by John Marrs
After a morning in front of cameras for various international TV news channels, a journalist from the Economist had tried to encourage her to discuss personal matters rather than just the launch of her company’s updated app. But enough bullets had hit Ellie over the years to know when a writer was about to take aim. She’d dodged him by giving a polite smile and reminding him of what she was there to discuss.
As her head of security, Andrei, drove her from central London to her townhouse in Belgravia, she opened the secure internal company messaging system on her tablet and discovered a file that’d been sent by her PA.
‘Timothy Hunt’ read the folder, and Ellie realised it must contain the details she’d requested of her DNA Match. As her finger hovered above the icon she was more nervous than she thought she’d be. She was anxious about what the folder might contain and just how much detail Ula had unearthed. She assumed Ula had taken her advice on subcontracting it out to the team her firm employed to carry out background checks on potential staff as well as investigate the threatening emails she often received.
She took a deep breath and opened it. There was a handful of documents: a photograph from a local newspaper of Timothy’s provincial football team, his LinkedIn CV, his Internet browser history from the last six months, a bank statement and some miscellaneous images. She didn’t want to know by what dubious methods this information had been gathered.
Ellie clicked on the photograph of the football team first and read the caption below it, eventually locating the name Tim Hunt. She found him in the back row of the picture: a man of average build, with dark, short, receding hair, a beard and a big grin spread across his face. She immediately noted that physically he was not her usual type.
She scanned his CV and learned he’d worked his way through a succession of employers, chiefly in computing, since leaving university. His Internet history was typical for a man of his age: YouTube links to 1990s music videos and Family Guy clips, football and Grand Prix results, the occasional pornographic site – but nothing freakish, she was relieved to discover – and regular visits to Amazon and Spotify for his films and music. He liked Coldplay, the Foo Fighters, Stereophonics and watching anything with Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio in, none of which were to her taste. His bank statement divulged his supermarkets of choice were Tesco and Aldi; he bought most of his clothes from Burton’s and Next; he donated by direct debit to Alzheimer’s and stray dogs’ charities and put some money away towards his pension each month.
There was nothing in the file to suggest he was or had been married, that he had a current partner or any children. He had no criminal record, no bankruptcies nor any notable money concerns. His mortgage was modest, he repaid his credit card on time and he had no student loan left. His social media presence was almost zero, with the exception of some comments on a Cambridge United FC message board.
In short, it appeared Timothy Hunt was an unremarkable man, though one with whom she shared an extraordinary link.
‘Can we take a diversion to the King’s Road?’ Ellie asked Andrei, and within a few minutes, on her instruction, he’d purchased her a brand-new, no frills, pay-as-you-go mobile phone so she wouldn’t have to give out her actual number. She hadn’t used one of these since she’d been an impoverished student, and she caught herself smiling as she recalled a much less complicated time in her life.
She typed in Timothy’s number and began to write a text. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘My name is Ellie and we have been Matched up!’ She then paused, deleting the message. Too chirpy, she thought. ‘Hello, I’m your Match on Match Your DNA. Would you like to meet me?’ Too slutty. ‘Hi Timothy, I believe we’re supposed to be spending the rest of our lives together,’ she typed, and then added a smiley face.
Ellie paused before hitting the send button, then remained still with the phone in her hand, staring at it, scared of what the Pandora’s box she’d just opened might contain. She didn’t have long to wait – the phone’s loud alert made her jump.
‘Ahh, the future Mrs Hunt, what took you so long?’ Timothy responded and added a winking face. ‘And please call me Tim.’
He has a sense of humour, she thought, and immediately relaxed her tensed shoulders. ‘Sorry, I was busy choosing my wedding dress,’ she typed and sent an emoji of a woman wearing a veil.
‘What a coincidence, so was I. So tell me a little about my wife-to-be, as I only know the basics. It’d be nice to find some common ground before I book the register office.’
‘No church then?’
‘No, satanists like me aren’t welcome there.’
‘Something we have in common,’ she replied and included a smiling devil icon?
‘What do you do for a living?’
‘Steal their souls.’
‘No, I said what do you do FOR a living, not WITH the living.’
‘Sorry. Aside from worshipping Lucifer, I work in a boring office job. You?’
‘Computer nerd.’
Over the next thirty minutes, Ellie failed to notice the queue of traffic that was keeping her car stationary or the pouring rain that lashed against the window. When Andrei finally pulled up outside her house, she was glued to her phone like a schoolgirl as she and Tim continued messaging back and forth. Andrei opened the car door and then opened an umbrella.
‘Can I take my wife-to-be for a drink some time?’ Tim texted.
‘I’m not sure …’ she replied.
‘I won’t bite, honest. Sometimes we all need to take a punt.’
Ellie bit her bottom lip and slipped the phone into her handbag, as Andrei escorted her into the house. She paused for a few minutes, weighing up the pros and cons of allowing a stranger into her life before making her decision. The very reason she took the Match Your DNA test had now formed into a living, breathing person. He had a name and a face and he was waiting to learn if she wanted to meet him. But she was scared. She removed the phone from her bag, then read and re-read his text again before replying.
