After the initial enthusiastic greetings, as Sophie reclaimed her place in the office hierarchy, things slowly took a turn for the worse. Unlike Sophie, office politics had not enjoyed a year’s worth of maternity leave. A few people she almost remembered had disappeared without trace and a couple of vibrant young things, both women, had taken their place and seemed to be attracting more attention than Sophie thought appropriate. One of them, Viola, had been given a desk in Sophie’s old office on the second floor. In fact, she had been given Sophie’s desk in Sophie’s old office on the second floor and a different, slightly more dilapidated desk had been moved in alongside it for Sophie’s return. Viola immediately saw Sophie’s presence as a kind of demotion. That, in itself, would not have bothered Sophie, but what did bother her was Viola’s incessant habit of whispering to herself as she prodded her keyboard. By mid-morning on that first day back, Sophie was already toying with the idea of handing in her notice, but she wasn’t sure whether she would have to pay all her Statutory Maternity Pay back if she did so, because if that were the case she would be in financial ruin.
Just after noon, Viola’s co-golden girl, Bella, dropped by to collect Viola for lunch, gave Sophie a condescending smile and then bustled Viola out of the door with some giggle-worthy anecdote about a pilot she had met at the weekend. Sophie’s desire to condemn young women’s brainlessness was tempered by the realisation that she was merely watching a rerun of herself, maybe six or seven years ago. In the days before her stable, long-term relationship with Jonah the unstable. She waited until the giggling had faded into the distance then phoned Sam to check that Laura was OK. Sam said he was teaching her to play the guitar. Slightly relieved, Sophie headed down to the coffee machine on the ground floor, where she ran into her one-time speed-dating buddy, Joanna.
‘Sophie, why didn’t you tell me you were back.’ Joanna hurried over and they traded hugs. ‘God, it hasn’t been a whole year, has it? How’s the baby… Laura? How’s Jonah?’
Sophie took a step back and smiled. ‘He’s Robert.’ The explanation, punctuated by gasps from Joanna, took the entire cup of coffee. And some.
Inevitably, Joanna asked, ‘What are you going to do about it?’
Sophie spent another few minutes telling her about Sam. Joanna listened intently, determined not to allow a single detail to pass unrecorded, until her Supervisor popped his head through the door to tell her there was a call for her in the office. She re-hugged Sophie and hurried away. Sophie watched the door swing closed behind her, knowing with certainty that, by the end of the day, everybody in the entire organisation would be fully informed of her current status. On the positive side, it meant she wouldn’t have to keep repeating herself.
The afternoon was quieter. Viola’s need to whisper was clearly dulled by alcohol. Sophie threw herself into unravelling the explanation behind a missing consignment of Biohazard suits, edited an internal document regarding access to clinical trial data and by the end of the day was convinced that to continue working there was a crime against her own humanity.
Sophie trudged through Tuesday, spent Wednesday fretting about Thursday and Thursday rewriting her Section Manager’s article in Biowise, the company magazine, whilst listening to Viola summarise her catalogue of previous boyfriends. The only thing driving her on was the promise of the next three days at home with Sam and Laura. That evening, with Laura asleep, she awarded herself a pre-supper bath, deep and redolent with the scent of wild rose and jasmine. And gradually, as she watched the candlelight flickering in the bubbles around her, her mind freed itself from the horror of her first week back at work. Sam brought her a glass of something sparkling. ‘It might interest you to know that I’m considering a very large, circular bathtub for our new house. Jesse’s having a breakdown about it since it offends his commitment to straight lines. It’s for you to decide. Pie’s ready in thirty minutes.’
Twenty minutes later, Sophie pulled on her bathrobe, hurried into the bedroom and came to a halt. She could hear music coming from the lounge, wandered through and found Sam sitting on the coffee table, playing his guitar. She sat down beside him and listened to him accompany himself to a perfect performance of Make You Feel My Love. He stopped playing and waited for Sophie’s reaction. She ran her fingers along his sleeve.
‘I didn’t know you could play the guitar like that.’
‘Ah, Sophie, my love, there are many things you don’t know about me.’
