Troll Read online

  ‘But how did he know it?’ I said. ‘That’s what worries me.’

  I showed them the other comments Starry had left on my blog, and they read them like I was showing them pornography, like what did I mean by showing them such filth?

  ‘No crime has been committed,’ the woman said again, this time slowly, as if I was a backward child. ‘Nothing we can do.’

  ‘Two nights ago, I was attacked. The police were called. I have a crime number. And now somebody’s writing to me, telling me, basically, that they were there. So they probably did it. Are you still telling me that no crime has been committed?’

  I looked at the desk sergeant but he just shrugged. ‘Stay vigilant,’ he said, ‘and if anything actually happens, then come back and tell us. Or call 999.’ The way he said ‘actually happens’ made it pretty damn clear that he didn’t expect anything at all to happen, on account of the fact that, in his and his colleague’s opinion, I was merely a hysterical young woman.

  So anyway, I went home, and there were two men in cheap suits standing outside my door. They were both overweight, one overweight overweight. Or, as they used to say before it wasn’t allowed any more, fat.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I said.

  The fat one, who I shall call Fatso (I don’t care any more, okay?), took out a card and gave it to me. I read it. Environmental Health, Borough of Hackney. Oh God.

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘We’ve had complaints,’ he told me. ‘Noise complaints. We’re here to investigate.’

  ‘What kind of complaints?’ I said, feeling this sense of déjà vu from having had exactly the same conversation with Sam. I thought it had stopped, all this.

  ‘Music, partying,’ said the other man, who I shall call Tubby (I said I didn’t care, okay?).

  ‘Not me,’ I said.

  ‘Your name is Sophie Fortune,’ Tubby said, not even as a question.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you live here,’ Fatso said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then, Miss Fortune, I’m afraid that the complaint has definitely been levelled at you,’ he said, not without a certain relish. What is it with me and authority?

  ‘Do you mind if we come in?’ Tubby asked, nodding at my front door.

  Yes, I thought, I do mind. I mind a lot. So I said:

  ‘Yes, I do mind. I mind a lot.’

  This didn’t appear to faze either Tubby or Fatso. Fatso just handed me a folder.

  ‘And what’s this?’

  ‘This is a dossier,’ he said, making it rhyme with ‘mossier’. ‘In it is a list of all the complaints that have been made regarding this property. And this,’ he said, handing me a piece of paper, ‘is a formal warning that if the antisocial behaviour continues, you will be taken to court and likely evicted from your property.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. Yes, I know. I need to work on my pithy comebacks. And that was it. Off they went. And I’m now Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the Borough of Hackney, I’m being stalked by a psychopath, and I have absolutely zero idea what is happening, none at all.

  I honestly don’t think I can take this any more.

  fourteen

  FORTUNE WAS USED TO OPULENCE IN THE WORKPLACE, PAINTings worth millions hanging on lobby walls, lifts lined in marble, a complacent hush in the corridors. The quiet calm and comfort of money. Gym membership, a parking space. Order and privilege, the wonderful world of private banking.

  The office where his daughter had worked wasn’t like that. On arrival, he’d been greeted at what passed for the front desk by a young woman on her mobile, tattoos up her arm, who’d glanced at him and then continued her conversation while he waited. She’d been pretty, so Fortune hadn’t minded too much, had listened to her talk to a friend who, he gathered, had got so drunk that she’d stayed at a boy’s flat and couldn’t remember if she’d slept with him or not, though from the general drift of the conversation and the receptionist’s reaction, if she had slept with him, no good was likely to come of it.

  She eventually hung up and said, ‘Help you?’

  ‘My name’s Fortune,’ he said. ‘My daughter works here. Sophie.’

  ‘Right,’ the receptionist said, slowly, as if she was a doctor and Fortune had just told her he’d found blood in his stool. ‘Okay.’ She looked around, as if hoping somebody else was there, somebody who could help her out. ‘Want to take a seat?’

