EDITOR’S NOTE:
AFTERWORD TO THE SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY EDITION
When Elspeth Martins’ agent first sent me the proposal for From Crash to Conspiracy in early 2012, I was immediately intrigued. I had read and admired Elspeth’s first book Snapped, and I knew that if anyone could come up with a fresh perspective on the events surrounding Black Thursday and The Three, it was Elspeth. As the book started taking shape, it was clear we had something very special on our hands. We decided to rush it into production, choosing to publish in early October before the landmark 2012 election.
Within a week it went into a second, then a third printing. To date, despite the worldwide recession and a massive drop in book sales overall, more than 15 million print and digital editions have been sold. And no one–least of all Elspeth herself–could have foreseen the furore the book would cause.
So why an anniversary edition? Why republish the book that the Rationalist League has dubbed ‘inflammatory and dangerous’ in these deeply troubled times?
Apart from the most obvious reason–that the book itself has cultural and historical significance as it undoubtedly influenced the 2012 US presidential election–we were granted the rights to some exciting new material that forms the appendix to this edition. Many readers will be aware that on the second anniversary of Black Thursday, Elspeth Martins disappeared. The facts are these: after travelling to Japan, Elspeth left her hotel in Roppongi, Tokyo on the morning of 12 January 2014. We can only speculate what transpired afterwards, as later attempts to trace her last movements have been hampered by the escalating tension in the area. It does not appear that her credit cards or phone were used after this date, although a self-published book, Untold Stories from Black Thursday and Beyond, by ‘E. Martins’, appeared on Amazon in October 2014. Speculation is rife as to whether the author is actually Elspeth herself or an impostor eager to cash in on FCTC’s notoriety.
For this anniversary edition, we have permission from Elspeth’s former partner, Samantha Himmelman, to publish her last known correspondence, which is included below.
Elspeth, if you are reading this, please get in touch.
Jared Arthur
Editorial Director
Jameson & White
New York
(January 2015)
TO: <Samantha Himmelman> samh56@ajbrooksideagency.com
FROM: <Elspeth Martins>elliemartini@fctc.com
SUBJECT: Please read
12 January 2014, 7.14 a.m.
Sam,
I know you asked me not to contact you again, but it seems fitting to send this to you on the second anniversary of Black Thursday, especially as tomorrow I’m going to the Aokigahara Forest. Daniel–my contact in Tokyo–is desperately trying to dissuade me, but I’ve come this far, may as well go all the way. I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but people do have a habit of going into that forest and not coming out again, don’t they? Don’t worry–this isn’t a suicide note. Not sure what it is. Guess I thought I deserved a chance to make things right, and someone needs to know why I’m here.
No doubt you think I’m crazy travelling to Japan right now, specially with the spectre of the tri-Asian alliance on the horizon, but the situation here isn’t as dire as you might have heard. I didn’t pick up any hostility from the customs officials or from the people milling around the airport Arrivals area; if anything, they were indifferent. That said, my hotel in the ‘Westerners’ Sector’, which used to be a mega-star Hyatt–gargantuan marble lobby, designer staircases–has seriously gone to seed. According to a Danish guy I spoke to in the immigration queue, the hotels assigned to Westerners are now being run by Brazilian immigrants on limited visas and minimum wage–i.e., zero initiative to give a crap about standards. Only one of the elevators is working, several of the light bulbs in the corridors are dead (I was seriously spooked walking to my room) and I don’t think anyone’s bothered to vacuum the carpets for months. My room stinks of stale cigarette smoke and there’s black mould on the shower tiles. On the upside, the toilet–a sci-fi style thing with a heated seat–works like a dream (thank you, Japanese engineering).
Anyway–I’m not writing to you to whine about my hotel room–see attached. I can’t make you read it, for all I know you’ll scan the subject line and delete it. I know you won’t believe me, but despite all the cut n pasted stuff and transcripts in it (you know me, old habits die hard), I swear I’m not planning on using the content in another book–or at least I’m not now. I’m done with all that.
xx
Letter to Sam
11 January. 6 p.m. Roppongi Hills, Tokyo
Sam–I have so much to tell you, I’m not sure where to start. But seeing as there’s no way I’m getting any sleep tonight, I guess I’ll take it from the top, see how far I get before I flag.
Look, I know you think I ‘ran away’ to London last year to escape the flak I was getting after the book was published, and that was part of it, sure. The Haters and Rationalists still send emails accusing me of being solely responsible for putting a Dominionist in the White House, and no doubt you still think I’m getting everything I deserve. Don’t worry–I’m not going to try to defend myself or trot out my tired justification that there was nothing in From Crash to Conspiracy (or, as you insisted on calling it, From Crap to Conservatism) that wasn’t a matter of public record. Just so you know, I still feel guilty for not showing you the final manuscript; the fact that it was rushed into production as soon as I’d signed off on the final interviews with Kendra Vorhees and Geoffrey and Mel Moran is no excuse.
Incidentally, in August there was a new flurry of one-star reviews on Amazon. You should check them out–I know how much of a kick you get out of them. This one caught my eye, probably because it’s unusually restrained and grammatically correct:
Customer Review
44 of 65 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars Who does Elspeth Martins think she is???
22 August 2013
By zizekstears (London, UK)–See all my reviews
This review is from: From Crash to Conspiracy (Kindle Edition)
I’d heard about the controversy that this so-called ‘non-fiction’ book caused last year but assumed it was exaggerated. Apparently the Religious Right quoted parts of it in their campaign during the run-up to the election as ‘proof’ that The Three were not just normal children suffering from PTSD.
I am not surprised the US Rationalist League came down so hard on the author. Ms Martins has framed and edited each interview or extract in a deliberately manipulative and sensationalist manner (‘eye-bleeding’?????? and that awful mawkish stuff about the old man with dementia). She shows no respect for the families of the children or the passengers who died so tragically on Black Thursday.
IMHO Ms Martins is nothing but a lame Studs Terkel wannabe. She should be ashamed for publishing such trash. I will not be buying any more of her work.
