PICTURES OF YOU: a gripping psychological suspense thriller

by Diane M Dickson

  The phone rang and the answering machine served up its recorded message. Although Jacob had made no attempt to use the landline she couldn’t be absolutely sure that he didn’t have the number and didn’t want to hear his voice, whispering down the line, pleading and cajoling. As Judy began to speak she snatched up the handset.

  “Judy, hi it’s me.”

  “Oh, right. How are you today, how’s your poor face?”

  “It’s okay thanks. He came back last night Judy, I was scared stupid. He was knocking on the door and whispering through the letter box, it was absolutely horrible.”

  “Oh God, you poor thing. Did you call the police?”

  “No. I thought about it but, no.”

  “Okay, it’s your decision after all. Anyway listen, I’ve managed to contact Chloe. I’ve given her an idea of what’s happened and told her you would like to meet her. I have to tell you she isn’t keen. She just wants to put it all behind her and hasn’t even told her mum and dad the real reason for dropping out. They think she just wanted to be nearer home. She said it was horrible how it made her look like a wimp but by then she just needed to feel safe. Anyway, I managed to talk her round. She did have some erm – well I suppose you would call them conditions. She wants to meet you somewhere away from her home, not here though, she was adamant about that. There’s no way she’s coming anywhere near where he is. I suppose you can understand that eh?”

  “Yes, I know just how she feels believe me. What else was there?”

  “She said that even though she’ll meet you that’s as far as it goes for now, she’s given up such a lot because of him and is not prepared to let him take anything else.”

  Mary sighed, “I do understand, I hope she’ll feel able to do what I’d like, but if she’s not that’s fine. I’ll carry on by myself, it won’t work as well but I’ll still do it. Anyway, look did you arrange for us to see her?”

  “I did, can you manage today?”

  “Oh yes, brilliant, of course. Where?”

  “There’s a pub near where she’s living now and we can go there and have some lunch. There’s just one thing though.”

  “Yeah, go on.”

  “Can you drive? I can only afford two trips in any one month and I want to go home next week for my mum’s birthday.”

  “Oh, of course I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll treat us all to lunch as well. You’ve been great Judy you really have. I’ll see you in a little while then.”

  “Yes, I’ll come to your house about eleven if that’s okay? And that’ll give us plenty of time to get up there.”

  “Great, I’ll see you soon. Thanks, oh thanks so much.”

  It was exciting and hopeful but now it was down to her to convince these two young women that the plan was viable and also to make them want to help her. She changed into jeans and a soft top and fished out her sunglasses but didn’t put on any make up. The bruising was so much more obvious without it and it was essential for her now to win their sympathy.

  Chapter 48

  She was tiny, and very pretty. A small dark haired girl with brown eyes and a shy smile. Chloe was already waiting for them when Judy and Mary arrived at the pub. It was a generic sort of place, old books lined the window ledges, and there were a couple of glass fronted cupboards stacked with miscellaneous pieces of china, faux and corny but they weren’t there for the ambience.

  Chloe had a tall glass in front of her half filled with some purple liquid. “I’ll get us a drink.” Mary already had her purse in her hand. These were students and undoubtedly counting their cash and she was determined they wouldn’t be inconvenienced by helping her. “What would you like?”

  “I’ll have a glass of lager thanks.” Judy had slipped into the seat next to the window and the two girls embraced, obviously close friends.

  “What would you like Chloe? Another of those?” Mary pointed at the tall glass. “Or something else? I think I’ll have wine but just a small one. If we’re eating it should be okay I think. Are you driving?”

  “No, I came on the train, the station is just up the road there and it’s not far. I’d love a glass of wine actually.”

  “Right, and have you got a menu?” The preliminaries taken care of, there was an awkward moment as everyone waited for someone else to make the first move. Mary decided that it must be up to her as she was the one who had orchestrated the meeting and indeed the one who was looking for favours.

  “Thanks so much for meeting us Chloe. I hope you are okay with this.” The other girl took a breath and glanced around.

  “I have to say I was a bit cross at first – with Judy.” As she said this she reached across the table to lay her hand over that of the other young woman. “It’s okay, I’m not mad anymore but I was. I had put it all behind me you see. I had given up a life I was enjoying and my plans, and it took me ages to find another course here and well, living at home is fine, its good but it’s not what I thought would be happening to me right now. I hated the fact that I ran home and I hated him for making me do it but I had moved on. When you rang,” she nodded at Judy, “I was cross and upset but then – well I thought about what you said, that he had gone back there and was still doing what he did to me. Now I see you,” here she raised her hand, indicating Mary’s bruised face, “I’m glad I said yes actually.”

  “What do you mean gone back?” Mary was puzzled by the statement.

  “Well he left as well. About the same time as I came back here he took a year out and went back to where he came from. He told the others at his digs that he was going to travel but another mate of ours, you remember Charlie, don’t you Judy?” Judy gave a short nod, “I’m still in touch with him, and he said he went back home and didn’t do anything for the whole year. He didn’t even get a job. He lived in a flat with his brother and that was all. I don’t know much more than that. There was talk that he was stressed but it was very vague.”