Time passed. Inspector Blake made a brief weekend appearance at Greenfields to explain that a great deal of supplementary information had been recovered from Jonah’s laptop, but would remain inconclusive without some additional key data needed to link names and trace the beneficiaries of Jonah’s catalogue of false identities. With the guile of a committed puzzler, he had clearly stored these elsewhere. What they had so far was, at best, circumstantial. Essentially, they were still not able to nail him for anything other than tax fraud and money laundering. Remote site activity was being investigated but, so far, with zero success. Sophie explained that Jonah would never store data remotely on the understanding that cloud sites were the most efficient way of making your data available to the entire world. She asked Inspector Blake to keep her informed then left Sam to show him out whilst she returned to the summerhouse where Benz’s party was still underway. After half an hour, she began to wonder why Sam hadn’t appeared so she went to investigate and found him sitting at their dining table studying his computer screen.
‘I was wondering where you were.’
Sam looked up unsmiling. ‘You’d better see this. It’s a piece of video footage that was on Jonah’s laptop. Blake went against procedure and removed it on your behalf.’ He pulled a chair next to him and waited as Sophie sat down. Then he started the sequence. It was a good half a minute before Sophie realised that she was watching herself, naked, her right side towards the camera, her hair swaying rhythmically across her face. The man she was astride was not easily identified since his head was not in the field of view but, since Jonah was the only person she had ever had sex with whilst being pregnant, very heavily pregnant, she had to presume it was him. She watched in disbelief. Sam interrupted her mounting hysteria.
‘There’s audio if you’d like to hear yourself. The best bit’s coming up.’
‘Sam, how the hell…!’
‘Did you know about this?’
‘Of course I didn’t!’
‘What a sick bastard. You look as if you’re about to give birth.’
‘I was. I was overdue. We’d not had sex for weeks. And, if you have sex, the prostaglandins in the semen can help induce labour. And if you have an orgasm…’
‘That’s about another three minutes away.’
‘…It encourages the uterus to contract. Jonah was up for it. But I didn’t know he was filming it. I would never have agreed to that. I don’t remember seeing a camera.’
‘It would have probably been concealed. Did it induce labour?’
‘Yes. Laura was born the following afternoon. Oh my God, I’m about to…’ She threw her hands over her eyes. ‘Sam, turn it off!’ Sam turned it off and sat back in his chair. Sophie looked at him. ‘Please do not start with the wisecracks. I’m sorry you had to watch that. I’d hate to see you… Oh, God, who else has seen it? Did Inspector Blake watch it?’
‘He didn’t go into detail. Soph, I’ve given him my keys so he can check whether that camera’s still there. Check out whether it’s still filming and uploading to some remote site. It could be motion sensitive. Not likely, but it’s a possibility.’
‘What? You think it’s been recording me since then?’
‘And your latest partner.’ He started to laugh. ‘Sexy Sam the porno star.’
‘Sam, you can’t think this is funny.’
He became serious. ‘Of course I don’t. I’m hoping Jonah just made the video for his own entertainment, which, without your consent, is an infringement of your rights.’
Sophie got up and wandered over to collapse into the sofa. ‘This is awful.’
‘Actually, I thought it was hot. Can we have an early night?’
More time passed: Inspector Blake informed Sam that a small disconnected camera had been found inside the double socket above Sophie’s dressing table; Sam resumed his teaching load at the college; the students moved back in next door to Sophie’s empty house; Laura settled into her three days a week at the nursery; and Sophie became desensitised to Viola’s morning whisperings and managed to complete her fourth week of churning out official documents without losing her mind.
Then on a Friday afternoon in early October, Sophie was at home waiting for Sam to get back after his morning lectures, when her mobile rang. It was May Barnet. After four weeks of conscientiously not thinking about him, Jonah was back in Sophie’s life. Apparently, after a minor setback, which may have been stress-induced, he had rallied, although he was still suffering episodes of confusion. Functional MRI scans had been inconclusive regarding his memory loss, although, now that the tissue swelling was reduced, CT scans had indicated a much earlier skull fracture.
Sophie suffered an avalanche of guilt as she recalled Jonah’s distress over Sam’s deliberate provocation. She asked when the setback had occurred and was relieved when Mrs Barnet said that it had been just over three weeks ago, but different fears were awakened when she added that Mr Perrin’s episode had occurred during a friend’s visit. A rather rough-looking man who had not reappeared since. This may have been a coincidence, although the nursing staff had been instructed to report further visits from this same individual. Following two full weeks of rehabilitation, the doctors had decided it was almost time to consider accompanied trips to a permanent address. Perhaps towards the end of the month. Mrs Barnet’s voice began to wobble slightly as she informed Sophie that Mrs Perrin had stated categorically that she would not accommodate her husband and was filing for divorce on the grounds of adultery and criminal behaviour. She had suggested that her husband might more appropriately return to his previous address in Surrey now that it was unoccupied.
