by T. M. Logan
I stepped back out into the hall and went back into her handbag, reaching up and through the lining until my fingers touched smooth, hard plastic. I grabbed it and pulled it out.
It was a compact Samsung cell phone—black, no case, new-looking.
Mel had owned an iPhone for as long as Apple had made them, she wouldn’t use anything else.
I had never seen this Samsung before.
It only had one button that I could see. The phone’s lock screen came to life, a keypad and prompt asking me for a four-digit pin.
Four digits. What would she use? Presumably I had three chances to get it right before the phone locked me out.
Her birthday? September 15. 0915.
The digits of the keypad shook. No good. The sound of Mel’s voice reached me from upstairs, calm but firm, her you-will-clean-your-teeth voice. It would be maybe sixty seconds before they were done in the bathroom.
When was Ben’s birthday? I didn’t know. Shit. Sometime in January.
What else would she use? We used our house number as the parental lock on the TV to make sure William didn’t stumble across Game of Thrones.
4343.
The keypad numbers shook again. Wrong. A bead of cold sweat traced a line down my rib cage.
Last chance before the phone locked. I tried the only other combination I could think of: William’s birthday.
0614.
The phone unlocked to reveal a screen full of apps. His birthday. Of course.
I was in.
Work fast.
It was on silent mode, which made sense. I hit the text messages icon.
The screen showed: Empty.
She must delete as she goes along, I thought. Smart.
I heard the toilet flush from the bathroom upstairs. Concentrate. Call history: see what calls had been made and received from this handset in the last few days.
The screen showed: Empty.
No calls in memory. No texts either. I found this bloody phone, figured out the passcode—this can’t be a bust. It can’t be. There had to be something, somehow, that I could learn from it. This must have been the phone she used to take pictures of herself, the naked selfies she had sent to Ben. It would have been too risky with her iPhone—William played regularly on both our cell phones, and half the apps we’d downloaded were games to keep him occupied in the supermarket or the car or sitting on the bus. He seemed to have an instinctive knowledge for navigating the average cell phone, and the risk of him accidentally finding a compromising picture was too high.
No. She would have used another phone to keep Ben happy.
This phone.
I hit the app marked Album on the home screen. For the third time, the screen showed: Empty.
So: no texts, no calls, no pictures. Almost as if it had been wiped. But I knew that was not actually very easy to do, unless you selected Factory Reset and literally went back to square one. Like an old phone she’d given me when William dropped mine in the paddling pool last year—she thought everything had been deleted, but there were still some random selfies that he had taken, saved in an automatic backup file.
It gave me an idea. I found the File Manager app, opened it. A screen full of options. Going more or less at random, I selected Internal Storage and scrolled down the list.
Alarms Android Demovideo Downloads Edited
Then:
File Backup
That was it. I selected it and saw a couple of file types I didn’t recognize, and one that I did: a JPEG file. A picture. I clicked on it.
An image of Mel, topless, filled the screen.
It was a shot of her leaning forward with a coy little smile on her face, one arm under her breasts. I had seen the picture before, last Sunday. In the Stratford Arms, when Beth had stormed in and confronted us both with the evidence of my wife’s infidelity. For a moment, I stood staring at the screen. It felt different, seeing it in my own home, a few yards from where the picture had been taken. The shock of novelty, the pure visceral shock of seeing a picture that should never have been taken, had knocked me sideways when I first saw it. But now the shock was blunted, replaced with a kind of grim fascination in knowing that it had been taken in my own house, right under my nose. Without quite knowing why, I selected Options, Messaging, then Text Message. Punched in my number with shaking fingers.
Ben had the picture. I would have it too. She was my wife, after all. Perhaps there was something I could learn from the picture, something that would help me find him.
Message sent
I deleted it from the list of sent items, my own phone bleeping in my pocket as the picture message dropped in.
William spat out toothpaste loudly—blat—in the bathroom. There were eight numbers in the address book: three cell phones, five landlines. No names, just initials. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might want to write something down, make a note of phone numbers I had never seen before. I had not thought past the idea of finding out whether she had a second cell phone or not. I patted my jacket pockets for a pen and something, anything, to write on. Nothing. Looked around the living room. We tended to keep pens and pencils out of reach after William had gone through a stage a few years ago of drawing pictures on the walls.
Shit shit shit. No time.
Come on, think. Cell phones were designed to make pen and paper obsolete.
I stood there, a phone in each hand, my breathing hard and ragged, staring around for something to write with. Think.
* * *
The sound of water running reached me from the bathroom. William was still cleaning his teeth. He didn’t like doing it. Said he wanted his teeth to fall out quickly so the tooth fairy would come sooner, and she would give him pound coins that he could buy more cars with.
Why do you always think of useless crap at times like these?
Something clicked in the back of my mind at the thought of the word tooth.
That was it. Bluetooth.
The bathroom light click-clacked again as Mel switched it off.
In her phone settings, I switched the Bluetooth function on, doing the same on mine. Now the two devices would talk to each other as long as they were within six feet or so.
