The Camera Lies: a gripping psychological thriller

by AB Morgan

  ‘The torture was the dip in the frozen lake afterwards.’

  ‘Body shock…?’

  ‘No, I’m kidding, that was part of the treat. It sounds terrible but once you’re brave enough to try it, you reap the benefits. Very invigorating, it is too. Helena insisted that I had behaved like a coward by hesitating for too long before working up the courage to take the plunge into the icy black water beneath the thin frozen surface of the lake. On top of that, I had apparently ruined the video she was making of me as I ran gingerly from the sauna to the lake. I waited for her in the icy waters before she made a dash to join me and screamed with the shock, just as I had done. Because I’m a man, I was deemed inadequate for having done the same as her, and therefore the video was unusable. She laughed as she explained this, of course, but I was to be punished for behaving like a sissy, as she put it, by being given one of her “special” massages.’

  ‘Please feel free to explain…’ Konrad encouraged with an open wave of his hands.

  ‘I’ll try not to be too explicit, Mr Neale, but this isn’t for the faint-hearted.’

  Konrad had laughed briefly, under the impression that Matthew was being playful with his humour. He stopped abruptly when Matthew’s face indicated otherwise.

  ‘As you will no doubt have guessed, Helena used sex as the enticement and her next treat. After supper, and to allow enough time for our meal to be digested, we sat in front of the warm log fire, nursing a glass or two of red wine. Later, when we were mellow and glowing, she instructed me to close both eyes, and lay face up on the heap of fur rugs in our cabin, naked of course. When I was permitted to open my eyes, she stood over me, feet either side of my pelvis, with a long-rounded icicle held in a leather-gloved hand. She forbade me to move my arms from my sides while she entertained herself with her other hand and the icicle, allowing it to melt inside her, just enough for drips of freezing water to land on my genitals making me flinch. “No moving,” she said.’

  ‘Torture.’

  ‘Not yet, Mr Neale. You are impatient.’ Matthew chided, raising one eyebrow. Konrad pulled back into his chair realising his error and finding Matthew infuriating.

  He knows this kinky shit is getting to me.

  ‘The candle wax was the torture. A step too far. Helena crossed an invisible line that night. She took a large candle from beside the fireplace. Not one of those common-all-garden household candles, no. This was one of sturdier proportions that developed a crater full of molten wax. She dripped that wax onto my genitals, Mr Neale, begging me to be a man and not to make a noise. She deliberately and slowly spilt the molten wax and then took the burning pain away by dripping the melting ice from her frozen dildo onto my balls. The finale, Mr Neale, was my second experience of having my pubic hairs waxed. Helena was thrilled. Not a sound did I make, not a wince or a yelp, and I was rewarded for good behaviour with a sound seeing to, Mr Neale.’

  ‘Very poetic, Matthew. Thank you for taking the trouble to avoid offensive sexual language. Your point is well made, but again what I’m hearing is the story of a man who has chosen to explore the kinkier side of sexual practices. I’ll have to leave it to the viewing public to decide whether that is considered to be torture.’ She could torture me like that any day.

  ‘Mr Neale, not one of those special massage treats made it onto Facebook. The pictures of me completing the skeleton luge run at over eighty miles per hour were there, the gruelling ice climb, and the vertigo-inducing base jump were posted, as were the shots of us during a snow sprinkled dogsled experience, but never my vomiting with fear beforehand, and never my burnt skin or rope marks.

  ‘Did your researchers tell you that each one of those extreme winter sports challenges were sponsored? I was even raising money for charity on my honeymoon. How about that?’

  Konrad spotted again how Matthew counted each of the sponsored challenges on his fingers with a bitter edge to his voice.

  ‘Did Helena count on her fingers like that?’ He asked, struck by how often Matthew would repeat this gesture.

  ‘That’s an interesting question. Yes, she did as a matter of fact. She would recap for the press doing the same thing. It irritated me. Strange that I should do the same thing…’ Matthew stared down at his hands as if seeking an answer there.

  ‘Is that why you cut off her fingers and toes?’

