introductions concluded, the musicians began playing again, and the party resumed; but Lady Yanagisawa’s presence inhibited festivity. The women made stilted small talk instead of discussing the murder, because everyone feared the powerful chamberlain and didn’t want to say anything about a controversial subject that might get them in trouble if his wife reported it to him. Lady Yanagisawa maintained her dour countenance, only spoke when directly addressed, and showed no interest in anyone. She sat isolated in the crowd.
“Why did she come, if she thinks she’s so superior to us?” Midori whispered to Reiko.
“I think she wants company, but is too shy to join in the party,” Reiko said.
Presently, Lady Yanagisawa rose to leave and called to her daughter. As soon as they’d gone, the women burst into eager conversation about them. Masahiro, bereft of his playmate, hurled himself into Reiko’s lap and pouted.
“Lady Yanagisawa is rather dull,” Midori said. “Do you really want to see her again?”
“It might be better not to,” Reiko said.
“Why?” Midori asked.
Reiko hesitated to speak of delicate matters in public, but the other women were talking loudly and paying no attention to her and Midori. “Even though my husband and hers are at peace for the moment, I don’t trust anyone associated with the chamberlain,” Reiko said. “And my husband might not approve of my befriending Lady Yanagisawa.”
The Black Lotus case had taught her that an unwise attachment could wreak havoc upon a marriage.
“I hope Hirata-san’s family approves of me, and mine approve of him,” Midori said, her attention focused on her own problems. “But what harm could the friendship do to you?”
“Maybe the war between my husband and Chamberlain Yanagisawa is about to begin again. Lady Yanagisawa could be a spy for her husband, and trying to get close to me, as part of a new plot against my husband.”
“Maybe my family and Hirata-san’s will become friends at the miai tomorrow.” While pursuing her own train of thought, Midori said, “But I didn’t notice any sign that Lady Yanagisawa is mean enough to hurt you.”
Nor had Reiko. But the Black Lotus had conditioned her to disbelieve what her own eyes, ears, and intuition told her. She’d begun to perceive threats everywhere, and hidden malice in everyone. Now Reiko experienced a stab of fear. How could she ever be a detective again, if she couldn’t distinguish between imagination and reality?
The room around her suddenly seemed too small and full of noisy women. Was this trivial, petty, feminine world to be her whole life from now on? Fear turned to panic in Reiko; she involuntarily clutched Masahiro, until he yelped in protest. The craving for adventure remained in her blood, even after she’d faced her death at the Black Lotus Temple. She almost thought she would rather face death anew, in a thousand different ways, than resign herself to her present uneventful, suffocating existence.
“I must ask my husband if I can work with him again,” she decided.
“I’ll be happy for you if he says yes, because I know how badly you want that.” Sighing, Midori contemplated the blood that welled from her bitten cuticles. “And you can be happy for me if my miai goes well.”
Yet even as Reiko had spoken, opposing concerns agitated her. She yearned to resume her partnership with Sano, and she couldn’t bear to sit by while a difficult case threatened their lives. She had useful talents that might help him, as they had in the past. She wanted excitement instead of boredom, action instead of idleness, renewed passion with Sano instead of cautious restraint. But the terror of making mistakes, and shattering what remained of their marriage, hollowed out a dark, ominous void in her heart.
“I hope Hirata-san and I can marry soon,” Midori said.
Still, her samurai spirit wouldn’t let Reiko bow to fear, nor accept defeat without a struggle. She said, “I hope I can join the investigation into the murder of the shogun’s heir.”
4
The hunt for Lady Wisteria led Hirata into areas of Yoshiwara that few visitors ever saw. Accompanied by the proprietor of the Great Miura-who would recognize Wisteria on sight-Hirata searched every teahouse, shop, and brothel.