But the backlash from the book wasn’t the only reason I left. I made the actual decision to get the hell out of the States on the day of the Sannah County Massacre–two days after you’d kicked me out and told me never to contact you again. I first saw those aerial shots of the ranch–the bodies strewn everywhere, black with flies, the gore in the dust–in the anonymity of a Comfort Inn, which seemed as good a place as any to hole up and lick my wounds. I’d been working my way through the bar fridge miniatures and channel surfing when the news broke. I was drunk, couldn’t quite make sense of what I was seeing on CNN at first. I actually threw up when I read the strap line: ‘Mass suicide in Sannah County. Thirty-three dead, including five children.’
I sat frozen for hours, watching as reporters jostled for position outside the compound gate, spouting variations on the theme: ‘Out on bail while he awaited trial for incitement to induce violence, Pastor Len Vorhees and his followers turned their stockpiled weapons on themselves…’ Did you see the interview with Reba, Pamela May Donald’s frenemy? As you know, we’d never met in person, and from her voice, I’d always pictured her as overweight and permed (felt a weird disconnect when I realised she was actually skinny with a grey braid snaking over her shoulder). Reba had been a nightmare to interview–always off on a tangent about the ‘Islamofascists’ and her prepping activities–but I felt sorry for her then. Like most of Pastor Len’s ex Inner Circle, she was of the opinion that Pastor Len and his Pamelists thought that by following in Jim Donald’s footsteps they’d be martyred: ‘I pray for their souls every day.’ You could see in her eyes that she’d be haunted by their deaths for the rest of her life.
This isn’t fun to admit, but empathy for Reba aside, it didn’t take me long to start fretting about the consequences the Sannah County Massacre would have on me personally. I knew that the Pamelists’ mass suicide would result in another wave of requests for comments and begging letters from hacks pleading with me to put them in touch with Kendra Vorhees. It was never going to be over. I guess what finally tipped me over the edge was Reynard’s address to the nation, his movie-star features carefully arranged for optimum piety: ‘Suicide is a sin, but we must pray for those who have fallen. Let us use this as a sign that we must work together, grieve together, strive together for a moral America.’
There was nothing keeping me in the US any more. Reynard, Lund, the End Timers, and the corporate fuckers who’d backed them could have it. Sam, do you blame me? Our relationship was shattered, our friends were pissed at me (either for publishing FCTC in the first place, or for wallowing in self-pity after I was called out for it) and my career had imploded. I thought about the summers I spent staying with Dad in London. Decided that England was as good a place as any.
But Sam, you have to believe me–I’d convinced myself that Reynard’s wet dream of a nation governed by biblical law was just that: a dream. Sure, I knew that Reynard and Lund’s Make America Moral campaign would unite the disparate fundamentalist factions, but I swear I underestimated how quickly the movement would spread (guess that was partly down to the Gansu Province Earthquake–another SIGN of God’s wrath). If I’d known that Reynard’s fear-mongering would infect the purple as well as the red states, and how bad it would get, I wouldn’t have left without you.
Enough excuses.
So.
I exchanged my Lower East Side hotel room for a flat in Notting Hill. The neighbourhood reminded me of Brooklyn Heights: a mix of brisk professionals with shiny hair, rich hipsters, and the occasional bum rooting through the trash. But I’d given no thought to what I’d actually do in London. Writing a sequel to FCTC was out, of course. I still can’t believe I’m the same woman who was so fired up about writing Untold Stories from Black Thursday. Interviews with the crash victims’ families (Captain Seto’s wife, and Kelvin from 277 Together, for example); profiles on the Malawian refugees still searching for their missing relatives in Khayelitsha; an exposé on the new wave of fake ‘Kenneths’ who popped up after the Mandla Inkatha debacle.
I moped around for the first few weeks, living on a diet of Stoli and take-out Thai. Barely spoke to anyone except the cashier in the off-licence and the To Thai For delivery guy. Did my best to turn into a hikikomori like Ryu. And whenever I did venture out I tried to disguise my accent. The Brits were still incredulous that Reynard could have won the election after the Kenneth Oduah scandal–and the last thing I wanted was to be dragged into political discussions about the ‘failure of democracy’. I guess the Brits thought we’d learned our lesson after Blake’s tenure. I guess we all did.
I tried to avoid the news, but I caught a clip about the anti-Biblical Law protests in Austin on my Mindspark feed. Jesus, that scared me. Scores of arrests. Tear gas. Riot police. I knew from stalking you on Twitter (I’m not proud of this, okay?) that you’d gone to Texas with Sisters Together Against Conservatism to join up with the Rationalist League’s contingent, and I didn’t sleep for two days. In the end I called Kayla–I needed to know you were safe. Did she ever tell you that?
Anyway, I’ll spare you more details about my self-inflicted London isolation and get down to what you would call ‘the juicy bits’.
A few weeks after the Austin riots, I was en route to Sainsbury’s when the headline on a Daily Mail placard caught my eye: ‘Murder House Memorial Plans.’ According to the story, a council employee was pushing for Stephen and Shelly Craddock’s house–the place where Paul had stabbed Jess to death–to be turned into another Black Thursday memorial. When I flew to the UK to meet with my British publishers and interview Marilyn Adams, I’d avoided visiting it. Didn’t want that picture in my head. But the day after that story came out, I found myself waiting on a freezing platform for a delayed train bound for Chislehurst. I told myself it was my last chance to see it before it got the National Trust treatment. But it wasn’t just that. Remember when Mel Moran said she couldn’t stop herself from going upstairs to Paul’s bedroom, even though she knew it was a bad idea? That’s how I felt–as if I had to go. (Sounds hokey and Paulo Coehlo-esque, I know–but it’s the truth.)
It lurked in a street full of pristine mini-mansions, its windows boarded up; the walls smeared with blood-red paint and graffiti (‘beware the DEVIL lives here’). The driveway was choked with weeds and a ‘for sale’ sign leaned mournfully next to the garage. Most disturbing of all was the mini-shrine of mildewed soft toys piled outside the front door. I spotted several My Little Ponies–some still in their packaging–littered on the steps.
I was thinking about climbing over the locked garden gate to check out the backyard, when I heard a voice shouting: ‘Oy!’
I turned to see a stout woman with stern grey hair striding up the driveway towards me, dragging a small elderly dog on a lead. ‘You are trespassing, young woman! This is private property.’
