by Amy Cross
PART TWO
TODAY
“You fucking arsehole!” Sophie shouted. “You fucking cock-sucking son of a bitch!”
Looking up from her notebook, Mary was astonished to hear a door being slammed upstairs, followed by the sound of feet racing down to the hallway. She turned to the door just in time to see Tom, half-dressed and somewhat dishevelled, hurrying past, and seconds later she heard the front door being opened. A moment after that, she heard more footsteps upstairs, followed by the sound of Sophie racing down at full pelt.
“Is something wrong?” Mary asked.
“Leave it,” Sophie snarled, marching past and following Tom out into the front garden.
Getting to his feet, Mary headed over to the window just in time to see Sophie catching up to Tom and grabbing him by the shoulder. They were clearly locked in a heated argument, but she couldn't quite make out what they were saying. Making her way to the door, she leaned into the hallway, hoping to hear better, but suddenly she heard footsteps stomping back into the house, followed by the sound of the front door being slammed shut so hard that it failed to close and instead shook the house before swinging open again.
“What's wrong?” she asked, stepping out into the hallway and almost colliding with Sophie.
“He's a cock is what happened!” Sophie blurted out tearfully as she stormed past and headed upstairs.
“Well...” Mary turned to watch her daughter disappearing up to her room. “Sophie, is he coming back?”
“If he does, I'll detach his testicles,” she replied, stopping at the top of the stairs and looking back down. “I only caught him texting two other girls, didn't I? Two! He was telling one of them that I don't mean anything to her, that he's with me 'cause he doesn't know how to break it off. Can you believe that?”
“No,” Mary replied, shocked by the idea, “I can't. He seemed... nice enough.”
“He's a pig,” Sophie sobbed. “I told him to go and take a train home. If he crawls back here, don't let him in. Do you promise? I can't be held responsible for what I'd do to him if I see him again.”
“I... Yes, of course.”
“I'm going to take a nap.”
“But -”
Before she could finish, Sophie had hurried to her room and slammed the door shut, leaving Mary standing in the hallway, trying to make sense of what had happened. She'd sensed that there was something a little unfortunate about Tom, but she hadn't doubted his affection for Sophie. Turning to look at the half-open front door, she was in such a daze that she barely registered the sight of the postman stopped by the gate and slipping some mail into the box.
“Morning!” he called out with a wave, before cycling away.
“Morning,” Mary said quietly, still in shock.
Stepping into her shoes, she made her way out into the garden and along the path until she reached the mailbox. She was so lost in her thoughts about Sophie and Tom's abrupt break-up, she barely even thought about the threatening letter she'd received the day before until, with horror, she pulled out another white envelope addressed to her with the same distinctive, sloping handwriting, and once again postmarked from Dalston. Staring at the letter for a moment, she finally looked around, worried that someone might be watching, before hurrying back into the house and shutting the door.
Once she was in the kitchen, she stopped for a moment and listened to make sure that there was no sign of Sophie coming back downstairs, and then – with trembling hands – she began to open the envelope. As soon as she looked inside, she saw that there was another note, and this time it was accompanied by several A4 photographs.
“Please no,” she whispered, slipping the note out and unfolding it. She told herself that it couldn't be from the same person, not again, but sure enough she found that it was another direct personal attack:
Me again, you fucking whore, with another reminder of your disgusting past.
I don't know how you thought you could get away with it, but I'm here to put you straight. I hope the photos make you think about the misery you caused. You and your pornographer husband were as bad as each other.
Do you remember Sarah, or have you conveniently wiped her from your mind? I wouldn't be surprised if you found a way to pretend she never existed. After all, how else could you live with yourself? She was just a stepping stone, wasn't she? Someone you could toss aside when you'd used her?
Fuck you.
This is just a taster of how everything's going to come out into the open. Sleep well, you piece of human shit. Soon everyone's going to know what you and your disgusting husband did to that poor girl. I won't be done until the pair of you are exposed. It's all coming, bitch.
Shaking with horror at the venom in the message, she forced herself to read it a second time before setting it down and taking the photos from the envelope.
“Sarah,” she whispered.
The first photo was one she distinctly remembered taking: it showed Sarah, stark naked on the sofa in the old apartment, with her legs wide apart as she masturbated for the camera. Turning to the next image, Mary saw that it was one of the first ones that Donald had taken, with Sarah's breasts slightly out of focus as she stared tentatively, almost shyly, at the camera. She checked the next image, and this time she saw Sarah with one of the men they'd hired: she was on her back with a large, erect penis stuffed in her vagina, and there was an exaggerated look of ecstasy on her face. Shivering at the memory of such things, Mary took a look at the last image and -
She froze.
This time, the image had been altered. It was another shot of Sarah, naked and with a man taking her from behind, but someone had scrawled a message all over the image with thick red marker-pan:
Did you really think you'd get away with what you did to her?
THIRTY YEARS AGO
“Where is she?” Mary muttered, checking her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. She was at the front door, constantly looking along the street in the hope that she'd finally spot Sarah. “She's never usually late.”
