“Yes please.”
“Right, here we go.” With her fingers dancing on the keys Judy sat at the table wiping out the attempts at contact and muttering under her breath. “Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, another, another.” And so it went on for a couple of minutes. “Oh, oh here’s one from somebody called Jane. What do you want me to do, shall I just leave it or…?”
Mary held out her hand, what was this now? More upset and disturbance. She had pushed the memory of the restaurant lunch to the back of her mind and now in light of all that had happened it was even more painful. It wasn’t that Jane had been correct in her assessment of the situation, indeed the things that had happened hadn’t even been on her radar. She had been scathing about Jacob taking advantage, of not caring about her but simply wanting a meal ticket and in the event that had been very far from the truth. In his own warped and twisted way he cared too much. However, in her mind that day had very much been the start of the whole thing collapsing.
Mary, I miss you. I’m sorry, can we talk? – Jane
It wasn’t what she had been expecting and she nodded, “Just leave it there would you Judy? I need to think about that one.” Although Jane’s attitude was still appalling in Mary’s eyes, perhaps now when she needed friends she should go some way to healing the rift.
“Oh here’s another one from Jane, shall I leave it?”
“Can you read it to me?”
Mary, please just give me a call. I just want to apologise, I was out of order.
“So, is that your mate? Have you had a row?”
“Yes, we did. It was about Jacob. She thought it was disgusting, him and me. She said I was old enough to be his mother and that he was probably only after somewhere to live or even money.” Mary raised a hand to the fading bruises on her cheek. “She was wrong in that wasn’t she? Tell me something Judy, what did you think? You sussed out that there was something going on with us, did you think it was disgusting?”
“Shit no, that sort of thing, age and so on, it doesn’t matter anymore does it? I mean half the time you can’t tell how old anyone is anyway, but that’s not the point is it? You find love, wherever it is don’t you? I know that there are lots and lots of cases where two people in a relationship may have a different agenda but I don’t know that it really matters. If everybody is happy and nobody gets hurt I think any friendship, any caring is good. No, I was worried though, I knew about Chloe and I didn’t know how close you and him were and I didn’t know if it was any of my concern. In the end I should have done more and I’ll always feel bad about that. You know we are always so careful aren’t we? Hesitating to interfere and if I’d told you the truth up front…” She shrugged thin shoulders and lowered her gaze back to the little phone where she continued to censor and delete messages.
“Don’t feel bad Judy, I really do understand and you know, at the end of the day I don’t know what my reaction would have been if you had told me. I was besotted, flattered and excited and I wanted to believe in it. I should have known better. People like me, ordinary people, we don’t do things like that, have affairs with boys and have sex in the afternoon...
“Oh God, I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that – Have I embarrassed you?” As she looked across the table as Judy’s body begin to shake, imperceptibly at first and then as the giggling grew she put down the phone and raised hands to her face.
“Mary. You are funny. No, I’m not embarrassed but really, why shouldn’t you? What did you ever do to make you undeserving? I know your hubby died but you didn’t and you weren’t doing any harm. Here, that’s him deleted. I’m going to go now and I’ll come back later.” She put down the mobile phone and then as she pushed to her feet she spoke again. “If you don’t mind me poking my nose in Mary, call your friend. Have a talk, make peace. You’ll probably find that she meant well and only reacted the way that she did because she cares about you.”
“But it was very bigoted – what she said.”
Another shrug of the thin shoulders was the only response.
As she closed and locked the door behind Judy she picked up the phone and looked at the messages from Jane. She mused for a moment on the uncomplicated and tolerant wisdom of the young. Yes, she would call her, they could talk, but not yet. When it was all over and she felt safe again, it would be nice to have her old friend back and maybe there was a chance that they could retrieve something of the old closeness.
As she turned to place the little plastic gadget on the hall table it chimed and in the message window she saw his name, Jacob. She sighed and held down the power button.
Chapter 56
After another pot of coffee and a nap Mary was feeling pretty much back to normal. She had studied the computer programme Judy was working on and in truth, yes, she did feel quite tickled that she had come up with the plan. She needed him to go away and was honest enough to admit she wanted to feel some degree of revenge. If it all worked out, his degree delayed at the least and completely unachievable at best and him gone from the area, it would suffice.
A little thrill of excitement brought a smile to her pale face. It did begin to look as though there would be an end to this awful period and then she could gather herself and move forward. She crossed her fingers and, closing her eyes, sent out a wish that Judy would be able to gain access to the images on his computer today if possible, but at any rate soon.
She tidied the house a little and began to get some food together for an evening meal, hopefully for them to share, her and her “comrade in arms”. She was so very lucky to have Judy on her side. A caring and intelligent young woman, maybe this could be the start of a longer lasting friendship. That would be nice. With no children in the family there weren’t many young people to mix with and the thought of a different perspective on things was appealing.
Chopping and slicing at the kitchen counter she felt as near to happy as she had for a while. The radio played softly in the background and the sounds of road and garden combined to make her feel “at home” in a way that had seemed for a while to be out of reach.
