The Death Ceremony

by James Melville

  Although the journey from Kobe to Kyoto was not particularly difficult or time-consuming, Otani had no wish to make it again so soon, so in concluding his conversation with Sakamoto merely indicated that he would make contact with him in due course. He then rang off and at once telephoned Ambassador Atsugi in Osaka.

  At least he tried to telephone him, but was told that the ambassador was out of the office. Leaving a message requesting him to call back, Otani replaced the receiver and sat back, rubbing his eyes. In a sense it was just as well. What, after all, could he ask of Atsugi? He could hardly share with him at that stage his half-formed suspicions of Superintendent Fujiwara, based as they were on nothing more than an interesting monologue by a Kyoto innkeeper dredged up by Noguchi following enquiries among his contacts in the considerable underworld of that city; and the odd coincidence of Sakamoto's precipitate departure from his staff and equally sudden reappearance on Fujiwara's.

  Yet the latter chain of events was susceptible of a perfectly innocent explanation. Otani himself acknowledged that Sakamoto's complaints about his treatment as one of his senior staff had some justification. His request for a transfer was not in itself unusual in the circumstances, nor his desire to be off at once; and Otani had agreed readily enough. What could be more reasonable than that Sakamoto should wish, after years of being kept at arm's length by Otani and of abrasive relationships with both Noguchi and Kimura, to put himself under the command of a senior officer with whom he had served during the war and who offered him a warm welcome? And finally, what more logical duties for Superintendent Fujiwara to assign to the experienced former head of criminal investigation work in the huge Hyogo police force than similar responsibilities in Kyoto prefecture? Objectively, Otani could see quite well that his line of thinking had very little to support it, and that he had not nearly enough to justify him in a frontal approach involving higher authority.

  On the other hand, he was in no way inhibited from sharing his thoughts with his two most trusted associates, and therefore summoned Noguchi and Kimura to a long working lunch in his office, with food brought in from a nearby restaurant. Although Otani had to some extent succeeded in wooing Hanae away from her censorious attitude towards his treatment of Rosie, he had judged it wise to suggest to her that morning that since his movements were uncertain it would probably be better if he went to work without his usual lunch-box.

  It had been a useful session, if only in establishing what Kimura and Noguchi themselves thought about Otani's theories, what action they had been taking, and what they suggested should be done in the new situation. Aware of his own tendency to drift away from the point in such discussions, Otani prepared a simple agenda in note form, and stuck to it, making additional notes as they went on.

  They began again from the beginning, with Otani describing again the layout of the room and the sequence of events up till the collapse of the Grand Master. Kimura now had a list of the names of all the guests at the fatal tea ceremony, and Otani from his own recollection was able to complete what he thought was an accurate chart of their positions round the walls of the room, which he undertook to check with Hanae later.

  Kimura also provided a list of names of all the staff and helpers associated with the school who were present on the Sunday in question, with brief indications of the nature of their duties. They agreed that the people of interest were those who at one time or another were actually inside the room, and one or two whose duties might have taken them into the grounds of the complex of buildings. It was Kimura who suggested that Noguchi would be the right person to talk to the banto, the elderly man whose task it was to deal with the footwear of the guests on arrival and departure, and pointed out that there would be bound to be a gardener on the staff. Although he might well have been off duty as it was a Sunday, he might have noticed if any stranger in the previous few days had shown particular interest in the bamboo grove. Otani thought this a good idea, and even Noguchi grunted approval.

  Then they turned to discussion of the necessity for an accomplice inside the premises, and of the apparently insuperable difficulty of ensuring that the British Ambassador would take a prearranged place. Remembering the confusion as the guests had entered the room, the polite but none the less determined battle over precedence and the way in which it was finally settled, Otani felt increasingly dubious about his original idea that the real target had been Sir Rodney Hurtling. He stressed that the only person in the room whose precise position was ordained from the beginning was the Grand Master, whose every movement was prescribed by the ancient ritual.

