The Camera Lies: a gripping psychological thriller

by AB Morgan

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Neale, we didn’t mean to cause any embarrassment. I don’t usually entertain men in my room, but Freddie and I couldn’t resist each other. It’s not a one-night stand.’ Chloe was touching Freddie’s forearm tenderly with her fingertips, while with her cow-brown eyes holding Konrad’s gaze a little too long for comfort.

  ‘You only live once…’ Konrad stood up slowly. ‘Sorry, I’ll have to love and leave you. I’ve work to do on my laptop for an hour or so, please excuse me.’

  He cut his breakfast short, not wanting to have any further blatant foreplay thrust in front of him while he was eating. Besides which, he was envious of Freddie’s success and Chloe had a distracting cleavage, which didn’t help the situation.

  ‘I’ll see you at the flat a bit later, Dad. I’ve one or two matters to deal with here first, if that’s okay.’ Freddie had the audacity to wink at his father when he said this.

  ‘See you later. Take your time.’ You lucky little bastard.

  Konrad’s fertile imagination was doing him no favours, neither was his lack of meaningful sexual contact for the past three months or more, unless he counted himself. He called it “playing solitaire”.

  “Your son and his girlfriend seem to have trouble keeping their hands off each other. Why did you leave the dining room so soon? Was it difficult to watch or were you enjoying it too much?”

  In his room, he leapt towards the window, which overlooked the courtyard and footpaths of the main building. The dining room could be seen from there, but no one was standing peering through binoculars or texting, which meant that Tessa had either moved away or must be in the building spying on him, and watching Freddie and Chloe.

  Don’t reply. That’s what she wants you to do.

  He fired up his laptop to check his emails. There was a brief message from Slow Joe confirming his willingness to accept the mission impossible; finding the current identity of Tessa Carlton. It was time to do some work and examine the video clips that Joe had collated for him of Matthew Hawley and his derring-dos.

  The aim had been to find a clip which demonstrated Matthew’s fears and might provide visual clues of physical torture. ‘Rope burns, let’s see if we can’t find evidence of them somewhere,’ Konrad said speaking to the screen.

  ‘There she is, the luscious Helena, waiting by the side of the pool while poor old Matthew is on the high board ready to leap.’ The camera shot zoomed in on Matthew who was apparently mentally preparing himself at the far end of the board. He turned around for a moment facing away from onlookers and cameras. ‘There. Did he throw-up behind that pillar? It looks like it.’ He zoomed in on the laptop and smiled. ‘Well done, young Joe, first one and we have the jackpot.’

  The scene showed Matthew Hawley placing his arm against an angular white concrete pillar and leaning forward, retching. As the toned figure in swimming trunks turned to face his fate, Konrad spied a line of small bruises on each inner thigh. He examined the film several times; following Matthew’s every move.

  ‘What else do we have here?’ There were a few key scenes to choose from to support Matthew’s assertions about his fear of heights. ‘Poor bugger. The things we do for love, and a shag.’ Another text beeped making Konrad jump. His mind had been elsewhere.

  “They’re at it again. Banging away and making filthy noises. He must be good, your son, he’s making her beg for more. She’s loving it. Room 107.”

  He couldn’t resist. He knew it was risky but he wanted to catch sight of Tessa, so he crept silently as he approached the room along the corridor from where he was staying. The “do not disturb sign” was hanging outside the door, which he found ironic given the noises emanating from within. Looking around him, he could see no cameras in the corridor, although there was one close to his room in the stairway overlooking the exit door to the courtyard. With the stairs so close by, he checked to see if Tessa was hiding there.

  After walking to the next floor level and down again, he hesitated outside the door of room 107. He could hear Freddie’s throaty voice, grunting, and Chloe declaring a faith in God, before a pause in the familiar rhythmical thudding of a headboard on the wall. Konrad shifted his weight which made the floor creak, and with that he scuttled back to his room, embarrassed at what he had done. He felt like a Peeping Tom as he checked behind him to confirm that no one had seen him listening to the bawdy noises.

