Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa

by Benjamin Constable

  Beatrice stared at me hard to check that I wasn’t joking or lying. ‘Oh my God.’ Then her face went white as if she’d just had bad news. ‘Who were the other two people?’

  My face tingled with the guilt of betrayal. ‘Erm . . . a nephew of her nanny, and a stranger that she met on September 11, 2001.’

  ‘OK,’ she breathed, and her colour came back. ‘So your Butterfly, my landlady, is a murderer.’

  ‘My Butterfly?’ I thought out loud.

  ‘Do you really think she killed them?’ asked Beatrice.

  ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense for her to have killed people, but she wrote it as though it was real.’

  ‘You do realise that if she has killed three or more people and left a period of time between each one, then that officially makes her a serial killer?’

  ‘How would you know the criteria for being a serial killer?’

  She shrugged. ‘My brain just collects information.’

  ‘Evidently.’ I looked at her hard. ‘Why did you call her Butterfly?’

  Beatrice’s expression went blank and she reddened a little. ‘Isn’t that what she’s called? I thought I heard you call her that.’

  I couldn’t remember calling her Butterfly in front of Beatrice, but I couldn’t be sure that I hadn’t.

  ‘It’s true, I call her Butterfly all the time,’ I said. There was something more pressing. ‘There’s something else as well.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of anyone called Charles Streetny?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could it be the name of Tomomi Ishikawa’s lawyer or something?’

  ‘I don’t know her lawyer’s name. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Look at this.’ I passed her the email I’d printed out at the cybercafe and stepped out onto the sidewalk to smoke while she read.

  To: Benjamin Constable

  From: charlesstreetny15@hotmail.com

  Subject: Forwarded message from Tomomi Ishikawa

  Sent: 08-21-2007, 17:04 (GMT +2)

  Dear Benjamin Constable,

  We don’t know each other, although we have both had dealings with the late Tomomi Ishikawa (also known to you as Butterfly), and on behalf of whom I take the liberty of contacting you.

  Tomomi wrote various texts which she wished for me to forward to you at specifically designated moments. One such point is upon your arrival in New York.

  What follows was written sometime in February 2007 in Paris. I hope it is of interest to you.

  I wish you a very pleasant and productive stay in the United States.

  Dear Ben Constable,

  This is your official “Welcome to New York” letter. My heart jumps with excitement thinking of you wandering the streets where I grew up. I imagine I am there with you, pointing to things and telling you histories, sharing each sight and sense as you discover my city.

  Right now I’m thinking of you with an oversized magnifying glass and a deerstalker hat, pacing the sidewalks, spotting details like a brilliant limey sleuth. But you must look upward, Ben Constable. Don’t forget, in your determination to find hidden things, to wallow in the glory my great Gotham Town radiates in all directions.

  So you found the treasure in the piano. I’m genuinely impressed. In other versions of this letter I was going to draw you to Bryant Park with rich descriptions of its beauty and past. So much of this city can be navigated by the patches of green that have punctuated my life and its urban backdrop. But you are ahead of me and you have seen the park and found the clue and the subsequent treasure, so I won’t go on about it. Although I will allow myself just to point a retrospective finger at the statue of Gertrude Stein. Did you spot her seated on the terrace? Her Saturday evening salons were the center of Parisian Left Bank society during the 1920s. And it is quite the most Parisian of New York’s parks, with its green tin tables and manicured avenues of trees. Oh, and the carousel and the fairy-tale view of the library and the towering skyscrapers overlooking it, lit up at night. And the fountain that I spent my youth wanting to climb in and spin around with outstretched arms, showering beneath the falling spray sparkling like jewels and splashing, as though I were a naiad, and words will never describe the lightness I would have felt, but never did . . .

  I am suddenly aware of reality touching my skin and the clock on the wall telling me it is three twenty, and time is running out. I wanted to give you more clues to more treasures, but those will have to wait.

  In all of this I want you to know that I’m thinking of you from my somber resting place. You are like a shard of dusty light shining in through a crack in my wooden casing, breathing air into me and a different sort of life.

  And once again, darling Ben Constable, I am going to leave you in the capable hands of fate and, as every time that I sign off a letter to you these days, I shed a tear because it’s always so final. But there’s more for you; there are more letters, more clues, treasure to find, and I’m afraid there are also episodes of my foul journal, documenting my miserable life, that maybe you will one day put in a book, or maybe discard and be well rid of.

  Lots of love,

  B. X O X

  ‘Well, however scary a murderer she might be, the way she writes to you is sweet,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘All her letters are sad.’

  ‘She must have liked you a lot,’ said Beatrice.

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Everything she writes takes my breath away. I feel like I need special breathing apparatus just to open an envelope or click on an email. I don’t understand anything.’

  ‘Maybe she was in love with you.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think she loved me, though. But I’m scared she was mad.’

  ‘I don’t know. The treasure hunt, the clues, the letters. Being in love’s a bit like being mad.’

