A Thousand Small Explosions (5 page)

CHAPTER 15

ELLIE

Ellie’s face felt rigid like it’d been caked in concrete. She couldn’t wait to return to her home and start removing the thickly applied make-up, layer by layer.

After a morning standing in front of cameras for various international TV news channels, a journalist from The Economist magazine tried to encourage her to discuss personal matters rather than the launch of her company’s new App. But enough bullets had hit Ellie over the years to know when a writer was about to take aim. So she dodged them by giving him a polite smile and reminding him of what she was there to discuss and what subjects were out of bounds.

As her head of security Andrei drove her from central London to her townhouse in Belgravia, she opened the secure internal company messaging system on her tablet and discovered a file that’d been sent by Ula, her PA.

“Timothy Kelly,” read the folder and Ellie realised it must contain the details she had requested of her DNA Match. She was more nervous than she thought she’d be as her finger hovered above the icon. She worried about what it might contain and just how much detail Ula had unearthed. She assumed Ula had taken her advice and subcontracted it out to the team her firm employed to carry out background checks on the senders of threatening emails and other aggressive communications she received on a weekly basis.

She took a deep breath and pressed the icon. It contained a handful of documents: a photograph from a local newspaper of a provincial football team; his LinkedIn CV, his internet browser history from the last six months, a bank statement and some miscellaneous images. She didn’t want to know by what shifty means that information had been gathered.

Ellie clicked on the photograph of the football team first and read the caption below, eventually locating the name Tim Kelly. She found him in the back row of the picture; a man of average build, with dark, short, receding hair, a beard and a big grin spread across his face. She immediately decided that physically, he was not her usual type.

She scanned his CV and learned he’d worked his way through a succession of employers, chiefly in computing, since leaving university. His internet history was typical for a man of his age. Youtube links to 1990s music videos and Family Guy clips, football and Grand Prix results, the occasional pornographic site – but nothing freakish, she was relieved to discover – and regular visits to Netflix and Spotify for his films and music. He liked Coldplay, the Foo Fighters, Stereophonics and watching anything with Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio in, none of which were to her taste. His bank statement divulged his supermarkets of choice were Tesco and Aldi; he bought most of his clothes from Burton’s and Next, he donated by direct debit to Alzheimer’s and stray dogs’ charities and put some money away towards his pension each month.

There was nothing in the file to suggest he was or had been married, that he had a current partner or any children. He had no criminal record, no bankruptcies or any notable money concerns. His mortgage was modest, he repaid his credit card on time and he had no student loan left. His social media presence was almost zero with the exception of some comments on a Cambridge United FC message board.

In short, it appeared Timothy Kelly was an unremarkable man but one with whom she shared an extraordinary link.

‘Can we take a diversion to the King’s Road?’ Ellie asked Andrei and within a few minutes, he’d returned to the car and handed her a brand new, no frills, pay-as-you-go mobile phone so she wouldn’t have to give out her actual number. She hadn’t used one since she was an impoverished university student and she caught herself smiling as she recalled a much less complicated time in her life.

She typed in Timothy’s number and began to write a text. “Hi,” she said. “My name is Ellie and we have been Matched up!” She then paused, deleting the message. Too chirpy, she thought. “Hello, I’m your Match on Match Your DNA. Would you like to meet me?” ‘Too slutty,’ she muttered. “Hi Timothy, I believe we’re supposed to be spending the rest of our lives together,” she typed, and then added a smiley face.

Ellie paused before hitting the send button, then remained stationary with the phone in her hand, staring at it, scared of what the Pandora’s box she’d just opened might contain. She didn’t have long to wait for a response and the phone’s loud alert sound made her jump.

“Ahh, Mrs Kelly, what took you so long?” Timothy responded and added a winking face. “And please call me Tim.”

He has a sense of humour, Ellie thought, and immediately relaxed her tensed shoulders. “Sorry, I was busy choosing my wedding dress,” she typed and sent an emoji of a woman wearing a veil.

“What a coincidence, so was I. So tell me a little about my wife-to-be as I only know the basics. It’d be nice to find some common ground before I book the register office.”

“No church then?”

“No, Satanists like me aren’t welcome there.”

“Something we have in common,” she replied and included a smiling devil icon.

“What do you do for a living?”

“Steal their souls.”

“No I said FOR a living, not WITH the living.’”

“Ah, now I’m with you. Other than worship Lucifer, I work in a boring office job. You?”

“Computer nerd.”

Over the next thirty minutes, Ellie failed to notice the queue of traffic that kept her car stationary or the pouring rain that lashed against the window. When Andrei finally pulled up outside her home, she was glued to her phone like a schoolgirl as she and Tim continued messaging back and forth. Andrei opened the car door and then opened an umbrella.

“Can I take my wife-to-be for a drink some time?” Tim texted.

“I’m not sure…” she replied.

“I won’t bite, honest. Sometimes we just need to take a gamble and hope for the best.”

Ellie bit her bottom lip and slipped the phone into her handbag as Andrei escorted her into the house where he shut the door behind them and she hung her damp coat up to dry. She paused for a few minutes, weighing up the pros and cons of allowing a stranger into her life before making her decision. The very reason she did the Match Your DNA test was now a living, breathing person. He had a name and a face and he was waiting to learn if she wanted to meet him. But she was scared. She removed the phone from her bag, then read and re-read his text again before replying.

