The Ginza Ghost Read online

  Ceilings coming down, cave-ins, fires and hitting ground water are, in a way, all part of mining work. Just as at mines everywhere, the Takiguchi Mine was always prepared, lest something like that should happen. But there was one thing they feared even more than any of those things, and that one drop resting on the supervisor’s tongue meant that the fate of the whole Takiguchi Mine had now been sealed. They had no way of stopping that water anymore. For it was not ground water, nor was it condensation.

  It was seawater.

  ‘Oh My God!’ The supervisor’s voice trembled as he tasted the first arrival of the sea in the mine. ‘This is no time to be concerned about a murder. We’ve hit the sea!’

  But despite the crisis, engineer Kikuchi had been acting in a strange way. He appeared to be lost in thought, and remained frozen to the spot, as if he was sleeping while standing. He was still calm, his audaciously brilliant mind busy with something.

  ‘There’s no way we can fight the sea,’ the engineer said finally, in a calm voice. ‘Supervisor, we have to give up here. We still have time, so we need to prepare the evacuation calmly. By the way, you just said this was not the time to be concerned about a murder. You might be right, but this seawater and the murder are not unrelated. Look carefully at those big burnt cracks inside the fissures. I think I’m starting to see the truth behind this case.’

  5

  A few minutes later, a sense of alarm began to spread within the dark underground city, with the sealed-off side passage at its centre.

  After the supervisor had closed the heavy iron doors of the mining spot on the verge of collapsing, he ran to the telephone room and informed the Tachiyama Mine field office and the head office in Sapporo that the sea had compromised the mine. He then prepared a controlled evacuation plan to ensure they wouldn’t have miners crush each other to death in front of the narrow entrance of the mine shafts.

  Meanwhile engineer Kikuchi showed off the daredevil courage he had built up during all of his bear hunting. After he had exited the iron door of the side passage in question, he closed it off again and called for the sub-foremen of the main street. Together they worked on how to watch the entrance closely. The cruel murderer was still hiding somewhere inside this part of the mine. They couldn’t allow any miner to exit the side passage until they had caught their man. After he had prepared his tight surveillance team, Kikuchi headed for the office inside the main hall.

  The miners from the tunnels closest by had already gathered in the main hall, questioning and complaining about the sudden order to stop work. The supervisor was giving instructions to several sub-foremen when he spotted Kikuchi and went over to him.

  ‘Now we have to deal with that left-side passage. Let’s go.’

  ‘Please wait,’ urged Kikuchi. ‘There are a couple of things I’d like to investigate first.’

  ‘What?’ The supervisor seemed both surprised and annoyed. ‘Do you have any idea of what you’re saying at a time like this? We have the murderer captured inside that part of the mine. We need to find him and then get the miners out of there.’

  But Kikuchi did not budge. Eventually the supervisor said he’d go to the side passage alone first, but that he would not let any of the miners leave until Kikuchi had come back.

  After the supervisor had disappeared into the darkness of the main street, engineer Kikuchi quickly slipped into the office, where O-Shina was still being held. She calmly gave him the same explanation she’d given the supervisor about how the fire had first started. Once she’d finished her story, Kikuchi pressed her on a couple of matters.

  ‘This is important, so please answer carefully. You’d barely escaped the tunnel that was on fire when the foreman, the engineer and the workman closed the iron fire door. You’re sure that, at that moment, Minekichi wasn’t there?’

  ‘Yes. I’m absolutely sure.’ O-Shina answered with conviction, as she looked straight at him through swollen eyelids.

  Kikuchi closed his eyes for a second, as if he was sorting his thoughts out in his mind. Then he walked over to the telephone room, returning after ten minutes. It was probably a long-distance phone call. There was a look of determination on his face as he took O-Shina with him to the main street.

