"I'll kill that rat," Jinshichi fumed.
"If you live long enough," Marume said. "Tell Chamberlain Sano which one raped his cousin."
"It was Ogita," Jinshichi said, reluctant to confess, yet eager to avoid more tickling.
At last Sano knew the truth. At last he had a target for the anger he felt on behalf of Chiyo and his newfound clan. He thought of Ogita lying to his face, and an intense hatred filled him like venom infusing his veins, like hot smoke suffocating his lungs. He wanted to lash out at the merchant and strike him down. But Ogita wasn't here, and now wasn't the time for Sano to let loose his temper.
"Ogita wanted a woman who'd just had a baby," Gombei said. "He wanted to drink milk from her breasts while he had sex with her. You can't get that in Yoshiwara. So we went to Awashima Shrine. It always has plenty of new mothers. All we had to do was pick one who looked easy. I pretended I was hurt, I called for help, and she came right to me."
That he could speak so casually about his crime! Sano felt his hatred grow to encompass the oxcart drivers for their part in Chiyo's rape.
"I didn't know she was your cousin," Gombei said. "If I had, I'd have kidnapped somebody else."
Sano wanted to grab the man by his hair, grind his face into the dirt, wipe off its sheepish expression, then cut off his head. But he wasn't finished with Jinshichi. "You did kidnap somebody else, didn't you? The girl Fumiko."
"No," Gombei said. "We never-"
"Was she for Nanbu, or Joju?" Sano said.
Jinshichi said, "Keep quiet! He'll kill us!"
Sano motioned to the eta. They moved toward the prisoners. Gombei hastily said, "No! Please! All right! She was for Nanbu. He happened to see her when he and his men were catching dogs at Ueno Temple. He wanted her, but he found out she was the daughter of Jirocho the gangster, and he was afraid to take her himself. So he hired us."
Sano was almost as disgusted by Nanbu's cowardice as by his taking pleasure at the expense of a helpless young girl. "Did he hire you to kidnap the nun, too?"
"No. That was Joju. He likes high-class old ladies."
It was the priest who'd infected the nun with genital disease. He was responsible for her suicide and therefore indirectly guilty of murder. Sano thought about the similarities between the nun and the shogun's wife. He glimpsed a light through the dark tangle of this investigation.
"He's confessed to everything," Jinshichi said with a bitter look at his partner. "Just kill us now."
"Not quite everything," Sano said. "There's another victim besides the three we've discussed. The nun wasn't the only woman you kidnapped for Joju, was she?"
An air of caution fell over the men. They seemed to shrink into themselves under its weight. Their gazes avoided each other as well as Sano and his men. Gombei said, "There were only three."
"Four," Sano said.
"Can't you count that high?" Hirata mocked the drivers.
"Maybe they have short memories and they've forgotten about the shogun's wife," Sano said.
"What?" Jinshichi and Gombei spoke in unison; they stared in disbelieving, apparently genuine shock.
"The shogun's wife went missing yesterday," Sano said. "I think she was kidnapped." He pointed at the two men. "By none other than you."
Now they did look at each other, with appalled expressions. Jinshichi blurted, "You didn't tell me she was the shogun's wife."
"I didn't know!" Gombei cried, too upset to deny the charge or keep his mouth shut. "I thought she was just some old lady." He turned to Sano. "I swear!"
"You're in even bigger trouble now," Hirata said. "The shogun will have your head cut off for that."
"Not just yet." Sano addressed the captives: "Tell me what happened."
"We needed money," Gombei said. "We went to see Joju the day before yesterday. He said that if we brought him another old lady, he'd pay us enough money to get out of town. So we went and found her." He moaned. "Of all the women in Edo, it would have to be the shogun's wife. What rotten luck!"
"Your luck is about to improve," Sano said. "Answer a few more questions, and maybe I'll let you live. Here's the first one: Did you take the shogun's wife to the same boat as the other women?"
"He knows about the boat," Jinshichi said dolefully. "He knows everything."
"I take it that means yes," Sano said. "Here's the second question: Where is the boat?"
Jinshichi began to speak, but Gombei prevented him by yelling, "Shut up!" Gombei's eyes shone with desperate cunning. "Even if we tell you where the boat is, you won't be able to find it by yourself. To you, it would look the same as a thousand other boats. How about if we take you there?"
He grinned. Sano knew Gombei was buying time, hoping that on the way to the boat he and Jinshichi would find a way to escape. But Sano had no time to argue or negotiate; without the men as guides, he might not get to Lady Nobuko before the shogun's deadline.
"All right," Sano said, "but I'm warning you: no tricks."
39
The smoke from the crematoriums hung in a cloud over Inaricho district.
Reiko could see the smoke, lit by the full moon, rising like a ghostly fog in the distance as she and Chiyo rode in her palanquin. The light from lanterns hung on poles attached to her bodyguards' horses didn't extend beyond the roadsides. The vast darkness of the rice fields resonated with a cacophony of frogs singing and insects buzzing. At this late hour, Reiko, Chiyo, and their escorts were the only travelers going to Inaricho.
Inaricho was a backwater, situated between two major temple districts. Reiko could see lights flickering far ahead in Ueno to her left and Asakusa to her right, but Inaricho would have been invisible if not for the smoke. It was a perfect location for cemeteries, and for the crematoriums in which dead bodies burned overnight. Inaricho was conveniently near the temples where funeral rites were held and distant from Edo proper, where crematoriums were outlawed because of the fire hazard.
"Jirocho must have chosen the pauper's cemetery because he knew it would be deserted," Reiko said.
"He'll have privacy for his business," Chiyo agreed.
Few people ventured into these parts at night. As her procession entered the smoke cloud, Reiko smelled the awful odor of burning flesh. She and Chiyo held their sleeves over their noses and mouths, but the odor was so strong she could taste it. Her escorts coughed. Their lanterns lit up the smoke and colored it orange. The procession moved as if through fire, toward some hellish netherworld.
The bearers set down the palanquin in the main street, where shops sold altar furnishings such as Buddha statues, candle holders, gold lotus flowers, and incense burners. The shops were closed, abandoned by the living, surrendered to the dead until day came. The bearers were breathing hard, tired from the journey, wheezing because of the smoke. Lieutenant Tanuma dismounted and said to them, "You stay here and guard the horses. We'll walk from here."
Reiko and Chiyo climbed out of the palanquin. As they and the bodyguards raced along Inaricho's back streets, Reiko's heart beat with quickening excitement and apprehension. Beyond small temples and shrines lay the cemeteries, enclosed within stone walls or bamboo fences. The sickening smell of burned flesh grew stronger. Reiko could feel the heat from the crematoriums.
"Which way?" Lieutenant Tanuma's anxious face shone with sweat in the light from the lanterns that he and the other men had brought.
"I don't know," Reiko said. She'd never been to the paupers' cemetery, and there was no one to ask for directions. "We'll just have to look around."
They tramped through the cemeteries. In each stood a crematorium, a massive, outdoor oven built of stone. Each had a shelter where mourners gathered in the morning, when the oven was opened, to pick out bones and put them in an urn for burial. Reiko heard sizzling inside the crematoriums. The smoke that poured from their vents was so thick that she and her comrades groped between the rows of square stone grave pillars carved with the names of the deceased. They tripped on vases of flowers and offerings of food and drink left for the spirits. But they saw no sign of Jirocho or Fumiko. Exhausted, nearly overcome by the smoke, they stopped in an alley to rest.