The Tangled Web (35 page)

No, she
thought.  If he had guessed, he would have spoken to her about it and they
would have had a good laugh.  She had to know for sure exactly what she was
dealing with.  She logged in to the fake account and opened up the exchange of
messages between Jessica and Christos.

She skimmed over
the first few lines.  There was nothing interesting there.  They were talking
about the weather and football.  Then she stopped in her tracks.

“I’m glad
you added me.  It’s always a pleasure to speak to someone as pretty as
yourself.”

He was coming
onto her.  HE was coming onto HER.  Pamela hadn’t needed to do much work at
all.  It was all him.  She read on.

“Have you
got a boyfriend then?”

“What are
you wearing tonight?”

“No, I’m
not attached.”

“Have you
got any more pictures?”

“Fancy a
private chat?  You know what I mean ;)”

She felt
nauseous.  She felt worse than she had felt when she found out about Ian all
those months ago.  This was like watching someone fall from a mountain in
super-slow motion.  She felt powerless and physically sick and heartbroken all
at the same time.  How could he do this?  Her friend.  Her confidante.  The
person she trusted with all her secrets.  The person she had sought comfort
from every time she had her heart crushed.  He had listened and comforted and
made her feel like he was on her side.  All this time, he was no better than
any of those men himself.  He sucked!

She read over
some of the information Pamela had created on the fake profile to see what kind
of character Jessica was.  Female.  In her twenties.  Worked as a waitress. 
Liked posting pictures of herself in her underwear on her profile apparently. 
Where did Pamela get these pictures?  She would deal with that problem later.

She clicked
on the attachment and began to read the private chat.  It was too explicit right
from the start and again she felt a wave of nausea batter her senses.  It was
bad enough that he had typed those words to someone other than his girlfriend. 
It made it worse knowing that he had typed those words to her little sister. 
How could he?

She reminded
herself that he hadn’t known it was Pamela.  In his mind, he was talking to
Jessica, a woman in her twenties.  But still.  He should have known better. 
Jessica could have been a ninety year old man for all Christos knew.

Her anger
began to take over and she switched on the printer next to the monitor.  She
didn’t know what she would do with this information, or if she should do
anything at all.  She knew the best thing to do would be to ignore Christos
from now on.  She should not contact him again, delete his number, block him
online and get Scarlett to deal with him whenever he came in to the office. 
She knew she wasn’t strong enough to do that though.  She knew herself too well
and guessed that she would have to speak to him about this and find out why he
did it, if he had done it before, if it was a regular thing…if his girlfriend
knew.  Dozens of questions poured into her thoughts. 

Was she a
potential cyber-shag for him?  Is that why they had become close?  Did he have
plans for her?  Was she supposed to be so grateful for all the attention and
comfort and friendship that she started some kind of affair with him?

She couldn’t
do this any more.  She couldn’t think.  She had to print the chat and the
messages and take them to Flic.  Flic would know what to do.  She prayed that
the printer was quick but it took ten minutes to print.  She attempted to busy
herself with a game of solitaire on her phone and an online tarot reading while
she waited.  When the printer finally completed the job she gathered up the
loose sheets of paper and hurried back to the apartment, completely forgetting
to even acknowledge the receptionist on her way.  She forgot to enter the
apartment quietly, but it seemed that Lumi was in a deep sleep anyway and had
even closed her eyes by the time Vicky came back. 

She pounced
onto her bed and tapped Flic’s shoulder.

‘Flic, wake
up,’ she whispered.

‘I’m awake,
I’m awake.  What did you find?’ Flic blustered, suddenly alert as she reached
over to switch on the light.

Vicky thrust
the papers into Flic’s hands.  Flic skimmed over the first few lines.

‘But this is
a chat with someone called Jessica,’ Flic blinked.

Vicky
nodded.  ‘Yeah.  Pamela decided Kayla wasn’t hot enough so she started this
account instead.  I had no idea.  Clearly Christos didn’t either.’

Flic read on
and alternated between small gasps and tuts.  To Vicky’s relief, the
disappointment was clear in Flic’s eyes too.  Thank God she hadn’t been the
only one to be taken in.  Although, she guessed that Flic wasn’t feeling hurt
to the same extent that she was. 