‘OK, I’d like that,’ she typed apprehensively.
‘Are you free on Friday night?’
Chapter 16
MANDY
Mandy learned much more about her DNA Match from his remembrance service than from her online research.
She felt like an impostor, sitting alone at the back of St Peter and All Saints Church, listening to Richard’s friends regale the congregation with anecdotes about his life, what inspired him and how he acted as their confidant. She discovered he was a team player both in and out of the sporting arena, a loyal pal and a shoulder to cry on. She learned that he’d played hockey and badminton for the county; he’d become a vegetarian at the age of twelve; and he’d overcome cancer when he was seventeen, his positive attitude getting him through chemotherapy. Mandy thought back to the photos of his global travels on his Facebook and wondered if it’d been his experience with the disease that had inspired him to see the world.
Richard had also run two marathons to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and had organised for local people with learning difficulties to take part in assault courses and exercise programmes. In comparison, Mandy felt like the laziest and most selfish person, and she knew that, when her time came, she wouldn’t be remembered in the same way as Richard for his philanthropy.
It had been a little over a fortnight since Mandy had learned the devastating news of her Match’s death.
She’d become frustrated at still not having heard from him, so she decided to make the first move. She was careful not to mention in her introductory email that she had looked him up on social media or that she kept a folder on her computer with photographs she’d saved. But she included a picture of herself, a flattering one taken three years earlier when she was lighter, and before the frown lines from her divorce appeared, as well as her email address and mobile phone number.
Much to her disappointment, she heard nothing in return. Her first thought had been that Richard hadn’t found her attractive, but then she reminded he
rself that if you’ve been Matched looks were unimportant – supposedly. Had he been bitten by the wanderlust bug again and had gone travelling? There was no evidence of that online … Maybe he was in prison, cripplingly shy, dyslexic or had broken both his hands so he couldn’t type … Mandy was clutching at straws.
It was only by chance when she clicked on his Facebook page – one of the many times that day – that she saw a message left by his sister, informing Richard’s friends of the date and address of his remembrance service.
Mandy had glared at the screen, and re-read the message. Remembrance? What the hell? It didn’t make sense. Richard couldn’t be dead. They’d only just found each other – how on earth could the one person in the world who was supposed to have been made for her no longer be living? And how had she not read about it sooner?
On further examination, Mandy discovered that while Richard’s profile pictures were public, not all his posts were. She requested to be friends with him, in the hope that his sister approved it so she could learn more. And after a tense couple of days, the friend request had been approved. There, she found thread after thread of tribute messages from Richard’s friends across the world, each paying their respects to a man who’d touched them all emotionally.
Grief threatened to tear her apart and she did her best to fight it. She poured herself a glass of Prosecco and carefully scanned local newspapers online, piecing together information about his accident. While he was out celebrating a victory with a group of hockey teammates late one evening, he had become separated from them, stumbled into a road and was struck by a hit-and-run driver. He’d been found a few hours later on a roadside verge with serious head injuries.
Mandy succumbed to her emotions and began to cry and for the rest of the night – and into the early hours of the morning. She pored over photographs of Richard, aching for all he was no longer able to bring to her life.
They would never meet for that all important first date, never would they make love for the first time. She would never hear him tell her that he loved her, build a life together or start a family. She would never know how it felt to be the single most important thing in somebody life. Mandy’s greatest fear was being realised – that she would remain where she had been since her divorce: alone, stagnating and washed up at thirty-seven.
She paced around her lounge wondering whatever she was supposed to do with her life now. She wasn’t ready to accept what had happened. She needed to know more about the man who’d been stolen from her. So, having missed his burial, she decided to gatecrash his memorial.
As the tributes to Richard came to their natural conclusion, his friends made their way down the aisle and towards an open door, where Mandy could see tables laden with bottles of soft drinks, plastic cups, paper plates and napkins. She hesitated, aware that she didn’t belong among the mourners, but nevertheless something compelled her to follow.
Soft-rock played softly through wall-mounted speakers as a mixture of people, faces old and young, helped themselves to food and chatted. Mandy was unsure where to stand, and found herself gravitating towards a lively group of men and a young woman. She was animatedly recalling a time Richard raised money for an abandoned dogs’ charity by skydiving – despite being terrified of heights. Mandy hovered on the edge of the conversation, and savoured the extra information she was gleaning about Richard from the woman’s story. Another in the group told how Richard had persuaded some of his personal-training clients to join him at London’s annual naked bike ride, again for charity. Everyone had a funny memory of Richard and as she listened to them regale these, she couldn’t curtail her envy.
‘Did he ever tell you about the time he got stung by jellyfish?’ The words were out of Mandy’s mouth before even she was able to be shocked by them.
‘No.’ A man with a fringe that hung down to his nose said, and all eyes fell on her. ‘What happened?’
Her mind raced back through the photos she’d seen of Richard, and one in particular stood out where he was standing beside a large, white catamaran, preparing to jump on board for a sightseeing tour.
