The Doll's House - [64]

But her blow lost its impact, her arm slowing on its downward trajectory as she recognized her assailant.

Jake.

Her blow glanced off his neck and he now raised his hands to his face to fend off further attack. A deep cut over his left eye was already bleeding heavily.

‘Jesus Christ, Jake. What the hell are you doing? I could have killed you.’

‘You’re telling me,’ he countered angrily, pushing her off and clambering unsteadily to his feet.

‘What on earth are you doing here? Creeping up on me like that?’

‘Were you with him?’

And suddenly it all made sense.

‘Dear God – have you been following me?’

Jake stared at her, defiant, but he didn’t deny it.

‘How long have you -’

‘Nearly a week.’

Helen hung her head. Had she had a sense that someone was following her? Yes, that car on the return from Northampton. She had dismissed this and other vague inklings of alarm. She never gave them much credence – she knew how to take care of herself – and she never expected it to be Jake. Hadn’t they come to an arrangement?

‘Do you love him?’ Jake asked, shattering her illusions.

‘For God’s sake, Jake, it’s nothing like th-’

‘Do you?’

‘Go to Hell,’ Helen spat back, turning and climbing on her bike.

‘Please don’t go. We need to talk.’

Helen paused for a second, then slipped on her helmet.

‘There’s nothing more to say.’

She climbed on her bike and sped off, Jake growing smaller and smaller in her mirrors. Right now if he vanished all together she wouldn’t have cared. This evening had proved one thing and one thing alone. Her life was one massive, bad joke. And the gods would never tire of laughing at her.

104

She slid the laptop out of the case and placed it carefully on the kitchen table. She was alone now – the house felt crushingly silent – but even so she hesitated. Was it weakness to give in? Or was it just acknowledging a basic truth?

Tim had left an hour ago. He had said his piece and gone. Events were moving so quickly now and despite the endless chats that would have to take place – the window dressing of a marriage break-up – she could tell already that Tim had made up his mind. There would be no way back from this. He didn’t love her any more. It seemed strange to think such a bald, nasty thought, but that didn’t stop it being true. He had found someone who made him joyful and happy. That was no longer the case with his wife.

Strangely, Ceri didn’t want to fight for him. Not because she didn’t love him – she did and the thought of being a discarded wife stung bitterly – but because she had always shied away from a losing battle. Why prolong the agony? She chided herself for such resignation – wasn’t it the done thing for a betrayed wife to fight for her man – but suddenly she didn’t seem to have the energy or will. What was happening to her?

She crossed to the fridge and poured herself a glass of water. Her emotions were all over the place today – deep misery mixed with a strange sense of anticipation – and she wanted a moment to gather herself. She seemed to be constantly on the point of either laughing or crying today. Pulling herself together, she walked back to the kitchen table and sat down.

She pressed the ‘On’ button and the laptop buzzed into life. Immediately a dialogue box popped up, asking for the master password. Ceri’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. It was bad enough having Helen’s laptop here – ‘borrowed’ from her contact in Anti-Corruption – but it was much worse still to actually access her private files.

Helen had provided her with all her password protection information, so with a little shiver of transgression Ceri typed in the master password. Immediately, Helen’s desktop opened up in front of her. She clicked on the first file and was confronted by another box, demanding an encryption code. Harwood dutifully entered it and the file came up on the screen. But it was of little interest – just a contacts sheet. Shaking her head, Harwood persevered, opening and closing files, entering more and more passwords, slowly delving deeper and deeper into Helen’s system.

She was now accessing the most hidden material, the inner workings of Helen’s mind and soul. She drank in her detailed journal of her time stalking, then befriending, Robert Stonehill. She read the many emails she had sent to him, desperately trying to locate him. And deeper still, she found the real pay dirt. A diary Helen had kept on and off since she first started in the Force, chronicling her pride in her uniform, the feeling of security and power the job gave her, as well as her deep doubts about herself, as her career progressed.

It was late now, but Ceri read on, drinking in Helen’s confessions of anger, self-loathing and recrimination that nestled amidst the moments of happiness and optimism. Helen really was cursed, Ceri thought, despite all her success, driven by a desire to expel demons that forever eluded her. All those years in that flat, in the care homes, had left her raw and bruised. It gave Ceri no little satisfaction to realize that some of these wounds would never fully heal.