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

by Tanya Farrelly

  Carmen had been taking out cutting boards and knives as they talked. She spread the ingredients on the countertop, unwrapped three breasts of chicken and began to cut one into thin slices.

  Oliver spread his hands and laughed. ‘So, what do I do?’

  ‘First you cut the chicken like this.’ She indicated the slices that she’d already cut and gave him the knife.

  He began to cut. ‘Okay?’ he said.

  ‘Perfect.’

  Carmen had taken a sharp knife and began to busy herself chopping tomatoes. He watched as she worked. Her hands were small. A gold bracelet glinted on her right wrist, and he wondered if it were a gift from a man. He didn’t doubt that she had her admirers. She caught him looking at her and smiled.

  ‘Okay. Now heat some oil in the pan. When it’s hot, you start to fry the chicken.’

  He had to admit he was enjoying himself. Mercedes had always cooked for him, but she had never asked him to help. When he’d gone into the kitchen when she was cooking, she’d chased him out, and he’d gone willingly. Carmen seemed at home in the kitchen. She was in command, and he guessed that was how she liked it. He’d begun to realize that he didn’t know Carmen at all. He wasn’t fooling himself. He knew that she was treacherous and that to get on the wrong side of her was a bad idea, but he figured there were many things that he didn’t know about her. She was volatile and it was because of this that she excited him as no other woman had.

  The chicken sizzled in the pan. He stirred it once. Carmen was arranging vegetables on a plate. He put his hands on her waist and kissed her neck. She laughed and pointed her knife at the sizzling pan.

  ‘The chicken will burn,’ she said.

  ‘Let it.’

  Oliver lifted her skirt and caressed her silky skin. She groaned and pushed his hands away. When he did it again she picked up the knife and pointed it at him, laughing. He wondered for an instant if she’d use it. Something told him that, in the right circumstances, she might.

  They stood like that for a moment, and then Carmen let the knife fall. It clattered on the tiles beneath their feet shattering the spell. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. When he lifted her, she said something about the food burning, and he reached out blindly to remove the frying pan from the hob before carrying her to the kitchen table.

  Carmen curled her legs round him. He took her wrists and pushed her away so that she was lying flat on the table and then he ran his hands along her body. He unbuttoned her blouse. And with trembling hands he tore at the last few buttons that wouldn’t come undone. She was lying on the table-top as he pushed his way inside her. He heard Carmen gasp and he pushed further still. She attempted to move, to manoeuvre herself into an upright position, but he didn’t want her to. He was in control, not her. He thrust harder. Carmen cried out, and he wasn’t sure if he’d hurt her and he didn’t care. In all his years with Mercedes it had never been like that. Sex was contained to the bedroom. It wasn’t something spontaneous – something rough. He withdrew almost guiltily when he was done. He glanced at Carmen’s face, half-afraid of what he might see there, but she was laughing. She was laughing so hard that she couldn’t sit upright. He helped her up and kissed her, still slightly guilty about how rough he’d been, but Carmen could take it. She was the antithesis of her sister.

  Carmen buttoned up her blouse and finished cooking the paella. Oliver opened the bottle of wine he’d bought, poured two glasses, sat in his armchair and waited.

  In the kitchen he could hear Carmen singing softly as she cooked. He took his briefcase from where he’d left it on the floor, snapped the locks open and took out his chequebook. He tore out the cheque that he’d made out to Carmen, folded it and put it in his shirt pocket. He would give it to her when they’d eaten. After that, it was up to her what she did with the money. He didn’t care.

  He looked up as Carmen entered with the food and, for a moment, her resemblance to Mercedes froze the smile on his face. What would she think, he wondered, if she knew what he’d done? Would she understand that it had been an accident – that he’d never intended for it to end as it had? He took a large mouthful of wine and swallowed back the wave of panic that threatened to wash over him. What had happened to Mercedes was a dreadful accident, and he had to move on.