I recognised her immediately from the photographs taken at Jess’s funeral. She hadn’t changed a bit. ‘Mrs Ellington-Burn?’
She hesitated, then straightened her shoulders. Despite the military stance, there was something melancholy about her. A general who’d been decommissioned before her time. ‘Who wants to know? Are you another journalist? Can’t you people stay away?’
‘I’m not a journalist. Not any more, at any rate.’
‘You’re American.’
‘I am.’ I walked up to her and the small dog collapsed at my feet. I scratched its ears and it looked up at me through smoky, cataracted eyes. It resembled Snookie (both in appearance and smell), which made me think of Kendra Vorhees (the last time I heard from her–just after the Sannah County Massacre–she said she’d changed her name and was planning to move to Colorado to join a vegan commune).
Mrs Ellington-Burn’s eyes narrowed. ‘Wait… Don’t I know you?’
I cursed the giant photo the marketing people had slapped on the back of FCTC. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yes I do. You wrote that book. That ghoulish book. What do you want here?’
‘I was just curious to see the house.’
‘Prurience, is it? You should be ashamed of yourself.’
I couldn’t stop myself from asking: ‘Do you still see Paul?’
‘What if I do? What’s it to you? Now leave, before I call the police.’
A year ago I would’ve waited until she’d returned to her house and poked around a bit more, but instead, I got out of there.
A week later the phone rang, which was something of an event–the only people who had my new number were my soon-to-be-ex-agent Madeleine and the spammers. I was completely thrown when the guy on the other end of the line introduced himself as Paul Craddock (I later discovered that Madeleine’s new PA had been taken by his British accent and given him my number). He said that Mrs E-B had mentioned I was in London, and told me matter-of-factly that in a rather controversial move, one of his consultant psychiatrists had encouraged him to read FCTC, in order to help him ‘come to terms with what he’d done’. And Sam, this man–who let’s not forget had stabbed his niece to death–sounded completely sane: coherent and even witty. He brought me up to speed on Mel and Geoff Moran (who’d moved to Portugal to be closer to their daughter Danielle’s resting place) and Mandi Solomon, his ghost writer, who’d joined a splinter End Times sect in the Cotswolds.
He asked me to apply for a visitation order, so that ‘we could have a little chat face to face’.
I agreed to visit him. Of course I did. I may have been in the midst of a self-pitying, depressive funk, I may have moved to London to get away from the fallout of the goddamned book, but how could I pass up that opportunity? Do I need to explain why I jumped at the chance, Sam? You know me better than that.
That night I listened to his voice recordings again (I’ll admit I got spooked–had to leave the bedroom light on). I replayed Jess saying, ‘Hello, Uncle Paul,’ over and over again, trying to detect something other than playfulness in her tone. I couldn’t.
According to Google Images, Kent House–the high security psychiatric facility where Paul was incarcerated–was a dour, grey-stone monolith. I couldn’t help but think that insane asylums (okay, I know this isn’t the PC term) shouldn’t be allowed to look so stereotypical and Dickensian.
I had to sign a waiver saying that I wouldn’t publish the details about my meeting with Paul, and my police clearance and visitation order came through on the last day of October–Halloween. Coincidentally the same day that Reddit first aired the rumour that Reynard was planning to repeal the First Amendment. I was still avoiding Sky and CNN, but I couldn’t avoid the newspaper billboards. I remember thinking, how could it be unravelling so fast? But even then, I didn’t allow myself to believe that Reynard would manage to secure Congress and the two thirds majority he’d need. I assumed we’d just have to ride out his presidency, deal with the fallout after the next election. Stupid, I know. By then the Catholic church and the Mormons had pledged their support to the Make America Moral campaign–even a moron could have seen where it was heading.
I decided to shell out for a taxi rather than play Russian Roulette with the train service, and I was right on time for my meeting with Paul. Kent House was as forbidding in real life as it looked on Google Images. A recent addition–a brick and glass carbuncle tacked onto the building’s exterior–somehow made the whole place look more intimidating. After being searched and scanned by a couple of incongruously cheerful security staff, I was escorted to the carbuncle by a jovial male nurse with skin as grey as his hair. I’d been picturing meeting Paul in a stark cell, bars on the doors, a couple of grim-faced jailors and several psychiatrists watching our every move. Instead, I was buzzed through a glass door and into a large airy room furnished with chairs so brightly coloured they looked insane. The nurse told me that there would be no other visitors that day–apparently the bus service to the institution had been cancelled that afternoon. That wasn’t unusual. The UK wasn’t immune to the recession caused by Reynard’s meddling in the Middle East. But I have to say, there was an admirable lack of grumbling when the electricity and fuel rationing was proposed; maybe the end of the world is Prozac for the Brits.
[Sam–I couldn’t record our conversation as I’d had to leave my iPhone at security, so this is all from memory. I know you don’t care about these sorts of details, but I do.]
The door on the opposite side of the room clicked open and a morbidly obese man dressed in a tent-sized T-shirt and carrying a Tesco’s bag waddled in. The nurse called out, ‘All right, Paul? Your visitor’s here.’
I immediately assumed there must have been a mix-up. ‘That’s Paul? Paul Craddock?’
‘Hello, Miss Martins,’ Paul said in the voice I recognised from the recordings. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
I’d checked out the YouTube clips of Paul’s acting roles just before I left, and I searched in vain for any sign of his conventionally handsome features in the sagging jowls and doughy cheeks. Only the eyes were the same. ‘Please, call me Elspeth.’
‘Elspeth, then.’ We shook hands. His palm was clammy and I resisted the urge to wipe mine on my trousers.
The nurse clapped Paul on the shoulder and nodded to a glass-fronted cubicle a few yards from our table. ‘I’ll be over there, Paul.’
‘Cheers, Duncan.’ Paul’s chair squeaked as he sat down. ‘Ah! Before I forget.’ He rummaged in the plastic bag and pulled out a copy of FCTC and a red sharpie pen. ‘Will you sign it?’
Sam–it was going from the bizarre to the surreal. ‘Um… sure. What do you want me to put?’
