‘And she’s found another one, too. What’s the new one called, Mum?’
‘Laura Keen,’ I say quietly. I picture Laura’s graduation photo and wonder where the original is. Whether it’s on the desk of whichever journalist wrote the article, or whether it’s back on the mantelpiece in her parents’ house. Perhaps they’ve placed it glass-side down, for now, unable to handle seeing it every time they pass.
‘Where do you think they got your picture?’ Isaac asks, not picking up on my lack of enthusiasm to discuss it. I’m surprised at Katie for encouraging him, and put it down to a desire to impress. Neil and Simon are eating in silence; Melissa shooting me sidelong glances every now and then, to check I’m okay.
‘Who knows?’ I’m trying to make light of it, but my fingers feel clumsy and my knife clatters against my plate. Simon pushes his empty plate away and leans back, reaching one arm out to rest on my chair. To anyone else he is just relaxing, replete after a big meal, but I can feel his thumb circling reassuringly on my shoulder.
‘Facebook,’ Neil says, with a confidence that surprises me. ‘It’s always Facebook. Most of the ID frauds nowadays use names and photos lifted from social media.’
‘The scourge of modern society,’ Simon says. ‘What was that firm you worked for a few months ago? The stockbrokers?’ Neil looks blank, then gives a short bark of laughter. ‘Heatherton Alliance.’ He looks at Isaac, the only one who hasn’t heard this story. ‘They brought me in to gather evidence relating to insider trading, but while I was there they had one of those initiation ceremonies for a new female banker. Real Wolf of Wall Street stuff. They had a Facebook group going – a private forum so they could decide what to do to her next.’
‘How awful,’ Isaac says, although his eyes don’t match his tone. They’re bright, interested. He catches me looking at him, and reads my mind. ‘You think I’m being ghoulish. I’m sorry. It’s the curse of the director, I’m afraid. Always imagining how a scene might play out, and that one – well, that would be truly extraordinary.’
The conversation has sapped my appetite. I put down my knife and fork. ‘I hardly use Facebook. I only joined to stay in touch with family.’ My sister Sarah lives in New Zealand, with a tanned, athletic husband and two perfect children I’ve only met once. One’s a lawyer and the other works with disabled children. It doesn’t surprise me that Sarah’s kids have turned out so well; she was always the golden girl when we were growing up. My parents never said it, but it was always in their eyes: why can’t you be more like your sister?
Sarah was studious; helpful round the house. She didn’t play her music loud or sleep till noon at the weekends. Sarah stayed on at school, left with good grades and a place at secretarial college. She didn’t drop out, pregnant. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if she had done; if our parents would have been as hard on her as they were on me.
Pack your bags, my dad said, when he found out. Mum started crying, but whether it was because of the baby or because I was leaving, I couldn’t tell.
‘You’d be surprised what you can get from Facebook,’ Isaac says. He pulls his phone – a sleek iPhone 6s – from his pocket and swipes deftly across the screen. Everyone watches him, as though he’s about to perform a magic trick. He flashes the screen towards me and I see the blue-and-white branding of Facebook. My name is written in the search field, and beneath it is row upon row of Zoe Walkers, each with a thumbnail photo. ‘Which one is you?’ he says, scrolling through them. He taps through to the second page.
‘There.’ I put my hand out to point. ‘That one, third from the bottom. The one with the cat.’ It’s a picture of Biscuit sunning himself on the gravel at the front of the house. ‘You see,’ I say triumphantly, ‘I don’t even use my own photo for my profile. I’m quite a private person, really.’ Not like my kids, I think, who let their whole lives play out on Instagram, or Snapchat, or whatever’s flavour of the month right now. Katie’s forever taking selfies, pouting this way and that, then swiping through endless filters to find the most flattering.
Isaac opens my page. I don’t know what I expected to see, but it wasn’t my entire Facebook profile.
£50k a year and they think they’ve got the right to strike? I’d swap jobs with a train driver any day!
Stuck on a train … AGAIN. Thank heavens for wifi!
