The Pact

by Amy Heydenrych

  ‘Be my guest, I’ll be at my disciplinary hearing – with bells on.’ The sinking feeling in her stomach betrays her false bravado. It will be OK. She’ll get a job at a PR agency or start writing shiny propaganda for a corporate company. It won’t look that different to what Kenneth wants her to do now. The money will come. She will find a way. Even if she has to go back home and live with her mom for a while, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. Surely anything would be better than this!

  As he storms off he says, ‘And don’t you dare think of leaving this office. From now on I am doubling the number of stories due from you each day.’

  Chapter 48

  Freya

  Nine days after the murder

  You want to play, baby?

  Someone has posted an advert in Freya’s name, just like she and Jay did the night Nicole died. She’s sure of it. Messages have been flooding Freya’s phone ever since.

  Every message sexual. Every come-on a response to something Freya seems to have said. This is not random, every one of these different men thinks they are responding to something that she has allegedly written.

  She looks over her shoulder, taking in the row of developers seated close to her. Is one of them behind this? Did they see what she and Jay did? Her stomach churns. The whole disaster looks that much more disrespectful, now that Nicole is dead.

  Then, there is her sudden career development. No matter how insulting Nicole was to Freya in the past, Nicole remains another woman who built a powerful reputation for herself in a man’s world. It is shamefully low to raid her legacy so soon after her death, especially after sending out the words she wrote in Nicole’s name. Yes, it was a random act, a prank, but everyone in this industry knows that nobody respects the opinion of a woman who has been labeled a ‘slut’, even someone as smart as Nicole. A smutty personal ad, in conjunction with the whisperings of her showing up at several sex parties, would have been enough to poison her flourishing career.

  Freya paces to Jay’s desk. Her whisper grazes her throat.

  ‘We need to talk!’

  ‘About what, babe?’ He’s never called her babe before and the casual way he drawls the word makes her think it isn’t a compliment. Freya is confused. Where is the man who makes her laugh until her belly aches? Her boyfriend, who she can turn to with all her troubles?

  About what. Where does she even begin? Her phone hums again in her pocket.

  ‘You know what!’

  He purses his lips. ‘Let’s go outside.’

  The walk is silent. His hand doesn’t search for hers. There is no electricity pulsing between them. Did she do something wrong? Has her promotion offended him? Or has she misremembered the events of that fateful night?

  They stand face to face in a foul alleyway filled with bags of rotting rubbish. A rat scurries across the wet paving. Jay lights a cigarette and avoids eye contact with her. His gestures are boyish, defiant. Someone needs to be tough in this situation. Freya realizes it has to be her. She starts with the obvious, the most hurtful of all.

  ‘You haven’t been replying to my messages.’

  ‘Your messages haven’t warranted a reply.’ His tough-guy act softens and she spots his eyes welling up a little. ‘This has been a rough time for all of us. I don’t think I realized how hard it would hit me, you know? I’m sorry if I’ve come over the wrong way. I’ve been so overwhelmed and have coped by going into my shell. This doesn’t change our relationship at all. I love you, I really do. But this is something I need to go through on my own.’

  A thread of doubt winds its way through Freya’s mind. Maybe she should be more understanding, and give Jay the space he needs. That’s what a good girlfriend would do, surely? But she can’t shake the possible link between their prank and Nicole’s murder.

  ‘Fine, but can we talk about it now? I have a bad feeling about the other night.’ They had both been so drunk. Freya, more drunk than she realized. Adding fuel to the fire was her anger, a hot urgent rage that needed to be sated. They made a petty decision in the moment that neither of them would have made in their right minds.

  ‘Let it go, Freya. It was a prank, that’s all. It’s a coincidence that she passed on the same day. You don’t just summon a murderer to someone’s house, like an Uber.’ Passed, as if she willingly stepped out of this life into another place, as concrete as a neighboring room. Passed, as if she remained whole and her battered body wasn’t found the next day. He takes her hand and squeezes it tightly. ‘Remember, we have a pact. We promised not to tell anyone what we did.’

  ‘Jay, I’m not freaking out for no reason here.’ She digs for her cell. ‘There is something else. Remember the messages I showed you the other day?’

  She pulls up her message history, and he scrolls through them, his thick eyebrows deepening into a frown.

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘It’s a bit more than shit, babe.’ The word tastes bitter.

  ‘I don’t know what to say . . . I’m stumped. This is really shocking.’

  Freya takes the cell from his hands and opens her mail app.

  ‘And there is something else. This email here says that a new device signed into my Gmail account this morning, and it definitely wasn’t mine. Someone is watching me, Jay.’

  ‘I think that is just a coincidence. You know how hackers are. They’re always trying to get into people’s Gmail accounts. I would just click on the icon that lets you report it to Google. At least that’s one thing we can fix.’ He moves toward her and holds her tightly.