  Noguchi acknowledged the force of Otani's argument, but was not convinced, pointing out that according to Otani's sketch-plan, the ambassador was placed in a direct line between the concealed gunman and the Grand Master. With a surprisingly delicate sense of the rules of Japanese etiquette, he theorised that there were only two possible places where the British Ambassador might have ended up. One was that of the guest of honour, which the diplomat might himself consider he was entitled to, but which it would have been highly improper for him to take in the presence of the Governor of Kyoto Prefecture, who was without question the most senior Japanese guest at this most Japanese of cultural occasions. The other was the place immediately facing the Grand Master, which Japanese guests would unconsciously avoid yet would be entirely appropriate for the distinguished foreigner.

  Otani himself was beguiled by this theory, and began to consider the subtlety of an arrangement whereby in the event of the successful assassination of the ambassador investigators might assume that the Grand Master had in fact been the target. They then became mired in consideration of terrorist tactics about which none of them knew enough. Kimura pointed out that the threatening letter delivered to the ambassador in his hotel in Kobe in effect "claimed > responsibility", in the grisly phrase familiar to them all from the almost daily reports in the newspapers and on the TV news of outrages of one kind and another committed all over the world in the name of some political or religious cause.

  Noguchi was less impressed by the Kobe letter, which had yielded no fingerprints and which he argued was couched in terms so general as to have been capable of being put together by anybody, unlike the others which Kimura had gathered from the ambassador were specific and indicated detailed knowledge of particular events in Northern Ireland. His theory was that it had been a spur-of-the-moment job, a malicious hoax on the part of someone who knew the ambassador had been present when the Grand Master was killed.

  Judging by what Kimura had told them of the man's character, it seemed highly probable that he was unpopular with his staff, one of whom might have taken it into his head to frighten him with a macabre joke. Noguchi recommended Kimura to see if he could find out whether anyone on the staff of the British Consulate General in Osaka might have a grievance.

  The arrest of Patrick Casey was obviously an event of the greatest possible significance, and they all agreed that if Sakamoto were allowed a free reign it was entirely possible that the young man would make a confession, whether or not he had in fact been implicated. Confessions were after all by far the most common means to a conviction in Japan and it was no secret that a high percentage of them were confessions of convenience. Rank and file gangsters were often assigned to take the rap for colleagues in the same organisation, while even people outside the colourful battalions of organised crime who tangled with the law frequently volunteered false confessions in order to protect another member of the family or a close friend.

  Not a great deal could be done about this, given the desire on both sides to settle disagreeable matters like crime and punishment with as little fuss as possible. There were also inducements, however, as Otani and his colleagues knew quite well, and which might well persuade someone like Patrick Casey that the simplest way out of his predicament would be to put his seal—or in the Irishman's case his signature and thumbprint—to a cock and bull story.

  In the quiet of Otani's big, shabby office, the three men po
ndered Sakamoto's action for a long time, concluding that he must have come upon some incontrovertible evidence of Casey's guilt, or be very confident of his ability to extract a confession from the young man.

  "There is another possibility," Otani said before turning to the next item on his simple agenda, which was to agree with Kimura and Noguchi on the action each of them would be taking before their next conference. "And that is, that Fujiwara has ordered Sakamoto to make the arrest in order to divert attention away from the Minamikuni family. That would indicate that he might go to extreme lengths to settle the case his way." He looked at Kimura. "I want to make quite sure that Casey's Embassy is notified of his confinement, Kimura, and I want you to come with me to interview the young man. He speaks good Japanese, but I want you to talk to him in English."

  He paused for some time and drank a cup of green tea before continuing. "Ninja, I'd like you to do what you can through your contacts to check what happened to that woman's baby. The innkeeper, I mean. At this stage I'd like to avoid a direct approach to the local ward office in Kyoto for a copy of her family register. Her nephew would have the answer, I expect." Noguchi, who was picking his teeth, nodded off-handedly, and Otani sat back in his chair and gazed at the dingy ceiling.

