Chapter 5
FIVE
I stare at the image. It’s me, for certain.
And as I watch, my body heat intensifies when I see myself collapse to the floor.
In the video I’m so battered that my skin can’t be seen underneath the tsunami of blood pouring from my body.
I lie still, alone. Whoever was there with me has left me for dead. And then the video cuts out.
For a moment I’m frozen, and I glance around my empty house as if it will provide me with an answer to what I’ve just viewed. I turn back to my phone, but it’s no longer there and I’m staring at the words This message was deleted.
Sweat leaks from my palms as I tap on the number and press call, only to be told that the number is not recognised. Still, I try again. And a third time, slamming my phone on the table when I’m greeted with the same message.
Picking it up again, I call Leo, heat radiating from my phone as I press it to my ear.
Finally, Leo answers. ‘Ria, are you okay? I’ve just come out of surgery.’
‘Something happened.’ My words sound strained, as if they don’t belong to me. ‘I’ve just been sent a video. Of me being attacked.’
Leo gasps. ‘But . . . but how?’
‘It’s not what happened, though. It wasn’t filmed in the flat, and I . . . in the video I’m dead.’
‘Jesus! What the hell. Are you okay? Send it to me so I can see.’
‘I can’t. It was deleted as soon as I’d seen it.’
‘That’s . . . weird. What the hell is it?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m scared, Leo. I know it’s not real – I’m standing here alive – but it’s . . . watching it was just . . .’ My body turns cold. ‘I think it’s a message. A warning.’
There’s a long pause before Leo answers. ‘We know the only person who’d do that.’
‘But he moved away, Leo. He’s on the other side of the country in Newcastle.’
‘But he doesn’t need to be close to you to target you like this. And he’s not able to teach any more. He’s not going to let that rest.’
My throat tightens. I think of Peter Harvey, the man who most likely attacked me, and wonder if he has resurfaced. But there was never any evidence that he was the one who broke into my flat, despite the fact he’d been hounding me.
‘It’s been a year, though. Why now? What if it’s not him?’ I say.
‘Then who?’
‘I don’t know, but somehow it was made to look like me in that video. A deepfake. Probably easy to do that with AI now. Peter Harvey was terrible with tech. He used to moan about the interactive whiteboards and hated using them for lessons.’
‘I don’t know, Ria. He could have got help.’
‘I was meant to look dead, Leo. I did look dead.’ I force myself to breathe normally. ‘If it wasn’t me in the video, I’d swear one hundred per cent whoever it was is dead. God, Leo, you can’t imagine . . . seeing something like that.’
Leo falls silent for a moment, but I can still hear his breaths. Of course, I realise he can imagine – he saw me after I was attacked, thought I was dead. But I wasn’t dead, obviously. So who the hell is in this video?
‘It must have been awful,’ he says finally, sounding choked up. ‘Did you recognise the person who was attacking you?’
‘No. I couldn’t see their face. They had their back to the camera.’
‘Like the man from last night?’ He exhales.
My throat tightens again. ‘What are you implying? That I’m making this up?’
‘No. I’m not saying that. Of course not, Ria. I . . . I don’t know what to make of it all.’
‘I can show you where it says “This message was deleted”. That’s proof I’m not making this up. Or imagining it. I tried calling the number, but it’s disconnected.’
There’s more silence before Leo answers. ‘If it’s not Peter Harvey, then it’s someone messing with you. Trying to disturb you. Don’t let them. Online trolls do this kind of stuff all the time.’
I want to believe this is true – that I’ve been selected at random – but it’s too much of a coincidence. ‘I think it’s more than that, Leo. This was some kind of warning – I know it.’
‘A warning about what?’
‘Maybe because I’ve been asking questions about the woman I saw.’
‘The one you thought you saw on the green? But why would—’
‘Every time I talk about it, people act strangely, Leo. Georgia even said I should stop mentioning it around here.’
‘People are probably just worried about you, that’s all. I don’t think anyone—’
‘Why would the neighbours be worried about me? I barely know them.’
‘But they know me,’ Leo says. ‘At least a bit. Remember, before we moved in, while you were still recovering at the flat, I came here a lot, sorting stuff out before we completed on the house. I got to know everyone quite well. And people in Silverleaf stick together, Ria. It’s what community should be about.
Please don’t worry. If that man turns up, he’ll never get into Silverleaf. ’
‘Is it just a coincidence that I was sent this video right after I posted a photo of my sketch in the local Facebook group?’ I ask.
