by David Peace
‘We are really very sorry,’ I tell him again. ‘But there was an accident on one of the streetcars…’
‘More work,’ he groans –
‘They’re dead,’ I say –
‘Who are dead?’
‘The mother and her child,’ I tell him. ‘The mother and her child who fell from the running board of the streetcar…’
He hands us two files from the pile on his desk. He says, ‘You know the way.’
Each with our file, reading as we walk down another long corridor towards the elevator. There are the mothers sat here. Five of the mothers here, looking for their missing daughters –
Five mothers whose descriptions of their missing daughters most closely resemble the two bodies found in Shiba Park. Five mothers praying they do not find them here …
‘What do they want now?’ spits Kai. ‘We told them to wait until tomorrow. They shouldn’t be here…’
I have skimmed the evidence and statements in the files. I have seen the hopes and fears in their eyes. I say, ‘Let them look.’
‘They can wait,’ says Kai. ‘Until after the autopsies…’
‘Why not just let these five look? It might help us…’
‘Why?’ he says. ‘They’ll either be lucky or late.’
‘Let them look before the autopsy,’ I say again.
‘No.’
‘What if it was your daughter that was missing?’ I ask him. ‘Would you want to see her after an autopsy?’
Inspector Kai stops in the corridor now. Inspector Kai says, ‘My daughter is dead. My daughter burned to death in an air-raid shelter. My daughter had no autopsy…’
Now I shut up. Now I remember. Now it’s too late. Now I say, ‘I am sorry. I’m really sorry…’
But Kai is away from me now and away from the five mothers, already half-way down the corridor. Down the narrow corridor to the service elevator. To push the elevator button. To wait. To watch the elevator doors open. To step inside. For me to follow him. To push another button. To watch the elevator doors close –
There are no electric light bulbs in here, for the sake of economy one of the orderlies tells us, and so we ride down in an elevator so dark that I cannot see my hand before my face –
I think about her all the time …
I cannot see the body on the gurney beside me. The body on the gurney parked up against my leg. The body that smells –
That smells of fruit, that smells of rotten apricots …
The elevator stops. The elevator doors open –
The light returns. The half-light. The basement not much brighter than the elevator. Half-things move in the half-light. People and insects drawn like magnets towards the few naked bulbs there are. Half-things. The people working in their shirtsleeves or their undershirts; the insects feasting on their sweat and their skin, their flesh and their bone. In the half-light. This labyrinth of corridors and rooms. Here where the dead come. The tiled walls of sinks, of drains. Where the dead live. The written warnings of cuts, of punctures. Here in the half-light. The orderlies washing and rinsing their hands and their forearms, again and again. Here. Down here …
The autopsy room is along the corridor to the right, beyond the mortuary. There are slippers waiting for our feet, the room itself back beyond a set of glass doors, bomb tape still upon the glass –
She is coming now. She is coming …
Dr. Nakadate is waiting for us outside the autopsy room, before the glass doors, before the tape. Nakadate is finishing his cigarette, smoking it right down to the stub –
A familiar face, a familiar place …
Dr. Nakadate glances up at us. He greets us with a smile. ‘Good morning, detectives.’
‘Good morning,’ we reply. ‘We are very sorry we are late.’
‘There are no clocks down here,’ says Dr. Nakadate –
He puts out his cigarette and opens the glass doors to the autopsy room where five junior medical examiners in grubby grey laboratory coats are already gathered round the three autopsy tables and two smaller dissecting tables; the three autopsy tables which stand on the concrete floor in the centre of the room, three elongated octagonal tables made of white marble and of German design, slanted for drainage with raised edges to prevent leakage –
I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari …
She is coming …
The glass doors open again. The first body is brought in from the mortuary under a grey sheet on old wheels. The grey sheet is removed. The body lifted from the gurney –
In the half-light, she is here …
The naked body of the first woman lain out on the table –
Here where half-things move in the half-light …
Her body seems longer, paler. Eyes open, mouth ajar –
‘And I am here because of you,’ she says …
Her sex is noted. Her age estimated at eighteen –
‘Here where there is pain…’
Her weight is taken. Her height measured –
Here in the half-light …
Dr. Nakadate puts on a stained surgical gown and a pair of rubber gloves. The orderlies raise the body. The orderlies place a rubber body block beneath it. Her breasts and chest rise upwards, her arms and neck fall backwards –
I turn away now.
‘There is still no name?’ asks the doctor. ‘No identification?’
I glance over at Inspector Kai and I say, ‘No names yet.’
‘Then this is Number One. The next is Number Two.’
I nod. I take out my pencil. I lick its tip.
