The Lady Killer

by Masako Togawa

  Whose dark or troubled mind will you step into next? Detective or assassin, victim or accomplice? How can you tell reality from delusion when you’re spinning in the whirl of a thriller, or trapped in the grip of an unsolvable mystery? When you can’t trust your senses, or anyone you meet; that’s when you know you’re in the hands of the undisputed masters of crime fiction.

  Writers of the greatest thrillers and mysteries on earth, who inspired those that followed. Their books are found on shelves all across their home countries – from Asia to Europe, and everywhere in between. Timeless tales that have been devoured, adored and handed down through the decades. Iconic books that have inspired films, and demand to be read and read again. And now we’ve introduced Pushkin Vertigo Originals – the greatest contemporary crime writing from across the globe, by some of today’s best authors.

  So step inside a dizzying world of criminal masterminds with Pushkin Vertigo. The only trouble you might have is leaving them behind.

  The action of this novel is set in Japan in 1963.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  PART 1: THE HUNTER

  The First Victim (November 5)

  The Second Victim (December 19)

  The Third Victim (January 15)

  Interval

  PART 2: COLLECTING THE EVIDENCE

  The Lawyers

  The Blood Bank

  The Black Stain

  Insertion—A Monologue

  The Black Stain—Continued

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  COPYRIGHT

  PROLOGUE

  1

  She was on the second floor of the bar, seated alone in a box seat and gazing down onto the first floor. Faintly, through the whirl of cigarette smoke, she could see a waiter in a white jacket standing by the door, a bartender rattling a cocktail shaker behind the counter below her. As for the other customers, they were all either seated at the counter or else in boxes on the first floor, almost invisible in the subdued lighting popular in such places. Upstairs where she was, there was another bar counter behind which a bartender was passing the time polishing glasses; at the corner of the counter, two young men sat face to face whispering to each other.

  Nobody was paying her any attention whatever. If they had, they would have probably thought that this girl, wearing no makeup and seeming to be no more than twenty, did not look at all like a typical bar customer.

  When she had entered a few minutes before, there had been an oddly disturbed look on her face. There were no vacant places on the ground floor, so she had made her way upstairs. As she climbed, the stairs beneath her feet seemed to rise and fall like waves; she floated on them, feeling hollow as a boat. All the chatter and music, the din of a busy bar, seemed to recede from her; she felt strangely alone in a world as black as pitch.

  She stretched forward and picked up her half-empty glass, draining its contents, the color of cold tea, in a gulp. This was her third glass of whiskey tonight, and the third she had drunk in all her life. The whiskey warmed her throat, and she began to feel light-headed. She stood up and went to the counter, taking care with each step not to reel or fall.

  The bartender looked up and, seeing the empty glass in her hand, smiled.

  “Some pace tonight!”

  She smiled back at him. It would cost her nothing to be pleasant to him, and besides, she had no idea of where she would go when she left the bar.

  “Ready for the fourth one? I’ll bring it over.” He pretended to note the drink on her bill, but in reality wrote nothing. She might as well have this one free.

  Giving him another sweet smile, she turned and went back to her table on the balcony. She suddenly felt more cheerful, thanks to this act of kindness, which she had noticed. I must give him a pack of cigarettes before I go, she thought.

  The bartender came over, deposited her drink and a fresh saucer of peanuts, and left her as silently as he had come. Once more, she was alone.

  When she closed her eyes, she saw clashing shades of red and green still, but fortunately the sharp metallic sound that had rung inside her head had abated. After a while, she heard music, but it was impossible for her to tell if the sounds came from outside or were merely in her head. She didn’t really care which was the case; drifting through her personal world, she beat time with the tips of her feet. One two three, one two three… she became aware that the music was a cheerful polka, the instruments a violin and a guitar.

  How I used to love this tune, she thought. Back in the days when I had no worries; I was happy then. She began to cry silently, moved by this sentimental thought. As she wept, the tune changed; first there was a waltz, and then music of an indeterminate rhythm.

  And then she heard the bass voice that she would never forget until the day she died. There was something more than human about it; it was more like an organ heard in church. It crept toward her, lapped her feet and climbed steadily until it captured her heart. She recognized the song; it was “Zigeunerliedchen” by Schumann.

  Im Schatten des Waldes, im Buchengezweig,

  Da regt’s sich und raschelt und flüstert zu gleich.

  Es flackern die Flammen, es gaukelt der Schein

  Um bunte Gestalten, um Laub und Gestein.

  Having completed the first stanza in German, the voice went back to the beginning again and sang in Japanese.

  Here ’neath the beeches’ greening shade

  We feast and frolic in the glade.

  The torches burn and brightly light

  Us sitting on the leaves tonight.

  Sing, sing, the greenwoods ring,

  The gypsy tribe is frolicking!