  Satiated after the meal, Oliver pushed his plate away and poured the last of the wine. ‘I have that cheque for you by the way,’ he said, reaching into his shirt pocket and taking out the slip of paper.

  For a moment Carmen’s face darkened, but she took it, looked at it and then put it in her purse.

  Oliver swirled the liquid at the bottom of his glass and held her gaze across the table. He noticed how the wine had blackened her lips like blood.

  ‘When will you see her?’ he said.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow? How did you know I’d have the money so fast?’

  Carmen shrugged. ‘I didn’t. But now that I’ve got it, I can meet her. I’ll take the train to Belfast in the morning, spend the weekend.’

  Oliver nodded and said nothing. He looked at Carmen and wondered if that’s what the evening had been all about. Had she simply been waiting for him to hand over the money?

  Carmen stood up and began to clear the table.

  ‘It’s okay, you can leave that,’ he said.

  He took the plates from her, put them back on the table and kissed her. ‘In the morning when you’ve gone it will remind me of what a nice evening we had,’ he said.

  He saw Carmen’s face soften. He kissed her again, took her hand and led her towards the stairs. He still hadn’t worked out if her motive was one of love or if it was something more cunning than that. But he knew that he would constantly have to remind himself that Carmen was not an ally – not when it came to her sister and what he had done.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Joanna braced herself for her mother’s outburst when she went back inside. She hadn’t been outright rude to Rachel Arnold, but the undertones were there. She hadn’t flinched when Joanna introduced her to Patrick; the years of lies had made her an expert in the art of deceit. Joanna would say nothing about it until she got home. It wouldn’t do to make a scene at the exhibition, nor did she want to give her mother an excuse to wriggle out of it; she could easily storm out leaving Joanna without any explanation.

  She scanned the room for her mother and saw her talking with the head of the photography course. He hadn’t delayed in introducing himself. Joanna was amused at the attention her mother still drew from men. She imagined the man, Bernard, awkwardly praising her work. He wasn’t big on people skills but it didn’t stop him. She and the other girls used to laugh about him arriving at the college on his bicycle, his socks up over his trousers secured with a set of bicycle clips. He was the eternal bachelor – but they figured not through any lack of trying on his part.

  Her mother looked at her and smiled in relief. ‘There you are. Mr Byron was just complimenting you on your work.’

  Joanna smiled.

  ‘Bernard. Call me Bernard, please. Mr Byron sounds so … Anyway, Joanna, I was just saying to your mother, you’ll be starting to look for a job soon I imagine. I’d be delighted to give you a reference … your portfolio is exquisite … simply exquisite.’

  They suffered a few more effusive comments before Bernard Byron, receiving nothing more than polite nods of the head, decided to try his luck elsewhere.

  The moment they were alone her mother’s smile vanished. ‘What was Rachel Arnold doing here?’ she asked in a low voice.

  ‘She came with Patrick.’

  ‘You didn’t invite her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you invited him?’

  Joanna shrugged. ‘Yes, I met him in town – we talked about my pictures, he seemed interested. Why – is it a problem?’

  ‘No. No, it’s fine. I’d just prefer to have been told about it instead of walking into them like that.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. I didn’t get a
chance. You’re out a lot these days.’

  No response to that. ‘Well, look I’d better be getting along too. I’m meeting an old school friend this evening. I suppose you’ll be late home yourself?’

  ‘Probably, I think they’re planning on going for drinks afterwards.’

  Joanna watched her mother leave. Saw Byron’s eyes follow her to the exit. So – another evening out. She was half-tempted to call by the Arnolds’ when the exhibition ended. Would Patrick, by coincidence, be out too?

  She looked around the room. The crowd was starting to thin now. They’d be wrapping up in the next half hour or so. Karl came along, glass of wine in hand.

  ‘You going for drinks later?’ he said.

  ‘Probably, I have to pop home first, but I imagine everyone’s out for the night?’

  He nodded. He was quite attractive. It wasn’t any wonder those girls had been interested. If she wasn’t so interested in Oliver, she may have been tempted to make more of an effort herself.