‘To Paul. I couldn’t have done it without you.’ I flinched, and he laughed. ‘Don’t mind me. Put what you like.’
I scribbled, ‘Best Wishes, Elspeth,’ and pushed the book back across the table to him.‘Please excuse my appearance,’ he said. ‘I’m turning into a pudding. There’s not much to do in here except eat. Are you shocked that I’ve let myself go like this?’
I murmured something about a few extra pounds not being the end of the world. My nerves were on edge. Paul certainly didn’t look or act like a raving lunatic–(not entirely sure what I’d been expecting, maybe some kind of strait-jacketed madman with rolling eyes)–but if he suddenly lost it, lunged across the table and tried to throttle me, there was only one weedy nurse to stop him.
Paul read my mind: ‘Are you surprised at the lack of supervision? Staff cut-backs. But don’t worry, Duncan’s a black belt in karate. Aren’t you, Duncan?’ Paul waved at the nurse who chuckled and shook his head. ‘What are you doing in London, Elspeth? Your agent said you’d moved here. Did you leave the States because of the unfortunate political climate?’
I said that that was one of the reasons.
‘I can’t say I blame you. If that prick in the White House gets his way, soon you’ll all be Living with Leviticus. Where the gays and naughty children are stoned to death and the acned and menstrual are shunned. Lovely. Almost makes me grateful to be in here.’
‘Why did you want to see me, Paul?’
‘Like I said on the phone, I heard you were in England. I thought it would be nice to meet face to face. Dr Atkinson was in agreement that it might do me good to meet one of my biographers.’ He belched behind his hand. ‘He’s the one who gave me your book to read. And it’s lovely to see a fresh face in here. Mrs E-B comes once a month, but she can get a bit much. Not that I’m short of requests for visitation.’ He glanced at the nurse in the booth. ‘Sometimes I get as many as fifty a week–mostly from the conspiracy nuts, of course, but I’ve had a fair few marriage proposals. Not as many as Jurgen has, but close.’
‘Jurgen?’
‘Oh! You must have heard of Jurgen Williams. He’s in here too. He murdered five school children, but you’d never know it to look at him. He’s actually rather dull.’ I had no clue how to respond to that. ‘Elspeth, when you put my story in the book… Did you listen to the original recordings, or just read the transcripts?’
‘Both.’
‘They scared me.’
‘Psychosis isn’t pretty. You must have lots of questions for me. You can ask me anything.’
I took him at his word. ‘Please let me know if I’m crossing the line here… but what happened in the last few days before Jess died? Did she say anything to you that made you… made you…’
‘Stab her to death? You can say it. Those are the facts. But no. She didn’t. What I did was unforgivable. She was put in my care, and I killed her.’
‘In your recordings… you said she taunted you.’
‘Paranoid delusions.’ He frowned. ‘All in my head. There was nothing strange about Jess. It was all me. Dr Atkinson has made that very clear.’ He glanced at the nurse again. ‘I had a psychotic break, brought on by alcohol abuse and stress. End of. You can put that in your next book. May I ask you a favour, Elspeth?’
‘Of course.’
He rummaged in the plastic packet again, this time extracting a slim exercise pad. He handed it to me. ‘I’ve been doing some writing. It’s not much… some poetry. Would you mind reading it and letting me know what you think? Maybe your publishers would be interested.’
I decided not to mention that I didn’t have a publisher any more, although I suspected they would jump at the opportunity to publish poetry written by a notorious child murderer. Instead I said I’d be happy to and shook his hand again.
‘Make sure you read all of it.’
‘I will.’
I watched him waddling away, and the grey-skinned nurse escorted me back to the security entrance. I started reading the book on the taxi ride home. The first three pages were filled with short, appalling verse with titles like: Cavendish Dreams (Reading a line/For the twentieth time/Makes me reflect/We are all actors) and Flesh Prison (I eat to forget/Yet it makes my soul sweat/I think… will I yet/Ever say no?).
The other pages were blank, but on the inside of the cardboard back cover were the words:
Jess wanted me to do it. She MADE ME do it. Before she went she said that they’ve been before and sometimes she decides not to die. She said that sometimes they give people what they want, sometimes they don’t. Ask the others, THEY KNOW.
Sam, what would you have done with this? Knowing you, you would have contacted Paul’s psychiatrist immediately, let him know that Paul was still in the midst of some sort of psychotic break.
That would have been the right thing to do.
But I’m not you.
After FCTC came out, I thought maybe I was the only person in the world who didn’t think there was something supernatural (for want of a better word) about The Three. I’ve lost count of the number of whack-jobs who pleaded with me to puff their self-published books on how The Three were still alive and living with a Maori woman in New Zealand/being experimented on in a secret Cape Town military base/hanging out with aliens in Dulce Air Force Base New Mexico (I have proof, miss martins!!!! Why else is the world still going to hell!!!!!). And then there are the countless conspiracy sites that use quotes or extracts from FCTC to ‘prove’ their theories that The Three were possessed by aliens or were multi-dimensional time-travellers. (The following are the ones they tend to fixate on:)
BOBBY: ‘One day I’ll bring [the dinosaurs] back to life.’
JESS: ‘It doesn’t work like that. A fucking wardrobe. As if, Uncle Paul.’
‘It was a mistake. Sometimes we get it wrong.’
CHIYOKO: [Hiro] says he remembers being hoisted up into the rescue helicopter. He said it was fun. ‘Like flying.’ He said he was looking forward to doing it again.
There are even several websites dedicated to discussing the implications of Jess’s obsession with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
But the rest of us have to admit that there’s a rational explanation for all of it: the kids survived the crashes because they got lucky; Paul Craddock’s version of events re Jess’s behaviour was just the ramblings of a lunatic; Reuben Small could easily have been in remission; and Hiro was simply aping his father’s obsession with androids. The kids’ changes in behaviour could all have been a result of the trauma they’d suffered. And let’s not forget the hours of material I chose not to include in the book–Paul Craddock’s lengthy complaints about not getting laid; the minutiae of Lillian Small’s daily life–where absolutely nothing happened. That Amazon reviewer was spot on when he accused me of being manipulative and sensationalist.
But… but… ‘She said that they’ve been before and sometimes she decides not to die. She said that sometimes they give people what they want, sometimes they don’t.’
