I take the wine glass back to the desk and wake up my computer. If I can’t resist it, I might as well try to crack it, I think as I click on ‘Exposure 1’. OFF TO VIOLIN-LAND. I actually know where the words come from: Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. I probably still have a battered copy of it somewhere in one of the IKEA boxes. It went ‘off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and . . .’ Sweetness and what? Delicacy. That’s it. ‘Sweetness and delicacy and harmony’. It used to be my favourite book. Recalling the escapades into violin-land makes me smile. But what has it got to do with the crime scene? Sherlock Holmes used to play the violin, but it’s such a tenuous link. I take a closer look at the picture. It is actually an unusually large attachment, nearly 1MB in size, much bigger than a standard email JPEG. I enlarge the section of the image around the graffiti, looking for signs of tampering. There are ways of telling a Photoshop fake. Leaning close to the screen, I search for a difference in the quality of grain or a subtle change in the saturation of blacks in the photo. Sometimes it’s the way the edges of an added element blend in with the background that gives away a fake. But this picture is still too small to detect anything unusual. I’d have to break into the police photo records and look for the original RAW-quality photograph to know for sure if I’ve been duped. Disappointed, I turn away from the screen.
6
I’m up at the crack of dawn, ready for my next assignment from Serpens. Today I’ll be filming a revolutionary Bluetooth bike helmet, a ‘commuter product’ designed by a small company up north. Helmets are usually not the most graceful objects to shoot, they are essentially round, shiny and devoid of personality. Perhaps this one will be an exception. I need to set up a turntable and decide whether I’ll be using a glass display head to perch the helmet on or attempt something more exciting. The first email of the day pings in my mailbox. It’s from Zoe, my contact at Serpens, who is letting me know that the helmet delivery has been delayed and they’ll bike it to me as soon as it arrives, probably after lunch. I look at the clock. Good, it gives me time to catch up on my VAT receipts. But do I really want to spend the next few hours sweating over an Excel spreadsheet? I look around the loft for inspiration. Anton’s prints! I’m supposed to drop them off somewhere near Brick Lane. Anything to avoid doing the VAT return.
Half an hour later I’m on my bike, Anton’s art portfolio attached precariously to the luggage rack, heading down the backstreets towards Bethnal Green. It’s just past the rush hour on a sunny, still morning and the traffic is unusually light. Things rarely get better for a London cyclist. I cut through the Boundary Estate, going round Arnold Circus with its spruced-up bandstand, and emerge in Bethnal Green Road just at the end of Brick Lane. Can I resist a hot salt beef bagel from Beigel Bake? No, I can’t, I decide, tying my bike to a lamppost outside and keeping an eye on Anton’s portfolio while I’m in the bakery. From there it’s just a short ride to Sclater Street, where a crowd of onlookers takes pictures of a street artist painting a wall above the car park from a cherry picker. I’m sure I met the guy some time ago with Anton, but I can’t think of his name.
The Fugitives Gallery is a bit further on, in a new concrete, steel and glass building. It’s surprisingly spacious and there is some decent artwork on the walls. Good on you, Anton. A fat chocolate Labrador with a cute face waddles towards me to greet me. It is followed by a handsome, athletic-looking woman in her late thirties, who turns out to be the owner.
‘Anna Wright,’ she introduces herself and her handshake is strong.
She looks through Anton’s prints appreciatively.
‘They are quite decorative. I might want to frame a couple of them and put them in the window. The tourist traffic here is phenomenal. Are you just dropping them off for Anton?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Are you his friend? Or merely a messenger?’
‘I’m his partner.’ It comes out more uptight than I wanted it to sound but I’m annoyed by her brusque manner.
‘Oh.’ She throws me a quick appraising glance. ‘Let’s do the paperwork then.’
She leads me to a large desk at the back of the gallery.
