The Girl I Used to Be(70)

“Sophie will be here in a minute,” I said urgently. “What do you think it was?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I think he was taking photos of me,” she said. “While I was asleep. I heard the click and that’s what woke me. And he got into bed. He’s got one of those lamps that charges up a phone. He plugged his phone into that, then kissed me good night and went to sleep.” She looked really miserable. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Has he ever taken photos of you before?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing like that.” There was a pause, and she said, “Or at least not as far as I know. How would I know, though?”





FIFTY-TWO


    RACHEL


SOPHIE CAME UP to us then and I had to busy myself with the voice mail messages and e-mails, and get ready for the morning meeting. It was hard to concentrate and I could tell from the expression on Gemma’s face that she was finding it equally difficult. Brian was back at work and I noticed she passed on the keys from the apartments we’d viewed the day before, asking him to take them back to Bill later that day. My face smarted at the memory of that conversation.

I could tell that Gemma wanted to speak to me. She kept looking over and checking where Sophie was, as though she was going to come over to talk to me if she got the chance. I kept my eyes averted. I couldn’t focus on work and think of everything we’d talked about. I needed to keep my mind off David’s activities last night, but now that I’d seen the voyeur site I was terrified that photos of me would end up there. I desperately wanted to check it at work, and I think that was when I realized what it had been like for Gemma. She’d said that she’d been obsessive about checking it every day, looking at the new pictures that appeared there hourly, trying to work out if she was on there. I felt sick at the thought of David doing that to either of us, and I had to force myself to be friendly to him when he sent his regular texts.

Eventually Gemma sent me an e-mail.

Are you feeling OK? Do you need to go home?

I gave a quick look around the office. A young couple was looking at the details of some first-time-buyer properties; otherwise only Sophie was there and she was preoccupied with the coffee machine.

No, I don’t want to go home. He’s working from home today and I’ll end up saying something to him.

Sophie clattered in, bringing drinks for all of us and the biscuit tin.

“What were those apartments like yesterday?” she asked me.

I didn’t dare meet Gemma’s eye. “They were great, yeah.”

“Ask Brian to take you next time he goes,” Gemma told Sophie. “Have a good look around before we get tenants in.”

As soon as Sophie was back at her desk, Gemma sent me another message.

You need to say something. Those photos could be anywhere.

Instantly my face became hot. I know.

The clients came over to speak to Gemma then, and I heard them ask whether they could view a house that evening. She called the vendors to arrange it, and then when they’d left the office she took her purse from her bag. “Sophie, would you do me a huge favor? It’s Lucy’s daughter’s birthday next week. Would you pop out and get her a card and a present? Oh and some wrapping paper, too.”

Sophie looked delighted. Time out of the office and shopping with someone else’s money! She took the money and was gone before Gemma could change her mind.

As soon as the office was empty, Gemma pulled up a chair next to my desk.

“We need to go to the police.” She spoke in a low voice, even though nobody was around. “He took those photos of me and now he’s taken photos of you. He could be sending them anywhere. It’s illegal; you know it is. We need to do something. We need to stop him.”

“I know,” I said. “But you know it’ll get into the press, don’t you? It’s the sort of thing they love. Especially with him doing it to both of us. I read about a court case a while ago where a man was filming his wife at home and it was all over the newspapers. Aren’t you worried about that?”

“Of course I am. Legally they can’t print our names, but it doesn’t stop people talking. They kept my name out of the paper before, but it didn’t make much difference. Everyone knew about it before too long. It was awful.”

I couldn’t help it. I snapped, “What do you think it was like for us? At least you’re still alive.”

She stood up, her face pale and strained. She leaned over and whispered, “You think there wasn’t a cost to me, too? I was raped!” Her voice shook. “And now your husband is abusing me.”

I watched as she went back to her desk and put the files and stationery into her drawer. She locked the drawer and logged out of her computer. I couldn’t take my eyes off her; she didn’t give me a second glance.

Without another word to me, she walked out of the office.





FIFTY-THREE


    GEMMA


Tuesday, August 15

I DROVE ROUND aimlessly for a while, too shaken to go home. I parked the car in the car park overlooking the River Dee and paid for an hour so that I could sit and think.

I felt the bite of Rachel’s words more than she probably expected. She loved her brother, clearly, and when he died she was only young. No matter what I thought of him, the idea of her seeing the police arrive at their house at New Year’s with such terrible news was truly awful. I didn’t hear about it until a few weeks later. My parents had read about it in the local newspapers, but they didn’t tell me, and by then, just months after leaving school, I wasn’t really in touch with anyone anymore. We were all away at different universities and it was too easy to slip away from the group. I’d refused to go home that Christmas and so we all went to my grandparents’ in Staffordshire instead. I went back to London from there.