The Lady Killer
Page 11
Shinji, on the other hand, knew that his blood was type AB. At primary school he had always worn a tag with his blood type on it. This was one of his small remaining memories of the war. But he had never had cause to check it since. And, come to think of it, Rhesus types were discovered during the war, when transfusions became common. Nowadays, if people have Rhesus-factor blood, it is a matter of importance to them, but in his schooldays it had been unknown. Perhaps he, too, was Rh-negative.
If that was so, and if he had no alibi for the times of the murders, then he, too, could be a suspect.
“Yes. Even amongst people who know where they fall in the A, B, and O system, there are very few who know if they are Rhesus or not,” said the old man.
“So how do people find out?”
“There are two ways.”
“Well, I suppose if you have a blood transfusion, you know.”
“Yes. And what’s the other way?”
Shinji was stumped. The old man laughed triumphantly and explained.
“People who give their blood for transfusion, of course!”
“You mean donors? And people who sell their blood?”
“Yes. And I’m not interested in fresh transfusions, only in blood that is stored.”
“You mean in blood banks?”
“Yes. And, you know, you don’t deposit your blood and draw it back when you need it in a blood bank. Most, if not all, blood-bank blood is sold. And the banks keep details of the people who sell to them.”
“Ah! So you mean that you can get lists of AB Rh-negative people from a blood bank?”
“Yes, and that is what I have had done—hence the list in your hand. Inquiries were made at every blood bank in Tokyo. There were twenty-seven Rh-negative people on their books, of whom six were also AB. Statistically rather high, but there you are.”
The old man’s plan began faintly to dawn on Shinji. It seemed a long shot at best, a dangerous gamble at worst.
“I know it sounds funny, but when we discuss it in this way my imagination forces me to behave as if I were the criminal,” the old man continued. “What I mean is that I try and imagine I am the criminal, get inside his mind. If I wanted to frame Ichiro Honda by leaving his blood group at the scene of the crime, how would I set about it? Well, of course, I’d go to a blood bank to find people with the type I was after. So what do you think I did next? I caused inquiries to be made at all the blood banks to see if anyone had during the last year made inquiries about Rh-negative donors. And, you know, there was one.” He sounded almost triumphant.
He took another document out of the folder in front of him. Shinji reflected on the careful attention to detail that had made Hatanaka such a good criminal lawyer. The old man lit a cigar and went on.
“In the beginning of last September, I learned, there was an inquiry about AB Rh-negative blood made to several banks. The cause given was that it was needed for a newborn baby. Babies born to mothers with Rh-negative blood have to have all their blood changed to Rh-negative, or they die. The condition is called ‘Hemolytic disease of the newborn.’
“Well, I next asked for which hospital the request was made. It was a hospital in Toshima ward. So I rang them, and, would you believe it, they have not had a single such case in the last twelve months!”
“So the call was a fake.”
“Absolutely correct.”
The old man had finally picked up the traces of the person who had entrapped Ichiro Honda. Now all he had to do was to follow the trail. Shinji stiffened with excitement.
“What was the person who made the inquiry like?” he asked.
“It was always a telephone call. But they say that the voice sounded forced.”
“A man?”
“Most probably, judging from what was said. However, we must not overlook the possibility of a woman disguising her voice to sound like a man. I think we should keep an open mind.”
“Well, at least they left us with our first clue. So this list comprises the names that the inquirer was given?”
“Yes. But you will observe that one of them is a woman aged forty-two. A day laborer from the flophouses. I gather that nowadays you can tell gender from blood, so let’s strike her out. So just check out these five; I have a hunch that you will find that one of them sold his blood to our mysterious stranger.”
So far, the old man’s reasoning seemed to hold together, Shinji thought. But if his theory was true, and there existed a person who had trapped Honda, how on earth had they known his blood type?
“It seems to me,” he said, “that as Ichiro Honda knew that he was AB Rh-negative since he was at college, then only his close friends and relatives would know.”
“No. Anyone could have found out.” The old man produced a faded newspaper clipping from his file with the air of a child removing his secret playthings from a box. “This dates back ten years. I got it from the archives of a newspaper company. It relates how a hemolytically diseased baby was saved by a transfusion in a Fukuoka hospital. And of course you can guess who the donor was. Ichiro Honda.” The old man gazed at him in triumph.
“You see, it was one of the very first Rh-negative transfusions in Japan, and it was big news at the time. So it made the front page—complete with a photo of Honda.” He passed the clipping over, and Shinji looked at a photo of a much younger Honda. He cast his eye over the headlines and caption.
“A.M.U. Biology Lab saves baby,” he read. “All students’ blood classified in American manner. A triumph for science. Student flies to Fukuoka in military plane and gives blood.”
The old man chewed his cigar. “There’s something else which is interesting in there,” he observed. “In those days, the term ‘hemolytic disease of the newborn’ was not used, so they referred to it by the old medical name—‘Rhesus incompatibility.’ And the person who made the phone call used that expression and not the term now used. That’s one reason why the phone calls were remembered at the hospitals. And the phrase in the article is ‘Rhesus incompatibility.’ So it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
“You mean that you think that the mystery caller had read the article?”
