Occupied City David Peace

On January 26, 1948, a man posing as a public health official arrives at a bank in Tokyo. He explains that he’s there to treat everyone who might have been exposed to a recent outbreak of dysentery. Soon after drinking the medicine he administers, twelve employees are dead, four are unconscious, and the “official” has fled. Twelve voices tell the story of the murder from different perspectives including a journalist, a gangster-turned-businessman, an “occult detective,” and a well-known painter. Each voice enlarges and deepens the portrait of a city and a people making their way out of a war-induced hell. Told with David Peace’s brilliantly idiosyncratic and mesmerizing voice, is a stunningly audacious work from a singular writer.

David Peace

Occupied City

For my mother

— And what the writer found there …

The obedient and virtuous son kills his father.

The chaste man performs sodomy upon his neighbours.

The lecher becomes pure.

The miser throws his gold in handfuls out of the window.

The warrior hero sets fire to the city he once risked his life to save.

The Theatre & the Plague, Antonin Artaud, 1933

~ ~ ~

IN THE OCCUPIED CITY, you are a writer and you are running –

In the wintertime, papers in your arms, through this January night, down these Tokyo streets, you are running from the scene of the crime; from the snow and from the mud, from the bank and from the bodies; running from the scene of the crime and from the words of the book; words that first enticed and entranced you, then deceived and defeated you, and now have left you in-snared and in-prisoned –

Beneath a sky that threatens more than night, more than snow, now you huff and breath-puff, puff and breath-pant, pant and gasp –

For in your ears, you hear them coming, step by step, whispering and muttering. In your ears, you hear them gaining, step by step-step, drooling and growling, step by step-step by step –

A Night Parade of One Hundred Demons …

In the night-stagger, your spectacles fall from your nose. In the snow-stumble, your papers fall from your hand. In the night and in the snow, you scramble for your spectacles and for your papers, you search for your sight and for your work. But the ghost-laden wind is here now, again the be-specter-ed air is upon you. It steals your papers and it shatters your spectacles, it makes a sheaf-blizzard of the loose-leafs, a shard-storm of the slivered-lenses, as you claw through the laden wind, as you thrash through the haunted air –

But then the wind is dead and now the air is gone, the sheaves fall and the shards drop. You grab your spectacles, you grasp your papers, your manuscript; your manuscript of

the book-to-come;

this book that

will not

come–

This unfinished book of unsolved crime. This book of Winter, this book of Murder, book of Plague.

The blank sheets in your hands, the empty frames on your nose, now you see the Black Gate up ahead, and so you start to run again, through the January night, huffing and breath-puffing, down the Tokyo streets, puffing and breath –

Now you stop running.

Beneath the Black Gate, you seek shelter. In its damp shadows, you squat now. Under the eaves of the gate, here there is no one else, only the finger-night-tips, the foot-snow-steps. This gate once a treasure, this gate now a ruin, almost; but this gate still remains, this gate now a sanctuary, perhaps. No crows, no foxes, no thugs, no prostitutes tonight. Only night and only snow, their finger-cold-tips and their foot-dirty-steps. You breathe hard, your soaked-coat-through, you spit blood, your stained-papers-red. Your breath is bad and belly bloated, your eyes bloodshot and face swollen –

But here, under this Black Gate, in these damp shadows, here you will hide. Here inside, inside here –

Here you will hide –

Hide! Hide!

From this city, out of breath, from this city, out of time. This cursed city; city of riot and city of earthquake, city of assassination and city of coups, city of bombs and city of fire, city of disease and city of hunger, this city of defeat, defeat and surrender –

This damned city; city of robbery and

city of rape, city of murder,

of murder and plague –

These things you have witnessed, these things you have documented, in the ink you have spilt, on the papers you have spoiled. Inside here, here

inside –

‘… a ghost-story-telling game popularized during the Edo period. By the mid-seventeenth century its form was established among samurai as a playful test of courage, but by the early nineteenth century it had become a widespread entertainment for commoners. The game begins with a group of people gathering at twilight in the pale-blue light of one hundred lit candles, each covered with a pale-blue paper shade. Each person in turn then tells a tale of supernatural horror and at the end of each tale one wick is extinguished. As the evening and the tales progress the room becomes dimmer and gloomier until, after the one hundredth tale has been told and the last candle blown out, the room is in complete darkness. At this moment it is believed that real ghouls or monsters will appear in the dark, conjured up by the terrifying tale-telling…’

The blood-blots, the tear-traces, the dead letters and the death sentences. You look up from your papers, you snatch sight of a stairway, a broad stairway to an upper storey, an upper storey away from the city. You rush to gather your papers, you run to climb the steps, finger-light-tips follow you up, foot-soft-steps echo your own –

One step, two steps, three steps, four –

Half-way up, you stop, stair-still,

stair-bent, you crouch,

breath-held –

In the chamber of the upper storey, high on the under-hide of the roof, there is light above your head, here inside the Black Gate,

here you are not alone, here in-presence-d …

You climb again, you stop again, and now you see –

In the upstairs chamber, in an occult circle –

Twelve candles and twelve shadows –

In the Occupied City, beneath the Black Gate, in its upper chamber, in this occult circle of these twelve candles,

now you are on your knees.

Suddenly, the ceiling of the chamber is illuminated by a flash of lightning. You look, you listen. You hear a peal of thunder, the fall of rain hard upon the roof of the gate. You listen, you look –

In the light of the candles, you see and now you hear a hand-bell being shaken in the air; hear and see a bell and a hand –

The red bell and the white hand, the white arm and the red sleeve, the red robe and the white face of a woman –

The woman, a medium, before you –

In the centre of the circle of the candles,

in their gutter-ring, she stands –

Her hair and her robes now flailing within a sudden tempest, for the laden wind has found you here again, again the haunted air,

as the medium rattles the bell again and again, and again –

The bell, and now the sound of a drum beating slowly,

as the medium begins to dance, to spin and to turn –

Madly, the bell clattering and the wind howling,

the drum beating, on and on, over and over –

Feet moving through the splintered wood,

dancing, spinning and spinning, turning –

Suddenly she stops, suddenly still now,

frozen, the bell slips from her hand –

Abruptly, she faces you now, to say:

‘Let the story-telling game begin…’

Then she tears towards you,

in this Possessed City –

The medium falls to the floor before you, now she sits upright, taut and still, and now her mouth begins to open, to speak. In a disembodied drone, it speaks. It speaks the words of the dead –

‘We are here because of you,’ they whisper. ‘Because of you, our dear sweet, sweet writer dear, because of you …

The First Candle — The Testimony of the Victimo Weeping

Because of you. The city is a coffin. In the snow. In the back of a truck. Parked outside the bank. In the sleet. Under the heavy damp tarpaulin. Driven through the streets. In the rain. To the hospital. To the morgue. In the sleet. To the mortuary. To the temple. In the snow. To the crematorium. To the earth and to the sky –

In our twelve cheap wooden coffins –

In these twelve cheap wooden coffins, we lie. But we do not lie still. In these twelve cheap wooden coffins, we are struggling. Not in the dark, not in the light; in the grey, we are struggling; for here is only grey, here we are only struggling –

In this grey place,

that is no place,

we are struggling all the time, always and already –

In this place, of no place, between two places. The places we once were, the places we will be –

The deathly living,

the living death –

Between these two places, between these two cities:

Between the Occupied City and the Dead City, here we dwell, between the Perplexed City and the Posthumous City –

Here we dwell, in the earth, with the worms,

in the sky, with the flies, we who are no longer in the houses of being. Beyond loss, flocks of birds fall from the sky and shower us with their bloody feathers and severed wings. But we still hear you. We who are now in the houses of non-being. Beyond loss, schools of fish leap from the sea and splatter us with their bloody guts and severed heads. We still see you. We want to breathe again, but we can never breathe again. Beyond loss, herds of cattle run from the fields and trample us with their bloody carcasses and severed limbs. We listen to you. We want to return again, but we can never return again. Beyond loss. We watch you still. Through our veils –

The veils which no longer hang before our eyes, these veils which now hang behind our eyes, their threads spun by our tears, their webs woven by our deaths, these veils which replaced our names, which replaced our lives –

Through these veils,

still we see –

Still we watch, we watch you …

Our mouths always open, our mouths already open. But we no longer talk, we can no longer talk, here we can only mouth, mouth:

Do we matter to you? Did we ever matter?