  The reception area was on the sixth floor of a central London office building, just off Oxford Street. Framed front covers of the magazine his daughter had worked for hung on the walls. Bright colours, shots of celebrities, bold headlines about surprise weight loss and relationship splits and late nights, worse-for-wear actresses spilling out of taxis. He sat down on a sofa and flicked through a copy of the magazine that was on the low table, without reading. The receptionist picked up the phone, looked at Fortune, then thought better of it and put it down, and instead went to fetch somebody. Fortune felt a spike of anxiety, again as if he was in a doctor’s surgery, awaiting bad news. But of course he’d had enough bad news from doctors recently. The worst kind of news. Try beating that.

  He’d waited for some minutes before the receptionist came back with another woman, also young. She approached Fortune, stopped and reached down a hand, which he shook.

  ‘Mr Fortune? My name’s Anne. Would you like to follow me?’

  Now they were sitting in a meeting room, glass-walled and set in the middle of the open-plan office of his daughter’s magazine. Anne had asked him if he wanted anything to drink and he’d said coffee, and she’d left him to find it. He looked out at the people at work, ranks of desks, computers, mostly young people typing, on the phone, talking. At the far end an overweight woman was speaking with a young man and laughing, her head back, letting out a shriek that he could hear from where he was sitting, through the glass walls.

  Anne came back in, carrying Fortune’s coffee. She set it down and sat opposite him, taking a moment to collect herself before looking at him.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your daughter. She’s still missing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She shook her head. ‘Terrible. You must be so worried.’

  Fortune didn’t believe that Anne was old enough to understand the pain and worry of a missing daughter, but he only nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Have the police made any progress?’

  Fortune shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Terrible,’ Anne said again.

  ‘Did you work with Sophie?’ Fortune asked.

  ‘No, not directly,’ she said. ‘I’m from HR.’

  ‘Right,’ said Fortune. He paused. ‘So, the reason I’m here is, it’d been some time since I spoke with her. But I heard that, I don’t know, that maybe she’d been having some trouble at work.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’ asked Anne, attempting to sound innocent and failing, not able to look directly at Fortune.

  ‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘The thing is,’ said Anne carefully, ‘Sophie, she … well, she doesn’t work here any more.’

  A young man walked past the glass walls of the meeting room they were in and looked at Fortune, a look of fascination, as if he was an exotic reptile that the young man had only heard of in legend.

  ‘She doesn’t?’

  ‘No. She left.’

  ‘I see. My understanding was that she loved the job.’

  ‘Sometimes things don’t work out.’

  Fortune thought of all the people he’d been asked to fire over the years. How difficult the first had been, how routine and bloodless the whole process had become. Warning one, warning two, and here we are. Sorry. The job’s not for everyone. Here’s the package. Goodbye.

  ‘She left of her own accord?’

  Anne paused. ‘I can’t really speak about the specifics.’

  Fortune frowned. ‘Well, did she leave or was she fired? That’s all I want to know.’

  ‘I really can’t d
iscuss the circumstances,’ Anne said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Fortune leant back in his chair and looked out of the glass windows. He caught the eye of one, two … Christ, how many people were looking in? From their desks, glancing away as soon as he caught their eye. Like motorists passing a grisly accident. Fascination. He thought of the receptionist, her gossiping. Word of his arrival had spread quickly.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Please. What’s going on?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What’s going on? What happened?’

  ‘Like I said—’

  ‘You can’t speak about it. Yes, I know, you told me.’ He looked at her directly, tried his most intimidating managerial stare. These were kids, he thought. He played with the big boys, had done for years. ‘I want to know what happened with my daughter, and I’m not leaving until I do.’

  ‘Mr Fortune, please—’

  ‘Sophie is missing,’ said Fortune. ‘I’ve flown over from Dubai. I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere until you tell me something useful.’

  ‘I can’t. I really can’t.’

  Fortune sighed. ‘Listen, I understand that there are things you can’t talk about. So how about you find somebody who can? Could you at least do that? Please?’

  Anne was quiet for a moment, then stood up. ‘Wait here.’ She walked out of the meeting room and through the open-plan office, and as she passed, every head at every desk looked up and watched her.