  ‘I suppose it could be. I don’t remember,’ Matthew said, as his thoughts took him away to a half-forgotten memory. ‘She used to count on her fingers and say, “More events than you could count on all your fingers, toes, and then some”. The press loved it.’

  ‘Did you have a rest in Sri Lanka?’

  ‘I was hoping to. Helena had organised a retreat. “A yoga health retreat for relaxation and rejuvenation”. Doesn’t that sound lovely?’

  Konrad did not reply.

  ‘When we arrived in the warm sunshine, the yoga and meditation featured heavily in the photos that Helena posted on social media, as did the swimming pool and the beach. Everyone was amazed that we didn’t put on weight during our luxury honeymoon. “You must have exercised it all off, you naughty people!” was the type of innuendo in comments we received. Well ha, bloody ha! I had an enormous appetite and needed every ounce of strength to cope with Helena’s honeymoon programme, but the word “healthy” seemed to have been interpreted as “starvation rations” at our holiday retreat. To top that, and to ensure I was exhausted and detoxified, I had the shit washed out of me several times by a small Asian woman who hooked up a tube from a bucket containing warm, strong, fully caffeinated coffee, while I lay flat on a white, ceramic, sloping sluice. The noises and the stench were indescribably dreadful. Colonic irrigation was degrading. Utterly degrading. Ever had a tube wedged up your arse while your wife watches, Mr Neale? No?’

  ‘Look at your face. What a picture,’ cried Annette with glee.

  ‘You can cut that shot, most definitely.’ Konrad found enough humour left in reserve to accept Annette’s ribbing and find himself funny. ‘Oh my God, I remember this so well. I didn’t know where to put myself. I had this ridiculous cartoon in my head of Delia shrieking at me not to shit on her clean bathroom floor.’

  ‘I can’t say I have, Matthew. No,’ Konrad replied, grateful for a reprieve from descriptions of sexual acts involving the voluptuous Helena. ‘I believe I understand the argument you’re putting forward, in which case, can I take you back to the time of your wedding preparations?’

  8

  ‘In court, a letter was produced, which you say you received before you married Helena, and although not signed, this letter was sent to your place of work and was from Helena’s sister. Why was it that Helena never mentioned to you that she had a sister?’ Konrad sat back, watching for Matthew’s response.

  There was a long pause, and the muscles in Matthew’s cheeks twitched as his jaw clenched. ‘I don’t know if I have a definitive answer to give you.’

  Konrad stepped in. ‘Perhaps I should expand for the benefit of the people who will watch this film. I have a copy of the letter you received, and I also have a short excerpt from a story written by Helena’s sister when she was a young child, also sent to you. Both are very telling. I should let you know that we are making on-going efforts to trace Helena’s sister, just as your defence team did. There are requests for information on social media, and via missing persons’ charitable organisations. We have even scoured CCTV footage from around the Crown Court at the times of your trial in case she was tempted to make an appearance. She remains elusive.’

  Matthew was impassive, but his interviewer could sense tension as he sat opposite. He continued. ‘This first letter was read out in court, and in brief it warns you about the potential difficulties you may face if you decide to proceed with the wedding to Helena. This paragraph is particularly interesting:

  “I knew Helena throughout my childhood, but I didn’t live with her for many of those years. Her jealousy was so consuming and her hatred of me so intense that she couldn�
�t bear to look at me without resorting to vicious assault, either verbally or physically. I did nothing to deserve this other than being born. She hated me from the moment I arrived. Mum and Dad tried to explain to her that there was to be a new baby girl or boy arriving in the family, but she couldn’t comprehend what that meant. They said she was too young to understand, but she was old enough to have had their undivided attention for four whole years before I arrived on the scene. Helena was furious, outraged and inconsolable. Mum could not leave me in the same room as Helena, unattended. I have the scars to prove that.”

  ‘You are aware, Matthew, that Helena had a sister by the name of Tessa.’

  ‘Call her what you like, I have no clue if that’s her real name or not,’ Matthew said with an irritated tone Konrad couldn’t quite fathom.

