Dying for Christmas (26 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

‘I still don’t see why you had to put in all that crap about the voices in your head. You were supposed to be making it as convincing as possible, not showing yourself as a total whacko.’

Natalie is in a shitty mood. She keeps tugging at her long, newly red hair and glaring at the ends with animosity. And she’s pacing around in front of her laptop so she keeps going in and out of shot which is quite disconcerting.

‘It’s not crap. It happens to be true. That’s how my family and Travis will know that it’s authentic – because they know it’s something that’s always happened to me.’

It occurs to me now how strange it is that we never discuss it, my family and I, those voices that creep into my head when I’m too tired to stop them. But then, I suppose, to talk about it would be to acknowledge it – this thing that sets me apart. Besides, it can be useful on occasion – a get-out-of-jail-free card to cover all sorts of behavioural quirks. Like sexual encounters with strange men in hotels near Luton airport.

‘And I don’t know why you put in that bit about him never having sex. You could have totally gone to town on his creepy sexual perversions. No jury would ever acquit him if they knew what turns that sick fuck on.’

‘I knew my family might read it. I couldn’t.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Jessica. What’s more important, sparing your parents’ blushes or getting rid of that man once and for all?’

When Natalie gets angry, her cheeks glow pink, clashing with her newly scarlet hair. I’m still not completely used to Natalie’s new hair colour either. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that the snub-nosed, blue-eyed redhead is the same tall blonde who scared me shitless when I first met her all those months ago.

She still scares me, only not quite in the same way.

* * *

At first Kim can’t place the photograph at all, but by a process of deduction she dates it to a holiday in Brittany very early on in their marriage. She is in the early stages of her pregnancy with Rory and she can just make out the soft swell of her belly beneath the white sundress she has on. Both she and Sean have that broiled look of British holidaymakers who have overdone it on the beach after a sun-starved winter. She can’t remember who took the photograph but she can see why Sean has sent it to her. They are happy, the two of them. It shows in the way her head dips towards his, and the gentle cupping of his big hand around her bare shoulder. It shows in their matching smiles which are angled towards each other rather than towards the camera lens. Looking at the picture hurts in the same way that looking at a photo of her dad who died two years ago hurts.
We are still the same people if you’d just give us a chance
, Sean has written in the message that accompanied the photo. But they are not the same people. The day-to-day disappointments and resentments of the last years have broken them down, making them less than the sum of their parts. Kim deletes the message, feeling angry and manipulated and sad.

But most of all sad.

* * *

In the hour and a half since I Skyped Natalie, I’ve been thinking a lot about her transformation and everything she went through at that clinic, and everything we both did to help her disappear afterwards. And how she wrecked the whole thing. It has made me furious all over again. She’s like a child who can’t understand why she can’t do whatever she wants whenever she wants. So I call her back. This time I use Facetime as I’m on my phone, pacing around the garden while my parents are out.

She doesn’t seem thrilled to hear from me again so soon. ‘You know, Jess, I’m worried you’re developing dependency issues.’

‘I just don’t get it,’ I say. ‘All you had to do was disappear, right after your surgery. There were enough grounds for suspicion after what happened with Cesca and Sam. And once I’d planted all your DNA, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. But you had to get greedy. A diamond necklace, for fuck’s sake.’

She is defiant. ‘He’d got it from Cesca, so it wasn’t his to start with. I didn’t think he’d even notice it was gone. Anyway, we covered that one, didn’t we? You wrote about it in your story – about him persuading someone to put on a hat and go into a jeweller’s pretending to be me? They’ll buy that. And apart from that, there’s been no sighting of me since the clinic. Well, apart from all those bits and pieces of me they’ve found at his apartment. It’s enough to get him on a murder charge. If he ever wakes up. Which he won’t.’

But now I’ve been reminded of what she did, I feel myself getting worked up all over again. It’s not good for me to get emotional. I’m still supposed to be taking it easy. I try Sonia Rubenstein’s breathing trick with one hand on my stomach, hoping it will calm me down.

‘You know I can’t forgive you for that,’ I say, and I try to stare her out, through the phone screen, all the way through the miles of ether that separate us, and through her laptop screen to wherever she is now.

‘How many times did we go over it? How many times? We were so nearly at the end. It was so nearly over, and then you have to show up there and try to kill him. That was never agreed. I
never
would have said yes to that.’

She rolls her eyes and I find myself hoping those stupid blue contact lenses get stuck on the inside of her eyelids.

‘Jess, if we’d stuck to the original plan and you’d walked out of there claiming to have escaped and it was your word against his, you’d have buckled by now. It’s better this way.’

‘But you botched it. He didn’t die! So now I’ve got to sit here and try to be calm while the police decide if they want to charge me with attempted murder. And if he wakes up and starts telling them what really happened, that’s exactly what they’ll do. I’m shitting myself. I’m on
bail
. They made me feel like a criminal.’

‘Well, hon, technically you
are
a criminal, I suppose.’

‘They’ve even taken my passport!’

Natalie smirks. ‘No Club Med for you this year.’

‘Do you think this is a joke?’ I ask her.

Sometimes I’m convinced that’s exactly what she thinks – that this will become another amusing anecdote to add to the string of amusing anecdotes that people like Natalie have instead of lives. I imagine her telling it to the Saudi prince or whoever comes after him. But then I remind myself I’ve seen her scars. In the places no one looks.

Suddenly I’m furious at the injustice of it all – the way she’s got off scot-free.

‘Do you know how many reporters there are outside my parents’ house at this minute? They constantly ring the doorbell and post things through the letterbox. And you’re hidden safely away wherever it is you are.’

