The Winner, page 18
Heather stared from the man to Steve, trying to work out what was going on.
‘Steve? What’s he talking about?’
The hostess inserted herself between the intruder and their table. ‘Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You are bothering my customers.’
‘It’s fine,’ Steve said, grabbing his canvas satchel from the floor, standing up quickly. ‘I was just leaving anyway.’
‘But … Steve, wait. Aren’t you going to finish your coffee? My salad hasn’t even arrived yet and this gentleman is about to leave, now that he knows he’s made a mistake—’
‘It’s no mistake,’ the stranger interrupted, head craning around the side of the hostess who was now signalling towards a man with a goatee behind the barista station. He hustled over and stood beside her, frowning at the new arrival.
‘Sir,’ the barista said. ‘I need you to leave right now.’
But the ginger-haired man ignored him too. ‘I know who you are, Jonnie. And the things you did.’ He grinned craftily.
‘Not me, mate.’ And before Heather had a chance to react, Steve jumped up, tossed a fiver onto the table and shouldering past the intruder, paused on the threshold to give Heather a brief wave before hurrying out the door.
CHAPTER 23
I should probably go to bed. It’s three in the morning and if I go to the office looking exhausted people will wonder why. Rumours might start.
But last month’s winner is becoming a problem – a problem that needs to be addressed now, before things develop any further. I read through her DMs then move on to her CelebMail account. Sponsor crap mostly. People fawning, telling her how amazing she is, the usual bullshit.
I pause when I get to an email from Ronan Quentin Davies – a family member, presumably. I open it and discover a long, whiny diatribe, accusing her of ‘hoarding fame’.
Interesting.
A line near the bottom catches my eye.
‘And what’s all this rubbish I’m reading about your refusing to flaunt yourself by wearing short skirts? Haven’t you told them the truth? If there’s stuff you don’t want people to know, maybe you should invite me to one of the Triple F parties so you can brief me on exactly what I can and can’t say to the press. Because I wouldn’t want to slip up and reveal something you’re trying to keep secret.’
That sounds like a thinly veiled threat. Ronan Quentin Davies. I run the name through a search engine. An actor – or at least, he claims to be an actor on his website. He can’t be very successful because there’s almost nothing written about him elsewhere online.
I settle back against my desk chair, swivelling from side to side, smiling to myself. A disgruntled, fame-hungry brother with a chip on his shoulder. Perfect.
CHAPTER 24
One more post and she could go to sleep. Heather lay across the Siberian goose-down duvet on her emperor bed, tablet propped against a Cartier cushion. She flicked through the day’s images, stopping at a picture of herself and Tessa sharing a piece of cake in the café at Harrods. She considered the photo for a moment, fingers resting on her Bluetooth keyboard. Then she tapped out, Who needs Breakfast at Tiffany’s when you can have lunch at Harrods?
Mandu slunk into the room and jumped up onto the bed. For a moment, Heather thought the Persian might actually be seeking affection, but instead the cat walked across the keyboard, sending chains of p’s and x’s across the screen.
Heather held the keyboard in the air, out of reach.
‘Nice try, Mandu, but I’m not about to let you start posting on CelebRate. You’re only allowed on this keyboard in password form.’ She reached out to give her new pet a stroke but he withdrew from her touch, jumping off the bed. Heather sighed and placed the keyboard on her pillow, deleting the surplus letters before submitting the post. A minute or so later there was a soft chime, telling her that the picture had been published.
There. Job done. Time to change into her silk PJs and get to bed. But as she was putting the tablet and keyboard on the bedside table, Steve’s words floated through her memory.
Try her pet’s name with a number on the end. That’s what most girls use for their passwords.
A ridiculous suggestion. Except that she’d done exactly that and she didn’t even like her pet all that much. Heather considered the tablet a moment longer, thinking of the photo above Persephone Tetterson’s dining table of Analise and the black cat. Maybe …
She began scrolling through the ‘special collection’ of Analise’s old posts that CelebRate had put up in her memory. And there it was: a video clip of the black cat batting at a make-up brush in Analise’s hand, captioned, ‘Midnight is trying to get his paws on my new coral dream blusher!’
