The Pact

by Amy Heydenrych

  ‘I don’t understand . . . why would you do that?’

  ‘Nicole had been bullying me at work. Badly. It all added up and I wasn’t thinking straight anymore. In a crazy way, I thought that making her feel as ashamed as she made me feel would somehow get her back.’

  ‘You didn’t expect she would be killed.’

  ‘Of course not. But now I’m so scared the two incidents are related.’ She reaches into her handbag, and pulls out her cellphone.

  ‘Look at this message.’

  I know you like it rough, baby. I’m going to give you everything you asked for, and when you scream, I won’t stop.

  Isla turns cold. ‘Freya, that could be classified as a rape threat. You must take that to the police, immediately.’

  Freya looks away. ‘But I’m getting hundreds of these messages a day. Each time I block a number, a new one comes up. They all seem to be responding to a fake dating advert, just like the one Jay and I wrote.’

  The next words Freya utters make Isla’s blood turn cold. ‘I think someone knows what Jay and I did. I think this person murdered Nicole, and that I am next.’

  Chapter 56

  Freya

  Thirteen days after the murder

  ‘What a cheating, lying, disrespectful prick!’ Kate says. She paces up and down their small kitchen, making the space feel tinier than it already is.

  Freya holds her head in her hands. Her face is raw from crying. If she slept at all the past few nights, she doesn’t remember it. Scenes from her relationship with Jay kept flashing through her mind – the secret coffees, the hours in bed, the philosophical discussions. How could it all have been a lie? The police must be mistaken, there must be some sort of catch. She recalls her last police statement with a cold sense of dread. This is all her fault. Why couldn’t she have just kept her mouth shut?

  ‘I should have known the police were zoning in on Jay. When I spoke to the lead detective on the case, he kept on turning the conversation back to Jay. He didn’t care about our prank.’

  Kate stops dead. ‘And is that such a bad thing? The man is toxic, Freya. This is your proof.’

  ‘I just feel so helpless, you know? Like this whole thing is spinning out of control. I met with one of the journalists – Isla – and I told her all about the prank. I showed her something else too, something that scares me the most.’

  The kettle is whistling, and the microwave moans as it heats up her instant oats. The cacophony of sounds and the rage flashing in Kate’s eyes make her breathing ragged. Freya reaches onto the kitchen counter, where her phone flashes repeatedly.

  Kate scans the messages, her brow furrowing. ‘What is this?’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘It’s something that I haven’t told you, or told anyone but Jay, and now Isla. Ever since Nicole was murdered, I’ve received hundreds of messages from men responding to a personal advert I allegedly published somewhere on the Internet. There are men asking me for the nudes I promised, men waiting to meet me at restaurants across the city, and men sending me pictures of their dicks. Now, the messages are starting to turn violent, threatening.’

  Kate drums her fingers on the kitchen counter, lost in thought.

  Freya adds, ‘I tried to trace the numbers but they are all from different locations. As soon as I block a number, another appears. Jay tried to figure out the source of the messages, but I don’t think he got anywhere. My advert must have been posted on a secure platform. Nothing has worked. I am exhausted, I can’t think straight and I don’t know what to do.’

  Kate’s fingers stop. ‘Right. This is what you are going to do. You are going to ask directly what platform they found your advert on.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know it’s traumatic, but you have to do it. You will then figure out where the advert has been posted. Then you can just get hold of the people who own the website, and they will remove it!’

  Freya nods, the muscles in her body relaxing. ‘I’ve been too scared to do that. What if I encourage them by talking to them? What if they see it as a come-on?’

  ‘We will deal with that if it comes to it,’ Kate says. ‘And I’ve changed my mind about the journalist. I’m glad you spoke to her. Whoever is behind the messages knows what you and Jay did that night. Maybe a little press exposé will give them the scare they need.’

  ‘I feel like someone is attacking me, over and over again. I need to do something. I need to fight back.’ Freya can feel the fury shift beneath her skin, fierce, alien. She has to release it somehow. ‘I’m going to find out where that dating advert is posted a bit later. Right now, I’m going for a run.’