Our mouths always screams,

already screams, screams

that mouth:

Your apathy is our disease; your apathy, a plague…

We dwell beyond sorrow. You close your mouths. We dwell beyond pain. You close your eyes. Beyond grief, beyond despair. You close your ears, for you do not hear us, for you do not listen to us …

And we are tired, we are so tired, so very tired –

But still we dwell, between these two places –

Beyond dereliction, we lie. Drunk, you harangue us. Beyond oblivion, we wait. Sober, you ignore us. Forgotten and untended, buried or burnt, haunted and restless, under the earth and above the sky, without dreams and without sleep. You are Mind to our suffering. We are so tired, so very tired. You are deaf to our supplications. We weep without tears, we scream without sound,

yet still we wait, and still

we watch –

Between the Occupied City and the Dead City, between the Perplexed City and the Posthumous City we wait, we watch and we struggle. Here in this grey place, here where we are waiting,

watching and struggling:

Cursed be you who cast us into this place! Cursed be you who keep us here! Fickle you are, so very fickle —

Fickle are you, fickle the living…

Forgotten are we, forgotten and denied –

Lives forgotten and deaths denied –

For you deny us our deaths …

Deny us and trap us …

In the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, beyond the Occupied City, before the Dead City, here we are trapped, trapped in the greyness, trapped in this city. In this city that is no city,

this place that is no place –

Here we shuffle, we shuffle around, around in circles, with our boxes. Did you hear our footsteps in your heart? Our own ashes, around our necks, our own bones, in these boxes. Did you feel our fingertips within your flesh? We raise our shoulders, we raise our faces, we raise our eyes. Have you come to lead us back, back towards the light? Back towards the light, we begin to shuffle. Back to the Occupied City? In the Occupied City, we shuffle around, around these twelve candles, we gather around, around and around –

Back in the Occupied City, here we are the victims again –

Here, never the witnesses; always, already the victims –

So we are weeping. Always, already the weeping –

Here, we who were once the living –

Now weeping all the time, here –

Here tonight, weeping –

In the Occupied City, where the weeping seek the living. But the living are not here, not here tonight before these candles –

Here tonight, there are only the weeping –

Here tonight, only us:

And so again tonight we are Takeuchi Sutejiro, Watanabe Yoshiyasu, Nishimura Hidehiko, Shirai Shoichi, Akiyama Miyako, Uchida Hideko, Sawada Yoshio, Kato Teruko, Takizawa Tatsuo, Takizawa Ryu, Takizawa Takako and Takizawa Yoshihiro –

But we are still weeping. Always,

already the weeping,

always, already the weeping again in the Occupied City:

In the Occupied City it is 26 January 1948 again –

Here it is always, already 26 January 1948 –

This date always, already our wound –

Our wound which will never heal –

Here, here where it is always, already that date, that time; always, already, the last time:

For the last time. In the morning, we wake in our beds. In our beds that are no longer our beds. For the last time. In our homes, we dress. In our homes that are no longer our homes, our clothes that are no longer our clothes. For the last time. We eat white rice. Now we eat only the black rice, the black rice that empties our stomachs. For the last time. We drink clear water. Here we drink only the dark water, the dark water that empties our mouths. For the last time. In our genkans, we say goodbye to our mothers and our fathers, our sisters and our brothers, our wives and our sons, our husbands and our daughters. Our mothers and our fathers, our sisters and our brothers, our wives and our sons, our husbands and our daughters who are no longer our mothers and our fathers, no longer our sisters and our brothers, no longer our wives and our sons, no longer our husbands and our daughters. For the last time. In the snow, we leave for work. For our work that is no longer our work. For the last time. Among the crowds, we catch our trains and our buses. Our trains and our buses that are no longer our trains and our buses …

For the last time. Through the Occupied City, we shuffle –

From the Shiinamachi Station, we shuffle. In the sleet. For the last time. Up the road, we shuffle. Through the mud. For the last time. To the Teikoku Bank. The Teikoku Bank that is no longer a bank…

For the last time. We slide open the door. The door that is no longer a door. For the last time. We take off our shoes. Where are our shoes now? For the last time. We put on our slippers. Where are our slippers? For the last time. We sit at our desks. Our desks that are no longer, no longer our desks …

For the last time –

Among the papers and among the ledgers, we wait for the bank to open. For the last time, on this last day, 26 January 1948 –

We watch the hands of the clock reach half past nine. For the last time. The bank opens and the day begins. For the last time. We serve the customers. For the last time. We write in ledgers.

For the last time –

In the glow of the lights, in the warmth of the heaters, we hear the snow turn to sleet, the sleet turn to rain, as it falls on the roof of the bank. And we wonder if today the bank will close early. We wonder if today we will be able to leave early, to go back to our homes, back to our families. Because of the weather,

because of the snow –

But the snow has turned to sleet, the sleet has turned to rain, and so the bank will not close early today and so we will not be able to leave early today, we will not be able to go back to our homes,

back to our families –

So we sit at our desks in the bank, in the glow of the lights, in the warmth of the heaters, and we watch the hands of the clock and we glance at the face of our manager, our manager sat at his desk at the back; we know Mr Ushiyama, our manager, is not so well. We can see it in his face. We can hear it in his voice. We know he has severe stomach pains. We know he has had these pains for almost a week. We all know what this could be; we know it could be dysentery, we know it could be typhoid. In the Occupied City,

we all know what this could mean –

In the Occupied City, we know

this could mean death, death –

But he will survive this,

he will live through

this…

For the last time. We watch the hands of the clock reach two o’clock and we see Mr Ushiyama rise from his desk at the back, his face is white and he holds his stomach. For the last time. We watch Mr Ushiyama bow and we listen to Mr Ushiyama apologize to us all. For the last time. We watch as Mr Ushiyama leaves early –

And we all know what this could mean –

We know this could mean death –

But he will survive, he will live. Back in his home that is still his home, back with his family that is still his family …

But we do not leave early today. We do not go back to our homes, back to our families. We sit at our desks, in the glow of the lights, in the warmth of the heaters, and we go back to our customers and back to our ledgers. And we listen to the sound of the rain –

And we watch the hands of the clock –

We watch the hands of the clock reach three o’clock and we watch as the bank closes its doors for the day. Among the stacks of receipts, we collate the day’s transactions. For the last time. Among the piles of cash, we tally the day’s money. For the last time. And then we hear the tap-tap upon the side door. For the last time –

We look up at the hands of the clock –

For the last time:

It is now twenty past three on Monday, 26 January 1948 –

Twenty past three, in the Occupied City –

The knock now upon the side door –

Twenty past three and he is here –

Our killer is here.

