Wonder Women (31 page)

The next day, for the first time in his career, Richard pulled a sickie. He went into work and double-checked that he had no meetings that afternoon. At lunchtime, he told his PA he had a terrible headache and was going home to rest. Instead, he jumped on the Tube and headed north to East Finchley. He felt very conspicuous, walking up the high street in his City suit, so he took off his tie and loosened his top button. He walked hesitantly into Jungletown. It was around two o'clock, and the place was buzzing with mums shopping and children tearing around and playing. There was no sign
of Jo, the woman who owned the place. Instead the shop was being ably staffed and managed by a short, compact woman with spiky hair, who looked like she might have been a street entertainer at some time. She was always on the move, advising a mum here, throwing a ball with a toddler there, ringing up a purchase with a smile and answering the phone at the same time. Whoever she was, she was worth her weight in gold. If the company grew as Richard imagined it might, she'd be a brilliant staff trainer.

He stayed just long enough to get a good feel of what was going on, but not so long as to be conspicuous or creepy. He chose two pairs of handmade jeans for the twins and paid for them. He certainly had some food for thought. The shop had looked great at launch, and was clearly still doing well, but there was so much scope for growth and improvement. On the train back home he wrote four pages of notes on his iPad.

He went back a couple more times. Each time the short woman was working, and once he saw a tall red-headed girl behind the counter as well. She reminded him a little of Louise. He spent a long time looking at his financial position. He believed he could make the business work and make money, but it would mean a significant investment. He planned to invest some of his own money and then bring in a few other private investors. He made a list of people he would consider approaching. In terms of his private finances, there was a big enough nest egg that he and Rachel wouldn't need to compromise on their lifestyle, at least for the moment. And as long as he made a success of the business, they could continue that way.

When he finally had all the plans in place, he made one last trip. He had got used to seeing the short woman in the shop, so he was surprised to see Jo behind the counter. He had meant to make a more formal approach to ask her to meet, but she caught him by surprise when she recognised him from the launch and remembered his name. He gave her his card and asked her to contact him. Walking back to the station, he found himself trembling a little. It was ridiculous. He did multimillion-pound deals for the bank all the time without breaking a sweat. But there was something about this little suburban shop and the opportunity it offered that made him excited. Would Jo be interested? Could they make it work? He hoped so. He hoped so very much.

‘So how was school today?' Mel said, putting cottage pie on Serena's plate and adding a spoonful of peas, carefully placing them so they didn't touch the cottage pie at all.

‘Hmm.'

‘Any homework?'

‘No.'

‘Plans for the weekend.'

‘Yeah,' said Serena, pushing the food around her plate, but she didn't expand on that statement.

‘I'm working Saturday morning, but I'm off from about two. Fancy an early-evening film and a pizza? I'd love to see the new X-Men thing.'

‘Can't.'

This was hard work. She was trying to be pleasant and open, but so far hadn't managed to get more than a single syllable out of Serena. She'd been making a gentle effort for weeks now, making sure they had nice home-made meals and sat together to eat, suggesting outings that she thought Serena might enjoy, chatting about her own day to try to encourage Serena to talk about hers. But she was knocking
her head against a brick wall. It wasn't as if Serena was rude, or even resentful. She was just … uninterested. It was as if she endured time with Mel because she had to, but her real life was going on somewhere else, and she was waiting for this interruption to end so she could get back to it.

She watched Serena carefully separating the potato from the mince, and eating mouthfuls of each in turn, then eating a few peas. She'd always liked all her food groups separate. As a small child, she had been a good eater, but fussy about presentation, and would refuse to eat her meal if one thing flowed into another. She had thrown the biggest tantrum of her childhood aged five because Mel had accidentally dropped some carrots into her rice. Mel's heart ached with love as she looked at Serena's bowed head. It wasn't just that she was worried about what Serena might be up to, she missed her. She missed her company, her laughter, her ferocious opinions. She tried a new conversational tack.

‘I joined Facebook today.'

That got Serena's attention and her head snapped up. ‘You what?'

‘Jo set up a Facebook page for the shop, and I wanted to be able to see that, so I joined. It's very interesting. I found a bunch of people I was at uni with. It's weird. You can see people's pictures and everything … their holidays, their children … It's like popping into their houses to snoop through their photo albums.'

‘Don't friend me,' said Serena, before she could stop herself.

‘What?'

‘Don't try to add me as a friend; I'll say no. It's so lame being friends with your mum.'

‘I … okay. I wasn't going to, but okay.'

‘And don't post any lame baby pictures of me, or add any of my friends.'

‘Okay.'

‘I'm going to my room now,' Serena said, standing up, and then adding belatedly, ‘Thanks for dinner.'

Mel heard her door close, and then the hum of her computer coming to life. She wanted to smile, because she knew perfectly well what Serena was doing: checking all her Facebook settings to make sure none of her friends, her pictures or any of her statuses were visible to anyone who wasn't her friend. She'd entertained a faint hope that when she said she'd joined Facebook, Serena would want to be her friend, and that she could be open about it, but it seemed that wasn't going to be the case. Of course, she'd already had a look at as much of Serena's profile as was visible. She couldn't see any pictures except the profile one, a fairly innocuous one of her with two female friends, their arms around each other's necks, laughing. But she had been able to see her friends' list, and it was enormous: more than seven hundred people. Most of them seemed to be kids from schools in the area. Surely Serena couldn't know that many people. She must be adding friends that she didn't know, or barely knew, maybe people she'd met once.