“That’s exactly what I think. I have no doubt that the caller was not involved with any baby at all. I feel certain that he or she was the elusive X. So you go and track down those five men, and meanwhile I think I’ll go to the prison and encourage Honda in his reconstruction of his diary.”
Could the old man be right? As he said, only checking with the five men would tell. He stood up to go, but the old man stopped him.
“I learn from the university that Ichiro Honda was a model student in every way. Always top of his class and an upstanding moral type.”
“So what came over him to change?” asked Shinji, but the old man gave him no reply.
Had Honda been a hypocrite at the university? Shinji wondered. Or had he become as he was as a reaction to his student life at Asia Moral University?
Why do some men become womanizers? Shinji would have dearly liked to know, but at present his main task was to hunt down the person who had framed Ichiro Honda.
He picked up the papers and left the room.
2
Shinji left the office just before noon; the bright daylight, after the gloomy office, dazzled his eyes. Who should he visit first? he wondered. At all costs, he must get his report back to the old man as quickly as possible. He had been through the list carefully several times but still could not make up his mind. He cast his mind back over the names and details on the detective’s report. They were:
1. Yuzo Osawa, aged 58, day laborer. Present address: Eukumae Ryokan, Asahicho, Shinjuku. Family and former address unknown.
Goes to Shinjuku Ward Employment Exchange every day and is engaged in road construction, mostly job-creation schemes financed by the Ward.
(Note.) Dines at a cheap restaurant called “Renko,” near his lodging, every evening. Always has the same meal: two cups of cheap white spirit and a bowl of mince an
d curdled beans, his favorite dish. Drinks to get tipsy, but not drunk.
Best times to approach him are either outside the Employment Exchange or else during his evening meal.
Well, thought Shinji, most people would consider him to be a failure in life, but who is to say that he is not living as he wants to and enjoying it?
2. Seiji Tanikawa, aged 23, works for T Film Processing Laboratory Co., Ltd. High school graduate. Present address: 12 X-chome, Shimorenjaku, Mitaka City. This is his company’s dormitory for single men.
(Note.) Generally satisfactory attitude to work. Works late two or three nights a week. Does not frequent coffee bars or restaurants, etc., but on Mondays and Fridays, when he rarely works late, he visits a Turkish bath in Kanda. The girl he always employs is called Yasue Terada. For further details, contact this researcher.
Tanikawa’s salary is 28,000 yen a month including all overtime payments. He sends 5,000 yen a month to his mother in Fukushima. Our research indicates that his charges and tips at the Turkish bath come to not less than 2,000 yen a time. This implies that when he goes twice in a week as is his custom, this would consume nearly 20,000 yen a month. Adding on the money he sends his mother, the dormitory charges, money he spends on presents of sushi to the girl in the bathhouse, and the minimum required to keep body and soul alive, his monthly expenditure cannot be below 30,000 yen. We believe he has a side income through making and selling some kind of films.
A man who is gradually getting mired in the mud and will probably sink into it in due course, thought Shinji.
3. Rosuke Sada, aged 33, a salesman with H Cosmetics Co., Ltd., Suginami branch office. Present address: Tachibana-so, 2-chome, Asagaya, Suginami-ku.
A university graduate. Married with no children.
(Note.) His sales area is Setagaya, Suginami, Shibuya, and Nakano wards. His customers are mostly drawn from the upper class. His performance is in the upper-middle range; however, we have reason to believe that he has recently been supplementing his income by selling jewelry supplied to him by a college friend. Monthly income over 40,000 yen. His routine is hard to predict, owing to the nature of his calling, but he regularly lunches at a German-style restaurant called “Hamburg” in Shinjuku. After work he either goes home and watches television, or else goes out to a neighboring coffee shop and talks to the women who run it. Seems to be interested in women.
This man, thought Shinji, is my highest common multiple.
4. Nobuya Mikami, aged 18, a live-in bartender at the Bar B in Hanazono-cho, Shinjuku. Present address: as shown above.
(Note.) Bar B is a gay bar. Its special characteristic is that all the employees are young men under the age of 19, and none of them wear drag. There are very few casual customers; most of the clientele resort there for purposes of sodomy. Many established customers do not even bother to turn up, particularly persons of a certain social status. Instead, they phone in to place their requirements. The owner, who calls himself “Mama,” arranges liaisons suitably in such circumstances. Minimum charge is 3,000 yen, but it tends to be very much higher according to the client’s wallet and tastes. Some of the young men who work there have been given houses by their patrons; those who relate closely to foreigners often go on overseas trips.
Interesting, thought Shinji.
5. Kotaro Yamazaki, aged 26, an intern at the Y University Hospital. Present address: c/o Muneda, Tsuji-cho, Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku.
(Note.) He has boarded at the above address since he was a student. His routine out of hours is irregular—sometimes he studies for his medical exams, at other times he goes out to see foreign movies or baseball games, or else to drink.
