Hirasawa now common knowledge / Newspapers already sniffing around / Requests that he arrest Hirasawa on our behalf / Argument, fight / Table upturned, punches thrown / Detective [NAME DELETED] says, ‘You Name-card guys are all crazy.’ / Detective [NAME DELETED] leaves / 20.00: Telephone call from Investigation HQ / All expenses and funding for Name-card Team suspended until further notice / Obvious attempt to stop Name-card Team travelling to Hokkaido to arrest Hirasawa / 21.00: Inspector Iki-i calls his bank manager at home / Arranges mortgage of Ōmori house and telephone line to cover cost of travel to Hokkaido if arrest warrant granted / All anxious, all nervous / No sleep.
1948/8/19; 17.00: Very hot, very humid / Meeting of Robbery Room Name-card Team at HQ / Police Chief Kita present / Arrest warrant for Hirasawa Sadamichi granted / Elation / Chief Kita cautions that news of arrest warrant has already been leaked to newspapers / Suspects detectives from First Investigative Division / Anger / Kita states that Chief Inspector Suzuki has requested presence of First Investigative Division Detective Tomitsuka at arrest of Hirasawa / Fury / Kita notes Detective Tomitsuka has already left Tokyo for Otaru / Resignation / No sleep.
1948/8/20; 06.00: Hot / Leave Tokyo for Otaru, Hokkaido via Niigata and Akita / Travelling with Inspector Iki-i, and Detectives liga and Fukushi / Very slow train, very hot train / No conversation, no sleep / Very anxious, very nervous.
1948/8/21; 10.00: Arrive in Otaru, Hokkaido / Meet First Investigative Division Detective Tomitsuka / Go to Hirasawa’s father’s residence / Hirasawa’s father and younger brother greet us formally / Shown upstairs / Hirasawa dressed and waiting, seated before same canvas / Arrest Hirasawa on suspicion of the murder by poison of the twelve employees of the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank on 26 January this year, and the attempted murder of four other employees at the same place on the same day / 11.00: Take Hirasawa to Otaru Police Station / Telephone calls to Tokyo HQ / Warned of press reports / Make necessary travel arrangements / Spend rest of day and night at Otaru Police Station / No sleep.
1948/8/22; 06.00: Hot / Return to Tokyo on Tōhoku Honsen Line / News of arrest leaked to press / Crowds at every station en route to see Hirasawa / Newspapermen and cameramen board the train at Morioka, Sendai and Taira / Train repeatedly delayed by crowds / Spend journey keeping press at bay / Hirasawa crouched on floor / Blanket over his head / Does not speak, sleep, eat or drink.
1948/8/23; 05.45: Hot, humid / Arrive Ueno Station / Chaos, crowds / Time of arrival leaked to press / Members of First Investigative Division and Officials of Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office waiting / Hand Hirasawa over to members of First Investigative Division and officials of Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office / Lose sight of Hirasawa Sadamichi in the chaos and the crowds –
[THE NOTEBOOK ENDS HERE]
Beneath the Black Gate, in its upper chamber, in the occult circle, the detective now says, ‘That was me finished. And the rest you know. The interrogation and the confession. The recantation and the trial. The conviction and the sentence. The appeals and the campaigns.
‘But I cannot die,’ the detective continues. ‘I cannot die until I see Hirasawa executed. For I know he did that crime. I know he killed those people. So no more tears. No more tears for him.
‘For this city is a notebook. In blunt pencil and on coarse paper. A notebook now closed. A case now closed …’
A second candle now out.
But in his city of conviction, you say, you laugh, you scream, ‘I will give you tears, you dog! You deceitful, lying dog!’
Because you hate detectives, and you hate dogs, and all detectives are dogs, all dogs detectives, and so you push this detective, this dog, to the ground and you kick him in his gut and you kick him in his head, in his deceits and in his lies, and then you tip open his boxes and you rip up his notebooks, and now you take out your matches and you start a fire, a fire of his boxes and his notebooks, shouting, ‘Liar! Liar! Liar-Dog! Dog-Liar! You lie! Lie!’
But the detective is laughing at you, laughing and barking, ‘He did it! He did it! And you, you should thank me!’
Among the smoke and among the flames, his fingers and his paws, still laughing and still barking, as you shout –