6??! Come on Len that was worth at least an 8!!
‘Strictly,’ I explain, embarrassed to see my life reduced to one-liners about TV shows and hellish commutes. I’m alarmed by the ease with which he appears to have accessed my account. ‘How have you been able to log on as me?’
Isaac laughs. ‘I haven’t. This is what anyone can see if they click on your profile.’ He catches sight of my horrified face. ‘Your privacy settings are wide open.’ To prove it, he clicks on the ‘about me’ tab, where my email address is there for anyone to see. Studied at Peckham Comprehensive, it says, as though that were something to be proud of. Worked at Tesco. I half expect it to say ‘knocked up at seventeen’.
‘Oh God! I had no idea.’ I vaguely remember filling out these details: the jobs I’ve had, the films I like and the books I’ve read, but I’d thought it was just for me; a sort of online diary.
‘The point I’m trying to make,’ Isaac says, clicking once more, on a tab marked ‘photos of Zoe’, ‘is if someone wanted to use a picture of you, there are plenty to choose from.’ He scrolls through dozens of images, most of which I’ve never seen before.
‘But I haven’t uploaded these!’ I say. I see a photo of me from behind, taken at a barbecue at Melissa’s and Neil’s last summer, and consider whether my bum is really that big, or if it’s simply an unflattering angle.
‘Your friends have. All these photos’ – there must be dozens of them – ‘are ones other people have uploaded and tagged you in. You can untag yourself if you want, but what you really need to do is sort out your privacy settings. I can help you, if you want?’
‘It’s fine. I’ll sort it out.’ Embarrassment is making me abrupt, and I make myself say thank you. ‘Has everyone finished? Katie, love, will you give me a hand clearing the table?’ Everyone starts stacking plates and carrying dishes out to the kitchen, and Simon squeezes my hand before very obviously changing the subject.
When everyone has gone I sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea. Simon and Katie are watching some black-and-white movie, and Justin has gone out to see a mate. The house is quiet and I bring up Facebook on my phone, feeling as though I’m doing something wrong. I look at the photos, recognising the album Isaac showed me on his own phone. I scroll through them slowly. Some of the photos aren’t even of me, and eventually I understand I’ve been tagged in pictures of Katie, or old school photos from back in the day. Melissa’s tagged me and a bunch of other people in a photo of her own legs, taken by the pool on a holiday last year.
Jealous, girls???!! reads the caption.
It takes me a while, but finally I find it. The photo from the advert. I let out a breath. I knew I wasn’t going mad – I knew it was me. Facebook tells me the photo was posted by Matt, and when I check the date I see it was three years ago. I follow the link and find twenty or thirty photos, uploaded en masse after my cousin’s wedding. That’s why I wasn’t wearing my glasses.
This photo is really of Katie. She’s sitting next to me at the table, smiling at the camera with her head tilted to one side. I’m watching her, rather than the camera. The picture in the advert has been carefully cropped, taking out most of the dress I’d have instantly recognised as one of my few party outfits.
I imagine someone – a stranger – scrolling through my photos, looking at me in my posh frock, at my daughter, my family. I shiver. The privacy settings Isaac mentioned aren’t easy to locate, but eventually I find them. I systematically lock down every area of my account; photos, posts, tags. Just as I finish, a red notification blinks at the top of my screen. I tap on it.
Isaac Gunn would like to be friends. You have one mutual
friend.
I stare at it for a second, then press delete.
I know what you’re thinking.
You’re wondering how I can live with myself. How I can look myself in the mirror, knowing what’s happening to these women.
But do you blame Tinder when a date goes sour? Do you go to the wine bar where you picked up a guy, and have a go at the owner because things didn’t go to plan? Do you shout at your best friend because the man she introduced you to turned out to like it rough?
Of course you don’t.
Then how can you blame me? I’m just the match-maker.
My job is to give coincidence a head start.
You think you met by accident. You think he held that door open for you by chance; that he picked up your scarf in error; that he had no idea you were walking that way …
Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t.