  The supervisor looked pale and was holding a dagger in his hands as he stood in front of the sealed-off side passage, together with a couple of the sub-foremen. As soon as he saw Kikuchi, he approached and announced: ‘Kikuchi, we have a problem.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s just unbelievable. The murderer wasn’t inside the side passage. We searched everywhere, the tunnels, all of the mining spots, the open spaces, the smaller caves, but he isn’t here.’

  Kikuchi’s calm response took him by surprise.

  ‘But who were you looking for in that part of the mine?’

  ‘What? Who I was looking for? The murderer of course,’ replied the supervisor.

  ‘That’s what I was asking. You keep saying murderer this, murderer that, but who are you talking about?’

  ‘What?’ The supervisor became even more confused. ‘The miner Minekichi of course.’

  ‘Minekichi?’ repeated Kikuchi. He said nothing, but a complex expression appeared on his face. After a short pause he began again calmly.

  ‘You see, when I entered this side passage with you, I had no idea as to the identity of the murderer. Obviously, he had to be sealed inside this part of the mine, but with only an abstract concept of the murderer in my mind, I had no idea who I’d be looking for and who I needed to catch. But now I believe I know the truth.

  ‘And I believe you are gravely mistaken about this whole case. You have been too entranced by the superficial facts, and by an ostensibly plausible theory that combines all those facts. But you have ignored logic. One miner is sealed up, and the men who were responsible for that are murdered one after another. The murderer, however, is not among the suspects: the family of said miner. And then the miner’s safety lamp is discovered outside the sealed-off tunnel, even though the miner is supposed to have died inside. Then it turns out that there aren’t any remains of the miner inside the tunnel after all. Combining those facts, you concocted a theory that the miner had somehow escaped the tunnel alive and had started exacting revenge on those who had sealed him inside. But there’s no logic to your theory: it can’t explain the impossible contradiction of a person escaping a tunnel from which there is no possible means of escape.’

  ‘What do you suggest then?’ The supervisor frowned. The engineer continued his explanation.

  ‘I started to get a new idea in my head when we didn’t find the miner’s remains inside the tunnel. Not even his bones were inside, so Minekichi had definitely left the tunnel. Now, the fire had died soon after the iron door had been sealed, meaning you had deprived it of oxygen, which in turn meant that there was no other way to leave the tunnel except through the door. Therefore Minekichi could only have exited the tunnel that way. The door, however, had been shut and bolted with a bar from outside, and sealed off by covering it up with clay. The clay had dried, and there were no signs of the door having been opened. So that means that after the door was shut, it couldn’t have been opened until we unsealed it just now. Doesn’t that tell you that Minekichi had already left the tunnel before the fire door was shut? With that thought in mind, let’s review the other facts. This poor O-Shina woman had heard the footsteps of a man walking behind her as she fled the tunnel which was on fire. When she finally got out and turned back to look, she saw foreman Asakawa busy closing the iron fire door, having apparently come running there at the sound of the explosion. After the door was closed, the engineer arrived, followed by the workman, and they started sealing it off completely. This is the crux of the problem. Listen carefully. Minekichi must have exited the tunnel before the fire door was closed. That would appear to mean that he must have exited the door after the woman had got out of the tunnel, but before foreman Asakawa started closing the door. In that case Minekichi should
have been in the empty space between the woman and the foreman closing the door….’

  ‘Wait, wait. I think I get what you’re saying, and then I don’t think I get what you’re saying.’ The supervisor interrupted as he scowled at Kikuchi. The engineer, however, was not bothered and continued.

  ‘It’s not surprising that you don’t understand it. I only started to understand it myself after thinking it all through thoroughly. It was a really odd incident that had occurred there. It was as if Fate was playing a trick.’

  The engineer then turned to O-Shina, who was standing beside him.

  ‘There’s something I have to ask you. You said you’d emptied your trolley and returned, and after you’d gone inside the side passage to your own mining spot, you’d jumped into the arms of Minekichi, who’d been waiting for you in the dark. Are you sure the man was Minekichi?’