  Her mother had already left when she arrived home. Maybe she had gone straight to wherever she was going. Patrick could have dropped Rachel home and made his excuses. Where were they now – and why? If she knew, she’d go there and confront them both, find out, finally, what was going on.

  She was going upstairs when she heard something – a familiar whistling sound. She stopped and listened. Hadn’t that been the message alert on her mother’s old phone? Since Joanna had spotted it in the gym bag that evening, she’d been waiting for her opportunity to seize it. She hurried down the stairs, cast her eye around the hall. One of her mother’s jackets was hanging at the end of the banister. She searched the pockets, her hand alighting on the rectangular object. She pulled it out. Dear God, don’t let her discover she’s forgotten it, she thought, watching the front door. The screen was lit up – a message alert, no name, just a number.

  Joanna took the phone and hurried upstairs. She went into her room, leaving the door open to listen for any sound in case her mother should return. She clicked on the incoming message.

  On your way?

  A simple message. Nothing to give away the identity of the sender. Still, she doubted it was from the old school friend that her mother had mentioned. Why would she have given her a different number, or he: it could be a man. Joanna’s mind kept turning. No, it wasn’t simply a new relationship that her mother was hiding. She’d gone to the trouble of buying a new SIM card so it was something bigger than that, something that required absolute secrecy – that she was not willing to run the risk of being discovered on her own phone. Almost in dread, Joanna clicked on the previous message.

  All arranged. Not long now.

  It had to be Patrick Arnold. If only she’d taken his number that day when she’d given him hers she’d know. She scrolled through some of the other texts, equally obtuse. There were a few that requested that her mother bring things to their meetings, books mostly, biographies and factual texts. That was strange. Joanna looked for a pen, wrote down the number that the messages had been sent from and the titles of two of the books. She would look them up; find out what they were about.

  When she’d scrolled through enough of the messages and still not gleaned anything about who they were from or why she went downstairs to put the phone back in her mother’s coat pocket. There was no way to mark the last text as unread so she deleted it. It wasn’t anything important; whoever it was had sent it they were unlikely even to mention it. Joanna took her own phone and changed the settings to withhold her caller ID. She dialled the number, heart thumping, finger poised to end the call should someone answer. She simply wanted to see if she recognized the voice. It rang on and on until eventually an automated voice told her to leave her message after the tone. Almost relieved she hung up.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Oliver had changed the bedclothes and made sure that there was nothing that belonged to Carmen lying around the house before he called Joanna. That morning, when he’d woken, he thought that Carmen might have backtracked on her plan, but she asked him to take her to the train station. It was Friday and she said that she intended to spend the weekend in Belfast. She would call him on Monday when she returned.

  As Oliver sat waiting for Joanna to arrive, he wondered where exactly Carmen had gone. Despite the time he’d spent with her she continued to surprise and intrigue him. He had watched her ascend the escalator into the station with her bag and had toyed with the idea of parking the car and following her to see where she went, but then he’d decided against it. Carmen was likely to see him entering the station, and he wouldn’t be able to explain his presence there. Instead, he’d parked the car along the street where the escalators were in sight. He’d sat there for over half an hour watching for Carmen to reappear with her bag, but she failed to do so and, finally, he’d given up and returned to the house.

  He wondered now if Carmen had taken the train to meet someone. The thought evoked in him a feeling of jealousy, which he tried to dismiss, but it continued to nag him. He was glad that Joanna was coming over to distract him. Carmen could play her games, but he wouldn’t waste his time puzzling over her motives. She was probably spending the weekend at the flat, but perhaps there, too, she had company. The thoughts continued to whirl round his head until the doorbell rang, and he chided himself for allowing Carmen to dominate his thoughts.

