Occupied City

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.

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1948/2/4; 06.00: Cold, rain / The second floor of Mejiro Police Station / Special Investigation HQ / Meeting of the Special Investigation Team / Chief of Police Kita present / Composite drawing of suspect based on eye-witness description of suspect by Teigin survivors distributed to all detectives, all police stations and all newspapers nationwide / First time composite drawing of a suspect has been used in history of Japanese police / Anticipate large public response / Drawing to be used by all ji-dōri questioning teams / Ordered to re-interview households and individuals already interviewed, this time with composite drawing / Note to all detectives and police officers: Poison used in the murders now believed to be cyanic silver NOT potassium cyanide / Murderer believed therefore to be highly experienced in handling and use of drugs / 07.00: Resume ji-dōri questioning with composite drawing / Same neighbourhoods, same streets, same houses, same doors, same faces, same waste of time.

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The Second Period (the second twenty days of the investigation; 15 February to 5 March, 1948) —

1948/2/15; 06.00: Cloudy, then overcast / The second floor of Mejiro Police Station / Special Investigation HQ / Meeting of the Special Investigation Team / Chief of Police Kita present / Overview of Investigation to date / Over 500 suspects questioned / Innumerable leads followed up / All suspects eliminated and released / All leads investigated and exhausted / Back to ji-dōri / Back to meetings / Endless ji-dōri, endless meetings / Endless wastes of time / Endlessly taking us nowhere.

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1948/2/23; 18.00: Cold / Meeting of entire First Investigative Division at Special Investigation HQ / SCAP-Justice Ministry Liaison Officer Miyakawa reports on results of meeting with Public Safety Division of Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers on 19 February 1948 / On behalf of the Investigation, Miyakawa requested the assistance of the SCAP Public Safety Division in locating a Lieutenant Hornet and a Lieutenant Parker / Both names associated with typhus disinfecting teams in the Tokyo area / Lieutenant Hornet believed to have been associated with the Toshima team in the Ōji and Katsushika Wards / Lieutenant Parker associated with the Ebara disinfecting team / Witnesses at the Ebara branch of the Yasuda Bank reported suspect as saying, ‘I came here with Lieutenant Parker in a jeep because a new typhus case happened in the vicinity.’ / At the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank, the same individual is reported as saying, ‘I came here because there have been many dysentery cases in the area. Lieutenant Hornet will be here soon.’ / Miyakawa requested that the Public Safety Division of SCAP provide any information, names and addresses of Japanese individuals either connected with or having knowledge of the disinfecting work done by either of the above lieutenants, particularly interpreters or individuals who speak English / Miyakawa advised elimination of individuals below the age of thirty or above the age of sixty / Mr Eaton of the Public Safety Division informed Miyakawa that, having spoken with Mr Allen of the Tokyo MG Team Sanitation Control, ten low-ranking medical officers were used by the MG Team in typhus epidemic control activities in 1946 / However, at present, there are no military personnel employed by the MG Team in such work / All disinfecting work is now carried out by Japanese employees of the Tokyo Ward Offices / Furthermore, no such teams are employed by the Public Health & Welfare Department / Mr Eaton stated that some SCAP personnel are presently used in rodent control under HQ and Service Group, Repair and Utilities Division, but none by the name of Parker or Hornet / Finally, Mr Eaton stated that he would contact the AG Section of GHQ to ascertain the names and whereabouts of any lieutenants or captains by the name of Parker or Hornet who have been assigned to Japan / Meeting ends / Back to ji-dōri / Back to meetings / Ji-dōri and meetings / Endless, endless ji-dōri and endless, endless meetings / Endless, endless wastes of time / Endlessly, endlessly taking us nowhere.

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1948/3/4; 18.00: Meeting of entire First Investigative Division at Special Investigation HQ / Police Chief Kita has requested that the Public Safety Division of SCAP assist in securing any information available pertaining to a group of former Japanese military personnel who were sent to Korea as poisoners during the war / It is believed that these persons were highly trained in preparation of various poisons / It is also believed that SCAP is investigating these persons for possible war crimes / Meeting ends / Nothing now but more ji-dōri, more meetings / More ji-dōri, more meetings / More, more ji-dōri, and more, more meetings / More, more wastes of time / More, more, taking us nowhere.