  ‘You know that Chawston isn’t even Helena’s real surname, because the court proceedings referred to this fact.’

  By the look on Matthew’s face, Konrad confirmed what he had suspected. There was an awful lot about his own wife that Matthew hadn’t known until he was told during his trial.

  ‘Her surname was actually Carlton. Tessa says, in her letter, that child psychologists and numerous therapists saw Helena in an effort to get to the bottom of her jealousy, but in the end it was Tessa Carlton who had to live with her paternal grandparents. The two sisters couldn’t go to the same school or be at family events together. It was attempted, but failed and drove the family apart in the end.

  ‘Not the parents, no. According to this letter they stayed together meeting Helena’s every demand, but Tessa hardly saw them. Helena went to university, moved on and abandoned her parents, denying their existence. She changed her surname and told everyone she was an only child and that her parents were dead.

  ‘They were very much alive until after your wedding, as it happens. Shortly after that they died due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Their rented flat was in a shocking state of repair and the ancient gas boiler was deemed the cause of the tragic accident. Odd isn’t it that Helena had so much, and yet her parents lived in poverty.’ He took his time, leading Matthew from the charade that Helena had created and towards the truth.

  ‘Now then, Matthew, you had this letter in your possession, which gives fair warning about Helena’s potential to harm those close to her. What did you do with that information? Nothing?’ Forthright in his presentation, he had pushed for an overt emotional response.

  ‘Far from it, Mr Neale,’ Matthew replied. ‘The court dismissed the evidence, as there was nothing to prove Helena’s sister wrote it. It was a typed letter that anyone could have produced. In court, the prosecution asked the jury to believe I had written the letter myself, after Helena’s death, which was an insult to their collective intelligence.’ Matthew sighed. ‘Of course, when I read the letter, I had no idea of Tessa’s existence and I was besotted with Helena. What would you have done? I showed it to Helena. Her initial reaction was not extraordinary in the least. She read it several times and declared that I had managed to attract a nutter, a psychopath who was jealous of our relationship, and she even asked me questions about past lovers and girlfriends. We traced one or two on Facebook but found nothing untoward. So, you see Helena found a way of convincing me that the letter had been sent because of actions I had taken. Not because of her.’

  Konrad was hitting his stride, knowing he held some information that Matthew wanted.

  ‘But those letters continued after you were married, didn’t they? Helena was so insistent you had attracted a stalker that you reported this to the police. Why did it have to be a stalker? Couldn’t Tessa feasibly have been an envious sister who didn’t have the wealth and lifestyle of her older sibling?’

  ‘Yes, quite easily, Mr Neale, but what Helena and I believed was also plausible. A stalker, a jealous individual who wanted to scare me away from Helena, who herself reacted in the only way she knew how. She protected me from predators and ensured that I would never consider taking the advice in those letters. As far as I was concerned, Helena didn’t even have a sister.’

  ‘Those letters told you that she did, and you could have tried to find out, one way or the other. You chose not to. But they weren’t just giving you advice or trying to warn you, were they? Tessa appeared to give you evidence. Let me show you a copy of something Tessa sent to you, as a reminder. She sent an extract from some English homework written when she was about ten. It doesn’t sound like much at first but it’s so powerful in this context. It reads as follows:

  “The girl with beads in her black hair, and with straight teeth, was there peering through the window. An older girl with curly golden locks and big blue eyes was hugging her. She was called Helena and we heard the other girl shouting, ‘Get me the antiseptic cream!’ and Helena said ‘stop crying,’ sniggering away because Helena was a sour girl. She looks cute and innocent on the outside but inside she’s as sour as a lemon. She had cut her sister with the scissors in her hand, and she smiled when she saw the blood. ‘You didn’t do what I asked you to. No reward for you,’ Helena said to her little sister. ‘You did, one two three four five and six, but you didn’t do seven.’ Helena counted on her fingers all the scary things her sister had done, because Helena told her to.”

