by T. M. Logan
I promised Larssen I would be there at 3:00 P.M.
74
In the rearmost car on the train home, as far from other passengers as possible, I sat in a corner seat with the hood pulled over my head. I had nothing to do. Nothing to read, no one to talk to. Nothing to think about apart from police stations and DNA evidence and what I would say to my son. My cell phone, on the train table in front of me, was my only companion. And however much I tried to look out of the window as eastern England rolled by, my eyes were drawn back to the rectangle of black plastic time and again. It was my only connection to my family. My only weapon in the fight.
Except this weapon—or rather its predecessors—had already burned me twice. The first by its discovery in a suspicious place. Then by a suspicious internet search history stored in the memory of its replacement. Maybe this expensive piece of highly engineered electronics was ready to betray me for a third time. What else could it be hiding?
I opened up Google and went through the search history from the last couple of days. How did you even hack into that? The searches all looked familiar in any case: train timetables, maps, the lawyer’s number from Mel’s secret cell phone, searches on Sunderland and casinos in the city center. No surprises there.
What else could it be? All the text messages looked familiar. I put the cell phone on the train table in front of me, turning it over so it was facedown. The camera lens looked at me, reminding me of the webcam on our home PC, how it had been watching me on Sunday night.
Maybe it’s not what I’m doing, but what the phone’s doing.
The train was pulling out of Newark Northgate station. Maybe halfway home. We picked up speed and soon the outskirts of the market town were left behind, replaced with flat countryside plowed brown for the coming winter.
I turned the phone face up again.
How are you going to betray me next time, you little bastard?
A dozen or so apps were in the memory, most of which were familiar.
Except one. An app called SysAdminTrack, the only one that had been downloaded. Its icon was a pair of crossed wrenches encircled by an old-fashioned cog. I opened the app, and the icon enlarged to fill the cell phone’s small screen, a short menu appearing on the left-hand side. Just four items in the menu: About, Version, Upgrade, and Permissions. The first three yielded almost nothing, but the Permissions tab was more revealing. When I tapped it, a drop-down list appeared, detailing what the app could use on the phone. It had permission to access and use both front and rear cameras for stills and video, plus the microphone for audio, GPS location, internet browser, text messages, emails, apps, and internal storage. In other words, permission to access pretty much everything on my phone—for no obvious reason.
A string of results came up for it on Google, a Wikipedia entry at the top:
SysAdminTrack is a piece of software developed by hackers to demonstrate the weaknesses of cell phone operating systems and their vulnerabilities to potential intrusion. The app opens up the phone’s functions to a third-party cell phone user. That user can then operate the phone’s functionality from a remote location, including access to the cameras and microphone, which can be activated without any of the standard visual cues.
The app has been banned in a number of countries because of fears over privacy and the potential for users to unwittingly reveal personal information, pictures, and video to third parties.
I felt a shock of realization, as if I had grabbed hold of an electrified fence. If it could record audio, and if this app was installed on my previous phones as well, it could have recorded every conversation I’d had—with my lawyer, with the police, everyone I’d come into contact with. My cell phone was always there. And if it could access texts and emails remotely as well, it could have sent that audio to a third party.
A lot of ifs. But who could have done it?
Ben. It was him to an absolute T. A way of using technology to get what he wanted and proving how clever he was into the bargain.
The File Manager showed one audio file, just fourteen seconds long.
Two voices, one of them mine.
“You know, we could be a team, me and you.”
“A team?”
“We need to work together to stop this. To bring Ben to his senses.”
“Makes it sound like it’s us versus him.”
“Well, Beth, I hate to be brutal about this, but that’s the way it—”
And then it cut out. Almost as if it had been a test. Or a mistake.
I remembered the conversation: it had been at the park with Beth yesterday morning. Ben had been eavesdropping on us the whole time. The recording meant he knew Beth and I were working together. He knew I’d ignored his various warnings to stay away from her.
It also meant Beth was in even more danger from him.
I deleted the SysAdminTrack app and sat back in my seat. The bruises on my face had started a slow, constant throb, a steady pain that flared higher whenever I touched a fingertip to my jaw or eye socket. I stared out of the window for a few minutes before remembering the call I’d rejected earlier, at Ruth Delaney’s house, before she’d gone crazy with the knife. The number was stored in Received Calls, probably an automated message on how to make a payment protection insurance claim. My finger hovered over the Delete option.
I called it instead.
A male voice answered. “Hi, Joe. How are you doing?”
“Uh, OK, thanks. Who’s this?”
“Mark. Mark Ruddington.” From the background noise, it sounded like he was driving. “You messaged me on Facebook, remember?”
“Oh, sorry. Of course. Thanks for getting back to me.”
“So you’re Melissa’s other half?”
“Yes.”
“Cool, cool. How’s she doing? She all right?”
“She’s good, thanks.”
“Cool. This is so weird, you know? She was like my first proper girlfriend at school. And now here you are, her husband, messaging me on the Book of Face twenty years later, and it’s like, wow, you know? One of those connections you never expect to make.”