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The Third Period (the third twenty days of the investigation; 6 March to 25 March, 1948) —

1948/3/6; 06.00: Strong northeasterly winds / Meeting of entire First Investigative Division at Special Investigation HQ / Police Chief Kita gives overview of investigation to date and outlines direction of investigation for Third Period / Focus to be on new lead checking ex-personnel of the former Japanese Imperial Chemical Laboratory in Tsudanuma, Chiba-ken / Known that experiments were conducted with prussic acid as a poison / Corps sent to Manchuria during the war / Corps used poison on animals and humans successfully / Pamphlet on use of poison issued to Japanese army personnel / Modus operandi and use of prussic poison by the criminal very similar to the training developed by Tsudanuma Arsenal / Language used by the criminal indicative of training by this laboratory / Further evidence: use of ‘First Drug’ and ‘Second Drug’ in English; ability to drink from the same bottle as victims in knowledge that poison had been precipitated at bottom of solution; knowledge of precipitation of prussic acid using oil from palm trees / Furthermore, equipment used matches description of equipment used in Tsudanuma laboratory / Note: at end of war and closure of laboratory, employees took equipment home / Personnel information on former employees now been given by former Major Nonoyama and former Colonel Yokoyama / Request that all information be kept secret for fear of prosecution by War Crimes Tribunal / Police Chief Kita concludes meeting with statement that complaint about behaviour of press will be lodged with SCAP / Cheers / Meeting ends / 08.00: Meeting of Room #2 for re-assignment / Retained with Fukushi on ji-dōri team / Argument with Suzuki (Head of the First Division) / Questioning is ineffective / Leading nowhere / Three crime scenes — Ebara, Nakai and Shiinamachi — not helping / Suggest only follow hard evidence of Matsui and Yamaguchi name-cards / Track the cards, find the killer / Rebuked for insubordination / Transferred and demoted to Robbery Room with Fukushi / 09.00: Report for reassignment to Robbery Room / Small rented room next to Investigation HQ in Mejiro / Now under Inspector Iki-i / Eight men; four on Matsui, four on Yamaguchi / Assigned to Matsui card with Fukushi / All reports direct to Iki-i / Iki-i reports directly to Police Chief Kita / No information to be given to First Investigative Division (for fear of leaks to press) / Told to read through Robbery Room name-card files and notes to date / 09.30: Begin with Detective Tomitsuka’s report on interviews with Matsui and information and statements gathered in Sendai / Card one of 100 printed in the basement of Miyagi Prefectural Office on 25 March 1947 / Dr Matsui had exchanged 128 cards in total / Each person located, interviewed, asked to produce card received from Matsui / Persons unable to produce Matsui card allocated file / Told to work through each file / Re-check each file and mark for possible re-interview / Begin to re-check, re-check, re-check / No regrets.

1948/3/7; 06.00: Strong winds still / Re-check, re-check, re-check / One file, one name, stands out: Hirasawa Daishō / Hirasawa Daishō pen-name of Hirasawa Sadamichi, aged fifty-seven / Hirasawa resident in Otaru, Hokkaido with father and younger brother / Wife and three children resident in Tokyo / Request made to Otaru Police Station for information on Hirasawa / Report from Otaru: Hirasawa famous artist of good character and reputation / No further information or investigation received from Otaru Police / Detectives Tomitsuka and Iki-i travel to Otaru / Interview Hirasawa / Hirasawa states that he met Dr Matsui on the train ferry from Hokkaido to Honshu sometime in July last year / Hirasawa says he was travelling to Tokyo to deliver one of his watercolours to the Crown Prince / Hirasawa and Matsui exchange name-cards / Hirasawa states that he lost Matsui’s name-card when his wallet was stolen by a pickpocket in Tokyo at Mikawashima Station on the Joban Line in August 1947 / Hirasawa reported theft to the Mikawashima Station kōban / Detectives ask Hirasawa’s whereabouts on 26 January / Hirasawa admits he was in Tokyo on the day of the crime / Hirasawa states he spent the morning and early afternoon with his daughter and son-in-law in the Marunouchi district / Hirasawa then took a train to his other daughter’s house, where he spent the rest of the afternoon and evening playing cards with his daughter’s boyfriend / Detectives conclude Hirasawa is not suspect / Innocent / Disagree; premature / Alibi not checked, statements not corroborated / Place file to one side / Continue to re-check, re-check, re-check other files.