“Okay, I’d like that,” she typed apprehensively.

“Cool. Are you free on Friday night?”

CHAPTER 16

AMANDA 

Amanda learned much more about her DNA Match Richard Taylor from his memorial service than from her internet research.

She felt like an impostor, sitting alone at the back of St Peter And All Saints Church and listening closely to Richard’s friends regale the congregation with anecdotes about his life, what inspired him and how he carried himself as a confidant. She discovered he was a genuine team player both in and out of the sporting arena, a loyal pal and a good shoulder to cry on. She learned that he’d played hockey and badminton for the county; he’d become a vegetarian at the age of twelve and he’d overcome cancer when he was seventeen through chemotherapy and a positive attitude. Amanda thought back to the photos on his Facebook profile of his global travels and wondered if it’d been his brush with the disease that inspired him to see the world.

Richard had also run two marathons to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and had organised for local people with learning difficulties to take part in assault courses and exercise programmes. His selfless deeds made Amanda feel like the laziest, most selfish person on earth and she knew that when her time came, she wouldn’t be remembered for her philanthropic ways like Richard was.

*

It had been a little over a fortnight since Amanda had learned the devastating news of her Match Your DNA Match’s death.

She’d become frustrated at still not having heard a peep from him so she chose to make the first move and sent him an email introducing herself. She was careful not to mention she had looked him up on social media or that she kept a folder on her computer crammed with photographs she’d taken from his online profile. But she included a picture of herself, a flattering one taken three years earlier when she was lighter in weight and before divorce had aged her, and supplied her email address and mobile phone number.

But much to her disappointment, she heard nothing in return. Her first thought was that Richard hadn’t found her photo attractive, before reminding herself that if you’ve been Matched, supposedly, looks were unimportant. So she considered if he’d been bitten by the wanderlust bug again and had gone travelling but there was no evidence of that online. Maybe he was locked up behind bars, just cripplingly shy, he’d broken both hands so he couldn’t type or perhaps he was dyslexic … Amanda was clutching at straws and she knew it.

It was only by chance when she clicked on his Facebook page for the umpteenth time that she saw a message left by his sister a day earlier, informing Richard’s friends of the date and address of his memorial. 

Amanda sat bolt upright in her seat and then glared at the screen, and re-read the message. ‘Memorial?’ she spoke aloud. ‘What the hell?’ It didn’t make sense, Richard couldn’t be dead. They’d only just found each other – how on earth could the one person in the world who was supposed to have been made for her no longer be living? And how had she not read about this sooner?

On further examination, Amanda discovered that while Richard’s profile pictures were public, not all his posts were. She requested to be friends with him, in the hope that his sister agreed so she could learn more. And after checking for confirmation almost every waking hour for two days, her friendship had been approved. There, she found thread after thread of tribute messages had been posted from Richard’s friends across the world, each paying their respects to someone who’d touched them emotionally.

Amanda fought back her grief as it threatened to tear her apart like a bird hitting a propeller. She poured herself a third glass of Prosecco and scanned online local newspapers carefully, piecing together information about Richard’s accident like a jigsaw. She discovered that while he was out celebrating a victory with a group of hockey teammates late one evening, Richard had become separated from them, stumbled into a road and was struck by a hit-and-run driver. He’d been found a few hours later in a roadside verge with serious head injuries.

Finally Amanda succumbed to her emotions and began to cry, then texted her boss to tell him she was poorly with ‘women’s problems’ and wouldn’t be in the next day, knowing he’d be too squeamish to ask any questions. And for the rest of the night and into the early hours of the morning, she pored over photographs of Richard, aching for all he was unable to bring to her life.

They would not meet for that all important first date, they would not make love for the first time, she would not hear him tell her that he loved her, they would not build a life together or start a family and she would not know how it felt to be the singular most important thing in somebody else’s life. Instead, Amanda’s greatest fear was being recognised - that she would remain where she had been since her divorce, alone, stagnating and all washed up at thirty-five.

She paced around her lounge contemplating what to do next. She wasn’t ready to accept what had happened. She needed to know more about the man who’d been stolen from her, so having missed his burial, she vowed to attend his memorial instead.

*

As the tributes to Richard came to their natural conclusion, his friends made their way down the church aisle and towards an open door where Amanda could see tables with bottles of soft drinks, plastic cups, paper plates and napkins. She hesitated, aware that she didn’t belong amongst the mourners despite her link to Richard but nevertheless something compelled her to follow them.

A Coldplay album played softly through wall-mounted speakers as a mixture of faces old and young helped themselves to food and chatted amongst themselves. Amanda was unsure of where to stand and found herself gravitating towards a lively group of men and a young woman recalling a time Richard raised money for an abandoned dogs’ charity by skydiving, despite being terrified of heights. Another remembered how he’d persuaded some of his personal training clients to join him at London’s annual naked bike ride, again for charity. Everyone had a memory of Richard apart from Amanda, and she couldn’t control her jealousy.

              ‘Did he ever tell you about the time he got stung by jellyfish?’ Even Amanda was shocked to hear the words falling from her mouth.

‘No,’ a man with a fringe that hung down to his nose replied, as all eyes fell on Amanda. ‘What happened?’