The Regret

by Dan Malakin

  Her phone came to life in her hand. Becca calling on video, through WhatsApp.

  Oh shit. She’d been sent the photo as well. Rachel rubbed her eyes, knowing exactly what Becca would be thinking.

  She accepted the call and went on the defensive. ‘Listen, I didn’t send…’ but her words were drowned out by the sound of chatter and clinking cocktail glasses. Judging from the slightly pixelated screen, Becca was at some swanky city bar, the kind of place with loud men in pinstripe suits and cocaine residue on the toilet paper dispensers, and fifty different types of gin that no-one ever ordered. Where was she getting the money to go to these kinds of places, now she wasn’t working? Becca was leaning into the screen, looking dressed for a night out, her sparkly eyes screwed up as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, ranting something that couldn’t be heard over the din.

  Rachel shook her head and pressed her finger in her ear, feeling like an escaped mental patient as she half mouthed, half shouted, ‘I can’t hear you!’, with a whole bus stop of people twenty metres away pretending not to look at her. The wind picked up and she shivered, wishing she’d changed into her clothes.

  The noise of the bar went quiet as Becca pushed into a corridor. ‘… mean seriously, Rach. What’s with all the drama?’

  Great, she was drunk as well. This wasn’t going to be easy. They’d known each other for twenty-two years, had been friends from the first day at primary school, and that photo, the one sent to Becca, was one of the more toxic relics of their past.

  ‘Please, listen to me,’ Rachel said. ‘I didn’t–’

  ‘You trying to make me feel bad because I didn’t come to the gym?’

  ‘I swear I didn’t send you that.’

  ‘It came from your Snap account!’

  ‘I’ve been hacked.’

  ‘It’s been ten years, Rach. Can’t you let it go already?’

  Rachel wanted to crush the phone in frustration. See how easy it is for him to mess with your head, even now. ‘Listen to me. No – listen. I didn’t send you that. I think… I think something bad is happening. I’m worried that…’ She didn’t even want to finish off the thought.

  Becca would know what she was implying but, either from meanness or stubbornness, didn’t take the bait and instead waved her away, the tips of her manicure catching the light. ‘Whatever. Are we still doing yours tonight?’

  It was supposed to be just a chilled evening, a nice way to start her birthday weekend. Becca and Spence coming round, some canapés, a few glasses of fizz, but already it was ruined. By the time she got home, Konrad would be there, and they’d have to get into what happened at the gym. He was going to have to make some tough decisions. If he couldn’t, then she doubted she’d be doing much celebrating – and however annoying Becca was being, Rachel might still need a friend.

  ‘Just come over,’ Rachel said. ‘Bring drink.’

  Chapter Six

  Scam

  This scam’s particularly good.

  Call someone. Say you’re ringing from Microsoft. An urgent warning has appeared on your system about an IP address registered at their home.

  An IP address, you tell them, is the computer’s location on the network.

  If they start to reply, But wouldn’t my IP address be dynamically assigned whenever I connect…? Hang up. Don’t wait for them to finish. They know too much to fall for it.

  Most people don’t know an IP address from an artichoke. If you tell them an IP address is what the cool kids call where they take a shit, they’ll believe you. Nine times out of ten, they suck in air, mutter, Oh no, and ask what the warning’s about.

  ‘First,’ you reply, ‘I need to do a security check. Can I confirm this is Mr Willing Victim, of ten Foolhardy Lane?’

  Of course it’s him. You got his name and address from an online phone directory. But the fact you have his details gives you credibility. It gets you through his first defence.

  Go on to explain the Poseidon virus has been detected on their computer. It mines your old web history and extracts your bank details. We need to act fast to catch it.

  What happens if they go, Whaaaa?

  Hang up.

  If they go, Hold on a minute, that sounds like a load of bu–

  Hang up.

  Most times, they say, ‘Tell me what I need to do.’

  Explain they need to go to Microsoft’s website and run a program to scan and clear the virus. Give the website www.microsoft.virus-scan.com.

  If they say, Hold on, that doesn’t sound like it’s part of Microsoft’s website.

