The Pact

by Amy Heydenrych

  ‘So,’ he says, contempt coating his words, ‘if you’re such a clever girl – can you tell me what we did with the information?’

  She thinks for a moment. Come on, Freya, solve the problem! The algorithm was built to analyze the information and organize it into themes. Her thoughts return to the crudely handwritten list she found at Jay’s flat.

  Then, it hits her, like a slap across the face. The thread running between all women – Jay’s attention. His love for Freya was contrived, an act.

  ‘You used that information to make both Nicole and I fall in love with you.’

  ‘Genius, right? Julian and I wanted to test what interests we would have to reflect back at a person to gain their trust. We were going to sell this information to corporations to help with their digital marketing.’

  Her thoughts spin. Of course. Every corporation wants people to care about them enough to influence their decisions. The flipside of love is money.

  ‘You invented a mind game to make people spend money?’

  ‘You got it. We secured pre-emptive investment from fast-food corporations, banks, global clothing brands and even political parties looking to canvass voters. It’s not enough to simply sell products to people anymore, we need to find a way to make people fall in love with them. We are on to something here, and Atypical will make billions from this. Those little pro-bono projects in Africa that Julian talks about in the press don’t pay the bills, you know.’

  Freya’s heart is thudding now, loud in her ears. This feels dangerous. Will help come in time?

  ‘Everything you ever said to me was fake, even the clothes you were wearing the day I met you.’

  He sniggers darkly. ‘You women are so superficial when it comes down to it. Just mention a few of your favorite bands and you think we’re soul mates. We meant nothing, babe. And I proved my theory right by getting you to date me again, even after everything that had happened. At least with Nicole we had some sexual chemistry . . .’

  What a waste. All those starry-eyed days spent thinking they had something special. All those awkward evenings spent selling him to her friends. She can already hear Kate’s ‘I told you so’ ringing in her ears. If he hadn’t smiled at her across the room that first day, if she hadn’t smiled back, then everything would be different. She would be sleeping soundly at night, her life still blissfully simple.

  ‘Why do you hate me?’ she whispers.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Why do you hate me? Actually, why do you hate women so much? Why test this out on us?’

  He stares at her for a moment, face contorted with rage. He looks like a different person.

  ‘No matter how smart or accomplished I was when I was younger, women would never look at me. I was always the best friend, the person who had to listen to all their stories of first dates, first kisses and first times having sex. I’m an analytical guy, so I started to look for a pattern. The men that women went for always reflected an aspect of them. They weren’t looking for someone smart and challenging like me, they wanted a reflection of themselves. Once I saw it, I couldn’t get over how fucking pathetic it was, how easy.

  ‘So I changed. I began to mirror my female friends, and the women I met in bars. I gave them what I thought they wanted. God, I was good at it. It was only after running this theory past Julian one drunken night that we realized that it could make us money.’

  ‘That’s disgusting, you know that, right?’

  ‘It’s the truth. Relationships are superficial, a sham. I got into your head by hacking into your email, and your Facebook account. First, I used the information to make you fall for me, and then when I grew bored, to torture you. Everything you thought we shared was actually nothing.’ He laughs, long and low.

  Freya can’t hold it in any longer. ‘Well, babe, we may have meant nothing but that nothing has now created a baby. And believe me when I say that I am going to take you for every cent you have.’

  His face twists. ‘A. What?’

  ‘You heard right. A baby, and I’m keeping it.’

  Jay has scared her before, but she has never seen him this angry. His hand sweeps across the desks as he charges towards her. Old notepads and stationery items clatter to the floor.

  ‘You conniving bitch!’

  Freya frantically scrambles backwards. She needs to protect herself, and her baby. He came so close to hurting her last time.

  He moves forward. ‘You did it on purpose!’

  Fearful as she is, she can’t hold in her feelings any longer. She wanted to believe Jay was perfect for her but all this time he was selfish, weak, a coward.

  ‘It takes two to have unprotected sex, you idiot.’

