by JS Taylor
It couldn’t actually be the stalker. Could it?
I remember the police paperwork I found in James’s Barcelona hotel room.
“There’s no way the stalker could get out, is there?” I ask. “I mean, he’s locked away tight, isn’t he?”
James wraps his arms around me. “Issy, you have absolutely nothing to worry about,” he says. “You are completely safe. The Lipstick Stalker is in custody. The only way he’s getting out is to attend court before he’s convicted and imprisoned.”
I huff out a little sigh of relief.
“Will you be helping the police in their inquiries?” I ask.
He nods. “There is still a great deal of mystery surrounding the Lipstick Stalker.” James looks pensive for a moment. “The police can’t understand how his identity isn’t known. He seems to have someone paying to build an expensive legal case. But there are no records of him. No previous criminal convictions.”
That doesn’t sound good.
“But you don’t think there’ll be a problem convicting him?”
James shakes his head. “He was caught red-handed, Issy. With three reliable witnesses, one of whom is a trained bodyguard. Not to mention the stalker’s DNA was all over a room covered with your pictures.”
I shiver at the memory of that dank little room, papered all over with images of me.
James catches the gesture and pulls me close.
“You don’t need to worry. That’s all over with now,” he reassures me. James gives me a grin. “Besides,” he adds, “if you’re brave enough to take on Natalie, then an escaped stalker shouldn’t pose a threat to you.”
“Don’t joke about it.”
“I’m sorry. But I admire your spirit. Truly. Natalie won’t know what’s hit her.”
“I’m not planning on having a big fight with her,” I sigh. “But it was a really mean thing to do. I thought she was getting better. I’m not quite sure how to speak to her about it.”
“Do you want to show me the message?” asks James. “So I can give you my thoughts?”
I reach for my phone on the bedside table, pleased to have his opinion, and show him the ghoulish picture of the lipstick heart.
He glowers at it in distaste. The stalker’s calling card obviously has the same effect on him as it does on me. Even a flash of it as James examines my phone gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Then his brows knit together, and he brings the phone closer to his face.
“There’s something wrong with this picture,” he mutters.
“You’re telling me.”
James doesn’t laugh. He’s peering more closely at the image now.
“There’s been some digital adjustment here,” he says. “You can tell by the pixel alignment.”
This means nothing to me. But since James is the expert in all picture technology, I’ll take his word for it.
There’s a pause as he studies the message. And then he puts my phone down with a grim look.
“That message didn’t come from Natalie,” he says.
“It didn’t?” My voice comes in total shock.
“No.” He shakes his head.
“Who sent it then?”
Does someone on set dislike me? This is such a horrible thought, that the intensity of it surprises me.
“Someone else,” he says shortly. “From outside Berkeley Estate.”
“How do you know they’re from outside?” I ask.
“I had the phone mast rigged, remember?” he says. “To catch the press leak. No phone in a ten mile radius can send an anonymous message.”
Outside the estate? No one on the cast then.
“Then who could it possibly be?” My voice is rising. “How could they have made that picture?” I add. “If they weren’t inside the estate?”
“I’m not sure,” says James. “But I have a bad feeling.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know how he did it,” says James, “but I think that message might have come from the Lipstick Stalker.”
“No!” I almost scream the word. “The Lipstick Stalker is in prison. How could he have sent me a text message?”
“Calm down, Issy,” says James. “You’re not in any danger. I’m going to find out how this message got to you.”
“It doesn’t mean that he’s… escaped, does it?”
James takes my shoulders. “I have an entire team dedicated to watching his movements. If there was any sign, any inkling that he’d got out, I would be the first to know. The Lipstick Stalker is very much behind bars.”
I breathe out. “Then how could he be sending messages?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out. In the meantime, you need to stop worrying about a man in prison and concentrate on more important things. We’ve got a movie to make, and we’re back in the studio today.”
I nod. “I guess I’d better get back to my cottage and pack up,” I say slowly, knowing I’ll be thinking about the text message all day.
James holds up a hand.
“I’ve already arranged to have staff pack up your things.”
I give James a weak grin, aiming for a jovial tone.
“Will I ever get used to the aristocratic lifestyle?”
“Here’s hoping,” he replies, with a smile.
Chapter 11
With thoughts of the stalker still troubling me, leaving Berkeley Estate and journeying to the studio passes in a whirl.
How did the stalker know where I was?
We’re loaded onto buses, and as we pull through the familiar gates of Berkeley Studio, I realise I’m glad to be back. We roll through security, and the gates close behind us.
James has scheduled us to start work right away, so our belongings are taken to our chalets, and we’re brought to set. From the scale of what’s been built, the whole studio has been hard at work in our absence.
I find it hard to stop my jaw dropping as I take in the elaborate set before me.
Before, the studio was dotted with various buildings. Now many of them have been dismantled. And an entire pretend town has been built in its place.
“Wow!” I say, taking in the vast scale of it all. “I can’t believe it. They actually built Birchville!”