  ‘But, Freya, it’s pouring with rain outside!’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  Kate looks worried. ‘Please be safe, OK? And take my North Face jacket. You don’t need to get sick on top of everything else.’

  The rain against Freya’s face feels like a baptism. Cleansing. A new start. She takes the same route she always does, a scenic run through Golden Gate Park, which shows the best of the city and the Pacific Ocean. She quickens her pace, and the trees pass by in a green blur.

  She is painfully aware of her body today. Her breasts feel too big and noticeable in their crop top, her running leggings too tight. Her phone vibrates in her pocket. It could be a Strava notification – she always logs her runs – but she has a feeling that it is something else, another message. She glances at it.

  Hello, Freya, I’ve got us a table at Souvla. Can’t wait for you to blow me under it, like you said x

  She has to keep running, keep moving forward. Who, besides Jay, knew about the prank? Who would be able to mimic the message word-for-word? Jay isn’t that twisted, surely? An image of him in bed with Nicole, his neck still sweet with the scent of Freya’s perfume. Maybe they were the ones who laughed at her in the end.

  The park is too quiet. Freya veers into John F. Kennedy drive. Her breathing has become labored, which is unusual. She can usually handle three miles before needing to rest. She pushes forward, even though her limbs are aching and tiredness is overtaking her body.

  Past the tourist traps and the shops, and into a part of town nobody knows she goes. She added it to her route two weeks into working at Atypical, telling herself she wanted to clock the extra distance, fooling herself that she preferred the gritty urban landscape to her previous pleasant amble along the coastline.

  Finally, when her legs can’t move any further, she stops, red-faced. She glances across the road at her daily landmark. It looks innocuous enough. People thread in and out, hauling shopping bags and children, busy with their days, rushing through the rain. Nobody would ever guess that Nicole was murdered there just eleven days ago. Nobody would guess that, weeks before that, Nicole would casually walk in and out of those doors each day, dressed in sharp-angled monochrome, not a hair out of place, eyes locked on her cellphone. And all the while, Freya was watching.

  Chapter 57

  Isla

  Fourteen days after the murder

  Isla picks up a giant slab of dark chocolate on the way to the office. The meeting with Freya has raised more questions than answers, but there is a more urgent issue at hand. One doesn’t have to be an investigative journalist to figure out that the next few hours are not going to be pleasant.

  Her piece-of-shit phone died in the hour of traffic back to the office and she can feel the heat of the incensed missed calls and unread messages burning a hole in her coat pocket. She tells herself she couldn’t care less, and that she is more a rebel than a do-gooder anyway, but a part of her feels a sting of shame. All she ever wanted was to do the thing she loved most, and make a difference.

  As she trudges up the stairs, she hopes that everybody remembers that she isn’t just rebellious. She is good. She can get to the core of a story like no other, because she truly cares. Surely, even in this new age of digital publishing, that counts for something? There is a disarming ringing in her ears as she pushes the doors open.
<
br />   She walks into the newsroom, wincing in anticipation of Kenneth’s rant. Instead, there is silence. The other journalists look up blankly. Kyle catches her eyes and mouths, ‘I’m sorry.’ Nobody makes a sound.

  Isla is briefly buoyed by the faint, irrational hope that perhaps she got away with it this time. Maybe she can just walk quietly to wherever her new desk is, head held high, and pretend nothing ever happened. She has enough information to lie low for a little while. She will stay in the office for the next week or so to keep the peace.

  Her desk. Oh shit, her desk. It’s not where it has been for the past ten years, just as Kyle warned her. All that is left in its place is an empty space and a tangle of computer cables. She scans the room desperately, trying to keep calm, trying to keep up the appearance of being unmoved. But the sniggers behind her are sharp as knives.

