Chapter 20
VICTORIA
I wait until I’m in our bedroom before I take out my phone.
Barney fell asleep on one of the sunloungers down by the pool not long after we arrived back from the taverna.
When I left him, he was lying on his back, his mouth open, snoring.
In books, characters snore ‘gently’. Not Barney.
His snores are like a high-speed train going through a very long tunnel.
They slowly build to a crescendo followed by a blissful moment of silence, and then he snorts so violently that sometimes I wonder if he’s about to choke. He never does.
More’s the pity.
When the children were little, I sent him to the GP who diagnosed mild sleep apnoea and suggested he lose a stone and try some nasal strips. But dieting isn’t Barney’s thing, and the strips, which came unstuck in the middle of the night, were as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
I tried earplugs, but they offered little protection from the rhythmic rumbling.
I resorted to kicking him in the shin or jabbing him in the ribs with a pointy elbow, but over the years even that stopped working.
At the end of my tether one night, I banished him to the spare room. And that’s where he’s slept ever since.
I’ve never told anyone about our sleeping arrangements.
Not that we’re the only people opting for separate beds.
There’s even a term for it now: sleep divorce.
It’s been made cool by millennials, though it’s nothing new.
If you believe the papers, the late Queen and Prince Philip slept apart, and if it was good enough for them…
Now, I’m glad Barney’s sleeping off the booze he necked at lunch. It gives me a chance to check my phone and see my tormentor’s next move. Because that’s how I view them. They’re the aggressor, launching an offensive against me, unwarranted and unprovoked.
My hands tremble as I unlock the home screen.
I open the latest message, heart thudding in my chest, and stare at the screen in confusion, unsure why I’ve been sent a screenshot of the Daily Tribune, one of the biggest tabloids in the country.
I shudder; I can’t help myself. I only read The Telegraph or The Times.
Very occasionally I’ll pick up a copy of The Observer to show I’m liberal-minded, though I rarely make it past the opinion pages.
The Tribune – whose tacky tagline claims it’s ‘The voice of the people’ – is, however, a red-top whose whole raison d’être is to dish up the dirt on public figures.
It’s the type of paper that probably hacked phones back in the day but now relies on chequebook journalism to expose the transgressions and peccadilloes of celebrities and politicians, benefit cheats and love rats.
No scandal too small.
The paper professes to take the moral high ground while digging about in the gutter for the kind of stories that make your toes curl. I wouldn’t use it to light our log burner.
I frown and reach for my reading glasses. Why is someone sending me a story from the Tribune? I peer at the screen and my breath catches in my throat. It’s not a story, it’s the paper’s contacts page.
At the Daily Tribune we’re always on the hunt for the juiciest exclusives. We pay top rates for celebrity slip-ups, scandals in high places, shocking betrayals or just the kind of stories that’ll get Britain talking.
Pick up the phone and talk to our news desk today. Don’t worry about the bill – we’ll ring you straight back.
There’s a caption under the screenshot from my tormentor, which reads: To phone or not to phone, that is the question. What would you do in my shoes, Victoria?
I throw my iPhone on the bed with a howl of frustration.
Who the hell is behind the messages? Up until now the threats have been nebulous, without substance.
Vague warnings that I’ve done something wrong and I’ve been found out.
But there’s no mistaking the intention now.
They’re going to go to the papers with the story they think they have.
If they have a problem with me, why don’t they confront me face to face? I know why, of course. It’s because by hiding their identity they can stalk and harass me without consequences. They’ll never have to look me in the eye, never have to witness the distress they’re causing.
The anonymity isn’t just cowardly, it’s insidious.
It makes me suspect everyone, even my oldest friends.
At lunch, I caught myself staring at Dominic and Simone, wondering if either – or both – of them could’ve sent the messages to get a rise out of me.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Once, during our second year at university, the pair of them took every scrap of furniture from my room in our shared student house.
Every poster on the walls, every book on the shelves.
They even unscrewed the goddamn shelves.
I eventually saw the funny side after a few drinks in the student union bar.
But that was a harmless prank. This… this is cruel.
I grab my phone and begin typing before I can talk myself out of it.
Is it money you want?
Two blue ticks and a reply appear seconds later.
People like you think you can solve everything with money, don’t you? Sorry to disappoint, Victoria, but we’re not doing this for money. We’re doing it for RETRIBUTION.
The phone slips out of my clammy hands and lands on the marble floor with a clatter.
I bend down stiffly, as if I’ve aged twenty years in as many minutes, and scoop it up.
Jagged lines score the screen. Normally, I’d be furious with myself for being so careless.
But today, a broken phone screen is the least of my worries.
Someone is trying to destroy me. I have my suspicions why, but the more important question continues to evade me. Who?