The Christmas Promise

by Sue Moorcroft

  Lunchtime arrived and a delivery person from a local café buzzed from street level with a platter of salads and sandwiches.

  While Patrick set the platter in the centre of the table, Emily gave out white paper plates and napkins from a cupboard in the corner and brought fresh coffee. The agency was all set up for working lunches, even when Barb wasn’t around to facilitate. People began to stretch and take a break from their machines as they reached for sustenance.

  Only Tod was left frowning at his laptop. ‘Why would data be uploaded to our server in the early hours of this morning?’ He tapped and clicked. Then his jaw dropped. ‘Wow! Oh fuck.’ He tapped and clicked again.

  ‘What?’ Sam looked up.

  Tod cleared his throat and his gaze shifted reluctantly to Ava. ‘It’s a file containing about six pictures. Of you.’ He looked hugely uncomfortable. ‘They’re … they’re those pictures.’

  If Tod had jumped up and punched Ava in the belly she couldn’t have felt more winded or sick. Her mood flipped. One moment, floating happiness. The next, panic and scalding fear.

  She clamped a hand over her mouth, her stomach contents threatening to rise up. ‘No,’ she moaned. Her blood pounded in her ears. ‘Dad said it had all gone away. How could Harvey send them here?’ And now Tod had seen them? No! It wasn’t fair! It had gone away!

  She wanted to curl into a tight little ball of humiliation. A pain grew behind her eye, flashes erupted in the periphery of her vision.

  Sam was staring at Tod with a frown like a gryphon. ‘What?’ he snapped.

  Tod was gazing at Ava miserably. ‘I don’t see how it can be him, unless he’s developed hacking abilities. How would he access our server?’ He took to his keyboard again. His eyebrows shot up, then crashed down. ‘The file appears to have come from your phone, Ava. 02.06 today.’

  Shock shimmered through her. At 02.06 she’d been in bed …

  Fury boiled up in her, hot and destructive, a lava flow that blackened and destroyed everything in its path.

  Someone else had been near her phone at 02.06 this morning.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ava’s hotspot goes bad

  As if in a nightmare, she swivelled slowly to face Sam, in the grip of an emotion so powerful that she almost couldn’t speak. ‘How could you? Why would you? All this time you’ve been making out that you thought Harvey was such a shit. Then you go and save the images to your own server? What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Me?’ Sam thundered, shock blazing across his face. ‘You can’t seriously think—’ He leaped to his feet, banging his legs on the table so hard that it shifted a couple of inches.

  Ava, shaking with horror, was unable to tear her gaze from his. ‘How can I think it’s anybody but you? Unless you’re suggesting that I did it in my sleep?’ Her throat was closing with grief. ‘How could you?’ she repeated.

  ‘How could I? How could you think I’d do that?’ he hissed. ‘What do you think—?’ Then he hauled himself back under control, glaring around at the others in the room until they closed their open mouths and directed their gazes to their work. Contenting himself with sending Ava a filthy look, he resumed his seat, swiping away the plate Emily had set in front of him.

  In the stoniest of silences he turned his attention to his screen.

  Moments ticked by. He didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘Gawd,’ breathed Ruby.

  ‘Sam wouldn’t …’ Manda Jane murmured tentatively.

  ‘Not a chance,’ agreed Emily.

  Patrick said nothing, but he looked horrified, his gaze flicking from Ava to Sam and back.

  Ava couldn’t stop looking at Sam. Her blood pounded until she couldn’t think straight, physically unable to differentiate between possibility and probability. She had to fight to achieve some semblance of joined-up thinking.

  Last night had been so fantastic. She’d been stupid enough to think that it might even be the start of something. That those horrible images were safely corralled on her phone and she could leave them in the past.

  Sam had made love to her as if he’d been waiting all his life to do it. He’d stroked and kissed every inch of her; murmured, whispered and even shouted her name. In her turn, she’d been uninhibited and adventurous, thinking she was falling in love with somebody she could trust.

  Her brain pulsed with questions. How could he do this to her?

  The only sound to break the silence was the tapping of keys, seeming to Ava as if they echoed the rhythm. How could he?