“Maybe she's stuck in traffic,” Donald replied.
“She comes by train.”
“Stuck in train traffic, then. Relax, she'll be here.”
Turning to look back through to the front room, she saw Donald setting up the camera while Michael – the man they'd hired to shoot some poses with Sarah for the afternoon – waited patiently. This was the first time that a man had been brought in to participate in a shoot, so Mary had already been agitated even before the 3pm start-time came and went without any sign of Sarah. Now she was positively shaking with nervous energy, convinced that somehow something must have gone horribly wrong.
“What do we do if she doesn't show up?” Donald asked, joining her at the door.
“We call one of the others,” Mary replied.
“It'd take them too long to get here,” he muttered. “We're paying Michael by the hour, every second he's sitting here unused is lost profit.” He paused for a moment, as if he was working out how to broach a difficult subject. “There is an alternative, you know.”
“You want to shoot him by himself?” she asked. “I suppose that might work, we could always try offering a -”
“Not that! For God's sake, Mary...”
“Then what?” She turned and saw the expectant look in his eyes. “No.”
“Come on, Mary, just be -”
“Oh, for God's sake,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “What's wrong with you? I refused to pose topless for you, so now you think I might be willing to... With another man? Seriously?”
“You said it yourself,” he pointed out, “we have to make decisions based on what's best for the business.”
“Will you stop doing this?” she hissed. “I'm sick and tired of you trying to rope me in to one of your shoots, Don! It's not going to happen! Jesus Christ, this isn't some kind of extended romp for your personal titillation, it's a way to raise money. Have you even spoken to the local party lately? Have you made moves toward becoming a c
andidate, or have you been too distracted by bosoms?”
“These things take time.”
“Get on with it, please. The sooner you -”
Spotting movement at the end of the street, she squinted a little and saw to her relief that Sarah was finally tottering toward the house. Relief, however, quickly gave way to horror as she noted the somewhat meandering path that the young woman was taking, and by the time she got to the door it was clear that Sarah was drunk.
“What the hell are you doing?” Mary asked.
“I'm here for...” Swaying slightly, Sarah grabbed hold of the door-frame for support. “You said... You said three, right? I know I'm a little bit of a late person, but that's just because there were some things I had to do first when I was out there in the town and...” She paused. “I was lunch, I... No! I had lunch! I had lunch in a pub with a man!”
“You're drunk,” Mary said firmly.
“I can still do it.”
“Of course you can't. Go home!”
“Let's at least give it a try,” Donald said. “I mean, what's the worst that can happen? She falls asleep and we just arrange her and get Michael to be inventive.”
“Yeah!” Sarah shouted, raising a fist to the sky as if she was celebrating some kind of victory. “Is Michael hot? I don't wanna get rogered by an ugly guy.”
“We're cancelling,” Mary replied, turning to Donald. “I'm not having some drunk girl take part in a shoot, it's not right. She's not in control.”
“Well, let's hang on,” he said, “there's right and then there's right, and I think we could -”
“It's not happening,” she said firmly, before suddenly Sarah collapsed against her. “Jesus!” she gasped, grabbing the girl's shoulders and easing her down onto the mat. “She can't even get home like this, she'll have to sleep it off in our bedroom.”
“What if she throws up again?” he asked as they worked together to drag her inside. He reached across her and pushed the front door shut, before turning to Mary. “Are you sure you can't just -”
“We'll shoot Michael solo,” she replied, interrupting him with a firm glare that made clear she didn't appreciate what he was about to suggest. “I'm sure there are some women out there who'll pay for the shots. We might even discover an untapped market.”
“Gay guys too,” Michael called out to them.
They both turned to look at him through the door that led into the front room.
“Gay people like porn too,” he added. “Honest.”
“Of course they do,” Mary replied, turning back to Donald. “They must, mustn't they?”
“Hang on,” he said cautiously, “I'm not sure I want to get into the business of providing smut to queers.”
“It's the eighties, darling,” she said, letting go of Sarah and stepping back, “we sell what we can to who we can. Also, I believe 'queers' is deemed rather offensive.”
“But it's disgusting!” he replied.
“No it's not. No more than the other stuff we sell, anyway. Money's money, and I don't care who it comes from as long as we get it into the bank and exit this bloody mess as fast as possible. Get Sarah onto our bed and then either come and help with the shoot or keep yourself busy in the kitchen.”
“You can't be alone in there with that man!” he remonstrated. “Mary, be reasonable -”
“What's wrong? Do you think I'll be filled with lust and jump on him?” She sighed. “It's a job, Don. You were alone with Sarah enough times and I didn't panic, so please afford me the same courtesy. Besides, Michael's gay!”
“No he's not!”
“Seriously?” She turned to look into the front room. “Michael, I'm right, aren't I?”
“Um... Yeah. But I still don't mind doing shoots with women.”
“I...” Donald was clearly shocked by the news. “I had no idea!”
