by Holly Seddon
Thursday, 16 September 2021
It’s funny that in all those years, I hardly ever saw the inside of Jonathan and Paula’s house. A few dinners, the odd coffee in the conservatory with Paula. But they always gravitated to our house and we preferred it that way.
I’d never even seen this home office until I crept in through a back bedroom and made my way silently through their house. I suspect this was once the room earmarked for a child; it’s bigger than a typical home office and painted yellow, a small box of toys tucked in the back of the cupboard, where I now wait.
I’ve been here, silent, for several hours. My breathing slow and steady, my muscles loose and relaxed. I’m wearing all grey and black, my boots left outside and my feet silent in socks.
Finally the office door opens. I wonder why, with only one of them still living here, they have waited until well after dark. Downstairs, I could hear the sounds of dishes, of cooking and at one point Radio 4. I could have announced myself down there, the radio noises a perfect cover. But I wanted to see them here, where it all happened. I was suspicious before I broke in and the puzzle pieces all pointed this way. Only a handful of people knew my truth, fewer still had motive to exploit it and only one of them was angry enough. Now that I’ve seen the computer, I’m deadly certain.
Paula
Everything began and ended with Heidi. With the helmet of fluffy black hair she was born with, despite her fair parents. With the tiny curling fingers, the nostrils so delicate they couldn’t possibly be real. A little doll, Paula used to call her, barely trusting that she was really for keeps.
Did Paula hold her breath for the whole three years or did it just feel like it? When she thinks of her daughter now, gone so many more years than she was here, she is unable to fully exhale.
For a year, it was the purest and most fearful joy. A year of a healthy baby, through which – as all parents do – Paula and Andy worried endlessly about the temperature of the room, of the air quality outside their suburban home, the schools in the area and how to baby-proof the house ready for wobbly first steps.
They didn’t worry about her little face and feet swelling, as fluid trickled and became trapped in tiny nooks and corners of her body. Nor did they worry about her eyes crunching together in pain when she peed. Until those moments arrived.
Just three years together and the last two dominated by hospital visits, waiting lists, unanswered prayers. She was everything Paula wanted and she barely touched her with her fingertips before the little girl was being tugged away. It wasn’t fair. And there was no silver lining.
When Andy left, it barely registered. The worst had already happened.
*
Jonathan wasn’t a silver lining but he was a new hope. One that, as new hopes do, helped Paula blinker herself to his rougher edges and wish for the best. Tunnel vision focusing on one point: a new family.
Not a replacement for Heidi, no one could be that, but an addition to the story. And then that hope, that tiny fragile flame barely lit, was snuffed out too – he had made it impossible to have children. And with that, everything good in which Paula had placed hope, had placed trust, curdled.
Paula blows on her camomile tea as she opens the office door. She takes a cautious sip as she sits at the desk. The tea is still too hot and she puts it down carefully, the tip of her tongue raw and now missing a tiny layer.
The rest of the office is dark, just how she likes it. It’s nearly eleven at night. When Jonathan was still living here she’d be in bed by now, in a chemical coma from sleeping pills while he texted fleshy pictures to other women and did who knows what in this room. But now it’s her room, her house, her hours, her computer. Her mission control.
Jonathan has been gone for over a year. Living in his office or a hotel or maybe in some other sap’s bed. He could be shacked up with Samantha for all Paula cares, though she knows very well that’s not the case. After years of wishing, manoeuvring, begging him to respect their marriage, she no longer cares. It’s that simple.
And it’s intoxicating! The sheer freedom that comes when you stop clinging to the idea of family or matrimony. Of colouring inside the lines. Of Botox and blow jobs. Of keeping house or ‘normal’ hours.
She catches sight of her face in the reflection of the screen. Her forehead creased and her eyes lined. She wears her years these days. And why not? She has accomplished enough, and suffered enough, to wear her war medals.