  That’s right. Hang. Up.

  Most times, they go to that page. It has the same pale blue and white colour scheme as Microsoft’s website, the same icons and fonts. Always, it’s about the detail.

  There’s some blurb about Poseidon. Click here to run virus scan.

  Say: ‘I hope we got it in time.’

  They click, a progress bar appears, it seems to be working – then their screen freezes.

  Put some hurry in your voice as you say, ‘Let me contact the tech team. They will call you right back. Don’t switch it off. It won’t come back on.’

  If they restarted their computer, it would be fine. Unfrozen and working as before.

  Guess how many restart it?

  Leave it twenty minutes. Time for them to search for details of Poseidon on their smartphone, a search that will lead to the fake websites you’ve created for the virus, including a link to Microsoft’s supposed virus scan. Then call them up. Say Eddie in Customer Support passed their details your way, and you can help.

  But first, you say, I need to take the advanced technical support charge. Eighty-nine ninety-nine please. We take cards.

  They always object, but that’s fine. The thrust and parry is half the fun.

  If they say they’re not paying, you say fine, you’ll have to take it into a shop. You have your original copy of Windows, right?

  If they say they’ll call back to complain, give some made up name and extension for reference. But be warned, our lines are red-hot containing the spread of the virus. It could be days before you get through.

  Say: ‘Listen. I’m just a techie. You don’t want to fix this, no problem.’ Then start saying goodbye.

  Not everyone pays, but it’s not about the money. If it were about the money, it would be easy to hack into their bank account.

  The second best part is the moment before they pay, when they apologise for getting annoyed with you.

  Say, magnanimously: ‘That’s okay. You’re not the worst I’ve had today.’

  Laughs all round.

  Ha ha ha.

  Now give me the card details.

  Tell them to wait one minute and put them on hold for ten. Say you’ve sent a fix through the network, so when their computer restarts, the virus will be eradicated. They switch it off and on and – surprise, surprise – their computer is fine.

  We got it! You’re all clear!

  The best part?

  When they thank you for being scammed.

  Chapter Seven

  Mark

  Rachel stopped outside Mark’s apartment block, panting hard, having sprinted from the gym, as though she could somehow outrun her thoughts. But despite the burn in her lungs, the molten pain in her thighs, they’d continued to swarm: Konrad’s injuries, Pete’s dick pic, the photo reappearing after all these years, bringing with it the feelings of shame and terror that she long ago thought she’d left behind.

  She typed Mark’s apartment number into the silver keypad and tapped her foot while she waited for him to buzz her in. He lived in one of the glassy new high-rises beside Archway tube station, a young professional ghetto that emptied its entire population onto the train every morning. Sometimes, when she dropped Lily off, she looked at the women striding to work from the building, those sleek slick packages in pencil skirts and chiffon scarfs, compared them to her bedraggled self – dress skewed, hair barely trapped in the only saggy b
and she could find that morning – and felt such a pang of jealousy that she had to hurry away, her head down, as though she were a lower-class wench trespassing on a lord’s grounds.

  Living there was like being in a hotel, down to the daily cleaning service, which suited Mark as it meant fewer distractions from his passion: computers. He worked with them, he played with them, he slept with at least one laptop in his bed, she was sure. In every room lay machines in various stages of autopsy. Circuit boards, metal carcasses, and disembodied DVD drives with wires streaming out the back covered the surfaces. Although, after Rachel found a screw in Lily’s mouth, he became fastidious about keeping chokeables safely stowed.

  The door buzzed and she pushed into the airy reception, her trainers squeaking on the marble floor. Grab Lily and go, that was the plan. Get back home before Konrad so she could compose herself before he arrived. Her mind felt like a deck of cards after a particularly malicious round of fifty-two card pick up. How was she going to explain that photo being sent to Pete from her Snap account? How was she going to explain that photo at all? Tell him about Griffin? What if they broke up and he told other people? If the police found out what she did, then even after all this time, she could still go to prison.

  What would happen to Lily then?