‘Are you ok?’
Flic asked, folding the papers over and placing them at the foot of the bed, as
if the distance between them and the words on the sheets of paper would make
them any less disappointing.

‘No,’ Vicky
shook her head.

Flic patted
her arm reassuringly.  ‘Need a hug?’

Vicky nodded
and leapt towards Flic.  When the hug was over, Flic swept away a few strands
of hair from Vicky’s forehead endearingly and said, ‘Do you know what we need? 
A good night’s sleep.  Everything will seem better in the morning.  Let’s put
the light out.’

‘I’m not sure
I’ll manage to sleep,’ Vicky laughed dryly.

‘You’ve got
to try.  This is your first child free weekend since Sasha arrived, and who
knows when you’ll get another.  You need sleep to think clearly,’ Flic reminded
her.

Vicky nodded
and rested her head on the pillow.  She was still dressed in her jeans and vest
top and dismissed the idea of changing from her head.  She was sure she
wouldn’t sleep.  She knew she was too angry to sleep.  She told herself she was
too disappointed to sleep.  And then she drifted off.

*****

Vicky awoke
the next morning to voices in the living room.  Her eyes sprung open and she
leapt up.  It was even hotter in the room than it had been the previous night. 
The air conditioning had been switched off at some point and she felt
uncomfortable in the clothes she had kept on since her trip to the Internet
café.  She would have to change.

She twisted
round to look at the time on her phone.  It was after ten.  Her phone was
displaying a blinking red light.  She had a message. 

Please don’t
let this be from Christos, she thought.  She opened the inbox.  It was from
Christos. 

“Kalimera
agapi mou :) What are you up to today? Fancy meeting like we talked about? I’ll
be at Aphrodite’s Birthplace at 2 o’clock waiting for you. C xx”

Damn.  She
would have been so excited about that a few days ago.  Now, she wasn’t sure how
to feel about it.  She held the phone in her hands awkwardly, feeling like it
was a broken egg and was creating a gloopy mess all over her hands. 

The voices
lowered in the living room.  It sounded like Adam was here already.  He’s on
the ball, Vicky thought.  She opened the door to the living room and saw Flic,
Lumi and Adam sitting on the couch poring over the chat between Christos and
Jessica.

‘Morning
sleepyhead,’ Adam smiled.

‘Morning,’
Vicky muttered.  She took a seat on the sofa across from the others and tried
very hard not to look at the papers they were holding.

‘Looks like
Pamela might follow Dad’s footsteps and have a similar career,’ Adam sniggered.

Vicky
scrunched her eyes wishing she had never seen the things Pamela said to
Christos in that chat.  She knew it was acting and it was supposed to be
someone called Jessica.  But that was her little sister!  It just wasn’t right,
in her mind.

‘What do you
mean?’ Flic quizzed Adam.  ‘Your Dad’s a mystery shopper.’

Adam smiled
with his lips, but not his eyes.  There was no pleasantness in his expression. 
‘Our Dad IS a mystery shopper.  But that’s casual work.  It’s not how he made
his fortune.’

‘What did he
do before that?’ Lumi asked. 

Flic remained
silent.  She could guess.  She remembered the library she had found in Vicky’s
house on her first evening there.  She had been told that Vicky and Adam’s
father was an avid reader.  She was now guessing the library was his and not
his wife’s.

‘Have you
ever heard of the WanderLust brand?’ Adam began.

Lumi shook
her head to indicate that she did not.

‘It’s a brand
of paperback books.  They’re romantic fictional novels.  Most of them are
erotic too, but not all of them.  They’re all based in exotic foreign
countries.  Our father has been a writer for them for the last thirty years,’
Adam explained.

‘Hmmm.’
Lumi’s face twisted as she appeared to think this over.  ‘These books are for
men or women?’

‘They’re
aimed at women.  He uses a pseudonym,’ Adam clarified.

‘What does
this mean?’ Lumi asked.

‘It’s a
pen-name.  A name he just uses to write.  He’s called Daisy D’Souza.  He
doesn’t like to publicise what he does because Vicky and I have always been a
bit embarrassed,’ Adam said.

‘That’s
nothing to be embarrassed about!  Your Dad’s a successful author!’ Flic cried.

‘Flic, their
father pretends to be a woman and writes dirty books.  I would be embarrassed
too,’ Lumi scolded her.

