The Girl I Used to Be(39)

Still in Incognito mode, I created a new e-mail address for myself, using a fictitious name, then reported one of the posts:


Hi, I need to talk to someone about privacy and can’t find an e-mail address. Someone is threatening to post explicit photos of me on this site. Obviously I don’t give permission for that. If I see a photo of myself and report it, will it be taken down? Thanks.

I added my new e-mail address to the end of the message and clicked Send. I doubted I’d get a reply, but I couldn’t think what else to do.

Stella had asked me if I wanted them to take things further but confirmed I shouldn’t hold out too much hope. “What with throwaway phones being so cheap, and as it’s more than a month after you met him in London, I really doubt whether there’s anything we can do now. I do want you to keep in touch with us, though.” She gave me a contact number and I put it into my phone. “If you think of anything else, you must tell me straightaway. Don’t try to contact this man.”

I nodded but she wasn’t convinced.

“I mean it,” she said. “If you want us to investigate, come back and I’ll do what I can. But in the meantime, don’t try to find him.”

“Right.”

We sat for a second while I got myself together and then she said, “I need to ask you something but I don’t want to upset you further. Is it possible that you had sex that night?”

“No,” I said immediately. “No, it’s not possible. I would know, wouldn’t I?” She said nothing and so I said again, “No. I would know if I had. I would have noticed.”





TWENTY-EIGHT


Monday, August 7

BY MONDAY MORNING I was desperate for Joe to come back, if only because I was taking some time off when he returned.

“Are you feeling all right?” asked Sophie. She startled me; I must have been miles away, thinking about seeing Joe and Rory again. I looked up and saw her standing by my desk, a look of concern on her face.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Can I get you some water?”

“I’d love some.”

She fetched a bottle out of the fridge and passed it to me. It was only when I went to the cloakroom afterward that I saw why she was worried; my face looked pale and tense, my eyes showing the strain of staying up late searching the voyeur site for naked photos of myself.

At the morning meeting I sat back while Rachel took control. She’d clearly watched me closely at those meetings and followed the same routine that I did. She seemed so much more confident now. I had a notebook on my knee to make notes to go through with her later, but I was too distracted and worried. While I made a pretense of listening to her, I made note after note of what had been done to me and what I had to do to make things right.

Lucy came into the office just as the meeting was about to end. I’d sent her a message asking her to call in when she dropped her daughter off at school. She sat down at the meeting table with us.

“Now that we’re all here,” I said, “I want to bring up the issue of safety. I don’t want anyone to meet a client outside the office unless we have seen some form of ID. Check it carefully, too, then photocopy it and keep it with your files in the office. If you’re unsure, ask me.”

“Why’s that?” asked Rachel. “Has something happened?”

“I’m just looking out for you,” I said. “You’ve all heard about Suzy Lamplugh disappearing. In those days they just had to write the client’s name in the diary. We do more than that since we collect their address, e-mail, phone number, et cetera, but it’s still not enough. If we’re taking clients to a property, we need to make sure we’re safe. And if you have any doubts about a client—any at all—then make sure you don’t go anywhere with them. I’ll deal with them myself. If I’m not in, tell them they have to wait until I’m back. And when I’m not here, then I want two of you to lock up together. If that’s not possible, I’ll come back to the office or send Joe to lock up.”

They looked a bit subdued.

“Everyone still remembers the code word, don’t they?”

“Anne-Marie Thomson,” said Sophie.

“That’s right,” I said. Anne-Marie had been a friend of mine when I was in school and I’d chosen her name as our code word, which acted as a distress signal. If any one of us used her name in a call, it was a signal that we needed help. “Don’t forget, it doesn’t matter what you say, as long as you mention her name. You can say she’ll be coming into the office later than planned or that you need to meet with her. Anything at all. Rachel, can you remind us what happens when Anne-Marie’s name’s mentioned?”

“We have to ask questions where the answer’s yes or no,” she said promptly. “Like ‘Are you where it says you are in your diary?’ If the answer is no, we have to phone 999.”

“And, don’t forget, you must never go out without your panic alarm. If you leave it at home, let me know. There are spares in the cupboard, but I need to know if someone’s taken them out. Do you remember the rule about always walking behind the client?”

Lucy said, “That’s quite a hard one to stick to. Some people are quite insistent that I go into the house first.”