‘What? Oh, Ria. Was that a good idea? Giles won’t—’
‘I don’t care what Giles thinks. I wanted to see if anyone recognises her. I’ve also checked reports of missing women to see if anyone fits her description.’
Leo sighs, and somehow I’d rather him be angry than worried about me. ‘Look, I’ll come straight home,’ he says. ‘I need to be with you. I’ll just get changed, then I’ll be on my way. I’ll get someone to cover my appointments.’
‘No, don’t do that. It’s okay, I’ll be fine. All I want is for you to believe me.’
‘I know how many late nights I’ve had at the hospital since we moved here,’ he continues. ‘It can’t be easy, being on your own when you don’t know everyone yet. Especially after everything that happened. I’m going to try and be around more, at least while we settle in.’
‘You know I like my own company.’ We’ve never been in each other’s pockets, but after my accident, Leo barely let me out of his sight.
At first I needed him; there were so many gaps in my memory, and he was there to fill them in for me, to put together the pieces of me.
But I learned to live with those blank spaces, and as much as I love him, I was desperate to claw back time for myself, even if I was unsure what to fill it with when drawing felt beyond me and I’d left my job.
‘I’ll see you after your appointments,’ I say. ‘Don’t come back before. I’m fine.’
He sighs. ‘You’re not going to give in, are you? How about we go out for dinner tonight instead? I won’t be too late.’
With no appetite after seeing that video, the last thing I feel like doing is going out to eat, but this is important to Leo. ‘Okay.’
‘I’ll make a reservation,’ he says. ‘How about the Ivy in Guildford? It’s not too far.’
When I first met Leo, we used to laugh about the ridiculously inflated prices and pretentiousness of gourmet restaurants, preferring the bigger portions of our local pub.
But slowly Leo began to shun those places we’d always loved and shed his humble beginnings.
He was an up-and-coming surgeon and wanted the whole lifestyle.
I get why it’s important to him: with a childhood spent in poverty and a single mum who worked her fingers to the bone to provide basic necessities, Leo doesn’t ever want to look back.
‘Yeah, let’s go there,’ I say, dreading it.
Unease is already creeping in because, once I hang up, I will have to face what that video being sent to me means.
As soon as I end the call, I shove my phone in my pocket and the walls feel as though they’re closing in on me. I need to get out.
I lock the door and stand on the doorstep, surveying Silverleaf Heights.
It’s impossible to see any beauty in my surroundings and, despite the heat, I’m chilled to my bones.
After a moment, I follow the path around the green to Eleanor and Rufus’s house.
She’s been acting strangely around me since we moved here, and I need to know why.
Her husband works for a tech company, so it’s possible she could know how to create fake videos, but what reason could she possibly have for doing that?
I ring the doorbell again, folding my arms as I wait to see if she’ll answer this time. And while I wait, I can’t shake the feeling I’m being watched, even though I can’t see a soul anywhere.
I’m surprised when the door opens and Rufus greets me with a wide smile. He’s dressed in the same dark suit, a crisp white shirt and red tie – his work clothes, I assume.
‘Hi, is Eleanor home?’
He edges on to the doorstep, half pulling the door closed behind him. ‘Um, she is, but she’s not feeling too well. She’s gone to bed early. Think it’s something she ate.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame. Tell her I hope she feels better soon.’
Rufus leans forward and scans the green. ‘Can I pass on a message? Was it anything urgent?’
Ignoring his questions, I smile and turn away. ‘I’ll catch her soon.’ Without looking back, I feel his eyes on me as I walk back to my house, and when I let myself in, I try to smother the dread rising in my chest.
It’s been a long time since I’ve dressed up to go out, and as I stare at my reflection in the full-length bedroom mirror, a stranger gapes back at me.
I glance around the room at our king-size bed, the reading nook with a velvet armchair and a footstool, the shuttered windows, and the marble bathroom cabinets in the en suite – none of it feels like me.
But this is not what unsettles me the most; it’s the certainty that I am not safe here.
Leo waits for me at the bottom of the stairs, smiling as I make my way down. ‘Wow, you look amazing,’ he says, his eyes hungrily taking in every inch of me.
‘It’s just a dress,’ I say, forcing myself to smile back, to show him that I won’t let fear cripple me. But the image of me being attacked, even though it’s not real, refuses to fade.
Leo pulls me towards him and kisses me, then stands back and looks me up and down. ‘No, it’s the person in the dress I’m talking about,’ he says. When he kisses me again, just for a flicker of a moment it drowns out my despair.