6 October
Soon as I realised how effortlessly Scott had lied, I should have run to the hills.
When he told me that contact lens story in Leeds, he even said, It’s true, I swear. I know it was only a trivial joke, but nevertheless the sociopathic prick swore his lie was true. One of many red flags I failed to spot, and now here I am, starring in a little video he made. Running time: two hours and twelve minutes.
Sick to my stomach, with Izzy’s hand planted on my shoulder for moral support, I brace myself to watch. She and I have come back inside the living room because the wind’s getting up and the temperature has plummeted in all sorts of ways.
Onscreen, my past self lies asleep on her back. Not on a bed, but on the living room floor. My head is resting on my own bunched-up jacket. The only soundtrack on this video comes from gulls and the occasional motorbike engine, car horn or squeal of brakes.
When Izzy and I worked together, she was always the more thorough one. I like to think this wasn’t because I was lazy or didn’t care, but she always had the more even temperament. She’d really take her time to study patients, often spotting things I’d missed. In fairness, I’d failed to spot this video during my first skim through because the preview still didn’t show my face. The thumbnail was mostly black, because the camera only focuses on my face three seconds into the video. Scotty Boy’s direction skills were sub-par that night.
My voice comes out cracked as a desert floor. “Looks like the first night I stayed here. But how did he get in? I had all the boxes pushed up against the door.”
For the first time, I study the living room ceiling, looking for trap doors. I want to rush back into the hall and the bathroom and study the ceiling there, too. How could Scott possibly have got in?
“Jesus, Izzy,” I whisper, “what if he never left? What if he’s tucked away in a crawlspace somewhere?”
Izzy’s concern is a tangible thing, hanging in the air between us. “I’m an idiot. Shouldn’t have told you about this bloody video.”
I clear my throat and wet my lips. “No, no. I’m glad you did.”
The video lumbers on. Agonisingly slow and deliberate, it features so little movement that it may as well be a photograph. Only the onscreen counter changes, along with the barely perceptible motion of my chest. Thank God I stayed fully clothed that night. Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not filming you while you sleep.
Gripped by the urge to break the video’s spell, to diminish the power it holds over me, I mumble, “Sleep’s really weird, isn’t it? When you really stop and think about it, I mean. We take sleep for granted, don’t we, and yet that’s when we’re at our most vulnerable. Our most exposed.”
Izzy tries to chip in, but I keep on talking. “You meet someone in a bar, or at a speed dating thing, or even in your home for an impulsive hook-up. You quite possibly fuck them on the first night, and then you allow yourself to fall unconscious in their presence for… how long, about eight hours? That is fucking mental when you think about it. This person who you met only hours ago, they could do anything at all to you. You could wake up in the middle of the night gargling blood because your new partner decided to wander into your kitchen, pick the sharpest knife and then slit your throat.”
To this, Izzy says nothing. She knows my venting is entirely necessary – some kind of attempt to process what I’m seeing. If we watched the violation of Kate Collins in silence, it might prove unbearable for both of us.
I drag the playback slider. As the video fast-forwards, Past Me’s sleeping body jerks to the left, then to the right and back again.
To think that Scott somehow entered the flat that night and stood there, for all this time, filming me. Why two whole hours? And while we’re asking questions: why at all? Could this be a power thing, getting off on people’s vulnerability? Does he stand there, thinking about all the things he could do to us but chooses not to? Does he actually jerk off while filming, or does he wait until he gets home and—
One jarring new thought wipes out all of the above questions. “Izzy, why the fuck didn’t Scott take his phone back? Why didn’t he take it away with him that night?”
I can see that, for Izzy, this is not a new thought. While I’ve been held captive by my emotional response to this video, she has applied cold hard logic to the situation. Evidently, she’s been left wanting, because she can only splay her hands, at a loss.
“Izzy, why the fuck didn’t he take the phone?”
Her eyes meet mine. “Either he’s the most forgetful bloke on the planet…”
Jumping in, I say, “Or he wanted to leave it with me. Which almost certainly means he wanted to leave it on the balcony in the first place.” I feel light-headed. Disorientated. “You know, I kept thinking how weird it was that he didn’t cancel the phone! That’s what you’d do if you lost yours, right?”
Izzy says, “Some people have their phones set up so they can delete everything inside, remotely. And Scott is an IT guy, right? Or did he lie about that, too?”
