‘Since when have we had CCTV?’ I look around the office. Graham looks mildly uncomfortable. He looks at his watch.
‘A couple of years. They’re in the automatic sprinklers. It’s an insurance thing. Anyway, the point is you’ve got nothing to worry about while you’re here. I’ll see you before six.’ The bell above the door jangles as he opens the door, and again when he closes it. I turn the lock but leave the sign to ‘open’, then sit down at my desk. I had no idea Graham had installed cameras. Don’t employers have some sort of obligation to inform their employees – and customers, come to that – they’re under surveillance? I look up at the ceiling.
A couple of years.
A couple of years when I’ve thought I was on my own in the office; Graham’s door shut. Eating a sandwich, making a call, adjusting an uncomfortable bra strap. Does he watch me? The thought is unsettling, and when the office phone rings it makes me jump.
At half past five I turn the ‘closed’ sign round. It hasn’t been busy: a new tenant, in to sign a lease, and a handful of enquiries about the new office block. No one suspicious; no one predatory, and I was starting to feel I’d been overreacting. But now that it’s dark outside and the lights are on in the office, putting me on display to anyone passing, I begin to feel anxious again.
I’m grateful when Graham returns, waving his car keys and asking for my postcode so he can programme the satnav. I’m relieved I don’t have to get on the Tube tonight; I don’t have to worry about who’s behind me, or risk ending up dead in a park, like poor Tania Beckett.
For tonight, at least, I’ll be safe.
I’ll always be grateful to that first dead girl.
She changed everything.
She helped me see that findtheone.com could be so much more than just a new kind of dating site; opened up a world of possibilities to me.
Sure, there’ll always be the clients who don’t want to play dirty, who want to use the site the way it was first intended; to chat you up and ask you for dinner.
But Tania Beckett showed me there were other men; men who would pay to play cat and mouse through the Underground, to hover by the parks at the exact moment you walk by, with something bigger on their mind than dinner.
Such potential.
Higher prices. A more specialist market.
I could be more than just a match-maker. I’d be a facilitator for desires hidden so deep inside they’re barely acknowledged. Who among us can truly say they haven’t imagined what it would feel like to hurt someone? To go further than society deems acceptable; to experience the rush of forcing someone’s hand?
Who among us wouldn’t take that chance, if it were handed to us?
The chance to kill someone.
21
‘Boss, we’ve got a problem.’
Nick looked up from his desk as Kelly approached. Morning meeting had only just finished, but Nick had already loosened his tie and undone the top bottom of his shirt. Kelly knew that by lunchtime the tie would be off altogether, tucked into the breast pocket of his jacket, in case the top brass dropped by.
‘The account you opened with the website has been revoked. I just tried to sign in to see what new profiles had been added and it threw me out.’ Kelly couldn’t stop herself from logging on to the site every hour or so, even reaching for her phone when she woke up in the early hours of that morning. She did so with a growing feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, knowing the new profiles added! banner that flashed on to the screen meant more women in danger; more potential victims. The website was moving faster than the investigation could keep up with, and the previous day’s wild goose chase to Amersham hadn’t helped. James Stanford’s credit card had been cloned a year previously; he’d lost his wallet – or had it stolen – and suffered various incidents of identity theft as a result. The mail-forwarding centre on Old Gloucester Road was simply the latest in a string of crimes involving credit card details that had no doubt been sold numerous times, and MIT were no closer to finding out who was responsible for targeting London’s female commuters.
The incident room walls were covered with rows of their photos – some identified, most nameless – with more added to the website since they’d first gained access. Kelly had logged on automatically this morning after briefing, her fingers finding the keys of their own accord.
Log in not recognised.
Kelly had blinked at the screen. Tried again, assuming operator error.
Log in not recognised.
She had checked and double-checked the details for the account Nick had created, using his own credit card and a gmail address, but the mistake wasn’t hers. The account had disappeared.
‘Do you think we’ve been rumbled?’
Nick tapped his pen against the side of his laptop. ‘Maybe. How many profiles did we download?’
‘All of them. Maybe it looked suspicious.’