I had a feeling this might go on for some time before it got to the point.
“So I was writing this speech for our tenth wedding anniversary party,” I said, “and I thought I’d try to get some funny stories from her schooldays. You mentioned something in a Facebook post a while back that sounded interesting. About a production of Macbeth in your GCSE year?”
“Oh. That.” The tone of his voice changed. “The after-show party?” He paused, and I thought I heard him take a deep breath. “Melissa hasn’t told you about that, then?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“It’s not really a funny story,” he said, his voice suddenly serious. “At least it wasn’t at the time.”
“Why not?”
He paused again. “Are you sure you want to know? Don’t think it’ll work very well in a party speech.”
“I’m just gathering everything I can find, Mark, then I’m going to use the best bits and edit out the rest. Any embarrassing stuff I’ll just leave out.”
“You’ll probably want to leave this out.”
“No problem. It’s just useful to know, for background.”
“Just for background?”
“Sure.”
“OK, then. It’s your party.” And then he told me.
75
The pull of London was strong, like a gravitational force that was impossible to resist. It was the center of everything. My family. My home. My fate. Exhaustion caught up to me, and I dozed for twenty minutes as we neared the capital, strange half dreams flickering behind my eyelids. Images and faces. Just fragments. William in his school uniform. Beth passed out on her couch. Ben snarling, sneering in my face, fist raised. Mel in our kitchen, topless, one arm under her breasts, smiling for a selfie—
I jerked awake as the train rattled over points coming into King’s Cross, my whole body jumping like I
’d touched a live wire. An elderly man across the carriage looked away nervously. Mel. A picture in our kitchen. A topless selfie for the other man in her life.
Suddenly I knew why the picture had bothered me.
The iPhone vibrated in my hand: a text from a number I didn’t recognize.
Hi Joe, here’s your repeat booking www.vipescortservices/33605 or you and your wife might like to meet www.vipescortservices/33699 or www.vipescortservices/33681. Let me know. We have someone for everyone ☺ Lorna xx
2:08 P.M.
Lorna from VIP Escort Services. I had spoken to her after finding the number in Mel’s secret cell phone. I clicked on the first link and waited as the phone switched to the internet browser. It seemed to take an age for the page to load.
The train slowed and finally pulled to a halt. Still the screen was blank, the loading icon whirring at the top of the screen. I waited a moment, expecting it to appear, then got off the train and started walking up the platform among a stream of passengers, head down, keeping one eye on the phone as I headed for the ticket barrier. Fumbling in my pocket for my ticket, I passed through the barrier and onto the main concourse, the latticework atrium arching high overhead. Still a blank screen on my phone. It was early afternoon on Friday, before the main commuter rush hour, but the station was already busy with workers getting off early and visitors arriving for the weekend.
The page finally loaded: a head-and-shoulders picture of the escort that Mel had booked previously with VIP. The repeat booking.
I stared at the picture. Stopped walking.
The guy behind me walked straight into me, muttering an apology as he carried on past. I stood staring, blinking fast, my mouth slightly open, the concourse alive with movement around me. I scrolled down to the name and description, scrolled back up to stare at the picture again. I could feel a vein pulsing hard in my temple, the noise and bustle of King’s Cross station retreating until it felt like I was standing alone in a bubble of silence.
A single horrible thought crawled out from somewhere dark. It was so twisted I didn’t want to look at it head-on, didn’t want to shine a light on it for too long in case it became real. In case it refused to crawl back to the dark place in my head that it had come from. What do you know? What do you actually know for sure? What does everything add up to? The thought wouldn’t go away.
But it couldn’t be. Could it?
I had been wrong about so much these last eight days, it was time to find out if I had finally gotten something right.
It was time for answers. Time for the truth.
Time to lay it all out for Larssen and Naylor, piece by piece, and let them decide.
The phone chimed as another text message dropped in. A picture of a black Range Rover with tinted windows on the driveway of Beth’s house. The shot had been taken from an upstairs window, by the look of it. Beneath it were just three words:
Please help us
My phone didn’t recognize the sender’s number. Not Beth—I had her number stored. So who could it be from?
Alice.
It had to be. Kolnik had gone back to their house, making threats, looking for revenge, and she was frightened. She was the innocent caught in the middle of all this.
Larssen and Naylor would have to wait. I fired back a quick reply.
On my way. Call the police
2:13 P.M. Me
I switched out of the browser and texted Larssen:
Can we push our meeting back to 4 p.m.?
2:14 P.M. Me
His reply was almost instant:
OK. Why?
2:15 P.M. Peter L
Somewhere I need to go first
2:15 P.M. Me
I shoved the phone in my pocket and ran for the taxi stand.