  Rachel’s muscles still fizzed with unspent adrenaline, so she darted for the stairs, taking them two at a time. At Mark’s floor, she padded down the carpeted corridor, steadying her breath. Her body was in full-flight mode, which he would spot a mile away, and she couldn’t face one of his tender but annoying probes about her mental state. He only meant well, and she’d be just the same with him if he seemed stressed, but there was a time and a place for therapy, and here and now was not them.

  Mark pulled open the door before she could knock. ‘Hey Rach!’

  Rachel had her “in a hurry” spiel all ready to go, but when she saw him, she was momentarily too stunned to talk. Instead she looked him up and down and checked the apartment number.

  ‘Very funny,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you come in before you start mocking me?’

  ‘That’s okay. I can do it just fine from the corridor.’

  When did he make that decision? The greasy unruly upside-down bird’s nest that had been perched on his head for as long as she’d known him had been replaced by a stylish haircut – shaved around the sides, short on top, and casually ruffled at the front. It actually suited his slender cheeks. Stick him in Hackney with a vintage denim jacket, a pocket square, and some big-framed plastic glasses, and the hipster chicks would flock to him.

  ‘They finally declare your scalp a biohazard site?’ Rachel asked.

  Mark patted his hair, as though to reassure himself of its continued existence. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. You’ve been on at me for years to get it cut. Anyway…’ He gave her the eyes. ‘You run over then?’

  She pushed past him into the hallway and shucked off her rucksack. Stupid. Should have got changed in the corridor.

  ‘Don’t start,’ she said.

  ‘Why didn’t you get changed after the gym?’

  ‘I didn’t run here.’

  ‘So why not get changed?’

  Rachel motioned for him to step back. She wasn’t obsessive about exercise, not how she used to be, although that didn’t stop Mark from declaring the fact that she squeezed a visit to the gym into most days symptomatic of unresolved issues. Maybe he had a point, but you’d have to be a rock in the desert to reach your late twenties and not have a few things unresolved. And was it so bad if the issues lent a little bit to keeping her fit and healthy? She knew what was going on – there was no escaping her past. But also, there was no point living in it. She was far from that now, and had no intention of returning.

  ‘I left in a hurry,’ she said. ‘I was going to be late.’

  ‘You’re five minutes early.’ Mark tapped his bottom lip. ‘That’s good for you. Suspiciously good.’

  ‘Stop giving me the fourth degree.’

  ‘Fourth degree? I thought it was the third degree. What’s with the other degree?’

  ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘Lighten up, Rach. I’m messing with you. Same as you did with me two minutes ago.’ She allowed him to half lead, half drag her down the hallway. ‘But I know you’re lying about running here.’

  The reception room was stylishly decorated with recessed spotlights and soft cappuccino walls, which made the tech scattered around the place all the more incongruous. A stack of flattish rectangular machines, like electronic paving slabs, stood on the dining table, wired up and flashing in a hundred places at once.

  Rachel nodded to it. ‘Sending news to the mothership?’

  ‘Routers. Network stuff.’

  She made a sound that implied what he’d said made sense, then asked, ‘How’s Lil?’

  Their daughter was stretched out on the L-shaped sofa, transfixed on Peppa Pig on the flat-screen television mounted on the wall. Having Lily when she was just twenty-three hadn’t been part of any life plan, but the doctors had made it clear: after what she’d put her body through, her fertility was wrecked. She had a year, two at most, to conceive.

  The disease had stolen so much from her life, and the thought it would take the chance for her to be a mother, for her to finally have someone love her the way she deserved to be loved, had been too much for her to bear. Yes, it was a lot to take on when she was single and starting her career as a nurse, but in so many other ways, the timing felt right. She had built up her weight and was maintaining it at a healthy level; her gran was still with her, and was overjoyed to share the responsibility of raising a child; their local NHS trust even provided IVF funding for single women, especially those with her medical history. The main problem was finding the father. She loathed the idea of a random donor, some bloke she didn’t know, who could even be one of the men involved in what had happened.