Sophie felt her lips go numb. Rosemary had stitched her up. She needed to present her case before things got out of hand. ‘Mrs Barnet, as Mrs Perrin mentioned, I no longer live in the house I shared with Mr Perrin, although I still part-own the house with my sister. My sister and I will allow Mr Perrin to occupy our property, for a limited period until it’s sold.’ She hadn’t actually spoken to Josie about accommodating Jonah and was still sending her rent from her paltry wages. ‘And I ought to point out that, since I have returned to work, I will not be available during Mr Perrin’s visits to the house or to assist in any subsequent periods when he might be living there whilst seeking more permanent accommodation. I will try to arrange a trip over to discuss details, perhaps this coming Wednesday, when I will be happy to dispense keys into Social Services’ safe-keeping.’ Thank goodness for the last four weeks of garbage-speak.
Mrs Barnet paused before saying that would all be most kind, and the conversation was terminated. Sophie collapsed into the sofa and recalled her last discussion with Sam regarding Jonah’s future accommodation. So, she did what anyone would do in the circumstances: she imprisoned Laura in her playpen then sat and stared mindlessly into the distance. Eventually, when she heard Sam’s car pulling up outside, she quickly tidied around, switched on the coffee machine and selected the Prokofiev violin concerto she knew was his favourite. Moments later, Sam strode in, threw his satchel down and came to a halt.
‘What’s wrong, Soph?’
‘What makes you ask that?’
‘I’m used to coming home to baby squalor and nineties pop music. What’s happened?’
Sophie sank back into the sofa. ‘I’ve just had a call from May Barnet.’
‘And?’
‘About Jonah’s living accommodation.’
He folded his arms. ‘And?’
‘There’s no need to be aggressive.’
‘Sophie, I don’t want you having anything to do with him.’
‘I don’t want to have anything to do with him either. I’ve told May Barnet he can be taken to my mother’s house for the time being but that I won’t be involved in the visits or when he’s staying there. She said he still can’t remember his recent past, which presumably means me and Laura. So, we’re not really involved anyway.’
Sam pushed both his hands through his hair. ‘Sophie, he’s lying. I know he had a brain injury but it wasn’t invasive enough for him to have retrograde amnesia.’
‘So, suddenly you’re an expert on the central nervous system, are you?’
‘Now you’re being aggressive. Sophie, this guy will ruin our lives if you let him.’
‘I won’t let him. I’m going over to see May Barnet next Wednesday. To give her my spare keys. I’ll catch a train. So, you won’t have to know anything about it.’
Sam exhaled frustration. ‘My lectures are cancelled next Wednesday. There’s a theatre trip: Macbeth. I already know the ending. I’ll get someone to go instead of me so I can drive you there.’ He stepped over and lifted her chin. ‘Let’s not argue about him.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘Now, shall we have some of your music?’ He picked up the remote. ‘What about Bitter Sweet Symphony? That seems appropriate.’
‘I’d rather have nothing. There’s enough noise in my head already. Sam, I think that bald gangster paid Jonah another visit. And, from what May Barnet said, it seems that whatever went on between them caused Jonah to take a turn for the worse.’
‘Sounds like my kind of gangster. Did she say when it happened? Perhaps he’s been captured on a security video. It’ll give Inspector Blake something else to watch.’
That evening they drank a lot of prosecco and avoided the subject of Jonah. By nine thirty, Sophie was finding it difficult to keep her eyes open.
‘I’m boring you already and we’ve only been together two months.’
‘I’m just tired. We have to leave so much earlier to get Laura settled ever since that little boy, Hadrian, snatched Clown-face away from her.’
‘I think that counts as foreplay in the under-twos.’
‘And I can’t be late into work. They’re probably looking for an excuse to replace me with another young flunky who earns less.’
‘You ought to tell them to stuff their job. I can support us both.’
‘On part-time lecturer’s pay? I already don’t understand how you can afford your new house. With all those expensive tiles.’
‘I told you, I get mate’s rates. And, besides, my mother left me and Jesse a fair bit, so if you play your cards right…’