London, 2017
I shower and put on some clean clothes. I’ve taken a couple of paracetamol and I should be starting to feel better, but I don’t. My agent is going to dump me. He didn’t even reply to the email I sent, his assistant did, and only to say that Tony could squeeze me in an hour from now, giving me almost no time at all to get ready. This latest invasion of reality into the fictitious happy life I had curated for myself was unexpected. I don’t have sufficient defenses left to stop, or even subdue, the attack of anxiety that follows. I’ve only just got the life I thought I wanted; I can’t possibly lose it now.
“Your agent probably just wants to have a chat, like his email says. I think you’re reading far too much into it,” says Jack, as I attempt to apply some makeup.
I don’t normally bother with the whole face-paint routine when I’m not working; I’m not good at that sort of thing. My fingers find the shape of a lipstick inside my bag. I try to steady them enough to put it on, then realize too late that the bright red lipstick isn’t mine. It’s hers. The woman who left it here when I wasn’t. Only my lower lip is red, and for a moment I’m so tired and confused I consider leaving it that way.
“It’s just one stupid article, everyone will have forgotten about it by tomorrow, and I’m sure your agent doesn’t care whether you are having an affair,” Jack adds.
I turn to face him. “But we’re not having an affair.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” He’s sitting on Ben’s side of the bed with his feet up. I don’t know why I feel so guilty when I haven’t done anything wrong.
“I still don’t understand how Jennifer Jones got those pictures.” I apply the color to my upper lip and look at my reflection. For a moment, it’s Alicia’s face that I see. The idea that she is having an affair with my husband, and that the two of them are trying to frame me, still seems ridiculous, but stranger things have happened. Maybe I was too quick to dismiss it. Ben is handsome and charming, witty and fun. At least that’s the version of himself he presents to the rest of the world. Nobody would believe who Ben is behind closed doors. Just the idea of the two of them together feeds the hate that has been growing inside me all these years. Alicia has been a bitch to me ever since school.
“How well do you know Alicia?”
“Not so well.” Jack laughs. “But I don’t think she’s been taking secret pictures of us on her iPhone and selling them to the press, if that’s what you mean.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that.” I think, however, I might have been. I try to think about it logically. “It was a closed set, only a member of the crew could have taken a photo of our sex scene. I suppose there are lots of people who could have taken a photo of us in the bar last night, but the picture in my dressing room?”
“Jennifer Jones was waiting in your dressing room for you on the morning you did the interview.”
“So?”
“So, she must have planted a small camera before you arrived.”
“Really? That sounds highly unlikely. She’s a showbiz journalist, not James Bond. Is that even legal?”
“I think you’ll find people will do almost anything for a story nowadays, regardless of whether it is ethical or true.”
We head downstairs, and I pause in the kitchen to drink some water. Going into town to see my agent with a hangover is not ideal, but I’m keen to get this, whatever it is, over. I catch sight of the bin in the corner of the room and remember what is inside it: the empty bottles of lighter gel that the police think I bought. I feel sick all over again.
“I’m just going to put the rubbish out, I think it’s starting to smell.”
Jack comes towards me. “I can do that for you—”
“No, really I’m fine. Why don’t you wait in the lounge, it will only take a minute.”
Jack is staring at something in his hand when I come back inside a short time later.
“Who’s this scary-looking chap?” He holds up the framed black-and-white photo of my husband as a child.
“Ben when he was a boy. It’s the only photo I could find of him.”
“Strange.”
“I know. I looked everywhere, there used to be lots—”
“No, I meant strange as in it looks nothing like him.”
I had forgotten that Jack and my husband met at a party a few months ago. Ben invited himself along in a fit of jealousy and paranoia, and I was furious. I found it flattering when we first got together, the way he wanted me all to himself. But as time went on, the flattery faded into an afterglow of resentment. I’ve made a bad habit out of loving people who put me down, hoping they’ll pull me up. They never do. I just fall further, harder, faster.