  At the time, Mark was the only man she was close enough to ask, but she knew how he felt about children. Which made it all the more surprising when he’d said, ‘I’ll do it. I’ll be the donor.’

  Wiping her tears, she’d replied, ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘As long as you don’t mind it being smarter than you.’

  She’d thrown her arms round him. ‘Thank you! Thank you!’

  ‘One thing,’ he’d told her. ‘It’s your kid. I don’t want to be a dad, not now, maybe not ever. And I definitely do not want to watch it eat, or wipe poo off its bum. Yuck!’

  Hadn’t that changed. Within the first week of his daughter’s life, Mark was besotted. After a month he moved house to be closer to them. He was such a good father to Lily, always calm and measured, even when she threw a strop, which, as a temperamental three-nager, happened on most days.

  ‘Okay, angel,’ Rachel said. ‘Home time.’

  ‘You want something to eat?’ As Mark asked that, she got a deep gravy scent of roast chicken that sent her stomach into convulsions of hunger. ‘It’s nearly ready.’

  ‘Saving myself for canapés.’

  He gave her a suspicious look and went Hmmmmm.

  ‘Here’s a question, though,’ she said, as she pulled the sleeves out of Lily’s jacket. ‘If you wanted to get into someone’s Snapchat account, how would you do it?’

  Mark’s frown deepened. ‘What’s happened? Has someone–?’

  ‘Not me, Spence. Someone logged into his Snap and sent out rude pictures.’

  ‘What’s going on, Rach?’

  ‘I just told you.’

  ‘Are you–?’

  ‘Do you know or not?’

  ‘Jesus, Rachel. What’s with you? You’re so… irritable.’

  She shook out her shoulders. ‘Sorry. Rough day. So?’

  Mark tipped his head from side to side. The new haircut really suited him, enhancing the shape of his face. But… why hadn’t he spoken to her about it? This was the kind of thing he would debate endlessly, his wanting to attract women on one side verses his na
tural apathy towards anything remotely stylish on the other. She’d tell him how much a cool cut like that would cost, and he’d reply, Fifty pounds! For a blimmin’ haircut!

  And yet here he was, already coiffed.

  His lips lifted into a crafty smile. ‘What I’d do is phish him with an e-mail. Get him to click on a link, download some spyware onto his phone. Make him enter his passwords again.’ He shrugged. ‘Or something like that.’

  The payroll e-mail. The link to download her bank details.

  That’s how it had been done.

  But by who?

  She tried to keep the shock off her face. ‘So what should he…? How can he get rid…?’

  ‘Meh, easy,’ Mark replied, flicking his hand. ‘Tell him to change his passwords – not on the same device. Then rebuild his phone, and try not to be such a noob next time.’

  Damn. She’d already changed her passwords once, but on her phone, shivering outside the gym after she’d hung up from Becca.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll tell him,’ Rachel said, then shook Lily’s jacket at her. ‘Okay, missy. Let’s saddle up.’

  ‘Before you go,’ Mark said. ‘Can we have a word?’

  She followed him into the hallway. ‘Listen, Mark. I know what–’

  ‘Have something,’ he said, nodding at the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve got friends–’

  ‘You know what I’m saying.’

  ‘I’m fine, Mark. I promise.’

  ‘Not what I asked.’

  She started back to Lily. ‘I don’t have time–’

  ‘That’s crap, and you know it.’

  ‘I told you–’

  ‘I can tell by your aura.’

  ‘My aura?’ Rachel poked her head in the lounge. Lily, thankfully, was still engrossed with Peppa and her pals. ‘One meditation course and you’re Ravi bloody Shankar.’

  ‘You’re moody, you’re paranoid, you’re running after the gym. Talk to me, Rach.’

  She squeezed her eyes. It felt like she could sleep for a week. Should she tell him about what happened at the gym? If Griffin was behind the photo, Mark would want to know. But what if she was wrong about that? Back when they used to talk about Griffin a lot, Mark had been certain that there was no way for him to trace what they did back to them – and if he didn’t have revenge as a motive, then why come after her again, all these years later?