Then I go to the staffroom and find the used cars for sale section of the local paper. I check my post box. I know what’s in the A4 brown envelope before I open it. There are pictures of me sitting on the Metro with a laptop on my knee looking very focused. Nothing unusual about that. Except somehow this person has managed to stand behind me at a station and photograph me updating Monica’s Facebook page. I turn them over quickly. Someone has written ‘STILL WATCHING’ on the back. Shit. Shit shit shit. I hide the photos in my bag. I can hardly go to the police with this. I make a coffee and smile as Eileen sits beside me, even though I’m dying inside. She doesn’t say anything, but puts her hand on my arm and pats me.
I need to move more quickly. Before whoever is doing this goes public. I wonder why you haven’t already. I would have. It just makes me think that you are preparing to return my serve with something bigger.
I find an inconspicuous four-wheel drive in silver. It’s compact and functional and has slightly tinted windows, which is perfect. I call the owner and arrange to come over at lunchtime. Just before I leave the university I check my look in the mirror to make sure I look homely and middle-aged. I do. Even I would trust myself.
I go to the bank and collect my cash, mentioning again about my home renovations. Then I buy the car. It’s easier than I thought it would be and I even manage to knock the owner down by a couple of hundred. We swap contact details – Jane Smith’s in my case, and I drive away with the paperwork.
I toss Monica’s computer in my bag, along with her mobile phone and the journal, on the back seat and drive a short way to the side of the park, near to the Metrolink stop. The Metrolink signal is strong here. I check Monica’s profile and I can almost sense all your friends hovering over your Facebook account, waiting for the next revelation.
But that will have to wait. My body shakes with anticipation as I sit in the vehicle that I bought in a fake name. I type ‘Frances Burrows’ in the search box – Facebook is still useful even if it isn’t my current weapon of choice – and I see that she runs a lovely little café. I almost click on the map but then remember that the police might well be monitoring this.
Instead, I get out of the car with the journal. I hurry over to the hot house and push it behind the plastic panel. I feel almost sad being parted from it, but I have all I need on the flash drive and if I get caught with it the game’s up.
A voice somewhere in my head is saying, This is dangerous, Caroline. Jack is dangerous, but I already know this, don’t I? I already know you or your crony has followed me and you’re moving in for your final attack on my credibility. And that’s why I have to protect myself, and to have this car, hidden away, so you can’t follow me.
If you’re following me to the car park I will see you, either in a vehicle or on foot. It’s open and there’s nowhere to hide. I’ll leave home each way on foot. I’ll leave by next door’s back gate – I haven’t got a back gate; the garden is completely enclosed. But I’ll climb over the fence at exactly eight-thirty when I know the fucking dog is being fed.
My own car will still be parked outside my house. You, or whoever you’ve got following me, will think that it’s all getting to me and I’m taking time off work. That’s if you dare come near the house, which I seriously doubt as the last thing you want is me invoking the injunction. Not with the evidence piling up, Jack. That would look bad, wouldn’t it?
Chapter Fifteen
Frances Burrows. I almost feel sorry for her, but not quite. From her Facebook profile she looks quiet and almost mousy. She’s married, no children, two dogs. I check and yes, she’s friends with you. Of course she is. She’s commented on a picture of you diving in the Great Barrier Reef: Nice work, Jack xx
Two kisses. I push the flash drive into the laptop on my knee and load the pictures of you and Frances. She’s not your usual type at all. She’s not flashy or wearing designer clothes. These pictures are the most hurtful of all so far. I know you, Jack, and you look like you are falling in love with her.
It’s like a knife twisting inside me as I load picture after picture of you looking into her eyes. You used to do this thing with me, right at the beginning, when you had to be touching me, looking at me. Slightly smiling. I can see it here. In the art gallery, heads inclined towards each other. Holding hands. It actually stings my soul more than seeing you having sex with them.