  "I also want to know more about the Minamikuni family generally. Kimura-kun, you can help there. Again, I think it would be better to by-pass the obvious routes. This young woman you met . . . the one who works in the office there ..."

  Kimura beamed eagerly at the upturned chin of his superior. "Mie Nakazato, her name is, Chief. A very intelligent girl."

  "I'll take your word for it. I hope she is, anyway. Is she also discreet, do you think?"

  "I think she'll co-operate, Chief." Kimura closed his eyes momentarily to enjoy a fleeting daydream involving Mie Nakazato's co-operation.

  "Well, we must take a chance. She would seem to be the best potential source of information apart from Mrs Uemura at the inn, and we already know that Mrs Uemura is a person the new Iemoto confides in. I'd rather not press her too far. As it is, the Iemoto has almost certainly been told by her about our interest in Fujiwara." Otani's head had reverted to its normal position, and he stared round at his colleagues, his eyes wide and bright. "I wonder if he knows everything she told Ninja and me? I'd give a lot to know. Anyway, Kimura, you'd better arrange to meet this young woman privately somewhere. Get all you can from her about the Grand Master's mother. Her relationship with her late husband . . . also about the new Iemoto. How did he get on with his father, money matters, that sort of thing. And do try to impress on her that she should keep her mouth shut, will you?" Kimura took a deep breath. He could not recall the last time Otani had actually instructed him to arrange a clandestine meeting with an attractive girl and worm his way into her confidence.

  "Yes, sir!" he said fervently, avoiding Ninja Noguchi's eye.

  Chapter 17

  A•VERY POSSIBLE OBSTACLE WAS PUT IN THE WAY OF Otani's expressed wish to interview Patrick Casey in the company of Kimura, or even for that matter on his own, though Sakamoto did make much of the fact that Casey had an excellent command of the Japanese language. Choosing his words with the greatest of care, Otani therefore leant on Sakamoto very heavily. He first stressed the fact that he, Otani, had been formally assigned by the Superintendent-General of the National Police Agency to co-ordinate the investigation, and that Superintendent Fujiwara as commander of the Kyoto force had received written orders to co-operate.

  Then Otani mentioned the double interest which the Foreign Ministry had in the affair; both because of the presumption that there had been an attempt on the life of the British Ambassador, and now because a foreigner had been formally charged with complicity. Otani had not in fact yet heard from Atsugi of the Foreign Ministry Liaison Office in Osaka, but had every intention when he did of reporting the arrest of Casey and asking Atsugi to ensure that the Irish Ambassador in person was summoned to the Ministry in Tokyo to discuss its implications.

  Otani asked Sakamoto again whether steps had been taken to notify the Irish authorities and when Sakamoto prevaricated, inferred that they had not. When Otani offered to take the problem up directly with the National Police Agency in Tokyo unless Superintendent Fujiwara would prefer to discuss it with him direct, Sakamoto eventually capitulated and an appointment was made for Otani and Kimura to interview Casey the following morning at 9.30.

  After ringing through to Kimura and arranging to meet him the next morning at the Northern Divisional Police Headquarters in Kyoto where Casey was being held, Otani thought carefully before making his next call, which was to Inspector Mihara's home number. He did not expect to find him there, but Mrs Mihara who answered sounded like a sensible and understanding sort of person. Even so, Otani did not identify himself fully to her, merely giving his name and asking her to be kind enough to ask her husband to ring him either at work or at home, depending on the time, and yes, he knew the numbers. It seemed that Mihara might - not be back till quite late in the evening, but would be telephoning her earlier.

  Otani rang off, hoping very much that he would and that he would be able to speak to Mihara before the end of the day. He told himself that he was being foolish, that deaths in police custody were nowadays unheard of, and that however anxious he might be to divert attention from the Minamikuni family, Fujiwara would neither contemplate, nor be able to bring about, any attempt to silence Casey while making it look like an admission of guilt on his part. All the same, he knew that he would be relieved to see the young man the next day, and thought back briefly to the good impression Casey had made on him, even allowing for the bizarre notion of the very existence of an Irish master of the tea ceremony.