I had a number of options. I could visit Paul again, ask him why he’d chosen to give me this information; I could ignore it as the ramblings of someone who was mentally ill; or I could throw rationality out of the window and look into what the words could possibly mean. I tried the first option, but I was told that Paul wasn’t interested in having any further contact with me (no doubt because he was concerned I might reveal what he’d given me to his psychiatrist). The second option was tempting, but presumably Paul had passed this onto me for a reason: Ask the others, THEY KNOW. I guess I thought that looking into it wouldn’t hurt–what else did I have to do with my time apart from delete abusive emails and wander around Notting Hill in a vodka-fuelled haze?
So I threw reason out of the window and decided to play devil’s advocate. Say that Paul was repeating something Jess had told him just before he’d killed her, what did it mean? The conspiracy nuts would have a trillion theories about they’ve been before and sometimes she decides not to die, but I wasn’t about to contact any of them. And what about: sometimes they give people what they want, sometimes they don’t. After all, The Three had given people–or at least the End Timers–what they wanted: apparent ‘proof’ that the end of the world was nigh. Then again, Jess had given Paul what he thought he wanted–fame; Hiro gave Chiyoko a reason to live, and Bobby… Bobby had given Lillian her husband back.
I decided it was time to break a promise.
Sam, I know it used to drive you crazy when I kept things from you (like the entire first draft of FCTC, for example), but I gave Lillian Small my word that I wouldn’t reveal that she’d survived the car crash that killed Reuben and Bobby. Out of all the people I’d interviewed for the book, her story affected me the most–and I’d been touched that she trusted me enough to contact me when she was in hospital. The FBI had offered to relocate her, and we decided after that it would be best to break contact–she didn’t need any further reminders of what she’d lost.
I doubted the FBI would simply pass on her phone number, so I decided to give Betsy–her neighbour–a shot.
The phone was answered with a ‘Ja?’
‘I’m looking for Mrs Katz?’
‘She no live here no more.’ (I couldn’t place the accent–it might have been Eastern European.)
‘Do you have a forwarding address? It’s really important.’
‘Wait.’
I heard the thunk of the handset being dropped; the thump of bass in the background. Then: ‘I have a number.’
I Googled the area code–Toronto, Canada. Somehow I couldn’t imagine Betsy in Canada.
[Sam–the following is the transcript of the call–yeah, I know, why would I have recorded it and transcribed it if I wasn’t planning on using it in a book or article? Please, trust me on this–I swear you will not be seeing Elspeth Martins’ Truth about The Three on sale in a store near you anytime soon:]
ME: Hi… is that Betsy? Betsy Katz?
BETSY: Who is this calling me?
ME: Elspeth Martins. I interviewed you for my book.
[long pause]
BETSY: Ah! The writer! Elspeth! You are well?
ME: I’m fine. How are you?
BETSY: If I complain, who will listen? What do you think about what is happening in New York? Those riots on the news and the fuel shortages. Are you safe? Are you keeping warm? You have enough food?
ME: I’m fine, thanks. I was wondering… do you know how I can get hold of Lillian?
[longer pause]
BETSY: You don’t know? Well, of course how would you know? I’m sorry to tell you this, but Lillian has passed. A month ago, now. She went in her sleep–a good way to go. She didn’t suffer.
ME: [after several seconds of silence while I fought not to lose control–Sam, I was a fucking mess] I’m so sorry.
BETSY: She was such a good woman, you know she invited me to stay with her? When the first of the blackouts hit New York. Out of nowhere she called me and said, ‘Betsy, you can’t live there on your own, come to Canada.’ Canada! Me! I miss her, I won’t lie. But there’s a good community here, a nice Rabbi who takes care of me. Lily said she appreciated how you made her sound in your book–smarter than she was. But what Mona said–what poison! Lily found that hard to read. And what do you think about what is happening in Israel? That schmuck in the White House, what does he think he is doing? Does he want all the Muslims down on our heads?
ME: Betsy… before she passed, did Lillian mention anything… um… particular about Bobby?
BETSY: About Bobby? What would she say? Only that her life has been a tragedy. Everyone she ever loved taken away from her. God can be cruel.
I hung up. Cried for two hours straight. For once they weren’t tears of self-pity.
But say that I had spoken to Lillian, what would she have said anyway? That the Bobby who came home after the crash wasn’t her grandson? When I interviewed her all those months ago, whenever she spoke about him I could hear the love in her voice.
Ask the others, THEY KNOW.
So who else was there? I knew Lori Small’s best friend Mona was out (after the FCTC furore she denied ever having spoken to me), but there was someone else who’d encountered Bobby and hadn’t come away unscathed.
Ace Kelso.
Sam, I can just picture your face as you read this: a mixture of exasperation and fury. You were right when you said I should have put his reputation first. You were right when you accused me of not fighting hard enough to have his admission that he saw blood in Bobby Small’s eyes taken out of the later editions (another nail in the coffin of our relationship). And yeah, I should have destroyed the recording refuting Ace’s claim that he’d said it off the record. Why the fuck didn’t I listen to you?
The last time I’d seen him was in that soulless boardroom in the publishers’ lawyers’ offices, when he was told he didn’t have a case. His flesh hung loose on his face, his eyes were bloodshot, he hadn’t shaved in days. His threadbare jeans sagged at the knees; his tatty leather jacket stank of stale sweat. The Ace I’d interviewed for the book and seen on TV was square-jawed, blue-eyed–a real Captain America type (as Paul Craddock once described him).
I had no clue if Ace would even talk to me, but what did I have to lose? I Skyped him, fully expecting that he wouldn’t answer. When he did, his voice was blurry, as if he’d just woken up.
ACE: Yeah?
ME: Ace… Hi. It’s Elspeth Martins. Um… how are you?
[a pause of several seconds]
ACE: I’m still on extended sick leave. A euphemism for permanent suspension. What the hell do you want, Elspeth?
ME: I thought you should know… I’ve been to see Paul Craddock.
ACE: So?
ME: When I met with him, he was adamant that what he’d done to Jess was the result of a psychotic break. But as I was leaving he handed me a note. Look, this is going to sound crazy, but in it he said that–among other things–Jess told him she’d ‘been here before’ and ‘sometimes she decides not to die’.
