The Pornographer's Wife

by Amy Cross

  “It's Sarah,” she replied.

  “Oh God, she's not been over with her begging bowl, has she? Heathen fucking trash...”

  “No, listen to me -”

  “We need to cut her loose,” he continued. “I've got John bloody Neville in the front room and I don't have time to worry about some little tramp. Look, the worst case scenario is that she makes a fuss, right? Fine, let her. We'll deal with it when it comes, but I'm too valuable to the party for them to dump me now. Don't you get it? I'm too high up now for the likes of Sarah bloody Cole to pull me down, I'm literally out of her reach. Let her fart around in the gutter if she wants, she won't get anywhere. No-one's ever going to believe an alcoholic slag with money problems.”

  “You don't understand,” she continued, “I went to see her today and she -”

  “Why did you do that?” he asked suddenly, his mood changing in a split second.

  “To talk to her.”

  “And...” He paused. “Well, what happened?”

  “She... She was dead. I found her in the flat she'd moved to, dead on the bed. The front door was open for some reason, and she'd... There were syringes by the bed, and I think she'd choked on her own...” She paused, reliving the moment over and over in her mind. “Oh, the smell was just atrocious. I can still smell it now, like it seeped into my skin. I think she'd been there for a day or two.” Hurrying to the sink, she began to wash her hands for the hundredth time in the past hour, scrubbing them with soap in an attempt to get them clean.

  “So she was a druggie too, was she?”

  With tears running down her face, Mary bit her bottom lip and looked down at her hands, trying to stay strong. For the first time in her life, however, she feared she might be unable to do what was required of her. She turned the tap off and dried her hand, before turning to her husband.

  “She was dead, Don. She was actually dead.”

  “Don't do this to me,” he hissed, hurrying over and grabbing her firmly by the shoulders. “I don't ask much of you, Mary, but I need you to hold your emotions together when we have visitors. I know you can do it, you're a strong girl, but for God's sake don't embarrass me, okay?”

  “But she -”

  “Mary!”

  She paused for a moment, and then she nodded.

  “Just put it out of your mind,” he continued. “This is a good thing, sweetheart. You see that, don't you? She was the only possible link to our past, and now she's gone! She tidied herself away neatly. That's karma, it's how the whole bloody world works. Take it as a sign that God wants me to enter parliament.” He paused, waiting for her to stop crying. “I'm an important man, and that makes you an important wife. Don't let me down.”

  Wiping tears from her eyes, she looked at him again.

  “That's better,” he said with a smile. “Now go sort yourself out in the bathroom and then pop to the supermarket. Honestly, the best thing is for us to just get back to normality. This time in five months, I'll be a bloody MP, for Christ's sake, and neither of us'll even remember Sarah bloody Cole.”

  Staring at him, she realized that he meant every word, that he actually did expect her to just put the whole thing out of his mind.

  “Mary? What's wrong now?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, taking a deep breath. “I'll... I'll head down to the shops. It was duck you wanted, wasn't it?”

  “That's my girl,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “I do appreciate what you do for me, you know.”

  As her husband headed back through to continue his drinking session with John Neville, Mary remained in the kitchen for a moment, struggling to keep her eyes from watering again. Looking around the room, she tried to focus on something, anything that might take her mind off the sight of Sarah's dead body. Finally, as if from nowhere, a single image popped unbidden into her head: the sight of a baby in a crib, wriggling like a bundle of worms as it reached up and smiled at her. She returned the smile and her tears seemed to dry in a split second as she realized that there was only one thing that could possibly distract her from everything that had happened.

  It was time to start planning for a baby.

  TODAY

  “Okay,” Robert Shirley said with a frown, staring at his notepad, “let me get this straight. The Sarah Cole girl didn't actually threaten to expose your husband, did she?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “But you got the distinct impression that she was going to?”

  “I could tell that she was going to cause trouble,” Mary replied, choosing her words with care. “I didn't know how that trouble would manifest in our lives, but it was very clear to me that she wasn't going to just go away.”

  “Until she did.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, she did just go away, didn't she? By dying, I mean.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “And that day when you found her...” He paused for a moment, checking back through his notes. “You went to see her because... what, again?”

  “To talk to her.”

  “About the need for her to be quiet.”

  She nodded.

  “People don't usually keep quiet unless they're motivated to do so. What motivation were you going to offer her? Money?”

  “I hadn't worked that part out yet.”

  “And she was dead when you got there?”

  She nodded.

  “From the state of her body, how long do you think she'd -”

  “I don't know,” she said firmly. “I'm not an expert on such things. Long enough that I could tell as soon as I saw her.”

  “But she wasn't rotten or anything like that?”

  She shook her head.

  “I can probably dig up the coroner's report,” he continued, writing something on his notepad and then circling the text with a thick line of biro. “Just to flesh out the details, you know? Tell me, do you still have the photos you took of her when you started out?”

  “No,” she replied. “We destroyed them all, except for... Well, I might have a couple of shots that would be enough for you to see that -”

  “I'll need them.”

