Daisy in Chains(60)

‘Maggie, it’s Hamish. I need you to pick up right now.’





Chapter 53


‘MAGGIE, PICK UP. Pete, I know you’re there. Come on, you both need to hear this.’

Maggie feels her face drain. ‘He’s messing with us. Leave it.’

‘Pete, I have less than four minutes to make this call, I’ve jumped a queue of a dozen other guys and I really don’t want to dwell on what that’s going to cost me. Now f*cking well pick up.’

Pete stands, grabs the phone and switches on the loudspeaker. ‘What do you want, Wolfe?’

Wolfe says, ‘My cellmate just got back from computer class. There is a Facebook page you need to look at. Search for Hamish Wolfe. Come on, do it.’

Maggie spins her laptop around and types in the password.

‘It’s a community page,’ Wolfe is saying. ‘That support group my mother belongs to set it up. Someone posted about Maggie being appointed my lawyer and the abuse is piling up.’

‘Hardly a first,’ Maggie opens up Facebook. ‘It happens every time I take on a new client.’

‘Yeah, well, when was the last time someone posted your address and a photograph of your house on there?’

‘Shit.’ Pete comes to join her at the table.

The page appears, showing the usual pictures of Hamish looking like a Hollywood actor hired to play a serial killer. There is a series of posts from the public and, right at the top, a photograph of Maggie under the headline Top Lawyer Takes on Wolfe Case.

‘Where did they get that photograph? No one has my photograph.’ It is a snapshot. Maggie can’t place the location. Her face is half in profile but her hair is unmistakable, both the colour and length it is now. This picture is less than a year old.

‘I haven’t seen it yet.’ Wolfe is still on the line. ‘But I understand there’s another group called Vengeance for Myrtle. Started by Myrtle Reid’s stepfather and a couple of her brothers. Their aim is to get me castrated and blinded while they come up with something that will really teach me a lesson. From what Phil tells me, Vengeance for Myrtle published Maggie’s address on this page and they claim they have her phone number too. They’ve been posting threats all evening. My group are taking them down and blocking the trolls as soon as posts appear but the one with her address was shared several times before anyone spotted it. The information’s out there. Yeah, OK, mate, I’m coming. Just back off, will you? Fucking—!’

There is the sound of slamming, a breathless grunt. Maggie grabs the phone from Pete. ‘Hamish?’

The line has gone dead.

Somewhere in the room is the pinging sound of a text message being received.

Pete takes the receiver from her and replaces it. ‘He can look after himself. Go and lock the back door, check the others and then it would be really great if we could eat.’ He nods at her laptop screen. ‘I’ll have a look through this.’

It doesn’t take Maggie long to check security on her house. When she’s done, she carries the casserole dish to the table. Without looking up, Pete moves the laptop to free up a mat and she wonders at his ability to always be in the right place at the right time, to know what is needed and to do it, without being asked.

She cannot imagine this man being in the way. Or ever being irritated by his presence.

‘We see this sort of thing all the time.’ He is flicking down the screen, reading some posts, dismissing others with hardly a glance. She leans across so that she can see them too.

Kenneth Kill Boy declares his intention of throwing firebombs through Maggie’s windows this very night. Sten-Man plans to get a few friends together, break in and rape her up the arse, see how she likes what that bastard Wolfe did to other women. Both men know her address. Seconds after the posts appear they are deleted, someone is managing the page, but the damage has been done. Her safety has been compromised.

Pete closes down the laptop as another text arrives in a phone’s inbox somewhere. ‘Your address being out there is something we have to take seriously.’

‘I suppose.’

‘I can have uniform swing by here more often over the next few days and nights. I might even get someone outside tonight. Long term though—’

‘Please do nothing. I’m not worried. I may get a few unpleasant parcels in the mail. Nothing I can’t deal with.’

‘Maybe you should go home for Christmas after all.’

‘This is my home. I have no other.’ This is something she has known for years, its sadness never struck her before.

‘I’m sure the Crown can find you a room. Even if just for tonight.’

She picks up a fork. ‘Please eat. And everything is fine. I get abuse from time to time. It’s inevitable in my line of work. I make enemies and social media gives them a voice.’

She’s not sure she’s convinced him. She’s wondering what to say next, when a third pinging sounds. She gets up and reaches her mobile before the message fades.

‘Anything we need to worry about?’ She hears Pete’s voice from a distance. She turns. ‘My agent,’ she lies, because she needs time to think. ‘Routine stuff.’

Still puzzled, Pete forks a cube of lamb into his mouth, tears off bread and dips it into the gravy. He is hungry. She is not. It is getting increasingly difficult to put food of any kind into her mouth and her physical presence is lessened by the day. As the line on the bathroom scales creeps ever lower, so she has a sense of there being less of her. There may come a time when she ceases to exist altogether, when she melts away, like ice in a glass, like a stock cube slowly dissolving in gravy, like a rainbow when the sun shines a little stronger, and maybe that will be no bad thing.