[another long pause]
ACE: Why are you telling me this?
ME: I thought… I dunno. I guess… what you said about Bobby… Like I say, it’s crazy to even think like this, but Paul said, ‘ask the others’ and I—
ACE: You know something, Elspeth? I know you got a lot of criticism for what you included in that book, but far as I’m concerned you were lambasted for the wrong reasons. You published all that inflammatory stuff about the kids’ personalities changing, dropped the bomb and just walked away. You didn’t take it further; you assumed everything had a rational explanation and naively thought everyone who read it would also see it like that.
ME: My intention wasn’t to—
ACE: I know what your intentions were. And now you’re sniffing around to see if there really was something up with those kids, am I right?
ME: I’m just looking into things.
ACE: [a sigh] Tell you what. I’m gonna email you something.
ME: What?
ACE: Read it first, then we’ll talk.
[The email came through immediately and I clicked on an attachment entitled: SA678ORG
At first glance I thought it was an exact copy of the Sun Air Cockpit Voice Recording transcript that I’d included in FCTC. And it was exactly the same, apart from this exchange that occurred a second before the plane ran into trouble:
Captain: [expletive] You see that?
First Officer: Hai! Lightning?
Captain: Negative. Never seen a flash like that. There’s nothing on TCAS, ask ATC if there’s another aircraft up here with us—]
ME: What the fuck is this?
ACE: You gotta understand, we didn’t want to fuel the panic. People needed to know that the causes of those crashes were explainable. The grounded planes had to get back in the air.
ME: The NTSB faked the Sun Air transcript? You’re telling me that you guys seriously believed you were dealing with an alien encounter?
ACE: What I’m telling you is that we were confronted by facts that we couldn’t explain. Sun Air aside, the only disaster that had a definite cause was the Dalu Air crash.
ME: What the hell are you talking about? What about the Maiden Air disaster?
ACE: We had a multiple bird strike with no snarge. Sure, possibly explainable if the engines had been consumed by fire–but they weren’t. How in the hell do two jet engines get imploded by birds–without a trace of matter? And look at the Go!Go! incident. We were grasping at straws with that one–but one thing’s for sure–it’s pretty damn unusual for pilots to fly into a storm of that magnitude in this day and age. And answer me this, how in the fuck did those three kids survive?
ME: Look at Zainab Farra, the little girl who survived that crash in Ethiopia. The Three were like her, they got lucky—
ACE: Bullshit. And you know it.
ME: This transcript… why did you send it to me? Do you actually want me to publish it?
ACE: [a bitter laugh] What’s the worst that can happen now? Reynard will give me a medal–more proof that The Three weren’t just normal kids. Do what you want with it. The NTSB and JTSB will deny it anyway.
ME: So you’re seriously saying you think there’s something… I don’t know… otherworldly about The Three? You’re an investigator–a scientist.
ACE: All I know is what I saw when I went to see Bobby. It wasn’t an hallucination, Elspeth. And that photographer, the one who ended up being dinner for his goddamned reptiles, he saw something as well.
[another sigh]
Listen, you were just doing your job. I shouldn’t have gone after you for publishing what I said about Bobby. Maybe I said it was off the record, maybe I didn’t. But it was the truth. Fact is, you gotta be blind not to see that there was something wrong with those kids.
ME: So what do you suggest I do now?
ACE: Up to you, Elspeth. But whatever you do, I suggest you make it quick. The End Timers are hell-bent on fulfilling their own prophecies. How in the hell do you negotiate with a president who’s convinced that the end of the world is nigh and that the only way to save people from eternal damnation is to turn the US into a theocracy? Simple. You can’t.
Of course I struggled to believe that the NTSB would actually doctor the record–even if it was concerned about people panicking about the causes of the disasters. Could the transcript be Ace’s revenge for the eye-bleeding debacle? If I made something like this public, the Rationalist League would have another reason to string me up.
But you know where this is going, right? I had Paul’s note, Ace’s (possibly faked) transcript, and his assurances that he really had seen blood in Bobby’s eyes.
It could all be bullshit–probably was. But there was one child left.
I spent the next few days researching Chiyoko and Hiro. Most of the links led to new material on Ryu and Chiyoko’s tragic love story, among them a recent article on a spate of copycat suicides, but there was surprisingly little on Hiro. I contacted Eric Kushan, the guy who’d translated the Japanese extracts in FCTC, to see if he could give me any leads, but he’d left Japan a few months earlier after the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation between the States and Japan was overturned, and all he could suggest was that I look into the Cult of Hiro.
I thought it might have morphed into something approximating the Moonies or Aum Shrinrikyo, but rather than becoming a hardcore nationalist cult, it had fizzled into little more than a bizarre celebrity trend. Now that her husband had won the election, Aikao Uri appeared to have dumped her alien theories and surrabot, focusing her energies on campaigning for the tri-Asian alliance. The Orz Movement had gone completely underground
Do you remember Daniel Mimura? He was one of the Tokyo Herald journalists who’d given me permission to use a couple of his articles for FCTC. He was one of the few contributors (along with Lola–Pastor Len’s ‘fancy woman’–and the documentary filmmaker Malcolm Adelstein) who’d sent me a supportive note after the shit hit the fan. He sounded delighted to hear from me, and we chatted for a while about how the Japanese people were coping with the spectre of a possible alliance with China and Korea.
I transcribed the rest of our conversation:
ME: You think Chiyoko and Ryu really did die in Aokigahara?
DANIEL: Reckon Ryu did for sure, they did an autopsy, which is quite unusual for Tokyo–they aren’t done automatically in every suspicious death. Chiyoko’s body was never found, so who knows?
ME: You think she could be alive?
DANIEL: Possibly. You heard the rumours about Hiro? They’ve been circulating for a while.
ME: You mean the usual ‘The Three are still alive’ bullshit?
DANIEL: Yeah. You want me to go into it?
ME: Sure.
DANIEL: This is crazy conspiricist stuff but… Look, to start with, the cops shut down that scene really fast. The paramedics and forensics guys were instructed not to talk to the press. Even the police agency guys couldn’t get much of a story out of them, except for the official statement.