Nakadate begins his gross observations on the exterior condition of the first body, one of his assistants noting down everything he says on the chalkboard on the wall, another writing in a large hospital notebook, the observations in German and Latin –
Mumbled evocations. Muttered incantations …
‘Irises are black, corneas clouded,’ intones the doctor. ‘Haemorrhaging in the surfaces…’
I look up again –
She is watching the doctor, watching him work …
‘Removal of a piece of material from the neck reveals a ligature mark – to be known as Ligature A – below the mandible…’
She is staring up at the fabric he holds …
‘Minor abrasions present in the area of Ligature A but the lack of haemorrhage suggests Ligature A is post-mortem…’
She opens and closes her eyes …
‘Heavy bruising on the neck is of a pattern that suggests an attempt was made to throttle the victim…’
She swallows now as …
‘In the same area as the bruising on the neck, a second ligature mark is present – to be known as Ligature B – which encircles the neck, crossing the anterior midline of the neck just below the laryngeal prominence…’
As she remembers …
‘The skin of the anterior neck above and below Ligature B shows petechial haemorrhaging…’
Her own death …
‘The absence of abrasions here is consistent with the use of a softer ligature…’
‘Like a haramaki?’ asks Kai.
Dr. Nakadate looks up from her neck. He nods. ‘Yes, like a haramaki, Inspector Kai.’
Kai looks across at me. I open my mouth to start to speak. To ask him again. Inspector Kai shakes his head. I stop –
Dr. Nakadate has moved down her body to her genital area. ‘There is evidence of forced sexual activity here…’
Here there is pain. Pain is here …
‘Pre- or post-mortem?’ I ask him –
‘I am here because of you…’
Dr. Nakadate looks across her body at me. He holds up a finger. ‘One moment please, inspector.’
Her cheeks blush, her eyes close …
‘Possibly both,’ he says –
Here is pain. Pain is here …
Dr. Nakadate and his assistants now minutely examine every part of her skin, every nail and every hair, every tooth and every orifice, every spot
and every blemish –
‘Are there any distinguishing features for identification, doctor?’ I ask him. ‘Anything…’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘There is evidence of a small whitlow scar on her left thumb…’
I look over again at Inspector Kai. Kai making his own notes. I cough. I clear my throat. I start to speak again, to say, ‘Then maybe we should let the mothers see the body now, Inspector Kai?’
Dr. Nakadate stops his observations. He looks up –
‘No,’ says Inspector Kai again.
‘But with this scar,’ I say. ‘And the haramaki, the five darned holes in the haramaki …’
‘No,’ says Kai.
‘I believe positive identification is now possible…’
‘No.’
‘But we’re wasting time…’
‘Room #1 has been assigned to this body…’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But…’
‘And Room #2 the next body.’
‘But obviously, until this body has been identified, I can’t…’
‘Then I believe I am in charge of this case, detective.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But what, detective?’ asks Inspector Kai.
‘Nothing.’
‘Dr. Nakadate,’ says Kai now. ‘I am sorry if we have disturbed your work. Please continue with the autopsy.’
Dr. Nakadate picks up a scalpel from the tray. Metal on metal. Dr. Nakadate inserts the scalpel into her chest cavity. Metal through skin. Dr. Nakadate cuts a Y-shaped line down through the centre of her body, from the front of each shoulder down beneath each breast, around her navel to her pubic bone. Metal through flesh to bone …
She crosses her arms. She grasps her own shoulders …
The skin, the muscles and the soft tissues of her chest wall are now peeled back and away, the chest flap pulled upward towards her face, the ribcage and the lower neck left exposed –
She turns and gazes across at me …
Her body is open. Her blood flowing –
‘I am here because of you…’
Black/white light. In/out knife –
‘Here because of you…’
Hack away. Cut away. Piece by piece –
To weigh. Measure for measure –
Here where there is pain …
Dr. Nakadate removes her stomach and an assistant opens it up at one of the smaller dissecting tables, inspecting its contents as another assistant slices her liver and the smell of gastric acid –
That stench of gastric acid fills the room –
Her ribcage is opened up now –
Here where there is pain …
Her heart taken out –
Here.
Finally, the rubber body block is placed beneath her head. Now Dr. Nakadate opens her scalp –
I close my eyes again –
Black/white light. The scalp of my wife. In/out knife. The scalp of my daughter. Hack away/cut away. My son …
I open my eyes –
Here …
Her head is slumped back while her eyes stare upward, fixed in one last cold gaze at the cracked ceiling of the autopsy room, her spinal cord cut and her brain removed –
Measure for measure…
Piece by piece…
To record …
Inspector Kai has closed his notebook. He has put away his pencil, taken out a cigarette. The detective has finished his work –
Her suffering recorded. Her misery noted …
Dr. Nakadate is washing his gloves in a metal bowl. The water red, his gown black. The doctor has finished his work –
The doctor’s assistants beginning to stitch –
Her suffering. Her misery …
I watch them work. I watch her –
Her breaking…
‘Preliminary conclusions, doctor?’ asks Inspector Kai –
‘I would estimate the time of death as being somewhere between ten and eleven days ago,’ says the doctor. ‘And the cause of death as asphyxia due to ligature strangulation.’
‘Thank you very much, doctor,’ says Inspector Kai. ‘I look forward to reading your full report.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Inspector Kai turns to me. ‘I’m going back to Atago now.’