  The deep, sad voice was full of soulfulness and sympathy, overriding the thick tones of drunkards and the off-key soprano voices of the hostesses who were endeavoring to accompany it. Who could it be? She opened her eyes, which she had closed in ecstasy, and peered over the railing that surrounded the balcony. But all she could see were two strolling musicians, one with a violin, the other with a guitar, who had accompanied the song. Shyly she too began to sing the “Zigeunerliedchen,” which had been a compulsory piece at her high school. Her voice seemed to blend perfectly with the bass. They sang together, they were silent together, in a perfect harmony that she could not leave, until at last the guitar and the violin were silent, the bass, too, fading away.

  Who could this singer have been, she wondered, whose voice so matched hers? Unable to restrain her curiosity, she got up and went downstairs, drawn by the magic voice, no freer than a puppet on a string. As she descended to the first floor, her body was drenched by the hubbub; she peered uncertainly into the unaccustomed dark, but all she could make out through the spirals of smoke were the black heads of the crowd, each one seeming to overlap its neighbor. What was she to do?

  And then she had an inspiration. The itinerant violinist was about to leave the bar; she rushed over and blocked his way.

  “Excuse me, sir! Would you mind playing that again?”

  “Of course, young lady, as often as you wish.” The violinist, whose hair receded to the crown of his head, gazed curiously into her eyes, his glance also taking in the hundred-yen note that she was proffering. Accepting the tip, he called his partner back; they began to play, and out of the dark and over the babble of voices once again emerged that superb bass voice. The owner turned out to be a man buried in the shadows, sitting alone in the box just behind her. She craned around, trying to see him without seeming too curious.

  “Why don’t you sit with me?” said the deep voice, and she obeyed as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It felt almost as if they were meeting by prior agreem
ent.

  “Keep playing!” he called out, and the man and the girl sang together in perfect harmony.

  As they sang, they stole glances at each other; it was as if they had been friends for years.

  “Come on, let’s have something else for a change!” cried another customer.

  The violin player lowered his instrument and asked, “What shall I do? O.K. to play something else?”

  She looked at her companion, and then turned back to the musician.

  “No, that’s enough, thanks. You can go.”

  And shortly afterward she left, too, in the company of the stranger, who settled her bill as well as his own. As they walked out of the bar together, the light of a streetlamp fell on him, and for the first time she could see him clearly. He was about thirty, she judged, and had a well-tanned, clean-cut face. His suit was both tasteful and well cut. Although he had the appearance of a maiden’s dream, she felt regretfully, they must seem to others to be an ill-matched couple.

  Several hours later, they sank together into the back seat of a taxi. By now, he was clasping her thin body in his long arms, nuzzling her hair with his chin.

  “Take us somewhere where we can get a good night’s sleep,” he said to the driver. His voice sounded exhausted, almost monotonous.

  “Yes, sir. Western or Japanese style?” The driver plunged dangerously into the traffic. Perhaps she heard the exchange between her partner and the taxi driver, perhaps she did not. She lay motionless in his arms, her eyes tightly closed.

  2

  She was hanging on to the windowsill with her hands but her mind was elsewhere, remembering her encounter at the bar six months ago. A cold breeze chilled her bare feet.

  I don’t regret having slept with him, she thought. For in her daily life, which had come to seem like hell to her, that one encounter stood alone, a perfect experience.

  She hung against the rough concrete wall; it pressed hard on her nose, her cheeks, her small breasts, and her swelling belly, all the way down to her knees. As each moment passed, her body seemed to pull more heavily on her skinny arms. Once her arms could no longer take her weight, once her already numb fingers gave way to the strain, she would let go and fall from this seventh-floor window. Only a little more patience was needed—perhaps two minutes, perhaps three…

  She wondered why the man with the deep voice had withdrawn from her life after that one encounter. And yet she felt no grudge against him for it; rather, she was grateful, for into her short, gray life he had brought the only light ever to shine on it.

  He was not responsible for the growing pain in my ring finger, she thought. And every evening, when dusk falls, it seems as if the right half of my body belongs to someone else. But he is not to blame for that, either. It was tapping those keys, thousands of times a day, which was responsible, not the man. I owe it to him that I was able to bear to live for another six months, she thought. Memories of his voice gave me the will to carry on. I could survive the ringing in my head, like an amplified motorcycle, because of that voice that seemed to put cotton wool into my inner ears, blocking out the sound. The bass voice overwhelmed me, body and soul. But why did he plant his seed in me and then go away? To this last question she had no ready answer.

  She felt the child stir in her belly. Was it this power inside her that was so oppressive, she wondered, or was it the pressure of the wall?

  Her arms were now completely numb. If only she could see him in her mind’s eye again, hear his voice, then perhaps she could endure the torture for a little longer. But try as she would, he was gone, and his image was lost to her. Instead, inside her head she heard those other sounds begin again, faintly at first, like the droning of a swarm of midges. And her vision was restricted to the coarse concrete wall.

  Suddenly, for the first time she felt terror: the surge of fear of her impending extinction. Frantically, she tried to grip the windowsill more tightly, but it was no good; her fingers had lost all sensation. Her arms were numb, too, her shoulders dead. The chill wind blew up under her dress, freezing her lower parts into insensitivity. One by one, her fingers let go of the sill.

