Death of a Doll Maker (Akitada Mysteries)

by I. J. Parker

  Shigeno was at the other end of the ship, a couple of guards squirming on the deck near him. He still swung his grappling hook and drove forward as sailors backed away from him.

  One of the convicts, perhaps the one who had saved Tora’s life, lay a few feet away, unmoving, his face in a puddle of blood.

  Across the way, more men were advancing on Shigeno. Tora went to his aid, lashing out at the nearest sailor. His oar handle connected with the man’s head, and he went down. But another sailor had seized a length of chain and now came for Tora, swinging it much like Shigeno did his grappling hook. Someone shouted, “Kill the bastards!” Tora ducked under the flailing chain and felt pain slice through his side again as he head-butted the sailor in the stomach. The other made an “oof” sound, bent double, and sat down. A vicious slash from Tora’s stick finished him off. Tora was no longer trying to spare lives. This was a battle to the death.

  More sailors were coming. Someone shouted commands. Through the noise, Tora heard the convict reciting his sutra again; only now there was a fierce rhythm to the sacred words. He saw him, a tall scarecrow of a man, swinging a long knife as he fought to kill or be killed. Even so, the odds were hardly improving.

  But Tora found new strength. He met the next sailor near the side of the ship and struck at his knees. The man screamed and fell. Tora hauled him up and pushed him over the side, hoping he could swim. Some object missed his head but struck his back. For a moment he could not catch his breath. When he swung around, he barely parried a curved knife wielded by a huge bear of a sailor. Tora’s oar handle had a sharp, pointed end where the blade had broken off, leaving a long splinter behind. Tora ducked and buried the point in the man’s side. He screamed, and the knife fell from his hand.

  Tora snatched up the weapon, hesitated a moment, then plunged back into battle. How many left?

  The skinny convict had disappeared, but near the front of the ship, Shigeno was still laying about him with the iron grappling hook. One sailor was covered in blood. Another saw the vicious, toothed hook coming for his face, shrieked, and flung himself overboard.

  Something else hit Tora’s right shoulder. When he turned, he saw a sailor with a bloody knife and then felt the pain and the hot blood. He tried in vain to raise his own knife. Gasping, he jumped aside just a moment before the sailor’s blade went into his chest. His right arm would not obey, but he kneed the man in the groin, and when his attacker fell groaning, he kicked the knife from his hand.

  He clutched his useless arm, dripping blood, and looking for escape. He knew he was done for. To his surprise, Shigeno was beside him. He, too, was bleeding badly; his shirt was soaked and had turned crimson. In spite of his wounds, Shigeno finished off the groaning sailor with the hook, snatched up his knife, and turned to meet new attackers.

  “Stop!”

  The shout came from the middle of the boat and broke off the fighting.

  A red-coated policeman had appeared from somewhere below. Reluctantly, guards and sailors retreated. The policeman looked at Tora and Shigeno. “Give yourselves up and nothing will happen to you,” he shouted. His voice was sharp and high. He sounded frightened though he stood among guards.

  Tora heaved a sigh of relief. He stepped forward and shouted back, “I’m a tribunal officer. This is an illegal ship engaged in murder for hire. Arrest the captain and put him in the hold. He’s in the pay of a criminal gang.”

  One of the sailors burst out laughing. Others joined in. “Very funny!” the policeman shouted with a laugh. He had found his voice of authority. “You’re a convict. All of you’ve committed crimes and killed people. Give up, and you’ll serve your sentence. If you resist, you’ll die.”

  “There’s your answer.” Shigeno sounded bitter. He was leaning against the side of the ship, looking pale beneath his tan. Several bodies lay about the deck, but there were still some six or eight men standing with the policeman, and other sailors were elsewhere. Tora did not see the two convicts. Perhaps they were both dead by now. There was a good deal of blood all over the deck.

  What if this was a legitimate transport? Tora knew they had killed men. It was no use trying to explain it away. The memory sickened him as his blood still dripped down his arm and onto the boards he stood on.

