Trust Me. Angela Clarke

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СКАЧАТЬ jabbing like sharp teeth. They made him work for every single penny. All the jovial smiles and hours spent listening to their inane charity chatter.

      Once, he’d thought of Miranda as different. When they’d been at university she’d seemed fresh and fun, she’d worn her hair loose past her shoulders, and laughed at his jokes. Here was someone who was as passionate as he was about his purpose, his career. Now he felt cheated. As if she’d been a mirage to lure him in, a siren, her own desires the rocks on which he crashed. She’d driven him into this intolerable position.

      Young party members always looked up to him; he was used to that. Occasionally an upstart would try to win his spurs by picking an argument, but there would be no using him as a stepping stone. As if the prime minister would be able to cope without him! That’s what people failed to appreciate. If they attacked him, they attacked the cabinet. They were primed to protect Nigel, not that he couldn’t dispense with the whippersnappers himself. They always had such flimsy arguments based on nonsensical anecdotes. Too used to letting their phones and their computers think for them. Jade had been different.

      He loved how her fat breasts and bottom shook when he made her laugh. She’d taught him that LOL meant ‘laugh out loud’ and not ‘lots of love’. It had been natural to progress things. Tempting. She was there every day in the campaign office, touching his arm, fluttering her eyelashes at him. But he hadn’t succumbed. He’d done the decent thing. That’s what Miranda failed to grasp. He had never, in person, acted in an ungentlemanly manner. They had merely exchanged words. Some naughty little messages. It was all a bit of harmless fun. But Miranda would not be reasoned with. It was she who’d put him in this ludicrous situation. How was he supposed to do his job if he wasn’t allowed online? Not everyone sent handwritten note cards like her cronies. Many of his constituents reached him via Twitter. Support for policy announcements was more easily achieved with a click. Besides, it was damning to suddenly disappear. One couldn’t simply close one’s accounts unnoticed. People would assume, wrongly, that he had something to hide. The vultures would be on him within seconds. So he’d elected to do what was best for them as a couple. Miranda’s comprehension of these things was weak at best. He’d requested Quentin change all the passwords in front of her. Told Miranda it was a direct order from Number 10. She’d believed it was a security issue, and those accounts would only be used for work from now on.

      Switching service providers was straightforward. The internet really did make everything much more readily available. He was shrewd, he stayed away from anything too obviously titled; he didn’t want any stray hacks getting hold of his cookies and whatnot. Besides, it was easy enough to find what he wanted on more mainstream applications. The promise had been there tonight, but it wasn’t at all what he’d hoped for. Utterly repulsive viewing. People actually enjoyed this filth? He had suggested to himself that he had imagined it; it had, in truth, been a long day. It was now the early hours of the morning, and he was onto his third scotch. But his mind couldn’t conjure something as repugnant as that. Boys at the club joked about a bit of slap and tickle, but this went far beyond a touch of the whip. He felt quite sickened that someone would even make a film like that. And it was certainly film. Wasn’t it? Staged. Special effects and all that. He’d stumbled into some nightmare vision of a sick man’s imagination. Because if you were going to attack someone, it made no sense to do it on camera. He took another sip of scotch, the ice dripping away slowly into nothing. It had been strikingly real. He poured himself another two fingers. Unnerving in its brutality. But it couldn’t actually be real. Because that would be unimaginable.

       Nasreen

      ‘I made some calls while I was waiting,’ Nasreen said. She had the engine running as Freddie slid into the car. She wanted to forget about Kate and the film she had seen. And she didn’t want to row with Freddie about it.

      ‘I found Amber’s Facebook account – she hasn’t posted since the night before they disappeared. It looks like a goodbye – she says she’s sorry and loves them all,’ Freddie said, a pen tucked behind her ear.

      Could Amber have known they were running away? ‘I spoke to the head teacher at her school,’ Nasreen said. ‘He confirmed she didn’t show up the day her dad disappeared, and they received no telephone call or letter in relation to her absence.’ Amber’s former teacher had obviously run through this before, and had given an emotion-free, inclusive account of what had happened. ‘They tried to contact both Paul Robertson and Amber, but both phones had been switched off, as we know.’

      ‘There’s a load of comments under her last post – the friends on here didn’t look like they knew it was coming,’ Freddie said, lowering her window as they drove through Westminster.

      Nasreen wanted to look at the posts, but she knew she’d feel sick in the car. ‘All the statements taken from her friends at the time suggest they were surprised.’

      ‘They could be lying – you know what teens are like,’ Freddie said.

      Nasreen didn’t like to think about lying teens; it reminded her of what she and Freddie had done when they were that age. The lasting pain they’d caused. Nasreen indicated and pulled onto Lower Thames Street. The river twinkled next to them in the sunshine, the pavements clogged with groups of lacklustre tourists licking ice-creams.

      Freddie shifted in her seat. ‘Some of them have written RIP under her message.’

      Rest in peace – why would they do that? ‘Probably just a teen thing.’

      ‘You don’t think they know something we don’t?’ Freddie said.

      ‘Make a list of everyone on there – see if we can find out who they are, and if they were close to Amber. Could just be randoms,’ she said.

      ‘Or trolls.’ Freddie leant back and rested her flip-flopped feet on the glove compartment.

      ‘Feet down, please. This is police property.’

      ‘You need to chill out, Nas.’ Freddie left her feet where they were.

      Was this about not being able to help her friend Kate? ‘You okay?’

      Freddie kept her eyes fixed on the road. ‘Why didn’t you say congrats about my promotion?’

      Oh God: she’d been so preoccupied with what it meant that Burgone had promoted Freddie whilst dumping her training on her that she hadn’t thought about Freddie at all. She winced. ‘I’m sure I did.’

      ‘You agree with Saunders then?’ Freddie shifted in her seat so she was facing her accusingly, all bare legs and arms.

      What had Saunders said? ‘Of course not,’ she said, flustered.

      ‘Well, you don’t sound thrilled about it. Only Green’s said anything nice.’ Freddie was developing a sulk.

      Despite her bolshie attitude, Freddie’s ego was fairly fragile. She’d worked hard since she’d started with the team, harder than Nasreen had thought she would, if she was honest. And she’d turned up some pretty good results: making the link between the Spice Road and Paul Robertson was impressive. She deserved this accolade.

      ‘I’m happy for you,’ Nasreen said. And she was. Wasn’t she? She just had this irrational jealousy that somehow Burgone thought Freddie was a stronger asset to the team than her. That he’d written her off because of what had happened in the past. She was acting crazy: she СКАЧАТЬ