‘As I’ve explained to Anton, I take fifty per cent of the price. We agreed on the sum of £700 per piece.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ I shrug. I know that a fifty per cent gallery cut is standard but it still shocks me every time I encounter it.
She goes through the prints efficiently, filling in a form. She writes down my phone number and email address, promising to get in touch if there’s interest.
‘Are you an artist too?’ she asks, handing me a copy of the agreement.
‘Yes . . . no . . .’ I’m fazed by her question. ‘Well, I used to be.’
‘Street art as well?’ Now that the formalities are over, she seems more chatty.
‘I’m a photographer. You probably haven’t heard of Cubic Zirconia?’
‘It rings a bell . . . I’m interested in photographic prints as well,’ she adds with a smile. ‘I’d be happy to look at your work if you drop by again.’
I leave the gallery feeling strangely thrown by the conversation. Am I an artist? If she’d asked me the question a few years ago, I’d have answered yes without any hesitation. What has changed then?
My phone vibrates as I’m unchaining my bike. It’s Zoe from Serpens, sounding unusually formal. Something’s cropped up. Could I come into the office, preferably as soon as possible? It’s a strange request as I deal with Serpens almost entirely via phone and email, but as I’m on my wheels I offer to come by in twenty minutes. Their office is only up the road in King’s Cross.
I arrive at Serpens Media covered in sweat, regretting having agreed to come in straight away. I should’ve gone home, taken a shower and changed into something more professional, instead of turning up on their doorstep in my cycling gear. Thankfully I’m not part of the Lycra brigade, but even so the clothes I’m wearing are not very ‘office’.
Zoe greets me briefly and leads me to a small glass office on the first floor. Peter, her manager, and a woman from HR who I don’t know are already there, a laptop in front of them on the table. Peter clears his throat.
‘Thank you for coming in at such short notice, it’s much appreciated.’ He takes a sip of water from a plastic cup. ‘We have a bit of a problem.’
He looks at the HR woman, as if waiting for her to continue, but she just nods at him.
‘It’s regarding your KiddyKraze artwork, which we received last night.’ He falls silent again and I feel compelled to react in some way.
‘You can’t open the files? It happens sometimes. I can resend them as soon as I—’
‘No, no,’ he interrupts me. ‘They open fine. It’s just . . . they are not what we’ve been expecting from you . . .’
‘What’s wrong?’ I wish he would get to the point faster.
He throws me a weird glance and pushes the laptop my way, so I can see the screen. He clicks on the folder I recognize. KiddyKraze. I can swear I hear a sharp intake of breath from Zoe and the HR woman as the folder opens. And there they are. The KiddyKraze pictures. Except they are not.
I feel a wave of heat enveloping my body, a rush of blood that seems to fill my head until my eyes want to pop out of their sockets. I unzip my jacket, suddenly aware of the strong smell of sweat surrounding me. I force myself to look closely at the screen. The pictures are not of Mr Noah and his animals. There is no toddler truck, no push-along pram, no ducks on wheels. Instead there are photographs of Anton and myself having sex. They are sharp, well-lit, and the overall composition is, I have to admit, pleasing to the eye. Of course it is, I took them myself.
I can feel the tension in the room. Everyone’s eyes are on me as they lap up my embarrassment, waiting for my reaction. I delay the moment, taking my time looking at the photos. They were taken early on in our relationship, when we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I find that lust fires me up creatively, makes me want to cross new boundaries, tau
nt and provoke. This was as much an extreme sexual experience as an aesthetic experiment. I lit our bed beautifully with three-point lighting, positioned three cameras at different angles around it, set them all on time-lapse of four-second intervals, and fucked Anton’s brains out.
I look up from the screen. Peter, Zoe and the HR flunky watch me expectantly.
‘Well . . .’ I pause for effect. ‘It appears I have sent you the wrong project.’
There is no point in grovelling, pretending to be mortified, offering to rectify the problem. I know they’ve already buried me. I will not work for Serpens ever again. Peter breathes a quiet sigh of relief.