  He glanced again at Shigeno and told the policeman, “We don’t want to have to kill anyone else, but neither will you take us prisoner again. Tell your men to go down in the hold now, or this battle will continue.”

  Brave words. He might be bleeding to death, and Shigeno looked badly wounded and had dropped his grappling hook.

  “No,” said the policeman and shouted, “Go get them. They’re wounded and done for. If they try to fight, kill them.”

  But his people hesitated. Then one of the sailors threw a knife. Tora jumped aside, and gasped as pain pierced his side. For a moment, he thought the knife had found its mark, but it had struck the rail where he had been standing a moment earlier. The man had thrown it with deadly accuracy.

  Another knife flew past and into the sea. Tora thrust his good arm around Shigeno and dragged him behind the big mast.

  “Let me at them,” Shigeno muttered. “I’ll show the bastards.”

  “Follow me!” Tora cried and ran across the slippery deck, dodging bodies, hearing Shigeno’s sharp breath behind him.

  Two against overwhelming odds.

  Shigeno growled, “Cut them down!” and then they were among them, Tora swinging the long knife with his left hand, feeling it bite, hearing screams, seeing them scatter. “Give up!” he shouted, “or you’ll all die.” It was a mere croak.

  And an empty threat. Shigeno stumbled and fell beside him as two sailors converged on them.

  Someone yelled, “Look out! The ship! We’re going to strike”

  Then pandemonium broke out. People were running everywhere, and Tora stopped to gape at the scene.

  Beyond the ship a black mass had risen from the sea. For a moment he thought he losing consciousness … or hallucinating. “Dear gods,” he muttered, falling to his knees beside Shigeno who was struggling to get up.

  Then Tora realized what must have happened. Distracted by the fighting, the sailors had not paid attention to their ship, and the wind or tide had carried it too close to land. The sudden peril of submerged rocks taking the keel out of the ship outweighed even the threat of two convicts trying to escape.

  Tora saw the panic in the sailors’ faces. They rushed about, colliding with each other, some running for the rudder, others pulling at the big sails.

  The dark shape of the cliff already towered over them like some monstrous sea creature.

  Land, he thought. We’ve reached Tsushima. It was all for nothing. He dropped the knife, and asked Shigeno. “How are you, my friend?”

  “Done for,” muttered the convict. “My legs have given out. How about you?”

  “Not sure. I got a cut in the back.”

  Shigeno looked at his back. “Can you move your arm?”

  “A little, but there’s not much strength in it. It’s over anyway. We’re in Tsushima.”

  Together they looked at the rocky shore which was still approaching in spite of the frantic efforts of the crew. Their captors no longer cared about them. They worked the ship and the oars, desperately trying to bring her away from the rocks. Even the policeman and guards lent a hand at the oars.

  Shigeno chuckled weakly. “The fools. Serves them right. Can you swim?”

  “Yes. You?”

  Shigeno nodded. He seemed to be regaining some of his strength and was getting to his feet. “It’s not far.”

  Tora reached over to lift the other man’s blood-soaked shirt. His chest and side had taken a number of cuts that were still bleeding, some more than others. Impossible to tell how deep they were, but he must have lost a lot of blood. How could they think of swimming? “Are you sure we’ll be shipwrecked?” he asked.

  Shigeno flexed his limbs, gritting his teeth. “Any moment. Where are the other two?�
��

  “Dead or unconscious.”

  But as Tora glanced across the deck, he saw one of the bodies move, lift his head, and peer back at him. The thin man. After a glance around, he got to his feet and came to them in a crouching run.

  “They’ll never make it,” he said, pointing at the cliff.

  At that moment they struck.

  With a grinding noise the ship lifted, sending them staggering. They heard the wooden bottom tearing and the crew yelling. Then the masts cracked and, like giant forest trees, they slowly began to lean and then fall. Timber and rigging snapped, taking spars and the huge sails as well as two sailors with them. A large spar missed Tora by a mere foot. The ship tilted sharply when the masts and sails hit the water and sank, pulling it over on its side. Tora slid, then fell.