  She slams backward into her desk. She is trapped in a corner, helpless. Please, please be awake, Isla! Please be on duty, Detective Cohen!

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, not to Jay, but to Nicole. It seems insane now that they both fought over someone so violent, that they convinced themselves that someone so empty was capable of love.

  As Jay pushes her to the ground, as he looms above her, one sneakered foot in the air poised to strike, she hears the sound of running, then the door to her office slamming open.

  ‘Freya! Freya? Jay Singh, get your hands off her!’

  Detective Cohen, thank God, throws himself at Jay and pins him down, forehead slamming into the desk. ‘You are under arrest for the assault of Freya Matthews.’

  Isla follows close behind him and pulls Freya up and into a hug.

  ‘We’re here now,’ she whispers. ‘Everything is going to be OK.’

  Chapter 99

  Isla

  Ten years ago

  The Blackberry rings, shattering the silence. The sound is shrill and alarming. Nobody calls Isla anymore, not since she came to her mother’s house to lick her wounds. Apart from Lizzie, and occasionally Kirsty, the friends with whom she used to share cigarettes, shots and clothes have cleared out. Old discarded flotsam from the night before that has washed away. The party is over now.

  It’s not vindictive, she knows that. People just freeze when it comes to what to say. Their party must go on. The dancefloor fills up, night after night. The beat pulls them in, there is no room for someone sitting broken at the bar, someone fragile holding them back.

  Nobody has directly asked her what happened. The news reports took care of that. The other information was passed on through whispers in the cold, joints being shared around a circle, and over coffee dates that she wasn’t invited to. Life flows past her, an ongoing river of nights out, drunken stories and love affairs. She stays paralyzed with the guilt that it was all her fault. Nobody has explicitly said that it wasn’t, so she assumes it was. She was so drunk that night, after all.

  She doesn’t recognize the number. Usually she wouldn’t pick up and would sit in silence, imagining who was mocking her on the other end. But she’s feeling a bit stronger today, so she leans forward and grasps the phone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi there,’ – the voice is of a young man, gruff and a little unsure – ‘am I speaking to Ms Isla Davis?’

  ‘Yes . . . is this a sales call? Now is not really a good time.’ She bites her lip at the easy lie. All she has is time. She is made of time. It lies before her unused, all the time in the world.

  He is quiet for so long, she thinks he has hung up. ‘No, no. My name is Officer Simon Cohen, and I’m currently following up on cold cases from the past five years. I see you reported a rape last year?’

  The phone shakes beneath Isla’s trembling hands. ‘I did, but you don’t need to bother following up. I dropped the case. It’s fine, I’m fine.’

  ‘I can see that you dropped it. Do you mind telling me why?’ His tone is so diligent and formal, as if he is following up on the customer service at a car dealership. Where does she begin? With the repeated flashbacks that make her stomach turn? Or the nightmares of her ex-boyfriend watching as she was assaulted? Can she sum up the angst, guilt
and rage holding her hostage in a sentence, delivered to a polite young man over the phone?

  ‘I didn’t think it would go anywhere.’

  ‘The trial?’ He sounds shocked. Isla imagines him over the phone, trussed up in a new uniform that doesn’t fit quite right, filled with pride, intent on believing that there is such a thing as justice.

  ‘You’re new to this, aren’t you?’ she says, sounding a lot wearier than her twenty-two years. ‘They’ve got away with it, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Now what else do you need from this call so I can get back to my life.’

  Her life, which is currently in a state of inertia. All she does all day is eat plates of dry chicken nuggets and oven chips in front of home décor shows. She had plans to continue the journalism degree she dropped out of after the attack, to get a job, but she cannot seem to leave the confines of her mother’s house. The world outside is too terrifying.

  The line has gone quiet. She thinks he has hung up, petrified by her bitterness. Instead his voice lowers to a whisper.

  ‘Ma’am, I’m not supposed to say these things, but I need to say this. What happened to you was wrong, it was a goddam tragedy. You deserved better, from the cops, from the media, and from the men who hurt you.’

