The Tangled Web (14 page)

‘It IS a big deal.  I didn’t know you’d been married,’ Adam
muttered.

Flic cast her eyes downwards.

‘You should have told me,’ he continued.

She nodded guiltily.  ‘Hang on,’ she said.  She poked her
head around the door to the dining room and living room area, then closed it
and perched on a window ledge.

‘Magnus and Vicky are deep in conversation.  Sasha’s
watching Midsomer Murders.  We should have a little chat,’ Flic reflected.

‘That baby cracks me up.  I’ve never known such a telly
addict.  She’ll watch anything,’ Adam snorted. 

Flic smiled.

‘Do you have kids?’ he ventured.

‘No.  Do you?’

‘No, I don’t.  Don’t change the subject.  This is about you
and your secret marriage.’

‘It wasn’t a secret marriage.  I just never got the chance
to tell you about it.  We haven’t known each other that long and you’ve had a
lot on your plate with the accident,’ she assured.

‘I want to know more,’ he pushed.  ‘I want to know at least
the basics.’

‘Like what?’

‘Who is he?  Where is he?  Why did you break up?  How long
were you married for?’ he reeled.

‘Ok.’  Flic pushed her hair off her shoulders – something
Adam had noticed she did when she was uncomfortable.  'His name was George.  He
still lives down south as far as I know.  We were together since we were
fifteen, got married when we were nineteen and split up in 2006.’

‘What happened?  Who ended it?’ Adam continued.

‘He left me for one of my workmates.  My protégée
actually.  Amy.  They met on MaisonNet through my profile.  Saw each other
leaving comments on my pictures and videos and stuff.  She added him as a friend. 
They started messaging each other privately.  Within a couple of months, they’d
met in real life and decided to get together.  I was out of the picture.’

Adam stared past Flic’s shoulder and out of the window,
feeling like the jigsaw was starting to fit together.  He knew Vicky’s
motivation for HunE-trap Investigations.  Now he realised what Flic’s
motivation was too.

‘Is that when you moved up here?’ Adam asked.

Flic nodded her reply.  ‘I hope this isn’t going to affect
anything between you and me.  I would have told you but you haven’t mentioned
your past relationships to me.  I have no idea if you’ve ever been married or
engaged and to be honest, it doesn’t matter to me.  The Adam I’m with right now
matters.’ 

‘Are you still in touch with him?  Is the divorce final?’

‘We got divorced quickly.  He married Amy within a month of
our divorce.  I’ve had no direct contact with him since I left him.  Just
through the solicitors.  I made a clean break.’

‘This seems so unlike you – the woman I know.  You’re so
feisty.  Why didn’t you fight to save your marriage, or stay and make their
lives difficult?  You really just walked away?’ Adam squinted. 

The woman standing before him was speaking so
matter-of-factly, like she had completely detached herself from the emotions
involved in the situation.  He couldn’t understand how someone could lose their
spouse in a way which sounded deeply hurtful, and now feel nothing. 

‘You had clearly thought you would be with this George guy
forever if you had married him.  Surely you couldn’t switch your feelings
off.’  Adam struggled to make sense of the situation.

Flic shrugged and examined a chipped fingernail.  ‘I choose
my battles carefully.  I didn’t fight for him because I couldn’t win.  He’d
made his decision.  It would never have been the same anyway.’

Adam nodded.  ‘I could never forgive someone for cheating
either.’

‘The way I see it, he didn’t cheat.  He met someone else
and he ended our marriage to be with her.  He didn’t want us both.’

‘That must have hurt,’ Adam sympathised.

‘Of course.  It was the single most hurtful thing that
anyone has ever done to me.  But the man I loved would never have done that. 
He wasn’t the man I loved any more.  I would say I felt more grief than hurt,’
she explained.  ‘Grief is still what I feel.  I moved on.  I just had to.’

