and he said one of the victims up at the hospital, she was talking and had told them some kind of doctor had come to the bank and given them some kind of medicine for dysentery, that they’d all drunk this medicine and that was when they’d all collapsed. No mention of food, only a doctor and some medicine.’
‘Just the one man, not a gang?’
‘Far as I know, just the one.’
‘Description?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Right then,’ I tell Tomizawa. ‘You stay where you are. I’m going to finish off the piece for the Boss and then head up to the hospital. Call us in a couple of hours …’
I replace the receiver. I turn around. The rival eyes of all the other reporters are no longer watching me, their rival ears already at the other phones, their rival fingers already writing in their notebooks, every other reporter either listening or writing –
In the Fictional City, I go back to my desk in the press office. I re-write the story:
MASS MURDER IN SHIINAMACHI –
Ten Workers of Teikoku Bank Slain In Broad Daylight – Robbery Behind Killing?
TOKYO, Jan. 26 – Ten were killed and 6 others are in critical condition as a result of the attempted robbery and poisoning of the entire staff of the Shiinamachi branch of the Teikoku Bank at Nagasaki-chō, Toshima-ku, Tokyo by a cold-blooded criminal who apparently tried to snatch away heaps of bank notes in broad daylight on the afternoon of January 26.
The sensational ‘poison bank holdup’ case was perpetrated about 4 o’clock Monday afternoon shortly after the bank had closed for business for the day when a man entered the building posing as a health official. The fiendish doctor told the entire staff to drink a dysentery preventative medicine.
In no time the bank turned into a veritable death chamber with all the victims writhing in agony. When the relief party arrived at the scene, 10 of the victims had already died. 6 others were rushed to the Seibo Hospital in the neighbourhood and remain in a critical condition.
According to the police, who are strictly keeping away outsiders in an effort to find a clue, an intensive search is now being conducted across the city for the bank robber.
I stop writing. I file the story. I get my hat and my coat. I tell Shiratō to wait where he is, that I’m going to the Seibo Hospital, and I’ll be back in a couple of hours.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, in the Seibo Hospital, I am wearing a stolen white coat, I am pretending to be a doctor –
Pretending, impersonating, deceiving…
I smile at the policeman. I open the door. I step inside the room. She is alone in the room, lying in the only bed, her eyes closed. I walk to the end of the bed. I read the name above her head –
I write it down in my notebook:
Murata Masako …
I sit down in a chair beside the bed. I see her hand on top of the blankets. I sit forward in the chair beside the bed. I reach for her hand on the blankets. I hold her hand. I lean towards her face. I whisper in her ear, ‘Miss Murata, Miss Murata …’
I see her swallow in her sleep –
‘Can you hear me, Miss Murata …?’
I see her eyelids flicker –
‘Can you tell me what happened to you, Miss Murata?’
I see her eyes opening. I see her looking at me now –
‘Can you tell me what happened to you in the bank?’
Now her body starts to tremble. Her mouth begins to open – ’
Get away!’ she shouts. ‘Get away from me!’
I let go of her hand. I stand up. I want to apologize. I want to explain. But I turn away. And I walk away –
‘Get away! Get away from me!’
Out of the room. The hospital.
IN THE FICTIONAL CITY, I walk her streets and I hear her stories, telephones ringing and voices whispering, along the wires and down the cables, a telephone and a voice with a time and with a place –
An hour later, I turn a corner off the main street, and I walk down an alley of pawnshops and mahjong parlours. Half-way down the alleyway, I push open a frosted-glass door. A bell above the door rings and five pairs of eyes glance up from the shadows of the dark and narrow room. I walk through these shadows, past their glances that are now stares, and I sit down on a sofa at the back of