Your Guilty Secret

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘Sure,’ I said. Keep calm, I told myself, but I leaned forward and held on to the edges of the kitchen table for support. He opened up a media player program on his computer and pressed play, a triumphant stab of his finger on the keyboard. I felt Conor push me slightly out the way, his breath heating up my neck.

  We watched the footage. The flickering date in the left-hand corner was from May twenty-fifth of this year. Three months ago. I had no idea why this was relevant. We watched the whole seven and a half minutes and I was growing sicker by the minute. Matthew snorting line after line of cocaine off someone’s stomach. His face was pixelated, but I knew it was him.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Detective Mcgraw.

  ‘I . . .’ I looked at Conor.

  Anna was busy scribbling notes on a piece of paper on which she’d drawn three makeshift columns.

  Detective Mcgraw picked up the laptop and held it to his chest. He leaned backwards on the kitchen island.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘This has been circulating for a while. On Dare or Die dot com. Apparently. But no one realised it was your boyfriend. Until of course someone came forward and pointed out to us all the evidence that it was him. Which of course we’ve cross-referenced. The main evidence of course being his own admission.’

  I looked at him. I’d heard of the site Dare or Die. It was where celebrities posted anonymous footage of themselves doing illegal, or nearly illegal things. The thrill of the chase apparently. Things they could never, ever do in public for fear of being found out. It was where a lot of sex tapes were uploaded. Masked A-listers with grainy footage of themselves. I replayed the video in my mind. Although his face was blurred out, those arms, those beautiful, perfect arms were his and his alone.

  ‘Is he down at the station?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. We’re still asking him about his little escapade during the hour before Ava went missing.’ Detective Mcgraw was talking fast again, as though he was spewing out the words.

  ‘I came here tonight, now,’ he went on, ‘instead of waiting until the morning because I wanted to see how you’d react to watching the footage before the identity of the actor in the starring role got leaked to the general public. Which I’m pretty sure it will. We’ve taken measures to get it down but you know – you can’t control much on the web these days.’

  ‘And?’ I said, wondering where he was going next with this.

  ‘And, I’m guessing you like control in your home – that you’re someone who likes to know exactly what’s going on and I wanted to know if you knew about this. It appears you didn’t. You’re looking quite shocked, Ms King. Genuinely shocked. I think I’ve got a handle on your expressions now. What’s real and what’s not.’ This was an entirely new Detective Mcgraw to the one I’d been privy to during the case so far. The slow-talking man who could never look me in the eye had turned into a ferocious beast who was staring like he was about to launch right at my face.

  ‘I didn’t.’ I looked him straight in the eye. ‘I had no idea that he had videos of himself taking drugs.’ I wanted to check Anna’s reaction, but I didn’t want to break eye contact with Detective Mcgraw, in case he took that as a measure of guilt.

  ‘Did you know about Matthew’s narcotics use at all? His partying? If you do, Ms King, and you allowed your daughter to be surrounded by it, it puts a very different light on this investigation. The things Matthew gets up to. The type of people he surrounds himself with. We’ve checked into this video a bit more. The people who he was with that night. We had an interesting chat with the witness who came forward. Not the type of people one might want to fraternise with. Especially given your profile and the fact you have a young daughter. It puts a slightly seedy slant on the whole thing. Wouldn’t you say?’ I looked over at Anna, who gave me a slight nod.

  ‘I didn’t know about this.’ I gestured towards his laptop. ‘I’ve told you. He’s had difficult times. What he gets up to is none of my business. And I’d never let Ava be surrounded by it.’

  ‘Really?’ He almost laughed. ‘We have a lovely little idea, you see’ – he cleared his throat – ‘that Ava knew all about Matthew’s activities. That all of this had something to do with the blank tapes from the swimming pool. And that somehow you covered up for him.’ I almost wished, for a brief moment, that I had seen someone doing drugs in the annexe. It would have been easier to explain, at least. Anything, would have been easier than what Ava and I had witnessed.

