The Tangled Web

by Lacey Dearie

  *****

  Flic closed her front door and started to remove her leather gloves, black fedora and black and gold chenille scarf, still feeling a little disorientated. She knew what she had to do. She just wasn’t ready.

  She had spent the whole day drinking hot chocolate in the Debenhams café in the town centre, watching trains go in and out of the station from the window. She thought back to the day she had arrived in Inverness and how bereft she had felt when she stepped off the train which brought her to the town. She’d arrived with no money in her purse at all. She took a huge amount of money from George in the divorce, but it had been put in a savings account and never touched. She wanted nothing from him. Everything she had now, she had built up in the last few years from scratch.

  Flic couldn’t help wondering what George’s life had been like after she left. She knew he’d remarried because when she’d signed the papers to hand over their old house, it had been to him and “Mrs Amy Goodbody.” She knew that he and Amy had taken over the business she and George had run together – managing a block of holiday apartments in a nice area of Torquay. She had inherited the large house from her Great-Aunt Betty and turned it into apartments. It was her property, her business, her livelihood. Yes, she’d kept working as a paralegal, because the income from the summer wasn’t enough to keep them going during the winter months. But she had an emotional attachment to the house that the money he’d paid her in return for the building hadn’t replaced.

  So many times since then, she wished she hadn’t bothered working. If she hadn’t gone back out to work, she’d never have met Amy. And Amy would never have met George. And she’d still be happily married. And maybe even be a mother by now.

  Instead she looked in the mirror each morning and all she saw was an aging, divorced and bitter woman. Everything she had, she had either lost to Amy, or just simply given up so she could get away from her memories and start afresh. She could convince everyone else she didn’t care, but she had a harder time convincing herself. She’d had a series of dates with men who were lovely, but they weren’t George. The only man she’d met who had the potential to change her point of view was Adam. She knew that if she wanted to completely forget George and have a future with Adam, she had to send that email to Amy refusing to accept her as a client. If she didn’t, she’d be swallowed in all those old feelings she’d spent so long trying to quash.

  She hung up her coat and strolled through to the living room, hoping she looked at ease. She rubbed her hands together to attempt to defrost them from the ice blocks they’d become on the walk back to her flat from the town centre.

  Adam switched off Deal or No Deal and looked Flic straight in the eye.

  ‘Where have you been all day?’ he asked.

  ‘I went to see Vicky,’ she replied, hoping this pacified him.

  ‘Vicky had a funeral today,’ he frowned.

  ‘I know. She was getting ready to go as I arrived. I went into Debenhams after that and had a hot chocolate.’

  ‘All day? A hot chocolate took you all day?’ he snapped.

  ‘I had more than one!’ she defended.

  ‘Your disappearance wouldn’t have anything to do with this?’ Adam held up the envelope they’d received from Amy.

  Flic pinched her brow and scrunched her eyes closed.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was her who had sent this when I asked this morning?’ Adam raised his voice slightly.

  ‘I was trying to get my head around it. I couldn’t believe of all the people who must have read the article, SHE would be the one to get in touch!’ Flic shook her head, still not quite understanding why it had happened.

  Adam looked down at his knees and wrung his hands together. ‘I might have had something to do with that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I looked her up, just to be nosey. Then I thought it would be a laugh to send her a… a bit of advertising. Plant the seed in her head. Get her suspicious. Burst her bubble a wee bit…’ he trailed off.

  ‘You did this? YOU?’ she roared. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’ Tears pricked at her eyes.

  ‘I didn’t think she would get in touch, I thought she would think it was a spam email and delete it,’ Adam replied.

  Flic glared at him. She couldn’t believe he had done this. And when? Amy said in her letter she had emailed them at the weekend. Flic only told him about her divorce on Sunday afternoon. Had he done it right away?

  Unable to process the facts, she backed out of the living room and searched the short hallway for sanctuary. She took the first door that caught her eye – her spare room – and locked herself in.