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The Fourth Period (the fourth twenty days of the investigation; 26 March to 14 April, 1948) —

1948/3/26; 06.00: Clear / Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team / Request permission to visit Mikawashima Station kōban to re-check Hirasawa pickpocket story / Other detectives sceptical / Waste of time, they say / But Inspector Iki-i grants permission / Make a telephone call / Ask about the officer who took down Hirasawa’s statement about being pickpocketed in August last year / Find out when the officer will be on duty / 09.00: Go to the Mikawashima Station kōban / Meet the officer / Nervous / File in hand / Apologizes for lack of detail and discrepancies in original report / Failure to note Hirasawa’s date of birth / Age noted as forty-five years old etc. / Claims to have been mesmerized by the way Hirasawa spoke, his use of language, his reputation, connections to the Imperial Family etc. / Following the interview, admits he chased after Hirasawa to confirm age and date of birth / Hirasawa gone / Vanished / Officer and two colleagues agreed to write ‘forty-five years old’ in the report, based on their impressions / Tell officer that Hirasawa would have been fifty-six or fifty-seven years old in August 1947 / Note: survivors of the Teigin incident all stated that the perpetrator looked to be approximately ‘fifty years old’ / Note: Hirasawa appeared to be younger than he was to the Mikawashima Officers / Note: Hirasawa should not be eliminated on basis of age alone / Mikawashima officer then produces a fan from case file / Hirasawa had given the fan to the officer at the time of his statement / Hirasawa stated that the thief left the fan in his pocket when he stole his wallet / Fan is stamped with the name of an ice-vendor and his address / 10.00: Leave Mikawashima Station kōban / Follow the fan / Address of ice-vendor in the same neighbourhood as one of Hirasawa’s daughters / Speak with ice-vendor / Man sells coal and logs in the winter / Ice in the summer / Made fifty fans as a gift for regular customers last summer / Hirasawa’s daughter is a regular customer / Ice-vendor remembers giving fan to Hirasawa’s daughter / Story about pickpocket a lie / Kuro-kuro / Stand for a long time outside Hirasawa’s daughter’s house / Blacker and blacker / Do not enter / Guiltier and guiltier / 12.00: Return to Robbery Room Name-card Team HQ / 13.00: Meeting with Inspector Iki-i / Report on interviews with Mikawashima officer and ice-vendor / Told to write up report and attach to Hirasawa file / Told to move on to other files to re-check for re-interview / So re-check, re-check, re-check / To re-interview, re-interview, re-interview.

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The Fifth Period (the fifth twenty days of the investigation; 15 April to 4 May, 1948) —

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The Sixth Period (the sixth twenty days of the investigation; 5 May to 24 May, 1948) —

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The Seventh Period (the seventh twenty days of the investigation; 25 May to 13 June, 1948) —

1948/5/25; 06.00: Warm / Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team / Inspector Iki-i gives us the news we’ve all been waiting to hear / Permission granted and budget approved for travel to Tōhoku and Hokkaido to interview each individual with whom Matsui had exchanged name-cards / Ordered to confirm and detail situation in which each name-card was exchanged / Ordered to retrieve each Matsui name-card from each individual / 128 cards in total / Detectives liga and Fukushi assigned the seventy-seven cards exchanged in the Tōhoku area / Assigned with Inspector Iki-i to investigate the fifty-one cards exchanged in Hokkaido / Top of the list: Hirasawa Sadamichi / Told to expect to be away for one month / Return home to pack.