  Heart breaking, she stared at Sam as Sam stared at his screen, as still as a statue.

  How could—

  ‘Erm, hang on.’ Tod was still frowning at his computer, his glasses glinting in the lights set into the ceiling. ‘You’ve still got an iPhone 4, Ava, haven’t you?’

  Ava had to concentrate hard not to scream, ‘Yes! I couldn’t afford anything more recent!’ But it wasn’t Tod’s fault that her heart was being slowly ripped in two by the knowledge that Sam, Sam, however much he had tried to pretend otherwise, was no better than Harvey Snaith. ‘Yes,’ she muttered.

  ‘But the screen-res is too high for a 4. It’s 414 x 736. That’s a much more recent phone. More like a 6 or 6+.’

  Sam looked up sharply. ‘What explanation can you suggest for that anomaly? Tethering?’

  Slowly, Tod nodded. ‘Could be.’

  Ava looked between the two men. Her fury seemed suspended in mid-air, poised right above her like a demon who’d paused part way through savaging his prey.

  Sam was looked as if he might be in the grip of a demon of his own. His fists clenched on the table top. ‘Whoever it was must have had access to the pictures,’ he growled.

  ‘Yes.’ Tod heaved a huge sigh.

  ‘And be able to get into the house. And have an iPhone 6 or 6+.’

  Bleakly, Tod nodded.

  Sam gave Ava a pointed look, a look that said he expected her to join the dots.

  But it was taking Ava’s brain longer than that to abandon the explanation it had seized upon and admit new information. ‘What?’ she demanded of Tod. ‘What are you saying?’

  He took his gaze off his computer screen. ‘The res is wrong for your phone, which suggests that your mobile signal was utilised by someone else. Tethering.’

  With a titanic sinking feeling, Ava clasped her hand to her forehead. ‘That hotspot thing?’

  Tod nodded. ‘I presume that Sam was with you at the time of the upload.’ He didn’t look shocked by this knowledge. ‘But his phone’s a Sony – a different screen res again.’

  With a slow shake of her head, Ava became hotly aware that everyone in the room was staring at her apart from Sam. Unease began to prickle over her like a rash. ‘What does all this mean? For non-techie types?’

  Sympathy burning in his kind eyes, Tod spelled it out. ‘It looks to me as if someone knew that the Internet Protocol address would give them away so they used your mobile phone signal to make the download. Can I see your phone? Pop in your passcode, so I can get into it.’

  Heart suddenly banging, Ava fumbled it out of her bag and did as Tod asked. Belatedly, she realised that, last night, Sam, who was still pointedly not looking at her, would have had no way of knowing her passcode.

  Tod was soon burrowing into the parts of her phone that Ava never bothered to try and understand. He grunted. ‘Yep. There’s an isolated upload. Have you tethered your laptop to it lately?’

  Painfully, Ava shook her head.

  ‘Would Izz know your hotspot password?’

  Her voice emerged as a croak. ‘She knows I use the same password for most things. But it couldn’t be Izz!’

  Misery was written across Tod’s face. ‘It’s someone who could get into the house,’ he said carefully. ‘If you were in your bedroom that person could use your mobile phone signal from, say, the landing, and probably wouldn’t think about the different screen resolution being a telltale. But that’s only a hypothesis. I can tell you for definite that th
e facts don’t fit with it being Sam, but I can’t tell you how whoever it was could have got the pics. Were they only on your phone?’

  Ava’s voice emerged as a croak. ‘Dad was so insistent that I didn’t lose them that Izz backed them up to my iTunes account for me yesterday.’

  ‘Shit,’ Tod muttered.

  In the following silence, Ava’s brain tried to supply her with an image of Izz lurking on the landing. Ava and Sam hadn’t exactly been quiet, thinking themselves alone in the house, but surely Izz wouldn’t …? Hardly able to process the horrors that this scenario suggested, Ava turned slowly to face the man on her right. The man who was gazing fixedly at his computer screen. The man who, last night, had made love to her with heat and intensity. Who had woken her with soft kisses this morning. Who had been concerned for her ever since he’d walked into her life. Her heartbeat threatened to deafen her. ‘Sam, I’m so sorry. I jumped to conclusions. I should never have accused you.’ The words seemed shamefully inadequate.