We watch as Miss Akuzawa gets up to open the side door for our killer. You say he is forty-two years old. Our killer presents his name-card: Yamaguchi Jirō MD; Technical Officer; Ministry of Health and Welfare. You say he is fifty-four. Our killer asks to see the manager. You say he is forty-six years old. Miss Akuzawa asks our killer to come round to the front door. You say he is fifty-eight. Our killer goes back outside. You say he is five feet four inches tall. Our killer opens the front door. You say he is five feet three inches. Miss Akuzawa has a pair of slippers waiting for him. You say he is five feet five inches tall. Our killer takes off his boots in the genkan. You say he is five feet two. We listen as Miss Akuzawa tells our killer that the manager has already left, but that the assistant manager will see him. You say he has a thin build. We watch as our killer nods and thanks Miss Akuzawa, as she leads our killer through the bank. You say he has a medium build. We watch our killer pass us in our rows of desks as we work. You say he has an average build. We listen as Miss Akuzawa introduces our killer to the assistant manager, Mr Yoshida. You agree he is rather thin. Our killer bows. You say he has an oval face. Our assistant manager offers our killer a seat. You say he has a long face. Our killer sits down, his face to the right. You say he has a high nose. Our assistant manager stares at the name-card: Yamaguchi Jirō MD; Technical Officer; Ministry of Health and Welfare. You say he has a handsome face. Our killer tells our assistant manager there has been an outbreak of dysentery in the neighbourhood. You say he has a pale complexion. Our assistant manager now presents his own name-card: Yoshida Takejiro; Assistant Manager; Teikoku Bank; Shiinamachi branch, Nagasaki-chō, Toshima Ward, Tokyo. You say he has a jaundiced complexion. Our killer tells Mr Yoshida that the source of the outbreak is the public well in front of the Aida residence in Nagasaki 2-chōme. You say he has two brown spots on his left cheek. Mr Yoshida nods and mentions that the bank’s manager, Mr Ushiyama, has in fact left early due to severe stomach ache. On his right cheek. Our killer tells Mr Yoshida that one of Mr Aida’s tenants has been diagnosed with dysentery and that this man made a deposit in our branch today. You say he has a bruise on his left cheek. Mr Yoshida is amazed that the Ministry of Health and Welfare has heard of the case so quickly. A scar on his right. Our killer tells Mr Yoshida that the doctor who saw Mr Aida’s tenant reported the case promptly. You say he has close-cropped hair. Mr Yoshida nods. You say his hair is grey. Our killer says he has been sent by Lieutenant Parker, who is in charge of the disinfecting team for this area. You say his hair is rather long and grizzled. Mr Yoshida nods again. You say his hair is dark. Our killer has been told to inoculate everyone against dysentery and to disinfect all items that may have been contaminated. You say he wears a brown lounge suit. Mr Yoshida nods for a third time. You say he wears an old winter suit. All members, all rooms, all cash and all money in this branch, says our killer. You say he wears a uniform. Mr Yoshida stares at the name-card again: Yamaguchi Jirō MD; Technical Officer; Ministry of Health & Welfare. You are sure it was a uniform. Our killer says that no one will be allowed to leave until his work has been completed. You say he wears a brown overcoat. Mr Yoshida glances at his watch. You say he carries an overcoat. Lieutenant Parker and his team will arrive soon to check the job has been done properly, says our killer. You say he wears one coat but carries another. Mr Yoshida nods. You say he carries a spring coat. Our killer now places his small olive-green bag on Mr Yoshida’s desk. You say he wears brown rubber shoes. Mr Yoshida watches our killer open the bag. You say he wears burnt orange rubber boots. Our killer takes out a small metal box and two different-sized bottles marked in English. You say there was mud on his shoes. Mr Yoshida reads the words FIRST DRUG on the smaller 20 °CC bottle and SECOND DRUG on the 50 °CC bottle. You say his boots were clean. Our killer tells Mr Yoshida that this is an extremely potent oral antidote which the Americans have recently developed through experiments with palm tree oil. You say he wears a white cloth band on his left arm. Mr Yoshida nods. You say it reads in red ‘Leader of Disinfecting Team’. It is so powerful that you will be completely immunized from dysentery, says our killer. You say he wears a Tokyo Metropolitan Office armband. Mr Yoshida nods again. You say it reads in black ‘Disease Preventative Doctor’. Our killer warns Mr Yoshida that the administration procedure is complicated and unusual. You say he wears a Toshima Ward armband. Again, Mr Yoshida glances at the name-card on his desk: Yamaguchi Jirō MD; Technical Officer; Ministry of Health & Welfare. You say it reads ‘Epidemic Prevention Team’. Our killer asks Mr Yoshida to gather his staff. You say he carries a small olive- green shoulder bag over his right shoulder. Even the caretaker, his wife and two children? asks Mr Yoshida. Or was it his left? Our killer nods. You say he carries a doctor’s bag. Mr Yoshida rises from his desk. A black doctor’s bag. Mr Yoshida calls us over. I am Takeuchi Sutejiro and I am forty-nine years old but here I am no longer Takeuchi Sutejiro and now I am no longer forty-nine years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. We rise from our desks. I am Watanabe Yoshiyasu and I am forty-three years old but here I am no longer Watanabe Yoshiyasu and now I am no longer forty-three years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. We shuffle through the bank. I am Nishimura Hidehiko and I am thirty-eight years old but here I am no longer Nishimura Hidehiko and now I am no longer thirty-eight years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. We gather around Mr Yoshida’s desk. I am Shirai Shoichi and I am twenty-nine years old but here I am no longer Shirai Shoichi and now I am no longer twenty-nine years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. We all watch as our killer turns to Miss Akuzawa, as our killer asks her to bring enough teacups for all the members of the branch. I am Akiyama Miyako and I am twenty-three years old but here I am no longer Akiyama Miyako and now I am no longer twenty-three years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. Miss Akuzawa fetches sixteen teacups on a tray. I am Uchida Hideko and I am twenty-three years old but here I am no longer Uchida Hideko and now I am no longer twenty-three years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. Our killer opens the smaller bottle marked FIRST DRUG. I am Sawada Yoshio and I am twenty-two years old but here I am no longer Sawada Yoshio and now I am no longer twenty-two years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. Our killer asks if everybody is here. I am Kato Teruko and I am sixteen years old but here I am no longer Kato Teruko and now I am no longer sixteen years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. Our assistant manager counts our heads and nods, everybody is here. I am Takizawa Tatsuo and I am forty-six years old but here I am no longer Takizawa Tatsuo and now I am no longer forty-six years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. Our killer holds a pipette as though it were a dagger in his hand. I am Takizawa Ryu and I am forty-nine years old but here I am no longer Takizawa Ryu and now I am no longer forty-nine years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. We all watch as our killer drips some clear liquid into each of our cups. I am Takizawa Takako and I am nineteen years old but here I am no longer Takizawa Takako and now I am no longer nineteen years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. We all listen as our killer tells each of us to pick up our own teacup. I am Takizawa Yoshihiro and I am eight years old but here I am no longer Takizawa Yoshihiro and now I am no longer eight years old; now I am always struggling, here I am only weeping. Each of us reaches for our own cup. We who are here now in the grey. Now our killer raises his hand in warning. We who are always, already struggling. We all listen as our killer warns us of the strength of the serum, the damage it can cause to our gums and tooth enamel if we do not watch our killer’s demonstration carefully, if we do not follow our killer’s instructions precisely. We who are always, already only weeping. We all watch as our killer now takes out a syringe. You define us as the victims. We all watch as our killer dips his syringe into the liquid. You damn us as the victims. We all watch as our killer draws up a measure of the liquid into the syringe. You are happy to remember us in the black and white of our deaths. We all watch as our killer opens his mouth. You are ignorant of us in the colour of our lives. We all watch as our killer places his tongue over his bottom front teeth and then tucks it under his lower lip. We are evidence at a crime scene. We all watch as our killer drips the liquid onto his tongue. We are bodies in a crime book; bodies, never characters. We all watch as our killer tilts his head back. In our lives you did not know us. We all watch as our killer stares at his wristwatch, his right hand in the air. Only by our deaths did you find us. We all watch as our killer’s hand falls. At a crime scene. We all listen as our killer tells us that this medicine may damage our gums and our teeth, as our killer tells us we must all swallow quickly. In a crime book. We all nod. Our names, our faces. We all listen as our killer tells us that exactly one minute after we have taken the first medicine, he will administer the second medicine. In print and in photographs. We all stare at the 50 °CC bottle marked SECOND DRUG. Reduced to a number. We all listen as our killer promises us that after we have taken the second medicine, we will be able to drink water or rinse out our mouths. Twelve, you will always write 12. Now our killer tells each of us to lift up our cups. In this number, this number 12. We all pick up our teacups. In this number, we die again. And now each of us drinks. Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Our killer tells us to drip the liquid onto our tongues. For we are not twelve. And now we all taste the bitter liquid. We are Takeuchi Sutejiro, Watanabe Yoshiyasu, Nishimura Hidehiko, Shirai Shoichi, Akiyama Miyako, Uchida Hideko, Sawada Yoshio, Kato Teruko, Takizawa Tatsuo, Takizawa Ryu, Takizawa Takako and Takizawa Yoshihiro. We all swallow it down. We who are here now in the grey. And we hear our killer tell us he will administer the second drug in exactly sixty seconds. We who are always, already struggling. We see our killer looking at his wristwatch. We who are always, already only weeping. We see him staring at his wristwatch. Weeping and waiting. We all wait for the second drug. Waiting and watching. We all watch as our killer pours the second drug into each of our teacups. Watching and reaching. We all reach for our cups again. Reaching and waiting, again. Again we all wait as our killer checks his wristwatch, and again we all wait for the signal. For the smile. Now we all see our killer gesture for each of us to drink again. With a smile. And we all drink. And you smile as we drink. And we all see our killer waiting. Still smiling. And we all see our killer still watching us. That smile on your face. And now we all feel the second liquid in our mouths, now in our throats, now in our stomachs. But you are smiling. And now we all hear our killer telling us to rinse out our mouths. Still smiling, still smiling, still…