Just Mel’s feet crossing the landing. She was carrying him.
I set Mel’s phone to find other handsets within range, and two showed up: my Sony and Mel’s iPhone, which was still in my jacket pocket. I selected the option to sync with my Sony and went back to the address book, selected all the numbers, and pressed Send. A blue bar started to progress across the screen from left to right.
1 of 8 sent.
“Night night, Big W.” Mel’s voice from William’s room.
2 of 8 sent.
I checked my phone to make sure it was receiving. It showed two new numbers.
3 of 8 sent.
A click from upstairs as Mel pulled William’s bedroom door shut.
She turned the landing light off.
Out of time.
4 of 8 sent.
Mel’s feet reappeared at the top of the stairs and began to descend.
47
5 of 8 sent.
I shoved the two phones into the back pockets of my jeans as Mel reappeared.
“He wants a Daddy kiss.” She looked at me, at my empty hands. “Are you not having a drink, then?”
“I was just about to get—”
“Mummy! Mummy!” William’s voice, shouting from his bedroom.
“Not quite as tired as I thought he was,” Mel said.
“Mummy!” His voice was high and frightened.
“Coming!” Mel shouted back. To me, she said, “I’ll have a G&T, if you’re pouring.”
She headed back up the stairs to his bedroom. “Surely it’s Daddy’s turn.”
When she was back upstairs, I took the two phones out of my back pockets. A crumpled Post-it note was stuck to my phone, “STEB?” scrawled on it in Ben’s looping handwriting. I peeled the note off and shoved it back in my pocket.
/> The display on the Samsung said:
8 of 8 sent, transfer complete.
I slipped the Samsung back into the secret pocket of her handbag, pushing it up through the cut in the lining and trying to position the bag as it had been on the hall table. Almost too late, I remembered the Bluetooth function was still enabled, retrieved the phone again, and switched it off before replacing it in the handbag’s lining.
Mel returned a moment later.
“What was Wills shouting for?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.
“Said there was a noise outside his window and he thought it might have been a policeman trying to get in.” She stopped, studied me. “Are you OK, darling?”
I shrugged. “Still a bit freaked out by Ben being there tonight.”
“You look a bit peaky.”
“Can’t believe how close we got.” I studied her, looking for a reaction. “You sure you didn’t see him?”
She picked up her handbag and headed for the kitchen. “Yes, I’m sure.” Her words came out too quickly.
“Was William all right just now?”
“Just a bit scared.”
I followed her into the kitchen, busying myself with gin, lemon, and a sharp knife. “He normally shouts for me when he’s scared.”
“It’s because I tucked him in, that’s all.”
“He’s barely said a word to me today.” A sudden thought hit me like a punch to my heart. “It’s as if he’s frightened of me.”
She handed me a tumbler from the cupboard. “He’s not frightened. He’s worried.”
“Worried about what?” I dropped ice into the tumbler, topped up the gin with tonic water, and handed it to her. She half filled a glass with red wine and handed it to me.
“He’s worried that his daddy’s going to prison.”
I nodded slowly, a lump in my throat. I hated what this was doing to our son. Hated that he was caught in the middle.
“How about you? Are you worried?”
“Not about that. But I am worried about the toll this is taking on you.”
“I’m all right,” I said, taking a large sip of cabernet sauvignon. The wine was strong and heavy and dark, a deep, deep red that seemed to absorb the light in the glass. It matched my mood.
“Are you, Joe? I’m not even sure you realize the effect all this is having. You just keep plowing on, keep going, keep going, without thinking about what this is doing to you.”
“You know me. Good old reliable Joe.”
“Seriously, you look exhausted.” She took a sip of her drink. “I’m going to take this up. Are you coming?”
“In a bit. Just going to watch a bit of TV first.” And try to work out why you have a second cell phone I’ve never seen before.
“Don’t be too long.”
I went into the living room and sipped my wine, listening to the creak of the stairs as she went up, the click of a light switch, the toilet flushing, a tap running, the buzz of an electric toothbrush, soft steps across the landing. A few more minutes and she would be settled in bed.
Good.
I stood quietly, switched the TV on low, and went out into the hallway.
48
There were three cell phone numbers among the eight I had copied from Mel’s phone to mine. That seemed to make sense: Beth had told me that Ben had three cell phones. An iPhone for work, another for personal use, and his third phone—the one she had brandished in the pub, full of naked pictures of Mel. All the landlines were central London numbers, but only one looked familiar. Calling them would have to wait until tomorrow when Mel had gone to work.
Instead I topped up my glass and opened the picture message from Mel’s secret cell phone. She was holding the phone out with her right hand, left arm cupped under her breasts, hair falling forward around her smiling face. She looked so happy, so smiley, so good. She’d always looked good, clothes on or off. The first time I’d seen her naked it had taken my breath away. Now, more than a decade later, the effect was the same—but this time, it was like a punch under the heart, knocking the wind out of me.