  He didn’t remove his attention from his computer. ‘True. I suggest you turn off your hotspot and change all your passwords. Manda Jane, any journos trying to make contact regarding other interviews?’

  ‘The Sun and the Daily Mail.’ Manda Jane spoke in a death-like whisper.

  ‘Good. Look into both. Let me have your recommendation. I’d rather have coverage than exclusives.’

  Then Sam stood up, and walked steadily from the room.

  Only the tapping of keys and the occasional rattle of a coffee cup broke the silence he left in his wake. Ava could feel condemnation and outrage zinging through the air from all directions. All the associates at Jermyn’s loved Sam and Ava had insulted and humiliated him in the worst possible way.

  She couldn’t make her fingers function to retweet Ruby’s tweets and link to the Alive Today article, as she was supposed to be doing. She could hardly make her lungs work to draw in air as the enormity of what had just happened filtered through her. She gathered her strength and followed Sam.

  She found him in his office, walled in by a smoothly contemporary charcoal grey desk, expression bleak. Her voice trembled over the space between them. ‘I’m so sorry. I jumped to the worst conclusions. I had no right.’

  ‘Yup,’ he agreed coldly. He kept his gaze on his desktop computer as it fired up.

  ‘To accuse you in front of everybody—’

  ‘Unbelievable.’ He didn’t even sound like himself.

  ‘I’m sorry! I panicked—’

  He still avoided her gaze. ‘I accept your apology and, believe it or not, I can understand why you made the assumptions you did. Harvey’s destroyed your faith in men and so it was natural for you to take the facts at face value and not believe in me. But I didn’t see it coming and I need you to go away while I calm down. I have to withdraw Izz’s remote privileges and change passwords and entry keycodes. Then I have to email her and ask her to be in my office at nine on Monday so I can find out if Tod’s hypothesis is true.’ He glanced meaningfully towards the door.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Lots to do. The client paying us is sitting right out there. I’ve got to get back to it as soon as I sort this out.’

  Ava felt sick with remorse. The client paying us …

  Ruby was paying; Ava was freeloading. She wished she hadn’t charged Sam for Wendy’s hat now, but no doubt even if she’d had a crystal ball and been able to foresee today’s events Sam would have insisted on paying. Being in Ava’s debt in any way would not suit his present mood.

  Furious.

  This time he actually pointed at the door. ‘Please, Ava.’ He waited, almost quivering with every word he was biting back.

  Wretchedly, she mumbled, ‘Sorry,’ again and turned and left.

  The email he’d sent to Izz before returning to the meeting room had been steely and polite. He could have simply told her that her services were no longer required and monies owing to her would be paid promptly upon receipt of the proper invoice but doing that without a hearing wasn’t Sam’s way. Even though Sam felt like roaring his wrath, he had to clamp down on his feelings for the rest of the afternoon as the campaign he’d been so pleased with proceeded to surpass all reasonable expectations.

  Downloads of the card were in the hundreds of thousands, he anticipated a massive hit rate for the Alive Today article, journos were queuing up for Ruby to explain that she’d been feeling vulnerable after surgery when she’d first denied her boob job. Now she wanted to ‘clear the air with all the lovely journalists. We had such a great relationship before.’

  #RubyGlennister was trending on Twitter and being picked up by news sites.

  Since he’d all but kicked Ava out of his office, her fingers had moved mechanically over the keys of her laptop but she’d been awfully and perfectly silent unless someone spoke to her directly. He was half-surprised that, however white-faced, she was sticking out the day, picking up and sharing whatever Emily or Manda Jane asked her to.

  Last night had been so intense. But that was then. Before Ava had entertained the thought, even for a minute, that he was capable of stealing those images from her phone, of being exactly the kind of man he wasn’t. Then his control and professionalism had clicked briefly to ‘off’.

  Sam had never been so disappointed. It was a bitter taste, a sinking sensation.

  To add to everything, he received a cheerful text from his mother. Will we be seeing Ava tonight? Vanessa’s cooking.