I collect myself quickly. No doubt it sank into sexual boredom. No BJ. This woman, like me, thought she was getting your heart, but all you really cared about was sex. In the final analysis, you were out for what you could get. Six out of ten. I almost feel sorry for her until I load the last picture.
She’s holding Charlie. Charlie’s about six months old and she’s cradling him and smiling. You’re beside her, arm draped around her shoulder. I remember this day clearly. You said that you needed to go into work on a Saturday, but I had a terrible head cold. I practically forced you to take Charlie with you so I could get some sleep.
You didn’t want to. You argued, got a little bit nasty. Inferred that I was lazy. A bad mother. That ‘things like this happen and you have to look after your child even when you’re ill’.
I still had the strength to fight back in those days. I argued with you, telling you that he was your son, your child, and it was about time you stepped up. You were awkward with him, lifting him stiffly into his buggy and slamming the door as you left. I fully expected you to drop him off at your mother’s or my sister Paula’s and when you came home at seven o’clock with him I was pleasantly surprised.
Now I know what really happened. You took our son out with your mistress. I click back through the pictures. It’s difficult to tell how long your affair with Frances went on, but many of the pictures are outdoors and the seasons change in the background. Charlie would have been six months old in the summer. Some of the pictures before that are in the autumn.
Copper leaves on the trees as you walk hand in hand in the park. There are even some of Frances kicking leaves. Her on a swing. You on a swing. Me fucking pregnant at home.
I throw the laptop onto the seat beside me and screech out of the car park. I speed up the Huddersfield Road, temper tears streaming down my face and I park up in a layby. There’s a brew van there and I get a coffee. Then I Google Frances’ café.
It’s a small tea shop in a small village. Uppermill is touristy, but not so much on a Tuesday morning. The Tea Cosy. I bet it is.
I’m absolutely livid. I want to go round there and shake her, tell her that Charlie is my son and she had no right. Worse than that. But I know right from wrong. Of course I do. No one must get hurt. Not physically. No.
So I grab a brown real-hair wig that I bought for a fancy dress and some glasses and drive for an hour until I’m in Huddersfield. I’m getting into this playlist thing, like High Fidelity, but mine’s not a top five because there are so many about cheating bastards who treat women badly. My song of choice today from the comprehensive bastard playlist I made is ‘The Snake’ by Al Wilson. A classic. And so appropriate. I Google an exotic pets shop and park up. Half an hour later I’m the owner of a cardboard box full of crickets and ten tiny mice – perfect snake food. I always knew my father’s love of reptiles and his ceaseless dialogue about them would come in handy one day.
I park up a good walk from The Tea Cosy. I check the wig and the glasses in the rear-view. I’m still shaking with temper when I rock up to the counter. I join the queue and look for my opportunity.
The shop is so fucking twee and the furniture isn’t even proper vintage, just replica. It’s full of retired people, which suits me just fine as they’re the worst complainers. I check out the exit to the toilet and then suddenly I’m at the front of the queue and face to face with Frances.
In real life she’s beige. No make-up, hair scraped back and an off-white pinny. She looks happy and confident and I want to slap her. But I don’t because I’m not that kind of person. Tears well up, temper tears, and when she asks me what I wou
ld like I stare up at the board.
I choose a bacon and cheese toasty. I’d already seen her go through to a tiny kitchen to get some toast, so she would be gone a while. As soon as she is safely in the kitchen, I unzip my tote bag and pull out the box of crickets. I empty them into the side of the curved glass panelled counter, right into the cake section. Some of them fall down the slats in the refrigerated shelf, but some of them are already climbing on the white fresh cream.
I turn and check that no one is watching and they aren’t. Everyone is concentrating on their cream teas. So I go to the toilets, which are very country fucking pretty, and release the tiny mice. The toilets are sealed and there’s nowhere for them to go, so they run around in the cubical. Perfect.