76
The black Range Rover was parked at an angle at the top of Ben’s drive, blocking Beth’s Mercedes in. I approached it at a run, put my hands up to the tinted glass to peer in. Empty. I went to the front door, ringing the bell and hammering on the door, calling Alice’s name, but there was no answer. I crossed over onto the lawn and looked through the window into the living room, then walked around the right side of the house, through the gate to the garden, and around the back. The builders weren’t working today, the new summerhouse still little more than foundations. Treading softly, I walked to the big windows onto the sunroom to see if I could see anything from there. A doorway into the living room gave me the same view from the other side. I moved on.
The door to the conservatory stood slightly ajar, a panel of glass shattered and lying in pieces on the thick carpet.
Shit. Maybe I was already too late.
I pushed the door open more fully and stepped inside. Listened. Heard nothing.
“Alice?” I said in a loud voice. “Beth? Are you there?”
No answer. I walked farther into the room, moving quietly. “Alice?”
Nothing. The house was silent.
I took out my cell phone and called the unrecognized number. No answer. Strained to hear a ringtone somewhere in the house.
There was a thud upstairs. I froze. They were here.
Another one. Thud.
A female voice. Indistinct.
I took a step toward the hallway and hesitated. Another thud, louder this time.
Whatever was happening upstairs, it didn’t sound good. Somebody was in trouble. I went quietly into the hall, across to the staircase, craning my head up to the first-floor landing.
The female voice came again, high and frightened, the words still muffled.
I moved quickly up the stairs, trying to be as quiet as I could. A crash and the sound of breaking glass. A scream.
Beth?
The main landing had five doors, all of them open. I opted for the second flight of stairs instead, taking them two at a time. Her voice came again, clearer now.
“Please! I promise I didn’t tell him anything! Don’t hurt me!”
The master bedroom at the end of the hallway. The door was closed.
“Please, no!”
A huge booming gunshot, muffled through the door but still horribly loud in the enclosed space.
I ran the length of the hallway and charged into the door with my shoulder. Wood splintered from the frame, and then I was standing in the open doorway of the master bedroom, breathing hard, adrenaline coursing through me, everything else forgotten.
There was a body sprawled on the floor by the side of the bed.
Oh no. I was too late.
77
A woman, my brain registered. She was lying on her front, in a dark blue dressing gown that had ridden up to reveal pale bare legs, feet splayed. One fluffy slipper on, one off. Seeing no one else, I ran to the bed and knelt by the body. She was facedown in the thick carpet. Dark hair, tied back. Glasses next to her on the floor, one plastic arm snapped off.
“Beth?” I said, touching her shoulder.
No response. I looked for blood and shook her very gently, the smell of gun smoke hanging in the air.
“Beth?” I said again, keeping my voice low.
As my fingers touched her throat, searching for a pulse, her eyes flickered open.
“Joe.”
“Are you OK?” I whispered. “What happened?”
She turned onto her side, blinking slowly. “Ben?”
“It’s me. Joe.”
She tried to focus on me, eyes wide. “He’s here,” she whispered, gripping my arm.
“Who? Alex Kolnik?”
“What?” She looked confused. “I don’t … I don’t understand.”
“Never mind. Where’s Alice? Is she OK?”
“Locked herself in her bathroom.”
“Are you hurt, Beth?”
She shook her head once, quickly, her bottom lip wobbling.
I was dizzy, disoriented, like I’d stepped off a carousel and everything was still spinning around me. No time to think. I looked around the room, searching for something, anything, that I could use as
a weapon. The room was a mess, with chairs turned over, clothes and framed pictures scattered across the floor. A large mirror next to the walk-in wardrobe was smashed in three places, spiderwebbed with cracks from top to bottom. Next to it was a pattern of black marks scored out of the wall, which I assumed was from the shotgun blast I’d heard moments before I broke the door down.
“Is there a gun up here?” I said. “One of Ben’s shotguns?”
“No. They’re all in the gun safe, in the dining room.”
“Where did he go?”
“Downstairs.” She gestured toward an open door at the far end of the bedroom. “That door is the study, and the workroom, and then the back stairs all the way down to the pantry. He went for more cartridges.”
“For the shotgun?”
“Yes.”
Shit. I went to the dressing table, looking for scissors, a knife, anything that I could use as a weapon. Nothing. My eyes moved to the big department store–size mirror again, cracked from top to bottom. Using my elbow, I hit it hard, three times, until pieces started breaking off and falling to the floor. I grabbed a T-shirt from the floor, wrapped it around the biggest piece—a six-inch shard curving to a wicked point—and gripped the makeshift dagger tightly.
Law of the jungle.
Beth grabbed my arm.
“Listen,” she whispered hoarsely in the silence.
Someone was coming up the back stairs.
The wooden steps creaked, one by one by one. Click. Not fast, not slow. Click. Click. Steady, measured, even steps getting nearer and nearer. Hard shoes on old wood, like the ticking of some huge clock.
“Hide,” I whispered to Beth, but she was already disappearing around the other side of the super-king-size bed.
I went toward the footsteps, taking up a position to one side of the door into the study.
Click. Click. Click.
The footsteps reached the top of the staircase, and I tightened my grip on the jagged shard in my hand. Silence. Then more steps, muffled by thick carpet now, getting closer. Closer.