ME: Okay… but why would they fake his death?
DANIEL: The New Nationalists could have planned it, maybe. I mean, what better way to turn the public against the US? S’pose at a push, if you were that way inclined, you could say they set the whole thing up, staged the scene, killed the Kamamotos and that soldier, made it look like Hiro was dead.
ME: That doesn’t make sense. Private Jake Wallace was a Pamelist–he had a motive to kill Hiro. How would they get him involved in a scheme like that?
DANIEL: Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just telling you about the rumours. Hell, I dunno, maybe they got wind about what he was gonna do, set him up. Hacked into his emails like those other guys did.
ME: But the witnesses said that they saw Chiyoko carrying Hiro’s body.
DANIEL: Yeah. But have you seen those surrabots Kenji Yanagida makes? They’re eerie. Unless you’re close up to them, they look seriously convincing.
ME: Hang on… wouldn’t that mean that Chiyoko would’ve been in on it?
DANIEL: Yeah.
ME: So let’s say what you’re saying did happen. Chiyoko sat back and allowed her parents to be murdered… why?
DANIEL: Who knows? Money? So that she and Hiro could go off to some unknown country and live out their lives in luxury? And poor old Ryu got caught up in it and ended up another casualty.
ME: You any idea how often I’ve heard these kinds of theories?
DANIEL: Sure. Like I say, all bullshit.
ME: You ever looked into it?
DANIEL: Dug around a bit, nothing major. You know how these things go. If there was anything to it, someone would have leaked it by now.
ME: Didn’t Kenji Yanagida identify Hiro’s body?
DANIEL: So?
ME: If anyone knows the truth, it’s him. Would he talk to me?
DANIEL: [a laugh] No fucking way. It’s all bullshit, Ellie. The kid is dead.
ME: Is Kenji Yanagida still in Osaka?
DANIEL: Last I heard he left the university after being hounded by the Cult of Hiro–they were desperate for him to be one of their high-profile mascots. Apparently he moved to Tokyo, changed his name.
ME: Can you track him down for me?
DANIEL: You have any idea how many people have tried to talk to Kenji Yanagida and been stonewalled?
ME: But I have something they don’t have.
DANIEL: What?
I didn’t tell Daniel about Ace’s transcript. It might be my way into speaking to Kenji Yanagida, it might not.
I know what you’re thinking: that I didn’t tell Daniel about it because it was my exclusive and I wanted to use it for my own ends–maybe shove it in another book. But again, I’m done with all that, Sam, I swear.
I didn’t do anything for the next few weeks. The world was holding its breath after that group of renegade End Timers tried to set fire to the al-Aqsa Mosque at the Temple Mount in another effort to step up the race to the Rapture. Not even I was stupid enough to fly to Asia on what could be the cusp of World War III.
And the news we were getting in from the States was just as depressing. I may have been sticking my head in the sand, but the reports of escalating attacks on gay teenagers; the mass closure of reproductive health clinics; the Internet blackouts; the GLAAD and Rationalist League leaders being apprehended under so-called state security laws, filtered through. There were anti-US protests in the UK, too. The UK was cutting its ties with Reynard’s regime, and MigrantWatch were campaigning to stem the tide of US émigrés. And I don’t want you to think I wasn’t worried about you. That’s all I thought about over the holiday season (I’m not going to whine about spending Thanksgiving alone in my freezing flat eating take-out jalfrezi). Thought of you when those UK celebs joined the US A-listers in their ‘Save Our Bill of Rights’ campaign–it would have brought out your cynical side. All the YouTube clips and supergroup iTunes songs in the world weren’t going to change the convictions of people who honestly believe that by wiping out ‘immorality’, they’ll be saving others from burning in hell for all eternity.
But I couldn’t let it go.
Remembering what Ace said about not dragging my feet, I called Daniel in early December and told him I needed help getting into Tokyo. He thought I was crazy, of course–his contract had just been cancelled (he said it was happening to Westerners all over Japan, ‘their way of saying we’re no longer welcome’). Even with my British passport, thanks to new regulations, I’d need a visa, a valid reason for travel and a Japanese citizen willing to stand as my sponsor and representative. He reluctantly said he’d ask one of his friends to help.
I tracked down Pascal de la Croix–Kenji’s old buddy–and begged him to ask Kenji to see me. I told him the truth–that I had new information regarding the Sun Air crash that Kenji needed to know. I told him I was flying into Tokyo especially to see him. Pascal was reluctant of course, but he finally agreed to email Kenji for me on the proviso that if I did get to see him, I wouldn’t publish anything about our meeting.
I reckon I checked my inbox about fifty times a day after that–filtering through the hate mail and spam–for a response.
It came through on the same day as my visa. An address, nothing more.
Sam, I’ll be honest. Before I left I took a long, hard look at myself. What the hell did I think I was doing? Didn’t following this up make me as crazy as the End Timers and the conspiracy freaks? And let’s say my batshit insane Kenji Yanagida wild-goose chase did lead me to Hiro. Say he was still alive and I managed to talk to him. And he told me that The Three were all possessed by the horsemen out of Revelation, or were all psycho aliens, or were three of the Four fucking Tops, what then? Did I have a duty to ‘let the truth be known’? And if I did, would it make any difference? Look what happened with the Kenneth Oduah scandal. Solid proof that his DNA results were faked, but still millions bought into Dr Lund’s bullshit that ‘it is God’s will that the fourth horseman may never be found’.
The flight was a nightmare. I got the total Pamela May Donald heebies before we even took off. Kept imagining how she must have felt in the minutes before her plane went down. I even found myself composing an isho in my head just in case. (I won’t embarrass you with it.) It didn’t help that half-an-hour into the flight, 90% of the other passengers (all Westerners, mostly Brits and Scandinavians) were already drunk. The guy next to me, some kind of IT specialist who was heading to Tokyo to help disband IBM’s Roppongi branch, filled me in on what to expect when we arrived. ‘See, it’s not that they’re openly hostile or anything like that, but it’s best to stay in the “Westerners’ section”–Roppongi and Roppongi hills. It’s not bad, lot of pubs.’ He downed his double JD and breathed bourbon fumes over me. ‘And who wants to hang out with the Japs anyway? I can show you around if you like.’ I declined, and thankfully he passed out shortly afterwards.