“I can still get it up,” Michael added. “Everything still works when I'm with a girl.”
“Get this poor thing into bed,” Mary urges Donald. She turned to go into the front room, before stopping and glancing back at him. “Oh, and if you really want a career in politics, you might want to reconsider the casual homophobia. Times are changing and in case you haven't noticed, people won't stand for that kind of thing much longer.”
Pushing the door shut, she paused for a moment, listening to the sound of Donald struggling to get Sarah through to the bedroom.
“How did this happen?” she asked out loud. “It was his idea, so why am I suddenly taking charge?”
“Because you're better at it?” Michael suggested.
She turned to him.
“Just a thought,” he added cautiously. “Can't help noticing who's really the boss, though. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights half the time.”
“Here's what we're going to do,” she replied, thinking fast. “We've booked you until five, so that's plenty of time. I don't know exactly what kind of shots will sell, but we'll try a little of everything. Are you still willing to work under those conditions?”
“You pay, I'll play.”
“Then take your clothes off,” she said with a sigh. “And I'm really sorry about all of this. You must think we're frightfully unprofessional.”
“Not at all,” he replied, slipping his trousers down to reveal his huge penis. “You're actually more professional than a lot of the people I've worked with.”
“Thank you,” she replied, staring at his crotch for a moment before forcing herself to look over at the camera. “I think.”
TODAY
“What the hell have you been up to?” she muttered, fumbling with the key until she finally managed to get it into the lock and open the safe. “Dear God, Donald Heaton, what kind of a mess have you left me with?”
Reaching inside, she took out the large bundle of old photos and carried them to his desk. Pulling the thick elastic bands aside, she began to rifle through the bundle until, finally, she found the original copy of the photo that had been sent that morning with the scrawled message. Holding the two versions up to the light, she saw that they were identical.
“That doesn't make any sense,” she whispered. “I burned the negatives years ago. There's no way anyone could...”
She looked more closely, but the new copy of the image seemed to be a proper print rather than simply a photocopy. She knew there was absolutely no way such a thing should be possible, but at least the realization narrowed things down somewhat. Whoever was sending the threatening letters, they clearly had access to much of the original material that she and Donald had worked with, which meant – in theory – that if she could work out exactly where they'd got that material, she should have no trouble identifying the culprit.
In theory.
Hearing movement upstairs, she quickly began to put the bundle back together. As Sophie's thumping steps headed down into the hallway, Mary shoved the photos back into the safe. At the last moment, she spotted another folder, right at the back. It was thinner, but she felt a shudder pass through her body as she remembered how they'd held on to a few 'special' photos that had so completely amused her husband.
“Hey,” Sophie said flatly from the doorway. “What are you doing in there?”
“Just taking a look at something,” she replied, closing the safe. “Nothing.”
“I thought you didn't use it?”
“I do now.”
“I thought you were going to leave Dad's study exactly as it was when he died?”
“I have. Most of it.”
Sophie paused for a moment, eyeing her with suspicion.
“Why are all men such fucking pigs?”
“I'm not sure that's quite true.”
“Obviously Dad wasn't a pig, but...” She sighed. “I really thought Tom was different, you know? I thought he was a bit like Dad, I thought he was reliable and strong. I mean, he wasn't some guy I'd just met and decided to go out with. I'd known him for a while, we got to know each other as friends first, we hung out with all the
same people. I felt like I actually had a whole life with him, and he seemed to really respect me and love me and...”
Her voice trailed off as fresh tears ran down her face.
Mary opened her mouth to respond, but at the last moment she thought better of it.
“You're so lucky,” Sophie continued, “meeting the right guy when you were young. I mean, by the time you were my age, you and Dad were already married. Trust me, Mum, you have no idea what it's like these days. It's not like I'm desperate for a guy or anything like that, but I'd like to at least have a shot at one who isn't...” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “You know what? I think I'm going to watch a film or something, try to take my mind off things. You want to watch one together?”
“Actually, I think...” Mary paused. “I have things to do, sweetheart, sorry. We'll watch one tonight, though, shall we? Just you, me and a nice bottle of wine? It can be a girls' night in.”
“No biggie. I'll watch on my laptop.”
With that, Sophie turned and sloped back toward the stairs.
Sighing, Mary realized that she probably should have agreed to spend some time with her daughter, but at the same time she was far too wired to do anything quite so calm. Heading through to the kitchen, she took the envelope from her pocket and pulled out the message again, and then she took the first message from the previous day and placed them side-by-side. As far as she was aware, there was no-one who should be able to link her and Donald to the old business, which meant that she could only come to one conclusion: somewhere, somehow, there was a leak that she knew nothing about, someone who had access not only to knowledge but also to proof. And that meant there could still be far worse things to come out if -
Suddenly she heard a scream from upstairs.
THIRTY YEARS AGO
“These are disgusting,” Donald muttered as he looked through the first prints from Mary's shoot with Michael. “Who the hell would want to buy pictures of a guy jerking off?”