When they were gone, I tried the kitchen door. I didn’t expect it to open, but miraculously, it did. They had forgotten to lock it. I rushed toward the hall, only to see Cheung coming down it, carrying a massive and bloody side of pork. I ducked into a storage cupboard and waited for him to leave, then dashed down the hall to the equipment room.

All the uniforms were laid out on the benches. There were two Chinese maids, sorting them. Awkwardly, they read the names that were inked into the backs of collars and waistbands, or at least those parts of the names that resolved into Chinese characters. They placed the clean uniforms in the lockers of the soldiers to whom they belonged. From the doorway, I watched and listened to them chatting about food shortages, lost family members, and whether it was worth becoming the girlfriend of a Japanese soldier in order to care for their own children as the food shortages got worse. They could try to meet some right here, if they would dare be lovers with members of the dreaded Kempeitai. Ordinary soldiers would be safer, but where would they meet those? Their jobs were here. And the Kempeitai, because they were elite gendarmes, had access to more and better food and drink. Of course, if the Allies were to win the war and find out they’d comforted Japanese soldiers, they’d be branded as traitors, but on the other hand, if they died of starvation before the Allies won, what would that matter? The women were extremely thin.

“The war is men’s business,” one of them said. “Love, family, and survival is our business.”

They compared the sizes of the uniforms, which ones were well-kept and which ones were wearing out. They talked about the individual Kempeitai too.

“The shorter one is better looking.”

“The tall one is likely to have a sadistic streak.”

“The skinny one has a kind face.”

“The one with glasses looks like he’s Kempeitai against his will.”

They pondered the circumstances that might have brought these men to become military police. Love of uniform? Love of emperor? A taste for violence? Good detective skills? A sense of duty? Hatred of the European presence in Asia? Maybe, too, some of them had been coerced.

When someone came down the hallway, I ducked inside the door, and pressed up against a wall of lockers, out of the women’s sight. I peeked out from time to time and watched the stack of uniforms dwindle as each was locked away, one by one.

I had to skulk away, empty-handed.

On Friday, Noma asked Horace to come help with the interrogations. “One of my best men has been relocated to Shanghai. It’s time for you to step in.”

“What for, man? I don’t speak of word of Chinese.”

“But you’ve got Japanese and English. Good enough.”