Adam tried to mentally brush aside his concerns over Flic’s
secret.  Her explanation sounded plausible.  He heard the emotion from the
words she chose rather than her tone of voice and he saw tiny glints of sadness
in her eyes.  But there was certainly no feeling in her body language.  She
looked comfortable and casual, hovering on the window ledge.  Her shoulders
were relaxed and her legs swung like a child on a chair that was far too big
for them.  There was no stiffness in her appearance and she had stopped
brushing her hair back. 

Adam suspected his new girlfriend had spent the last few
years training herself in the art of being indifferent.

‘Ok.  I still need to get my head around this, but I don’t
see why we should let the past affect us now,’ he reasoned.

‘I agree.’  Flic leaned down and kissed him reassuringly.

‘Can you take the folder into the dining room?  I’ll be
through in a second.  I just need to use the loo,’ Adam said.

‘Sure.’  Flic unhooked the plastic bag from Adam’s arm and
smiled at him, then made her way back through to the dining room.

Adam hobbled into the bathroom and removed his phone. 
Although he had assured Flic the past didn’t matter, he was still plagued by
curiosity.  He had to know what he would be compared with – and what had been
so great about this Amy to make George leave Flic for her.

He selected the MaisonNet app, which he hadn’t used in a
while and searched for Felixia Goodbody.  One result.  He clicked the link and
saw a smiling red-haired version of Flic looking back at him.  Red-haired?  Was
black not her natural hair colour?  He’d soon find out once he was fit enough
for some bedroom action, he decided.  He raised his eyebrows when he saw the
last login date.  September 2006.  She’d been telling the truth about that. 

A quick search of her friends showed nobody by the name of
George or Amy.  Well, of course the first thing that would happen is that
either she would delete them in anger or they would delete her through guilt. 

He searched their names and found only a few people in
America.  They didn’t look like they knew each other anyway. 

After a search of a few other sites, showing only private
profiles with no pictures to view, he moved on to Tête-a-net.  Jackpot!

Amy Goodbody, a skinny red-head with pale blue eyes was
listed as, “from Exeter but living in Torquay, twenty-five years old and
married to George Goodbody”.  She worked as a paralegal, though the company
wasn’t listed on her public information.  This was the woman he was looking
for. 

Adam spent a couple of minutes looking through some of her
profile pictures then got bored.  There were two hundred and sixty-eight of
them.  She must change her picture every other day!  Adam supposed she was
attractive, if you liked women with no meat on them, modest cleavage and no
eyebrows.  And her chin appeared to be missing too. 

He shook his head at himself.  He was being mean about this
woman and he didn’t even know her.  He was about to have a quick look through
George’s pictures when Flic called from the other side of the door.

‘Are you ok?’ she audibly frowned.

‘Yeah, I’ve been to the loo, just checking my messages
before I start limping out,’ he fibbed.

‘Come on, Magnus wants us all briefed on what’s been
happening with each client.  Such a slave driver!’ she giggled.

‘Right, I’ll just be a minute,’ Adam smiled.

He took one last look at Amy’s picture.  He thought about
how distant Flic had seemed when she was talking about her divorce and how
bitter she was about the men cheating online – the ones she had made it her job
to catch and expose.  Then he thought about how happy and carefree Amy looked. 
And how happy Flic had been in her old MaisonNet picture.  Before Amy and
George had turned off the lights in her eyes.  It wasn’t right! 

He saw Amy’s email address displayed on her public
information.  Silly girl.  Anyone could see that.  Anyone could send her an
email.  Anyone.  Even someone who doesn’t know her – like him.

George had cheated on Flic, so he could easily cheat on Amy
too.  Adam wondered to himself if Amy really trusted her husband.  Really. 
Truly.  Wouldn’t there always be that seed of doubt, that he had met her
online, so what was stopping him from meeting someone else online? 

Adam’s thoughts were racing.  What if someone watered that
seed….with a little bit of information about how to check up on her husband. 
Nobody would even have to say that he was cheating.  They would just have to
give Amy the opportunity to check if he was or not.  Would she really trust
him? 

