give rise to comment when the baby was born—a couple of weeks' prematurity isn't anything remarkable."

  Hanae pondered. "The bride was just seventeen, you said?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, with people of that background it would be absolutely understood that the girl would be expected to be a virgin. A personal maid ought to be able to tell after the wedding night whether or not that was the case, unless the couple went away for a honeymoon. Needless to say, the husband ought to be able to tell, too; but men can be surprisingly ignorant."

  Otani nodded, wrily remembering their own clumsy embraces during their honeymoon in the strange Western-style hotel at Miyazaki in Kyushu, whose palm trees provided a romantic background for so many in the days when flights to Guam, Hawaii or even Okinawa were undreamt of by ordinary people.

  "A maid would also know when the young woman had her periods, and would probably notice when she missed one. But what I don't see," Hanae continued, "is what all this has to do with an attempt to kill the British Ambassador." Although by no means restored to her normal equable manner, she seemed willing to discuss the matter in a reasonable way.

  "Nothing at all," Otani said, suddenly remembering what Ambassador Atsugi of the Foreign Ministry had said to him during their conversation on the campus of Kobe University. Something about the Kyoto police muddying the waters by questioning the Grand Master's family. Had Atsugi by any chance known something?

  "No. It's just an idea I'm playing with. Beginning with me we've all just assumed that the bullet was meant for the ambassador. But supposing it was always intended to kill the Iemoto. I'm just trying to think around possible motives. Wasting my time, probably."

  Hanae actually smiled. It made Otani feel much better. "It's a very fanciful idea. Why on earth should anyone want to murder the poor man?" Even as she spoke, she shivered a little at the recollection of the unmistakable sexual message in the Grand Master's eyes as they had met hers briefly a few minutes before his death; and reflected that a jealous woman might well be driven to extremes by such a man.

  "I don't know," her husband replied. "Money, perhaps? The Southern School must be incredibly wealthy." He made a mental note to consult a knowledgeable fellow Rotarian about the matter. "You know the system of licensing as well as I do, with all these traditional arts. A part of every fee paid by every one of the hundreds of thousands of girls all over the country learning the tea ceremony from a licensed Southern School teacher finds its way to the centre, doesn't it? That's big money, quite apart from the fees the Grand Master collects directly. Think of all the money people like us handed over as gifts for the privilege of going to the New Year tea ceremony, for a start. I rather doubt if the tax authorities will hear much about it."

  Otani sat back, quite carried away by his own eloquence. "Just think about it. What would a young girl's family have to pay each month for a weekly lesson? Five, ten thousand yen? For a six-month course. Say fifty thousand in round figures. And suppose ten or even five per cent of that goes to Kyoto headquarters? A minimum of two or three thousand yen for every single student, and there are literally hundreds of thousands at any given time, right? Why, that's tens of millions of yen a year. An office worker, say a middle manager, earns perhaps four million."

  Hanae's eyes widened. "I hadn't thought of it like that. Of course, it must be frightfully expensive to keep that place going. And the women of the family couldn't allow themselves to be seen in anything but the most expensive kimonos, and so on . . ." Her voice trailed away into silence as she tried to visualise the possible scale of the income accruing to the Southern School and at the absolute disposal of its Grand Master.

  Otani too was lost in speculation, trying to work out possible motives for murdering the Grand Master. The son who had succeeded him would, on this hypothesis, be a prime suspect, since the school's vast revenues would now go straight to him. Yet he might simply be a channel through which money could pass to someone who had some kind of hold over him. Was it conceivable that Fujiwara as the putative father of the new head of the school needed money so badly that he had plotted the death of his predecessor, a vigorous man who might well have lived another twenty years in the normal course of events?

