moment, he said more calmly, ‘So what do you think?’
Akitada was a little shaken by that outburst. Tora’s theory was not without some logic. He also distrusted both Ishikawa and recent events. Perhaps Ishikawa had come to Otsu on Sadanori’s instruction. And Sadanori was implicated in at least two prior abductions of women from the amusement quarter. He was also linked to Peony, if she was the same woman who had once lived in the house they had visited. But until there was proof, neither her death nor the murder of the doctor could be laid at his door, nor Ishikawa’s.
He sighed. The scene at Inabe’s house had depressed him for purely personal reasons. ‘I don’t know what to think, Tora. We’ll question Peony’s neighbors, but I want to go see the child first,’ he said.
Akitada stopped in the market to purchase a bright-red wooden top and tucked it in his sleeve. ‘A small gift,’ he said, a little embarrassed. ‘He has no toys.’
Tora grinned.
The Yozaemons lived in a poor little house near the market. Mrs Yozaemon, as round and neat as a brown hen, was hanging her washing over the brush fence. There were small shirts and diminutive pants among the larger clothes, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.
She saw them and her round face broke into a wide smile. Wiping her hands down her sides, she bustled to open the gate. ‘Welcome, welcome.’ She bobbed a bow with each ‘welcome’.
‘Thank you.’ Akitada scanned the yard. ‘Is the boy here?’
She laughed. ‘A little boy likes to hide.’ She cried, ‘Nori.’
‘Nori?’ Akitada asked, astonished. And then: ‘Can he hear you?’
‘Of course he can hear.’
It was good news. ‘How do you know his name? Has he found his voice?’
‘No, not that. Manjiro and I kept calling out names and that one made him look up. So that’s what we call him. He answers to it.’
How simple it had been for this woman and her son to name the child, while he had cast about in vain and called him ‘boy’ or ‘child’. Nori? He recalled how he had stopped in the dark woods and thought the small pale figure was the ghost of his dead son. He had called, ‘Yori,’ and the boy had come to him.
Mrs Yozaemon raised her voice again. ‘Nori? Come here. You have visitors.’
And there he was. Or rather, there was his head, peering around the corner of the house. A moment later he came towards them, slowly and with a solemn face. Akitada was disappointed. He had imagined a gleeful dash into his arms. There was not even a smile. Was he afraid? No, not that. But he was distant, reserved, if a child that age could be reserved.
They had trimmed his hair and tied it above each ear. Just so had Yori worn his hair, and this boy, though he was probably a little older, was small for his age and looked a little like Yori. The sharp pain of Akitada’s loss was back, made sharper by this child’s new coolness towards him.
Nori stopped beside Mrs Yozaemon. He remembered them, Akitada was certain of it, but apparently he no longer considered them friends. Heartsick, Akitada crouched and opened his arms, but the boy shook his head, his eyes distrustful.
Forcing a smile, Akitada said, ‘I see you blame me for leaving you. I could not help it, but I didn’t forget you. Not for a moment.’
The boy said nothing. He seemed to wait patiently for his dismissal.
Akitada produced the top and held it out. The child promptly put his hands behind his back and glanced away.
Mrs Yozaemon cried, Oh, go on, Nori, take it! The gentleman brought you the pretty toy. And he’s come a long way to visit you.’
There was no reaction, and Akitada stood up, helpless in the face of such rejection.
Tora scooped up the child and said, ‘Hey, Nori, what’s the matter? Let’s have a smile. Look, the sun’s shining and there’s a nice wind. Suppose we go buy a kite and fly it this afternoon?’
But Nori struggled, and Tora put him down with a sigh. Akitada said, ‘Never mind. He’s not used to kindness, poor little fellow.’ He hid his disappointment, reminding himself that he had come to make sure the child was well taken care of and he had now done so. Nori was clean and looked much healthier. He stood clutching Mrs Yozaemon’s skirt, waiting for them to leave. Akitada thanked his caretaker and gave her the red top. Still smarting from the rejection, he said, ‘We’ll try to find his family so he won’t have to return to the Mimuras. If that fails, I’ll pay them to let me raise him.’
She clapped her hands. ‘What a lucky boy! You’ll like living in the capital, Nori, won’t you?’
The boy looked at her, but gave no sign that he had understood.
Akitada left, feeling lonelier than before. To shake off this mood, he tried to think about the warden’s murder case as they walked back to the lake, but his disappointment about the child was stronger than his sense of justice. It seemed a betrayal of the dead man, and he brooded on this.
Tora glanced at him from time to time, but did not speak. At the dead courtesan’s villa, Akitada sent Tora to talk to the neighbors while he pushed through the wilderness to the dilapidated house. The scene was even more depressing by daylight. He looked around for the cat, but did not see it.
Down by the water, he disturbed a pair of ducks in the reeds near a broken boat dock and watched them paddle away, the male protectively herding the female. Ducks were faithful to their mate, a pair for life and a symbol of harmony between a man and woman. Such harmony had not been possible for him and Tamako, and apparently not for Peony and her lover either. The night watchman had claimed that the man had deserted her.
Akitada looked across the sparkling water. Boats of all sizes bobbed and moved across it – carrying other lives and, no doubt, happier ones. Suddenly, in broad daylight and sunny weather, Akitada felt again that cold shiver, that sense of lurking death.
He turned away abruptly, irritated by his morbid fancies.
They walked up and down the street, knocking on gates and talking to servants, but the results were disappointing. It became clear that Peony, or her protector, had taken measures to keep the curious away. She had rarely appeared in public, and then only deeply veiled. Her servants, a maid and a porter, had been from the capital and had rarely spoken to other servants. Her death had surprised them because they had believed the house empty at the time.
Tora pounced on certain rumors that started after Peony’s death. She had been heard weeping because her child had died, her lover had left her, her lover had died, she had contracted smallpox and lost her beauty – all these, separately or in combination, were in people’s minds reasons for her suicide, and so her vengeful ghost was born. Tora, of course, rejected the suicide theory. He was still convinced that Sadanori had murdered Peony, and he proposed they return to the capital and confront her killer.
Akitada grumbled, ‘Nothing but rumors. We’re a long way from being done here. We still have no proof that the boy was hers or that she was murdered. And we still do not know that she is the woman from the capital.’
Tora protested, ‘It’s the same name. And the time fits. The neighbors called her a courtesan, and they mentioned a child.’
‘A child that died. I wonder what happened to her servants.’
‘They left before she died. The neighbors thought the house was empty. Why did they leave? And who reported her death?’
Akitada stopped. ‘Yes. Someone had to find her in the water and get the warden. A neighbor? If we assume that Peony was kept by the Masuda heir, the family’s role in all of this is, to say the least, suspicious.’ He glanced up at the green hillside above the town where the many curved roofs of the Masuda mansion glistened in the sun. ‘We’d better ask Warden Takechi.’
But when they reached the warden’s office, Akitada had second thoughts about Tora’s presence. ‘Let me do the talking,’ he said. ‘We can’t afford to have you locked up.’
The warden was looking glum, but he brightened when he saw them. ‘Thank heaven you’re back, sir. This is a very difficult case. Would you believe it, nobody has seen anything.’
Akitada sat down, and Tora squatted near the door.
‘It’s still early,’ Akitada said consolingly and wondered how to divert the man’s attention to their own problems. ‘Er, if you have the time, I would like to discuss Tora’s case.’
Warden Takechi glanced across at Tora. ‘If you’re wondering about the charges against your servant, I sent a