  ‘What does that tell us now do you think, Matthew?’ Konrad sat back, proudly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Neale, I must have misunderstood the significance of that reference. When I was sent that by the lady you call Tessa, who is apparently Helena’s sister, it was another piece of evidence to strengthen our hypothesis that a stalker was hounding me. Anyone could have picked up on the habit Helena had of counting on her fingers. It sounds the same as it did then; coincidental.’

  ‘He’s right, you know,’ Annette said, stretching her arms up in the air and thrusting out her enormous overhanging chest. ‘That was a pathetic story, which anyone could have written pretending to be a child. It could be about our Helena or any other Helena. But we may keep it in, given that we don’t have any footage from an interview with Tessa, because she may not exist.

  ‘I was thinking; you know we talked about putting in a clip or two of the videos showing Matthew and his extreme challenges? I think we should. That poor man has flown, bounced, and teetered on tightropes for two years without getting seriously injured or dead. It’s hard to believe really, after all that effort, success, money raised for other people, notoriety and adulation, and he turns out to be a psycho-slasher.’

  ‘I thought we’d identified the videos on his Facebook as being too staged, too perfect to bother with.’

  ‘Yes, we did, which is why I set Joe here a task to find other sources. Can you do some homework on the ones he found, Konrad? I can’t give the job to Mike, he doesn’t know what to look for, but you do, and if they’re of good enough quality we may be able to get a close-up headshot when Matthew’s in action. Let’s see if we can find evidence of the fear of heights he talks about, or the rope burns. Slow Joe has put the clips on a hard drive for you and he’s trawled YouTube, other posts on Facebook, and the rest of the Internet to find a selection of the best.’ Annette leant across to whisper in her colleague’s ear, ‘He’s not a bad lad really.’

  Evidently Slow Joe was making progress and Konrad was pleased for him, but it was the junior editor, Mike, he felt sorry for. Annette never allowed him to take responsibility for anything unless it was under her strict guidance. He was a wizard with the equipment, and it was strongly suspected that Annette was trying to delay Mike’s career advancement. She clearly wanted him by her side to make up for her lack of technical ability when it came to innovations in the digital world, and Mike was too nice to see it. However, on this occasion, Konrad latched onto the fact that Annette was not undermining faithful lapdog Mike. Keeping Konrad’s mind away from Lorna by setting work he could do at home would help to avoid the inevitable conflict with Delia; Annette was trying to do him a favour.

  Hiding away in my little office playing with video clips of a cold
-blooded killer enjoying himself, just to avoid having to be around my wife. Is that what my married life has come to? Is this a taste of my future?

  ‘Coffee break, children. Your turn to make a mad dash for the bargains at Poncho’s please.’ Annette was talking to Mike and Joe, who willingly took up their challenge and a chance for time away from the confines and intensity of watching the endless screening.

  Konrad stood up to alleviate the numbness in his behind, and to stretch, synchronising with Annette who was doing the same from a seated position.

  ‘Shit. That’s reminded me. I need to phone the kids to see if they’re catching the train from Bangor tomorrow and how long they’re staying for. If they’re back for a week or more I might have to collect them.’ He paused. His arms dropped limply by his side. ‘Bloody hell, I hope not, Delia might want to come along. Can you imagine how that journey would pan out? Hours of silent bitterness followed by a return journey the next day filled with plastic pretence and false laughter. Pukesville.’

  Annette gave a sympathetic glance. ‘Why don’t you go to collect them tomorrow? We’ll carry on here. You can always put Delia off the idea of spending two days with you by placing sex firmly on the agenda. Tell her your drunken exploits were caused by testosterone overload and that a night in a cheap hotel being filthy will cure you.’

  ‘Annette, sometimes I think you’re wasted in this business. Agony aunts earn a lot of money working in the glossy magazine sector. You’re a relationship genius.’

  ‘I know… While you’re in Bangor you could stay at The Management Centre at the university, they have beautiful bed and breakfast accommodation on site and it’s within walking distance of a great pub and BBC Wales. You could look Lorna up while you’re there. She’s working on site, I checked.’