  After the nightmare of the past few days, and the latest torrent of messages, all she needs is this. To be held, enclosed, protected from herself, to remember that she is loved, and to be told that everything is going to be OK. ‘Listen here,’ he says softly, ‘I get it, OK? It’s hard enough when a person dies. The fact that this is someone you didn’t like adds a whole new complexity to the situation. But you can’t blame yourself. I can’t blame myself either. My feelings towards Nicole are . . . complicated. She was a fucking nightmare, but she didn’t deserve the way I dumped her, and she definitely didn’t deserve the way she died. We made a silly mistake, Freya, but we had nothing to do with her murder.’

  ‘But what about these messages, then? What if these people messaging me know who killed her? Or,’ she says, voice lowering, ‘what if the same person is out to get me?’

  ‘I don’t know how to explain that,’ he whispers, and her heart falls. Everything is different now. Their relationship feels tainted and her promotion feels unfairly won. The whole situation makes her feel sick with guilt. She pulls away from him.

  ‘Come on, let’s break this ridiculous pact. We can tell Julian! What harm will it do? Maybe it will give the police a lead?’

  A shadow passes over his face but then sharply disappears.

  ‘Let’s not cause a scene, Freya. We can’t let our emotions or our guilt get in the way of the investigation. We wouldn’t want to waste police time, would we? As for Julian, he has other things on his mind.’

  ‘What about the messages? They’re getting perverted, Jay . . . I’m starting to worry. Surely this counts as sexual harassment?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but how about this – I’ll do some research and see if I can figure out the source myself? Both you and I have better tech skills than the police, I can assure you of that. And you wouldn’t want to go to them with a false accusation, would you?’

  ‘No . . .’ But Freya feels empty. Another day of harassment. Nicole’s torment has been replaced by a gang of faceless strangers.

  ‘Come, let’s go back to the office. A few hours on your new project and you will forget those assholes exist in the first place.’

  Jay starts to walk back and begins to whistle. The tune is familiar. Freya realizes with a start that it is from a Christmas carol.

  The thing that first attracted Freya to Jay was his breeziness, his perennial ability to appear cool in the face of any challenge. It was in d
irect contrast to her compulsion to pick every situation apart. She craved some of that easiness with a hunger akin to lust, as if in the act of pushing their bodies together some of his nonchalance would rub off. Now she wonders if what she thought was a carefree nature was, in fact, cowardice.

  As she falls in step with him, he slings his arm around her waist, drawing her closer. ‘Come on, Freya, can’t you see that everything’s perfect? Don’t let that super-smart head of yours ruin it all.’ In that moment, listening to his funny, lyrical chatter, walking in her rare 1920s Ferragamo pumps, bought when her first salary hit her bank account, going back to a place where she is wanted and appreciated, it feels good. But there is an edge to the feeling, sharp and cold to the touch. It whispers RUN. Run, while you still can.

  Chapter 49

  Isla

  Nine days after the murder

  Armed with a phone number, Isla feels invincible. There is nothing to push a story forward like cold, hard facts. Simon wanted new information, now here it is! She blushes, even though nobody is looking at her. For some reason, she wants to impress him. She logs in to her paid public database service. It may be onerous and difficult to navigate, but it gives her access to any publicly available records. Truth be told, she finds nothing better than wading through the muck, panning for gold.

  Now, just to select a soundtrack that reflects the electricity in the air. She selects a Rage Against the Machine album. The relentless rhythm of the funk-guitar and snare drums leaves her breathless, transported to a street corner outside a club once more, sharing her headphones and a cigarette with Him, the handsome stranger that would become her boyfriend, who would become her rapist. ‘Wait for this part, Isla, wait for it, YES, can you feel that?’ She pushes the thought away. He can’t take the love of music from her, nobody can.

  It’s fine, eagle-eyed work. Time begins to flow differently. Isla squints at the database before her, breaks once to deliver platitudes to a hovering Kenneth, and twice for a cup of coffee, filter, cold. It starts to feel tedious, the continuous running numbers make her eyes water. Did she write the number down incorrectly? Did Simon deliberately lead her down the wrong path? Just when she’s about to give up and admit defeat, there is a match, an identity number listed next to the phone number. She cross-references this with other public information, including property ownership listing, and a company registration for Atypical, where he is listed as one of the founding executive management team.

  She can’t help but laugh. The proof she needed, shimmering in black and white. Her hunch manifested into reality.

  Jay Singh.

  There was a call between them the night Nicole died that lasted over nine minutes. Isla can only just bear speaking to Lizzie or her mother for over nine minutes! Simon mentioned they wrote off Jay as a suspect because he had an alibi, but what if he was lying? If he was innocent, surely he would have mentioned the phone call in police interviews, and in his brief chat with Isla? Surely he would mention Nicole’s last words to him? There is only one reason a person hides information, and that’s because it leads to a place they don’t want anyone else to know about.

  Chapter 50

  Freya

  Nine days after the murder

  Freya has always believed there is no problem too complicated to fix. As a little girl, she had a silver bracelet, a sympathy gift from a nice family that couldn’t keep her for longer than a few months. She treated it like a treasure but it couldn’t have cost that much, as the silver wore off and the chain kept getting tangled. She would chide herself for not cleaning it enough, or being more careful with it and spend hours undoing the knots. No matter how impossible it seemed, she would always find a way.