‘What about the second body?’ I ask him. ‘You’re not going to stay for the autopsy. There might be…’
‘That’s your case,’ says Kai. ‘It’s mostly bones anyway. There will be nothing to see.’
I turn back to the autopsy table. Back to her. The stitching complete, her body is being lifted onto the gurney. The grey sheet is placed back over her body once more. The glass doors are opened and she is wheeled out of the autopsy room back to the mortuary –
The marble table washed down with a bucket of water –
I swallow bile. I swallow bile. I swallow …
Her blood running away in rivers.
*
I sit in the corridor between the autopsy room and the mortuary. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I wait for Dr. Nakadate to drink his tea and smoke his cigarette. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I wait for the orderlies to finish cleaning up the autopsy room. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I wait for them to bring in the second body. I itch and I scratch. Gari-gari. I wait for the second autopsy to begin –
Itching and scratching. Itching and scratching –
My autopsy, my body. My body, my autopsy …
The bomb tape still upon the glass.
*
The second body is on a blanket on a stretcher on a gurney. The second body is mostly bones and clothes. Two orderlies take two corners of the blanket each to lift the bones and clothes off the stretcher and the gurney and place them on the autopsy table. The blanket is then removed from under the clothes and bones.
Dr. Nakadate has put back on the same stained surgical gown and the same rubber gloves and again begins the gross external examination with the measurements and the estimates, one assistant at the chalkboard on the wall, another one writing in the hospital notebook; the facts and the figures and the educated guesses; first in German and Latin, then in our native tongue –
The mumbled evocations. The muttered incantations …
‘The body is that of a young female, a young female once again aged approximately eighteen years…’
The same age, the same sex …
The clothes are now carefully removed from the bones –
Knives and scissors through buttons and threads –
First the yellow and dark-blue striped pinafore dress, next the white half-sleeved chemise, then the white canvas shoes with their red rubber soles, and finally the dyed-pink socks –
There are no undergarments on her –
The same sex, the same place …
I say, ‘Underwear was found near the scene.’
‘Have it sent here,’ says one of the assistants. ‘It may still be possible to compare its age to the age of these clothes and also to search for matching threads or fibres.’
I lick the tip of my pencil –
I make a note and then I ask, ‘What about time of death?’
Dr. Nakadate shakes his head. ‘With the heat and humidity this summer, with the insects and vermin that found her first, it’s difficult to be precise but I’d estimate about three to four weeks…’
I lick the tip of my pencil again. I make another note –
Three, four weeks; twentieth to the twenty-seventh of July …
Dr. Nakadate places his gloved fingers around the neck bones and the jawbone. Dr. Nakadate looks up at me. Dr. Nakadate sticks out his lower lip, nods to himself and then says, ‘The hyoid bone at the base of the tongue is fractured, as are the thyroid and cricoid cartilages, all of which were seen on Body Number One…’
The same place, the same crime …
‘This girl was strangled?’
‘More likely throttled.’
‘The same person?’
Dr. Nakadate nods. ‘And we’ve
both seen this before, detective. Remember?’
*
Back out into the light. I curse. I curse. I curse. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember. The heat on the street. I sweat. I sweat. I sweat. Keep it simple, keep it simple; two bodies, one murderer; one case, Kai’s case. The streetcar never comes or the streetcar is full. I itch. I itch. I itch. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember. The trains always late, the trains always full. I scratch. I scratch. I scratch. Fuck Nakadate, hide the link, and bury the connection. Back down through Moto-Akasaka and along the side of the river. I run. I run. I run. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember. Through the doors of Headquarters. I pant. I pant. I pant. Hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing. Up the stairs to the First Investigative Division and the door to the chief’s office. I knock. I knock. I knock. Remember nothing. Remember nothing. Nothing…
I step into the chief’s office. I apologize. I bow –
No Adachi. No Kanehara. No Kai. Just me …
‘Please sit down,’ he says. ‘You look hot…’
I bow and I apologize again. I sit down –
He hands me some tea. ‘Drink…’
I take the tea. I thank him –
‘It’s always hot in this city,’ says Chief Kita. ‘I hate it, this city heat. I have bought a little land, you know? Near Atami. I’ve started to cultivate it. Look…’
Chief Kita holds out his hands across his desk. There are calluses on these hands –
‘These are real calluses,’ he says. ‘From the land. Because the land is important. The land keeps us alive. The land keeps us close to the people…’
Chief Kita has lost both his sons; one dead in China, one missing in Siberia…
I nod. I agree with him. I put down the tea –
‘How was Nakadate?’ asks the chief –
‘Dr. Nakadate thinks that both bodies found in Shiba Park were probably murdered by the same person.’
‘Does he really?’ says Chief Kita. ‘Now do you think that makes things easier or more difficult for us?’
‘I would hope it makes things easier,’ I say. ‘There surely needs to be only one investigation now…’
I stop speaking. It’s too late –
I curse! I curse! I curse!
The chief looks across his desk at me. He tuts. He smiles –
I curse myself! I curse myself! I curse myself!