  Reaching the safety of his room, he glanced out the window into the large courtyard area where he saw a woman on a bench playing with her phone. He stood still to get a better look. Early thirties, sunglasses, petite, neat and with thin lips. Could that be her?

  His phone beeped, making him flinch involuntarily.

  “You didn’t stay long.”

  Konrad marched outside, into the courtyard, and made a complete fool of himself.

  ‘Excuse me, did you just send me a text message?’

  The woman on the bench took off her sunglasses and simply replied, ‘What? Why would I do that? I don’t know who on earth you are.’

  He knew instantly that he’d made a mistake and all he could do was to humbly apologise.

  Tessa was pulling the strings and making him dance.

  Later, over dinner, he managed to laugh sheepishly about the whole fiasco when he told Lorna what he’d done.

  ‘You idiot.’ Lorna shook her head in disbelief although she still retained a bemused smile, letting Konrad know she was finding his story amusing. He had already regaled her with his drunken exploits and the story of the vase urinal.

  ‘I’m dreading the journey home now. I’m sure I’ll get flashbacks to Freddie’s bedroom romp and I won’t be able to look my own son in the eye. It’s not something I’d prepared myself for as a parent.’

  ‘You’d better stand by then because I’m sure Freddie will be seeing a lot more of Chloe. They sound well suited.’

  ‘That’s not funny… Look, Lorna, I’ll be here again next weekend to bring back the twins and finish off odd jobs in their flat, so can we meet up again for longer? We could go for a decent walk, Newborough Warren, or out to the unpronounceable island with the ponies and the lighthouse, like we did last year, do you remember? What do you say?’ The more time he spent with Lorna again, the more desperate he became to regain her trust. Taking things slowly was already becoming difficult.

  ‘Ynys Llanddwyn. It sounds like a great idea, I love it and yes I do remember the last time we were there.’ Lorna looked down at her plate, appearing suddenly embarrassed at the recall of events from their walk through the pines to the beach nearly ten months earlier. She blushed. ‘Will you call me while you’re at home for the week, to confirm?’

  ‘I’ll phone you every day. I’ll FaceTime you if that would be better, in the evenings. We can see each other then.’

  13

  Another hotel room, with better lighting this time. She quickly checked her phone, making certain that it was switched off during the recording. The camera’s red light was on as she settled into the functional chair placed against the plain magnolia wall of the neatly appointed double room.

  ‘I’m starting to have some fun now that you’re so dangerously exposed, Konrad. If it weren’t for Lorna, you’d be more difficult to play with, because without her you’d not have so much to lose. I’ve watched you and her together and your transformation has been quite magical. You are a handsome couple: well matched, natural together and clearly in love. Let’s face it, Konrad, you’re a catch, and good looking for your age, in my humble opinion. As for Lorna, she’s younger of course, and she has that amazing fresh face and softness that Delia doesn’t possess. You must be having a hell of a struggle in your underpants right now. You took Lorna to dinner, but she didn’t put out. Poor you. You never even managed to kiss her. What are you scared of, Konrad? Is it rejection?

  ‘Delia’s rebuffs don’t hurt so much, do they? No, they don’t, because there are no meaningful emotions involved. When you try to coerce your wife into a quick one, it’s a
selfish act on your part. You don’t care about her. You do care about Lorna, which is why you didn’t push your luck.

  ‘Freddie can’t have meant to rub it in when he arrived for breakfast with his new girlfriend. I watched your expression as he touched her at the table and I’m sure you were envious of him. Did you have to go back to your room for an emergency wank? Is that why you took so long to respond to my text? The closest you got to a fuck was listening to your own son having sex. You dirty bastard.

  ‘I’m going to stay on your trail a while longer before I decide how to proceed. I have plans forming but the next move is yours.’

  She rose from the chair, and waved at the camera before switching it off and placing it in its compact black holdall with the tripod.

  14

  Annette was eating again. Chocolate éclairs. She licked her fingers and spoke with her mouth full. ‘So, Delia is taking the news well, in the circumstances.’