I remember seeing Jack and Ben talking together in the corner at the party that night, as though they were thick as thieves, and finding it strange. The memory unsettles me, as though I preferred the two of them being separate entities in my life, the fact that they’ve met somehow contaminating my future with my past. A mental note scratches itself onto my subconscious; like a sharpened pencil it leaves a mark, but will be easy to erase.
Jack puts the creepy picture back down, follows me out of the lounge and into the hallway. I open the front door, not expecting to find someone standing on the other side about to ring the bell.
“Well, well. Fancy finding the two of you together this morning,” says Detective Croft with a wide smile. Wakely stands by her side, and I can see two large police vans parked on the street behind them.
“I might head off.” Jack looks almost disappointed, as though he was expecting there to be someone else outside. “I’ll see you later.” I frown, not sure why he is saying that, especially in front of the detective. “At the wrap party,” he explains, seeing the confusion on my face. I had forgotten that was tonight.
“The wrap party! How exciting, what a thrilling life you superstars lead. Can we come in?” Croft is already stepping towards the door.
I block her path. “No, I’m sorry. I’m on my way out.”
“It won’t take long. I wanted to update you about the stalker you mentioned.”
She has my attention now, but I still can’t be late to meet my agent, not today. “So, update me.” I keep the front door half-closed.
She smiles again. “All right. First, I just wanted to show you some more footage we’ve obtained. It’s from the day you reported Ben missing.” She takes out her trusty iPad and gives it a swipe. “Here is some CCTV footage of the bank, at the exact time your account was emptied and closed.”
I stare at the screen and see the back of a woman who looks just like me walk up to a counter. “I told you, she dresses like me—”
“She had your passport as a form of ID.”
I hesitate. “Well, then it must have been fake, I—”
“We checked the emails that you claimed were sent to you by someone calling themselves Maggie O’Neil. We traced the IP address and discovered that you had sent them to yourself. From your own laptop.”
I can’t speak at first. The suggestion is ludicrous, I haven’t been sending myself emails, why would I? “You’re mistaken,” I say, hearing my voice crack a little as I do.
“We traced the IP address. There’s no mistake.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Is your passport missing?”
I think for a moment, then remember that it wasn’t just Ben’s passport that had disappeared from the drawer where we keep them. “Yes, it is!”
She sighs. “Does anyone else have access to your home?”
“No. Wait. Yes, we used to have a cleaner.”
“Used to?”
“She returned her key, but she could have made a copy.”
“Why did you fire her?”
“I didn’t fire her … we just stopped using her.”
Because I’m a private person and didn’t like the idea of someone snooping around my home, touching my things.
Croft stares at me long enough for my cheeks to flush with color, but I’ve learned not to say more than I need to.
“Do you think your ex-cleaner is your stalker?”
It seems unlikely, but I still consider the possibility. Maria was a little older than me, but about the same height. She changed her hair color more often than most people change their sheets, but she had access to my clothes and my passport. I suppose we might look the same from the back. But it can’t be her, she always seemed so … nice.
“We also checked the search history on your laptop,” Croft continues without waiting for my conclusions. “Someone, presumably you, was looking up divorce lawyers … or do you think that might have been your former cleaner too? Perhaps she doesn’t have internet at home.”
That was me. But I didn’t call any of them. I was just upset. How dare Croft invade my privacy in this way. I let them take my laptop in good faith, and once again she’s using everything against me.
“Do you own a gun, Mrs. Sinclair?”
I don’t answer.
“According to our records, you do. Do you think that the amnesia your husband mentioned might have made you forget that too?”
No. I remember everything. I always have.
“It’s not a crime to own a legally registered gun.”
“That’s right, it’s not. Can I see it?”
I hold her stare. “If you had anything real on me, you would have arrested me by now.”
She smiles, takes a step closer. “You’re right, I would.”
“Have you even heard of innocent until proven guilty?”
“Yep, sure have. I’ve heard of God and Father Christmas too. I don’t believe in them either. We’d like to search the property again, if it’s convenient.” She looks over her shoulder at the two police vans. The side doors are open and I can see several officers inside each one.
“It isn’t convenient, and don’t you need a warrant to search my home?”
“Only if you refuse to give us permission.”
“Then I suggest you get one.”