  Now she stares at the computer screen in front of her, trying to figure out the issue with the code she has just written. Usually the answer would reveal itself with little struggle, but today she can’t focus, not since that journalist, Isla, paid her a visit. She knows something, Freya is sure of it. The thought makes her light-headed.

  An irrational part of her pictures the headlines, the double-page exposé: Young software engineer pranks colleague just before her death.

  Freya is not the kind of person to live in the shadows, burying away her secrets. She’s a rock to her friends, the kind of person they turn to for advice. Just like the way she can spot the source of a problem in coding, she can clearly discern between right and wrong. Wasn’t she the person that Hattie turned to for advice when she found out that the man she thought was a commerce major was actually fifteen years older than her, and married? Didn’t she help Jasmin make a list of pros and cons when she was agonizing over whether or not to not open a professional practice with her Masters in Clinical Psychology, or pursue a career in alternative healing?

  She closes the project she’s working on. She needs to tell someone, her heartbeat won’t slow and her breathing will stay ragged until she does. Jay is busy on a call – she is breaking their pact, and he’s going to hate her for it – but it feels like the right thing to do.

  Her legs threaten to give way beneath her as she walks toward Julian’s office.

  He is alone, teetering in a headstand. Loud, chanting music resonates in the room.

  ‘Sorry to bother . . .’

  ‘Oh hi, Freya! That’s OK, I’m just processing a lot right now and taking some time to regroup. Did you know that inversions can help with focus and brain function?’

  ‘I didn’t . . .’

  ‘I hope you are cultivating your own yoga practice, or something similar to help disconnect from the workplace. This industry is tough, and you need to look after yourself.’

  Is it really going to be as easy as this? Is she really going to throw away her job and, most probably, her relationship, while her boss stands before her red-faced, panting and smelling of sandalwood incense?

  ‘I need to discuss something serious . . . uh . . . I’m not quite sure where to start.’

  His brow furrows. ‘I owe you an apology, don’t I? We never did get to have that discussion with you and Nicole about her behavior towards you. That probably would have given you the closure you needed in this terrible situation, am I right?’

  ‘Well . . . that kinda has something to do with it, but not really.’

  ‘Oh no, please don’t tell me you’re unhappy here, or that you want to leave. That’s the last thing I can deal with right now.’

  Freya’s cheeks grow hot. His anger at her would be easier to take than his disappointment.

  ‘Oh no, it’s nothing like that. I am so happy here Julian, really I am.’ And while it’s hard to admit, her job has become even easier since Nicole died, the landscape of her day no longer fraught with dread. There is a sense of excitement and purpose that came the moment she was promoted as lead on the East Africa project. Things would be perfect, if only she could shake this feeling of guilt. If only she could look at her phone without the fear that someone was after her, too.

  ‘OK, is everyone treating you well here? You and Jay seem pretty . . . close.’ A pointed gaze, a turning upwards of the corners of his mouth. His eyes move over her differently. It’s the first time she’s noticed him do this, and she doesn’t like it.

  At the mention of Jay’s name, her eyes dart across the room. He is still busy on a call but watching her. Usually her skin tingles under his focused attention but today it makes her worry.

  ‘We get on very well as colleagues,’ she says curtly, ‘but I have a confession that involves him.’

  Julian’s grin widens. ‘You don’t have to keep up pretenses on my behalf. If you two want to cuddle up in obscure coffee shops and go on ambling walks together, it’s fine by me. Your work speaks for itself.’

  Freya is puzzled. She doesn’t remember bumping into Julian when she was outside the office with Jay. Maybe she just didn’t see him.

  ‘No, no, it’s about Nicole . . . I did something stupid the night she died, and I think you have a right to know.’
This is it. No turning back now. She recalls the trust glistening in Jay’s eyes as they shook hands, as they made their promise. She could turn and run now, but this is a risk she has to take.

  Julian’s face shuts abruptly, as starkly as shutters slamming closed.

  ‘Go on . . .’

  Freya speaks so softly that Julian has to lean towards her. He is close enough for her to smell his spicy aftershave. She minimizes Jay’s involvement. If she has chosen to ignore their pact, she may as well be decent enough not to drag him down with her.

  He listens carefully, then turns thoughtful. ‘I see. Well, this is not very good. It’s not good at all.’

  The tears come, no matter how much she tries to will them away. ‘I’m so, so sorry! I don’t know what came over me! It’s no excuse but Nicole and I had been clashing quite a bit and, man, I feel so stupid! I would do anything to take it back.’

  Freya expects Julian to call the police. Instead, his face crumbles.

  ‘Freya, I am so sorry. We had some . . . problems . . . with Nicole in the past and I should have seen just how seriously she was targeting you. I should have made the time to hold that damn meeting with HR. It was my job as CEO to protect you and I failed in that. Please accept my apology.’