  ‘It’s hard to tell.’ Konrad passed his colleague a paper serviette. ‘I suspect that without the twins being at home I’d need a stab vest, but at least I did the decent thing and explained to her why I was leaving. We had to sit in the summerhouse at the end of the garden, so the children didn’t overhear. She swore a lot but managed to keep the volume down to a dull roar, and only hit me three times.’

  ‘Sounds like a success to me.’

  ‘Without a doubt I’ve done the right thing. The main issues on her mind were: what other people would think, and how much money she would be getting. Shallow, wouldn’t you say? She wants to stay in the house, so I’ve spoken to Rob at The Valiant and I’m renting a room there, although the separation won’t be official until next week when the children have returned to Bangor. Rob’s discreet enough to preserve my privacy for a while. Formal announcement to follow. The PR machine will handle that.’

  ‘You mean Delia?’

  ‘Yes. It wouldn’t be in her best interests for there to be negative perceptions of our split. The money might dry up. She’ll make herself look good by presenting an amicable parting of ways and an amazing friendship. That sort of bollocks.

  ‘Then the real battle will commence behind solicitors’ doors, and they’ll take what’s left of my money. Anyway, enough, woman. Back to work. Did you get those photos of Helena and Tessa when they were younger?’

  Slow Joe and Mike grinned like two playful children. ‘This is definitely going to help you work out what Tessa looks like now. Take a look at these beauties,’ Mike said with sarcastic overtones.

  On the screen in front of him, Konrad noted the blond curls and blue eyes of a young Helena, slightly chubby and awkward, beaming at the camera with a fixed false cheesy grin. She held a doll in one hand, dangling it, uncared for. The next photo was presumably of Tessa, a scrawny sallow-faced child with tangled mousy hair wearing a grubby dress and dirty shoes and socks, as if she had stepped from a puddle.

  ‘Poor kid. She looks like little orphan Annie. She has the same blue eyes as Helena, but almost everything else is different,’ commented Annette from over Konrad’s shoulder. He scrolled again and again through the dozen or so photos that Mike and Joe had sourced. Helena grew into a pretty, confident teenager, posing with pleasure for the camera. Her huge eyes were a mesmeric blue-grey colour.

  As the school years progressed, her figure changed from a slim boy-like shape to the hourglass curves of more recent photographs, and the camera somehow captured her allure. Tessa, on the other hand, remained plain, sullen and developed into an anorexic Goth. Clothes were black, her blue eyes were caked in black make-up and her hair was dyed an ebony colour, left long and severe. Her face was pasty white.

  ‘Is that the last one we have of Tessa? Really? She looks like every other teenage Goth on the planet. Hopeless. No wonder they couldn’t identify anyone likely to be her from the court cameras.

  ‘Do we have any photos of the staff who worked for Helena?’ Konrad enquired. ‘It might help with the next section of the film to add some depth about Naomi, and we also need photos of Josh at around that time, if we have them.’

  The screen in front of them bore the familiar image of interviewer sitting facing interviewee, in the confines of Longlees Prison.

  ‘Why did your son Josh end up living with you and Helena?’

  ‘Amy had a car accident. It was serious enough for her to be in hospital for three weeks and then need physio when she eventually went home. Helena offered to have Josh as he’d finished his first year of A-levels, and we thought he could cope better with the pressures of his last year at school if he stayed with us. Pete the wanker only had a few hours help from Amy’s parents, and it took the pressure away from Amy, to be fair. She was happy enough with the arrangement. Once he’d passed his driving test, Josh went to see her whenever he could and we bought him a run-around to give him his freedom and keep up with his sports and seeing his mates. He was practically a young adult by then.’

  Konrad was keen to steer the story in a particular direction.

  ‘How long was it before you and Helena picked up on his infatuation with Naomi, her office manager?’

  Matthew smiled weakly.

  ‘That didn’t take too long to figure out. Josh asked Helena if he could get some experience over the summer by working for her and obviously we interpreted that as an exceptionally mature attitude, not realising that he had an ulterior motive. Naomi’s an attractive young lady, a few years older than Josh, bright and witty. She didn’t do anything to lead him on. She didn’t tease him or flirt with him, or not that we noticed anyway. He was a young man with the sap rising and fate played him a helpful hand, that’s all.