  O-Shina gasped and opened her eyes wide at Kikuchi’s unexpected query.

  ‘…Yes….’

  ‘Then I’ve another question for you. Did Minekichi have his safety lamp with him at that moment?’

  ‘No, he didn’t have it with him.’

  ‘And where was your lamp?’

  ‘Hanging from the rear of the coal trolley.’

  ‘That means the light from your lamp was blocked by the trolley and couldn’t illuminate anything in front of the trolley, and only the ground at rear of the trolley. You said you’d pushed the trolley forward and jumped in Minekichi’s arms, but that means the light of the safety lamp could not have illuminated Minekichi’s face when he was standing in front of the trolley, and after the trolley had gone past Minekichi and the light of the safety lamp could finally shine on him, the light would’ve been coming from behind Minekichi’s body. How then can you be sure that you saw Minekichi?’

  Silence.

  O-Shina didn’t appear to understand the problem, and looked down at her feet. But you could clearly read her uneasiness from her face. Kikuchi turned back to the supervisor.

  ‘I think you already understand what my conclusion—no, the only possible conclusion—is: Minekichi was not even inside the tunnel at the time the fire first broke out.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said the supervisor. ‘You mean that the man this woman embraced in the dark was not Minekichi?’

  ‘Precisely. Minekichi was not seen outside the tunnel at the time, nor was he inside, so that’s the only conclusion we can come to.’

  ‘Then who was he?’

  ‘The man who left the tunnel after O-Shina and was standing in front of the fire door when she turned round.’

  The supervisor couldn’t utter a word because of the shock. But it didn’t take long for him to continue his questions.

  ‘If what you say is true, then the whole case has turned into an unbelievable mess. For example, where was Minekichi if he wasn’t inside the tunnel when the fire broke out?’

  ‘That’s the next problem,’ sighed the engineer. ‘Let’s look at another fact with our new set of eyes. Remember the safety lamp left at the drinking spot? You interpreted that fact as proof that Minekichi had escaped from the sealed-up tunnel and that he had left it there because it would get in the way during the murders. But to me, it simply tells us where Minekichi was when the fire broke out. He had left his tunnel for the drinking spot.’

  ‘I see. So you say he wasn’t involved with the fire. And he had nothing to do with sealing up the tunnel. But if he hadn’t been sealed up there, why would he go taking his revenge and killing all the people who sealed the tunnel up?’

  ‘It appears you’re still the prisoner of a mistaken preconception.’

  A wry smile appeared on Kikuchi’s face, and he started walking around. He had clasped his hands together and looked slightly annoyed as he talked.

  ‘I’m sure I haven’t addressed the question of the murderer’s identity until now. Let’s take a look at another fact first. One that has to do with the murders. Consider this: the three murders were committed separately, but there are some interesting points that connect them. First there is the murder weapon. All three of them were hit by a lump of coal. That might seem a meaningless fact, but it certainly is not. Supervisor, do you know what statistics say is the murder weapon most often used in assault and murder incidents among miners? The answer is hammers and pickaxes. Are there any weapons closer by or more effective to any miner? Like a safety lamp, any miner will always have one of these crucial tools of the trade with them. But strangely enough, the murderer in our case has only used lumps of coal to kill his victims, suggesting the murders were committed by someone who only had easy access to lumps of coal at the time of the murder: these were murders committed on a whim by someone who was not a miner. You are under the impression that the victims were all murdered in the same way because someone was taking revenge for sealing a man up. However, we now know that no man was sealed up in that tunnel, so your theory has proven to be wrong. The three men were hated by Minekichi’s family, but since we know the murderer cannot be one of his family, that matter is of no consequence. So was there no other common motive for the murder of those three men? Well, yes there was! I noticed it just a while ago: all the victims were murdered while they were checking whether the fire had died out and how the smoke was inside that tunnel, in the hopes of opening it up again as soon as possible. So if we look at the murders from a different angle, we can say their work was being obstructed. Someone was interfering with your order to re-open the tunnel again and investigate how the fire started. To put it another way, the murderer was trying to prevent you from seeing the inside of the tunnel until a certain moment. That’s why they tried to delay opening the tunnel for as long as possible.’