  “Will they be published?”

  “Maybe.”

  She nodded again.

  “It's very convenient, isn't it?” he continued. “You go to talk to this girl, to try desperately to get her to keep quiet, and when you arrive at her place the front door's open and you walk in to find her dead. I mean, woo hoo, problem solved.”

  “That's exactly what happened.”

  “You sure?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Nothing, I just...” Another pause. “Now's not the time to hold back on anything, Mrs. Heaton. Our deal only stands if you give me the whole story. I won't just be taking your word on things, either. I'll be checking into everything you tell me, and if there are holes or discrepancies, I'll find them.”

  “If you're suggesting that anything untoward happened,” she replied firmly, “then you're barking up the wrong tree. Sometimes convenient things happen and...” She took a sudden, sharp breath. “Not convenient, no. God forgive me for using such a word about a young woman's death. It wasn't convenient, it was horrible.”

  “Well,” he muttered, “call a spade a spade.” He leafed back through his notebook for a moment. “And you say this all came to light again recently when someone started sending you threatening letters and photos in the mail?”

  She nodded.

  “Who do you think might be responsible?”

  “I honestly have no idea.”

  “It has to be someone.”

  “I had a few ideas,” she continued, “but I went to see the people in question and I'm afraid I drew a blank. There simply isn't anyone else left who knew about those events, certainly not in that amount of detail.”

  “What about your daughter?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Maybe she found out somehow and she's getting revenge?”

&nb
sp; She shook her head.

  “Are you absolutely certain it couldn't be her?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “What if her father somehow let the cat out of the bag? What if she was digging around in his study and -”

  “My daughter is not that kind of person,” she said firmly.

  “What about you, then?”

  She stared at him in shock.

  “I'm just thinking,” he continued, “that maybe you're having some kind of stress-induced psychiatric episode and mailing the letters to yourself. It sounds like something from the plot of some lurid psychodrama, but I suppose weirder things have happened.”

  “Oh, good grief, what rubbish -”

  “It's not impossible.”

  “You think I'd do such a thing to myself?” she asked. “I never wanted this to surface, and I'm certainly not so mentally shot as to start trying to blackmail myself. Please, credit me with some basic sanity.”

  “Then who's behind it all?”

  “Donald must have told someone,” she continued. “He must have let it slip, and maybe... The letters seem overly focused on Sarah Cole, so I can only imagine that it's someone with a vested interest in dredging up her side of things.”

  “But there's no-one you can think of?”

  “We ran a very tight ship,” she explained. “You must remember, this was the eighties, long before the internet and all that rigmarole. Donald was able to set up a business bank account on the side and a PO box, so even the people sending the cheques had no idea who was getting the money. We went over and over the set-up and there was no weak point.”

  “What about the other models you used?”

  “None of them would have any reason to do this, and anyway, we were careful to conceal our true identities.” She paused. “It must be someone Donald spoke to, someone I've never even met.”

  “And yet from what you told me earlier, the messages seem very venomous, Mrs. Heaton, and they seem to be directed at you in particular.”

  “Which means what, exactly?”

  “I'm no detective,” he continued, “but I find it hard to believe that the blackmailer isn't someone who knows you pretty well, someone who either is now, or has been, close to you. This is a personal vendetta, and people don't pursue personal vendettas against people unless they have a damn good reason.”

  “There's no-one,” she told him, with a hint of desperation in her voice.

  “Then we're missing something here,” he muttered, “because those letters aren't springing up from thin air. Someone's writing them, sticking them into envelopes and sending them to you. It's the final part of this whole mess that I need when I'm writing the story.” He paused again, as if he was still putting together all the pieces in his mind. “It'll take me a few days to get the story ironed out, and then there'll be fact-checking and so on. I know journalists have a reputation these days for being sloppy, but some of us still have standards. Meanwhile, I need to shop the whole thing around.”

  “So when will the story run?” she asked. “I need to prepare certain things.”

  “You mean you need to tell your daughter?”

  She nodded.

  “Maybe the Sunday papers next weekend. That should give you enough time to figure out who's after you.”

  “And why should I do that?”

  “Don't you want to get to the truth?” he asked. “Someone's clearly got it in for you, Mrs. Heaton, and I'm firmly of the opinion that it's someone you know.”

  “I wouldn't know where to begin -”

  “I do,” he replied with a faint smile, tapping at his laptop. “It'll require a little bit of legwork on your part, but I think I can see exactly how you can track the bastard down. I've got a map of that Dalston village on my computer here, and I think you've missed one blindingly obvious fact.”

  THIRTY YEARS AGO

  She held the pregnancy test up to the light and saw that it was negative.

  Again.

  “You alright in there?” Donald called out, banging on the bathroom door. “It's time for my morning poo!”

  ***

  “There's another meeting this afternoon,” he muttered as he scanned the papers over breakfast. “A vicar of all things, can you believe that?”