He saw tayu lounging in lavish chambers, and women of the lower ranks crowded into dingy barracks. He saw bathtubs of scummy water crammed full of naked females. Little girls toiled in kitchens, and courtesans wolfed down food in storerooms because they weren’t allowed to eat in front of clients. Most of the women looked sullen, miserable, or resigned to their lot. In one house, they quarreled bitterly among themselves, like caged cats; in another, a girl lay moaning on a futon while a maid washed blood from between her legs. An odor of squalid humanity pervaded the brothels, and Yoshiwara completely lost its glamour for Hirata. Everywhere he went, he crossed paths with Police Commissioner Hoshina’s men, engaged in the same mission, but Lady Wisteria was nowhere to be found. No one had seen her since her procession to the ageya last night. She’d apparently vanished without a trace, as had her pillow book.
Discouraged, Hirata made his way up Nakanocho. The quarter had grown colder and darker as the day waned. Snow continued to fall; white drifts lay alongside the buildings. Windblown flakes stung Hirata’s cheeks and glinted in the light from windows. The streets were empty, except for patrolling police, because all the visitors, still imprisoned in Yoshiwara by the locked gates, had sought shelter indoors. Hirata approached the gate, where two guards paced, muffled in cloaks and hoods. They halted and bowed to him.
“Were you on duty last night?” Hirata asked them.
One guard was lean with rough-hewn features, the other solid and swarthy. Both nodded.
“Did Lady Wisteria go out the gate?” Hirata said.
The swarthy man laughed in disdain. “Courtesans can’t sneak past us. They try, but we always catch them. Sometimes they disguise themselves as servants, but we know everyone here, and they can’t fool us.”
“Women have bribed porters to carry them through in chests or barrels,” the lean guard said, “but we search every container before it leaves. They know there’s little chance of escaping, but they keep trying.”
After what he’d seen today, Hirata didn’t blame the women. “But since Wisteria’s not in Yoshiwara, she must have gotten out somehow.”
He and the guards looked beyond the snow-laced rooftops at the wall that enclosed the pleasure quarter. It had a smooth, plastered surface, and alleys separated it from the buildings. “She would have had to climb on a roof, jump to the top of the wall, and cross the moat on the other side,” said the lean guard. “No woman has ever managed that.”
“What do you think happened to Wisteria?” said Hirata.
The men glanced at each other, then shook their heads. “We didn’t let her out,” the swarthy man said.
“We’ll swear to it on our lives,” said the other.
Their emphatic declarations didn’t hide their fear that they would be punished severely for the disappearance of a suspect in the murder. Hirata sympathized with them, for his own future was threatened. If he and Sano failed in their duty to catch the killer, he would be demoted, exiled, or forced to commit ritual suicide; he would never marry Midori. Hirata thought of their upcoming miai, and joy and apprehension entwined inside him.
He had fancied himself in love many times during his twenty-five years, but never felt such affection or longing for any woman until Midori. They had come to believe they’d been lovers in a former life, and their souls destined to reunite. And spiritual affinity engendered physical passion. Desire for each other made them all the more impatient for marriage. However, marriage wasn’t so easily accomplished as falling in love. Hirata hoped the meeting between his family and Midori’s would have happy results, and feared that the case would prevent his attending the miai.
Banishing personal worries, he concentrated on the problem at hand. Maybe Wisteria had turned invisible and spirited herself away; but Hirata favored simpler solutions. Whether she’d left the pleasure quarter alive or dead, someone must have devised a practical way to smuggle a courtesan out of Yoshiwara.
“Lady Wisteria was last seen by her yarite sometime after the hour of the boar,” Hirata said. “Who left Yoshiwara between then and the time Lord Mitsuyoshi’s murder was discovered?”
The guards’ postures stiffened. “No one did,” said the lean man. “The gates are locked after curfew at midnight. Everyone who’s inside Yoshiwara then has to stay until morning. It’s the law.”
“But not everyone stayed last night, did they?” Hirata said, for he knew that enough money could buy a