1948/5/26; 06.00: Warm / Leave Ueno Station for Hokkaido.

1948/5/27; 06.00: Cool, slight breeze / Sapporo, Hokkaido / Begin investigation.

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Every day a different bus or a different train to a different town and a different interview / Every interview, a different high-ranking local government official / Every official produces the card Dr Matsui gave them in exchange for their own / Every day, another name crossed off the list / Another report to write up, another call back to Tokyo / Every night, a different inn or the floor of a different police station or kōban / Every night, the same dream, the same name / Kuro-kuro / Hirasawa Sadamichi / Blacker and blacker / Every day, nearer and nearer / Guiltier and guiltier…

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1948/6/6; 08.00: Humid / Shikinai-chō, Otaru, Hokkaido / Residence of Hirasawa Sadamichi’s father / The second floor of the house / Hirasawa’s father sat before the unlit stove in the first room, smoking a pipe / Hirasawa sat in a kimono in the next room, before a canvas of poppies / ‘You start painting very early…’ / ‘It is my habit to start early every day. Today is no exception.’ / Note: paint on the canvas is dry and hard / ‘Do you only paint flowers?’ / ‘I went to an exhibition at the Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo on the day of the Teigin incident. I am not the killer.’ / ‘We didn’t say you were. We are only here to ask you about Dr Matsui’s name-card.’ / ‘I am not the man you are looking for.’ / ‘Well then, that day on the ferry, did you exchange cards with anyone else other than Dr Matsui?’ / ‘I do not remember.’ / ‘Can you tell us why you stay here, even though your wife and children live in Tokyo?’ / ‘My father could pass away soon. So this is my last obligation as a good son to his aged father.’ / Note: Hirasawa’s father is a former colonel in the Kempeitai and appears in good health / Conversation continues in circles / Hirasawa claims forgetfulness, pleads ignorance / Evasive / Ask Hirasawa for a photograph to take back to Tokyo to show eye-witnesses for purposes of elimination / ‘I do not have any photographs.’ / Conclude interview / In the genkan, canvas shoulder bag hanging from a peg / Note: Teigin killer reported to have carried a canvas shoulder bag / ‘Is that your bag?’ / ‘No.’ / 09.00: Leave Hirasawa residence / Stand for a long time outside Hirasawa’s house / Kuro-kuro / Inspector Iki-i agrees Hirasawa’s behaviour and statements suspicious / Blacker and blacker / Iki-i agrees Hirasawa strongly resembles composite drawing of Teigin suspect / Guiltier and guiltier.

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1948/6/12; 18.00: Hot, rainy / Investigation of fifty-one name-cards complete / Return to Tokyo via Otaru / Hatch plan to take photograph of Hirasawa / Re-visit Hirasawa residence / Invite Hirasawa to local restaurant for dinner / Hirasawa readily accepts invitation / ‘But please remember, I am not the killer. I am not the man you are looking for.’ / Casual conversation in local restaurant / Again Hirasawa suddenly says, ‘On January 26th, I spent the morning and the early afternoon with my daughter and son-in-law in the Marunouchi district of Tokyo. There we visited the shipping firm of my nephew. His name is Yamaguchi. Then, at a little after 2 p.m., I took a train to Nippori to see my nephew’s daughter, Hanako. I also bought some charcoal briquettes. At about 5 p.m. I returned to my house in Nakano. My other daughter had invited a guest, an American GI named Wayne Ely, I think. I spent the evening speaking English and playing cards with her guest.’ / Steer conversation on to casual topics; food, weather etc. / Hirasawa repeatedly mentions his connections to the Imperial Family, his good reputation as a painter and as a man / Restaurant photographer asks if we are ready for traditional dinner-table portrait / Hirasawa reluctant / Puts on his spectacles, sticks out his chin / Portrait taken / Then, without prompting, Hirasawa suddenly says again, ‘I regret having lost Dr Matsui’s card. I enjoyed meeting him and talking with him. I would like to see him again. Unfortunately, a thief picked my pocket last August. He stole my wallet which contained ¥10,000 and all the name-cards I had received, including the card Dr Matsui gave me.’ / Meal finishes / Inspector Iki-i pays for dinner-table portrait / Bid farewell to Hirasawa / Iki-i places portrait in Hirasawa file / Return to Otaru Police Station / No sleep.