I flush and leave and my toasty is ready, along with a pot of tea that I ordered. I pass a ten-pound note to Frances with shaking hands and take a seat near the door. I sip my tea and nibble the edge of the toasty. I don’t even fucking like cheese and bacon. I watch as the crickets climb all over the lovely cakes and wait for someone to notice. I even manage to get a photo, which I upload to Monica’s Facebook page header.
Eventually, two women come into the shop and make a show of putting their bags down at a free table.
The older one orders the ‘special’ – tea and cake for £3.99 – and my stomach flutters. Frances fills up a teapot and almost in slow motion asks her which cake she would like and – boom – it’s all happening now. Frances drops the teapot and the woman screams. I move closer as I head for the door and it’s grotesque. The cakes are alive with insects.
I stand gripped by the sight but Frances is trying to flick them off with a tea towel and they splatter against the glass. I make it look like I’m going to help her, but at the last moment, in all the confusion, I take her bag from under the counter. I’ve seen enough. I’m carried outside on a wave of fleeing pensioners. Someone is dialling the environmental health and my work here is done.
I stand on the cobbles outside the shop and momentarily feel elated. Until I turn around. With the shop empty I can see Frances leaning over the counter, rubbing her face. I step a little closer and peer through the slightly open door. She’s crying. Noisy, guttural sobs. Oh my God. What have I done? This isn’t what I wanted. I thought she would be angry, full of revenge herself. But she’s just very upset.
I want to rush in and hug her and apologise, but I remember that she held Charlie and laughed into the camera and I manage to hurry away, trembling and close to tears myself. I wait to calm myself until I’m far away from the shop. My heart is thudding in my chest and I’m shaking. I feel like I shouldn’t have done this. But she deserves it. Doesn’t she? As I cross the main road I pull the scarf over my face and hurry to the car. Even if there are cameras around here, which I seriously doubt, no one would recognise me or the car.
I head for the hills. I drive and drive and try to imagine how annoyed Frances will be, losing customers like that and having to fumigate her shop. But all I can imagine is her crying.
I reach a remote picnic area and park up. I get out of the car, still wearing my disguise. The hills are bleak and covered with heather and rocks and I find one low enough to sit on and open Frances’s bag. Her phone is in there along with some papers and her purse. I check her purse for pictures. There are none. This doesn’t feel like revenge at all. Revenge is supposed to make you feel better. All I feel is guilty. I push on regardless. There isn’t a way out now, even if I wanted one.
I take her phone. Is your number still on there? It’s fucking locked. But as I try to guess the pattern a notification appears. It’s from ‘Mum’: Are you OK? Are you feeling better now? I hover over the keys, wanting to answer but I don’t. All in good time.
At least I’ll be able to see when you do get in touch with her. She’s the next in the journal and I need to monitor what you’re actually doing about this. I feel bad, but I need to protect myself. I rustle through the bag for a memento. For my hole. There’s a MAC lipstick, unused. A keyring with The Tea Cosy on it. A gas bill. I unfold one of the other papers. It’s a decree absolute. I feel another pang of sympathy. She’s just got divorced. Then I remember she deserves to be divorced. I hope her husband’s cheated on her like mine cheated on me. With her.
The phone rings and I jump. This time it’s someone called Claudia. It rings and rings, echoing across the moorland. It doesn’t go to answerphone. Another text message appears on the screen, faded behind the pattern. Just calling on the way to the airport. No Answer. You OK?. Anyway, we’ll give you a ring when we get there. Seven smiley faces. I look around at the bleakness and the low cloud and think that I’d better get going.
Back in the car I leave the phone on the dashboard. DS Percy will probably come and see me about this and my neighbours will tell her that, no, I hadn’t been out as the dog hadn’t barked and my car had been there all day.
Do I feel bad? Yes I do. This was a step too far. And, thinking about those pictures, no. All actions have consequences and she should have thought of that before she slept with you and held my baby boy.