Now that you know people like me exist, you’ll never know for sure.
13
The adverts are consuming me; filling my head and making me paranoid. Last night I dreamed it was Katie’s face in the classifieds. Katie’s face in The Times a few days later; assaulted, raped, left for dead. I woke up drenched in sweat, unable to bear even Simon’s arms around me until I’d crossed the landing and seen her with my own eyes, sleeping soundly.
I throw my usual ten-pence coin into Megan’s guitar case.
‘Have a great Monday!’ she calls. I make myself smile back. The wind whips round the corner, and I’m amazed she’s able to play with fingers that are blue with cold. I wonder what Simon would say if I brought her home for tea one day; whether Melissa might put aside a portion of soup for her from time to time. I hold a conversation in my head as I go through the ticket barriers, practising the offer of a hot meal without making it sound like charity, worrying I might offend Megan.
I’m so caught up in my thoughts I don’t instantly notice the man in the overcoat: I can’t even be sure he was watching me before I saw him. But he’s watching me now. I walk down the platform as the train arrives, but when I step on to the train and sit down I see him again. He’s tall and broad, with thick grey hair and a beard to match. It’s neatly trimmed, but there’s a speckle of blood on his neck where he’s cut himself shaving.
He’s still looking at me, and I pretend to study the Tube map above his head, feeling his eyes travel down my body. It makes me uncomfortable, and I look down at my lap, feeling self-conscious and not knowing what to do with my hands. I guess him to be in his fifties; in a well-cut suit and an overcoat to beat the weather, which is threatening the first flurry of snow. His smile is too familiar – proprietary.
The schools must be out today: the trains are far less crowded than usual. At Canada Water enough people get off to leave three seats free opposite me. The man in the suit takes one of them. People do look at you on the Tube – I do it myself – but when you catch their eye, they look away, embarrassed. This man isn’t looking away. When I look at his face – and I won’t do so again – he holds my gaze challengingly, as though I should be flattered by the attention. I wonder, fleetingly, if I am, but the fluttering sensation in my stomach is anxiety, not excitement.
Transport for London have been running a video campaign. It’s called ‘report it to stop it’ and it’s about sexual harassment on the Underground. You can report anything that makes you uncomfortable, it says. I imagine calling a police officer, right now. What would I say? He keeps looking at me …
Looking at someone isn’t a crime. At the back of my mind is the group of kids at Whitechapel – the lad in the trainers I was so convinced was running after me. Imagine if I’d have called the police then; if I’d have shouted for help. Despite the logic of this argument I can’t shake the unsettled feeling.
It’s not just him – this arrogant man taking possession of me with his eyes. It takes more than a man to make me anxious. It’s everything. It’s the thought of Cathy Tanning, asleep on the Tube while someone ransacks her bag. It’s Tania Beckett, lying strangled in a park. It’s Isaac Gunn, and the confident way he’s pushed his way into Katie’s life; into my house. I looked at his Facebook profile last night, after everyone left, and was disappointed to find it locked down so securely that all I could see was his profile picture. I stared at it; at the confident smile, showing even white teeth, and the wavy black hair flopping nonchalantly over one eye. Film-star looks, undoubtedly, but making me shiver, not swoon; as though he’d already been cast in the role of the villain.
The man in the suit stands up to let a pregnant woman sit down. He’s tall, and his hand slips easily through the strap hanging from the ceiling, the loop encircling his wrist as he grips it higher up, where it meets the ceiling of the carriage. He’s not looking at me any more, but he’s barely six inches away from me and I pick up my bag from between my feet and hug it to me, thinking again of Cathy Tanning and her pickpocket. The man glances at his watch, then away, gazing without interest at something further down the carriage. Someone else moves, and the man shifts slightly. His leg touches mine, firmly, and I jump as though I’ve been scalded. I move away, twisting awkwardly in my seat.
‘Sorry,’ he says, looking straight at me.