  Now that romantic encounter at the bar with the man with the rich bass voice was forgotten. Forgotten, too, the nagging presence in her belly. In those last moments, she was wafted back to her primary school days, when she had hung from the beam, trying to chin herself yet again, every muscle in her body aching. How long every second had seemed then, how long now…

  Last of all, the callused finger that should one day have worn a wedding ring slipped and lost its grip. All contact with reality lost, she plunged to the earth below.

  The shattered body of Keiko Obana, aged nineteen, a key-punch operator working for the K Life Insurance Company, was found by the side of the building by a security guard working for that company just after 1 p.m. on Adults’ Day, January 15, a public holiday.

  Was it suicide? Or was it, perhaps, murder? There was much discussion until the police announced their conclusion. After the autopsy they declared that it was suicide caused by neurosis. They found that her ring finger exhibited a mild case of tendonitis, the occupational disease of key-punch operators.

  The evidence of the security guard was that, although it was a holiday, he had let Keiko Obana into her office as she had said that she wanted to copy some sheet music for her choral group. The official view of the company was naturally to deny the possibility of suicide, for there was no sign of a suicide note. The room had been sprayed with a strong insecticide shortly before; Keiko must have tried to open the window, they reasoned, and had fallen to her death.

  However, the police had two reasons for determining that this was a case of suicide. Firstly, there were the marks on the windowsill, which clearly showed that she had hung from it before falling.

  And secondly, there was evidence that was not made public. At the time of her death, she was six months pregnant.

  Although that would have convinced everybody that the police were right, not a word was allowed to leak to the press on this point. This decision was made by the section chief in the local police station who was in charge of the Keiko Obana case. He did so on grounds of delicacy, and the only person to whom he revealed the fact of Keiko’s pregnancy was the sole surviving relative, her elder sister, when she came to receive the body.

  “Did she have a fiancé or anything like that?” he asked in a roundabout sort of way. The sister sat opposite him, wringing her handkerchief between her hands.

  “No, not that I was aware of. She never said anything about getting married. She never even mentioned a boyfriend. Of course, she may have kept silent out of deference to me; I am still single, you see. But… you know, she was still very much like a child.”

  The sister looked up at the police officer dubiously.

  “You were like a mother to her, were you not?”

  “Yes. Both our parents were killed by the atom bomb at Hiroshima. I brought her up and supported her from my income as a dressmaker. She fully understood how hard it was for me, and always did her best not to cause me any worry. And I think she always told me everything.”

  The elder sister, Tsuneko Obana, was a spinsterish type, simply dressed, with no makeup, and her hair drawn back in a bun. There was something faintly erotic about her double-lidded eyes, but otherwise she seemed to have no more than a stoic personality. She sat with her head inclined downward and seemed overcome with grief at her sudden bereavement.

  To lose one’s only sister in this way was indeed tragic, thought the inspector, and he tried to temper his questions as far as possible.

  “Did you notice anything special about her?”

  “What do you mean? Is there something I should know?” She looked at him uncertainly.

  “Well, for instance, did she occasionally stay out all night?”

  “Oh, no, never… but yes, once only. She came home in the morning and said that she had missed the last train and had spent the night at an all-night café with a fri
end.”

  “About when would that have been?”

  “Well, let me see… about six months ago, I think it was. But does that have any bearing…?”

  “Well, yes, I’m afraid it does. I’m sorry to have to tell you this but your sister was pregnant.”

  The sister’s eyes almost popped out of her head with shock. “I can’t believe it,” was all she could say.

  “Yes. She was, in fact, six months pregnant. I think the worry made her kill herself.”

  Tsuneko Obana burst into tears. The inspector averted his eyes; it had been hard for him, but he felt he had to tell her. He gazed out of the window. If Keiko had been a respectable young woman, as seemed to have been the case, if she was a girl with no boyfriends who came home every night, then on that night she spent in the all-night café she must have been seduced by a gangster or some such person. There were only too many such cases of which he was aware. Normally, they were about as emotional as traffic accidents, but in this case the girl had killed herself. What could he say to soothe the sister now that the truth was out? Nothing. He turned his gaze back upon the sister.

  “Naturally, the police are only informing you of this fact. I can assure you that it will never be made public.”

  After all, he reasoned, if the suicide could be attributed to a vocational disease, then the relatives could claim compensation.

  Tsuneko Obana dabbed her face with her handkerchief, trying to repress her tears. Suddenly, she looked up and began to speak urgently, as if a dam had broken inside her.

  “She did have a lover… I read her diary… She met him in a bar… and they sang ‘Zigeunerliedchen’ together… How could she be so stupid?… Poor, foolish girl…”

  There was nothing he could say, the inspector thought, as he listened to these disjointed statements. He stood up to bring the interview to an end. The sorrow of bereaved relatives does not lie within the jurisdiction of the police.