Natalie makes a funny noise then like she’s blowing out air through her nose. ‘My life’s not so great either, you know. I’m going stir-crazy here. I don’t know why you’re so adamant I’ve got to stay hidden. It’s not like anyone would recognize me like this.’ She’s got that infuriating sulky-child expression on again.

‘We can’t take any more chances. Where exactly are you anyway?’

I’m looking at the fragment of cushion cover I can see just behind her on the screen. The pattern looks strangely familiar although I haven’t a clue where from.

‘It’s better if you don’t know where I am. Safer.’

Safer for you, you mean.

I think it, but I don’t say it.

* * *

Kim is back in Perivale. Funny how a few weeks ago she’d never even heard of the place and now it’s all starting to look so familiar. This time Henrietta Belvedere is in full work mode, all trace of holiday zen completely eradicated.

‘Back-to-back meetings today,’ she says, bustling out to meet Kim in reception in dark trousers and a dark jacket with a plum-coloured silk shirt that exactly matches the frames of her glasses. ‘You’re lucky you caught me. Such shocking news about what happened to Jessica. Thank god she’s going to be OK. It just goes to show, doesn’t it, that none of us are completely safe.’

‘Quite.’

Kim is a bit disappointed to find Henrietta available. She was hoping for a word with her deputy, Joe, the guy she and Martin met the first time they were here.

‘Remember we spoke about that fake Facebook account someone set up with Jessica’s face photoshopped on to a pornographic image?’

Henrietta nods, but she’s frowning. This is a conversation she clearly feels they exhausted the last time they met.

‘Yes, and I did explain that had nothing to do with anyone at work.’

‘Of course. I was just wondering if I could speak to someone she worked more directly alongside, to see if she’d mentioned it at all. Joe Tunstall maybe.’

‘Joe?’ Henrietta doesn’t much like that suggestion. ‘I can’t think what he’d know. He and Jessica aren’t particularly close. Well, I wouldn’t say Jessica is particularly close to anyone. Still, I’ll ask him to come out and talk to you if you like, just to set your mind at rest. Just bear in mind we’re incredibly busy.’

Joe Tunstall looks self-important when he steps out through the reception doors wearing a blue crew-necked jumper, corduroy jeans and a concerned expression.

‘Detective, so nice to see you again. Thank goodness with better news. Not, of course, that Jessica’s kidnap is good news, but at least she’s home safe and sound. That’s what matters, isn’t it?’

Kim finds herself nodding, even though there’s a feeling like an elastic band pinging against her heart when he says that phrase ‘home safe and sound’.

‘I was just wondering,’ she says, ‘if Jessica had ever mentioned anything about someone setting up a fake Facebook account in her name?’

Joe frowns, the freckles on his forehead again knitting into a uniform brown splodge.

‘You know, I think she might have mentioned something – months ago. She seemed upset and I asked her why, and she told me there’d been this account set up. Didn’t say what it was. I advised her to contact Facebook and to take a screen grab of the page just in case it turned out to be the start of a campaign of harassment. I even looked over her shoulder while she did it, although she put a hand over the photograph so I couldn’t see it. She was still embarrassed, even though it wasn’t even her. That’s what Jessica was like.’

‘A screen grab? Might that be on her computer here then? Could I take a look?’

Half an hour later, Kim is into Jessica’s account on the work computer she used. She isn’t very comfortable with technology and baulks at all the icons on the desktop, but the IT person who helped her log in shows her where the documents folder is.

‘Look for something with
photo
in the title, or
Facebook
, or
FB
,’ he suggests and Kim finds herself briefly transfixed by the Adam’s apple moving in his throat like the lottery balls down the chute on the telly.

‘Aha.’ He points to a file where the mouse cursor is bobbing insistently. ‘
Fbacct.doc
. I’d try that one if I was you.’ At first she can’t really make out the photograph and it looks like just another Facebook page. Then she double-clicks on the profile picture which reveals itself to be that of a naked woman on all fours on a cheap hotel-room bed. Instantly Kim realizes two things:

1) The face is definitely Jessica Gold’s.

2) The picture has definitely not been photoshopped.

Chapter Thirty-Four

It was James who’d first seen the Facebook page. His wife’s sister brought it to his attention in that way people do when they’re trying to act all helpful, but really they can’t wait to see your reaction. ‘I just thought you’d want to know …’

‘Your face has obviously been photoshopped but they’ve done it very well,’ he told me when he rang, and I could imagine how his ears would be turning pink with embarrassment. ‘You’ve got to get straight on to them to take it down. I wouldn’t look at it though, if I were you. It’ll just freak you out.’

I put my name straight into the search box. When the page came up with that photo my heart stopped dead. What had I been thinking of? I hadn’t
been
thinking. I’d looked up and there he was with his phone. ‘It’s only for me,’ he said. ‘So I’ll always remember this night.’

The Facebook thing came in April, three months after he’d first got back in touch suggesting a reprise of the night in the hotel. The original message had come through on my work email and even though it was innocuous I erased it immediately. Then I’d set up a separate Hotmail account using random letters and characters instead of a name and told him to use that. Even so, I knew I wasn’t going to meet him again. Something about the way he’d been during that first night had scared me. But he wouldn’t be put off. ‘Didn’t we have fun?’ he said in his emails. ‘I thought we had a connection.’

I stopped replying. By then Travis and I were getting on a bit better and, while thinking about that night with the stranger in the hotel thrilled me (the idea that I was capable of
that
), it terrified me as well (the idea that I was capable of
that
).

Dominic’s messages took on a sour, curdled tone before, to my relief, stopping altogether.

There was a gap of a couple of weeks. And then came James’s call.

‘There’s something you need to know …’

* * *

‘I don’t see what this has to do with anything.’