"Get away from me." Miyoshi Matsumoto pushed past Isabelle and stalked towards the hospital doors. "Hiro, call that lawyer. Call someone. Keep her out of here."
She went within, leaving Isabelle outside with Hiro Matsumoto. He looked at the ground, his arms crossed on his chest. She said to him, "Please intercede."
He seemed to consider her request and Isabelle felt momentarily hopeful until he said,
"This is something I can't do. Miyoshi feels much as I do."
"Which is?"
He looked up. Behind his gleaming spectacles, his eyes looked bleak. "Responsible," he said.
"You didn't do this."
"Not for what happened," he said, "but for what didn't happen." He nodded at Isabelle and moved towards the hospital doors.
She followed him at first, then walked at his side. They entered the hospital and began to make their way to Yukio Matsumoto's room. Isabelle said, "No one could have anticipated this.
I've been reassured by my officer on the scene that he didn't approach your brother, that instead Yukio saw something or heard something or perhaps felt something - we can't even work out which it was - and he simply bolted. As you've said yourself - "
"Superintendent, that's not what I mean." Matsumoto paused. Round them, people went on their way: visitors bearing flowers and balloons to loved ones, members of the hospital's staff striding purposefully from one corridor to another. Above their heads the public address system asked Dr. Marie Lincoln to report to the operating theatre, and next to them pardon was requested by two orderlies whisking a patient somewhere on a trolley. Matsumoto seemed to take all of this in before he went on. "We did what we could for Yukio for many years, Miyoshi and I, but it was not enough. We had our own careers, and it was easier to let him drift so that we could pursue our music. With Yukio to concern ourselves with, to weigh us down ..." He shook his head. "How could we have climbed so far, Miyoshi and I? And now this. How could we have sunk so low? I am most deeply shamed."
"You've no need to be," Isabelle told him. "If he's sick, as you say, and without medication, if he's got a mental condition that caused him to do something, you bear absolutely no responsibility."
He'd walked on as she was speaking and he'd rung for the lift and then faced her. When the doors opened in near silence, he turned and she followed him inside. He said to her quietly,
"Again, you misunderstand me, Superintendent. My brother did not kill that poor woman. There is an explanation for everything: for the blood on him, for that ...that thing you found in his lodgings - "
"Then for God's sake, let him give me the explanation," Isabelle said. "Let him tell me what he did do, what he knows, what actually happened. You can be present, right at his bedside.
Your sister can be present. I'm not in uniform. He won't know who I am, and you don't need to tell him if you think he'll panic. You can speak to him in Japanese if that would make it easier for him."
"Yukio speaks perfect English, Superintendent."
"Then speak to him in English. Or Japanese. Or both. I don't care. If, as you say, he's guilty of nothing but being in the cemetery, then he may have seen something that can help us find Jemima Hastings' killer."
They reached the floor he'd rung for and the doors slid open. In the corridor, Isabelle stopped him a final time. She said his name in such a way that even she could hear the desperation in her voice. And when he looked at her gravely, she went on to say, "We're in a time crunch here. We can't wait for Zaynab Bourne to show up. If we do wait, you and I both know she's not going to let me speak to Yukio. Which means if, as you say, he's guilty of nothing more than being in Abney Park Cemetery when Jemima Hastings was attacked and murdered, he himself could well be in danger because the killer will know from every newspaper in town that Yukio is a person of interest because he was there. And if he was there, he likely saw something and he's likely to tell us. Which he won't be able to do if your solicitor shows up." She was more than desperate at this point, she realised. She was verging on babbling and