Chapter Sixteen
I drive home carefully. I don’t want to spoil it now. Not when I’m so near to my goal. I keep one eye on the phone but it doesn’t ring. There are no messages. Frances isn’t so popular. I panic a little and wonder if you or DS Percy have already warned her and if she guesses that it was me? You would have laid it on thick, made me sound dangerous. She would have been expecting me.
When I’m near my house I duck into the back alleyway lined with copper birch that backs onto my garden and climb through the hole in the fence and I’m home. The fucking dog is barking but it doesn’t matter now because it’s not first thing in the morning and I want people to know I’m here doing a spot of gardening.
I haven’t even got my coat off when there’s a knock at the door. I pull open a work folder from the top of an Amazon box and grab the cup of cold coffee from this morning. I pop a pen on top of it and kick my shoes off and throw them under the table. I even flick the kettle on.
It’s DS Percy. On her own. She looks round at the skip, which I hadn’t noticed had been delivered.
‘True to your word, I see.’
I invite her in. She looks around then at the folder and pen. Then she places my laptop on the table.
‘Clean as a whistle. You can have it back now.’
‘Thanks. Doing a bit of work from home today. Not feeling too well. Probably all getting to me. Coffee?’
She nods and I pick up my mug. She looks at my shoes under the table. I go to the fridge for milk and slide Frances’s phone right to the back. You know, if I met her in different circumstances, I think Lorraine and I could be friends. She’s sitting at the table now, trying to read a report on memory and perception in children under two years old upside down.
‘Your job must be very interesting.’
I stir the coffee slowly.
‘Yes, it is. I like to keep as up to date as I can. Lots of extra reading.’
I put the coffees down and choose the chair closest to her. She leans back slightly as I settle in.
‘So. I’m here to talk to you about your ex-husband,’ she begins.
I smile. ‘Officially or unofficially?’
I remind her of the information she shouldn’t have given me about social services.
‘Officially. He wants to make an official complaint against you. For harassment.’
I nod slowly. Of course you do, Jack. That’s the next clearest course of action for you, isn’t it? Have me arrested so it looks bad. So social services will receive a copy of the court report from your solicitor.
‘Oh dear. But I haven’t done anything.’
Lorraine smiles. She still feels uncomfortable here, amongst the floor-to-ceiling boxes and the papers piled waist high.
‘No. We certainly can’t find any evidence that you have. As I said before, we don’t really want to get involved in domestic issues, but his solicitor is leaving us
no choice. Mr Atkinson has told us a little bit more about this bag he thinks you have.’
I bet you have. I’m all ears. I can’t wait to hear this. You’ll be adding up the photographs you’ve had taken of me and me taking the journal and coming up with what you think is the jackpot.
‘Oh. Right. But I don’t see what it’s got to do with me.’
‘He’s been to the station with his solicitor. He’s made a statement saying you definitely have the bag and that the bag contained personal items. His visa papers for his work trips and birth certificate are in the bag and he wants you charged with stealing official documents and harassment. He mentioned libel too.’ She looks positively pissed off. ‘So that leaves us no choice but to investigate.’
I stare at her. Of course you want me charged.
‘But I haven’t got the bag.’
‘I know. I told him we’d searched your property and that you’d complied with our requests. He asked for another search but we said he would have to go to court to get a decision on that. But he did mention something else.’
‘Go on.’
‘The diary in the bag. He said that you would be angry if you saw it. It contained details of other women he had known. That two of these women had been harassed on Facebook—’
I interrupt. ‘Christine Dearden and Julie Carson.’
‘Yes. So you know about this?’
‘Of course. Who doesn’t? All our friends are talking about it.’ All your friends. All your Facebook pariahs. ‘As I said before, it’s very hurtful to me. But not entirely unexpected. You’ve read the file. You know what happened.’
She gets her notebook out and writes it down.
‘So your ex-husband seemed to think that it would trigger your mental health problems. That you had posted these pictures out of jealousy.’
I look at her. She wants me to explain my way out of this. She doesn’t believe him.
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