  ‘Hey, good to see you.’ He stepped back to allow Joanna into the hall and then quickly closed the door before he kissed her. ‘I’m sorry I had to rush off the other evening. How did the rest of it go?’ He wound a handful of her auburn hair round his fist and pulled her closer to kiss her again, trying to dismiss the voice in his head that told him that it was nothing like kissing Carmen Hernandez.

  ‘It was fine, wound up shortly after you left. Sorry about the drama.’

  ‘Drama?’

  ‘Well, tension then. My mother and Rachel Arnold – I wasn’t expecting that. I’d asked Patrick along but …’

  ‘Yeah, you said something about him and your mother; what was that about?’

  Joanna sighed and flopped down on the sofa. ‘I’m not sure. I asked Mum before if she knew him and she said no, then the other day I saw them together in a café. Not only that, I went searching through some old photos and came across one of Mum and Patrick from years ago. There’s something going on there. I don’t know if they’re seeing each other or if it’s something else – but Mum’s been acting very peculiar. She has two phones – she said one of them was broken but then I found it. She’s using it to dial only one number.’ Joanna paused. ‘You don’t have his number by any chance – Patrick’s?’

  Oliver took out his phone and began to scroll through his numbers. ‘As a matter of fact I do.’

  Joanna jumped up and took her phone out. ‘What is it?’ Oliver called the number out, but it didn’t match. Not unless Arnold had a second phone too. That would be strange. ‘I was thinking; you know how you can ping a number to get its location?’

  ‘Ye … s … s … s?’

  ‘I know it’s not exactly legal, but do you know anyone who could do it? And how accurate is it – does it give you the exact location of the phone?’

  ‘It depends on the technology; if the owner is using an iPhone, you can track it to within fifty to a hundred feet because of the GPS apps. Otherwise, you’re talking several square miles.’

  Joanna nodded. She put her arms round his neck and pressed against him. ‘So, do you know someone who could ping this number for me? I’d be … very grateful.’

  Oliver laughed. ‘So you want to inveigle me to break the law? I might need some convincing.’

  He pushed her away, put his hands on her shoulders and marched her towards the stairs. The door to the room that he had shared with Mercedes remained closed. He hadn’t gone in there since he’d moved his things into the other room. It seemed to resonate with her presence. He tried not to think about it every time he passed, but as soon as his feet hit the landing he could sense her. No
w, he hurried Joanna along the landing and towards the light in the other room. She laughed, and the sound of her laughter kept the ghost away; at the least, the ghost in his mind.

  Outside, a wind had picked up. It rattled the glass and they shivered beneath the covers. Joanna lay with her head on his chest, and he could feel his own heart beating as her hands travelled over his body. She was a different kind of lover to Carmen. Her love was about giving, and he felt that if he were to come on rough like he’d done with Carmen it would frighten her away. Carmen had created an urgency in him that both excited and frightened him. It was too similar to the way he had felt that night with Mercedes, appalled and exhilarated by his own strength. Sometimes he wondered if he could take it too far. If he’d lost control once there was every possibility that it could happen again. Sex was just another form of violence.

  Joanna’s gentleness was almost taunting. She seemed to need to be the one in control. She lay above him, caressed his body and made him ache. Then she withdrew and started all over again. When it was over it was almost a relief because he wasn’t sure that he could refrain from taking her as he’d taken Carmen. It took all his will to restrain himself until the moment when she’d seemed happy to end it.

  He must’ve fallen asleep almost immediately after because when he woke it was still dark, and he could hear Joanna breathing by his side. He lay on his back and wondered what had woken him. He thought that he’d heard something, a noise downstairs, but now it was silent, and he told himself that it was nothing and began to fall into a slumber. He jumped when, a minute later, he heard someone at the handle of the bedroom door. It was eased down gently, and he sat bolt upright trying to think what was to hand to hit the intruder with. The curtains were drawn tight blocking out any shred of illumination that might filter in from a streetlight. He made a grab at the lamp on the bedside table, but he knocked it over and felt Joanna move beside him. Next he heard a voice.

  ‘It’s only me. I didn’t mean to scare you.’