  ‘He was a good worker too. He became the office junior, handling calls, taking messages, even setting up interview dates. Quite often we left them to it while Helena and I escaped for charity events. The office only closed on a Sunday, so most Saturday mornings Josh worked with either Naomi or Richard to cover the calls. Sundays was sport for Josh. Tennis mostly. He kept himself fit in the gym and we worked out together when we could.’

  Konrad kept his cool approach as he raised the next query with Matthew. This incident had been mentioned in court but questions had remained unanswered.

  ‘When did you and Helena twig that there was a physical relationship happening between Josh and Naomi?’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s right to revisit this issue, Mr Neale. You seem to have a need to explore every sexual aspect of my story and this part involves Josh. It was his private life and we should respect that.’

  ‘I agree, Matthew, but your wife didn’t respect Josh’s privacy, did she? She had a most unusual reaction to discovering what your son and her employee were up to. She filmed them, didn’t she? Don’t you find that bizarre?’

  Matthew sighed as if exasperated. ‘As I have explained, she loved sex, Mr Neale, and she found watching others having sex a turn on. No harm was done.’

  Konrad was stunned at Matthew’s dispassionate response. This made him delve deeper to gauge whether there was more to this story than Matthew was letting on. ‘We’re talking about your son here. Not just someone else. Who else did she watch having sex? Did you join a special club?’

  ‘You’re being coarse now, Mr Neale. Josh and Naomi had made the mistake of having sex where there were CCTV cameras. We had a comprehensive security system in place for the house, the outbuildings, the gym and the offices. Only Helena and I had access to the recordings and only we knew where the cameras were hidden.’

  ‘But you didn’t see fit to tell Josh, or at least warn him?’

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, the first time I saw Josh in action I was proud of him becoming a man, but I didn’t register that Helena’s interest had increased. When I did, I began to feel envious of my own son. For some reason, Helena became obsessed with watching Naomi and Josh, although I didn’t realise what was going on at first, not until I stumbled across Helena watching recordings of them. Not just when they were having sex, but in the office as well.
I once stood undetected, keeping a close eye on her facial expressions as she watched Josh with Naomi. I’d seen that look before. Many times. Usually aimed at me.’

  ‘This is really unhinged stuff. I’m not sure we’ll get away with showing these descriptions,’ Annette commented. ‘We might have to narrate the general gist. Forget my idea of making two episodes, we’ll never be given the go-ahead. It’s far too depraved.’ Annette looked at Konrad for reassurance, but his phone distracted him.

  ‘It’s her again. I don’t think she’s here, but she’s heading back my way soon by the sounds of things,’ he said showing Annette his latest text message. She screwed up her face in response.

  “Missing me yet?”

  ‘That’s a bit freaky,’ she said. ‘I’m glad it’s you she’s pissed off with, and not me. You’re sure it’s Tessa Carlton sending these texts, aren’t you?’

  ‘I can’t think who else it could be. Where have Joe and Mike gone off to now?’ Konrad asked, as the two assistants left together saying “cheerio” and “see you later”. ‘Have you sent them out for rations again?’ He had swiftly changed the subject. He felt more vulnerable each time another text arrived from Tessa Carlton, which was made worse by the fact that the only picture he had in his head was of a bitter and twisted self-harming Goth; and yet, he hadn’t seen anyone fitting that description since walking home from the station late on Halloween the year before.

  ‘Apparently they’re going to use some high-tech equipment at Mike’s place to hack into the NHS data spine to locate twisted Tessa’s health ID. We’re not to know that, of course, because it’s highly illegal and involves something called “the dark web.” I innocently assumed that was to do with spiders, but I was laughed at by the pair of them. The word dinosaur was used, can you believe?’ Annette coughed, choking on a peanut for a few seconds before continuing. ‘While they’re indulging in their underground activities, they also hope to come up with a few photos of Helena’s staff as you requested and they’re thoroughly enjoying themselves. I’m sure Joe didn’t envisage his internship being quite so fascinating, or raunchy for that matter.’