She threw everything at her second marriage. Giving up work at Jonathan’s prompting to become a full-time wife, ready to be a full-time mother again. Letting her brain decay slowly, almost unnoticeably, like unbrushed teeth.
It’s embarrassing how many years of false hope and wilful ignorance passed by before she finally accepted what was plain to see. The marriage was a mirage. And Jonathan was so blatant about it! It was practically trolling.
And when, after years of negative pregnancy tests, years of her bending over backwards to be a ‘dutiful wife’, he was still unwilling to try fertility treatment, something irreversibly broke. How dare he string her along like this? As if she was just some docile wife, some decorated idiot, who could be kept sweet with necklaces and handbags instead of the only thing she really wanted?
It was in this office that Paula made the decision. All the wilful ignorance she’d employed and deaf ears she’d turned were retired. It was time to find out everything.
While Jonathan ‘worked late’, Paula combed through online message boards for suspicious spouses. Soon she’d learnt to hack into his emails, his photos, his calendar app. Paula, who Jonathan wouldn’t trust to restart the broadband router, even had a secret phone that replicated Jonathan’s. Once the shock of it wore off, and the rage cooled just a few degrees, she was left marvelling at his audacity.
The sheer volume of women, the indiscriminate chasing, the revolting, badly lit pictures he sent that somehow, with at least a few women, had paid dividends. A whole second life, multiple lives, right under her nose. He really didn’t give a shit! It took an extraordinary level of self-belief and selfishness to commit to such a level of deceit and for so long.
And all the while, she had to watch Steve’s young ‘immigration bride’ reaping rewards to which she had no claim. The house, the son and the marriage. It wasn’t fair. Paula didn’t exactly blame Samantha, not personally; not until she noticed the furtive looks between Jonathan and Samantha. Not until she noticed the ease with which Samantha enjoyed the life she really had no right to.
Other women would say Paula should have left Jonathan. She had plenty of evidence and no ties to bind. But where would she go? She’d abandoned her career, put all her eggs figuratively and almost literally in one basket. She had no money of her own. No future. And she would never have the family she wanted. Because of him.
No, Paula didn’t want to leave. Instead, she wanted to get under the skin of this man, learn everything he had kept from her, before she took everything from him. She’d learnt about the dark web from her online community and thought, why not?
She used one of his old laptops from work, followed the instructions on YouTube and downloaded the special browser. It took some getting used to, the slowness, the inability to search, but – painfully – she had nothing but time.
She hacked his finances first, then his medical records. Investments that Jonathan had never told her about were meaningless in comparison to the vasectomy he had had without telling her. Right back when they started trying. When she still stood a chance. Any sweetness was gone, hollowed out. Now she was driven by spite and sadness.
*
The Hacker Supermarket started as a side project when she’d exhausted everything in Project Jonathan. A way to earn money that he had no chance of finding. A nest egg ready for when she left. She planned to get her revenge on him too, some big gesture, his photos sent to everyone at his company, or, screw it, beamed onto the wall of their house. By the time she got round to revenge, he’d given her the perfect opportunity to hit him in t
he only place it hurt. Showing Steve those photos, knowing Samantha was among them – that beat any grand gesture.
But back then, at the start of her ‘kitchen table venture’ on the dark web, she was focused on earning money.
She advertised on a few of the message boards she’d found links to, and charged small amounts at first. The equivalent of a few quid to hack into photos or emails, the same kind of thing she’d done to her own husband. The challenges got harder. Beyond a hobby, it took on a life of its own. She would accept requests from people and give higher and higher quotes for the work. They often accepted.
While Jonathan smarmed around his corporate world, Paula out-earned him from the comfort of their house. Running a network of her own, employing a staff of little grub worms to help, moving the kinds of goods and managing the kinds of projects no one could have imagined. It was terrifying, thrilling and lucrative. While Jonathan had his piddly little investments and bits on the side, she was accumulating thousands.
