The Girl Behind the Lens: A dark psychological thriller with a brilliant twist

by Tanya Farrelly

  They had started walking, left the lock and reeds behind. Oliver pointed towards the camera. He wanted to change the subject and to get to know something about the girl.

  ‘You like taking pictures?’ he asked.

  She smiled. ‘This probably looks a bit strange, macabre even. But yes, I take the camera most places, never miss an opportunity. I’m doing a degree at the moment in the IADT.’

  ‘That’s the art college?’

  ‘Art, yes. What – you don’t see photography as an art form?’

  Oliver laughed. He knew that she was trying to bait him, make him say the wrong thing. ‘I’m sure it is. I never thought much about it.’ They were nearing the point where he turned off for home. He thought about the house and if there was anything there that he might not want the girl to see. He had an hour or more before he was to meet Arnold and, despite the circumstances, he was enjoying her company. ‘I live just round the corner,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy continuing this conversation over coffee?’

  The girl hesitated, but then agreed.

  ‘Maybe you can show me some of your pictures,’ he said. ‘Convince me that it’s art.’

  She laughed. ‘Not on this, I can’t. It’s your traditional wind-on camera, nothing digital going on here. I’ve got to develop these in the darkroom.’

  ‘Wow, people still use those things?’

  ‘Mostly only photography students, to be honest, but I love it. Some professional photographers still do it this way, but it’s more expensive – the money you have to spend on solutions and stuff makes it a costly hobby.’

  ‘And is that what it is – a hobby?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘For now it is. Obviously, I’m hoping it’ll pay the bills one day. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a lot of point in investing all this money in a degree course. At least that’s what my mother says.’

  ‘Doesn’t she approve?’

  Joanna shrugged. ‘I think she finds the arts a bit whimsical. She’d have been happier if I’d gone on to study something more practical – business, or law maybe – like you. What area do you work in?’

  ‘I practise family law: divorces, custody cases, nothing too exciting.’

  They had reached the house. The girl waited as he turned his key in the door, and he wondered again if there was anything lying around that shouldn’t be. ‘I hope you’ll excuse the mess,’ he said. ‘A man on his own tends to let things go …’

  She followed him down the hall. When they entered the living room he saw her eyes travel quickly around, taking everything in. He followed her gaze – there was nothing particular in this room to suggest a woman’s presence. He had removed all evidence of Mercedes – packed everything away where he didn’t have to see them. Joanna took the camera from round her neck and carefully placed it on the coffee table. He asked her if she’d like tea or coffee, and she followed him into the kitchen and sat at the breakfast bar while he scalded the pot and put the teabags in. He felt very conscious of her presence and wondered what to do or say next.

  ‘So what do you do for fun?’ she asked him.

  ‘I sue people.’

  She laughed. ‘No, really,’ she said.

  He turned to her, smiling. ‘You’re right, that’s not so much fun, but it’s all I seem to have time for lately.’

  He steered the conversation away from himself by asking her about her course.

  ‘I’m putting together a portfolio at the moment,’ she told him. ‘We’re having an exhibition in a few weeks’ time.’ She paused and then jumped up from her stool. ‘In fact, if you’re really interested, I can show you the shots. I have them saved to a USB. It should be in my bag.’

  ‘Great, I’d love to see,’ he told her. ‘You go get it, and I’ll take the tea into my office. It’s just through here.’ He took the two mugs, placed them on the desk and booted up his computer. Joanna went out to the living room to retrieve her bag.

  They were standing side by side in the small room watching the slide show of her photographs when the phone rang.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ Joanna asked him.

  ‘No, let them ring back,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t wait.’

  He closed the office door on the ringing lest the answer machine should kick in.

  TWELVE

  Joanna arrived home to an empty house. Her mother had not yet returned from her shopping expedition with Pauline. She decided that she would process the film on which she’d taken the canal bank shots that afternoon, but it was just as she had that thought that she remembered she’d left the USB stick containing the photos for her college presentation in Oliver Molloy’s laptop. She looked at the clock. She needed that USB for her class the next day. She had two choices: she could either scan the photos again, which would take a lot of time, or she could go back to Oliver’s for the stick. She didn’t have his home phone number so she would just have to take the chance on his being home.