  “So, he didn’t go home to his mum and dad?” This was obviously news to Judy. While the others talked Mary just kept silent, absorbing the information.

  “No, he doesn’t get on with his parents. I don’t know all the details but it’s to do with his sister, the clever one. But he wouldn’t talk about it when we were together and that was the cause of the first big row to be honest.” Now she paused and took a long drink. “I wasn’t being nosey you know, just interested. We’d been together for a while and I just asked him if he was going to introduce me to his parents. I didn’t think that I was being pushy but when he just said no I suppose I did bring it up a couple more times and then one day he just snapped. One minute he seemed okay and the next, well, I think you can guess, eh Mary. I don’t think his dad is around anymore, to be honest they’re not the lovely close family he had me believe.”

  “So, that’s why he was registering with the doctor and so on, I did wonder how come he was doing that if he’d been there long enough to have had a relationship with you.”

  “Yes, they had let him just take a gap.”

  “But, correct me here if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick but Judy said she thought it was about a phone call and you talking to a friend, the time he was violent.”

  Chloe lowered her gaze and fiddled with the glass tipping it this way and that. When she looked up there were tears quivering on the ends of her long lashes. “That was the second time.”

  Mary gasped. “Oh God, you mean…”

  “Yes, I know, I do know. I was stupid but I thought I loved him and he was so sorry and he cried, he did, he cried and he was so lovely and I believed him. He said he would get help, anger management, and he needed me to help him. I suppose I was vain, I suppose I thought I could help him, my ego you know.”

  “No, no that’s one thing I do know, you mustn’t blame yourself for any of it. Nothing excuses him raising his hand to you, nothing. No matter what mistakes you made, whatever you did or didn’t do, he is the one at fault. You must know that.”

  “Well, I do now. I did
the second time, after I came back here, gave up everything I’d worked so hard for and scuttled back here to lick my wounds, huh literally. Then I saw what an idiot I’d been. I did wonder, it’s probably silly but I did wonder if he was running away. He knew I’d left and perhaps he thought I was going to cause trouble and so he, you know, got in first, but it’s probably not like that. Do you think? They wouldn’t cover up for him would they, the college?

  “Anyway, there we are, so what is it you want from me Mary? Judy said she didn’t know what the plan was but you wanted to drive him away. I don’t know how you can do that, even the police couldn’t do that I don’t think.”

  “Well if my plan works there won’t be any option left to him but to leave. That’s what I want, I need to drive him away. I need to make it so that there is nothing left for him to stay for and no real way for him to come back.”

  At that point the meals arrived and, as the fuss with cutlery and sauces filled the space, Mary collected her thoughts ready to put forward her case.

  Chapter 49

  It was time, Mary took a deep breath, laid down her knife and fork and took a sip of her wine. “I might as well get down to it I suppose.” She smiled at the other two women at the table who turned and waited silently. She did notice that Chloe had taken hold of Judy’s hand, the gesture and all that lay behind it touched her heart.

  “Chloe, I want you to know before I start that if you tell me to get lost I do fully understand and I won’t think any the worse of you. I know what I am going to ask is hard, okay.” Chloe bit her lip and nodded.

  “A great deal of what I’m hoping to do hinges on the answer to a rather strange question and I have a horrible feeling that it’s going to be the first stumbling block but here we go. When I was beaten by Jacob I took a photograph of my face, I took several actually and made copies. I wasn’t really sure why at the time but now I’m glad I did because it is the king-pin of my plan. I don’t suppose you, Chloe did that did you? Did you by any chance take any pictures or were any taken in the days immediately afterwards. Anything that shows what he did?

  Mary’s fingers were tightly crossed under the table and she hardly dared to breathe as she waited for the answer. What were the chances really, how many women would choose to take a photograph of themselves bruised and battered?

  For a moment no one spoke, Judy’s head flipped back and forth as she watched the others. Chloe lowered her eyes.

  “I did, after the second time.” She nibbled at her lower lip, a habit that Mary had already observed, a little sign that she was struggling to hold it all together. They waited for her to go on. “When it happened the second time, it was so awful. I had been talking to my friend Zoe on the phone and we’d been giggling about a television programme we’d seen. Jacob had come in half way through and somehow formed the impression we were talking about our boyfriends.” Here she looked to Judy, “You remember Zoe? She was going out with that nice Matt then, I think they are living together now.” Judy nodded and smiled encouragingly at her friend. “Well, he sat on the settee for a bit and I didn’t even notice he was listening until we finished the call and then…” She took another gulp of air and blew out her cheeks. Mary wanted to tell her to stop to say it didn’t matter, she didn’t need to put herself through it, but that wasn’t true.

  “Anyway, I finished my call, I turned to him and was about to tell him what Zoe had been saying and, well I didn’t have the chance. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me across the room, he was yelling at me all the time, ‘Gossip, gossip. Bloody little chatterers, having a laugh at me were you, all having a good old giggle?’ I was gobsmacked. We hadn’t been doing that at all for one thing, but even if we had, well his reaction was so over the top. I struggled and tried to get free but he had tight hold of me and then he started to hit me. He hit me across the face a couple of times actually and I fell but he was still holding my arm and it twisted, God that hurt. Then he dragged me up again and sort of threw me away from him, I collided with the table and that was what broke my tooth I think.”