In real terms she supposed that the physical assault, though appalling, was much less than some women put up with over and over, but it had done so much more than simply hurt her body and face. Her soul felt bruised and her security and sense of place had been ripped asunder in that one moment of mindless violence. Lost as she was in the musing, the doorbell when it sounded speared into her consciousness. A lightning flash that set her heart pounding. She dropped the knife and spun to stare down the hallway towards the front door.
A glance at the clock told her what she already knew, it was still too early to expect Judy back. After four o’ clock the girl had told her and it was barely three.
She needed to look out of the bay window. If she stepped out of the kitchen to make her way to the living room her shadow would pass across the translucent glass in the front door. She would need to drop to the floor and crawl on all fours down the hall carpet. Like an insect she would need to pass along the narrow space, scuttling like a creature. She pushed away from the kitchen counter and sidled sideways across the space. The bell chimed again, a double sound, whoever was there was becoming insistent. The letter box rattled. She turned and paced quickly to the back door to check that it was locked, the window, to ensure that it was fully located and the catch was fastened.
The bell sounded again. She was beginning to wish she had left it disconnected but it had been so easy to replace the tiny plastic plug.
Her mobile phone still lay in the hall. No matter what, she was going to have to leave the kitchen. She lowered herself to the floor. Like a cowed dog she was to crawl around her house, what had he done to her?
She scrambled to the hall table and reached to retrieve the phone. She turned it on and the happy little jingle told her over and over that there were text messages just sitting waiting for her, six of them, all of them from him.
A thunderous knocking sounded on the wood of the front door. Oh please, go away,
just go away, leave me alone.
Sticking as close as she could to the wall she made her way to the living room and then she pushed to her feet and stepped to the window. As she did the sound of the front gate clanging shut told her that he was gone.
She pulled aside the curtain and saw, crossing the road towards her little red car, Jane. As she reached the vehicle she looked back at the house, raised her eyes to the bedroom windows and then with a shake of her head she leaned to open the door and slide inside.
A sense of relief swept through Mary’s body to be followed instantly by a sense of deep sadness that she had been reduced to a terrified crawling wreck in her own home and that in turn engendered a deep sense of shame. How could she allow this to happen? She had thought herself sensible and well-grounded where in truth she was as vulnerable as any battered spouse or abused girlfriend. How quickly the fear of physical harm had reduced her to this.
She went back to the kitchen and poured a glass of cold water, her hands shook and as she sank to the kitchen chair and gazed around at the peaceful little room she felt a sense of something she hadn’t known existed inside her – for the first time in her life she experienced a deep sense of hate, pure and unalloyed, it swept through her system and she gasped at the strength of it.
Chapter 57
By the time Judy came back Mary had managed to calm her shredded nerves and had made a meal for them both.
“Can you stay and eat with me?”
“Yeah, yeah why not that’d be lovely. First of all though let me tell you what happened.”
“Right.”
“Okay, so it’s all good. He wasn’t there, Steve was, but he fell asleep – he’s a proper dormouse sometimes. Anyway, I found his laptop, shit I’ll be honest I went into his room. It wasn’t in the lounge, I had a hunt and I thought, oh what the heck, in for a penny in for a pound. It was on his desk. He hasn’t even got any decent password protection. It was easy peasy. Course I was rushing a bit and so I didn’t sort through or anything but I just copied everything I could from his images file. I hope there’s something there that we can use.”
“Judy, I need to make absolutely sure that you’re okay with all of this. I would hate for you to suffer because of what you’ve done. Before it’s too late, think very carefully about what we are about to do. This is pretty much the last chance for you to back out and I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”
“No, no I’ve already thought about it. First of all I don’t think that they will link me to it anyway. We’re using your VPN and I hardly know Jacob and we aren’t on the same course or anything. The thing is though that even if I was worried about repercussions I would still want to do it. I hate what he did. To be honest when he came back after his year out I was horrified and I didn’t know what I could do about it. Then when I saw you guys together I had to try and warn you but this,” here she held up the little blue memory stick, “this is justice. I think so. If the plan works and we mess up the rest of his career plans and his reputation and segregate him from his friends, well yeah it’s a sort of justice.”
“I’ll pour us a drink and then we can have a look at the stuff on the stick.”
They plugged in the device and Judy’s fingers flew across the keyboard. Lists and menus popped onto the screen to be superseded by others, images flicked on and off and Mary held her breath. Suddenly Judy punched the air in excitement.
“Yes, yes, there it is look. That folder – it’s labelled Degree Show – well obviously that’s it. Brilliant.” She opened the folder and began to sort through the images and videos. The work was impressive, there were some beautiful shots of the buildings in the town and others taken of locations further afield, it was professional standard work and in spite of herself Mary was impressed.
There was a separate subfolder with Videos, and they opened them one at a time. They had no labels but simply reference numbers. Boats, birds, some mock fashion shoots, a short playlet; all well shot, some in the middle of editing and some which looked finished.