  His thoughts were interrupted by the shrilling of the telephone. He got up and went to it at once, shaking his head to try to clear his mind. It was Kimura, calling from his flat. "Chief? I've just had Inspector Mihara on the line from Kyoto. He wanted to speak to you, but the duty officer didn't want to disturb you and put him on to me instead. As a matter of fact, I was on the point of going out." As he added these words in a pained manner Kimura looked anxiously at the electric clock in his tiny kitchen, the only timepiece he possessed which was reasonably reliable. He was going to be late for a date with the new secretary in the British Consulate General. It had needed patience and dedication to set it up, and Kimura hoped very much that she wouldn't have given him up as a bad job by the time he arrived at the bar in the basement of the Oriental Hotel.

  Otani sighed heavily. "The sooner you tell me what he said, the sooner you can go and meet her, Kimura-kun."

  "Meet who? Oh. Well, as a matter of fact . . . oh, well. What he said was rather surprising. It seems that Fujiwara has already shuffled his staff. He's put Sakamoto in charge of the criminal investigation section up there in Kyoto. And Sakamoto has arrested the young Irishman, Casey."

  "WHAT?"

  "Yes, on suspicion of attempted murder of the British Ambassador, and the manslaughter of the late Grand Master. And there's more. Look, Chief, I shall have to hurry, but perhaps you'd better ring Mihara yourself, at his home. I have the number. Mihara told me this in confidence, but he thinks that Fujiwara will be transferring him to other duties, and that we shall have to liaise with Sakamoto over all this business from tomorrow onwards."

  Chapter 16

  THE FOLLOWING DAY WAS ONE OF CONFUSION AND frustration and by mid-afternoon Otani felt very tired, and heartily sick of the whole business. It was as Kimura had said and Inspector Mihara confirmed when Otani telephoned him the same evening. Otani was by no means a stickler for prescribed procedures and had no compunction about operating behind Fujiwara's back; especially in the light of his growing conviction that the commander of the Kyoto Prefectural Police was involved in the case in some personal and, at the very least, highly equivocal way. Even after having been removed from his job as head of the External Affairs Section of the Kyoto Force, Mihara could be a valuable ally, and Otani sensed his willingness to help. Nevertheless, continuing involvement in the affair after formal transfer to other duties could spell serious trouble for Mihara, and Otani had no wish to be instrumenta
l in damaging the career of an obviously able and intelligent young officer.

  Sakamoto had been on the phone first thing that morning to Otani, to inform him in the most correct fashion imaginable of Casey's arrest. It was as though he had never been a member of Otani's own staff. He identified himself formally as "Inspector Sakamoto, Head of the Criminal Investigation Section, Kyoto Prefectural Police," addressed Otani as though he had been a complete stranger, and announced that he had been assigned by Superintendent Fujiwara to act as liaison officer in place of Inspector Mihara. Otani was requested to deal in future exclusively with Sakamoto in all matters relating to the attempt on the life of the British Ambassador.

  The chill unhelpfulness of Sakamoto's tone over the telephone was nothing new to Otani, but as they talked he wished he could have seen his former subordinate's face to judge whether the curious combination of satisfaction and uneasiness he thought he could detect behind the formal phrases was really there, or whether he was just imagining it. Otani had no alternative but to play Sakamoto at his own game, and he replied with equal bureaucratic care in his choice of words. It was quite clear that Fujiwara and Sakamoto between them were trying, in no very subtle fashion, to squeeze him out of the action. Otani for his part had no intention of allowing them to succeed.

  He therefore enquired as to the nature of the evidence which had come to Sakamoto's attention and which was of sufficient weight to justify the arrest of the young foreigner, and whether the Irish Embassy in Tokyo had been informed. During the silence which ensued from Sakamoto's end, Otani helpfully mentioned that he understood that in certain consular matters the British authorities had a friendly arrangement by which they acted in cases involving Irish citizens in western Japan, where there was no Irish Consulate as such.

  Having had time to think about Otani's questions, Sakamoto proposed a meeting in Kyoto. He added that he was confident that Patrick Casey would in a matter of hours sign a full statement admitting his involvement in the affair and that, needless to say, all the prescribed procedures for cases involving the arrest of foreign nationals would be scrupulously observed.