  It was an afternoon for almost continuous activity on the telephone. Otani was just about to put the notes of his conference with Noguchi and Kimura into some sort of order when Hanae telephoned; a thing she hardly ever did. She sounded quite restored to her normal peaceable self, and there was a hesitancy about her apology for disturbing him which gentled Otani's whole mood. What Hanae had to tell him was reassuring, too. A parcel had just been delivered at the Otani house from the natural foods department of a big store in Nagoya, a present to them both from Rosie. There had also been a letter from her in the post, written in what Hanae said was very odd Japanese, amounting to an apology for her abrupt departure. Rosie was now at Nanzan University for her special course, and hoped to see the Otanis again before her return to England.

  It was good news to Otani, not only because it signalled that hostilities with Hanae were at an end, but also that his uneasy surmise that Rosie might herself be mixed up in some way with the Kyoto murder now seemed to have been pure fantasy. He had long ago learned from her with some surprise that there were probably no more than a few dozen university students of Japanese at any one time in the whole of Britain, so it was not really in the least surprising that she should be acquainted with a recent graduate of her own college.

  Otani was less gratified when Hanae told him what was in the parcel. Yet more brown rice, it seemed, of a processed variety which it was claimed on the package could be cooked in the same convenient way as white rice; various packages of seeds and lentils, a jar of honey and some shampoo which was imported from America and appeared to have been made from beans of some kind. Still, he agreed with Hanae that it represented a kindly thought on Rosie's part and a significant blow to her modest budget, and rang off contentedly enough to reflect for a minute on the feasibility of taking Hanae to Nagoya on the bullet-train the following Sunday in order to call on Rosie and entertain her in some way.

  He was not left in peace for very long before the door was opened and the absence of a preliminary knock enabled Otani to guess before he saw him that Noguchi was paying him a visit. He stood up and stretched as Noguchi made for his usual chair, then went and joined him. "Back already, Ninja? I thought you were off to Kyoto."

  Noguchi shook his head. "Later, maybe." Noguchi never had been the most communica
tive of men, and Otani waited patiently enough as he yawned, inserted a gnarled finger into one ear and then inspected his findings before looking at his superior. "Gunman. Been talking to a friend of mine about that. Rifle, you see. Unusual."

  Otani nodded. He always studied the annual reports and statistics relating to seizures of illegal firearms and knew very well that the vast, indeed overwhelming, majority were handguns. "True enough, Ninja," he agreed. "On the other hand, there are plenty of properly licensed sporting rifles around. Most hunters use shotguns, I know, but all the same ..."

  Noguchi reached down and scratched his leg, revealing the dingy white of long woollen underwear as still favoured by many men of his generation during the winter, though Otani himself had not worn it for decades. He puffed a bit as he straightened up, then opened one eye quite wide and peered at Otani. "Not still thinking about that fellow Terada, are you? Guy that Kimura interviewed? Theory about a sportsman cleaning his gun, went off accidentally? Come off it."

  Otani tolerated familiarities from both his closest associates, especially Noguchi, which would have been unthinkable from anyone else in his entire circle of acquaintance.

  Nevertheless, he was nettled by the obvious scorn in Nogu-chi's voice, and sat back rather stiffly.

  "I examined the scene within minutes of the shot, Ninja. Let me remind you of that. I attach no more weight to the suggestion that the administrator Terada made to Kimura than you do. Besides, the house across the alley at the back has been checked. It is owned by a respected professor of Chinese history at Kyoto University. Neither he nor any member of his family possesses a licensed firearm. Quite apart from that, it isn't technically feasible for the shot to have been fired from that house, nor from the storehouse in its garden. My point is that rifles as such are, as a matter of fact, rather easier to come by in Japan than handguns, simply because it's not illegal to own one for hunting purposes."