At twenty minutes past three on Monday, 26 January 1948, in Tokyo, and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and I am drinking and now, now we run and we retch, we stagger and we stumble, and we begin to fall, to fall and to fall –

Infected, we are falling and falling –

We are falling. We are falling –

We are falling in tears –

In tears, the tears –

We are weeping. We are weeping –

We are weeping all the time –

Always, already weeping,

here. But in the Occupied City, it is twenty minutes past three,

now it is twenty-one minutes past three,

now twenty-two minutes past,

twenty-three minutes –

In the Occupied City, the minutes and the hours, the days and the weeks, the months and the years will pass. But in the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, between two places, the minutes and the hours, the days and the weeks, the months and the years will not pass.

Here where it is always, already January, but where January is not January; here where it is always, already 1948,

but where 1948 is not 1948;

here where we do not age –

In the Perplexed City, in the Posthumous City,

it will always, already be twenty past three –

But still we watch you age, watch

you age, and watch you forget…

Here, where it is always, already twenty past three –

Here, where it will always, already be grey –

Into the greyness, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling, I am falling –

I am falling, I am falling –

I am falling –

Falling –

Here, into the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, this city that is no city, into the grey place, this place that is no place,

we all fall, away from the light,

from the Occupied City,

we all fall, into the earth and into the sky,

we all fall, fall, fall –

From your city, into our coffins …

Twelve cheap wooden coffins –

Your city, our coffin …

Here, here –

In the snow. In the back of a truck. Parked outside the bank. In the sleet. Under the heavy damp tarpaulin. Driven through the streets. In the rain. To the hospital. To the morgue. In the sleet. To the mortuary. To the temple. In the snow. To the crematorium. To the earth and to the sky. In our twelve cheap wooden coffins –

Ash for hair, soil for skin, among the flakes and the sod / We defy the fire and the rake, the spade and the grave / The grave in the earth, the grave in the sky / In the abyss of the sky, in the abyss of the earth / Your earth, your sky. Not our sky, not

our earth / not here, not now /

Now into the heights, we

fall, into the depths …

These twelve cheap wooden coffins, in which we lie. But we do not lie still. In these twelve cheap wooden coffins, we are struggling. In the greyness, we are struggling. In this city, we are struggling. We are struggling and we are weeping, weeping the words:

Where is the law, we ask as we fall, from being into non-being, as we struggle, between one place and no place,

as we weep, where is the law?

In the Ab-grund, in the Un-grund, the without ground, the non-ground / Here, other voices in this other-dom will speak this other-place with other-name –

In this un-place, in this un-city, between two places, in this other-dom / There are no swallows, no swallows fly here / Here, we shuffle across the carpet of their corpses, up and down, their bloated chests, their barren wings / Here, where their still eyes accuse us, yellow / Here, where their empty beaks stand open, yellow –

In this place of no place, we lie. It has a name

and it has none. So speak it,

now speak it: Caesura –

Between us –

In this place — no-place / un-place — this place called Caesura, named Caesura, this place that takes away our breath, this place that leaves us weeping. Always, weeping. Already, weeping –

You are deaf, you are dumb and you are blind,

so you cannot and you will not hear us,

cannot and will not help us,

will you …

In the Perplexed City, the Posthumous City, in Caesura, always, already –

You will not help us, will you, dear writer?

The first candle blown out –

Always, already, out –

In-caesura, in-difference …

Beneath the Black Gate, in its upper chamber, in the occult circle, her white face falling and her red robes flailing, the medium is flat upon the floor before you now. The wind, the bell and the drum all silent now, the medium mute and prostrate upon the floor,

the blood and tear-splin-taint-ed floor –

In-difference and in-caesura …

The first candle extinguished,

the medium exhausted –

Un-in-corpor-ated…

Possessed no more, you are alone here. Here in the Occupied City, alone and deaf, dumb and blind –

Yet still you try to write,

to pick up your pen,

to write again

here. Here in this place between the things you did and the things you did not do, between the things you felt and the things you did not feel, the things you said and the things you did not say,

here in this place between the done and the un-done, the felt and the un-felt, the said and the un-said –

Yet still you try to write,

to write again

here–

But here the done can never be un-done,

the un-done never done –

Here the felt can never be un-felt,

the un-felt never felt –

The said never be un-said,

the un-said never

said–

Here where you know the written can never be un-written,

and where you fear — fear, fear, fear — the un-written,

the un-written can never be written,

the un-written never written

here. Here where your see-ing is fading, now as your hear-ing is failing. Here and now where nightmares and headaches curse your days and nights. Here and now as you mistake the sun for the moon, moonlight for sunshine, sun-fall for rain-shine,

life for death, cough-cough,

death for birth. Here –

In this occult circle of the eleven candles, in this upper chamber of the Black Gate, you cough and you cough-cough, see-fading and hear-failing, you cough and you cough-cough, blood-blots and tear-traces here. Here among the blank tears and the falling papers, you are coughing, cough-cough, and now you are spinning, spinning and spinning, unable to write, unable to see,

still half-deaf to the foot-stair-steps,

to the sirens and the telephones –

‘No more tears,’ whispers a voice, the voice of an old man. ‘No more tears, no more tears for him …’

You drop your pen, your ink-dry-pen. You open your eyes, your red-dry-eyes. The eleven candles have gone, the Black Gate has gone, the Occupied City has gone. You are standing in a shed, or a barn, with the earth-smell, the damp-smell. You are watching an elderly man opening up cardboard boxes, taking out files, dust-webbed and cob-covered, the elderly man leafing through papers and documents, documents and notebooks, notebooks upon notebooks –

‘It was many years ago,’ the old man is saying. ‘Not so many people left now who remember what the Teigin case was really like.