  Then she sees it. Her entire desk has been lifted up and shoved awkwardly against Kenneth’s. All her cherished notebooks, stored in chronological order and including a Moleskine gifted to her from Bernard, have been dumped in an untidy pile on the floor next to it. Her personal possessions – chocolates, more chocolates, and a collection of chewed pens – have been placed carelessly next to her computer for all to view. Seeing her inner world laid bare like this makes her feel a little broken, a little less important than before. Her fists clench. That was probably Kenneth’s intention with this whole exercise. She holds her head up high and walks toward her desk as if it has been located here all along.

  ‘Good afternoon, Kenneth.’

  ‘Afternoon, Isla.’ He nods. ‘Like your new office space?’

  She moves languidly towards the chair and settles in it, holding his gaze. Never break eye contact, and never cry. He mustn’t sense her weakness.

  ‘It’s just lovely, thank you. Here with you, right at the bold, beating heart of the news. I’m so – what’s the word – lucky.’

  He scoffs, ‘Damn right you’re lucky. If employment rights weren’t so heavily skewed in your favor, I would have had you out of here months ago. But for now you get the pleasure of sitting right in front of me, where I can keep an eye on you.’

  It’s not a coincidence that the only paper lying on her desk is a rival, breaking the news that Jay has been arrested. She curses herself for throwing it all away. The lead was hot in her hands, but she didn’t believe in herself enough to follow through with the story.

  Isla plugs in her cellphone to charge and watches it flash back to life. Was it all necessary? Did she have to go so far beyond the call of duty that she may never work a crime story again?

  But there is a thrill drumming in her fingertips, a hum at the back of her mind as the pieces of the story fall together, and a new audio file, recorded on her phone, shows that there is far more to this story than anybody could imagine.

  Chapter 58

  Isla

  Fifteen days after the murder

  ‘Hey, Simon! I saw this and I thought immediately of you.’

  ‘Simon, this was on the bookshelf and it had your name on it.’

  ‘Hi! I was in the area and thought . . .’

  No, no, all options sound wrong. This was a stupid idea. It seemed so natural yesterday. Isla was browsing the shelves of a bookshop close to the office, and saw a copy of the latest Ottolenghi cookbook. Simon loves it when his mother cooks Middle Eastern flavors and speaks fondly of long, heaving tables of food at Friday Shabbat dinners. Isla flipped through Ottolenghi’s recipes for latkes, hummus, tabbouleh. It seemed like a dead match. So she bought the thing. She even had it gift-wrapped.

  Today, the present feels too ostentatious, and too heavy in her hands. It feels like a statement that she cannot confirm or deny. But the station looms in front of her, so she may as well drop it off and check on the status of Jay’s arrest at the same time.

  ‘Is Simon in?’ she asks the woman up front.

  ‘Detective Simon Cohen?’ she corrects Isla, a little too frostily for her liking.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No. He just went out. Do you want to leave a message for him?’

  Maybe it’s for the best. It would be so embarrassing if Simon didn’t like the gift, or if he took Isla’s generosity to heart.

  She pushes the parcel across the desk. ‘Yes, I’d like to leave this for him, please.’

  The woman frowns, looks pained. ‘Sure, but I will need you to write down your full details on this slip, please, and go to security over there and get it scanned. We need to know there is nothing dangerous inside.’

  Oh God, this was just meant to be a small, casual gesture, and now it’s turning into a full-blown scene. Isla flushes, and offers the gift in its bright yellow wrapping to the guard.

  ‘Heavy,’ he says.

  ‘Yes,’ she apologizes.

  The scanner is situated at the entrance of the station, where both the waiting area and a sliver of the holding cells are in view. Isla spots a flash of jet-black hair. He is a bit scruffy and worse for wear, but Isla recognizes him instantly. Next to him is a man in a gray, well-cut suit filling out paperwork. His brightly polished shoes stand out against the sticky linoleum floor. Together, the men turn to leave.

  The first rubs his eyes, and when his hands move away, they meet Isla’s.

  Jay Singh. Tired and angry, but free to go.

  Chapter 59

  Freya

  Fifteen days after the murder

  Hey there, Freya.