Midnight. Heather went onto CelebMail, logged herself out and clicked ‘New User’. Then she keyed in username Analise. Tetterson@CelebMail.co.uk
She was greeted by a familiar pop-up box.
‘Time to change your password!’ Of course. More than two weeks had passed since Analise’s death so the security system had kicked in automatically. She looked at the ‘Current Password’ box underneath. Tapped in ‘Midnight 4’ into the space, though didn’t hold out much hope for that one, since she was pretty sure Analise had been on CelebRate more than a month longer than her. Sure enough, the attempt was met with an ‘Incorrect Password’ alert. And below that: ‘Attempts remaining: 2. After 3 unsuccessful login attempts this account will be locked.’
Damn. Only two chances left. She chewed on a thumbnail, thinking. If Analise had, like Heather, used 1 on her first password and been at Celebrate for eight weeks at the time of her death, that would make 5 the number on her password - assuming she raised it by one each time. She keyed in ‘Midnight5.’
Back came the pop-up box. ‘Incorrect Password. Attempts remaining: 1.’
So this was it: her final shot. Heather combed her fingers through her hair, thinking. It didn’t feel as though Analise had been on CelebRate for more than two months, but if she’d started out low in the ratings, it was possible she’d been there longer, but Heather simply hadn’t registered her until she’d risen into the Top Six, joining the Winfluencers whose faces dominated the platform. So maybe she should go with 6 … or even jump straight to 7 or 8.
Heather hesitated, fingers frozen above the keyboard. She would just have to guess. It was unlikely to work anyway. She tapped in Midnight7 and waited for the rejecting pop-up box, ready to put down the tablet, put on her pyjamas and crawl into bed, let the custom-moulded memory-foam mattress cradle her to sleep.
There was a pause that felt long, but in reality was probably just a few seconds.
Then a new pop-up box appeared containing two spaces labelled ‘New Password’ and ‘Confirm New Password’.
For a moment, Heather simply stared, taken aback by the unexpectedness of her success as excitement burned away the wisps of sleepiness that had been winding themselves around her. She keyed in a new password and a moment later, the screen filled with rows of names and subjects. Analise’s CelebMails. Propping her back against the headboard, she scrolled through the list of senders, heart beating fast. All the most recently arrived emails were unread, mostly from Triple F addresses with names Heather didn’t recognize. There was also a flurry of messages marked ‘URGENT’ from the make-up company sponsoring her. She skipped over the names still in bold – and therefore unread – to the last email Analise had opened before she died. The sender was ‘A. Know’. Her heart beat faster. Wasn’t ‘Know’ the surname Tessa had said was on the taunting public posts? The subject beside it said, ‘What you did.’ There was a file attached.
Heather’s heart accelerated. So this was it, the email that had pushed Analise over the edge. She opened it.
You are toxic. You destroyed your child’s life by abandoning her. It’s too late to try and fix it now. She’s broken. Because of you.
She clicked on the attachment, sucking in her breath when she saw the photo. She recognized the girl immediately from the picture on Persephone Tetterson’s phone: Ellie, in a sleeveless cotton dress. She was holding a razor blade in her right hand, suspended above her left inner arm. The flesh below it was striped with cuts. Rows of red lines marked the pale skin all the way from her elbow to her shoulder – some fresh, some faded to scars. And mixed in among them, needle marks.
Oh God. How must Analise have felt, scrolling through her CelebMail only to find herself confronted by this image of the daughter she’d abandoned: a wounded child trying desperately to release her buried pain – and obliterate it with chemicals. She imagined Analise’s self-loathing and despair as she read the message telling her that irreversible harm had already been done. And that it was all her fault.
Heather dragged a hand across her eyes. How awful. She would have to call Persephone in the morning, warn her that the granddaughter whose photo she had shared with such pride was actually—
A bolt of realisation snapped the thought clean.
The photo.