  ‘Wait,’ the supervisor interrupted again. ‘Why was the murderer so desperate I wouldn’t see the tunnel? The two of us searched it together, but there was nothing there that had anything to do with the murders.’

  ‘But there was. Supervisor, think carefully. Didn’t we discover something very serious there? I don’t mean the fact that Minekichi wasn’t there, even though we thought he had been sealed up inside. We made an even more important discovery: the fissures in the ceiling and the seawater!’

  Those words set off a grim commotion among the miners around them. The mine had been compromised by seawater! To these miners, this revelation was many times more shocking than any murder. The gleam in Kikuchi’s eye intensified, and he said to the supervisor as he pushed the people around him away:

  ‘Open up the side passage now. Let’s get everyone out together with their coal trolleys.’

  Moments later, several sub-foremen pulled the heavy iron doors wide open with trembling hands. From inside the side passage, the cries of the miners could be heard. The tanned, naked female transporters—their bodies shining because of their perspiration—started pushing the coal trolleys out, but Kikuchi stepped forward and yelled at them: ‘Dump all of your coal out of your trolleys! Leave without the coal!’

  The women all looked at each other at Kikuchi’s odd order. When they saw the supervisor standing beside him and nodding in silence, they started acting on the engineer’s curious instructions.

  The coal trolleys of the Takiguchi Mine were all dump cars, which allowed them to tip over the containers once the catch was released. The transporters followed Kikuchi’s orders and came out of the side passage one by one, turning their containers around and emptying their coal outside. Before their eyes, a small mountain of coal was created.

  But when the twelfth trolley emptied its contents, it brought out something unexpected.

  From among the coal that came rolling out of the large container appeared the naked body of a man, painted black by the coal. The man stood up and looked warily around him.

  The supervisor exclaimed. ‘It—it’s foreman Asakawa!’

  That was indeed foreman Asakawa, who was supposed to have been crushed by a lump of coal. The man tried to attack them, but Kikuchi snatched the dagger from the supervisor and hit Asakawa hard
with the back of the blade.

  After putting the foreman down, Kikuchi took the surprised supervisor and O-Shina with him as they side-stepped the trolley and headed inside the now-open entrance to the side passage, leaving the other miners, who were still in a commotion, behind. Once they arrived at the tunnel where the fire had been, Kikuchi pointed to “Asakawa’s body” with his chin and told O-Shina: ‘Take a good look. He’s wearing the foreman’s clothes, but it should be the body of someone you know.’

  At first, the frightened woman stood still in front of the body, but then she hesitantly leant forward and looked intently at the face which had been crushed almost beyond recognition. She crouched down and cried out in a hoarse voice as she embraced the body: ‘This is my husband, Minekichi.’

  6

  Meanwhile, the revelation made earlier by Kikuchi had caused great shock. The news that seawater had entered the mine had quickly spread among the miners still below ground. Everyone left their trolleys, threw away their pickaxes and ran to the entrance to the mine shaft in waves. The telephone in the main office kept ringing and the rescue teams which had been sent from the field office which controlled both the Takigawa and Tachiyama Mines started getting into fights with the miners who wanted to get out.

  The supervisor had jumped on a coal trolley and was hurrying to the mine entrance, but he still had questions for Kikuchi.

  ‘So it was foreman Asakawa who killed engineer Maruyama, the workman and finally Minekichi?’

  Kikuchi nodded in silence.

  ‘But if Minekichi was killed last, where had he been all that time?’

  ‘Minekichi was killed first. He was probably killed at the drinking spot. The foreman then hid Minekichi’s body in one of the caves nearby and headed for the mining spot to start the fire.’