However, he regularly frequents a local coffee shop called “Bluebird.” He is almost invariably there at lunchtime, for it is immediately next to his hospital.
Well, thought Shinji, this man must know quite a lot about blood types and the collection of blood.
So Shinji decided to tackle the medical intern first. He thought that at least he would have a chance of catching him at his favorite coffee shop during the lunch hour. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was already 11:30.
He set off for Ochanomizu, where the hospital was situated, but en route he had an idea. He got off the train and phoned a journalist friend of his whose office was not far away. He felt that he would be better off with a journalist’s business card, so he rang his friend and asked him for the favor of two or three of his cards, explaining that he was involved in interviewing people and would find them useful. “Of course,” his friend said, and he made his way to the newspaper office. Resisting his friend’s invitation to take lunch together, he then continued on his way.
He got to the university and called Kotaro Yamazaki on the internal phone. The voice that answered him was heavy and unpromising.
“I am from the Daily News,” he announced. “I am writing an article on the devotion of blood donors and wonder if you could spare me a few minutes of your time.”
“You’ve come to the wrong person.” The voice was cold and aloof.
“But the G Blood Bank told me that you were a voluntary donor of Rh-negative blood…”
“That’s very peculiar. I haven’t given blood for years.”
“Nevertheless, couldn’t you spare me a little time? It won’t take long, I assure you.” Shinji adopted his most persuasive tones.
“Really, this is an imposition,” replied the voice angrily, but finally, with a great show of reluctance, he consented to meet Shinji at the Bluebird coffee shop. He turned up there twenty minutes later and proved to be a tall and handsome man. He identified Shinji by the fact that he was the only person there sitting alone and sat down opposite him.
“I’m Yamazaki. What can I do for you?”
“I would like to ask you a few questions, as I understand that you have been the donor of a rare type of blood. Can I begin by asking if your involvement is in any way due to the fact that you yourself are a doctor?”
Yamazaki stared at the reporter’s name card, which Shinji had given him, turning one corner down before replacing it on the table.
“Well, as I told you on the phone, I haven’t given blood for years.”
“And back then? Did you donate often?”
“No. Only two or three times in all.”
“And you haven’t given blood recently?”
“Not for at least a year. And even then it wasn’t voluntary. I received a specific request from the blood bank because of my unusual blood group. They were out of stock, it seems, and there was some emergency—a newborn baby, I believe.”
“Other than that?”
“Never.”
“What about between October last year and January this year?”
At this question, Yamazaki gazed at Shinji sharply, but the latter maintained his bland countenance and Yamazaki relaxed. He replied sulkily, “If I say never, I mean never! Why are you so inquisitive, might I ask?”
Shinji felt that there was nothing more to be gained from the conversation and stood up to leave. Yamazaki leaned back in his chair and, gazing up at Shinji, drawled, “Blood is a boring subject, don’t you think? Now sperm, that’s quite a different matter. The other day I gave an interview to a journalist from some third-rate rag or other on the topic of sperm donation. That’s much more interesting, wouldn’t you agree? But of course we donors are not allowed to talk about it—ethics of the trade, you might say.”
He was now bantering, and so Shinji totally overlooked the significance of what he was saying and paid up and left the shop.
He went back to his office, where he found Mutsuko Fujitsubo filing papers. The old man was at the prison talking to Ichiro Honda.
“How’s the reconstruction of the diary going, I wonder?” he asked, meanwhile glancing at a sheet of information from the detective agency that Mutsuko was about to file. It revealed that amongst Honda’s victims there had been an elementary school teacher. The secret stains of humanity could be found in every life.
Shinji reflected that finding someone with a motive by reconstructing the lady killer’s diary would not be as easy a task as the old man had hoped, and he sensed that Mutsuko felt the same way. If this was true, the old man would have to go to the appeal court with nothing new to present. The day for the hearing was drawing close, and Shinji felt that he had no time to lose. The murderer had left a faint footprint at the blood banks; it was up to him to go out and collect the most precise details that he could and give them to the old man.
3
Evening came, and the sun went down. On the pavement outside the cheap pub called “Renko,” someone had sprinkled water in a vain attempt to lay the dust.
Shinji pushed his way through the mean rope curtain that separated the dive from the outside world. He quickly identified Yuzo Osawa as being the old man sitting by himself at the U-shaped counter and drinking shochu, a cheap and potent white spirit. As the researcher had suggested, there was a plate of mincemeat and bean curd in front of him. The pub was almost full, and nearly everyone was engrossed in the television screen, but when Shinji sat down beside Osawa he discovered that the screen was half hidden by a pillar from that seat. He ordered a bottle of beer.
Osawa sat next to him, cradling his glass of shochu in his hands as if trying to warm it. Occasionally, he would raise the glass to his lips and take a slow and careful sip. His fingernails were engrimed with oil and dust.
“Hey, old fellow! Haven’t we met somewhere before!” said Shinji with forced joviality.