  She slumped down, her back against the door, and allowed the tears which had threatened all day to trickle down her cheeks for a few minutes. It was only late afternoon but it was already dark. She reached up for the light switch but realised she hadn’t replaced the bulb last time it fused. She had seen no reason to do so. She never used this room - except to throw all her junk into.

  Deciding the dimness would drive her crazy, she looked around for a solution which would allow her some light without leaving the room and having to face Adam again. She noticed her old desktop computer. She hadn’t used it for a few weeks. She’d bought it to use when she worked from home, before she had been made redundant. She now had a laptop for her work with HunE-trap Investigations – provided by Magnus, of course. She shone her phone at the cables and used the limited light to connect the monitor to the computer, then flicked the switch at the socket and let the computer boot up. It took ten times as long as the laptop.

  The glow from the monitor cast an eerie light on the room. It really was full of junk. She smiled ruefully and walked towards an old suitcase in the opposite corner of the room. She knew exactly what was in there – a bottle of champagne her sister Joanne had sent her when she got divorced. She had never liked George. As tempted as she’d been to drink it, she thought it was in bad taste. Divorce wasn’t something to celebrate. She didn’t even want to think about George and she certainly didn’t want to rejoice in the fact their life together had ended.

  Well, maybe it was time to open that bottle of champagne, she thought. Not really a celebration, as Joanne had intended. More like a wake.

  Flic swiftly removed the foil from the top of the bottle and popped the cork. It was much louder than she’d intended and the sticky liquid sprayed the walls and covered Flic’s hand. She cursed succinctly and sucked the champagne from her skin.

  ‘Flic? Did you just pop a cork in there? Are you drinking?’ Adam called through the door.

  ‘Piss off,’ she blurted thoughtlessly. She decided he must have done as he was asked because she didn’t hear a response.

  She removed her boots and sat down in front of the monitor, cross-legged and positioned the keyboard on her knees. Time to find out what George has been up to, she told herself. She then used every method she knew – search engines, social networking, several websites she knew he had worked on as a translator and an old picture forum he used to use. It seemed George wasn’t too concerned about privacy. He was everywhere. Granted, there wasn’t much in the last few weeks, but there was plenty of information for her to find since their split.

  Before she knew it, the bottle of champagne was finished, her head was fuzzy and she knew almost everything of consequence George had been doing since they split up. She’d trawled through five years of holiday pictures, read his blog about Glastonbury 2009, found out where he worked now and even caught up with what some of their old mutual friends had been doing by following the comments and posts they’d made on his social networking profiles. His life was right there in front of her.

  His wonderful, happy, cosy life. With Amy.

  The tears threatening again, Flic felt a rage bubbling up in her chest and throat. She had to send that email telling Amy they weren’t going to do the investigation into George. She had to do it now, before she changed her mind.

  She typed the email
out.

  “Dear Mrs Goodbody

  Unfortunately, HunE-trap Investigations are unable to search for evidence of cheating by your husband, George Goodbody…”

  Right, that’s a good start, she thought. No way could she investigate him, like she had tonight. Tonight had been a one-off. A surprisingly easy one-off. It definitely hadn’t been as difficult as she had thought. She’d imagined it would be like a knife to her heart. But it had been strangely satisfying. She could do it again. If she really had to, she could. She didn’t though.

  But if she was getting paid for it…

  “...until we receive a deposit from you of £50 for work already done to trace your husband. We can then proceed. The name of the agent investigating your husband will be…”

  She couldn’t use her own name. Or The Pink Cougar. Then Vicky would know she had gone against what they’d agreed. And Adam would know. She had to just make something up. Something glamorous. Something which could possibly be foreign, but sound good in English too. George would love that. Something like…..Diana. She needed a surname. It had to be foreign, but not from a nationality where George could speak the language. Flic retrieved a scrunched up receipt from her pocket to see who had served her in the café this morning. P. Dutkowiak. It sounded Polish. Excellent. He didn’t speak Polish.

  “….Miss Diana Dutkowiak. Please address all correspondence to her at the address this email was sent from. Please do NOT use the main HunE-trap Investigations email address as this is for enquiries only.”