They were about half way through when Judy clicked on a folder labelled M1. It was a video shot in a dim room with only breathing on the sound track. Something tickled at the back of Mary’s mind as she watched it. A sixth sense made the hairs on her arms prickle and before she realised what she was looking at her body had stilled and her nerves were on alert. “Stop it a second Judy. Can you just sort of freeze it? Can you make it brighter?”
“Yeah, I think so. Hang on.” A slider bar appeared and Judy grabbed the arrow with the mouse pointer and brightened the scene. As she did both women gasped and Mary’s hand flew to her mouth. “Stop, oh Christ. No, it’s not, it can’t be.”
Judy had turned to her and waited chewing her lip. “Do you want me to carry on, what do you want me to do?”
“Oh, erm. I – no, don’t.” For a long moment there was silence, the fan on the computer chimed on and off but neither woman spoke. “We have to don’t we? We just have to. Go on Judy.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not.” Mary reached and grabbed the other woman’s hand and then nodded.
Judy turned to the machine and re-activated the video. They observed in silence as the scene changed from the background of curtains and wallpaper and then down to a dishevelled and tumbled bed with a body partly covered by the bright duvet. Pillows were tossed and disturbed and the body was obviously naked. As the view zoomed in Mary’s grip on Judy’s hand tightened and she forced her eyes to remain open as the sweep of the camera focused on the face, her face, and then down over her sleeping and unknowing body. A hand came into the scene flicking aside the bedding and there filling the screen was her nakedness, her arms thrown aside in sleep, her breasts slightly squashed against the mattress. “Turn it off, oh please quickly turn it off.” Judy flicked the screen to darkness and then leaned over and grabbed hold of the shuddering, shaking body beside her.
“I don’t need to ask you whether or not you knew about this, do I?”
The horror of it all had stolen her voice and all that Mary could do was to shake her head as she hid her flaming face against the other girls shoulder.
Chapter 58
Judy pulled her chair in front of the screen effectively hiding the thumbnail, which was at the start of the video with her body. She took hold of both of Mary’s hands and sat quietly until the other woman had collected herself and raised her eyes.
They had watched about three quarters of the film as it traced her figure, closing in on her face and hair, and then following the contours from head to toe as she had slept on in blissful ignorance. Stopping it as they had done, they had no idea how intimate it really became. “Okay. We need to face this. What do you want to do?”
“Delete it, just delete it. I can’t bear it.”
“Look, Mary you know that deleting this is no answer at all. First of all this is only a copy from Jacob’s machine. So, no matter what we do here with this, the original is still in his laptop and of course probably on his camera. You know this don’t you?”
Mary nodded miserably. “But, you could go couldn’t you, and delete it, you could get back into his room and just wipe it out? Would you do that for me, could you?”
“Yes, I could and of course I would, but,” Judy took a deep breath. “This video is going to be in at least two other places, Mary. If I wipe it from the folder on his computer it will be in the camera and he must have a backup in other places. No, you have got to face this head on. You either go to the police now and tell them what he has done – they may be able and willing to take some action, but I think is probably unlikely given that at the time he made the thing you were in a relationship – or, you have just got to accept that it exists and he can do whatever he likes with it.” Mary gasped and shook her head, panic flared in her eyes. “There is another option of course.”
“What, what other option?”
“Well, you could meet him, you could tell him what we’ve done and in return for not p
utting out the pictures of you and Chloe you could ask him to destroy it. That would mean that your plan will be ruined of course, you won’t be able to carry on once he knows we have broken into his system and it does put you, well us really, in the wrong. It stinks, but once someone has something like this there is very, very little you can do except hope that they don’t put it up on the internet.”
“Oh my God, you don’t think he would do that do you? Oh no, I couldn’t bear it. No, we have to go and get his laptop, we have to smash it; if we break it then he won’t be able to access the file.”
“No, no I’m sorry Mary but that’s just not the way it is anymore. He may well have backup copies on memory sticks or even in a cloud. You have to accept that this exists now probably in several different places. It changes the game completely, do you see? If we now publish his work the way we were going to then he can use the video of you as revenge. To put it bluntly, I think that we are screwed.”
For several minutes neither of them spoke. Judy because she didn’t have anything more to contribute, and Mary because her mind was reeling. She had believed that her clever plan was going to exact revenge and give her back her life and yet again everything had crumbled around her. Ideas were leaping into her brain to skip and judder and come to nothing, it was impossible to hold onto coherent thinking, she was lost in a deep panic.
The light had faded and in the quiet living room the only illumination was from the screen, and as the machine went into sleep mode even that was lost. The sudden dimness roused Mary and she stood to pull the drapes over the window and switch on the table lamps. Moving in a daze through what felt like another reality, nothing made sense to her and the image of her naked body was a ghost in the corner of her mind. She flopped onto the settee and raised her gaze to Judy who was still in the swivel chair at the desk.
PICTURES OF YOU: a gripping psychological suspense thriller Page 15