  “I suppose you must get in with the local clergy,” she replied, watching him intently and waiting for the moment to spring her big request.

  “Imagine if he knew about our old life, eh?” he continued with a smile. “Do you ever think about it, Mary? In one year, we've gone from not having much money, to producing and selling all those dirty photos, to basically retiring. It's almost as if we've got a second -”

  “I don't think about it,” she said, interrupting him, “and that's a very deliberate choice on my part.”

  “Probably wise.”

  “Also, I've been thinking that perhaps we should go and see Doctor Chambers.”

  He looked over at her.

  “Together,” she added.

  “Why the bloody hell would -”

  “I'm not pregnant,” she told him.

  “Well, we'll keep trying. I don't mind trying, sweetheart, you know that. Once a day on weekdays, twice a day at weekends and three times a day during the holidays.”

  “I should be pregnant by now,” she continued. “Don, I'm worried something's wrong.”

  “With your tubes?”

  “Maybe, or maybe with... Well, we should get it sorted out. We should get ourselves both looked at.”

  “Says the woman who once said she didn't want kids.”

  “I've changed my mind.”

  “We don't have to have them, you know,” he continued. “They're a lot of work and they'd definitely change our lifestyle. Isn't there something to be said for just tootling on like this? We've got each other, shouldn't that be enough?”

  “I still think...” She paused. “I think it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.”

  “But you used to say -”

  “I've changed,” she said firmly. “My mind, I mean. I've changed my mind.”

  “You know you'd be the one raising them, don't you?” he asked, looking back down at the newspaper. “I'm happy to contribute my seed and my dime, but I'll be far too busy to take a day-to-day role in the little tyke's affairs. I'll be out of the house all day every day, working my arse off in parliament. You'll be here alone with the little brat.”

  “I know that,” she replied, taking a deep breath, “and it's fine with me. I don't know why, Don, but lately it's all I can really think about. I want a child, something that'll outlive us, something that could be better than us. Just one would be enough, just to show that we can raise it properly.”

  “Well, I'm not going to see a doctor about it,” he muttered, turning to the next page of the newspaper. “We'll just keep trying it the natural way, the way God intended. Is that enough for you?”

  “Thank you.”

  “I can't believe you're pressuring me for kids,” he continued, smiling at her. “You've changed, Mary. You've really changed.”

  ***

  Slipping her hands into the new pair of gloves she'd bought for the occasion, Mary made her way across the cold cemetery as a dark sky threatened rain at any moment. Up ahead, a few dark-suited men and lavender ladies were gathered around a small hole in the ground, while a plain wooden urn was resting on the grass. The whole scene seemed so fragile and brittle, it was almost as if a stiff wind might blow the whole cortege away.

  “Lord,” the priest was saying as Mary got closer, “we commend these ashes to the ground and we ask that you show mercy as you judge the soul of Sarah Caitlin Cole. We trust that in your infinite wisdom and grace, you will see fit to take her at your side and to bestow upon her the eternal paradise reserved for those who have lived good and hopeful lives.”

  “Fat chance,” muttered a man nearby.

  “If someone would like to place the urn in the ground,” the priest continued, looking around at the half do
zen gathered mourners.

  “You wanna do it, Barry?” asked the oldest man.

  “It's your job, Dad.”

  “Oh, just bloody do it. I'm cold, I wanna go home.”

  “I don't wanna touch it.”

  “It's just a wooden box!”

  Stopping next to them, Mary stared down at the box. She'd dithered all morning, trying to decide whether or not to show up for the funeral, and finally she'd decided to attend but to loiter at a distance. Now, however, she found that she'd made her way all the way to the internment site almost without thinking, and she was aware that the other mourners were looking over at her.

  “Who are you?” asked one of the younger men.

  “A friend,” she replied. “Please, don't mind me. Continue.”

  “Sarah had friends, did she?” asked the older man. “That's news to me. I thought she just had dealers and johns.”

  “If we could proceed,” the priest interjected, “I think I feel a little rain in the air.”

  “Oh fuck it,” the younger man said, stepping forward and picking up the box. “It's heavy,” he added as she slipped it into the hole in the ground.

  “We done, then?” asked the woman standing nearby, lighting a cigarette.

  “If anyone would like to say anything about the dearly departed,” the priest announced, “this would be an opportune moment.”

  Silence.

  “Well, then,” said the older man eventually. “Pub?”

  “Pub,” said the man next to him.

  “Pub,” muttered the others.

  As the mourners made their way back toward the gate, Mary remained by the hole for a moment, staring down at the box.

  “I'll leave you with your thoughts,” the priest said after a few seconds. “I'm very sorry for your loss.”

  Once she was alone, Mary found that she couldn't stop looking at the box, not even when she felt a light sprinkling of rain. Nearby, two workmen were loitering as they waited to fill in the hole, but all Mary could do was stand and listen to the rain falling harder all around her, until finally the heavens opened with such force that it felt as if she might get washed away entirely, and within minutes rivers were starting to flow across the gently-sloping grass.