"If you really want to," Sano said. "You can go straight to the court of justice and be tried for two kidnappings and two assaults."
For the first time, Jinshichi's face showed fear. It was common knowledge that almost every trial ended with a guilty verdict.
"Better yet," Sano said, "we'll just skip the trial and take you straight to the execution ground."
"But I didn't kidnap those women." Jinshichi strained against the ropes that bound him. "I swear!"
Sano burned with rage at the man's denials. But even though Sano was sure Jinshichi was lying, he couldn't ignore the obvious reason that the man might not be.
There was a second suspect right down the hall.
In the other interrogation room, Hirata studied the prisoner who knelt on the straw at his feet. "Tell me your name," he ordered.
"Gombei, Honorable master." The man bowed and grinned.
He was slender and wiry, the type that was far stronger than he looked. He could probably lift loads as heavy as himself. Even with his wrists and ankles tied up, he exuded a bounding energy. Hirata could hear his rapid heartbeat, his blood swift beneath his skin. Despite his missing teeth, his face wasn't unhandsome. Long, wavy hair, fallen from his topknot, grazed his shoulders and framed ro guish features. His eyes sparkled with vitality and cunning.
Trained perception and samurai instinct told Hirata that Gombei had plenty to hide.
But even as Hirata prepared to extract Gombei's guilty secrets, only half of his attention was focused on the job at hand. He couldn't stop thinking about the presence he'd sensed at Shinobazu Pond yesterday. Who was it? What were the man's intentions?
Now, half of Hirata's mind was attuned to the world beyond his sight, waiting for the mysterious presence to return. He believed that even though he didn't know who it was, it knew who he was. He found himself constantly glancing over his shoulder, sensing that he was being watched. He felt like a coward rather than the best fighter in Edo. The presence had planted a seed of fear in him. Hirata felt the seed growing, feeding on his confusion, against his will.
What would happen the next time he encountered the presence?
There would be a next time, but when?
Gombei's voice brought Hirata back to Edo Jail and the investigation. "Honorable master, please believe me when I say that I am a decent, honest citizen who's never broken the law." He had the kind of earnest, charming manner that Hirata automatically distrusted. "Ask anyone who knows me. My family, my friends, my neighbors, my boss, they'll tell you that I'm-"
"Quite the talker," Hirata interrupted. "Well, let's talk about the little girl you kidnapped."
Amazement snapped Gombei's eyes wide. His full lips silently repeated the word kidnapped. "What little girl?"
"The one at Shinobazu Pond."
"With all due respect, I didn't do it." Gombei oozed earnestness. "I would never hurt a child. In fact, I would never even hurt a fly. Except if it's the biting kind."
"You were in the area," Hirata said. "A witness saw you."
"I've done work over there. A lot of people must have seen me. If I may say so, that doesn't mean I kidnapped somebody."
"I say you did. You kidnapped that girl, put her in a cage, and raped her."
"I didn't!" Gombei bristled with indignation.
He had a combative streak beneath his charm, Hirata observed. He wasn't as harmless as he took pains to appear. But Hirata couldn't discern more about the man. Preoccupation had weakened his mental energy.
"If I want a good time, I don't need to kidnap and force anybody, and besides, I don't go for children. I like women." Gombei's grin turned lecherous. "And they like me. I've got a wife, a mistress, and ladies all over town."
"Not even a big ladies' man like you can have whoever he wants," Hirata said. He couldn't summon the power to see through lies or manipulate Gombei into confessing. He must rely on verbal tactics. "What if you want somebody you can't get?"
"Pardon me, but I can't imagine who that might be."
"How about the chamberlain's cousin? She's a high-ranking samurai woman with a new baby. She was kidnapped, too." Hirata asked, "Do you like to drink mother's milk straight from the breast while you have sex?"
"What?" Disbelief and outrage lifted the pitch of Gombei's voice. "No, indeed."
"How about a sixty-year-old nun? Do you get a thrill out of raping holy women?"
Gombei sputtered. "With all due respect, only a man who's sick in the head would do such things."
"Like your friend?"
"You could save yourself a lot of trouble if you would just confess," Fukida told Jinshichi.
"And save us the trouble of torturing you," Marume said.
They both knew that Sano didn't approve of torture because it often produced false confessions.
"Go ahead," Jinshichi said, his eyes glittering with bravado. "Tell you right now, I say what you want, it's not true."
Today Sano would have been glad to make an exception for Jinshichi, but he had at least one other ploy to try. "Maybe you're right," he said, in such a quick about-face that Marume and Fukida looked at him in surprise. "Maybe you're not the culprit."
"Been telling you all along," Jinshichi said, half relieved, half wary of a trick.
"Maybe it's your friend," Sano said. "What's his name?"
"Gombei." The man sneered. "He didn't do it, either."
"Somebody did," Sano said. "Somebody's going to be punished. Right now my choice is him or you. Which is it going to be?"
"Not him. Not me," Jinshichi insisted. "Like I said, you got the wrong folks."
"Your friend is under interrogation as we speak," Sano said. "My chief retainer is asking him the same kind of questions that I've been asking you. What do you think he's saying?"
Jinshichi shrugged. "That we're both innocent."
"Don't be too sure about that," Sano said. "He puts the blame on you, he goes free."
"He wouldn't," Jinshichi said staunchly.
"Of course he would, if it means he lives and you die."
"You're trying to pit us against each other," Jinshichi said. "Won't work."
"I'm trying to help you see reason," Sano said. "Any moment, my chief retainer is going to walk in here and say that your friend turned on you. Then it will be too late for you to take advantage of the deal I'm offering."
Suspicion lowered Jinshichi's heavy brow. "What deal?"
"Be the first to turn. If your friend kidnapped and raped those women, you tell me everything you know about it, and I'll let you go."
Sano hoped this deal would induce Jinshichi to provide details about the crimes that would help him figure out which, if either, man had committed them. But Jinshichi squared his muscular shoulders and set his jaw.
"Forget it," he said. "Gombei didn't do it, and neither did I. That's the truth, no matter what you do to us."
"What about my friend?" Gombei asked Hirata.
"Maybe he likes little girls, nursing mothers, and old nuns," Hirata suggested.
Gombei chortled. "Oh, now that's ridiculous, if you'll pardon my saying so."
"What makes you so sure?"
"I've known Jinshichi forever. We're from the same neighborhood. He's not sick or crazy."
"People keep secrets even from their closest friends," Hirata said. "How do you know what goes on in Jinshichi's mind-or what he does in private?"
"I know he couldn't have kidnapped the girl or the nun. Because he was with me on the days they were taken." Gombei's grin broadened. The gaps where his teeth had rotted out were black holes.
Hirata had expected Gombei to trot out a double alibi. "Which days were those?" He hadn't said. If Gombei knew, that would mark him as the culprit.
"Every day," Gombei said. "We work together."
"There must have been times when you were out of each other's sight. I can ask your boss if he ever sent you to different jobs."
"Ask him, if you want," Gombei said with brazen nonchalance.
"Then again," Hirata said, "why should I bother? I can just ask Jinshichi. He's right down the hall."