  The compassion is so refreshing, it awakens something in Isla, something she hasn’t felt in months. ‘Thank you, I needed to hear that.’

  ‘Now if I were you, I would reopen the case. Then I would get out and do something that turns your pain into something useful. We all have the power to make the world a better place. I am determined to believe that, no matter how many times life tries to prove me wrong.’

  Isla turns a chicken nugget in her hand, slides it through the ketchup pooled at the side of her plate. ‘Thank you, Officer Cohen, you’ve given me a lot to think about.’

  ‘It’s a pleasure ma’am, have a lovely day.’

  And although the afternoon passes the way it usually does, something shifts in Isla. The next day she gets up, washes her hair, finds a working pen, dusts off her college applications and decides to become a journalist.

  Chapter 100

  Freya

  Two and a half months after the murder

  In one day, everything changes. Simon brings Jay into the station for assault, and the story about Julian hits the papers, unleashing a second wave of accusations. Freya, Hattie, Jasmin and even Kate are glued to the news.

  ‘It’s finally over,’ says Kate, hugging Freya. ‘The nightmare is finally over.’

  ‘Well, not quite,’ reminds Hattie, the resident crime buff. ‘They haven’t caught Nicole’s murderer yet.’

  Jasmin is incredulous. ‘It’s obviously Jay. Look at how violent he was to Freya! Or it could even be Julian. Why do you think he willingly turned himself in to the police? I’m sure it will all come out soon enough. One crime leads to another and he is practically dripping with motive.’

  Her mobile phone rings, and Freya steps into her bedroom, away from the excitement. It’s Ruth.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me calling you, Freya. I just wanted to apologize. You tried to reach out to me, and you tried to tell me about what Julian had done to you and I ignored it, just like I did with everyone else. He and I have been friends for years, and it was easier in a way to pretend that you were simply young and emotionally immature.’

  ‘It’s OK, Ruth.’ She doesn’t really mean it. Rage stirs within her. Ruth was Freya’s mentor, and she should have protected her.

  ‘But I feel so guilty. If I had let myself read the signs I could have prevented so much from happening.’

  Freya feels a little sad for her, but won’t let her off that easily. Ruth had the power to do something, power that none of them had. She signed the HR documents that dismissed Freya for an emotional sabbatical. She believed Julian’s lies about her being crazy.

  ‘Why call me now? Do you only feel sorry now that we have all been brave enough to tell our stories? We needed you, Ruth.’

  ‘I know. And I feel your pain.’ She pauses, and Freya thinks she hears a sniffing sound on the other end of the phone. Her boss – all-powerful, formidable and severe – is crying. ‘I’m also going to the police station this afternoon.’

  ‘Why?’ Freya’s mind races. Did Ruth kill Nicole in order to protect Julian? Would she go that far?

  ‘I know where Julian was the night of Nicole’s murder, and unfortunately what I have to say will prove his innocence.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Because I witnessed Julian, in his drunken state, trying to force himself on one of the interns. When I tried to pull him off her, he threatened me. I hate to say it but it wasn’t the first time I’d witnessed something like that. I tried to dismiss it, and act like it didn’t matter, but I think it’s time I stand up for other women for a change, don’t you?’

  Freya can’t believe Julian got away with it for so long, and that someone as powerful as Ruth was too intimidated to speak out.

  ‘You did the best you could,’ she says, and then adds quietly, more to herself than to Ruth, ‘If Julian didn’t kill Nicole, the police will have to reconsider that it was Jay.’

  Chapter 101

  Nicole

  The night of the murder

  Nicole sits on the sofa in her dressing gown, twirling her fork through a bowl of pasta. She sprinkles parmesan with a heavy hand, and adds a dash of chili. Comfort food, and hell, has she earned a little bit of comfort tonight. First, there was the strange incident of someone trying to place a dating advert in her name and then there was her hookup with Jay.