  Detective Mcgraw went on. ‘You and Matthew argued about this on the phone just before Ava went missing. Perhaps you asked him to stop doing what he was doing. For the sake of your reputation? Beautiful couple. Great brand. How much are you guys worth together? I’m guessing it has to be in the region of a couple of billion. Let alone the influence and power you both wield. Am I right?’ I gripped the table harder. ‘Between you, over two hundred and fifty million Instagram followers. I heard that your advertising fees on social media have reached millions of dollars per post. Quite a little racket you’ve got going on, Ms King. Impressive indeed.’

  ‘No,’ I said, my voice level. ‘No. You’re wrong. I would never put my reputation before my daughter.’

  ‘Might I carry on? Whilst you were having this argument, Matthew left the juice bar. He drove towards you to finish off the discussion in person. Away from prying ears. Ava asked to go to relieve herself but instead was distraught. She ran off. We’re not quite sure what the next piece of the puzzle is, Ms King. But we’ll find out.’

  ‘That’s quite enough,’ said Anna. ‘If you want to question my client like this you’ll have to take her down to the station.’

  ‘OK then,’ said Detective Mcgraw. ‘We’ve got hundreds of people on this. The manpower being taken up is huge. Millions of dollars chasing up leads from crazy fans when the answer’ – he jabbed his finger at me – ‘lies right here. In this house. Ms King? As I said, a nice little theory. Except I have a hunch it’s a little more than a theory. Now would you care to enlighten me?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll say anything else,’ I replied. ‘I believe you can’t find anything substantial. That you’re trying to pin this on Matthew and by extension me, with your half-baked ideas. But let me tell you—’ I smoothed my hands over my stomach. They were shaking. ‘You’re looking in the wrong place. I’ve told you about the car. That’s where you should be looking. I think you seem to have forgotten there’s a missing child here. My daughter.’

  ‘All right.’ Detective Mcgraw clicked his fingers. ‘Let’s go.’ Anna and I both snapped our heads up. ‘Station. Now.’ We all sat without moving. ‘Come on.’ He gathered up his dictaphone and started walking towards the door. ‘Conor? You seem to be following Ms King around with great interest. You’d better come too. Ms King, you’re going to need him when the public see you being hauled in. I’ve been doing my best to keep you away from prying eyes. To make sure that your presence doesn’t distract the investigation. But I’m not going to any special measures to keep this quiet now.’ I could hear two chimes of a clock in the distance.

  ‘Wait.’ I leaped forwards. ‘Wait. For God’s sake. Just stop.’ Mcgraw turned back around and looked at me, waiting for me to speak.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It was silly,’ I said, pushing my tear ducts shut with my fingers. ‘Stupid, really. Our discussion. We did have a row in the car. We did. But it was nothing. It had nothing to do with my daughter’s disappearance. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want you to start looking in the wrong place. I told you.’ I was crying properly now. ‘You kept getting side-tracked with the conversation between myself and Matthew. I don’t think Ava was even aware of the fact I was on the phone. I’ve told you already, she’d only just woken up.’

  ‘You told me,’ Detective Mcgraw stated, ‘that you weren’t sure at what point your daughter woke up.’

  ‘Stop putting words into my mouth, I’m trying to speak. To tell you what happened. We had a discussion on the phone in the car.
Me and Matthew. It was a little bit heated.’

  Detective Mcgraw walked towards me and put his things back down. I noticed the dictaphone’s red flashing light, still recording.

  ‘Good. Now, finally, we’re getting somewhere,’ he said, his eyes searching my face. ‘Please, Ms King. I’m listening.’

  England, December 2004

  ‘Lara,’ Kaycee hiccupped herself awake. ‘I’m gonna . . . oh my God. Please, please help me.’

  ‘Listen, it’s OK. Just have some water.’ I held a glass to her lips but she vomited all over me and the sink.

  ‘I’m not used to it.’ she said. ‘Baby, Isabella – it’s made me . . .’ She hiccupped again.

  ‘It’s OK. Let’s get out of here.’ I felt more grounded because I was looking after someone else and didn’t have to think about what had just happened with peroxide-haired bitch. I waited for a bit. I told Kaycee that Isabella was at home and that she needed to sober up.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Oh God. Oh my God. I’m an awful mother.’ Her eyes went blank. ‘I’ve let her down already. I’m just the worst.’ She cried great racking sobs.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ I smoothed back her hair. ‘Come on. We’re gonna go home now. You need to stand up straight. Sort yourself out. Just for five minutes whilst . . .’