‘But I remember. Because I was in the Murder Room; Room #2 of the First Investigative Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Board. And Room #2 was in charge of all murders.

‘The head of our division was Suzuki and the head of our room was Minegishi…

‘But you want to know what happened, yes?’ repeats the old man. ‘No? You want to know the truth? Make up your mind! Which do you want to know; what happened, or the truth? What do you mean they’re the same? Of course they’re not! I can believe something happened, but it doesn’t make it true –

‘Does it?

‘For example, I once knew this detective. Married. Kid. The whole deal. Anyway, this detective, he starts to believe his wife is having an affair. A fling. With an American. A soldier. She wasn’t. But that didn’t stop him believing she was. He would tell me, last night my wife was off fucking this American soldier. She wasn’t. But that didn’t stop him believing it. Believing it happened. Believing it was real. Believing it was true. It was the truth for him. It was real for him, very real for her too, in the end. But that’s another story. But you see my point, don’t you? But, anyway, if you want to know what happened, then I’ll tell you what happened. It’s all in here …

‘Here in these boxes, here in these notebooks …

‘But remember, no more tears –

’No more tears for him …

The Second Candle — The Testimony Notebook of a Detective, H

The city is a notebook. In pencil and on paper,

in blunt pencil, on coarse paper –

IN THE OCCUPIED CITY,

I wrote these words:

1948/1/26; 16.00: Snow / Day-off / In the public bath / The call from Metro HQ / ‘Ten dead in the jurisdiction of the Mejiro Police Station.’ / ‘Another Yakuza war?’ / ‘Much bigger. Mass poisoning. Report immediately!’ / Trolley bus from Naka-Meguro to Ebisu / Taxi to the crime scene / The Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku (Imperial) Bank, 39 Nagasaki 1-chōme, Toshima-ku, Tokyo / A one-storey building / Across from the Nagasaki Shrine / Hell / Ten bodies laid out in a line in one of the maintenance man’s two rooms / Eyes open / Mouths open / Blood and vomit / Chalk marks where they were found / Behind the counter / In the washroom / In the hallway / In the maintenance man’s living room / Six survivors taken to the Seibo Catholic Hospital / Doctors, neighbours, and journalists inside the bank / Crime scene contaminated / Evidence destroyed or misplaced / My room — Room #2 (Murder Room) of the First Investigative Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Board — provisionally assigned the case.

The First Period (the first twenty days of the investigation; 26 January to 14 February, 1948) begins —