Birchville is the fictional town in the movie where James’s character runs his newsroom.
I expected we would have a few interior sets made up. But instead, James has had the entire little town built for us to film in. He sure doesn’t do things by halves.
“This is just amazing,” I add, turning to Callum, who is at my side. James is making arrangements elsewhere in the studio. So for the time being, Callum and Will are my company.
“Isn’t it?” says Callum, grinning. “Trust Berkeley to pull out all the stops.”
The early start has left Callum half asleep. His stubble has grown in longer, with a few grey hairs, giving him an adorably mottled look. And his travelling wear of sweat pants and matching top make him seem even more like a teddy bear than usual.
Will lets out a long whistle. “This sure is something,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of film sets. But this is enormous.”
In contrast to Callum, Will looks sharper than ever, with his perfect cornrows and a navy designer suit, which fits exactly to his muscled physique.
“Are they real trees?” I’m pointing past the pretend houses and buildings to what seems to be a huge forest in the distance.
Surely you can’t build a forest?
“Nope.” Callum shakes his head. “They’re fake trees. Fake grass. Fake everything. Looks real though, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” I breathe out in awe. “It looks crazy real.” Even now, I just can’t picture how those trees can be fake.
I grin at Callum. “I’m going to take a closer look.”
“Be my guest. It’s pretty amazing what they can do with plastic nowadays.”
I scan the little crowd of people, searching out Camilla. “Hey Cam! Want to c
ome look at the set?”
“Sure!” Camilla is at my side with her usual puppyish energy. “I guess you’ve seen a lot of film sets?” I ask Callum, thinking he probably doesn’t want to explore.
He raises an eyebrow. “I’ll see it soon enough. You girls go take a look. Will, you want to go get a coffee and a juice?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” says Will.
I scan the little crowd for Natalie, thinking it might be nice to ask her too. But she looks deep in conversation with a make-up artist, and I’m guessing she’s issuing instructions.
“Ok then, Cam,” I say, taking her arm. “Let’s go take a look.”
We weave excitedly through the pavement streets, giggling at the strangeness of all the two dimensional houses.
“They look so real, don’t they?” says Camilla, knocking experimentally on the wooden frontage. “How long do you think it took to paint all these?”
“I don’t know,” I say, marvelling at the detail on the faux-brick fronted houses. “It must be a skilled job though.”
Camilla nods knowledgably. “People train for ages to do it. It was one of the jobs I was considering if my acting didn’t work out.”
I’d forgotten that Camilla has done a lot of jobs on set. For such a young girl, she knows an awful lot about movies.
“Let’s go look at the forest,” I suggest. It’s the part of the set that’s been intriguing me most.
We walk through the main street, and I’m still overawed by the sheer scale of it. To build something this huge. For a movie. It just takes my breath away.
“It’s kind of spooky, isn’t it?” says Camilla, her eyes sweeping the pretend houses.
“Is it?” To me, the set looks exactly how it’s supposed to – a pretty little English town, bordered by an oak forest.
“Yeah,” Camilla replies. “I mean. To have a whole town, but it’s completely empty. To know there’s nothing behind those houses and shop fronts. It’s a bit eerie. Like a ghost town,” she adds.
“I guess so.” I shrug. I can sort of see her point. An entire fake town does feel surreal.
We’ve reached the edge of the buildings now, where the grass starts, and I stoop down to run my hands over it.
“It feels like grass,” I say, puzzled.
“Astro turf,” says Camilla. “Almost as good as the real thing.”
I take an experimental step, and find it bounces, just like grass would.
“What about the trees?” I ask, approaching a small shrub. “How do they make these?” I touch a leaf, and pull my hand away in surprise.
“Wait, this really is real,” I protest, returning my fingers to the cool leaf.
“Yeah, the little ones are,” says Camilla, joining me at the start of the forest. “They plant some small trees in pots, just below the grass. But the big ones are fibreglass.”
She points to a towering oak tree, and I approach it and run my hand along the trunk. The knobbly bark is convincing, but up close you can tell it’s not real.
“Impressive,” I say, staring up at the huge canopy of oak branches.
Camilla follows my gaze.
“They’ll shine a ten tonne lamp through those branches,” she says. “And you’d swear it was a hot sunny day in here.”
I stare back into the woods. They seem to go one forever.
“Guess we’d better get back to the others,” I say. “Knowing my luck, we’d get lost in here.”
“I think you actually could,” says Camilla.
The crew and cast are still milling when we arrive back – a sure sign that James is still absent. It’s not yet 9am, so technically, we have a few more minutes of downtime until shooting starts. But Mr Berkeley is a stickler for punctuality. So no one dares leave the vicinity.
“Everyone into hair and make-up!” James voice echoes suddenly across the crowd, and the effect is electric. Everyone races to their various stations.
I search about for where the voice came from, eager to get one last glimpse of my gorgeous boyfriend before I vanish into the sweaty make-up trailer.