1948/6/13; 06.00: Take train back to Tokyo.

The Eighth Period (the eighth twenty days of the investigation; 14 June to 3 July, 1948) —

1948/6/14; 06.00: Rain, humid / The second floor of Mejiro Police Station / Full meeting of the Special Investigation Team, including Robbery Room Name-card Team / Police Chief Kita present / Inspector Iki-i details interviews conducted in Tōhoku and Hokkaido / Photograph of Hirasawa and report of interview distributed to all members / Chief Inspector Suzuki (Head of the First Division) and other members of First Investigative Division sceptical / Hirasawa’s alibi checked months ago / Alibi solid, reputation good / Photograph does not match composite drawing etc. / Age and appearance do not match witness descriptions of Teigin killer / Iki-i restates that Hirasawa is a strong suspect, behaviour suspicious / Strong hunch, good lead / Suzuki not interested / Waste of time / Other leads, better leads / Move on.

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1948/6/25; 08.00: Hot / Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team / Directive issued: Detectives should pay particular attention to the following persons who have i) experience in handling medicines or hygiene, ii) experience in medical research, experiments or study, iii) experience in China with the above, and iv) former members of the Tokumu Kikan or Kempei because the suspect had experience and knowledge of i) the quantities of poison needed, of ii) the timing needed, of iii) the control of the victims, of iv) the amount he himself could take and of v) the equipment and tools needed I Emphasis again taken off the name-card teams / Information ignored / Sidelined again / Despondent.

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The Ninth Period (the ninth twenty days of the investigation; 4 July to 23 July, 1948) —

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The Tenth Period (the tenth twenty days of the investigation; 24 July to 12 August, 1948) —

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The Eleventh Period (the eleventh twenty days of the investigation; 13 August to 1 September, 1948) —

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1948/8/13; 08.00: Hot, humid / Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team / Police Chief Kita present / Chief Kita states all other leads exhausted / Kita orders direct investigation of Hirasawa Sadamichi / Begin with Hirasawa’s family in Tokyo / Report results of investigation directly to him at his residence in Meguro / Do not disclose direction of investigation or share information with First Investigative Division / All information classified SECRET.

1948/8/14; 10.00: Hot / Visit the father of Hirasawa’s daughter-in-law, wife of Hirasawa’s eldest son / Father of Hirasawa’s daughter-in-law addicted to gambling / Heavy debts, minor charges / Lean on him for information / Provides us with list of guests at wedding of his daughter to Hirasawa’s son / Suggests we speak directly to Hirasawa’s eldest daughter / Claims daughter has voiced suspicions about her father and Teigin incident / 14.00: Visit Hirasawa’s daughter’s place of work; Marufuku coffee shop / Nervous and intimidated / Request to talk to her in private / Outside workplace, daughter suddenly says, ‘This is about the Teigin incident and my father, isn’t it?’ / ‘Why do you say that?’ / ‘Because you’ve already interviewed him and because he looks so much like the composite drawing.’ / ‘You think he resembles the drawing?’ / ‘Not only me. The manager of the coffee shop — he was a police chief in Kanagawa before the war — and he said the resemblance was enough to make the police suspicious.’ / Tell her this questioning is just routine / Make small talk to relax her / Begin to ask about her father and his relations with rest of the family / She says they have not seen him since the end of January / Ask if this is usual / ‘No.’ / ‘How do you all manage with your father in Hokkaido and you in Tokyo?’ / ‘Before he left for Hokkaido, he gave my mother ¥80,000.’ / ‘¥80,000 is a lot of money.’ / ‘Yes, but he told her it was to last for eight months. He told her if she was to spend only ¥10,000 a month, it would be enough.’ / ‘And your father gave your mother this ¥80,000 at the end of January?’ / ‘Yes.’ / Kuro-kuro / ‘Not before?’ / ‘No.’ / Blacker and blacker / ‘You’re certain?’ / ‘Yes. Why? Have I said something I shouldn’t have?’ / Guiltier and guiltier / ‘No.’ / Now says she must return home to her two children / Escort her home to her residence in Nakano Ward / Buy her box of peaches as a thank-you present for taking up her time / 18.00: Report back to Robbery Room Name-card Team / Blacker and blacker, guiltier and guiltier.