‘No problem,’ I hear myself say. But my heart is racing; blood humming in my ear as though I’ve been sprinting.
I stand up at Whitechapel. It’s obvious I’m getting off, but the man doesn’t move and I have to squeeze past him. For a second I’m pressed against him and I feel a touch on my thigh so light I can’t be certain it was there at all. There are people all around me, I tell myself. Nothing can happen. But I almost trip in my haste to leave the train. I look behind me as the doors close, more confident with some distance between me and the man who was watching me.
He isn’t on the train.
Perhaps he’s sitting down, I think, gifted a seat by a passenger disembarking. But there’s no one in the carriage with a beard. No one in a dark grey overcoat.
The platform is clearing; commuters rushing to get their next train, tourists looking for the exit, bumping into each other as they pay more attention to maps than their surroundings. I stand, rooted to the spot, as they jostle their way past.
And then I see him.
Standing as still as I am, on the platform about ten yards further down, between me and the exit. Not watching me; looking at his phone. I fight to keep my breathing under control. I need to make a decision. If I walk past him and carry on with my journey he might follow me. But if I hang back and let him go ahead, he might stay. The platform is practically empty; in a moment it will be just the two of us. I have to decide now.
I walk. Eyes forward. Walking quickly, not running. Don’t run. Don’t let him see you’re scared of him. He’s standing in the centre of the platform, a bench behind him that means I have to pass in front. As I grow near I sense his eyes on me.
Three feet away.
Two.
One.
I can’t help myself; I break into a run. I head for the exit, my handbag banging against my side, not caring what I look like. I half expect him to follow me, but when I reach the section of tunnel that will take me to the District line, I turn and see him still standing on the platform, watching me.
I try to concentrate on work, but my head won’t comply. I find myself staring blankly at my screen, trying to remember the admin login for our accounts package. A man comes in to ask for details for office premises for lease and I end up giving him a sheaf of details for properties for sale instead. When he comes back to complain I burst into tears. He is politely sympathetic.
‘It’s not the end of the world,’ he says, when he finally has what he wants. He looks vaguely around for some tissues, relieved when I tell him I’m absolutely fine and would really rather be on my own.
I jump as the door opens and the bell above the frame jangles. Graham looks at me strangely.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine. Where have you been? There’s nothing in the diary.’
br /> ‘There’s nothing in the office diary,’ he corrects, taking off his coat and hanging it on the stand in the corner. ‘There’s always something in my diary.’ He smoothes his suit jacket over his belly. Today’s waistcoat and jacket are green tweed, teamed with red trousers; the ensemble makes him look like a Country Living model gone to seed. ‘A coffee would be nice, Zoe. Have you seen the paper?’
I grit my teeth and head for the kitchen. On my return I find him in his office with his feet on the desk, reading the Telegraph. I don’t know if it’s the adrenaline from this morning, or my annoyance at being the only one at Hallow & Reed who seems to do any work, but I start speaking before I have a chance to filter my words.
‘The London Gazette. You had a huge pile of them – twenty at least – in your office. What were they for?’
Graham ignores me, his raised eyebrows the only indication he’s heard me.
‘Where are they now?’ I demand.
He swings his feet off the desk and sits upright, with a sigh that suggests my outburst is tedious, rather than offensive. ‘Pulped, I would imagine. Isn’t that where the rest of the newspapers go? Destined for the loo-roll shelves at some budget supermarket.’
‘What were you doing with them, though?’ It’s been nagging at me; that small voice in my head reminding me of what I saw, of those newspapers stacked up on his desk. I remember the moment I saw Cathy Tanning’s photo; the moment of recognition as I put a name to the face.
Graham sighs. ‘We’re a property firm, Zoe. We sell and rent properties. Offices, shopping malls, industrial units. How do you think people hear about our properties?’
I assume it’s a rhetorical question, but he waits expectantly. Not content with patronising me, he’s going to make a fool of me, too.
‘In the newspaper,’ I say, and the words come out staccato, silent full-stops between each one.