Heather saw it again in her mind’s eye. Ellie in a sleeveless top, pale arms flung wide. The cuts and track marks would have been plain to see.
Except there weren’t any. Her skin had been pale and unblemished.
Heather’s eyes returned to the image on the computer screen, staring at the marks on the girl’s arms. They were flawlessly realistic.
She sat perfectly still for a minute, thoughts galloping, letting the implication sink in. Then she copied the sender’s email address and sent it to Steve, with a message asking him to trace the IP address and the sender, telling him to please hurry, that it was urgent.
She had to find out who A. Know was. Because that photo had driven Analise to her death. And it was a lie.
CHAPTER 25
‘Modest’ Winfluencer Hiding Disfigurement
CelebRate star Heather Davies has been hailed as a new kind of style icon, feted for her refusal to participate in ‘the race to the shortest hemline’.
But her own brother has revealed that her choice of clothing has nothing to do with either modesty or feminism.
‘She’s being portrayed as this beacon of morality,’ Ronan Davies, 25, said in an exclusive interview with the London Herald. ‘But the truth is very different. Her skirts used to be as short as the next girl’s. But then she got in a car accident. The reason she doesn’t want people to see her legs is because one of them is hideous. Not to me, obviously, because we’re family. To me, she will always be my beautiful sis. But to the rest of the world … well, let’s just say the surgeons did their best but it was a serious accident so there was only so much they could do. If I could have given her my leg instead I would have.’
Asked whether he thought his sister was a hypocrite for portraying herself as a ‘modesty feminist’ when in fact she was simply concealing injuries, he shrugged and said, ‘Who are we to judge? In a way, being a Winfluencer is like being an actor. You have an audience and a role to play. And as a seasoned actor myself, following numerous successful theatre productions, I understand how—’
Heather stopped reading and tossed her tablet aside, falling back against the bed and staring up at the ceiling. She had muted her F-phone but could still hear it buzzing against the table. The curtains weren’t quite closed, letting in a lance of afternoon sunlight that stabbed her eyes. She pulled the duvet around her, burying herself inside it.
Bloody Ronan. She should have paid him off. Given him more money, a month’s worth, on the condition that he keep his trap shut. Although realistically, that might not have worked. Ronan couldn’t help himself; when he saw a spotlight, he jumped into it and began to dance. God forbid he should just tell the press that she was his sister and he was proud of her. No, then he wouldn’t be giving the audience what it wanted – and getting his face plastered across the London Herald’s home page. Breakfast shows wouldn’t be inviting him onto their sofas to share the inside scoop on his shamed sister; had she always been a liar and a hypocrite?
Heather’s followers were abandoning her. Down to 900,000 – ninth in the ratings. It was only a matter of time before she fell into the Drop Zone. Then she would lose everything – her fame, her money. What would happen to her then? She felt as though she was trapped in a nightmare, watching helplessly as everything slipped away. She looked at her F-phone on the bedside table, where it lay like a poisonous snake, ready to strike. She didn’t want to see what was on the screen.
From downstairs came the sound of a knock on the front door, hard and insistent. One of the reporters must have worked out that she’d silenced the doorbell. Well, they could knock all day long. She was staying right here.
Then she must have drifted off, because the next time she opened her eyes, the light in the curtain gap had softened to a pearly glow. She could hear the reporters chatting below. Throwing back the duvet, she crossed to the open window at the back of the room, overlooking the park, peeking through the crack in the curtains to see whether any of the reporters had gone behind the house to lurk on the other side of her garden wall, telephoto lenses aimed her way. But there was no one there. Releasing a sigh of relief, she threw open the curtains and stood staring out. Beyond the playground, the falling sun sketched the Shakespeare Estate in watercolour yellows and greys. Debbie was probably making dinner right now, singing to herself as she cooked. She hadn’t given up on Heather, messaging a couple of times a week, suggesting a catch-up, saying she wanted to hear all about her posh new life. And Heather kept saying yes, absolutely, let’s get a date in the diary. But for some reason it hadn’t happened. Maybe she should call a car and head over there now, pour out her troubles while Debbie poured out the wine, just like old times.