  Flic pressed send, without proof-reading, and smiled to herself. It was time to wipe that smile off Amy’s face.

  12

  12th February

  Vicky swung back and forth on her rocking chair and stared at the snowflakes falling peacefully on the window. The watery daylight was gently emerging, although it didn’t make the landscape any less bleak.

  She cursed Flic for texting her so early to say there was another emergency. She cherished her Saturdays. No driving a hearse through slush, no standing in the biting wind at a graveside, no tedious admin, no meticulously checking the temperature of the fridge to make sure the clients were preserved properly, no waiting for the phone to ring to say someone had died. Saturdays like this, when she wasn’t on call and the weather was so dismal were even more precious because she could just curl up in bed with Sasha and a hot chocolate watching Waybuloo, calm in the knowledge that there was really nothing else she could do.

  Fat chance of that today! She had a feeling there was a drama ahead and silently berated herself for getting involved with Flic in the first place. It was starting to feel like there were two Scarletts in her life now.

  ‘Vicky! Flic’s here!’ her mother called up to her. Vicky was surprised Flic was up and about so early after Adam had phoned last night and complained that Flic had locked herself in the spare room and was drinking. Surely she’s not fit to drive, Vicky thought.

  ‘Send her up,’ Vicky called back. She stood up from the cosy padded rocking chair she’d bought when Sasha was first born and positioned her daughter to sit comfortably on a beanbag in front of the television. Vicky hoped this drama wasn’t about Flic’s ex-husband again.

  The door to her bedroom creaked open and Flic scuffled through, not uttering a word. Vicky noted that Flic looked as smart as she always did, except for her eyes. Her make-up was heavier than usual and the whites of her eyes were pink. It was obvious she had been crying. And drinking.

  Flic glanced around the room, searching for Vicky. Vicky had a lilac glass partition separating the nursery section from her own sleeping area. Vicky peeked her head around the glass and nodded her acknowledgement. Flic said nothing. She sat on the edge of a padded stool positioned at the edge of the bed and chewed on her lips.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Vicky asked.

  ‘Got drunk and…accidentally…sent the wrong email,’ Flic muttered.

  Vicky closed her eyes, wished she’d heard Flic wrong, and opened them again. ‘What did you send?’

  ‘Told her we needed a deposit of fifty quid then we’d start work on the investigation. She sent it through PayPal this morning.’

  ‘That was no accident! You have to fix this! Email her back. Tell her it was a mistake,’ Vicky barked.

  ‘We’re under contract now,’ Flic bleated.

  ‘I don’t care!’

  ‘We can’t!’

  ‘We can!’ Vicky countered

  ‘If we start paying money back to clients, Magnus will ask what’s going on and find out what’s happened. Then Adam will find out. Do you really want them knowing? It’s much easier to just carry on, get it over with and then forget it,’ Flic protested.

  Vicky was halted by Flic’s statement. She thought about how unprofessional it would seem to Magnus if they admitted what had happened. She knew she should have sent the email herself and not let Flic handle it. Flic was too closely involved to be able to detach herself emotionally. Magnus would blame Vicky and say she should have taken control of the situation when she realised Flic couldn’t handle it. And he’d lose any respect he had for her professionally.

  ‘You’re right,’ she conceded.

  She perched on the edge of the pouf next to Flic and searched her mind for a resolution. ‘But this will blow up in our faces! How are we going to keep this from Magnus and Adam anyway?’ Vicky tutted.

  ‘I told her to send all emails directly to me,’ Flic replied.

  Vicky surmised that Flic had clearly thought some of this through, but not it all. She wondered if this had really been a drunken mistake or if it had been premeditated. She twisted around and studied Flic’s face for signs of guilt and saw nothing – just the same neutral expression she always saw.

  ‘Won’t she see your name when she looks at the sender anyway?’ Vicky reasoned.

  ‘No. When I send emails they’re sent from the name FXR. That’s all it says. I’m paranoid about my security online,’ Flic explained.

  ‘What’s FXR? What does that mean?’ Vicky squinted.

  ‘Felixia Rice. That’s my name.’

