Tokyo Year Zero - Hardcover

Buch 1 von 3: Tokyo Trilogy

Peace, David

 
9780307263742: Tokyo Year Zero
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0307263746 ISBN 13: 9780307263742
Verlag: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

When the bodies of two women, raped and strangled, turn up on the first anniversary of the Japanese surrender in American-occupied Tokyo, Detective Minami of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, haunted by the atrocities of war, searches for the killer, in a historical thriller based on the real-life hunt for a murderer who killed at least ten women in post-war Japan. 50,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Peace is the author of The Red Riding Quartet, GB84, and The Damned Utd. He was chosen as one of Granta’s 2003 Best Young British Novelists, and has received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the German Crime Fiction Award, and the French Grand Prix de Roman Noir for Best Foreign Novel. Born and raised in Yorkshire, he has lived in Tokyo since 1994.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The fifteenth day of the eighth month of the twentieth year of Showa
Tokyo, 90°, fine

‘Detective Minami! Detective Minami! Detective Minami!’

I open my eyes. From dreams that are not my own. I sit up in my chair at my desk. Dreams I do not want. My collar is wet and my whole suit damp. My hair itches. My skin itches–

‘Detective Minami! Detective Minami!’

Detective Nishi is taking down the blackout curtains, bright warm shafts of dawn and dust filling the office as the sun rises up beyond the tape-crossed windows–

‘Detective Minami!’

‘Did you just say something?’ I ask Nishi–

Nishi shakes his head. Nishi says, ‘No.’

I stare up at the ceiling. Nothing moves in the bright light. The fans have stopped. No electricity. The telephones silent. No lines. The toilets blocked. No water. Nothing–

‘Kumagaya was hit during the night,’ says Nishi. ‘There are reports of gunfire from the Palace…’

‘I didn’t dream it, then?’

I take out my handkerchief. It is old and it is dirty. I wipe my neck again. Then I wipe my face. Now I check my pockets–

They are handing out potassium cyanide to the women, the children and the aged, saying this latest cabinet reshuffle foretells the end of the war, the end of Japan, the end of the world…

Nishi holds up a small box and asks, ‘You looking for these?’

I snatch the box of Muronal out of his hands. I check the contents. Enough. I stuff the box back into my jacket pocket–

The sirens and the warnings all through the night; Tokyo hot and dark, hidden and cowed; night and day, rumours of new weapons, fears of new bombs; first Hiroshima, then Nagasaki, next is Tokyo…

Bombs that mean the end of Japan, the end of the world…

No sleep. Only dreams. No sleep. Only dreams…

Night and day, this is why I take these pills…

This is what I tell myself, night and day…

‘They were on the floor,’ says Nishi–

I nod. I ask, ‘You got a cigarette?’

Nishi shakes his head. I curse him. There are five more days until the next special ration. Five more days…

The office door swings open–

Detective Fujita storms into the room. Detective Fujita has a Police Bulletin in his hand. Fujita says, ‘Sorry, more bad news…
’
He tosses the bulletin onto my desk. Nishi picks it up–

Nishi is young. Nishi is keen. Too young…

‘It’s from the Shinagawa police station,’ he says, and reads: ‘Body discovered in suspicious circumstances at the Women’s Dormitory Building of the Dai-Ichi Naval Clothing Department–’

‘Just a moment,’ I tell him. ‘Surely anything to do with the Naval Clothing Department falls under the jurisdiction of the Kempeitai? This is a case for the military police, not civilian…’

‘I know,’ says Fujita. ‘But Shinagawa are requesting Murder Squad detectives. Like I say, I’m really sorry I pulled it…’

No one wants a case. Not today. Not now…

I get up from my desk. I grab my hat–

‘Come on,’ I tell Fujita and Nishi. ‘We’ll find someone else. We’ll dump the case. Just watch me…’

I go out of our room and down the main hallway of the First Investigative Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department; down Police Arcade, room to room, office to office, door to door–

Door to door. No one. Office to office. No one. Room to room. No one. Everyone evacuated or absent–

No one wants a case. Not today…

Just Fujita, Nishi and me now–

I curse. I curse. I curse…

I stand in the corridor. I ask Nishi, ‘Where’s Chief Kita?’

‘All chiefs were summoned to a meeting at 7 a.m….’

I take out my pocket watch. It’s already past eight–

‘7 a.m.?’ I repeat. ‘Maybe today is the day then?’

‘Didn’t you hear the nine o’clock news last night?’ he asks.

‘There’s to be an Imperial broadcast at noon today…’

I eat acorns. I eat leaves. I eat weeds…

‘A broadcast about what?’ I ask–

‘I don’t know, but the entire nation has been instructed to find a radio so that they can listen to it…’

‘Today is the day then,’ I say. ‘People return to your homes! Kill your children! Kill your wives! Then kill yourself!’

‘No, no, no,’ says Nishi–

Too young. Too keen…

‘If we’re going to go,’ interrupts Fujita, ‘let’s at least go via Shimbashi and get some cigarettes…’

‘That’s a very good idea,’ I say. ‘No cars for us, anyway…’

‘Let’s take the Yamate Line round to Shinagawa,’ he says. ‘Take our time, walk slowly and hope we’re too late…’

‘If the Yamate Line is even running,’ I remind him–

‘Like I say,’ says Fujita again. ‘Take our time.’

Detective Fujita, Nishi and I walk down the stairs, through the doors, and leave Headquarters by the back way, on the side of the building that faces away from the grounds of the Imperial Palace–

That looks out on the ruins of the Ministry of Justice.

The shortest route to Shimbashi from Sakuradamon is through the Hibiya Park, through this park that is now no park–

Black winter trees in the white summer heat…

‘Even if we are routed in battle,’ Nishi is saying, ‘the mountains and the rivers remain. The people remain…’

Plinths without statues, posts with no gates…

‘The hero Kusunoki pledged to live and die seven times in order to save Japan,’ he states. ‘We can do no less…’

No foliage. No bushes. No grass now…

‘We must fight on,’ he urges. ‘Even if we have to chew the grass, eat the earth and live in the fields…’

Just stark black winter trees…
‘With our broken swords and our exhausted arrows,’ I say. ‘Our hearts burnt by fire, eaten by tears…’

In the white summer heat…

Nishi smiling, ‘Exactly…’

The white heat…

Nishi in one ear and now the harsh noise of martial music from a sound-truck in the other as we leave the park that is no park, down streets that are no streets, past buildings that are no buildings–

‘Oh so bravely, off to Victory / Insofar as we have vowed and left our land behind…’

Buildings of which nothing remains but their front walls; now only sky where their windows and their ceilings should be–

‘Who can die without first having shown his true mettle / Each time I hear the bugles of our advancing army…
’
The dates on which these buildings ceased to be buildings witnessed in the height of the weeds that sprout here and there among the black mountains of shattered brick–

‘I close my eyes and see wave upon wave of flags cheering us into...

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Verlag
Alfred a Knopf Inc
Erscheinungsdatum
2007
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307263746
ISBN 13 
9780307263742
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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