Flic stared
at Lumi.  Vicky thought Flic looked ready to lunge forward and push Lumi out of
the window.  She decided to bring the conversation back to the original
subject, however painful that might be.

‘This is not
the issue here!  The issue is Pamela having that chat with Christos.  My
friend, Christos!  And now, he wants me to meet him today.  He just sent me a
message asking me to meet him at Aphrodite’s Birthplace,’ Vicky croaked.  She
could feel a tear or two becoming eager to escape, but she held back.  Why
should she cry?  She had done nothing wrong, she thought angrily.

‘What are you
going to do?’ Flic asked.

‘I don’t
know,’ Vicky admitted.

‘I think you
should go meet him.  There is no decision to make,’ Lumi asserted. 

‘What?’ Vicky
responded, feeling puzzled.

‘Go and see
him.  Ask him for his side of the story.  This could be a fake.  It could be
another Christos.  Maybe he knew it was Pamela and was playing a trick.  You
need all the facts,’ Lumi declared.

‘It’s up to
you,’ Adam reminded Vicky.

‘I’m not sure
I can do it.  I don’t know if I’m ready to see him,’ Vicky fretted.

‘We will go. 
All four of us.  We will support you.  You can have privacy to talk to Christos
and you can come home with us.  I would like to see this place anyway.  It’s an
important tourist attraction,’ Lumi smiled.

Vicky
nodded.  It would be much easier to face Christos and speak to him about this
if she knew that Adam and Flic were waiting for her when it was over. 

‘Ok, I’ll go
if you all come with me,’ she agreed.

‘What about
the job we’re here to do in the first place?  Shouldn’t we be concentrating on
getting the evidence on George?’ Adam reminded them.

‘I haven’t
heard from him yet.  I’m planning to text him tonight.  I thought maybe we
could all go out for a few drinks and I will suggest he and I meet in a bar?’
Lumi proposed.

‘I suppose
that would be alright.  If that doesn’t work out, we’ve always got tomorrow,’
Adam decided.

‘Vicky, what
time are you meeting Christos?’ Lumi asked.

‘Two
o’clock,’ Vicky replied, double-checking the message from her phone.

‘Excellent. 
I will go down to the mini market and buy food for breakfast,’ Lumi decided. 
She grabbed her phone and her own key to the apartment and scuttled through the
front door. 

Adam walked
towards the door, waited for Lumi to disappear down the steps, and then closed
it again and attached the security chain.

‘There’s
something not right about her.  I don’t think she’s intending to meet George at
all,’ he scowled.

‘What?  Ever?’
Flic checked.

‘I don’t
know.  She’s not making any efforts at contacting him today and she’s not
exactly preparing herself for seduction, is she?’ Adam frowned.

‘Maybe she’s
stalling.  Maybe she’s trying to extend the trip,’ Flic said, shuffling around the
kitchen, collecting up all the knives from the drawers to hide them before Lumi
returned. 

‘I think you
might be right.  She’s got nothing to go back for now.  She might be trying to
spin this out.  But whatever it is, we still need to be on our guard,’ he
advised them.

‘I was never
OFF my guard with her,’ Vicky snorted. 

‘Maybe one of
us should have gone to the shop with her,’ Flic worried, before adding, ‘Look! 
We’ve got tons of cereal left.  And half a loaf of bread.  There was no need
for her to go shopping again.’

‘I’ll go
after her,’ Adam volunteered.  ‘I should have offered to go instead of her.  I
think one of us should be with her at all times.  I don’t trust her one bit.’

*****

Lumi raced
down the pale marble steps and narrowly avoided stepping on one of the hotel
cats as she reached the bottom.  She looked over her shoulder to check that she
hadn’t been followed.  She knew none of them trusted her, especially Vicky. 
She thought Adam was probably the only one on her side.  He didn’t suspect her
at all, she decided. 

She walked
through the gardens, into the main building, past the mini market and through
reception to the main entrance of the hotel.  She left the car park and walked
along the street.  She doubted if any of them would follow her to the mini
market, but if they did, she’d say she’d made a trip to the toilets on her
way.  And just in case they did follow her, all the way into the street, she
decided to take a turn down a cul-de-sac and get a little bit lost before she
pulled out her phone.