‘We were swimming in the ocean in Cairns,’ she began, ‘when this school of jellyfish started floating in. He saw me struggling in the water trying to get back to the beach so he paddled out with his board and helped me to shore, even though he had to make his way through a cluster of them first and got his legs stung.’ She could picture everything she said with a crystal-clear clarity.
‘Typical Rich,’ said the young woman and the others nodded, smiling. Mandy smiled too, and felt goosebumps running up her back – she’d got away with it; no one could disprove her.
‘It didn’t stop him from going back in the water, though,’ she added. ‘I’ll always remember sitting in a restaurant opposite Sydney Harbour Bridge drinking with him until the early hours of the morning, swapping stories about travelling. I’ll really miss him.’ At least her final few words had a grain of truth in them.
‘Sorry, we haven’t been introduced,’ the woman said. She gently placed her hand on Mandy’s arm, leading her away from the others.
‘I’m Mandy,’ she said, and held out her hand.
‘Chloe,’ the woman replied. ‘And how did you know Rich?’
Mandy tried to disguise the panic that was swiftly rising inside her. She needed to think on her feet. ‘We … err … met in Australia when he was travelling, then we stayed in touch when we got back.’
‘How long were you out there for?’
‘Erm … a few months.’
‘And where exactly did you meet him?’
‘I think he was with some friends in Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef, and then we hung out for a bit in Sydney.’
‘Really? That’s interesting.’ The woman feigned a smile. ‘Because I joined Rich for the Australian leg of his travels and we were never out of each other’s sight in Sydney.’
Mandy had taken her fabrication too far. She felt her stomach flip as the woman glared at her with an incensed expression.
‘Now you’re going to tell me who you really are and why you’re lying to people at my brother’s memorial.’
Chapter 17
CHRISTOPHER
Christopher prided himself on many things – his appearance, his determination, his skills in manipulation and the fact that he allowed very little to wrong-foot him.
He liked to think he had a firm grip on his emotions. If confronted with something that diverted him from a plan he’d set out to achieve, his instinct helped him to adapt where necessary so he could maintain his objective.
However, Amy’s admission that she was a police officer was a curveball. He’d been so wrapped up in keeping tabs on his other activities that it hadn’t occurred to him that he should check her background. He’d taken it for granted that all women were like the ones he targeted – gullible, lacking his intelligence and too trusting. A police officer would be none of these things.
Finding one’s Match had meant little to Christopher and he hadn’t planned on meeting her again. Their date had started as nothing more than a result of his mild curiosity, but now suddenly it had become interesting. Very interesting indeed.
‘A police officer?’ he repeated with a fixed smile. ‘That must be an engaging job.’
‘It can be,’ Amy replied proudly. ‘I’m a detective sergeant and it’s hard work, especially when you’re based within the Metropolitan Police. You can end up working all the hours God sends. But it’s a career for life if I want it to be.’
‘I don’t know much about the inner workings of the police,’ Christopher lied. ‘What is it that a detective sergeant does? Or is “investigate” better terminology?’
‘Either works,’ she said, and sipped her vodka and orange juice through a straw. ‘I’ve been seconded to the fraud squad for the last six months.’
‘What does that involve?’
Christopher failed to listen to Amy’s response because he didn’t care for the intricacies of a rol
e in a department without any relevance to him, so he slipped into autopilot and pretended to appear interested instead. He maintained eye contact as she chatted, nodded where he thought a nod belonged and smiled where fitting. But inside, all he could dwell upon was the hilarious irony for the woman sitting opposite him to be Matched with the man who the Sun newspaper had branded ‘Britain’s Most Evil Killer’.
Christopher was anxious to ask about the case that had dominated every television news bulletin for the past three weeks, but he didn’t want to appear over-eager. However, after half an hour of polite conversation, his ego got the better of him.
‘So what’s happening with that serial killer who’s been all over the news then?’ he asked casually, cutting into his mushroom tartine. ‘How many women has he murdered, is it five now?’
‘Six, well, six that we know about, but the team investigating is following various leads,’ Amy replied cagily. It was the same officially sanctioned answer he’d heard in televised police press conferences.
‘You don’t want to talk about it, do you?’ he asked. ‘I’m sorry, that was inappropriate of me to ask.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to.’ Amy placed her fork to the side of her plate. ‘Nothing makes the press go into overdrive more than when there’s a serial killer out there somewhere. There haven’t been many of them in recent years.’
There are four active serial killers at any one time in Britain, Christopher wanted to inform her, and you’re having dinner with one of them.
Amy continued, ‘There have been a lot of leaks in the press lately, so we’re not supposed to be talking about the case to anyone.’
‘So I’m just anyone, am I?’ Christopher asked, and offered his best puppy-dog eyes. This made her cheeks flush. He was determined to tease the truth from her; he’d yet to meet a person he couldn’t manipulate in one way or another.
‘Sorry, that’s not what I meant.’ Amy smiled and Christopher was pleased to see there were no crumbs of food trapped between her teeth.