The demonic window-face grins harder than ever. “I’m surprised the fucker didn’t tell me he was a hedge fund manager or something. He wasn’t a very good IT guy, though, by all accounts. Kept missing his deadlines. Might have been too busy messing with people. Or killing them.”
“Why would Scott want to leave the phone here? What if…” Here, Izzy hesitates. Oh, how acutely I feel her walk the thin line between doing what’s best for me and finding herself drawn into the puzzle. Her puzzle-lust wins – the urge to take this Rubik’s cube one twist closer to completion. “What if the phone has some kind of bugging device, babe? What if it’s listening all the time? Or… I mean, you said you’ve felt watched…”
My vision goes woozy, making the tiny camera lens at the top of the phone wink at me. When will I learn to trust my gut? I felt watched from the moment I moved in here.
No. That’s not true, not exactly.
I felt watched after I discovered the phone.
The demon face taunts me from that sliding door, victorious. Those eyes, that cruel smile, they say, Ah, you finally figured it out, huh? Well done, baby. Lovin’ life.
I spring up to haul my boxes around. I’m searching for certain words I scribbled on the side of one of them roughly ten thousand years ago, when my head swam with endorphins, hope and love. In the background, Izzy is asking what I’m doing and if I’m all right, even though she knows I’m very much not.
I rip the duct tape off the top of the box marked Handy Stuff. Inside, there’s an ever-so-handy holdall full of stuff I’ve lugged from flat to flat during my renting life.
Maybe, Izzy’s saying, we’re overthinking this whole thing. Maybe the phone isn’t really Scott’s surveillance device. Maybe I should calm down.
Scott Palmer hacked his way into my heart, then sleazed his way into my life. He stripped away my privacy, including my right to not be fucking filmed while I sleep.
I meet the demon face’s grin with my own, then rummage around inside the holdall, disregarding the cordless power drill, the spirit level and the battery-powered box that detects the presence of wires in walls. All of these tools are handy for home DIY, there’s no denying that, but I’m searching for one item in particular.
Again, Izzy asks what I’m doing. Then, when she sees what I’ve taken from the holdall, and where I’m going, she yells at me to stop. But not even my best friend, the pal who I owe big-time, can stop me committing this act.
My jaw is locked tight. Every cell in my body is ablaze. Doubt I’d stop marching towards this sliding door even if someone levelled a gun at me.
“Oh yeah?” I bark at the face on the window. “How funny is it now?”
My hammer creates the most gorgeous arc from way back over my shoulder, all the way through to the demon’s nose.
The face ceases to exist. Bashed through onto the balcony, it skitters out across the decking in bright, darting shards.
There follows a pause, while the rest of the window comes to terms with what’s happened. Two strong arms wrap themselves around my chest, exert a firm grip, then haul me two steps back. Oh God, Izzy must’ve staggered over to grab me, to save me, without using her crutches.
An almighty waterfall of broken glass cascades down over the spot where I’d stood. The noise is both horrific and so very pretty.
Izzy is the first to get her words out. “Feel better now?”
“Yep. But nowhere near as good as I’m gonna feel. Tell me how I can find Scott.”
Together, we wend our awkward way back across the room to the garden chair and her crutches. She’s shaking her head, but I’m a dog with a bone. “Izzy, seriously: tell me how I can use the phone to find him. If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out anyway.”
As I settle her down in the chair, she wipes sweat from her eyes and says, “Fuck off, mate. It’s not happening. You can come back to Leeds and—”
Spit flies from my mouth as I say, “Fuck that.” I know I’m directing my rage at the wrong person, and am still holding the hammer’s handle, but I’ve become a car without brakes. “I’m not walking away. I’m so sick of trying to see Scott through this phone. I’m going to look him straight in the eye and I’m going to do it tonight, with or without your help.”
“Tonight? You’ve gotta be kidding. What if he really is dangerous, Kate?”
“Do I not look dangerous right now?”
She glances at the hammer, then mutters, “A danger to yourself, yeah.”
I kneel beside the small mountain of broken glass, then place the hammer to one side. Silence reigns, as the energy in the room dissipates.
“I’m sorry, Izz. You’re my best mate in the world, but I really am going to find him. So please, please tell me how.”
“Do you promise not to break any more glass, you fuckin’ madhead?”
“I promise. Well, unless it’s over Scott’s skull.”
Izzy considers Scott’s phone on the box beside her, then lets out a heavy sigh.
“I’m guessing you already checked GPS tracking, right?”
Feeling stupid and excited at the same time, I lean forward, all ears.