  She thought she would feel a little better seeing him in her bed, naked and wanting her. For the minutes building up to the sex, and a few seconds after, she almost did. It was the victory she had been after for so long. All those days seeing him with her made her sick. Freya didn’t deserve him, she didn’t know how to love him the way she did. But he didn’t hold her when they were done, or play with her hair like he used to. He simply stood up, put his clothes back on and gruffly excused himself. It would have hurt less if he had made an excuse, or took the time to conjure up a lie, but he didn’t meet her eye, not once. She heard him tapping on his phone after cleaning himself up in the bathroom. Minutes after that, he was out the door.

  She turns on the television and pours another glass of wine. Tonight cemented Freya as Atypical’s new It girl. She is smart, beautiful, easygoing. Nicole, on the other hand, is difficult, messy and dark. Her intelligence has a dangerous edge, like a sharpened blade. She says things that people – Julian in particular – don’t want to hear. Nobody likes an inconvenient woman. Even as Jay shifted, as he touched her body, she knew that he wasn’t doing it out of desire. Nicole was a liability, a pot boiling over the edge. She’d had enough of Atypical’s boys’ club tendencies, Julian’s come-ons and some of their dishonest business practices. She’d been threatening to blow the lid for some time, which earned her a stint at a high-end retreat supposedly to treat her bipolar disorder. The more she grieved for Jay and what they had, and the more he paraded his new relationship in front of her, the angrier she became. Jay knew that Nicole had nothing to lose, and he was trying to keep her quiet.

  It was never meant to be like this. She is a good person, kind, loving. She was supposed to be the shining star, dangling on Jay’s arm like the Rolex he used to sport before that vintage embarrassment he now wears. She used to receive all the praise for a job well done. But bad things have happened, so she lashed out.

  A firm knock on the door. Her heart leaps. Maybe it’s Jay, returning to apologize for how wrong he’s been. Maybe he will share her pasta like old times. They will curl up together, and he will wake up in the right woman’s bed after all.

  She adjusts her gown so it slips and reveals her left shoulder. Jay always loved her collarbones. He called them elegant.

  The knocking again, more urgent this time.

  ‘OK, OK I’m coming!’

  She opens the door, already smil
ing in anticipation. It doesn’t have to be a bad night after all. It could be the kind of night that turns everything around.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, uncertainty fraying at the edges of her grin, a nervous laugh escaping her lips. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  Chapter 102

  Isla

  Two and a half months after the murder

  It’s been so long since Isla has rushed across town, arms laden with flowers and a box of chocolates for the host, on her way to a party. But she and Freya agreed that after the tension of the past few months, everyone deserves a celebration.

  Julian submitted himself to the police and will stand trial for eight instances of sexual assault. Jay has agreed to pay Freya a monthly stipend for her child, and is under investigation for illegally accessing both Nicole and Freya’s personal data. Nothing has reached the press just yet, but Simon has shared with her that they have brought in Kenneth and the Deputy Chief of Police for questioning. Together, the three men have been sharing and selling personal data retrieved through Atypical’s data mining, in conjunction with police records, and have been actively squashing the story in the press.

  She listens to a voice message from Lizzie. ‘Isla! That case you’ve been obsessed with has hit London. Everyone is talking about what a smart, fascinating woman Nicole was.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘It’s all because of your hard work, really.’

  ‘I don’t know. I never even figured out who the murderer was in the end.’

  ‘But you tried, and challenged the perception of Nicole as a victim who deserved her fate. I think that’s more than enough.’

  Isla reaches the apartment, where Freya opens the door, looking more at ease than she has in weeks. Her loose sweater still doesn’t reveal a bump, but there is a visible glow to her. Isla dumps the flowers and chocolates in the kitchen and joins the party that is already in full swing. Mel is there, along with the rest of Nicole’s friends. Freya’s roommates laugh raucously in the kitchen, while trying and failing to fry stuffed jalapeno pepper appetizers. Even Simon is here, in the corner, looking earnestly formal in a checked collared shirt and generous lashings of aftershave.