  Joanna drove slowly past the row of terraced houses until she came to Oliver’s. There was a light on in the front room, but it went out just as she turned off the engine. Perhaps she had just caught him before he went out, she thought.

  She was about to get out of the car when the front door opened and a woman stepped out. The woman pulled the door behind her and walked swiftly down the path and crossed the road just in front of Joanna’s car. She couldn’t say why but, instinctively, Joanna shrunk down in her seat. She didn’t want to be seen sitting in her car outside Oliver’s house, even though she was doing nothing wrong.

  She’d had a clear view of the woman as she’d crossed in front of the car. She was dark-skinned and dark-haired, and definitely didn’t look Irish. She wore a leather jacket, a short skirt and knee-high boots. If Joanna had had her camera, she’d have felt compelled to take her picture, but she’d left it in the darkroom back at the house. She continued to watch the woman until she grew small in the distance, then she vanished altogether. Joanna wondered if she’d hailed a cab at the side of the road.

  She looked at Oliver’s house. There was a single light on in the hall, but otherwise no sign of life. She wondered if the woman was his girlfriend and was surprised that with that thought came a pang of disappointment. For some reason, she had assumed that he was single. She supposed it was his quip earlier about ‘a man alone tending to let things go’. She wasn’t his wife, then; but he was an attractive man and she shouldn’t have been surprised that he might have just as attractive female callers.

  After a sufficient time had passed since the woman’s departure, Joanna got out of the car and made her way up the driveway. She rang the bell, a musical ding-dong, and waited. There was no sound within. She rang the bell again, but still there was silence. Oliver must be out, she thought, and in that case, the woman she had just seen leaving had either been there when he left, or she had her own key. Joanna sighed and traipsed back down the driveway. As she did, she saw a glove on the path. She leaned down to pick it up. It was a red wool glove that the woman must have dropped on her way out. Joanna put it back where it was, closed the gate behind her and got back into the car.

  She wondered what to do. She could wait, but there was no telling what time Oliver might return. And what if the woman returned instead? She didn’t want to make trouble. She would just have to wait until tomorrow to get the USB back. There was nothing for it but to go home and begin scanning her photos again.

  Joanna gathered her collection of photos and took them up to her room to scan. Her mother had still not returned home. The landline rang when she was about half an hour into the work and she went to her mother’s room to answer the extension. It was her mother’s friend, Pauline, asking to speak to Angela.

  ‘Mum? No, she said she was going shopping with you. Oh really? Maybe I got that wrong, then. She said something about going to buy a dress for a wedding, that wasn’t with you? Okay, Pauline. No worries. I’ll tell her to give you a call.’

  Joanna put the phone down, puz
zled. She was sure her mother had said it was Pauline she was meeting. A few minutes later, she heard her mother come in. She went into the landing and shouted down the stairs.

  ‘That you, Mum?’

  ‘No.’ It was her mother’s customary reply.

  Joanna went downstairs. ‘Pauline just called,’ she said. ‘Did you not say you two were going shopping together today?’

  Her mother looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘Pauline, I thought you said you were meeting her today but she’s just been on the phone.’

  ‘No, I said I was meeting Helen.’

  ‘Really? I was sure you said Pauline.’

  ‘Oh, maybe I did, I meant Helen.’

  Joanna looked at her mother’s lack of shopping bags. ‘Did you not see anything you liked?’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘I wasn’t really looking for anything – I just tagged along. Did you get yourself something to eat?’

  ‘No, I was out. I was thinking of maybe ordering something in. Do you fancy it?’

  ‘No, I’m okay, I grabbed a bite with Helen earlier. Get yourself something.’