‘You have to understand . . . if these files went straight to KiddyKraze . . .’
‘But they haven’t, have they?’ I smile at him.
‘No, they haven’t, thanks to Zoe’s diligence –’
Out of the corner of my eye I see Zoe shrink in her chair.
‘– thanks to her diligence we have managed to avert a major disaster. KiddyKraze are one of our most valued clients. Under the circumstances . . .’ He opens his hands in an insincerely helpless gesture. I have a feeling he’s never liked me and now he resents me for having a good sex life. It’s personal and you can’t really argue with that.
‘I know, I should go.’ I push my chair back as I get up, so its legs scrape the floor.
‘Thank you, Kristin.’ Peter’s on his feet as well. ‘Thank you for your understanding. It’s been a pleasure working with you.’
‘Don’t mention it, Peter.’ I turn and leave.
As I walk through their open-plan office, I can feel everyone staring at me. They’ve all seen the photographs. It’s probably the highlight of their career.
‘Kristin!’ Zoe catches up with me by the entrance. ‘I’m so sorry it had to end like this . . . if it was up to me—’ She grabs my hand and squeezes it. ‘Good luck with everything . . . Take care.’
‘Thanks.’ I smile at her. ‘Good luck to you too.’
I notice her cheeks are flushed as she shyly smiles back at me. There is something in her eyes. Apology? Respect? I’ll be damned, she actually envies me!
By the time I cycle back home, my bravado has disappeared. I have just lost my main job. Every freelancer relies on that one bread-and-butter-and-occasional-jam client. It’s like an anchor that always brings you back home from choppy waters, calms your nausea when things become too rough. It gets rid of that awful tight feeling in your stomach when you realize your work diary for the next few weeks is empty. Because you know exactly what to expect from your regular client, the job is also numbingly easy. It’s something you can do in your sleep.
So, no more KiddyKraze for me. I’m beginning to miss that little fellow Noah already. And I won’t be shooting the revolutionary helmet this afternoon. It’s over. As I lock my bike in the hallway downstairs, my freelance brain begins to scan for alternatives.
Once upstairs I go straight to my computer. I find the folder for the KiddyKraze job and click on it. All the photos I took over the past two days are there: the toddler truck, the push-along pram, ducks on wheels and, of course, Mr Noah and Co. I then go to Serpens FTP site and try to log on. ACCESS DENIED. They’ve cut me off pretty fast. I look at the KiddyKraze folder again. It’s clearly marked and neatly stored in the partition called WORK. No mistake here. So how on earth did I manage to send them my sex photos? They would be in a different partition called ART. Yes, there they are, labelled ‘In Bed With Anton’. How could they have got mixed up with the KiddyKraze pictures? In my whole career as a photographer this has never happened to me before. What’s going on?
I feel I’m quickly losing the guts that so impressed Zoe. The little coward inside me is beginning to whimper. ‘Miss Lily Liver’, Aunt Stella used to call me when I didn’t stand up for myself as a kid. And now Miss Lily Liver is starting to quiver. Should I try to resend the correct pictures to Serpens? Ask them to reconsider? Beg Peter to hire me back? Email Zoe and try to weasel my way in through the back door? Half-heartedly I check my mailbox. 784 messages. 126 unread. Well, I’ll have plenty of time to read them now. As I slowly scroll through them searching for inspiration, a new message arrives with a ping. I lean closer to the screen, disbelieving my eyes. ‘Exposure 2’. My hands begin to shake so badly I barely manage to move the cursor over it. Click.
7
It’s another photograph. But this time it’s not from the Violinist’s crime scene. It’s from a different batch altogether. Uncomprehending, I stare at the entangled limbs and naked bodies shining with sweat. Two naked bodies. Anton’s and mine. It’s the most explicit image from ‘In Bed With Anton’, the one, I’m pretty sure, which was not included in the folder that got sent to Serpens. I remember removing it from the project and stashing it away among other files marked PRIVATE. It was too private, even for the daring artist in me, the ex-Cubic Zirconia rebel. Imagine Tracy Emin’s bed but with its occupants still in it, surrounded by coital detritus. It was raw, shameless and unguarded, so intimate that even looking at it now turns me on.
