He forced himself to walk over to the uniformed sergeant, a middle-aged man in a crisp green uniform waiting under the large ornamental gate. The sergeant bowed. Saito bowed back.
“In that direction, sir, in the alley next to the temple.”
Saito grunted. There was a corpse in the alley, a female corpse — a gaijin body, white, limp, and lifeless. This much he knew from Headquarters. It was all very unfortunate, a miserable conglomeration of circumstances, all of them bad. He shouldn’t have a hangover, he shouldn’t have been on the night shift, and he shouldn’t be trying to solve a murder case. But he had had too much to drink the night before, his colleague u>a$ ill, and there had been a murder. And the three events now met in the person of Saito, only a short distance from an alley between two temples in Daidharmaji, the most beautiful and revered of all temple complexes in the holy city of Kyoto.
Saito’s foot stumbled over a pine root that twisted over the gravel of the path. He had to swing out his arms and then sidestep to regain his balance. He was dancing quite gracefully for a moment, but the effort exhausted him and he stopped and looked around. Daidharmaji, Temple of the Great Teaching. A gong sounded in the center of the compound and its singing metal clang filled the quiet path and was caught and held by the eight-foot-thick mud-and-plaster walls shielding the temples and their peaceful gardens.
Saito’s brain cleared and he could think for a few seconds. The Great Teaching. He remembered that these temples had but one purpose: the teaching of the truth to priests, monks, and laymen. Right now monks were sitting in meditation after having chanted to the accompaniment of the bronze gongs of the main temple. In their minds insight was supposed to develop and this insight would, in time and after much effort, rise to the surface of their beings like bubbles, or flashes of light. Enlightenment, manifested in sudden outbursts of what the teachers called Satori.
He smiled unhappily. Satori indeed. He recollected what he knew about the term. Insight has to do with detachment, with the breaking of the shell in which ego hides and which it uses as a defense to hold onto its identity — to a name, to possessions, to having and being. Satori cracks the shell and explodes into freedom. By becoming less, one gains. The experience is said to be a release and leads to laughter. Monks who, through their daily discipline and meditation, manage to touch reality usually laugh or, at least, smile.
Saito sighed. All very interesting on some lofty level. Not his level, however. He was an ordinary dim-witted man, muddling about. He was muddling about now, and the sergeant was waiting, a few steps ahead. Saito nodded and limped forward.
“Did you hurt yourself, sir?”
“Just a little. I didn’t see the root.”
“It’s a bad root, sir, but it can’t be removed, it belongs to that great pine over there, a very old tree, a holy tree.”
Saito followed until the sergeant stopped and began to gesture. They had come to a narrow path with some shrubbery on each side, backed by temple walls.
The sergeant pointed and stepped back. Two uniformed constables were guarding two well-pruned cherry trees.
“In there?”
“Yes sir. Another few yards, under a bush. We haven’t touched the corpse, sir.”
Saito walked on, protecting his face with an arm that felt as if it was made out of hard plastic. He didn’t want a branch to snap against his head. One little blow and his skull would break.
He sat on his haunches and studied the corpse. It was a woman, still young, perhaps in her late twenties. She had long blonde hair and was dressed in white cotton trousers and a white jacket buttoned up to the neck, Chinese Communist style. A red scarf had been tucked into the jacket’s collar. Its color matched the stains on the jacket. Saito produced a small flashlight and shone it on her face. It was the sort of face seen on models in expensive Western-style fashion magazines — beautiful, but cold, quite devoid of expression. Cool, impersonal, and dead. He studied the slack painted mouth. Very dead.
The sergeant was hissing respectfully just behind Saito’s head. The inspector straightened up. “Yes, Sergeant. Please tell me all you know.”
The sergeant checked his watch. “Ten fifteen p.m. now, sir. Young Tanaka reported the death at nine fifty-four. Young Tanaka lives nearby and he goes to drawing classes in the temple at the end of this alley on the left. He said he was going home and saw something white in the bushes. He investigated, saw the dead person, and came to tell us at the station.”
“Person?”
“Yes, sir. He told us he had found a dead person.”
“But this is a woman.”
“Yes, sir. I came here with him, ran back and told my constables where the corpse was and ordered them to guard it, then I telephoned Headquarters.”
Saito bent down and straightened up again, painfully. “The blood seems fresh. Sergeant. I hope the doctor is on his way. Do you know the lady?”
“Yes, sir. She studied meditation in the temple at the end of the alley, on the right, opposite the temple where young Tanaka learns how to draw. She is an American. Her name is Miss Davis and she stayed at the Kyoto Hotel. She came here most evenings, walked through this alley on her way in and out of the compound, and hailed a taxi from the main gate, opposite our station.”
“Ah. And the priest who teaches her meditation?”
“The Reverend Ohno. He has several gaijin as disciples. They come every weekday, in the evening, and sit in meditation from seven to nine.”
“Nine o’clock,” Saito said, “and then they go home?”
“Yes, sir. But the others — there are two elderly ladies and a gentleman, also old — walk another way. They take a taxi from the west gate. They don’t live in such an expensive hotel as the Kyoto Hotel. Miss Davis always walked by herself. It’s only a short distance to the main gate and the compound is reputed to be safe.”
Saito glanced down at the sprawling corpse. “Yes. Very safe. That’s a knife wound, Sergeant. Do you know of anybody walking around here at night, anybody who carries a knife?”
At least two sirens tore at the quiet cool evening and Saito’s hands came up and rubbed his temples. The sirens increased in volume and stopped. The sergeant barked at one of the constables and the young man saluted and jumped away.
“Anybody with a knife, Sergeant?”
The sergeant bowed and looked sad. “Yes, sir. There are street robbers, it is true. The compound is not safe any more. It used to be, and Miss Davis believed it to be. But...”
“But?”
“But there are young men, young men in tight trousers and leather jackets. They robbed an old man last week. The victim described the young men and I found the suspects and confronted them with the old man. He recognized the robbers but the suspects went free. There was only one witness, sir. To charge a suspect I need two witnesses.”
“Were these robbers around tonight?”
“Probably, sir. When they aren’t drinking or smoking the drug they roam about. They live close by. This is their territory. I will have them brought in for questioning.”
“Good. And what about young Tanaka, where is he now?”
“At home, sir. I know his parents. I can call him to the station.”
“Is he a good boy?”
The sergeant smiled his apology.
“Is he?”
“No, sir, and yes. We arrested him last year, and the year before. He is still young — sixteen years old. Indecent exposure, sir. But he is much better now. The priest who teaches him drawing says he has been behaving very well lately.”