  ‘Please. Let’s go. Now,’ she said to me, pulling at the waistband of her shiny green skirt.

  ‘Ready?’ She stood up and we opened the toilet door to a wall of banging music and loud voices and she leaned against me.

  ‘You’re a good person, Lara. Thank you, for helping me.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, scanning the room for Ben. I saw him, exactly where I’d left him. I felt like I was going to cry. Devoted fiancé and father.

  ‘Kaycee!’ He bounded towards us. His cap was on backwards and he’d rolled down his sleeves. ‘Jesus, I was worried.’ He looked around. ‘Come on. Let’s go home.’

  ‘Wait,’ I told him. ‘I can’t leave out the front. I’ll go out the back.’ I remembered the back entrance from the last time we’d been clubbing at Dancing Buddha. There had to be something similar here. I scanned the back wall and spotted a fire exit, guarded by a large bouncer. I recalled something Joanne had said to me when I’d done my first paid club appearance, when she was running through all the publicity with me.

  ‘When you do your club appearances, they’ll want you to be papped as much as possible so you earn your fee. Twenty thousand pounds for the next one.’ She’d put on some dark lipstick and smacked her lips. ‘So go out the front when you leave, unless you’re too drunk, in which case there’s always a back exit. Normally it takes you down an alleyway but you can get a car to pick you up. The paps may have cottoned on but if you’re careful you should be OK. Normally there’s other celebs around anyway.’

  ‘You go out the front and distract them,’ I told Ben. ‘Tell them I’m coming. They know you’re my manager. Order us a cab. I’ll take Kaycee out the back so no one paps us. OK?’

  ‘Fine.’ He twisted his cap the right way round. ‘Hannah and Joanne have already buggered off. You can come back with us tonight.’

  ‘What about—?’

  ‘Isabella?’

  ‘Yeah, won’t she . . .’

  ‘She’s staying with Kaycee’s sister.’

  ‘If you’re—’ I swallowed down a lump in my throat. The day’s events had caught up with me. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Yes. Quick. I’ll meet you out the back in five. I’ll be in a cab.’

  ‘Fine.’ A crowd had started to form around me but then someone else came into the room and everyone moved towards him instead. Justin Farrer, actor of the moment. He waved at me and I waved back.

  ‘Now,’ I said, propping Kaycee up using my right arm. ‘Come on,’ I told her. ‘You can make it. Just head to the back door.’

  I asked the thick-set club bouncer to open the back door, so we could leave the premises. He nodded, looking from side to side, as if he was doing some illicit drugs deal, and finally opened the door a fraction. Kaycee and I both squeezed through, into a freezing cold alleyway that opened out into a square backyard. I waited for my senses to recalibrate from the smoky, strobe lighting to the silent blackness of the night, before casting my eyes across the place to check there was no one around. I looked for any CCTV: there was an old camera set up above the door frame of the club but when I looked closer, I saw that the cable had been cut, with several wires poking out. Phew, I thought. Finally. No one watching. No cameras, no strangers. We were alone.

  I inhaled. It smelled of rubbish, stale sweat and urine. And then I heard a small, sad hiccup from Kaycee.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I told her. ‘There’s no one here to see us, you can relax now.’

  ‘Are you sure? Is Ben coming soon?’

  ‘He is,’ I reassured her. ‘And then we’ll be on our way home.’ I thought of bed. Shutting my eyes, I grabbed Kaycee tightly and longed for sleep, and the soft comforts of their family home. Only then, I told myself, would everything be all right. The flashing red light, the nasty girl – all of that could be dealt with in the morning.

  Ryans-world.com

  Entry: August 27th, 0200hrs

  Author: Ryan

  OK – we’re gonna look at a few things. Let’s talk about what we’ve seen in the past hour:

  1. There’s a vid circling the web. One that’s dated from three months ago. Someone on a massive drugs bender. It’s yet to be confirmed but apparently it’s none other than Matthew Raine himself. (Yes – I’ve seen it. Seriously, you gotta believe me when I tell you that man is a machine.) I’m not gonna link to it here, cos I’ve got a feeling it’s not legal but if you look hard enough, you’ll find it. I’ll give you a clue. Start by searching the username RagsKnight212. I DARE you or DIE. (Dot com. Geddit?) Take it from there. Be shocked. Be awed. It’s a frightening sight.

