The Master Key

PROLOGUE

On that day, the snow (unusual for April) which had fallen on the night before was still half an inch deep in the morning.

But before midday the sun peeped through the clouds and a thaw set in. In no time at all, the streets once again danced in the sunshine of spring.

At exactly noon, a woman tried to cross the road at the Otsuka Nakacho crossroads, even though the lights were against her.

Her head was completely hooded by a red scarf, and she wore a thick winter coat over black ski pants. This in spite of the fact that everyone else on the street was beginning to sweat slightly in the warm sunshine…

When the woman had got about a third of the way across the road, a small van came racing towards her from the direction of the Gokokuji temple. It was fully laden with wooden kegs of nails. The young driver, a boy from the mountains, was affected by the snow; his mind was full of the rosy-cheeked girls of his native place, and he had his foot hard down on the accelerator as he came up the slope. The green light seemed to beckon his youthfulness on—hurry! hurry! it seemed to say. From the corner of his eye, he caught a sudden glimpse of the girl in the red scarf but to him it was just a further reminder of the girls in his snow-bound native village. Perhaps that was why he skidded on the tramlines, although one cannot be sure. At any rate, the inexperienced young driver slammed on his brakes, but the van did not respond to his efforts to control it. It slid right around and headed back towards the woman. The last thing the young man saw before closing his eyes was the red-scarved and astonished face of the woman as she came crashing through his windscreen.

It took three minutes for the white ambulance to come from the fire station a hundred yards from the junction; it sped away with the casualties, and in another three minutes had delivered them to a nearby branch of the T University hospital. During this time, the girl opened her mouth and muttered something three times, but no one could catch what she was trying to say. By the time the ambulance reached the hospital, it was over.

A tall, white-coated doctor examined the body and pronounced it dead.

‘In spite of the lipstick, this was a male,’ he added in a strangled voice. His face was quite expressionless.

Those present had difficulty in repressing their laughter, until they were overcome by the solemnity of death, so that even the horror of the traffic accident was driven from their minds.

The young driver, who had been but the instrument of destiny, was punished beyond reason. He was in deep shock, and even after admission to the hospital he seemed unable to close his mouth. He slavered constantly, and kept muttering disjointedly, but all he could say was, ‘The red scarf, the red scarf.’

Time passed.

The busy police detectives waited for a family to come forward and identify the body of an unknown male, aged about thirty, who wore female dress…

Time passed.

A cub reporter covering crime, with time on his hands, went around the homosexual world of Ueno showing the photograph of the unidentified male…

Time passed.

The doctors and nurses at the hospital gradually ceased to joke during tea-breaks about the unidentified male, in female dress, who had been run over at the Otsuka Nakacho crossroads.

But somewhere, a woman waited alone in a darkened room… waited for the man to come back to her.

The room was on the fifth floor of an apartment block, buried in the shadows just two bus stops away from the Otsuka Nakacho crossroads.

She awaited the return of the man whom she had dressed in her own red scarf, winter coat and black ski pants, the man who had gone off with slumped shoulders, without even looking back.

She waited, alone, for seven years. She is still waiting.

The name of the building where she lives is ‘The K Apartments for Ladies’.