They stood in a blur of light that filtered through a window. Ozuno’s expression was fierce. “Take your hand off me,” he said in a voice quiet yet terrible.
Through his body thundered a blast of energy. It struck Hirata. He snatched his hand away and stepped backward as Ozuno’s shield pulsated waves of power at him. His fingers smarted, as if burned.
“You would arrest your teacher, hold him captive, and force him to train you against his will?” Ozuno said, his voice now laced with incredulity. “Merciful gods, there’s no end to your pigheadedness!”
“Forgive me,” Hirata said, anxious to placate Ozuno, regretting his own behavior. “A thousand apologies!”
“A single ‘farewell’ would be more to my taste.” Ozuno stomped down the wet street.
Hirata followed, horrified by the turn of events. “Do you mean it’s over? Just like that, after three years?”
“Three years are even more precious to an old man than to a young one. I shan’t waste more of my time on you because unless you change radically, you’ll never succeed at dim-mak.”
“Please give me another chance,” Hirata begged.
“Life is full of chances,” Ozuno said, limping faster, pounding his staff on the ground. “If by some miracle you make a major breakthrough, I’ll take up your training again.”
Hirata halted in defeat. “But where are you going?” he called to Ozuno’s receding figure. “Where will I find you?”
“Don’t worry,” Ozuno called over his shoulder as he disappeared through a neighborhood gate. “Should you ever be ready for another try, I’ll find you.”
Hirata and his men arrived in a rundown neighborhood crisscrossed by a malodorous canals. Voices quarreled inside the tenements whose thatched roofs sagged under the weight of the rain. A peasant emptied a bucket of slops into a street already mired in floodwater and sewage. Sullen men and boys loitered, smoking pipes and drinking cheap sake, on plank sidewalks above the filth. The desolate scene matched Hirata’s mood. He consoled himself with the thought that since his martial arts training had been suspended, at least he could focus on getting Sano and Reiko out of trouble.
This was where their trouble had started.
He dismounted outside the Persimmon Teahouse. A lantern within splashed light through the wet, tattered blue curtains. He and Inoue and Arai entered. The proprietor lounged glumly beside his sake jars; a man dozed, his head pillowed on a wooden drum; three women sat bickering together. When they saw Hirata’s party, they perked up.
“Welcome,” said the proprietor. “How about a drink?”
Hirata and his men accepted. The proprietor served them sake, then nudged the sleeping drummer. “Wake up! Entertain our guests.”
The women got to their feet, preparing to dance. Hirata said, “Never mind, thank you. I’ve come to talk to Lily. Is she here?”
“Lily?” The proprietor frowned. “There’s no one here by that name.”
Hirata looked at the dancers and drummer, who shook their heads. “I was told that Lily worked in this teahouse.”
“Whoever told you was mistaken.”
“She was a dancer here three months ago.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve never had anyone called Lily,” the proprietor said.
Hirata stepped outside for a moment, looked at the insignia printed on the curtains, then said, “This is the Persimmon Teahouse, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But maybe you’re looking for another place with the same name in a different neighborhood. Maybe this woman Lily works there.”
Hirata didn’t think so. The directions he’d obtained from Reiko before leaving Edo Castle had been clear enough, and this place fit her description. Now he was disturbed that it seemed Lily didn’t exist, but not really surprised. The fact that he wasn’t surprised caused him even more distress.
All along he’d had private doubts about Reiko’s story. The idea that she’d gone to the Mori estate to look for a stolen child, then ended up naked and unconscious at the scene of Lord Mori’s murder through no fault of her own seemed far-fetched even for a woman as extraordinary as Reiko.
During his years as a police officer, Hirata had heard some mighty creative excuses from wrongdoers trying to slither their way around the law. He couldn’t help wondering if Reiko’s case was an example. His friendship with her urged him to deny that she was as guilty as she appeared, but his police instincts warned him against falling for a trick by a murder suspect who was far more intelligent than the average street criminal. Hirata felt torn between his wish to believe and protect Reiko and his reluctance to be a dupe and let a possible murderess thwart justice.
“Lily is about forty years old. She has a little boy named Jiro,” he said to the proprietor, dancers, and drummer. “Does that jog your memory?”
“No, master,” they said.
“The boy was stolen. Lily wrote to Lady Reiko, asking for help. Lady Reiko came here to see her. Do you remember?”
Again, a chorus of denials.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” Hirata said. “Are you sure you don’t know Lily?”
“We’re sure,” the proprietor said.
As the dancers nodded, Hirata surveyed them closely. They were all too young to be Lily. They looked nervous, but he couldn’t tell if it was because they were hiding something or from fear of the authority that he represented. His mind buzzed with warning signals that someone wasn’t playing straight with him, but he didn’t know who it was.
“Come on, let’s go,” he told his detectives.
Outside, Arai said, “Those people could be lying.”
“But why would they?” Inoue said.
Hirata shook his head, at a loss for a good reason. He could see his distrust of Reiko in his men’s faces, although they didn’t voice it because they knew his deep-seated loyalty to her as well as Sano. He stifled the thought that he didn’t know them as well as he once did. Had both their characters been corrupted by power?
“We have to find Lily,” he said. “She’s the best witness who can confirm Lady Reiko’s statement.”
He marched down the street, stopped at the first door he came to, and knocked until it was opened by a man wearing a nightshirt and accompanied by a wife carrying a lamp. They blinked drowsily at Hirata.
“I’m looking for a woman named Lily,” Hirata said. “Do you know her?”
“No,” the man said, and shut the door.
At the next two houses Hirata got the same response. At the fourth house an elderly man answered and Hirata said, “Where’s the headman of this neighborhood?”
“That’s me.”
“Show me your record of everybody who lives here.”
The headman complied. The ledger that contained the neighborhood census of names, family relationships, occupations, and addresses showed no Lily or Jiro listed.
“Something is fishy, but maybe not here,” Arai said, hinting that it was Reiko’s story.
By this time Hirata was anxious to find out the truth and silence the voice in his head that said Reiko had sent him on a wild goose chase. “I want everyone from every house out in the street.”
He and Arai and Inoue pounded on doors, yelling orders. Soon they had a crowd of frightened people lined up outside their homes. Hirata told them, “I’m looking for a widow named Lily, who’s the mother of a boy named Jiro. Anyone who knows her whereabouts, step forward.”
Nobody did. Hirata walked up and down the lines, studying the women, as stronger doubts about Reiko nagged at him despite his tendency to take her word over that of strangers. Planting himself in the center of the road, he announced, “Tell me where Lily is, or somebody will get hurt.”
They cowered in speechless fright. Hirata pulled an elderly, white-haired man out of the line and flung him at the detectives, who caught him. “I’ll count to ten, and if you don’t answer, we’ll beat him up. One… two…”