Shinju

“You have entered this room against my orders.” Although she didn’t shout like she had in the garden, her hushed tone was somehow more frightening. “You have spoken to a police official without my permission, and no doubt told him foolish lies about our family. And now you have dishonored your sister’s memory by abusing her possessions.”

Midori began to tremble. Her lips moved in a soundless plea. “Please… no… ” She sensed that what happened to her next would be far worse than a beating. She stepped backward and felt her elbow tear through the paper windowpane.

“For this you must be punished,” Lady Niu went on in the same tone. She paused, her lovely eyes narrowing. Midori could almost hear her turning over the possibilities: no play, no company, no good food or favorite possessions for several days? She’d used all of these before. Then Lady Niu nodded, apparently reaching a decision.

“Go to your room until arrangements can be made,” she ordered. To Eii-chan, who had come to stand at her side, she said, “See that Miss Midori gets to her room-and stays there.”

Midori helplessly preceded Eii-chan to the door. Fear for herself drove from her mind all thought of what she had read in Yukiko’s diary. Then a ripping noise made her look over her shoulder at her stepmother. She cried out in dismay.

Lady Niu had picked up Yukiko’s diary. She was tearing the pages into little pieces and dropping them into the charcoal brazier.

Chapter 5

Upon returning to his office, Sano found an uncharacteristically glum Tsunehiko waiting for him. The young secretary mumbled a reply to his greeting and barely looked up from his desk to bow.

“What’s wrong, Tsunehiko?” Sano asked.

“Nothing,” Tsunehiko replied, his eyes downcast, his lower lip outthrust.

Sighing, Sano knelt beside his secretary. Something was obviously troubling Tsunehiko; he’d had enough experience with young boys to read the signs. Resigned, he prepared to listen and sympathize.

Tsunehiko fidgeted with his sash, a bright blue one that matched the pattern of blue waves on his kimono, which gaped at the collar to show a section of plump chest. The chest heaved with each noisy breath. Just when Sano thought he would refuse to speak, he muttered, “The other yoriki take their secretaries with them when they go out on business. You never take me anywhere.”

Now that his tongue had loosened, he rushed on, not giving Sano a chance to reply. “Yesterday you gave me a lot of orders, then walked out. Today you did the same thing. My father says I’m here to learn a profession. But how can I learn if you don’t teach me anything?”

He lifted a pink, earnest face to Sano. His serious mood had caused his eyes to cross, giving him a comically dazed expression. Sano suppressed an urge to smile as Tsunehiko continued sadly:

“Besides, I get lonely by myself. I have no friends here. Nobody likes me.”

Sano’s mirth almost erupted into laughter at this mingling of adult and childish concerns. But he realized that he had so far proven a poor mentor for his secretary, offering little instruction and tolerating laziness and mistakes. The teacher in him still felt responsible for the nurturing of a young mind placed in his charge. He felt ashamed of neglecting that responsibility.

“From now on, we’ll work more closely together, Tsunehiko,” he said. “Whatever I can teach you, I will.” At whatever aggravation to himself, he promised silently.

Tsunehiko bobbed his head, giving a wavery smile.

Sano returned it, both amused and irritated at the picture of the two of them-misfit yoriki and melodramatic young whiner- yoked together in ludicrous partnership. Then he changed the subject to the matter that had been foremost in his mind when he entered the office.

“Did you get the addresses I asked you for?” he said.

Before he’d left for the Niu estate this morning, he’d asked Tsunehiko to look up Noriyoshi’s places of residence and work in the Temple Registry and Artists’ Guild records. Now that he’d failed to learn anything about the murder from the Nius, interviewing Noriyoshi’s associates was of prime importance. He fervently hoped that Tsunehiko had managed to perform this simple task.

“Yes, Yoriki Sano-san!” Tsunehiko beamed, completely restored to his usual cheerful self. Snatching up a paper from his desk, he presented it to Sano with a flourish.

Sano read the characters written in Tsunehiko’s large, awkward script:

Noriyoshi, artist

Okubata Fine Arts Company

Gallery Street

Yoshiwara, Edo

“Yoshiwara.” Sano lingered over the name of the district. Yoshiwara, the walled pleasure quarter near the river on Edo ’s northern outskirts, where prostitution of all kinds was legal. Where food, drink, and myriad entertainments-theater, music, gambling, shopping, and others less innocuous-were available in abundance for those with money to pay for them. The district had originally been called “reedy plain” after the land it occupied. Then some clever promoter had modified the characters of the name to mean “lucky plain,” a euphemism that had endured. Still another name for it was the Nightless City: Yoshiwara never slept.

“He lived and worked at the same place,” Tsunehiko added. “Both records gave the same address. Okubata was his employer.”

“I see.” In keeping with the rules that governed traditional teacher-pupil relationships, Sano did not praise Tsunehiko for work well done. But he could offer a reward. And there was no time like the present for keeping promises. Tsunehiko’s participation would be a hindrance, but one he thought he could manage… “How would you like to go with me to Yoshiwara and help investigate Noriyoshi?”

“Yes! Oh, yes! Thank you, Yoriki Sano-san!” Tsunehiko leaped eagerly to his feet. He toppled his desk, spilling papers, brushes, and ink all over the floor.

A short while later, they were on a slow, rocking ferry headed upriver toward Yoshiwara. The open boat, which could seat a row of five men along either side, would have been full in summer. But today, Sano and Tsunehiko were the only passengers. In their heavy cloaks and wide wicker hats, they huddled under the flapping canopy that provided scant shelter from the cold, damp river breeze. Behind them the two muscular boatmen sang in rhythm with their splashing oars, occasionally interrupting their song to shout greetings to men on passing fishing boats and cargo vessels. The brown water swirled around them, rank and murky, reflecting no light from the low gray sky.

Tsunehiko was opening the box lunch they’d brought to fortify themselves for the two-hour trip. “We should really be riding to Yoshiwara on white horses,” he said. “That’s the fashionable way. And in disguise, so no one will know we’re samurai.” He began to consume rice balls, pickles, and salted fish with great zest and speed.

Sano smiled. Laws forbade samurai to visit the pleasure quarter, but since the laws were seldom enforced, members of their class frequented Yoshiwara openly, in droves. Disguise was unnecessary, except to add a touch of intrigue to the fun.

“We’re on official business, Tsunehiko,” he said.

“Official business,” Tsunehiko agreed. He grinned, showing a mouthful of partially chewed food.

Sano ate his own lunch more slowly. He’d chosen to travel by boat, sacrificing speed for the opportunity to study the river that had claimed the bodies of Noriyoshi and Yukiko. Now he gazed at the line of warehouses on his left. The pair could have been thrown into the river anywhere: From one of the piers or docks or boathouses at the foot of the stone embankment; from the Ryogoku Bridge, under whose great arch the boat was carrying him now; or even from the marshes on the opposite bank. If he didn’t learn anything in Yoshiwara, he would have to search up and down the river for witnesses, a task that might take days to finish.

At last the ferry drew up beside the dock. Sano paid the boatmen. Then he and Tsunehiko climbed out, stretching their cramped muscles as they mounted the steps that led up the embankment. They followed the road