Zoe Whitman was sitting at her laptop, tapping away at its keys, reading the latest questions sent in by readers of her blog. From time to time, she would check her phone – swiping up, frowning and murmuring to herself – put it down and continue to type. It was difficult to focus after Tuesday. That was her excuse anyway; someone dying right next to you, especially the way he’d died, arms and legs all over the place, spitting and gurgling, clutching and tearing at his chest. If someone had behaved like that in an audition, they’d have been rejected for over-acting. It wasn’t something you could easily forget.
But Zoe didn’t have to rely on her memory. She had it all on film. She hadn’t meant to record everything – not the bit where he died. She’d just wanted to film the intro, then she was going to switch off and start recording again, when it was her turn to speak – Brett had told her that was OK and she’d cleared it with his assistant – but that wasn’t what happened. So now she had this sensational, could-see-his-eyeballs-bulging footage of his death, recorded on her phone, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it.
‘You have to post it,’ her best friend, Sophie, had said when she’d confided in her. ‘It’s like…an exclusive.’
‘No way,’ her joint bestie, Amy, joined in. ‘I mean, it’s someone dying. It’s like, gruesome. And people will hate you for it.’
‘That’s true,’ Sophie reconsidered. ‘Major backlash potential. Forget it, babes. But such a shame. Think what it could have done for your ratings.’
Whenever Zoe had re-watched the film, as she had over and over throughout Tuesday afternoon, it had felt strangely personal; Brett’s gasps and splutters, sweat soaking through his shirt, his last murmurings to his assistant. But also, the things he’d said when he first stood up, the way he’d stretched out his arm in her direction, said her blog was ‘staggeringly popular’, made that joke about sandwiches. It was as if he was executing all of it just for her. And the more Zoe watched it, the more she became convinced that this was true. She felt that there was a reason why she, alone, had this footage. There must be. She just couldn’t be sure what it was, yet.
Then, in the middle of Tuesday night, after at least a dozen viewings, that tickly sensation had returned, this time beginning at her fingertips and spreading through her torso. When it reached her head, she had closed her eyes and focused on an image of Brett’s face. After a few minutes, she had sensed his presence in her bedroom, viewing him in her mind’s eye, with his index finger pressed firmly against the lips of his pallid face. She understood, then, that he had entrusted the film to her, to keep intact and private, not to hand over to the police to poke and probe, not to share with strangers, and she was pleased she hadn’t published it.
Anyway, now it was too late. The guy with the tripod at the hall, the official camera guy –he’d given the police his version and someone had leaked it. In the twelve hours before its removal from YouTube, it had notched up 36,000 views. There was no point her coming forward now – second place was for losers.
Zoe returned to her blog and answered some incoming messages. After that, she would prepare for her podcast. Last week, she had achieved more than a thousand listeners and ten times that via YouTube. This week it was bound to be more. True, she’d balked at sharing the video of Brett’s last moments – and decided against it – but nothing had stopped her downloading to her audience that she had been there, at Tanners’ Hall, replete with sad-face emojis and a photo of Jackie at JFK’s funeral, and the sympathy and the followers had flooded in, salvaging something worthwhile, after all.
It was funny the things Zoe recalled from that afternoon, aside from Brett’s death. She remembered Sue, the mousey scientist woman, had been nice to talk to – well, a good listener anyway. She’d have really liked to hear more about her work. She could ask Sue to do a feature on the insect stuff for her blog. Insects were meat, right? She knew they weren’t like real animals, but that could help draw new people in, people who were a bit ‘on the fence’ about eating things with fur and eyelashes. She’d message the prof in a day or two, ask her if she’d like to write a guest post.
And Dr Edge – Call me Adrian. He was a riot! Who’d have thought he could be so sarky, when he oozed Mr Nice Guy on his radio show?
Who else had she chatted to? Oh, yes. She’d asked Rosa about her dress – more to be polite than anything else, because, to be honest, it was just a tiny bit tight on her. Rosa had explained it was made from ‘discarded orange peels’. Apparently, someone went to all these cafés where they squeezed oranges for juice and shit, collected the skins, boiled them up and out came these fancy clothes. When Rosa wasn’t talking about that, she was coming out with all these stupid buzzwords, the kind of words that celebs think will help them get noticed: lifestyle choices and sentient beings. It was all so transparent, so 2019.
Zoe paused her stream of consciousness. Was she imagining it, or had she heard a noise coming from her bedroom? She stopped scrolling, sat very still and, when all seemed quiet, she held her breath. There it was again, a light tapping noise, as if someone or something was knocking on her bedroom window. Her face became hot and, although she was forced to start breathing again, otherwise she would probably have died, she remained very still, straining her ears. The tap, tap, tap continued now and, with a lump of lead in the centre of her stomach, weighing her down more and more with each step, she tiptoed towards her bedroom and peered around the door.
She saw it almost immediately. A giant bumblebee, knocking against the pane over and over in a bid for freedom. Zoe crossed the room, opened the window and watched it fly away, smiling to herself at her act of kindness. But, as she turned around, she caught sight of an image in her mirror, an image of a face that was not her own, a face contorted and strained, skin stretched tight, muscles labouring, expanding even as she watched, spreading out to fill the opposite wall: Brett Ingram, struggling for breath. He had come to her again, this time when she was awake.
Go away, she whispered, covering her eyes and repeating the command inside her head, willing him to leave. Go away. She repeated her entreaty, peering through the gaps in her fingers. When she finally lowered her hands and looked around her, swaying a little from side to side and resting against the bed to steady herself, Brett’s ghost had left the room. She took a deep breath, returned to the kitchen and downed a glass of water. Then she climbed up onto a chair and dug around at the back of the highest cupboard till she found a bar of Dairy Milk. She bought her chocolate by mail order in plain packaging; she couldn’t risk anyone seeing her with it in her supermarket trolley, in case she was recognised – chocolate was not officially permitted on her carnivore diet. This was her last bar, reserved for emergencies only.
When she’d eaten most of the chocolate, and her heart rate had finally returned to normal, she began to wish she hadn’t willed Brett away after all. It had just been a bit of a shock, seeing his face superimposed over her Peaky Blinders poster. First the film on her phone and now him appearing like that; he must have something he wanted to tell her. That was how it worked in all the books she’d read and docudramas she’d watched. Next time, she’d be ready for him. Next time, she would listen to what he had to say.