Holding the phone closer, I double-tapped the screen to enlarge the background, zooming in on a cupboard and bulletin board over Mel’s left shoulder. The picture wasn’t taken in the bedroom, I realized abruptly. It struck me as a bit weird that the picture wasn’t taken in the bedroom but in the kitchen where I was sitting right now. Maybe Ben demanded variety. To me it was weird anyway, and there was something else odd about it. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Her expression? No. She looked pleased as punch. What she was wearing? Not very much, apart from dark blue jeans. When did she have her hair styled that way? Recently? I couldn’t be sure. I tapped the More Info option to find out when the image had been taken, but the date and time fields were blank.
Move on. Think.
I turned to a fresh page of the pad and wrote out the numbers Bluetoothed from Mel’s secret cell phone onto mine. Eight numbers that were a part of Ben’s secret life, and one of them almost certainly belonged to him. Eight numbers he didn’t know I had—which meant they might help me find him. Which meant they might be the key to clearing my name and making a fresh start.
The first cell phone number was not listed with a name, just the letter A. I opened the house address book, flipped to D, and compared them to the numbers against Ben’s name. No matches. I checked again, digit by digit, but none of them tallied with the numbers listed as Ben’s work cell phone or his personal phone. That was a surprise. Or was it? I guessed it made sense if Ben had a secret phone too.
There was a match for one of the landlines. BH corresponded to Ben’s home number, which was definitely unlisted. Another one I recognized straight away—JW—was the number for main reception at my school. JW seemed to mean “Joe, Work.” So she could check up on my whereabouts, perhaps. A third landline number, designated H, produced a string of results on Google: top of the list was the Days Inn, Ealing, just off the A40. A small, three-star hotel about five miles from our house.
So H stood for Hotel. Presumably another place she met Ben when they could grab a few hours together. I wondered how many of the times she’d been away from home “on business” when she might actually have been just a few miles west of here, sharing a bed with Ben Delaney.
Concentrate.
A landline designated with the letter W looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember from where. The only results on Google were a random matching string of numbers for a car rental firm in Boston, Massachusetts. No joy there. I drew another blank with a landline listed as BW.
The next search yielded a curious result. I deleted the number in the Google search box and typed it in again more carefully, assuming it was a mistake. But no: the second search gave exactly the same result. I clicked on the first link.
VIP Escort Services. Male and female escorts available, complete discretion assured. Highly reputable service—thousands of satisfied customers. Choose from our range of escorts and call now …
Below a paragraph of introductory text, the rest of the home page was taken up with inviting pictures of pretty women and well-groomed men in various states of undress. Anya, 24. Matty, 31, Billie, 28. I sat back in the chair. In a week of horrible surprises, here was another: Mel had the number for an escort agency stored in her secret phone. From what I could work out, clicking around the site, it was like an online brothel—you hired someone for an hour or two, or dinner, or all night, and met them for sex. At your own house or a hotel.
VIP Escort Services is a social companionship escort agency dedicated to providing the very best in personal dating, to delight clients of all ages, persuasions, and backgrounds.
I stood up, paced the kitchen for a minute. Put the kettle on and thought about what Mel had said to me on Sunday, when she had confessed to the affair. I was bored. The same routine, every day. Work, commute, home, bed. It was exciting, different. There seemed to be three possibilities: either Mel had played the field before she met
Ben, or she was still playing the field behind his back, or they liked to get a third party involved every now and again. For some reason, the third possibility seemed the most likely.
So they’d gotten someone else involved. A threesome. Man? Woman? That would depend on Ben’s tastes.
This wasn’t helping. Move on.
The other landline numbers produced no results on Google, which meant they were either ex-directory or were internal company numbers that—for whatever reason—did not appear on any public web page, anywhere. But it would be easy enough to find out what they were.
Deleting the iPad’s search history, I tucked the list of numbers into my wallet.
I had some calls to make tomorrow.
WEDNESDAY
49
I woke at 5:00 A.M. and couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind was churning, exploring every possibility as I watched a sliver of predawn sky fade from ink black to slate gray. After an hour, I got up and made coffee, pacing the kitchen, doing chores, checking Facebook, checking the local TV news on the early bulletin to see if there was anything about Ben. I found the Post-it note I’d taken from Ben’s study and googled “STEB” on my phone to see what the acronym might stand for.
Security Tamper-Evident Bags used for duty-free goods at airports.
The State Tax Equalization Board of Pennsylvania.
Standard Test and Evaluation Bottle for use in experiments.
None of them seemed to make much sense or offer much help in the hunt for Ben Delaney. I made another cup of coffee and sipped it, watching through the kitchen window as a fat pigeon balanced precariously on the fence next door. The bird wobbled, shifted its weight, and flew off again.
There was an email waiting for me in my Hotmail account.
Just a subject line and a link. No text. No sign-off. The sender’s address was unknown to me.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Cc:
Subject: You next
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-17767192
The link opened a new window in the iPad’s browser. It was a BBC online news story from May 2010, with the headline: JANINE COOPER MURDER: FORMER LOVER FOUND GUILTY.