  ‘No, I’m talking dangerous mad. Psychotic. Serial killer.’

  ‘Maybe.’ She ran her hand across the top of the pages in front of her. ‘Of course—it’s an address.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘It’s an address, not a person: charlesstreetny15@hotmail.com.’

  ‘Yes, but people make email addresses out of their names. This is from a person called Charles Streetny, or Streetny is a nickname or something.’

  ‘It’s number fifteen, Charles Street, New York. It’s an address and it’s two blocks from where you’re sitting,’ she said, then gave me a hard look as though it was unfortunate, but she had to tell me.

  I stared at her, amazed. ‘I feel as though every moment I spend with you the stakes get higher.’

  ‘It’s two blocks down. See the junction, not this one, the next one? It’s there.’

  ‘Shit. And the identity of Charles Streetny wasn’t even what was bothering me about the email.’

  ‘Why? What was bothering you?’

  ‘How does he know I’m in New York?’

  ‘Who have you told that you’re here?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Nobody at all?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘So you haven’t called anyone, sent a postcard or an email?’

  ‘I’ve sent one email. But the person I sent it to won’t have told anyone.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It was to Tomomi Ishikawa.’

  ‘When did she die again?’

  ‘March fifteenth.’

  ‘And she’s still got an active email account?’

  I felt stupid. The email I sent to Butterfly should have been returned to me.

  ‘Are you sure she’s dead?’

  My face went all tingly.

  ‘Every email has an identifier showing the IP address of the computer it was sent from,’ she told me. ‘Every computer connected to the Internet has its own address. So you can usually find out where in the world someone is when they send stuff. We could easily check, just like whoever received the one you sent to Butterfly could have seen
that you were in New York.’

  ‘When you say “we could,” are you talking hypothetically, or are you some sort of hacker who can speak binary and find secret codes in emails?’

  ‘You don’t need to be a hacker. You just look at the source code and the IP address will be somewhere there. Copy and paste that address into a site that traces IP addresses, and it’ll tell you at least which city it is. You might even get something more specific.’

  ‘What do you mean, a site that traces IP addresses?’

  ‘There are loads of them. They’re not hard to find.’

  ‘How would you know a thing like that?’

  ‘I think what’s more interesting is how most people don’t know.’

  ‘I want to do it now.’

  ‘Well, you can’t because I’ve only just got here. Have another beer. Then I’m going to take you and show you something interesting.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A piece of New York treasure. I think your friend Butterfly would approve.’

  16

  Beatrice’s Good Mood Starts to Seem Strained

  The gears ground, cogs spun and the world clicked forwards a notch. In a dizzying instant of motion, or lack of motion, afternoon became evening.

  From somewhere behind me, Cat slinked over and smelt Beatrice’s shoes, then turned his head and smelt her ankles. Cat! He had no shame.

  ‘What’s your thesis about?’ I asked.

  ‘Food.’

  ‘Oh yes, you said. People and food.’

  ‘It’s about how we relate to food, from packaging and shopping to eating behaviour, rituals, tastes, that kind of thing. I’m trying to question whether food works for us as a species and whether there are alternative ways of thinking about it that might be more practical on planetary, cultural and even individual levels.’

  ‘Is that a rehearsed line that you say whenever people ask you about it?’

  ‘Er, kind of.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what it means.’

  ‘OK, here’s an example: A lot of food that we think of as being bad for our health, we consume as “treats”. And then, to make us feel like we’re successful, we eat treats all the time and we get these confused messages, like success equals unhealthy food. And there are loads of these strange ideas, like good food needs more packaging. Our eating habits often don’t make much sense when you give them a closer look.’

  ‘It sounds interesting.’

  ‘It is. Complicated too. It’s such a big subject. I have to narrow it down.’

  ‘And where are you studying?’

  ‘The New School.’

  ‘What new school?’

  ‘It’s a school near here called the New School.’

  ‘And is it new?’

  ‘Er, newish.’

  ‘Are you from New York?’

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I’ve lived lots of places, most of them near to, or in New York. I went to high school not far from here. What about you? Are you from London?’

  ‘No. I grew up in the Midlands.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘In the middle of England.’

  ‘I guess it’s all in the name.’

  ‘Postindustrial. Strange. I don’t miss it. I grew up in a poor, multicultural neighbourhood, though, and I’m proud of that. I’ve got happy memories of running round in tiny terraced streets in the seventies.’

  ‘The seventies? How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-eight and three-quarters.’

  ‘You’re older than I thought,’ she said.

  ‘Why, how old did you think I was?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘Oh, maybe thirty-seven and a quarter or something,’ she said, and I deflated. ‘Sorry, I’m not fooled by youthful looks. Are you married or divorced or anything interesting like that?’

  ‘No. I haven’t got any of the things you should have at my age.’

  ‘What should you have at your age?’

  ‘Oh, you know, a house, a car, a career that you feel doesn’t reflect your capabilities or interests, a wife and/or ex-wife, kids . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ She pretended to think about it. ‘You haven’t really lived.’