Except these weren’t old times. Her former neighbour could neither understand nor relate to her current problems. Plus Debbie was sure to ask why, in the ten months they’d been sharing stories and living side by side, Heather had never confided in her about the car accident. And Heather had no answer to give.
Her F-phone buzzed again. She couldn’t hide from the truth forever. Heather crossed the oak floor slowly and stood staring down at the handset, bracing herself. Time to face the music. She snatched it up and looked at the screen. Missed calls. Dozens of them. Mostly unfamiliar numbers and ones labelled ‘no caller ID’ – journalists. There were also missed calls from Tessa, Debbie, Noah and Lara plus a slew of DMs from other Winfluencers, the ‘Are you OK?’s interspersed with the odd sly dig (‘I always wondered why anyone would want to wear those skirts!’, ‘Sorry to hear about your ugly leg That must suck for you!’).
The phone vibrated again in her hand. The latest ratings alert. Her stomach plunged. Twelfth. The bottom. Less than 600,000 followers left. Her fingers tightened around the device. Her dream world was collapsing. Her home, her money and her celebrity status were about to be torn away while millions of fans looked on and said she deserved it.
Heather’s jaw clenched. Sod that. She might be losing everything else, but she still had her pride. And she wasn’t going to just wait around to be tossed out like so much rubbish. She would become known as the first Winfluencer to quit and walk away with her head held high.
Nausea rolled inside her as she logged on to CelebMail, dashing out an email with trembling fingers, saying she was withdrawing from CelebRate as she no longer felt able to fulfil her duties. The tears in her eyes made the letters shimmy.
Heather was about to send it when she realized she hadn’t addressed the email to anyone. Who should her resignation go to? Noah? The legal department? Winfluencer Sales? She could send it to all three. Or she could just go straight to the top. She tapped in Duncan.Caldwell@CelebMail.co.uk
Hit send.
Heather had just stepped out of the shower and was wrapping her hair in a towel when she thought she heard something; a floorboard creaking, somewhere downstairs. Pulling on her robe, she slowly opened the bathroom door and stepped out onto the landing, ears straining. Nothing. Must have been her imagination. She turned and had taken a couple of steps towards her bedroom when she heard, quite clearly, the sound of a muffled cough.
Someone was inside the house.
Heather’s heart went into overdrive. Who was it? One of the journalists? It seemed unlikely. Reporters might be pushy sometimes, but she’d never heard of one actually breaking into someone’s home. And anyway, she’d peeked out at the pavement before going to have her shower, to see whether any of them were still there. But it was past nine p.m. and they had all given up on her for the day, drifting off to meet their various deadlines.
She had been relieved about that as she’d padded down the hallway to the main bathroom, with its glass-walled monsoon shower – so much more satisfying than the ordinary one in her en suite – to slough this day from her skin. Now, though, she wished they hadn’t left, that there was someone nearby she could call out to. She stood statue-still, ears straining, thoughts racing with her pulse. She needed to get to her phone, call 999. She pictured it lying on her duvet, where she’d tossed it after sending the resignation email. Could she make it to her bedroom in time? Or would the intruder hear her footsteps … and come upstairs.
Calm down. Focus.
She took a long, steadying breath: in through the nose, out through the mouth. Then she began to move slowly, carefully towards her room. Her ears strained, but whoever was downstairs had gone silent. The hallway had never felt so long. She tried to go faster, but her feet were wet from the shower and she slipped on the floor’s polished wood, her left heel coming down hard to keep her from falling, sending out a bolt of pain.
Whoever was down there must have heard it because the silence was replaced by the sound of swift footsteps. The creak of a stair.
The intruder was coming up.
She staggered towards her room, hoping to throw herself across the threshold, lock the door behind her, call for help. But the slip had made her limp worse. She would be overtaken easily. She could scream, but who would hear? She wasn’t near a window and the walls were thick, letting no sound through.