When we landed at Narita, we were funnelled to a special holding area where our passports and visas were scrutinised with forensic precision. Next, we were herded onto coaches. At first, I couldn’t see any signs that Japan was heading, like the rest of the world, towards economic collapse. It was only as we cruised over the bridge that led into the heart of the city, that I realised the trademark billboards, signage, and even the Tokyo Tower were only half-illuminated.
Daniel met me at the hotel the next day, and painstakingly wrote down step-by-step directions describing how to get to Kenji’s address in Kanda. As it’s in the old part of the city and outside the Westerners’ Approved areas he suggested that I hide my hair, wear glasses and cover my face with a surgical flu mask. It seemed a bit over-the-top, but while he assured me that he doubted I’d run into trouble, he said it was best not to draw too much attention to myself.
Sam, I’m exhausted, and I have a big day ahead of me. It’s getting light now, but I have one last scene to relate. I haven’t had time to transcribe my conversation with Kenji Yanagida–I only saw him yesterday–so you’re getting it in Proper Writing.
Without Daniel’s detailed directions, I would have been lost within seconds. Kanda–a labyrinth of criss-crossing streets lined with tiny restaurants, minuscule book stores and smoke-filled coffee shops packed with black-suited salarymen–was bewildering after Roppongi’s comparatively soulless Western-style architecture. I followed the directions to a narrow alley teeming with overcoated people, their faces hidden behind scarves or flu masks. I paused outside a door set between a tiny shop selling plastic baskets of dried fish and one displaying several framed paintings of children’s hands, and checked the kanji on the sign outside it against the lettering Daniel had written out for me. Heart in my mouth, I pressed the intercom button.
‘Hai?’ a man’s voice barked.
‘Kenji Yanagida?’
‘Yes?’
‘My name is Elspeth Martins. Pascal de la Croix put me in touch with you.’
After a beat, the door clicked open.
I stepped into a corridor that stank of mildew, and with no other option, started down a short stairway. It ended at an anonymous, half-open door. I pushed through it and into a large cluttered workshop. A small group of people were hanging around in the centre of the room. Then my brain hitched (Sam–I can’t think of another way to put it) and it hit me that these weren’t people after all, but surrabots.
I counted six of them–three women, two men and (horribly) a child, propped up on stands, the halogen lights bouncing off their waxy skin and too-shiny eyes. There were several more sitting on plastic chairs and frayed armchairs in a gloomy corner–one even had its legs crossed in an obscenely human pose.
Kenji stepped out from behind a worktop covered in wires, computer screens and soldering equipment. He looked a decade older and twenty kilos lighter than on his YouTube clips–the skin around his eyes was creased; his high cheekbones looked as prominent as a skull’s.
Without greeting me, he said: ‘What information do you have for me?’
I told him about Ace’s confession and handed him a copy of the transcript. He scanned it without any change in expression, then folded it and slid it into his pocket. ‘Why did you bring this to me?’
‘I thought you had a right to know the truth. Your wife and son were on that plane.’
‘Thank you.’
He stared at me for several seconds, and I got the impression he could see straight through me.
I gestured at the surrabots. ‘What are you doing here? Are these for the Cult of Hiro?’
He grimaced. ‘No. I am making replicas for people. Mostly Koreans. Replicas of the loved ones they have lost.’ His eyes strayed to a pile of wax masks lying on the bench. Death masks.
‘Like the one you made of Hiro?’ He flinched (who can blame him? It was hardly a sensitive thing to say). ‘Yanagida-san… your son, Hiro… when he was killed, was it you who identified him?’
I steeled myself for a barrage of invective. But instead he said: ‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry to ask this… it’s just there are rumours that maybe he isn’t… maybe he…’
‘My son is dead. I saw his body. Is that what you wanted to know?’
‘And Chiyoko?’
‘Is this why you came? To ask me about Hiro and Chiyoko?’
‘Yes. But the transcript–that’s the truth. You have my word on that.’
‘Why do you want to know about Chiyoko?’
I decided to tell him the truth. I suspected he would see straight through bullshit. ‘I’m following a series of leads regarding The Three. They led me to you.’
‘I cannot help you. Please leave.’
‘Yanagida-san, I have come a long way—’
‘Why can you not leave this be?’
I could see the grief in his eyes. I’d pushed him too far, and to be honest, I was disgusted with myself. I turned to leave, but as I did, I spied a surrabot in a darkened corner, half-hidden behind the facsimile of a corpulent man. She sat in her own private area, a serene figure dressed in a white kimono. She was the only one who appeared to be breathing. ‘Yanagida-san… is that the copy of your wife? Hiromi?’
A long pause, then: ‘Yes.’
‘She was beautiful.’
‘Yes.’
‘Yanagida-san, did she… did she leave a message? An isho, like some of the other passengers?’ I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to know.
‘Jukei. She’s there.’
For a second I thought he meant his wife. Then it clicked. ‘She? You mean Chiyoko?’
‘Hai.’
‘The forest? Aokigahara?’
A minuscule nod.
‘Where in the forest?’
‘I don’t know.’
I wasn’t going to press my luck any further. ‘Thank you, Yanagida-san.’
As I made my way back to the staircase, he said: ‘Wait.’ I turned to face him. His expression remained as unreadable as the surrabot next to him. Then he said: ‘Hiromi. In her message, she said, “Hiro is gone.” ’
So that’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I have no idea why Kenji told me the content of his wife’s isho. Maybe he really was grateful for the transcript; maybe, like Ace, he thinks that there’s no point keeping it to himself any more.
Maybe he was lying.
I’d better send this now. The wifi here is crap–got to go down to the lobby to do it. The forest is going to be cold–it’s starting to snow.
Sam–I’m aware that the chances you’ve actually read this are slim, but just so you know, I’ve decided I’m coming back home after this. Back to NYC–if the governor isn’t bullshitting about holding a referendum for secession, I want to be there. I’m not going to run away any more. I hope you’ll be there, Sam.
I love you,
Ellie