  He swore under his breath. Soon he’d be obliged to go home and be a good Christmas host. His guests were already putting up with him working for the first day of what he’d promised would be their Christmas break together in the frightening hinterland between his mum’s surgery and chemo.

  He tried to sound normal in his return text: Ava has plans. Why is Van cooking? She’s supposed to be on holiday and I’ve booked a restaurant in the Olympic district. He’d been going to take them to Searcy’s Champagne Bar first but now he wasn’t feeling very celebratory.

  It’s very busy out there. We thought a nice meal in. Ava could bring her dad if that’s who she has plans with. Love to meet him.

  He ignored the question of Ava’s dad. He didn’t need his mum meeting Graeme and the relationship horror show that it implied. Are you tired?

  No! I’m enjoying Christmas. Is Ava coming with us to the Leicester Square Christmas fair?

  Sam stared at his phone. Don’t think so. He’d had hopes. When he’d been driving home through early morning London he’d felt optimistic that Ava could be involved in his family plans for the last weekend before Christmas and Christmas Eve, as well as Christmas Day. He’d hoped to give her a taste of what a good Christmas was about. Hope was a cruel bastard.

  He cut his eyes her way as she went on typing like a robot. He couldn’t even shut the door behind her at the end of this afternoon and make himself forget that she ever came into his life with her jaunty little hats and her rounded body. Her wounded eyes. Her secrets. Her laugh, her smile, her humour, her candour, her concern for others.

  He gave an inner groan at the thought of Ava spending Christmas Day with his family.

  How was he going to cope with that hideous nightmare?

  OK, Ava didn’t deserve what life had handed her this Christmas.

  But neither did he.

  The hands of the clock eventually crawled around towards six, the agreed time to break up the Glennister Festival of Social Media and Press Manipulation. Ava knew some of the associates would be in on Monday, which was Christmas Eve, and the rest would continue to log in from home. They’d explained that there was still a lot of valuable work to be done in keeping the Christmas card going tomorrow and Monday. These would be the golden days. After that they’d let the Christmas holiday hold sway and then take stock of what they’d achieved when they returned to work, most of them not until the new year.

  Ava had felt queasy all afternoon as she sent out cheerful messages that didn’t reflect the realities of this particularly
gritty, shitty Christmas. Why could she not have talked to Sam instead of blurting out foul accusations? What the hell was she going to say to Izz?

  But at least Ava could leave Jermyn’s soon. Escape the squirmingly cool courtesy of the others, if not the consequences of her impulsive accusation. This evening, as well as somehow finding a way to confront her best friend with a horrible suspicion, she would have to do more sharing on social media and cook dinner ready for when her father arrived. Maybe they could Skype her mum. Ava felt a sudden wave of yearning to see her mother in reality rather than cyberspace. To be held and hugged, even if it meant a dose of maternal exasperation at the way Ava had messed up.

  ‘Ava?’ Sam’s voice was cold and impersonal but Ava’s head jerked up. He didn’t remove his focus from his screen. ‘Can you check the email account associated with your website, please? We’re all about measurable results.’

  Not really knowing what he meant, she did as he asked. To her surprise there were eight enquiries about hats. Astounded, she saw that two were from people she’d heard of – a singer with a rock band and an actress – or, at least, their ‘people’.

  ‘Wow.’ Feeling unequal to formulating an explanation she turned the laptop so that he could see the screen.

  With a tiny lift to his eyebrows he nodded. ‘Good start. It would be great if you could keep Emily updated. I expect there to be more.’

  Manda Jane chimed in. ‘I’ve got an enquiry for you from a women’s mag, Ava. They want to do a thing about whether hats are coming into fashion. Obviously, we want to suggest that they are.’

  ‘Amongst some groups they’re already big news,’ Ava began automatically. ‘The steampunkers have taken to hats in a massive way.’

  ‘Fab.’ Manda Jane turned back to her keyboard as if glad not to have to look at Ava for too long. ‘I’ll send her some copy about hats moving from exciting niche groups into the mainstream and how a hat’s a must-have. I’ll give her your contacts and ask her to approach you for quotes.’