1948/1/26; 23.00: The second floor of Mejiro Police Station / Special Investigation HQ established / First meeting of the Special Investigation Team / Report based on evidence gathered at crime scene and statement taken from one of the survivors / Establishment of known facts / Two of the six survivors now dead / Victims now total twelve / Survivors four / Date and time of the crime: Fifteen minutes around 3.30 p.m., 26 January (Monday) 1948 / Place of the crime: Within Shiinamachi branch of Teikoku Bank, 39 Nagasaki 1-chōme, Toshima-ku, Tokyo. This establishment, formerly Fujita Pawnshop and consisting of one building with three entrances, is situated between the business and residential quarters in front of Nagasaki Shrine about sixty metres northeast of Shiinamachi Station on Seibu Agricultural Line (formerly called Musashino Line) / Victims: Yoshida Takejiro (43), now being under treatment, of 812 Oguchimachi, Ota-ku; Watanabe Yoshiyasu (43), died, of 758 Oizumimachi, Itabashi-ku; Nishimura Hidehiko (38), died, of 10 Shin Ogawamachi 2-chōme, Ushigome, Shinjuku-ku; Shirai Shoichi (29), died, of 519 Asagaya 3-chōme, Suginami-ku; Sawada Yoshio (22), died, of 449 Fujisawa, Fujisawa-mura, Irima-gun, Saitama Prefecture; Tanaka Tokukazu, being under treatment, of 793 Kami-ochiai 2-chōme, Shinjuku-ku; Akiyama Miyako (23), died, c/o Akiyama Kunosuke, 18 Nagasaki i-chōme, Toshima-ku; Uchida Hideko (23), died, of 5 Kita Toyotama, Nerima-ku; Akuzawa Yoshiko (19), being under treatment, c/o Akuzawa Shobei, of 14 Nagasaki i-chōme, Toshima-ku; Kato Teruko (16), died, of 1-713 Ikebukuro 2-chōme, Toshima-ku; Takeuchi Sutejiro (49), died, of 170 Horikiri-chō, Katsushika-ku; Takizawa Tatsuo (46), servant, his wife Ryu (49), his daughter Takako (19) and son Yoshihiro (8), all of them died, all of them resident of Shiinamachi branch of Teikoku Bank / Offender: Name and address: unknown / He said he was a medical member of Sanitary Section, Tokyo Metropolitan Office and of Welfare Dept, Welfare Ministry, and had a title of Doctor of Medicine / Presented name-card: ‘Yamaguchi Jiro MD; Technical Officer; Ministry of Health & Welfare.’ / Description: Aged between forty-four and fifty, about five feet three inches in height, rather thin, with oval face, high nose, pale complexion, hair cut short or rather long and grizzled / Appearance: Dressed in a lounge suit (brown, figured weave, not new); with an overcoat or spring coat on arm; wearing brown rubber shoes (not certain); a white cloth band on left arm (which had on it the mark of Tokyo Metropolitan Office in red, and under the mark was written in black and good hand ‘Leader of Disinfecting Team’ or ‘Disease Preventative Doctor’ / Articles possessed by the offender: A metal box, about 3 cm x 15 cm in size, such as often carried by doctors (he took the poison out of this box); one small and one medium-sized glass medicine bottles (holding poison) / Characteristics: Two brown spots 1.5 cm long on left cheek (not scars of burns or boils, but such as often seen on the skin of an old man). A handsome man; well composed and looking like an intelligent man / Brief account of the case: The victims opened their business as usual at 0930 hrs, and after Ushiyama Senji, their manager, went home with stomachache about 1400 hrs, continued at their work till 1500 hrs, when they closed the front door and began winding up the remaining affairs for the day / At approximately 1530 hrs the offender made his sudden appearance at the side entrance and, showing his name-card (printed with false title, as described above) to Akuzawa Yoshiko, one of the victims, expressed his wish to see the chief. So the latter showed him into the office-room, and Yoshida Takejiro, the assistant chief, had a talk with him / According to the statement of the offender, there have cropped up a number of dysentery cases among those who drink the water of a public well in front of Aida’s, and have been reported to Lieutenant Porton (or something sounding like that) as well as to the Japanese police. So a disinfecting team of the Allied Forces was coming, he said. He himself was dispatched by the lieutenant in advance of the said team to make an investigation, as a result of which he found that an inmate of the house of a dysentery sufferer had visited their office on the day. In accordance, everything in the office, including the books, papers, banknotes, etc., must receive a disinfecting process, for which nothing should be carried out till the arrival of the disinfecting team, he declared / When Yoshida said to him: ‘How can you have got the knowledge so soon, I wonder?’ the offender said in reply: ‘In truth, the doctor who made an inspection of the sufferer has made a direct report to the Occupation authorities.’ / ‘The disinfecting team will soon be here,’ continued the villain, ‘and in the meanwhile you all must take this medicine given us by the Occupation authorities. This is a medicine so powerful and effective as to make you absolutely immune from the dysentery if you take it.’ So saying, he took some phials, large and small, out of his medicine chest (a metal chest for a medical practitioner, as described above) / All the victims, wholly unsuspicious of the fiendish intention of the offender, whose perfect composure and plausible explanations as well as his armband of Tokyo Metropolitan Office having satisfied them to lay full credit in his words, formed a circle around him — a circle of poor victims sixteen in all / Then the devil opened his mouth and said: ‘This medicine will injure the enamel of your teeth, and so I will show you how you must swallow it. Do as I am going to show you. There are two kinds of medicine. Take the second about a minute after you take the first. Be sure to drink it within a minute, or you will get a bad effect.’ / After such explanations he poured into the victims’ cups some liquid medicine, transparent and otherwise, out of the small phials with a fountain-pen filler, a filler for each / Then he took a cup of his own in his hand, and, saying, ‘This is how to drink,’ gulped its contents by dripping them drop by drop on to his tongue, which he had put out in the form of a shovel / So the poor victims, without exception, gulped the fatal water following the devil’s example / The liquid in question had a burning taste, and the victims got a feeling as if they had taken some strong whisky / After about a minute, the tricky villain again showed them how to drink the second medicine, and again the poor innocents followed his example, not suspecting in the least that they were actually killing themselves / The devil had the audacity to advise them to rinse out their mouths so as not to injure their teeth, and they went to have some water at the tap several metres off in the passage / Just about this time they felt themselves suddenly overwhelmed with torpor, and fell one by one in the office-room, passage, matted-room etc., sinking into a complete comatose state / As a natural conclusion, nobody knows — but the devil and God — what the offender did after his victims fell senseless / SOME RULES FOR CI AGENTS TO ACT UPON: (1) Send warnings without delay to banks, post offices, and other places where large sums of money are handled, not to fall easy victims to some similar attempts. Institute at the same time a close investigation as to whether such attempts have been made in the past. (2) Make an immediate inquiry as to where the offender’s name-card was printed, carrying your search into every corner of the Metropolis where some printer of name-cards may have printed some such items. (3) Make an immediate inquiry as to whether there lives some suspicious person at all similar to the description given of the fiendish offender, within the area you are assigned to cover. Pay a special attention to bank employees, disinfecting officials and their assistants, health officials and their men, physicians, druggists, and those who have some record of having been employed in the sanitary work of the Occupation authorities. (4) Examine any person, at all suspicious, more strictly than ever, paying a special attention to his name-card, phials, and medicine chest, made of metal. (5) Try and catch some clue concerning those who may have some business or other connections with the bank in question. (6) Ransack your memory and memoranda for some person with criminal records (especially fraud), at all resembling the devilish offender described, either in his features or in his peculiar way of committing crimes. (7) Carry out a secret surveillance over the daily habits and characteristic features of the Metropolitan health officials and such others as are engaged in sanitary works in the Metropolis / Insert: Memorandum from Director of Criminal Department, Metropolitan Police Board, to Chiefs of All Police Stations, Re: Instructions regarding Case of Killing Members of the Teikoku Bank: At approximately 15.30 today, the sixteen members of the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank, located within the jurisdiction of the Mejiro Police Station, were asked by a man who called himself a member of the Sanitary Section of the Tokyo Metropolitan Office to swallow a liquid poison he brought which he said was a preventative against dysentery to be taken by them according to an order issued by the Occupation Forces, that ten of the victims were killed on the spot and two at the hospital, and the other four are being given medical aid but their fate is still to be seen. This crime, which was committed at the closing hour of the bank and in the assumed name of the Occupation Forces, killing many lives at one time and attempting to rob much money of the establishment, is one of the rarest and boldest crimes ever seen in the history of crimes. In view of the tremendous repercussion being shown by the public with regard to this case, we must, through cooperation of all police, take greatest possible efforts for apprehending the offender. For this reason you are asked to recognize the extraordinary importance of the case and, giving complete instructions to your subordinate officers in accordance with the following rules of investigation, make immediate report to the investigation headquarters whenever you get any data for furthering investigation and that with special care not to let the secret escape. Details of Place of the crime, Victims, Offender and Brief account of the case attached / N.B. Your speedy written report is impatiently expected at the Investigation Headquarters as soon as your task is completed / Memorandum ends / One hundred detectives assigned to the case / My room — Room #2 (Murder Room) of the First Investigative Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Board — confirmed in overall charge of the investigation under my boss, Detective Inspector Minegishi / Minegishi to report to Chief Inspector Suzuki, Head of the First Investigative Division, who in turn will report directly to Tokyo Chief of Police Kita / Robbery Room detectives to aid in investigation / Divided into three ji-dōri questioning teams / Partnered with Detective Fukushi / Allotted Nagasaki 2-chōme / Begin questioning the neighbourhood at first light.