  He hadn’t heard anything from Jean, no call or text, and he imagined that the next he’d hear would be from her lawyer. He couldn’t blame her. She could have the house, have whatever she wanted. It wasn’t like he was going to be around to spend it, anyway. Sitting in the glass room, it occurred to him that he had nowhere in the world that he could call home. He was fifty-four years old. As far as existential failures went, he thought, that had to score pretty high.

  ‘Mr Fortune?’

  A man this time, forties, black-framed glasses, grey hair. Fortune stood, shook the offered hand.

  ‘Yes. You are?’

  ‘Larry. MD of this …’ He flapped a hand at the office outside, the people and near chaos. ‘This madhouse.’ He had an upper-class accent and he spoke slowly and lazily, as if he was above most of what he witnessed. ‘Sit down, please. I understand you’ve flown in from Dubai. Haven’t been there, but heard it’s the most ghastly place. What is it you do there?’

  ‘Banking,’ Fortune said. ‘Looking after people’s money.’ Or not, he thought.

  ‘Nice,’ Larry said. ‘You have to love the tax situation over there.’

  Fortune nodded, staying aloof, trying not to succumb to the man’s easy charm. ‘I’m here to find out about my daughter.’

  ‘Sophie,’ said Larry, nodding. ‘Yes. Wonderful girl, bags of promise. Hungry, which is what you need in a place like this.’ Again he waved a hand at the office outside. ‘Animals, some of them. Happily eat their own parents to get a story.’

  ‘Why did she leave?’

  Larry pulled a face, a gentle wince. ‘Now that, well, that is complicated.’

  ‘I’ve got time.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Larry. He was still standing and he pulled a chair out from under the table, sat down. ‘The problem is, there are things I really can’t say.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Fortune. ‘Let’s stop playing around.’

  ‘No,’ said Larry, ‘I really can’t. It’s a legal thing, apparently. Or so the lawyers tell me. I’m simply not allowed to disclose any details.’

  ‘You do know she’s missing? I just … Look, I just want to know what happened.’

  ‘And I’d love to tell you, I would, believe me. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, simply cannot imagine. But I’m not allowed to disclose any details. Sounds like bollocks, I know. But alas, it’s the situation.’

  Fortune sighed, slumped, his shoulders dropping. He suddenly felt tired and old, surrounded by these young people, full of life and energy. What was he doing? ‘Just tell me this. Did she leave, or was she fired?’

  Larry gazed at him, nodding, thinking. At last he said, ‘Put it this way, Mr Fortune. I don’t imagine she wanted to leave. I can’t say anything more. I’m sorry, I really am.’

  Fortune was silent for some time, looking out at the office where his daughter had worked. ‘What was it she did here?’

  ‘Stories,’ said Larry. ‘Chased down stories. At first we’d give her the story, tell her what to do, who to talk to, where to go. Before we knew it, she was finding them herself. She went out a lot, to parties, events, spoke to people, made contacts. Oh, believe me, she was good. She was very good.’

  ‘What kind of stories?’

  Larry smiled. ‘The kind of stories our readers want. Who’s shagging who, who’s in rehab, who’s anorexic, who’s let themselves go. Those kinds of stories.’

  Fortune nodded. ‘Scandal.’

  ‘Scandal sells,’ said Larry. ‘And Sophie, Sophie could sniff it out.’

  He stood up, looked at his watch.

  ‘I am sorry, Mr Fortune, but …’

  Fortune got to his feet. ‘There’s nothing more you can tell me?’

  ‘I wish I could. I do. I really do.’

  Fortune nodded. Larry opened the glass door, held it open, waiting for Fortune to walk past him. ‘I’ll see you out,’ he said.

  They walked through the office and Fortune felt the weight of surreptitious glances on his back.

  ‘I hope they find your daughter,’ said Larry. The way he said it, it sounded like he hoped they’d find her body, like he didn’t expect any other outcome.

  They walked through into the reception area and Larry held out a hand, which Fortune did not want to take but did anyway.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Larry, and turned away without waiting for a response. He walked through the door to the office, and before it had closed on him Fortune saw a young woman run up to him, for the news, what had that man, what had Sophie’s father wanted?