  It’s on. Freya takes a deep breath and begins to type. Every word makes her feel complicit in this dirty game, but she has to know.

  Hey . . . how did you find me?

  A pause. The man on the other end is typing, is typing. Then nothing. Is typing. Finally, a message.

  What do you mean?

  Be bold. Don’t lose him.

  Where did you see my profile?

  He is bold too.

  And if I tell you, what will I get in return?

  It’s OK. She has flirted like this before. How many times has she humored a guy’s come-ons because she felt too polite to reject him outright?

  You’ll have to tell me, to find out . . .

  ‘TheSpark.com, where else?’

  Yes! Finally. Freya opens her MacBook. Now she is armed with an address of the dating site responsible for all of this. It’s different to the one she and Jay used, a fresh app that promises ‘a match in your area, in seconds’. Everyone knows this is code for a no-strings-attached hookup. Her phone lights up. Another message, another guy.

  I am sitting in this restaurant all alone. It’s the first time I have ever been stood up for a date. The least you could do is fucking reply. TEASE.

  Freya pushes it out of sight. This ordeal will be over tonight. Then she can turn her attention to her career again, and getting over Jay. This is to be expected, given he hasn’t had access to his phone, but she craves a feeling of closure, and the opportunity to ask him, why?

  ‘Ready for dinner?’ Kate calls from the kitchen.

  ‘Just a sec, I found the online dating site where my advert has been posted!’

  ‘Amazing! Take your time then.’

  ‘I’m hoping it will only be a few minutes.’

  ‘I’ll pour us each a glass of wine. To commiserate, and hopefully celebrate.’

  Her phone flashes again – she can fucking see it, even though she has put it on silent.

  ‘You know, you should change your number. In fact, you should have done that ages ago!’

  ‘Why should male harassment be my responsibility? Besides, I haven’t had the time,’ she snaps.

  ‘I can do it for you?’ says Kate.

  Freya ignores Kate. She ignores the phone too. Soon the buzzing will stop, and she will be able to breathe.

  ‘Dammit!’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Kate asks.

  ‘My computer’s started running updates!’

  ‘Try calling them from your phone? Not all social contact has to be initiated through a computer scr
een.’

  Freya feels sick as she reaches for her phone again. She needs to be proactive about this.

  ‘Good call.’

  She scrolls up and down the mobile site, looking for a contact number. Each page is beautifully designed, with softly lit images of happy couples. What a damn lie, she thinks. This website says nothing. It doesn’t tell her how to reach another human being, it doesn’t explain how another person could simply go online and pose as her, for days on end.

  Finally, she finds a tiny, innocuous icon in the bottom right-hand corner. Contact us.

  She calls the number with shaking hands, preparing what she is about to say.

  Someone used my personal details, and the photos from my Facebook account, and is posing as me. I don’t understand how this has happened, because my account is set to private.

  She swallows the guilt sticking in her throat. Braces herself to explain the situation out loud.

  But the moment doesn’t come. An enthusiastic recorded voice greets her on the other end of the line.

  ‘Welcome to Spark, where we light up your match! Our operators can’t come to the phone right now, but you can reach us at any time of day via our simple online help center.’

  Freya hangs up firmly and throws her phone across the couch.

  ‘Wine?’ offers Kate.

  ‘Thanks.’

  A few moments later, she cradles the glass in her hand, full, thick and red.

  Kate looks over, her brow furrowed. ‘You’re sure putting the booze away these days, Freya . . .’

  ‘Not lately – the past few weeks I can only stomach one glass!’

  ‘Before that, you were having almost a bottle a night.’

  ‘That’s only because of the situation with Nicole. I still don’t feel quite like myself again.’

  Her computer screen lights up. ‘Finally!’ Freya sighs. She bashes out a firm email to the faceless, probably soulless, people behind Spark.

  To whom this may concern,

  Someone has created a fake account in my name and has been matching with, and messaging people on Spark. I have received an avalanche of unwanted messages and images.