  ‘What I’d give to be divorced.’

  ‘You shouldn’t joke about that,’ she said. ‘Divorce is hell.’

  ‘All sorts of things are hell. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t joke about them; all the more reason to joke about them, perhaps.’

  ‘Hmmm. Maybe.’

  ‘Shall we get another drink?’ I said. ‘Or shall we go and find your New York treasure, and maybe get something to eat?’

  She smiled. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Can we pass by 15 Charles Street on the way so I can see where it is?’

  Her face hardened. ‘OK,’ she said, and her lack of enthusiasm caught me off guard. We set off walking and she dragged the pace, as if she was suddenly overwhelmed by tiredness.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. Something had changed; the light, or the atmospheric pressure, or something.

  * * *

  ‘This is 15 Charles Street,’ she said.

  It had a green awning stretching across the pavement towards the road. I walked up to the door and stared through the glass. There was a long entrance hall with a desk at the end and a doorman sitting behind it. He looked up. I smiled and moved back. Beatrice was leaning against the wall, watching me.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘This is where her nanny lived,’ I told her. ‘And she lived here too.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Beatrice asked.

  ‘The woman with the piano said it was Charles Street, and in Butterfly’s notebook it said her nanny had an apartment in the West Village. This is it.’

  Beatrice just waited and looked away down the street.

  ‘Somebody here sent me that email,’ I said.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Maybe I don’t think that, but it’s the only thing I’ve got to go on.’

  ‘It’s just an address,’ said Beatrice, unimpressed.

  ‘I want to go in and ask some questions, but I don’t know what to say.’

  Beatrice just looked at me.

  ‘Haven’t you got any clever ideas?’ I asked.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’m going to have to think about it and come back another time.’

  * * *

  We took a bus to Union Square and then the 4 train down to Brooklyn Bridge station and got off.

  ‘Where to now?’ I asked.

  ‘Nowhere,’ said Beatrice. ‘We wait.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The six train.’

  ‘Where does that go to?’

  ‘Nowhere. This is the end of the line.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘People get off, then the train disappears in that direction’—she pointed—‘and comes back on the opposite platform to head north again.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘And so, if you stay on the train while it turns around and you look out the window, you see a secret place.’

  ‘What kind of secret place?’

  ‘There is an abandoned subway station—the original City Hall station—and if you stay on the six train while it turns around, you pass through it. It’s supposed to be very beautiful.’

  I felt excited, as though something magic were happening. I had images of a kind of exotic Victorian cavern mixed with something from the Arabian Nights.

  The 6 train came in and we looked left and right as the people got off, then we snuck in as an announcement told everyone to leave. The doors closed and we pulled away. We pressed our faces to the window and cupped our hands round our eyes. Without warning, a world opened up with tiled arches and a barrel-vaulted ceiling, dimly lit from overhead skylights, like an underground temple running along a tightly curved platform. And it was gone.

  City Hall station was an illusio
n, conjured into existence solely for the time we were looking at it, and then it evaporated, or was transported back to the middle of a great desert where it belonged.

  ‘I love it’ was all I could say.

  Beatrice grinned at me, then pressed her face to the glass, as though there might be more.

  ‘Again! Again!’ I said.

  We pulled back into Brooklyn Bridge station, the doors opened, people got on and we got off.

  Beatrice’s eyes were focused on nothing, and I stared at her.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ she said, forcing some energy into her voice. ‘What do you want to eat?’

  ‘I really don’t mind. You’re the food specialist—take me somewhere,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s go back up to Astor Place,’ she said, ‘there’s plenty of choice around there.’

  ‘OK.’

  She glanced over her shoulder, then grabbed my arm, and we jumped back on the train we’d just got off before the doors closed.

  * * *

  When we came out of the subway, we passed in front of an Internet place and I asked whether we could just check my mail. Beatrice sat at the computer next to me and looked round the room.

  To: Benjamin Constable

  From: charlesstreetny15@hotmail.com

  Subject: Another Forwarded Message

  Sent: 08-22-2007 17:30 (GMT -6)

  Please find a message to you from Tomomi Ishikawa, selected from several to correspond with your specific situation, which she seems to have anticipated. It was written in February 2007 in Paris.

  Best wishes.

  Hey, Ben Constable,

  This is just a quick note with instructions for the next leg of your quest. The clue isn’t particularly ingenious, but here goes. This is from the end of my secondary education (14–18 to be precise) and the location links well to the treasure. It’s another confession, I’m afraid, and really ought to be removed before someone else finds it and a stink is kicked up, so you’d be doing my good name a favor (not that I deserve one), but for old times’ sake could I ask? I planted the treasure like a shrub, to the right of the entrance of my old school—you may be surprised to know that I had a strict, girls-only Catholic schooling in West Midtown (you may have to do a little research). I suggest going after dark and taking something to dig with, like a spoon.