  *

  Outside on the street, Fortune stood for some minutes, unsure of what to do or where to go. He didn’t want to return to the hotel, but it occurred to him that he had absolutely nothing more to do, no other business. Sophie’s office had been a dead end. Instead, as ever, he turned back to work, calling Alex’s number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Alex? It’s Fortune.’

  ‘Oh. Hey.’ Alex didn’t sound too happy to hear from him.

  ‘What’s the latest?’

  ‘The latest?’ There was an edge to Alex’s voice that normally wasn’t there. A man at the end of his patience. He was probably exhausted, Fortune thought. Probably hadn’t been home for days. ‘The latest is, almost ninety million dollars has gone missing, nobody’s got a clue where it is, the CEO’s riding me like a horse, the team’s close to mutiny …’ He sighed. ‘The latest is, there is no latest. Nothing to report.’

  He was close to finished, at the very ragged edge. Fortune had worked with Alex for years and he both respected and liked him, would go to great lengths for him. He felt a twang of guilt for being here, not there in Dubai, doing his job.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay. Take a break. Go home, get some rest. Come back to it fresh.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Alex. ‘Yeah, whatever. When …’ He paused, unwilling to ask. ‘When are you coming back?’

  Fortune thought of his lack of progress, the dead end of Sophie’s work, the pointlessness of what he was doing. ‘Soon,’ he said. ‘Very soon.’

  He hung up, considered doing something cultural, something Dubai was chronically short on. A gallery, a museum. A show? But instead he turned, headed for the Tube, for his hotel, where there was a bar and films on demand. At the Tube entrance, the top of the stairs, ready to descend into London’s bowels, he felt a touch on his shoulder, turned, and saw a young woman.

  ‘Mr Fortune? Sophie’s father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I worked with Sophie. I can tell you what happen
ed to her.’

  fifteen

  IT WAS DONE. IT WAS DONE AND I HAD HIM, I HAD IT ALL ON film and it was all above board, beyond doubt. After all that work, all those weeks of planning and the guts of the women involved, I had him. The champagne was flowing and Larry made a speech to the whole floor. Jessica cried and pretended that she wasn’t jealous. Even the lawyers were smiling. I mean, even the finance department told me I’d done a nice job. I had it made. I was the golden child.

  And then, guess what? Guess what happened?

  The scumbag got away.

  How? Good question. And the answer is, I haven’t got a clue. Well, okay, that’s not quite true. What happened is, the original victim decided, overnight, that it hadn’t actually happened, any of it. She said that she’d never met the guy, that she hadn’t been there. She said that she’d got confused and that she was very, very sorry for everything. She was only fifteen. She just wanted attention. What fifteen-year-old doesn’t?

  You know how I felt about that, right?

  Right.

  So the first thing I did was get on the phone to her mother. Her mother who, let’s remind ourselves, wanted our favourite sleazy celeb hung, drawn and quartered, boiled alive, and eaten by dogs for good measure. What is it they say? Get medieval on him.

  ‘It’s Sophie,’ I said. ‘From the magazine.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘Please, Mrs ——. Come on. We’re a team. Just tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I can’t. Please don’t call me again.’

  ‘Did somebody say something? Threaten you?’

  ‘If you call me again, I’ll go to the police.’

  ‘Please,’ I begged. Yes, I did, I begged. ‘Help me here. Don’t let him get away with it. Whatever he’s done, whatever he’s said, we can work something out. Keep you safe.’

  Honestly? I shouldn’t have said that. Because I had no idea if we could keep them safe or not, which I don’t feel too great about. But anyway:

  ‘I am going to put down the phone, and I never want to hear from you again. I have nothing more to say.’

  And she put down the phone.

  So now the question is, who blew the whistle? How did that scumbag find out what was happening, and get to our star witness? Now his lawyers are accusing us of entrapment, harassment, malicious allegations, libel, I forget the rest. A great long list that made our lawyers’ eyes go all big and worried. Game over. All those weeks of work, wasted. All for nothing.