"By the way, Chiyo is still at her father's house. Her husband has cast her off," Reiko explained.
Sano looked disturbed but not surprised. "As if she hasn't suffered enough already." Setting down his tea bowl, he added, "We've covered a lot of ground, but we only have an oxcart that might or might not be involved, and descriptions of two suspects who might or might not be the culprits in any of the kidnappings."
"I started a search for mine," Hirata said.
"So did I," Sano said. "I sent my whole army out on the street to post notices and circulate my suspect's description."
"I hope it works." But Reiko knew how many men among Edo's million people probably fit those descriptions. Personal regret weighed upon her. "I wish there were something more I could do."
"There is," Sano said. "Talk to Chiyo again. Maybe she'll remember something else. And I want you to interview Fumiko and the nun. Maybe you can get more information from them than Hirata and I did."
17
For a brief moment when the sun ascended over the hills outside Edo, the rooftops of the city gleamed bright as gold. Then clouds rolled down from the hills, chasing and overtaking the rays of the sun. Edo was cloaked in a silvery mist.
Inside Sano's estate, Sano and Masahiro knelt opposite one another, some ten paces apart, in a shadowed courtyard. Each wore white martial arts practice clothes, his hand on the long sword at his waist. They sat perfectly still, their expressions serene yet alert.
Sano drew his sword. In one fluid motion, he whipped his blade out of its scabbard, leaped to his feet, and lunged. Masahiro followed suit. They slashed at each other; they parried and whirled, attacked, and counterattacked. Their wooden blades never touched, never made contact with their bodies. At last they retreated, sheathed their swords, and bowed.
"Your form is improving," Sano said, "but you were slower than usual."
Masahiro hung his head. "I'm sorry, Father."
Sano disliked criticizing his son. That was why he'd hired a tutor to teach Masahiro. He remembered his own childhood, when his father had taught him swordsmanship, and how much his father's constant, merciless tongue-lashings had hurt. He and Masahiro enjoyed practicing together; it was their special time to share during his busy day. But Sano couldn't ignore his son's faults.
Uncorrected, they might be the death of Masahiro someday. His own father's stern discipline was the reason Sano had fought and lived to fight again.
"You weren't paying attention," Sano said. "If this had been real combat, you'd be dead."
"Yes, Father, I know," Masahiro said, chastened.
Sano was concerned because Masahiro usually took martial arts practice very seriously. He knew better than other children how crucial good fighting skills were.
"What's the matter?" Sano said.
"Nothing," Masahiro said, with a haste that aroused Sano's suspicions.
"Is something on your mind?"
Masahiro fidgeted with the hilt of his sword. "No."
The gate opened, and Detectives Fukida and Marume appeared. "Please excuse the interruption, but there's good news," Fukida said.
"Can I go now, Father?" Masahiro said.
Sano studied his son's eager, nervous face. Masahiro was normally enthusiastic about their sessions and reluctant for them to end. His behavior today puzzled Sano.
But Sano said, "All right," and didn't press for an explanation. His own father had made him practice for long hours every single day. He'd often wished for time off to play with other children, wander the city and see the sights, or simply do nothing.
Masahiro hurried off. Sano said to the detectives, "What is it?"
"We just went back to the oxcart stables," Fukida said. "We asked the boss if any drivers fit your description of the man from the convent. He knew of one."
Hopeful excitement rose in Sano. "Good work. Where is he? Have you arrested him?"
"Not yet," Fukida said.
"He's working right near our doorstep," Marume said. "We thought you'd like to be in on the action."
Before Reiko left home, she stopped at the kitchen, where an army of cooks prepared food for the hundreds of people who lived in Sano's estate. Cooks slung vegetables and fish, grilled, stewed, and fried amid a din of cleavers chopping, pans rattling, and hearths roaring. Powerful aromas of garlic and hot oil permeated the steam from boiling pots.
Reiko packed fried dumplings stuffed with shrimp, grilled eel, raw tuna strips fastened to rice balls with seaweed, noodles with vegetables, and cakes filled with sweet chestnut paste into a lacquered wooden, compartmented lunchbox. She filled a jar with water, then carried the feast to her palanquin. She climbed inside and said to the bearers, "Take me to Zj Temple district."
After hastily changing his martial arts clothes for his regular garments, Sano donned his swords, mounted his horse, and left his estate with his detectives. They stopped to fetch Hirata on their way out of the castle. Marume and Fukida led the way through the northwestern gate. They brought their horses to a stop on the avenue that circled the castle. The avenue separated Edo Castle from the daimyo district, where the feudal lords and their thousands of retainers lived in vast compounds. Traffic that consisted mainly of samurai on horse back avoided the roadside by the castle, where piles of rocks, scrap lumber, and dirt overflowed into the street. Sano looked up at the construction site.
It was a dilapidated guard turret atop the wall, partially demolished, its upper story gone. Laborers hacked at the remains with pickaxes. They dropped the debris onto the pile on the roadside below, where two pairs of oxen, each yoked to a cart, stood patiently, tails swishing off flies. The two drivers-men dressed in short indigo kimonos and frayed sandals-loaded the debris on their carts.
One man was big, muscular, in his thirties. He wore his hair shorn down to a black fuzz on his scalp. His face sported several days' growth of whiskers. As Sano rode closer, he saw the large, pale scar on the man's right cheekbone.
"It looks like the man that the novice at the convent saw," Sano said.
The man spoke to his fellow driver, who grinned.
Hirata, riding beside Sano, said, "Look at the other fellow. He's younger and has two teeth missing from the right side of his mouth. That's my suspect."
"That's why a different man was at the scenes of two different kidnappings," Sano said. "We haven't got two separate criminals. They're a team."
"What a piece of good luck, finding them together," Marume said as he followed with Fukida.
When Sano and his men approached the oxcarts, the drivers spied them. The humor on their faces turned to caution, then the fear of guilty men cornered by the law. They dropped the timbers they'd lifted. They both jumped in one oxcart, and the big man snatched up a whip.
"Go!" he shouted, flailing the oxen.
The oxen clopped down the avenue, dragging the cart filled with debris. Workers on the turret yelled, "Hey! We're not done. Wait!" Sano and his men surged forward in pursuit. The driver with the missing teeth shouted, "Faster! Faster!"
But the heavy cart was no match for horsemen. Sano's party quickly caught up with it. The drivers jumped off the cart and ran.
"Don't let them get away!" Sano shouted as the drivers fled through the crowd and people swerved to avoid them.
Hirata leaped from his horse, flew through the air, landed on the younger man's back, and quickly subdued him. Marume and Fukida rode down the other man. When they caught him, he punched, kicked, and thrashed. By the time they'd wrestled him to the ground, they were panting and sweating.
From astride his horse, Sano surveyed his captives. "You're under arrest," he said.
"Didn't do anything wrong," the big man protested, his scarred cheek pressed into the mud.
"Neither did I," said his friend, pinned under Hirata.