1948/1/27; 06.00: Fair, with northwesterly winds / Street by street, house by house, door-to-door questioning of Nagasaki 2-chōme neighbourhood with Fukushi-kun / Establish names and occupations of all residents / Establish and verify whereabouts of each resident at time of crime / Repeat description of suspect based on statements of survivors / Note down any possible sightings of men fitting description of suspect / Note down any suggestions as to identity of suspect based on description given to residents / 18.00: Requested to return to Special Investigation HQ for emergency meeting / Reports received of two similar cases / First case reported to the Marunouchi Police Station at 15.30 this afternoon by Ogawa Taizo (or Yasuzo), the manager of the Nakai branch of the Mitsubishi Bank / Case occurred at approximately 15.20 on 19 January this year at the Nakai branch of the Mitsubishi Bank at 4-chōme Shimo-ochiai, Shinjuku-ku / According to the statement by Ogawa, a man arrived at the bank as business was closing and presented the name-card: ‘Dr Yamaguchi Jiro, medical technician attached to the Anti-Epidemic section of the Welfare Ministry’ / The visitor told Ogawa that he had been sent by a Lieutenant Porter or Parker to disinfect the entire branch because money had been deposited that day by a man named Ōtani from the Kinuhara Industrial Company of 4-chōme Shimo-ochiai / The visitor said that a mass dysentery outbreak had occurred in the employee apartments of the Kinuhara Industrial Company that day (19 January) with ten patients reported so far / Ogawa asked the man if he knew the full name of this Ōtani but the man did not answer clearly / Ogawa investigated the records of the branch and found a deposit by a man named Ōtani of the Kinuhara Industrial Company / However the deposit had been a postal order for ¥65 and not cash / Ogawa presented the postal order to the visitor / The visitor then took out a bottle of transparent, colourless liquid from his briefcase / The man sprinkled a small amount of the liquid over the postal order and the ledger / Ogawa asked the man if he wished to take the postal order away with him but again the man did not answer clearly / Ogawa then asked him if it was possible to be infected with typhoid from simply touching the postal order and again the man was unsure / Ogawa said, ‘Surely we would have had to lick the postal order, or the customer’s hand to become infected?’ / The man agreed and stood up ready to leave / However, the man, looking around the room at the closed vaults, then asked whether or not the bank had already sent the day’s cash deposits to the Central Bank / The man used the same technical terms used by the bank employees to talk about cash deposits and banking practices and procedures / However, before Ogawa could answer, the man bowed deeply, thanked the manager and left the branch / Ogawa described the man as being in his fifties, of medium build, round faced with a scar on his left cheek and close-cropped hair / He was wearing a uniform with an armband on which were painted the words: ‘Tokyo Epidemic Prevention Centre’ / Second case reported to Special Investigation HQ today by a Mr Kawasumi, acting manager of the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank / Kawasumi reported that on 14 October 1947, a man entered the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank at 722 Hiratsuka-machi 3-chōme, Shinagawa-ku and announced himself as a Dr Matsui Shigeru, an official from the Epidemic Prevention Unit of the Welfare Ministry / The man said, / came here with Lieutenant Parker in a jeep because a new typhus case has happened in the houses near the market located behind your bank and that because some of the residents of these houses are customers of the bank it is necessary for me to immunize the employees of the bank against infection.’ / However, Kawasumi was suspicious of this Dr Matsui and so he sent an employee to the local Hiratsuka kōban to ask the officer on duty whether there had been an outbreak of typhoid in the neighbourhood / The officer was called Iida Ryuzo / Officer Iida said he hadn’t heard of any outbreak but that he would check and then come to the bank / Meanwhile the manager agreed to cooperate with the disinfection / This Dr Matsui said he had to collect his equipment from his jeep and went outside / On his return, the man distributed some kind of medicine to all twenty-three employees of the bank / He told the employees it was a preventative medicine for typhus control and directed them to drink it / The medicine was given in two doses / The first dose was described as being the colour of diluted soy sauce with an acrid aftertaste / The second medicine was tasteless and is believed to have been water / Each of the employees drank the doses down but suffered no ill effects / At this point Officer Iida arrived and spoke directly with this Dr Matsui / Officer Iida told this man Matsui that he had been out to the neighbourhood to check and found there had been no outbreak of typhoid / This Dr Matsui told Officer Iida that he must have checked the wrong neighbourhood and suggested that he should go back out to check the correct area / Officer Iida then left the bank to check the area again / But the man did not wait for the officer to return and left a few minutes later / However, Kawasumi has given Special Investigation HQ the name-card the man left behind / ‘Matsui Shigeru; medical doctor; Gikan; Yobō Division; Health & Welfare Ministry’ / A doctor named Matsui Shigeru has already been located in Sendai / Detective Tomitsuka (Bucho Keiji) of the First Investigative Division, has been sent to Sendai to interview Dr Matsui / Officer Iida has also been interviewed this afternoon by Special Investigation HQ and has provided a detailed description of the man / Iida described the man as being in his late forties to early fifties, about 160 centimetres tall, with a mark on his left cheek / Mr Kawasumi also stated that the man did not speak with the Tokyo dialect but with the accent of another region (which he is unable to name) / Because Officer Iida was unable to verify any reports of an outbreak of dysentery in the vicinity, he reported the case to his superior, Detective Meiga / Detective Meiga contacted the Ministry of Health & Welfare and was told that a Dr Matsui Shigeru was attached to their ministry but was posted in Sendai and did not fit the description of the man who visited the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank / Meiga and Iida wrote up a brief memo of the case and filed it along with the name-card / No further action was taken at this point / Iida seconded to Special Investigation HQ / Robbery Room detectives removed from ji-dōri teams to form Name-card Investigation Team under Chief Komatsu / 19.30: Emergency meeting ends / Officers told to report for second meeting of their ji-dōri questioning teams / Each pair of detectives gives their report of their day’s work / No substantial leads reported / Officers told to write up all statements given / Officers told to continue questioning of their assigned neighbourhood tomorrow with emphasis on description of the suspect / Objections raised by Fukushi and me / Waste of time / Told to shut up and do our jobs.

1948/1/28; 06.00: Sleet / Back on the street, house by house, door to door through Nagasaki 2-chōme / Waste of time / 12.00: Uniform from Mejiro tells us to report back to Special Investigation HQ immediately / Short handed / 12.30: Meeting / Recap: Detective Tomitsuka of the First Investigative Division, sent to Sendai yesterday to interview Dr Matsui Shigeru / Dr Matsui Shigeru; the name on the card presented at the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank / Name verified as that of a person presently employed by the Health & Welfare Ministry in Sendai / But this Dr Matsui is now sitting in the interview room down the corridor here on the second floor of the Special Investigation HQ, Mejiro Police Station, Tokyo / Because this Dr Matsui reads the newspapers / This Dr Matsui listens to the radio / This Dr Matsui knows one of his name-cards was used in the incident at the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank / So this morning, Dr Matsui gets on a train to Tokyo for the funeral of a relative / Upon arrival in Tokyo, Dr Matsui comes straight here / Dr Matsui Shigeru now sitting in the interview room down the corridor on the second floor of the Special Investigation HQ, Mejiro Police Station, Tokyo / Investigation HQ short handed / Detailed to the interrogation team / 13.00: Down the corridor to this Dr Matsui / This Dr Matsui sweating in his winter coat / This man has secrets / This Dr Matsui, face gaunt and pale, hands shaking and voice trembling / All men have secrets / Record of interview: ‘Last year, the Emperor made a tour of the whole country. Last spring, the Emperor travelled to the six prefectures of the Tōhoku region. Prior to the Emperor’s visit, I toured the six prefectures of the Tōhoku region, on behalf of the Health & Welfare Ministry, to determine whether these six prefectures were safe enough for the Emperor to visit. I checked for the risk of disease and epidemics in these six prefectures …’ / ‘Prior to my own tour, I had one hundred new name-cards printed …’ / ‘Where? Who by?’ / ‘In the basement of the Miyagi Prefectural Office.’ / ‘When?’ / Dr Matsui Shigeru takes out a black-bound notebook / Dr Matsui opens the black-bound notebook / ‘On 25 March 1947.’ / This Dr Matsui is a very methodical and meticulous man / This Dr Matsui has kept a record in his diary of every person with whom he exchanged name-cards / This Dr Matsui has kept all the name-cards he received in exchange for his own name-card / This Dr Matsui stares again at the name-card which lies before him on the table in the interview room / ‘Dr Matsui Shigeru, MD, an official of the Health & Welfare Ministry.’ / This Dr Matsui acknowledges that the card used by the suspect at the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank last autumn appears to be his / This Dr Matsui admits that the suspect may very well be one of his acquaintances / Now this Dr Matsui opens his black-bound notebook again / Now this Dr Matsui gives us the names of all his acquaintances; the names of any acquaintances to whom he may have given a name-card; the names of fellow epidemic prevention officers / All men have secrets, all men tell lies / Dr Matsui keeps coming back to one name / A fellow epidemic prevention officer currently working in the Public Hygiene Section of Miyagi Prefecture / A Mr Hoshi Shōji / 15.00: Interview suspended / Telephone calls to Tomitsuka in Sendai / Long wait / 18.00: Meeting with Chief Kita / Kita relays Tomitsuka’s report: This morning Detective Tomitsuka visited the printer in the basement of the Miyagi Prefectural Office / The printer told the detective that the card used at the Yasuda Bank is definitely one from the same batch he made for Dr Matsui, judging by the uniqueness of the font / Typed in Minchō font on Kentō paper / Also, the kanji characters used to make the name Shigeru are so rare that the printer had to put two separate characters together to print the name correctly / To make the letter the printer put and together / Hence the character for Shigeru is a bit taller than the other characters / Hence there can be no doubt this card is from the batch given to Dr Matsui Shigeru on 25 March 1947 / Late this afternoon, following the call from Tokyo, Detective Tomitsuka tracked Mr Hoshi Shōji / Mr Hoshi Shōji is now in the interview room of the Sendai Police Headquarters / But Mr Hoshi does not match the description of the Teikoku Bank suspect / And Mr Hoshi cannot think of any acquaintance of his who might match the description of the killer / However, Mr Hoshi keeps coming back to one name / The name of a former medical sergeant major who was on Dr Matsui’s staff during the war / Yet Mr Hoshi admits the man’s description does not match that of the killer / But this man is now living in Tokyo / 18.30: Back to Dr Matsui in the interview room down the corridor / This man has secrets / This Dr Matsui, sweating in his winter coat / All men have secrets / Interview resumes / ‘Do you know a former medical Sergeant Major Karajima?’ / All men tell lies / This Dr Matsui, face gaunt and pale, hands shaking and voice trembling / ‘Yes, I do …’ / 19.00: Special Investigative HQ puts out an APB for former medical Sergeant Major Karajima / Detectives told to report back to their ji-dōri questioning teams.