  “You broke your tooth? Oh Chloe.” Mary had leaned across the table to take hold of the girl’s hand. Tears streamed down her face. “Yes, and I had a black eye. He grabbed me by the hair then and dragged me up and flung me onto the settee. ‘That’ll teach you to gossip about me.’ He was yelling and I was crying and it was just awful. Then he just stormed out.

  “I locked the door after him and it was the last time I spoke to him. The next morning I went to the dentist, I told him a door had hit me in the face. I don’t know whether he believed me but anyway it didn’t matter. He couldn’t do much just then because of all the swelling and so I packed up and ran back home to my mum and dad. I told them I’d had an accident in a friend’s car, I lied to them and I hated doing it but I couldn’t tell them the truth, I was too ashamed. Anyway I got my tooth fixed, Judy packed up my stuff for me, for which I’m eternally grateful,” she leaned across and kissed the other girl. “Anyway, the point is yes, I took pictures, I took them so that if he ever came back, if he ever got in touch or tried to reach me I would have them and I would look at them and I would never, ever let anyone do something like that to me ever again.”

  As they looked at each other over the detritus of the pub meal they cobbled together watery smiles, joined hands and Mary knew that she was over one of the biggest hurdles. She had allies and more, she had friends to help her.

  Chapter 50

  They sat in the pub for several hours. Mary bought them more drinks and then coffee.

  There were times when she thought she had lost them. Though Judy agreed what she was proposing was possible, she hesitated when asked if stealing the information from Jacob’s computer and camera was beyond what was reasonable. They were all three decent people, and to interfere in someone’s life to the extent they were planning and to impact in such a negative way on Jacob’s future was a step into the darkness for them.

  Mary almost threw in her hand at one point. Judy had agreed to go along with the plan if Chloe would play her part but when Mary asked the girl to let her have images of her battered face for publishing on the internet she shook her head decisively.

  “No way. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. It was horrendous, I know your poor face is badly damaged Mary but mine was so much worse and then there was my tooth. Well, it was so bad that my mum and dad believed me with no hesitation when I told them I’d been in a car crash. I can’t let that go out there, sorry but no.”

  “If we make sure you can’t be recognised?”

  “Ha, that’s a laugh, no way would anyone recognise me from that. It’s not that, it’s just, you know it would be there and I would be scared of just coming across it you know. I’m still in touch with some of my friends from those days, and what you are proposing would have them all in a dither and sharing and tweeting and it would be me, about me, do you see? I’m sorry but I can’t.” Her dark hair swung around her face as she shook her head back and forth in distress.

  “Okay, I do understand and I told you right from the start I wouldn’t ask you to do anything that was too much, so fair enough. I am still going ahead though and if you see this stuff and your friends are tweeting about it and discussing it on Facebook would you promise me you would let them know you saw me in real life and you know what I am saying is true? Could you at least do that?”

  Chloe nodded her head and then lowered her face into her hands. “God, Mary you make me feel such a wuss, you really do. You are being so brave about this.”

  “I have to Chloe, I have no choice. You were able to come back here and pick up your life again. I know it wasn’t the life you had chosen but I think it’s worked out for you anyway hasn’t it? I haven’t got that option, you see. My home is all I have. My home and my family are my world and I can’t up and leave and start again somewhere else. I know all I can do is try to make my place safe and peaceful again and so, yes, I suppose that is making me determined.”

  There
was a pause, the old clock in the corner of the room ticked and groaned. Around them the mutter of conversation and the clink of glasses filled the brittle moments as Chloe battled with inner demons that were not of her own making. Eventually she raised her eyes.

  “Okay, look I’ll tell you what; if you promise never to give my name to anyone, even if they try to guess and let’s face it anyone who knew me could put two and two together. If you promise you will never confirm it and I approve the picture before it goes out then okay. I’ll go along with you.”

  “Oh, Chloe thank you, that is amazing.” Mary leaped to her feet and leaned across the table to embrace the other girl awkwardly amidst the coffee cups and glasses.

  The sun was lowering by the time they left with warm hugs and promises to keep in touch. The darkening sky was streaked with rose. Blackbirds filled the evening with liquid music and Mary drank in the beauty. She held it close and told herself it was a blessing on her plans, a sign of success and of a gentle future back in control of her own destiny.

  The drive home was pleasant and uneventful and she dropped Chloe at her digs with an arrangement to meet the next day and set the thing in motion. As she waved to her new friend and turned for home there was no forewarning of what was waiting at the end of the long day.

  Chapter 51

  As soon as the door closed she knew. At first glance the house appeared the same as it had been when she left, but the atmosphere was different. There were no tell-tale noises, no smell it was – a feeling. Her heart thudding Mary stepped slowly along the hallway. The atmosphere was thick with threat, someone had been in while she was away. On a different level from the one pushing her forward her brain was sifting information. The locks had been changed, the new keys were all safely in her purse, she hadn’t even had the chance to leave a spare with her mother which was the usual procedure.