  Joanna nodded. She wasn’t sure she believed that her mother had mixed up the names of her two friends. Certainly, she knew she hadn’t misheard. But if she hadn’t gone shopping, where had she been? Rather than confront her about it Joanna decided to let it go. Maybe it was something and maybe it wasn’t; her mother’s lies had broken all trust between them. She missed the closeness they’d shared before Rachel had dropped her bomb. The distance wasn’t helped, she knew, by her own omissions. She would have liked to tell her mother about the afternoon she had spent with Oliver Molloy, about him taking her to see the place where Vince’s body had been found, but she wouldn’t. She would hide the fact and the photographs she’d taken from her mother because she knew that if she told her she wouldn’t understand.

  THIRTEEN

  Oliver’s meeting with Patrick Arnold, supposedly for old times’ sake, came to a sudden close when he said that he couldn’t take the job. Oliver excused himself on the pretence of a heavy workload that wouldn’t permit him to take on even the most insignificant case. And insurance companies, as Patrick knew, could be sticky. Arnold had brought a copy of the policy with him, and he insisted that Oliver take a quick look to ensure that the document itself was in order. There was one thing of note that Oliver observed, and which he continued to think about on his walk home. There were two beneficiaries to the policy; the first, as expected, was Rachel Arnold, but the second was the dead man’s daughter, Joanna, who was set to inherit fifty thousand euro. Oliver wondered if the girl knew about this. He suspected she didn’t, nor was she likely to find out until the result of the inquest came through – provided they found that Arnold had died a natural death. Would she welcome the money as some form of acknowledgement, albeit too late, or would she see it for what it surely was: an attempt on Vince Arnold’s part to assuage his guilt?

  Oliver’s preoccupation with the Arnolds was cut short on arrival at his house. The garden gate was open, which in itself was not unusual, but halfway up the drive there was an object on the ground. He stooped to pick it up. It was a woman’s small, red knitted glove. He put it to his nose and inhaled the unmistakable woody scent of perfume that had been caught in the fibres. He tried to think if he’d ever seen Mercedes wearing such gloves, and then he told himself not to be ridiculous. They were the size of her hands, yes, but wasn’t she cold as he’d laid her in the ground, wasn’t her body, unquestioningly, lifeless? And a fragrance, a perfume, meant nothing. The same scent was worn by millions of women around the globe, and was very likely to be used by sisters. There was only one explanation, but it did nothing to comfort him, Carmen Hernandez had come looking for answers.

  Oliver put the glove on the hall table. Carmen’s visit came as no surprise. He’d known, after all those unanswered phone calls, that eventually she’d turn up. And she wasn’t the kind of woman to be shrugged off, particularly when she was on the scent of something. He cursed his stupidity in ever having become involved with her. But, catastrophically, he had and now he had to deal with the consequences: a dead wife. And, if he didn’t tread carefully, an immediate police investigation.

  He needed to think of a way to convince Carmen that Mercedes never wanted to see her again. If he knew what had been said between the two sisters, how Mercedes had reacted to Carmen’s betrayal, it would be easier, but unfortunately, Mercedes hadn’t revealed that. He imagined Carmen trying to convince Mercedes that she’d told her for her own good, even making out that she’d seduced him simply to show her that she couldn’t trust him. Mercedes was always too ready to protect her little sister, but would she have forgiven her for this? Or would she finally have seen Carmen for the manipulator she was?

  When Oliver entered the living room he left the light off. He didn’t want to risk another visit from Carmen before he’d had a chance to think things through. He could still smell the perfume from the glove and was surprised by its potency. It was the Chanel he had bought for Mercedes’s birthday. Oliver took the glove and put it in a drawer. Then he washed his hands to rid himself of the scent that evoked a myriad of memories. He turned on the television, sat and watched the world news in an effort to distract himself, but it didn’t work. His mind kept returning to the imminent visit of Mercedes’s sister.