  2. In that vid, if you look very, very carefully, there’s a reflection of someone in the window. She’s wearing a bikini. Light blue with gold ties at the side. And it’s not Lara King. Anyone with information, please DM me.

  3. Lara King has got the Rottweiler lawyer at her house today. Anna Devon. She arrived with just a briefcase, wearing a smart suit. NB she’s hired by all the A-listers for their scandals.

  4. No one from #TeamLara or #TeamMatthew has commented on the video. It’s all being kept suspiciously schtum. What does this mean?

  Here with the latest updates on missing Ava King, brought to you by Lara and Ava King’s number one fan.

  Twitter: @ryan_gosling_wannabe

  August 26th 2018

  0815hrs

  ‘Where’s Joan?’ Ava stood at the bottom of my bed. ‘I can’t find her. Where is she?’ Her voice was getting more and more high-pitched.

  ‘Oh, she’s gone.’ I lifted up my eye mask and pulled down the covers. Rosa had left my breakfast on the side. ‘Could you just . . .’ I pointed to the tray which had hot coffee, kefir yoghurt with strawberry puree and a smoothie. She walked over to the tray.

  ‘Gone where?’ I could see the judder of her bottom lip as she inhaled. I was going to push it. Tell her she’d gone for a while, just to see how she reacted but then I remembered my vow. Connect with my daughter. Have fun.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ I said. ‘She’s just got the day off because of our special day together.’

  ‘But she’s coming back, isn’t she?’ She swallowed frantically. ‘I didn’t tell. I didn’t say a word. About the swimming pool. About anything.’

  Anything? What else was my daughter referring to?

  ‘Yes. She is. Am I not good enough for you?’ My voice had an edge to it that I tried to control. She picked up my cues.

  ‘It’s just that’ – she picked up the smoothie and sniffed at it before handing it to me – ‘she said she was going to help me with something. That’s all.’

  ‘With what? Anything I can do? Or am I not capable?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she whisp
ered.

  ‘Look, come here.’ I took the smoothie glass from her. ‘Try some of this and let’s Insta it. Get people to caption it. See if they can guess the ingredients. You try first.’ Her nose wrinkled as she sniffed it again and she put the glass back down. Then I remembered my vow not to use my phone today.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘We’ll go and get something in a minute, when I’m ready. How about we look in my walk-in? Choose an outfit for later.’ I pointed towards the room adjoining my bedroom. A huge space that was kept ordered and colour-charted by my stylist. Every piece of clothing was labelled, itemised and dated from when I last wore it. There was row upon row of shoes too. Hundreds of pairs. Manolos, Louboutins, the works. Half of them were unworn and there was a huge back-lit mirror on one wall, where Ava and I would stand on the thick cream carpet, and play dress-up. She loved it. ‘Choose something for me?’ But she shook her head.

  ‘Go for a walk?’ she said. ‘And then you said I could have ice cream.’ She sounded defiant, as though she was testing me.

  ‘OK. We’ll do exactly that. Let’s aim to leave at nine thirty or so? It’s eight fifteen now. I need to get ready.’

  ‘OK.’ She didn’t move. ‘I’m already dressed. So I’ll wait here.’

  ‘Wait downstairs,’ I said. ‘And I’ll be down soon. You look tired. What time did you get up?’ She shrugged again.

  ‘Where’s . . . ?’ She nodded to the other side of the bed, unable to bring herself to say Matthew’s name.

  ‘He said he was going to a friend’s house, I think. He’ll be back later.’

  ‘So it’s just you and me?’ Her eyes started to shine. ‘No security today? No paps?’

  ‘Just us, sweetie.’ I felt better then. ‘Although if the paps see us they might take photos. They don’t know where we’re going but they might be out in force. Who knows.’ I often wondered how many times Conor rang them with tip-offs. Or bouncers, or shop assistants. I thought about how sometimes it was just random and today, there was some part of me that hoped they might just catch us, nipping into the ice-cream parlour together, or somewhere along our walk.