Konoe had been a metsuke spy. Had he bought the shop because he needed a place from which to conduct espionage? If so, he’d found the perfect location to live a secret life: conveniently near the palace, but on the other side of the class boundary, where he could be anonymous. And maybe this secret life was related to his murder.
With the purposeful stride of someone who knew where she was going, Jokyōden walked through an open doorway at the back of the room. Reiko joined her in a second room, where an abandoned loom stood, festooned with spiderwebs, faded threads clinging to its broken beams.
“How do you know about this place?” Reiko asked.
Another door, this one closed, led to the rear of the shop. Jokyōden halted with her back against it and said, “If I am to tell you, I must first have your promise that what I say will be kept in strict confidence.”
Reiko hesitated, because although instinct told her that Jokyōden’s answer might be important to her investigation, she didn’t know whether she could honor such a bargain. Avenging Sano’s death took priority over Jokyōden’s wishes. If revealing later what Jokyōden told her would benefit her cause, then she must do it. Still, perhaps she could somehow manage to keep Jokyōden’s secrets without jeopardizing her own mission.
“1 promise,” she said.
For a long interval, Jokyōden regarded her in silence. The room was dim and Jokyōden’s face in shadow, so Reiko couldn’t see her expression. The incessant clatter of looms from the adjacent shops echoed through the walls. Then Jokyōden said in a tone devoid of emotion, “Left Minister Konoe and I were lovers at one time. We used to meet here, where no one who mattered would see us together.”
Surprise stunned Reiko. When she and Jokyōden had talked about the left minister two days ago, Jokyōden had betrayed no personal feelings toward him. Now Reiko felt a stab of apprehension as she wondered what else Jokyōden had concealed.
“When was this affair?” she asked.
“Before Left Minister Konoe’s death, obviously.” With her sarcastic reply and forbidding tone, Jokyōden proclaimed that she didn’t intend to elaborate on the subject. She turned to open the door, then let Reiko into the shop’s last room, which had once been the proprietor’s living quarters.
When Jokyōden opened the skylight and windows, Reiko saw a kitchen on one side, where a kettle sat on the hearth; shelves held a few pieces of crockery, parcels of tea, and dried fruit. On the other side, a charcoal brazier stood beside a dingy futon on the frayed tatami; a pine table held a lamp; an umbrella leaned against the whitewashed plank wall. The only item that reflected Konoe’s noble rank was a desk made of dark teak with gold geometric inlays. The windows overlooked an alley whose privy sheds and garbage bins sent foul odors into the room. Reiko couldn’t imagine the elegant Jokyōden lying on that bed, in this dismal place.
“This is the one place I can show you that might contain clues about what the left minister did during the days just before he died, who he saw, or why someone wanted to kill him,” Jokyōden said. Her dignified poise hid any shame she felt at bringing Reiko to the scene of her illicit romance. “He sometimes kept personal papers here.”
He’d kept very few things here, Reiko thought; hardly enough even for a quick tryst once in awhile. Then she noticed indented, rectangular shadows on the tatami where furniture had once stood, and hooks on the walls that might have held paintings or drapery. And she understood. The room had been comfortably furnished when Jokyōden and Konoe had come here together. Konoe must have removed unneeded furnishings because the affair had ended even before his death.
“We always traveled here separately,” Jokyōden said. “Sometimes he would be writing when I arrived, and he always put the papers away in the desk. Perhaps they’re still there.”
Even as Reiko knelt at the desk, questions burgeoned in her mind. Why had the affair ended, and when? Reiko remembered asking Jokyōden how she got along with Konoe, and Jokyōden’s answer: “We had no quarrels.” But what if there had been a quarrel, one that had caused a breakup between Konoe and Jokyōden shortly before his death? Reiko thought about Lady Asagao’s story of seduction by Konoe. If it was true, then perhaps his infidelity had angered Jokyōden. Earlier, Reiko had conjectured that the pair had clashed over imperial politics, but love gone bad was also a strong motive for murder.
She looked up at Jokyōden, who stood by the window, looking outside. Sunlight slanted across her profile, glittering in her eye; a cold serenity masked her thoughts. Fear turned the sweat on Reiko’s skin into a film of ice water as she remembered Jokyōden closing the front doors and sealing them both in the shop. Was it Jokyōden who had killed Konoe- and Sano? Had she arranged this trip for the purpose of eliminating a woman who sought to expose her guilt?
Then Reiko dismissed her fear as ludicrous. She didn’t really believe Jokyōden was a murderer, but even if she was, she wouldn’t kill again here. There were people outside, including Reiko’s guards; she couldn’t get away with murdering Reiko. Still, Reiko’s heart thudded as she examined the desk. A uniform coating of dust dulled the inlaid surface, and she hoped that this place had remained undisturbed since Konoe last came here. Her hands shook as she lifted the lid of the desk.
Inside, amid writing brushes, inkstones, and ribbons for binding scrolls, she found stacked papers, all blank. Disappointment crushed Reiko. She pulled everything out of the desk, searched for scraps she’d missed, or hidden compartments, without success. Konoe had apparently not left any writings here. As a metsuke spy, he would have taken care to conceal documents related to espionage for fear that his secret life would be exposed. Or had someone else removed things, careful not to leave signs of the disturbance?
Reiko looked up to see Jokyōden watching her. She said, “Who else besides you and the left minister knew about this place?”
“No one, as far as I know.”
“When was the last time you came here?”
“If you are asking if 1 have been here since the left minister died, the answer is no.” Jokyōden turned back to the window.
Yet maybe she’d come back after the murder, to take away personal items she’d left behind or anything else that revealed her relationship with the left minister. Reiko knew that the Imperial Court viewed adultery in much the same way as did society in general: Married men enjoyed the freedom to have affairs, but women paid dearly for sexual dalliance. If Jokyōden’s affair with Konoe had become public, the abdicated emperor would probably have divorced her; she’d have lost her authority over the court amid humiliating scandal.
However, Reiko saw another reason for Jokyōden to remove papers from the desk, if they could implicate her in Konoe’s murder. Such an intelligent woman would recognize the need to destroy evidence against her. Reiko wondered whether Jokyōden had brought her here while knowing she would find nothing. Had she pretended to help with the investigation so Reiko would think her innocent?
Plagued by doubts, Reiko looked around the room for somewhere else to search. Her gaze lit on the charcoal brazier. Excitement quickened her pulse. She hardly dared to hope…
She hurried to the brazier, a square wooden box with multiple slots in the top and three sides. Kneeling, she peered through the grate on the fourth side. Inside sat a metal pan containing ash, sooty coals, and a wad of partially burned paper. Reiko’s heart leapt. Opening the grate, she lifted out the paper, heedless of the ash that smudged her fingers. She peeled away delicate black layers. Only the innermost had survived the fire. Darkened at the edges, it was a fragment from a page of scribbled notes. An inked circle surrounded the name Ibe Masanobu. This, Reiko knew, was the daimyo of Echizen Province. Other notations read: “Site surveillance? Watch night movements.” “Arrived Month 3, Day 17.” “Eleven more inside yesterday.” “No outsiders allowed.” “Infiltrators?”