1948/8/16; 06.00: Very hot, very humid / Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team / Divide into ji-dōri teams to question Nakano neighbourhood about Hirasawa family / 08.00: Begin questioning of Nakano area / Street by street, house by house, door to door / All day / 22.00: Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team / Chief Kita present / Each ji-dōri team reports day’s questioning / Inspector Iki-i then details information gathered about Hirasawa’s finances / In December last year, Hirasawa was in considerable debt; for example, he did not have the cash to purchase a small wardrobe priced at ¥2,500 / Kuro-kuro / Hirasawa and his wife forced to borrow variously ¥500 and ¥1,000 from friends and relatives / Blacker and blacker / However, following the Teigin incident, the Higashi Nakano branch of the Mitsubishi Bank shows ¥20,000 in his wife’s account and ¥44,500 in Hirasawa’s own account / Guiltier and guiltier / Sudden deposits unexplained / Re-state statement by Hirasawa’s eldest daughter concerning ¥80,000 given to his wife at the end of January / Chief Kita states he will present all evidence and information to the Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office tomorrow morning / Kita confident arrest warrant will be granted / Told to prepare to travel to Hokkaido to arrest Hirasawa and bring him back to Tokyo for formal interrogation / Elation.

1948/8/17; 08.00: Hot / Gather at Inspector Iki-i’s residence in Ōmori / Collate all evidence and information on Hirasawa / Prepare request for arrest warrant for Hirasawa Sadamichi / Prepare requests for search warrants for houses of Hirasawa’s family and relatives in Tokyo / No sleep.

1948/8/18; 13.00: Hot / Robbery Room Name-card Team HQ / Receive telephone call from Hirasawa’s eldest daughter / Frantic, desperate / Asks for meeting / Claim to be too busy / Desperate, persists / Daughter says family worried / Her mother’s younger brother, her uncle, accusing her of selling her own father to the cops for a box of fruit / Speak to Inspector Iki-i / Agree to meeting / 16.00: Meet Hirasawa’s eldest daughter with Iki-i on second floor of Marufuku coffee shop / Daughter requests we visit her mother at family home to ease her fears and worries / Promise to visit in next few days / Daughter persists / Asks exactly which day at exactly what time / Promise to visit her mother in three days / 17.00: Meeting with daughter ends / Return to Iki-i residence in Ōmori / Detective [NAME DELETED] of First Investigative Division waiting / States that imminent arrest of Hirasawa now common knowledge / Newspapers already sniffing around / Requests that he arrest Hirasawa on our behalf / Argument, fight / Table upturned, punches thrown / Detective [NAME DELETED] says, ‘You Name-card guys are all crazy.’ / Detective [NAME DELETED] leaves / 20.00: Telephone call from Investigation HQ / All expenses and funding for Name-card Team suspended until further notice / Obvious attempt to stop Name-card Team travelling to Hokkaido to arrest Hirasawa / 21.00: Inspector Iki-i calls his bank manager at home / Arranges mortgage of Ōmori house and telephone line to cover cost of travel to Hokkaido if arrest warrant granted / All anxious, all nervous / No sleep.

1948/8/19; 17.00: Very hot, very humid / Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team at HQ / Police Chief Kita present / Arrest warrant for Hirasawa Sadamichi granted / Elation / Chief Kita cautions that news of arrest warrant has already been leaked to newspapers / Suspects detectives from First Investigative Division / Anger / Kita states that Chief Inspector Suzuki has requested presence of First Investigative Division Detective Tomitsuka at arrest of Hirasawa / Fury / Kita notes Detective Tomitsuka has already left Tokyo for Otaru / Resignation / No sleep.

