‘I wanted to tell you.’
‘What did you want to talk about?’
Sophie stared down at her cup, concentrated on drinking her coffee. Her hands began to shake. The ice in her coffee rattled. She cleared her throat.
‘I’m scared, Famie.’
Famie waited for more but Sophie was drinking coffee again.
‘We all are, Sophie,’ she began, but Sophie shook her head.
‘It’s not that,’ she said.
She was taking deep breaths. Pain control. Building up to something. Famie was getting anxious for the girl.
‘Sophie?’
‘I’m pregnant,’ she blurted.
Famie, startled, kept her silence; Sophie’s intonation suggested there was more to come. Another deep breath.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she repeated, ‘and … and Seth is the father. Was the father.’ She pulled her legs to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and started to cry.
Famie’s head spun. Seth and Sophie. Seth and Sophie? My God. She clambered on to Sophie’s chair and embraced her. She waited for the crying to subside. It bought her a few seconds. A few seconds without which she would have been cursing both Sophie and Seth as slut and manslut. A few seconds in which she then realized she had no right to feel angry, no right to be hurt.
‘My God, you poor thing,’ she whispered into Sophie’s ear. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Eventually Sophie calmed down enough to speak. ‘I didn’t know who to talk to,’ she said. ‘I feel so alone, Famie. Then I read about you and Seth in the paper.’ The tears came again. ‘It’ll be me next, I’m sure of it. And I don’t know what to do.’
Famie held her hand. ‘I saw you at the funeral,’ she said. ‘Christ, you must have found that difficult.’ She felt her hand squeezed, a slight nod of the curls. ‘I couldn’t hang around. Had to leave.’
‘I saw you go,’ said Sophie. ‘I so wanted to come with you. Didn’t have the courage. And Amal would have noticed, I know he would. He kept looking at me …’
Famie pushed back far enough to see Sophie’s tear-stained face.
‘Wait. You knew Amal Hussain?’
Sophie’s hands started to shake again. She gripped her cup tighter. ‘Sure,’ she said, ‘we met quite a few times.’
Dread was beginning to sink deep into Famie’s gut.
‘Are you still working, Sophie?’
She nodded.
‘So you know Amal is EIJ and has disappeared, right?’
Another small nod.
Famie sighed. ‘So I’m guessing you haven’t told the police and that’s the other reason I’m here.’
Sophie hauled herself out of the armchair and walked to the kitchenette. Poured herself some water which she drank in three gulps. Famie studied her stomach. Nothing showing yet.
‘I haven’t told the police, no,’ said Sophie. ‘And there’s one more reason I asked you to come.’
‘Christ, there’s more?’ said Famie. ‘I can’t imagine what you’ve kept till last.’
Sophie pointed at the laptop on the kitchen chair. Famie glanced at it.
‘It belongs to Seth,’ Sophie said. ‘And I know the password.’
Famie stared at the laptop. It had been between them all this time but she had ignored it. It looked cheap; small, black, and with a manufacturer’s logo she hadn’t seen before. Not expensive at all. Classic Seth.
‘What’s on it?’ said Famie, suddenly fearful. ‘What have you found?’
‘I wanted to wait for you,’ Sophie said.
‘I know that!’ said Famie. ‘But—’
‘I wanted to wait for you, Famie, because there are pictures of you on it. That’s why.’
25
FAMIE PACED THE cage. It was too early for a drink and she hadn’t smoked since she’d got pregnant but she wanted both now. Sophie watched her as she circled the room.
‘How many photos?’ Famie asked.
‘Eight,’ said Sophie.
‘How bad are they?’
‘You want to see them?’
‘Just tell me first! Then I’ll look.’
‘You’re getting changed, I think. Taking off jeans, putting on a dress. Blue and white stripes. In his flat by the look of it.’
‘You make them sound harmless.’
‘You’re naked in one, topless in three.’
‘Christ, he was a shit.’ She smacked the wall with her hand. ‘He kept them. I remember him “deleting” them but he actually kept them all this time. Bastard.’ She continued her laps.
Sophie knelt in front of the laptop, opened it, hit some keys.
‘How come you know the password anyway?’ said Famie. ‘I’ve never shared mine with anyone. Don’t know anyone who does.’
Sophie hit enter. ‘Because I set it up for him. He suggested the first three words of his national anthem, so that’s what it is.’ She spun the screen to Famie. ‘Here. You do this.’
Famie knelt next to Sophie, moved the cursor between the photos. Clicking. Enlarging. Cursing. Sophie’s description had been clinically accurate. It wasn’t exactly porn or anything near, but the nude shot was uncomfortably gynaecological. The rest she could live with.
‘Are there any others?’ she said.
‘Not of you, no.’
‘Of you?’
Sophie nodded. ‘A few.’
‘Did you know?’
‘He said he was deleting them.’
‘Jesus. Sounds familiar. Anyone else, dare I ask?’
It was clear from Sophie’s face that there were.
‘Three,’ she replied. ‘You’ll be mostly interested in the last.’
She clicked and spun again. The photo on the screen showed a grinning woman in the process of showering. It was Mary Lawson.
Famie spluttered in disbelief. She stared at it for a long time, her fingers tapping on the side of the laptop. Eventually she looked away.
‘And the other two?’
Sophie showed her the others. Both darker-skinned, both naked, both looking coy.
‘We’ve got quite the charmer here,’ said Sophie, her words almost a whisper. Famie felt her pain in every word.
‘Well,’ Famie said. ‘First point, we’re in some serious shit here, you and me. But second, if there’s nothing other than smutty pictures, the police never need to see it. What else is there? Have you looked? Please tell me there’s nothing about his terrorist brother.’
She spun the laptop back to Sophie who clicked and tapped.
‘He seems to have used this as an overflow computer,’ she said. ‘There are sixteen documents that I can see, all containing articles he’s written for our website. They all date from September last year to March this year. Then it all stops. So nothing for three months.’
‘Dare I ask when the Mary shot was dated?’ said Famie.
‘February twenty-sixth last year,’ said Sophie.
Another punch to the stomach. Famie’s head dropped. ‘We split on the twenty-seventh. It’s my birthday so it’s one of those break-ups you remember. I thought it was mutual but really it was because he was shagging his boss. He actually left me for an older woman.’