1948/1/29; 06.00: Cloudy, with northeasterly winds / Resume street-by-street, house-by-house, door-to-door questioning of Nagasaki 2-chōme neighbourhood with Fukushi-kun / Resident tells us of a man who always wore an armband and who repeatedly visited the house of a local widow / Rush to the house of the widow / As we knock on the front door, another pair of detectives are banging on the back door / Hot lead, obviously / Send Fukushi-kun back to HQ to report the lead immediately / Make sure we get the credit / The glory / Interview the widow / Boyfriend with the armband is a doctor with an insurance company / Good reputation / Alibi for Teigin incident / Her word / Back to HQ to use the phone / Ten calls later and the doctor turns out to be bogus / Ex-army medic, back from China, no licence / Lives in Shibusawa, down past Atsugi, on the Odakyū Line / Always carries a gun / Police Chief Kita gives the green light / Four-man arrest team / No sake, so we take a mizu-sakazuki each, a ceremonial shot of water before the battle / Pack a blanket for protection against gunshots / 12.00: Train down to Shibusawa / Bogus doctor rents a room in a big house with a grass roof close to the station / Rest of the afternoon, most of the evening, crouched in a field of tea leaves / Bored, freezing and scared / 24.00: Last train of the night and here comes the doctor / Suddenly he stops thirty metres from the house / Pisses on the bush where Detective Sudo and his partner are hiding / Rush him from the back, grab his neck / Sudo takes his legs / Few punches, handcuffs on / Haul him to the kōban in front of the station / Local uniform says, ‘Doctor! What’s going on?’ / Uniform looks at four of us and says, ‘This is an outrage! Do you know who this man is?’ / ‘Yeah! The Teigin killer!’ / That shuts him up / Examine the good doctor’s belongings / Find one Browning pistol loaded with four bullets / One for each of us / Hail the power of mizu-sakazuki! / Back up to Special Investigation HQ with suspect –

1948/1/30; 04.00: Interview with suspect / Alibi checks out / Charged with impersonation of a doctor and possession of illegal firearm / Waste of time / 06.00: Street-by-street, house-to-house, door-to-door / Nothing / Had enough of this / 18.00: Meeting of the entire Special Investigation Team / Chief of Police Kita present / All Tokyo Metropolitan Police leave cancelled / 20,000 officers mobilized nationwide / Kita predicts protracted inquiry / Prepare for long haul / Review of all significant leads to date / Repeated theories from some detectives of links to the wartime Tokumu Kikan (Special Operations Division) / Hunch based on military precision of Teikoku crime / Rumours of similar crimes in Occupied China / Further team to be formed from the Second Investigative Division to investigate links to Tokumu Kikan / Volunteer for ‘Annex’ / ‘Why you?’ / ‘Old contacts.’ / ‘Use them.’

1948/1/31; 09.00: Rain / Ginza / Meeting with [NAME DELETED] / Old friend, ex-Tokumu Kikan, ex-big-shot in Occupied China / Post-war, new-life, new-office, still a big-shot; once a big-shot, always a big-shot / Deep bows and small talk / Tea and cigarettes / ‘You’re not here for old time’s sake, are you?’ / ‘No.’ / ‘You’re here because of that Teigin case, aren’t you?’ / ‘Yes.’ / ‘You think it’s someone who did the kind of work I did, don’t you?’ / ‘Yes.’ / ‘Well, shall I tell you why you’re wrong? Why you’re wasting your time?’ / ‘Please …’ / ‘From what I hear, the man in the bank told the manager he was a doctor, yeah?’ / ‘Yes.’ / ‘And the manager obviously believed him?’ / ‘Yes.’ / ‘Because of the man’s attitude, his behaviour and his character?’ / ‘Yes.’ / ‘Well, in my experience, all the men I know, all the men I worked with over there, they don’t look good.’ / ‘No?’ / ‘No, they look rough, worn out by the lives they led over there.’ / ‘Yeah?’ / ‘Yeah, they are not the kind of men who could pass for doctors.’ / ‘Is that right?’ / ‘I know you don’t believe me. I know you think I’m only telling you this so you won’t go digging around in my past, in the pasts of my colleagues. But that’s not the case.’ / ‘I believe you.’ / ‘Well, I hope you do.’ / ‘I do.’ / ‘Forget Tokumu Kikan. Stick with the doctors. Follow the name-cards.’ / ‘Thank you.’ / Return to HQ / Tell the various chiefs to forget Tokumu Kikan / To stick with the doctors / To follow the name-cards / 18.00: Re-assigned to ji-dōri questioning team / Shit.

1948/2/1; 06.00: No days off / Rain, sleet, snow / Printed notice handed to all detectives: The Teikoku Bank has ascertained that the total money missing or stolen on 26 January from their Shiinamachi branch was ¥164,405. The Teikoku Bank have also ascertained that a cheque (number B09216) with a face value of ¥17,450, drawn in the name of a Gotō Toyoji, is also missing / Out on the streets again / Endless ji-dōri; sometimes Shiinamachi area, sometimes around Nakai, sometimes to Ebara / Different neighbourhoods, same game / Street-by-street, house-by-house, door-to-door questioning of neighbourhood with Fukushi-kun / Establish names and occupations of all residents / Establish and verify whereabouts of each resident at time of various crimes / Repeat description of suspect based on statements of survivors / Note down any possible sightings of men fitting description of suspect / Note down any suggestions as to identity of suspect based on description given to residents / Waste of time, waste of time, waste of time.

1948/2/2; 06.00: Light snow, then rain / The second floor of Mejiro Police Station / Special Investigation HQ / Meeting of the Special Investigation Team / Chief of Police Kita present / New clue: cheque number B09216 for ¥17,450, listed as missing presumed stolen from the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank on 26 January during the mass poisoning, was cashed at approximately 14.30 on 27 January at the Itabashi branch of the Yasuda Bank / Cheque endorsed by Gotō Toyoji, 2661 Itabashi 3-chōme, Itabashi-ku / Yasuda branch manager discovered cheque matched that listed missing or stolen during the Teigin incident yesterday / Notified police / Statements taken by detectives / Descriptions by bank staff of man who cashed the cheque do not match descriptions given by survivors of the Teigin incident / Man at Itabashi branch of Yasuda Bank described as being heavyset, wearing spectacles with tortoise-shell frame, and speaking coarsely / Officers sent to address written on back of cheque / No one named Gotō Toyoji lives at this address / Occupants have no knowledge of anyone of that name.