“Wait, not you Issy,” says James. “I need you for a moment.”
He does? Immediately, my thoughts turn to the stalker. Has he found anything out?
“What is it?” I ask, moving to his side as the other cast and crew head in the opposite direction. “Did you find out about the text message?” I add, lowering my voice to a whisper.
He pauses. “Yes.”
“And?” I feel as though the world around us has got slightly darker.
“It was sent from a computer Skype account where the stalker is in custody,” says James quietly.
My stomach twists.
“It was from him then?”
“Yes. Don’t worry,” adds James, “the stalker is still in custody. But there are still a lot of questions unanswered.”
“Such as?”
James lets out a long sigh. “Such as who on the police force allowed him access to a computer with an internet connection. We know the stalker has some kind of… sponsor,” he says. “Someone who gives him funds. It seems as though those funds are substantial. Big enough to pay bribes.”
He lets this sink in.
So the stalker is bribing someone in the police.
“We still don’t know who is funding the stalker?” I ask.
Who would be giving a psychopath money?
“No.” James frowns, as if this particularly perplexes him. “In any case, from what we can gather, it must have been a prison guard who allowed him to send you that message.”
My heart has speeded up slightly.
“Your phone was also tracked,” says James bluntly. I feel an icy sensation sweep through me. “The location services on your phone were used to locate you geographically.”
This is a horrible thought. My own phone used against me.
“So the stalker knew exactly where I was?”
“Not exactly,” says James. He moves closer, folding his arms around me. “The location services aren’t that accurate. The stalker could only have known roughly the area you were in. Since you were in the countryside, he probably just assumed you’d be on the only path.”
“But how did he get into my phone?” I ask.
“It’s easier than you might think,” says James. “If you leave the location services on, a rudimentary knowledge of hacking is all that is needed to track you down.”
This isn’t as comforting as I’d like.
“Remember,” adds James, “the stalker’s aim is to make you feel as though you’re in danger.” He pulls me close. “But you’re not, Issy. Just because he knew where you were doesn’t mean he can get anywhere near you.”
I let myself rest against the warmth of his body, forcing myself to take the logical view.
The stalker can’t get to me. He just wants me to think that.
“The stalker fits the profile of a psychopath,” adds James. “He has an obsession with fame. He thinks he can somehow steal your fame away by inflicting terror.”
He’s certainly managed to do that.
“He gets a kind of thrill,” continues James, “when he thinks he’s scaring you.”
“He is scaring me,” I say. “I hate that he knew where I was. Even with a time delay. It’s… really disconcerting. How did he get a picture of the signpost?” I add.
“Satellite pictures,” says James. “That’s why the image looked strange to me. He used a satellite image of a landmark near to you and digitally added his lipstick mark.”
That sounds way too clever for my liking.
“How could that have happened?” I protest. “He’s supposed to be locked up in prison. Surely the police have a duty to stop him harassing people?”
“That’s what we don’t know,” James admits. “We’re trying to find it out.”
I ponder this. I don’t like it at all.
“This feels… wrong,” I say.
“We’ll find out more,” says James. “
The main thing to remember, Issy, is that he’s trying to mess with your mind. But he can’t actually get to you.”
“It sounds like he’s clever,” I add, not liking the thought. “Tracking my phone. Using computer imaging.”
“He is clever,” admits James. “Many dangerous criminals are. But that doesn’t matter, Issy. Because he’s been caught and locked away. Try not to let this bother you. It’s exactly what he’d want.”
I nod, mentally resolving to stay strong.
“Can we find out who’s helping him?” I ask. “Do we know anything about them at all?”
“It’s someone with plenty of money,” says James. “But that’s about all we know.” He smiles grimly. “There are laws to protect the stalker too,” he says. “We’re not allowed to pry into who’s paying his legal defence.”
“But he’s sending me text messages!” I protest. “Surely that’s not allowed.”
“Of course not,” says James. “And it will only strengthen the case to put him away. We’ve reported it and given evidence to the police. We have to hope they take it seriously. But the police force is overloaded, and they have hundreds of other cases on their hands.”
James sighs and takes my hands. “The stalker is still entitled to a fair trial, Issy. That means the information we can ask for is limited.”
I breathe out. “Ok,” I say. “I won’t let this get to me. I don’t want him to win.”
“That’s my girl.”
“But you’ll keep me informed?” I add. “Promise you’ll tell me, James, if anything else happens.”
He kisses the top of my head. “I promise. Now put all thoughts of the stalker out of your mind.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good. Now, I had another reason for taking you out of hair and make-up.”
“You did?”
“There’s someone you need to meet,” he says, “before we start filming.”
“Really? Who?” I am genuinely baffled. Is it something more to do with the stalker? Another security guard?
In answer, James starts walking, gesturing I should follow.
“I’ve made a couple of last minute casting decisions,” he says as I walk fast to keep up with him. “Firstly, there’s a young man who I think will do very well. He’ll play a reporter.”