I jump up from the chair, go to the window and open it wide. I inhale the hot and polluted London air as if it was a calming nectar. In and out, in and out, until my breathing slows down and I’m able to think more clearly. Someone has gained access to my computer and has been rummaging through my files, picking up the juiciest bits. God only knows what else they have managed to unearth. But why? Who is this person? And what is this ‘Exposure’ game about? I pick up my phone and ring Sophie. I still get the French ringtone, so I end the call without leaving a message. I go back to the computer, turn on Skype and call Anton’s Argentine number. It goes straight to his voicemail.
‘Babe, where are you? Please call me. Something bad is happening, some really bad shit, and I need you here. Please call me. I need you. Call me.’
I click on the little red phone icon to disconnect. I feel weepy and scared. Even my own home doesn’t seem safe any more. On an impulse, I pull the electricity plug out from my fibre broadband router. I sit on the bed, picking at my cuticles until they bleed. I get up and go to the window. I look out. The view is dull and flattened by smog. The loft opposite seems deserted. An image from Erin’s dream flashes through my mind, a dead body splayed on the cobblestones below. I move away from the window with a shiver. I stop in front of the fridge and pull out a yoghurt pot. What am I doing? I don’t even want yoghurt. This is ridiculous, I decide, and power up the broadband router again. I go back to the computer and patiently wait for it to find the right wireless connection. When it’s back online, I open ‘Exposure 2’ and click ‘Reply’.
Who the fuck are you and what’s your problem?
My email bounces back after a short while.
Error 553. Inactive/invalid user.
Well, no surprises there. Fucking coward. He doesn’t even have the guts to show his face.
Restless, I pick up the phone again and dial Vero’s number. After my aunt Stella’s death, Vero has become my surrogate mother, father, the whole lot. She answers on the fourth ring, her voice husky from years of smoking. With Vero I don’t need to go through the superficial phone pleasantries. I go straight to my story. As she listens, I can hear her inhaling and blowing the smoke out.
‘Someone’s really pissed off with you,’ she says when I’m finished.
‘No kidding. But I don’t know who or why. And the weasel’s hiding behind some no-reply email address. I can’t even get into a slanging match with him.’
‘So it’s nothing to do with the Violinist?’
‘I don’t think so. The guy’s been dead for years anyway.’
‘Any of your friends?’
‘I think they’d come clean by now. They’re not psychos. At least . . . most of them aren’t . . .’
I love Vero’s laugh, deep, throaty and contagious.
‘I’ve read somewhere about this new online service. Shitexpress or Shitcouriers, something like that. They deliver horse manure, beautiful
ly wrapped, straight to your enemy’s door, anywhere in the world. Ten quid a box, and that includes a personalized message. And you can pay for it with Bitcoins – you know, cryptocurrency – so no one will ever know you’ve sent it.’
‘What’s the point of it then?’
‘That is what today’s world is about, honey. You pay someone to deliver your shit.’
‘I think I’d prefer to get a box of manure instead of all these emails.’
‘I know. Shitexpress is actually quite funny. Ingenious even. It forces the recipient to evaluate his or her actions. It makes you ask yourself why did someone think you deserve to receive a pile of shit? But what’s worrying these days is a new phenomenon, toxic disinhibition. The internet gives you total anonymity, and when the normal social barriers are removed, some people go too far. Anonymity seems to bring out the worst behaviour in us.’
‘You know a lot about it.’
Vero laughs again. ‘I have a lot of time on my hands. You’ll see for yourself when you retire one day. One can’t talk to one’s bees forever. So I read, I surf the net a bit . . .’
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