But none of it filled the hole, the holes, that life had punched into her. No amount was enough to make her pull that plug and leave. She was still looking for something, and didn’t know what it was until she saw it. The message on one of the communities she advertised on showed that Noah was a kindred spirit. A man broken by loss but motivated by money.
She immediately recognised his grief, his rage. Wouldn’t she have done anything to find a donor for Heidi? If the dark web had existed back then, she could have easily fallen prey to the same scam Noah had.
She didn’t take a sleeping pill that night. Instead, she lay under their White Company sheets, thinking that maybe there was a different way. Maybe this thing she’d started could be used for good? Like the charity arm of a weapons conglomerate.
She got back out of bed and messaged from the laptop she kept hidden in her side of the wardrobe. She could see it all, even as she typed her idea to Noah. She knew he’d respond, knew he’d go for it, because she understood to her bones the way grief had shaped him.
Samantha was a gift. Paula had known about her past, knew she would do anything to keep it secret. Perhaps Paula might not have used her if Samantha hadn’t been so blatant in her attraction to Jonathan. Perhaps.
When Greg got in touch, it was all too perfect to ignore.
She thought she knew the ideal doctor as well. Henry Derbyshire was Jonathan’s tennis buddy. Deeply in debt through ridiculously bad investments – the rich man’s form of gambling. It was an early mistake. Too close to home.
Henry never worked out who was really behind the project, but she was glad to see the back of him.
The scheme was supposed to work well for the girls too. Fresh starts – like the one Samantha had got. Like the one Samantha didn’t deserve.
Paula sent the first message to Samantha just before arriving for dinner at their house. Watched her carefully all night to see if she seemed rattled. Paula thought for a moment that she might have told Jonathan when they went for a walk, but clearly they had other things on their minds. And god, Samantha was good. Even on her earliest, wobbliest test run. Collecting electronics that Paula later threw in the Thames. Too traceable to risk selling. Samantha had asked about this more than once, when she plucked up courage to start answering her ‘handler’ back. But Paula never explained.
Samantha resisted, of course, trying to wriggle from the hook, but there was such a bounty of easily hackable CCTV from the locker places and electronics stores that the hook just burrowed deeper.
*
At first the project was cathartic. People being helped, lives being saved. But good intentions don’t always equal good outcomes, and the whole donor network turned into an unwieldy nightmare. Having to man that phone constantly, sending Samantha and the others all over the place, the girls flaking out and not showing up. Lina. That was a regret, though Paula didn’t admit she felt that way to Noah.
Greg trying to break loose became infuriating too. He was a weak and silly man. Some clients had second thoughts and cancelled just as a good donor was lined up. And all the while, Paula was trying to keep the other businesses going on the side, Hacker Supermarket and Assassin Supermarket – although the latter generated very few genuine sales. She even created a ‘hack’ website so people could search for their names. She thought it would be wonderful advertising, the kind that had once put a famous infidelity site on the map. But in the end, she was her own biggest customer.
It was a relief to shut it all down, really. She’d proven she could do it, helped some people and made an absolute stack of money. That was enough.
Now Noah is dead, their shared investments are hers, hidden under layers and layers of umbrella companies. Jonathan has so far let her keep the house and money is no object. Just one more job for Samantha – the unfortunate Marianne – and then that side of the business will be shut down too. And then what will she do? It should be exciting, a whole world of opportunity, but she just feels numb at the thought.
‘Was it always you, sending me those messages?’
The voice is familiar and Paula turns slowly to the dark corner, trying to hide her shock.
Sam
Paula wears cream silk pyjamas and dressing gown, one leg tucked under her, a Cornishware mug in her hand. I see that it’s shaking slightly and she puts it down carefully, avoiding my eye.
‘The one I’m most proud of,’ my sister-in-law says, ‘was my husband’s birthday dinner. Do you remember that?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘I sent messages right there at the table and none of you noticed.’
