advantage. But he needed to act fast. Instead of replying to Marume’s questions, he raised his head, listening to the night. He heard distant voices. The glow of lanterns hazed the air above surrounding areas of the palace, and he knew that soon people would flock to see what new destruction the spirit cry had wrought.
“There’s no time to talk,” Sano said. “Just listen, then do as I say. Fukida-san, give me your surcoat.”
The detective frowned in confusion, but obeyed. Sano spread the garment over Aisu’s face. “You stay with the corpse. Tell the Imperial Court that it’s me, that I was the killer’s victim.” Ignoring his men’s shocked exclamations, Sano rushed on: “Aisu was taller and thinner than I am, but the blood and filth will discourage anyone from taking a close look. You’ll have to remove the corpse as quickly as possible and figure out a way to hide it. Then issue an official report of my death. Keep the real events of tonight a secret.”
“Yes, sosakan-sama.” Although Fukida sounded dazed, Sano knew he would carry out the orders.
“Marume-san, you come with me now,” Sano said. “We have to get out of the palace before anyone sees me.”
“Wait, please, sosakan-sama,” Fukida said. “What shall I tell your wife?”
The question almost shattered Sano’s resolve. While the voices grew louder, moving lights shone up through trees outside the kitchen compound, and precious time sped away, he imagined how the news of his murder would affect Reiko. To let her think him dead was much worse than his lust for another woman. When Reiko found out the truth, she might never forgive his deceit. But if he didn’t use this chance to combat Yanagisawa’s machinations, he might never solve the case or win his battle against the chamberlain. Failure would doom Reiko along with him. He had to save them both.
“Break the news to my wife as gently as possible,” Sano said at last. “Not even she can know I survived, until I finish what I have to do.” Any lapse in secrecy could ruin everything. The fewer people who knew about his ploy, the better. Sano added, “With luck, I won’t have to deceive her for long.” Then he and Marume left quickly.
15
As Sano and Marume raced past buildings in the imperial enclosure, dark windows brightened. Glowing lanterns moved within corridors. All around them, Sano heard voices and movement. He and Marume changed directions repeatedly in order to avoid the notice of the people converging on the murder scene. In a garden, they ducked behind a pavilion to hide from a horde of palace watchmen. They dashed through courtyards and passages until they reached the wall that separated the enclosure from the northern sector of the kuge quarter. They scaled the wall and leapt down to the lane below.
“Which way?” Marume asked, panting.
Sano didn’t know a direct route out of the palace, and he couldn’t risk getting lost or being seen in the kuge quarter. He said, “We’ll take the overhead shortcut.”
He and Marume climbed the fence opposite the imperial enclosure and pulled themselves onto the low eaves of a villa. Rooftops spread around them like an eerie gray landscape of tiled peaks. They sped across this, and Sano hoped that if the residents heard them, they would be far away before anyone got a good look at them. They jumped from house to house and over narrow lanes. At last they surmounted the main palace wall and halted in the darkness of Imadegawa Avenue.
“What now?” Marume said.
“Go to the gate we went in by and get our horses,” Sano said. “Ride away, then double around and meet me in the alley across Teramachi Avenue and two blocks north from the gate. Don’t let the palace guards see you come back.”
Marume hurried off to obey. Sano’s own path took him through the deserted city streets around the palace, past dark houses and closed shops. By the time he reached the rendezvous spot, Marume was already there, waiting for him beneath a balcony with the horses.
“Care to let me in on what’s next?” Marume said.
Sano quickly outlined his plan. Then they stood in the alley, watching the avenue. After a brief wait, Marume said, “Look, here he comes.”
Just as Sano had predicted, Yoriki Hoshina rode up to the gate, accompanied by a group of other policemen. The group dismounted and went inside the palace.
“Let’s go,” Sano said.
They mounted their horses and rode to Miyako police headquarters, which was in the city’s administrative district, near the mansions of local officials. A stone wall enclosed stables, barracks, and a main building that housed offices. Torchlight flared within the compound. Sano had interviewed Lady Asagao here in her prison cell earlier. He’d also met with Hoshina to discuss the arrest, so he knew where Hoshina’s private quarters were. Now he and Marume left their horses in a side street. Marume went to the gate to tell the guards he wanted to talk to Hoshina about the murder at the palace. Sano crept around to the rear of the complex.
Pairs of idle, bored-looking sentries manned gates at intervals along the wall; clearly, they didn’t expect anyone to break into police headquarters. Sano climbed over the wall, dropped into the deserted compound, and located the barracks, four long, single-story buildings with narrow verandas in front and privy sheds behind, arranged around a courtyard. Hoshina had a corner suite in the east unit. Just as Sano reached the rear door, he heard voices at the front of the building: Marume, talking with the guard who had escorted him into headquarters to wait for Hoshina. Presently Sano heard a door open and noises inside; the windows of Hoshina’s quarters lit up. The broad silhouette of Marume appeared on the paper panes and moved toward Sano. Then the door slid open.
Marume looked out, saw Sano, and nodded. Sano entered silently, following Marume into a bedchamber where Hoshina’s futon lay on the floor, through paper partitions to an office furnished with a desk and cabinets, then a parlor where a lantern burned above floor cushions and a low table. Marume knelt in the parlor and Sano on the other side of the partition in the shadow of a cabinet to wait for Hoshina.
Reiko heard the spirit cry from her room in Nijo Manor.
After Sano had left for the Imperial Palace, she’d lain down on the futon while waiting for him to come back, and had fallen asleep. The chilling scream jarred her into alertness. Around her, floors creaked as the inn’s other guests stirred; voices clamored.
“Did you hear that noise?”
“What was it?”
But Reiko knew instinctively what it was. She also knew for certain now that Lady Asagao wasn’t the killer, because the spirit cry had come from the direction of the palace. In the moonlight that shone through the windows, she saw that she was alone; Sano hadn’t returned. A rush of panic agitated Reiko. The spirit cry had heralded death once before. Not much time could have passed since Sano left; he could still be inside the palace. She had to make sure he was safe.
She dressed hurriedly, then ran out to the corridor. The innkeeper’s wife appeared, clad in a night robe.
“That was the same noise we heard the night the imperial left minister died,” said the woman. “Everyone knows he was killed by a ghost with magical powers.” This, then, was how the superstitious townspeople explained the scream and the murder. “You must stay in your room where you’ll be safe.”
“I have to see if my husband is all right.” Reiko started toward the door.
The innkeeper’s wife held her back. “But you can’t go out alone at night. Outlaws will attack you.”
“I’ll take my husband’s guards with me,” Reiko said, eager to reach Sano.
“You must stay.” Concern gave the woman’s manner authority. “Let me send a manservant to the palace to see what happened.”
Reiko reluctantly consented, less because of fear for herself than the thought that Sano was probably busy investigating another murder and would be upset if she interrupted him. The innkeeper’s wife dispatched the servant. Reiko lit a lamp in her room and sat drinking tea, wondering who had uttered the spirit cry and why the killer would strike again.
Alter an hour, the innkeeper’s wife reappeared and said, “The servant just came back. He spoke to the guards at the palace gate. All they told him was that there had been another death. They wouldn’t say who it was.”
Reiko felt a sudden stab of fear. “Thank you,” she said.
