The Girl I Used to Be(36)

And then my phone beeped and I switched the engine off again. A new e-mail had come through to my Gmail account. I opened the app and saw a message from WatchingYou. My stomach tightened. How had he found my personal e-mail address?

The e-mail heading was Soon.

My fingers shook as I opened the message. At first I thought it was junk mail, the kind that usually goes automatically to my spam box, where you’re sent a link to a website and asked to enter your bank details and passwords for a prince in a kingdom far, far away. But the link in this e-mail, the only thing in the message, wasn’t to a fake bank and it wasn’t asking for a password or my life savings. It was a link to a website and it was clear from the URL that it was a site for voyeurs.

I leaned back, unable to believe my eyes. What did it mean? And then it dawned on me. I’d closed my Facebook account; had he tried to post the photos there? And now, finding that he couldn’t, was he going to post those photos of me naked, identifiable, on that website?

Immediately I tapped out a response, What do you want? Is it money? and waited ten minutes, my heart pounding and my mind reeling, but of course the only reply was to tell me that the e-mail address did not exist.

I had no choice. I had to speak to the police.





TWENTY-SIX


Sunday, August 6

I DECIDED TO go to the police first thing the next morning, rather than on a Saturday night. I knew they wouldn’t have time to talk to me then.

I waited outside the police station, trying to gather my nerves, then took my phone out of my bag and looked at it again. I looked at the messages I’d sent Joe, telling him that I’d had room service. I looked at the Instagram screen with the blank messages, all from the same person. And then I looked at the e-mail with the web address of a voyeur site, and my own pathetic attempts to get in touch with this person. Clearly he’d shut down his account immediately after e-mailing me.

It was so hard to control my anger toward David. How dare he treat me like this? No matter what had happened that night, no matter what I’d done, he had no reason to send me those messages.

At the police station I asked to speak to a female officer. When I was asked for my name, I said I was Gemma but didn’t want to give my surname. I also didn’t want to tell the guy at the desk why I was there. He looked at my face; I knew it showed signs I’d been crying and he said that was all right, that the female officer could take details. I sat down to wait, automatically feeling I’d done something wrong just because I was there.

Ten minutes later a woman came to the desk and ushered me into a small interview room. She introduced herself as Stella Barclay and was a bit older than me. I was nervous enough before I went in there, but that room, well, I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I think she saw that, because she fetched me a glass of water and told me to sit there and drink it and not speak until I felt better.

“How are you feeling?” she said. “Do you feel all right to talk?”

I nodded. “Sorry. I’m a bit nervous.”

“That’s okay. Now, can you tell me what you’re here about?” She had a notebook and pen on the desk, and somehow it helped that she was writing it in there and not staring at me as I spoke.

“I’m an estate agent,” I said. “I have my own office.”

“What’s the address?” she asked.

I hesitated. “I’d really rather not at the moment. Is that okay? I’m just looking for some advice.”

She closed her notebook. “That’s fine. What’s troubling you?”

I nodded. “A while ago, on the sixteenth of June, a man came in. He wanted me to show him around a few properties.”

“He just walked in off the street? No booking?”

“No, he’d e-mailed us about some properties. I check all the e-mails and voice mail messages and allocate the jobs between us. With the amount he was prepared to spend, I decided to take on the job myself, rather than give it to one of my staff.”

“And do you have that e-mail address?”

I nodded. “I do, but I’ve written to him there since and the e-mails have just bounced back.”

She grimaced. “Go on.”

“So I spent a few hours driving him around. He seemed fine. Very chatty. Charming.”

I think she thought I was going to say he’d assaulted me. She became very sympathetic. “What happened then?”

“Nothing happened. Not then. I drove back to the office and he went off somewhere after that.”

“And then?”

“A week later, I was in London at a training conference. I was staying in a hotel in Covent Garden and went down to the bar for a drink in the evening. And I bumped into the same man again. It was completely coincidental. We had a meal together. A nice conversation.”

“And then? Did something happen?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” I looked up into the officer’s eyes and saw nothing but kindness there. I knew she was used to hearing a hell of a lot worse than I was going to tell her. “But since that night, I keep being sent things. Photos. A video.”

“Can I see them?”

I shook my head again.

“Honestly, Gemma, you wouldn’t believe the things we see. There’s really no need to worry.”