I step out of the shadows and walk towards her chair, keeping an eye on the hot tea in case she tries anything stupid.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, and she tilts her head and then laughs suddenly. It rings out like an alarm in the still night. I haven’t heard her voice in over a year and I’m surprised by the affection it stirs in me, even after everything.
‘It must have been awful to be ignored all that time,’ I say.
Paula was the closest thing I had to a friend in recent years. Since Cristina. The affection fades. Paula would have had Cristina carved up like all the others.
Paula shakes her head but says nothing.
‘Did this help?’ I ask. ‘Did it fill the hole?’
She holds my gaze. Her fingers start to tremble in her lap. A detail most would miss. Still Paula says nothing. For a moment she looks older than her years. Ghostly, I suppose. She shakes her head. ‘Nothing helps,’ she says, her voice cracking just slightly. ‘I’ve been empty for years. This was just a temporary distraction.’
‘I know you don’t believe me and really you don’t deserve it, but I’m sorry about what I did, Paula.’ She looks up at me, I see her eyes taking me in, my hair, my size. She’s not seen me in the flesh since I left Steve’s home and she recoils just slightly.
‘You know I can’t leave you alive, though, don’t you?’ I say, my voice soft. ‘Not after what you did to those girls.’ I pause. ‘And to me and Joe.’
Paula takes a sip from her mug. I can tell she’s trying to hold her nerve but her breathing is fast, her eyes darting around the room.
Then suddenly she smiles, the same rictus grin she wore for all those Christmases. She sits up straighter and puts her mug down with no hint of a tremble now.
‘What a shame this is coming to an end,’ she says, her voice clear and brisk. The same game Paula who joined me for brunches and made small talk with Steve.
‘You’re very good at what you do,’ she says. ‘I really struck it lucky there. What chance!’
I hold her gaze as she adds. ‘Of course, I was bloody good at my job too. Remember the alibi I rustled up with almost no notice? The Local Angels stuff?’ I nod. She’s talking as if we’re reminiscing, as if we’re back in Le Pain Quotidien splitting a cake we’d both skipped lunch for. ‘All those details matching up, I was very proud of that.’ She pauses. ‘We could have been a great team if we’d joined forces pro
perly.’
‘Perhaps you should have asked me, instead of forcing me,’ I say.
‘Perhaps. But how did you know it was me?’ Paula asks, brow furrowing.
‘There was no one else it could have been.’ I shrug. ‘No one else knew everything you knew, except Steve and Jonathan. Steve wouldn’t do that to Joe and Jonathan isn’t smart enough.’
She smiles at this and takes a sip of her tea. She’s even thinner than when I last saw her, her skin a dull grey as if she’s not seen sunlight in a while. Her hair, no longer dyed blonde, is luminous silver. Like moonlight. I wonder when she last went outside.
‘He didn’t deserve you,’ I say, and she nods.
‘He didn’t deserve any of us,’ she says. ‘But we could still be a team, you know. You’ve been working for me for a long time now and you’ve made excellent money. I was winding it all up, but there’s still plenty of work for your talents.’
‘Paula,’ I say, shaking my head.
She looks down at her hands. ‘What was I going to do with my time, anyway?’ She laughs. It’s a fleeting, shallow sound. ‘Just, please, make it quick.’
I start to tie her silk dressing-gown cord gently around her neck, squeezing her shoulder with apology, with reassurance, with welling regret. Things could have been so different between us, but they’re not. And they never can be after I learnt what they were doing at the Bluebell, what they had dragged me into. It just needs to end.
‘This isn’t retribution,’ I whisper, as I move her hands to the cord and help her pull. ‘This is a full stop.’
Marianne
Friday, 17 September 2021
‘I don’t know what to say.’ Jane’s face is temporarily frozen on the screen, but her voice is still audible through Skype.
‘I know,’ Marianne says. ‘What are the chances?’
A husband and then a new boyfriend dying almost one year apart. What are the chances? Jane has barely said a word since Marianne called, she’s just let her friend talk. But both of them were crying all the same.