  Vicky stood up and glanced around the partition to check on Sasha before slowly walking towards the window. She was smart enough to figure this out. Flic was too, when she wasn’t drunk. Vicky was confident they could fix this without Adam or Magnus finding out.

  ‘Right, say we DID proceed. Do the job, make it quick, keep it quiet. What about the character we use? We can’t use your picture for the honey because you were married to him.’

  ‘We’ll use yours,’ Flic shrugged, like it was an obvious solution.

  Vicky shook her head. ‘Not possible. I’m friends with your Gran on Tête-a-net. All he’d have to do is look her up and he’d see me. There’s too close a link.’

  ‘My Gran’s on Tête-a-net?’ Flic boomed. ‘Oh, that is too much! She’s eighty-three!’

  ‘We have no picture we can use then. There’s no way we can carry on with this.’

  ‘We need a model. All we have to do is find a model and we’ll use her picture. What about Pamela? She’d love to do some modelling!’ Flic brightened.

  ‘She under eighteen. We’d have to ask my parents. And she’s gobby as well. Too risky,’ Vicky shook her head, refusing to even consider the idea. Pamela would ask too many questions and the more people who knew, the greater the chance of getting caught.

  ‘How about we get a random? Just use Google,’ Flic blurted.

  ‘And what if the person whose picture we use is a famous person? A famous person we don’t know but he does…and I’m sure it would be illegal to use a picture of anyone who didn’t give us permission. No, there’s so many things that could go wrong using a random picture,’ Vicky asserted.

  ‘We’re not thinking about this professionally. What would a professional do if they needed a model?’ Flic frowned.

  Their eyes met. Vicky felt enlightened. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of this before? They shouldn’t have been using their own pictures anyw
ay!

  ‘We hire a model,’ she smiled.

  Flic grinned in response. ‘We need a pretty girl, who’s desperate for cash and will spare us a couple of hours to take some pictures. How do we go about this?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t ask questions. Or anyone I’d feel comfortable asking to do this,’ Vicky realised.

  Flic smirked and her eyes crinkled mischievously. ‘Don’t worry. I know exactly how to go about this.’

  *****

  ‘I feel like I should be reading a newspaper and have two eyeholes cut out in front of my face,’ Vicky chortled.

  ‘Just act natural. We’re only looking at the moment,’ Flic advised.

  ‘I hope you’ve got the balls to approach someone and ask them to model, because I definitely don’t!’ Vicky admitted.

  ‘Of course I do. Remember, we’re talent scouts and they’re damn lucky we’re even considering them. We’re in control. If they say no, it’s their loss,’ Flic brazened.

  ‘Mmm,’ Vicky nodded, trying to force herself to believe Flic.

  They’d braved driving into town in the snow and come to the Eastgate Shopping Centre in search of a fame hungry wannabe who would grab the chance to have her picture taken for money and ask few questions. There was certainly no shortage of possible candidates. It was impossible to tell who had a good figure and who didn’t under all the winter woollies, but there were countless girls with pretty faces who looked the part.

  ‘What about her?’ Vicky offered, nodding towards a rosy cheeked red-head laughing with her friends. She had perfectly straight white teeth and tossed her head back as she laughed. She would be a great model, Vicky decided to herself.

  ‘No. She’s got friends with her. We need someone who’s alone. If SHE didn’t ask questions, her friends would,’ Flic warned her.

  ‘Right. Of course.’ There was so much that Vicky hadn’t thought through. She was starting to believe she wasn’t devious enough for this.

  The pale tiled floor was wet and grimy from slushy feet and Vicky reached down to retrieve a toy monkey Sasha had just slam-dunked before it was trodden on. She shoved it into the woven pouch underneath her stroller. She hated being a spy today. She would rather have been in bed with some tea and toast. The pretty girls they were looking at made her feel ugly. Sasha wouldn’t behave. And Flic was so cunning compared to her. She felt naïve and stupid. Not to mention the fact that no matter how their hunt for possible Dianas went, she had to drive home in the snow. And she was not a fan of cold weather driving.