For years now, I've had this daydream about writing a fictionalised account of the a crime that occurred in Japan in the immediate aftermath of World War 2.
The story of
Sadamichi Hirasawa, the bank poisoner, has fascinated me ever since I read about it in an old encyclopedia of crime I used to have.
Sixteen employees of a Teigin Bank branch are poisoned by cyanide after taking chemicals given to them by a man claiming to be from the health authorities who claimed they were medication to control a nearby dysentry outbreak. The man then stole 160,000 yen before making his escape. Twelve people died. Sadamichi Hirasawa, a painter, was arrested several months later. Although sentenced to death, there were strong suspicions that he was wrongfully convicted, and successive Justice Minsters refused to sign his death warrant, resulting in a stay of execution. During his 33 year imprisonment he wrote his autobiography and died of natural causes in 1987.
There are several reasons why I think this would make a great story in the right hands.
The setting
Postwar Japan must have been a society undergoing a massive psychological upheaval as it came to terms with it's defeat and loss of faith in the old order. The American occupation also provides a rich scope for a clash of civilizations.
The method
Poisoning is such an unusual way to commit robbery and also has echoes with the much more recent subway attacks commited by the
AUM cult. There is something ritualistic about poisoning that might have roots withing Japanese culture and history.
The verdict
Did Sadamichi commit this crime or was he a victim of circumstance? One the one hand I can imagine a conspiracy of silence resulting from of collective guilt or on the other, just a great whodunnit.
All this has been sparked by my discovery that
David Peace's new novel concerns a crime in postwar Japan. I'm going to get it, read it and it will be great but I've got this nagging, idiotic, egotistical idea that I could have beaten him to it!