  He thought of the first time he had met Carmen Hernandez. Mercedes had invited him to Spain for her parents’ silver wedding anniversary. They had been going out for almost six months and Mercedes had already moved into the house in Grove Road. Something which she’d kept from her devout Catholic family. She had forwarded them her new address, as her mother kept to the old habit of writing letters, but she’d said nothing to reveal the fact that she was living with Oliver. Such an admission would only have resulted in an apoplectic episode on the part of both her churchgoing parents. Knowing this, Carmen had, over the anniversary dinner, questioned Mercedes about her new lodgings – her dark eyes sparkling with mischief as Mercedes answered evasively while managing not to tell outright lies.

  That night Mercedes had crept from the bedroom that she and Carmen shared, and had spent the night with Oliver in the guest room next door. He had been aware of the probability of Carmen hearing their lovemaking through the wall. He’d said as much to Mercedes, but she didn’t care. She said nothing would wake Carmen she was such a heavy sleeper, and he had to admit that the thought of Mercedes’s younger sister lying in the dark, listening, secretly excited him. Carmen had made a wry comment over breakfast the following day, asking if anyone had heard strange noises in the night. She was rewarded by a glare from Mercedes, which seemed to add to her amusement. She had turned her red-painted smile on Oliver and winked at him.

  Oliver had ignored Carmen’s interest then, her blatant flirting. Mercedes had never paid attention, used as she was to her sister’s precociousness. Only three years separated them, but Mercedes had seemed much more mature than her sister. There was a wild, almost feral wantonness about Carmen, which had both fascinated Oliver and made him wary, but clearly not wary enough. Carmen had got her way in the end, and at a price far greater than any of them could have anticipated.

  Oliver switched off the television. He tried to think rationally. Carmen had come, not because she thought that any harm had befallen Mercedes, but because her sister had not answered her calls. He would tell her that Mercedes had been livid when he came home that evening, that she’d already packed her things and had left that night saying that she never wanted to see him again. It would please Carmen to think that it was over between them. And if she thought there was any chance of taking her sister’s place, it might dissuade her from looking for Mercedes. He would be furious in the first instance. Then gradually he would lead her to believe that she might benefit from her sister’s departure.

  Oliver stood up. He was tired and he decided that he would go to bed, read a little, and try to put Carmen from his mind. The next few days would
take all his energy and cunning. He went into his office to turn off his computer and noticed that the Arnold girl had forgotten her USB stick. He hoped she didn’t need it for anything urgent. As it was, he didn’t have her number to contact her.

  He sat at the desk and checked his emails. And then, out of curiosity, he opened up the files stored on Joanna’s USB. She had several photo albums, including the one she’d shown him, saved on the device. He clicked on one entitled ‘Artistic Self-Portraits’. The first shot was of a girl’s abdomen with a flower lying on top. Intrigued, he clicked on the next. It was a portrait of Joanna sitting astride a high stool. Her back was to the camera, her long hair swept wildly around her as she stared coquettishly over her naked shoulder at the lens. Another was a close-up of her face and bare shoulders, titillating the viewer with the unseen. She wore heavy eye make-up, and her lips looked pale. All of the shots were in black and white. Intrigued, Oliver closed that folder and opened another marked ‘Burlesque’. Various women appeared in this collection, mostly wearing some combination of top hats, tail-coats, fishnets and stilettos. They were coloured shots this time – the women wore deep red lipstick and dared the photographer with smouldering eyes. Joanna herself appeared wearing elbow-length black gloves and holding a cigarette holder. Her eyes were an astounding shade of green. Vince Arnold’s daughter certainly had a flair for erotic photography. Oliver copied some of the photos onto his laptop and saved them. He spent some time wondering about the Joanna in the photos and what she kind of lover she would make. Removing the USB and putting it in his coat pocket, he decided it might be fun to find out.

  FOURTEEN

  Joanna ordered a drink and glanced around the Porterhouse pub, which was unusually busy for a Tuesday night. She hovered near a small table where two men looked near-finished their pints and, when one rose, put on his leather jacket and told her with an appraisingly look that the seat was all hers, she settled down to watch the door and wait for Oliver Molloy.