1948/8/20; 06.00: Hot / Leave Tokyo for Otaru, Hokkaido via Niigata and Akita / Travelling with Inspector Iki-i, and Detectives liga and Fukushi / Very slow train, very hot train / No conversation, no sleep / Very anxious, very nervous.

1948/8/21; 10.00: Arrive in Otaru, Hokkaido / Meet First Investigative Division Detective Tomitsuka / Go to Hirasawa’s father’s residence / Hirasawa’s father and younger brother greet us formally / Shown upstairs / Hirasawa dressed and waiting, seated before same canvas / Arrest Hirasawa on suspicion of the murder by poison of the twelve employees of the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank on 26 January this year, and the attempted murder of four other employees at the same place on the same day / 11.00: Take Hirasawa to Otaru Police Station / Telephone calls to Tokyo HQ / Warned of press reports / Make necessary travel arrangements / Spend rest of day and night at Otaru Police Station / No sleep.

1948/8/22; 06.00: Hot / Return to Tokyo on Tōhoku Honsen Line / News of arrest leaked to press / Crowds at every station en route to see Hirasawa / Newspapermen and cameramen board the train at Morioka, Sendai and Taira / Train repeatedly delayed by crowds / Spend journey keeping press at bay / Hirasawa crouched on floor / Blanket over his head / Does not speak, sleep, eat or drink.

1948/8/23; 05.45: Hot, humid / Arrive Ueno Station / Chaos, crowds / Time of arrival leaked to press / Members of First Investigative Division and Officials of Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office waiting / Hand Hirasawa over to members of First Investigative Division and officials of Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office / Lose sight of Hirasawa Sadamichi in the chaos and the crowds –

[THE NOTEBOOK ENDS HERE]

Beneath the Black Gate, in its upper chamber, in the occult circle, the detective now says, ‘That was me finished. And the rest you know. The interrogation and the confession. The recantation and the trial. The conviction and the sentence. The appeals and the campaigns.

‘But I cannot die,’ the detective continues. ‘I cannot die until I see Hirasawa executed. For I know he did that crime. I know he killed those people. So no more tears. No more tears for him.

‘For this city is a notebook. In blunt pencil and on coarse paper. A notebook now closed. A case now closed …’

A second candle now out.

But in his city of conviction, you say, you laugh, you scream, ‘I will give you tears, you dog! You deceitful, lying dog!’

Because you hate detectives, and you hate dogs, and all detectives are dogs, all dogs detectives, and so you push this detective, this dog, to the ground and you kick him in his gut and you kick him in his head, in his deceits and in his lies, and then you tip open his boxes and you rip up his notebooks, and now you take out your matches and you start a fire, a fire of his boxes and his notebooks, shouting, ‘Liar! Liar! Liar-Dog! Dog-Liar! You lie! Lie!’

But the detective is laughing at you, laughing and barking, ‘He did it! He did it! And you, you should thank me!’

Among the smoke and among the flames, his fingers and his paws, still laughing and still barking, as you shout –

‘It wasn’t him! I know it wasn’t him!’

But now the pasts and the futures, their memories and their dreams, their deceits and their lies, their voices and their words, are all gone again; the Black Gate, the occult circle spinning again, spinning and spinning, and you are spinning, spinning and spinning,

through the laden wind, through the haunted air,

spinning and spinning, the detective gone –

Only his notes, his words remain –

Taunting you, mocking you –

You and your book, your book that is no book, as you pick up your pen and then drop your pen, drop and pick up, start and then stop, stop and then –

Here beneath the Black Gate, in the occult circle of its ten candles, a voice whispers, whispers from the shadows, ‘I am a Survivor. And I have the same dream, night after night…’

And from out of those shadows, a woman crawls towards you, on her hands and on her knees, and she says again, ‘The same dream.

‘Night after night, the same dream …