He smiled at the wicked turn his thoughts had taken.  A
little marketing email from HunE-trap Investigations in her inbox would wipe
that smile off her face!  Even if it was only for a few minutes.  He logged out
of the Tête-a-net app and typed a short email to Amy.

“
Is your man an online cheater?  Does he close browsers
when you enter the room?  Does he delete his history?  Do you
really
know what he gets up to online?

Find out!  Visit www.hunetrap.com for more information!”

He chuckled to himself as he pressed send and hopped back
into the dining room.  That would sort her out!

*****

The evening came and Adam’s thoughts were never far from
his conversation with Flic earlier that day.  He was still of the opinion that
what happened in their past shouldn’t affect their relationship now but it
irritated him that he hadn’t known about her marriage. 

It irritated him more that he hadn’t asked in the first
place.  Since most girls his age were single and he was used to dating people
his own age or younger, it had never occurred to him to ask. 

He decided he would have to have a serious think about what
else he wanted to know about Flic.  Her age, for a start.

‘Rubbish weather,’ Vicky nudged him, interrupting his
thoughts.

‘Are we that hard up for things to talk about?’ he quipped.

‘I’m just saying because I doubt if I’ll make it home
tonight.  The snow’s too heavy to drive through,’ Vicky rammed home.

‘You can sleep on the couch if you want.  You too Magnus. 
I’ve got an airbed Sasha could sleep on, as long as we can find a way for her
not to wriggle off it,’ Flic offered.

Adam watched Vicky’s face light up as she accepted
eagerly.  Magnus contorted his face as he voiced the pros and cons, to himself
more than to anyone else, then his eyes darted to Sasha and he refused the
offer.

‘I’ll just go and get some duvets out of the cupboard,’
Flic announced.  ‘I think I’ve got enough…..pillows.’  She was interrupted
mid-sentence by a noise like a wave of a fairy’s wand.  ‘There’s another
HunE-trap Investigations email arriving!  Could you get that Vic and I’ll get
the bedding?’ she pipped.

Vicky pounced at Flic’s open laptop on the coffee table. 
She grinned as she keyed in a reply.  ‘Another enquiry outside the Inverness
area!’

‘Really?  Magnus grinned.  ‘Let me look!’

Adam watched as they excitedly scoured the email they had
received and proof-read Vicky’s response.

‘This is great!  We’ll have to send Peter a bottle of
whatever he drinks and a thank you card for the article.  This enquiry is from
England!’ Vicky chortled.

‘We’ll have to check the website stats later too.  We might
have people viewing it and thinking about contacting us, even if they haven’t
done so yet,’ Magnus grinned.

‘Is it a definite client or just an enquiry?’ Adam asked.

‘Just an enquiry at this stage.  She wants more
information.  I just love her surname, I wish I had one like that!’ Vicky
exclaimed.  ‘There, I sent her one of our forms and a copy of our terms and
conditions for her to agree to and post or fax back.  This is so exciting!’

‘What’s her name?  I’ll write her in the red folder as a
potential client to follow up if she doesn’t get back to us,’ Adam said.

‘Goodbody,’ Vicky responded.

Adam’s face flushed and his heart raced faster.  What had
he done?  ‘Goodbody?’ he repeated.

‘Yeah, straight out of a Carry On film, isn’t it?  Amy
Goodbody.’

11

11
^th
February

‘Bank statement, bills…depressing shit...’ Flic trailed
off.

‘I’ll need to start re-directing my mail here,’ Adam mused
as he chewed on a croissant.

‘You sure you don’t want some hot chocolate with that?’
Flic asked, draining her own mug of steaming Nesquik.

‘Nah, maybe later,’ he replied.

‘Ah, here’s something for HunE-trap Investigations!’ Flic
brightened.  She grabbed her sterling silver letter opener from a drawer in the
desk she’d recently been given by Magnus for her living-room-cum-office and
slid the blade along the sealed envelope.