  He hit the water, ice cold and wildly surging, and went down. Kicking out, he swam for the surface but came up under a sodden sail in a tangle of lines. As he fought free, he thought this would be his grave. He dove again, came up, and found more sail pressing him down into the depths. Once more he dove and struggled back up again using the last of his strength. He reached the surface just as his chest and head were about to explode.

  26

  THE LATE GOVERNOR

  The search for Hiroshi—and Tora—continued into the middle of the night. At that point, Akitada, who had been waiting at police headquarters for news, decided to call it off. Sadamu had left already, though he was searching on his own. Akitada thanked the weary constables and the tribunal guard as they returned, and then he and his people went home.

  Home?

  This place was more and more like the horrors of exile he had dreaded in the capital. Far from his true home, where his wife might even now be struggling to give birth to their child, and while he tried to come to grips with losing Tora, Akitada had nothing but pain to show for this appointment.

  As tired as he was, he could not sleep. Instead, he lit as many oil lamps and candles in his room as he could find to keep the menacing darkness away and then sat at his desk to reread Tamako’s letters and to smile at the scrawls and drawings the children had included. He missed them all. His utter loneliness overwhelmed him, and he almost wept.

  But his despair reminded him of Fragrant Orchid’s supposed suicide letter. He rummaged among his papers and finally found the note still in the sleeve of the robe he had worn the day Maeda had given it to him.

  Unfolding the scrap, he read again: “Unmindful that ships must wait for high tide, I parted from you too soon . Oh, for a vermilion boat and a pair of jeweled oars so that I might row across to meet you on the other side.”

  It sounded like a death poem. “The other side” was a standard reference to the afterlife. But the words still seemed vaguely familiar. And another thing struck him. It read as if it had been written by the one who had left, yet it was in Fragrant Orchid’s hand, and she had not left. It had been Lord Tachibana who had left her.

  Biting his lip, he rose to scan the books he had brought with him from home. The poem must be something he had read somewhere. Fragrant Orchid had copied it down, perhaps to send to Tachibana. Women did such things; it proved how well-read they were.

  An hour later he found the lines in the Manyoshu, that compendium of sadness and loneliness expressed by men and women parted from each other while in government service. It was not a suicide note but simply an expression of regret that the lovers had missed a few more hours together.

  Of course, they had already come to the conclusion that Fragrant Orchid had been murdered, but now he had proof the note was not what it seemed to be. The murderer had been a little too clever trying to make her death appear to be suicide.

  Akitada sat back down and stared out the open door at the night sky. What sort of man was this killer of a governor and a reigning courtesan?

  He wondered briefly if a woman could have killed Fragrant Orchid. Jealousies among courtesans were common enough, but in this case it seemed unlikely. The timing of Fragrant Orchid’s death shortly after she had sent for him linked her murder with that of Tachibana—assuming he was dead.

  Where was his body?

  Akitada got up again and started pacing the floor of his room, thinking furiously. Surely Tachibana had been killed just before he embarked for the capital. He had disappeared somewhere between the tribunal and the harbor of Hakata, most likely in the city. His body might well be in Hakata.

  Against all logic, Akitada thought of the abandoned well. It was too much of a coincidence. But why not? The tangled web of crimes in Hakata had been marked by ruthlessness as well as carelessness. He doubted the killer who had dealt with Tachibana and Fragrant Orchid was ignorant. The ruse he had used to separate Tachibana from his servants and the message sent to the captain were the work of a clever and plotting mind. The same mind was likely to leave a poem to convince provincial police that the courtesan had killed herself. But he had been forced to use underlings because he did not want to dirty his hands or thought himself above menial chores. Arrogance had dulled his caution. Yes, such a man existed, and tomorrow Akitada would ride back to Hakata and ask Lieutenant Maeda to investigate the abandoned well more thoroughly.

  Feeling slightly less defeated, Akitada went to take his bedding out of its trunk. Under it he saw his flute, and on an impulse, he took it out. He went into the small courtyard outside and sat down on the narrow ledge. The blossoms on his little tree shimmered pale in the darkness. The night air was scented, and the starry sky stretched northward. Far away, above the black band of forest, a faint hazy glow marked the city, and beyond that stretched the Inland Sea with its islands.

  He played from memory the songs that had pleased his own family, now far away, and also two that had been Tora’s favorites. Perhaps this way he might reach out to them and let them know how much he cared. But tears rose to his eyes again, and eventually he lowered the flute.

  It was too much like playing a dirge for the dead. Wiping his eyes, he rose, went inside, closing the shutters, and lay down to sleep.

  *

  “I heard you playing your flute,” Saburo said the next morning as he came into Akitada’s room just as his master was brewing himself a cup of tea. “Here, let me do that, sir.”

  Akitada handed over the utensils. Saburo appeared drawn and tired. “I’m very glad to see you,” he said. “Did you get in late?”

  “Just before you finished playing. I didn’t want to trouble you, seeing it was late.”

  “Thank you. I don’t suppose either of us got much sleep. Any news?”

  Saburo passed Akitada his cup of tea and made himself one. “Nothing, sir. I broke into Feng’s store. Nobody was there, and no sign that Tora had been there.” He reached into his gown and brought forth a slender book. “I took one of the account books. I hope I did the right thing?”

  Akitada stretched out a hand. “At this point nothing matters but Tora. You had a reason to take it, I assume?”

  “Yes. My knowledge of the finer points of keeping business records is sketchy, but this was buried under a mass of trivial paperwork in a locked chest in Feng’s office.”

  “Ah!” Akitada opened the slender book. It was in Chinese, but not the type of Chinese characters he had learned in his youth and employed when writing official documents. He frowned as he tried to make out the columns of words and numbers which covered every page. The words must be names, he thought. Customers? Suppliers? Occasional comments were added in smaller, less careful brush strokes. He guessed this had to do with orders, customers, and amounts, but he had no idea what the goods were. He laid the book aside and said, “It may well explain what Feng has been up to, but it will take time to decipher. You had reason to think it contained illegal transactions?”

  Saburo nodded. “The ordinary account books lay stacked by date on a bamboo stand. I thought these entries might not be for the eyes of others.”

  “Yes, why else hide them? Excellent work.” Akitada finished his tea, picked up Feng’s acc
ount book, and rose. “Well, I’m going back to Hakata today. It occurred to me last night that the well may contain other surprises.”

  Saburo got up also and collected the cups. “Surely the police would have found those, sir. The constables have climbed down there twice.”

  “I don’t have much faith in the local constables, especially if assigned to an unpleasant task. The body of the woman was apparently well advanced in decay, and Tora’s clothes positively stank of death.” He suppressed a shudder and bit his lip. “They would not have stayed down there any longer than they absolutely had to. You know how most people feel about death.”

  Saburo stared at his master. “You are thinking of your predecessor, sir?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me, given that all the murders and abductions seem to be connected to a handful of the same people.”

  *

  In the tribunal office, Akitada asked Mori if he had any knowledge of the Chinese spoken by the immigrants. To his satisfaction, the small clerk nodded.

  “We have to work with registers and reports from Chinese merchants and local businessmen,” he explained with a smile. “Their Chinese writing bears little resemblance to our own official documents. I’ve often wondered if that is because they are poorly educated, or if official Chinese dates back to a long time ago while the people now speak differently.”

  “A very acute comment, Mori. I suspect it’s a little of both. But in any case, will you have a look at this?” He passed Feng’s private account book to the old man. “I’d like to know why Feng kept this well hidden.”

  Mori blushed with pleasure and bowed. “I’m honored, your Excellency. Who would have thought I might be asked to provide assistance in such a difficult case?”