Mel thought about it while she cleared the table, washed up and wiped down the kitchen surfaces. Then she logged on to Facebook, and sure enough, Serena's profile was even more tightly locked down. She couldn't even see the friends'
list now. She searched for a couple of Serena's friends however, and their profiles were completely visible. She spent an hour or so looking at the pictures they had up, the language they used, the conversations they had. Then she logged out and sat staring at the sign-up screen. What if Serena got a friend request from someone she
might
know, but couldn't put a face to? Someone whose profile looked like that of loads of the other kids she was friends with?

Could she create a fake profile … another teenager, someone Serena might want to be friends with? She didn't know enough about Facebook to know if it was possible, or if she would be found out. Was it criminal? She had no idea. She checked that Serena's door was firmly shut and there was music playing in her room, and then she rang Hamish.

‘It's the lovely Miss Grey!' Hamish's voice was full of warmth.

‘How are you?'

‘In the midst of an edit of my new book. Trying to get the trolls from one side of the mountain to another in a snowstorm. You know how it is – tricky stuff.'

‘Ah, those pesky trolls,' said Mel. ‘Never go where you want them to.'

‘Indeed, too true,' said Hamish. ‘Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call? I'm sure you didn't ring me just to talk trolls.'

‘Well, in a manner of speaking …' said Mel hesitantly. Now she had to say it out loud, her idea did sound slightly mad. ‘I was wondering … what you knew about anonymity on the Internet. You know … like … fake identities.'

‘Trolls?'

‘Not really. More … well, social media profiles that aren't … actually … real people.'

‘I'm not sure what you're getting at,' said Hamish. ‘Are you worried that some of the people Serena is friends with might not be who they say? I wouldn't be surprised – it's dead easy to set up a fake Facebook or Twitter account – all you need is an email address, and you can get one of those in minutes. You don't even need to enter real information.'

‘Really?' said Mel. ‘That's very interesting.'

‘I did speak to her about the whole social-media thing,' said Hamish. ‘At Christmas. I told her not to accept anyone as a friend that she didn't actually know personally. Just because you have mutual friends doesn't mean the person is someone you want to have access to your life.'

‘Mutual friends?'

‘Yes. When you get a friend request from someone, it tells you if you have any friends in common. So she might be more tempted to say yes to someone because they know people she knows, even if she doesn't know them directly. It's one of the things that makes the whole world of social media so damned risky, especially for kids.'

‘Wow. Well, thanks, Hamish. That's all very useful info. Look, we must get together for dinner again soon …' Mel was trying to work out how quickly she could get off the line to see if all the things Hamish had said were true. Could it really be that easy?

‘Okay,' said Hamish, and she could hear the hesitation in his voice. It sounded almost like suspicion. ‘Chat soon. Oh, and Mel?'

‘Yes?'

‘You wouldn't be thinking of doing something silly, would you?'

‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘I know you're worried about Serena. I know she's shutting you out. But … well … if she felt you had betrayed her trust … the damage it would do … It would be crazy to do anything that might make her feel that way, wouldn't it?'

‘Of course,' said Mel. ‘Of course. I would never do that.'

She forced herself to ask a few friendly questions about Hamish's cottage, and they made a vague date for a few weeks' time and then said their goodbyes.

It was an insane idea, Mel thought. Hamish was right. But somehow, the scheme wouldn't go away. Could she do this? Should she? And if she did do it, what would her alter ego be called? Lauren Smith. She didn't know why – the name just popped into her head. She chose a date of birth, making the fictional Lauren about six months older than Serena. She went into Hotmail to create an email address. (Hamish was right – it took seconds.) Within minutes, she had added the email address and been verified, and Lauren Smith, aged sixteen, had a Facebook profile. She added her to the network for a nearby school, one with a large student body. Now for a profile pic. She fetched her old albums from the bookshelf and leafed through until she found a photo of a long-forgotten university friend, a girl called Megan. They'd all gone to Brighton for a weekend and Megan had been standing on the beach, looking out to sea at sunset. She had long, straight blonde hair and she had been wearing a big floppy straw hat which partially obscured her face. The picture had the hazy,
glowing retro look of those Instagram pictures. Mel chuckled: it was the perfect image. She popped it on the scanner and uploaded it. She'd need more pictures, but that would take time. She also knew if she added Serena as her first friend, Serena would smell a rat and refuse the friendship request, so she clicked on the profile of Serena's best friend, Marina, randomly picked thirty people off her list of friends, and sent them all a friend request. Some might say yes, some would ignore her, but she could begin to build a list of people of the right age from the right area.

She glanced at the clock. It was one in the morning. There was no glow of light shining out from under Serena's door so she must have gone to bed. Mel stood up and stretched. She had made a good start. She'd soon be able to have a good look at what was going on in Serena's life. She turned off her computer and all the lights, brushed her teeth and climbed into bed. As she was drifting off, she felt a moment of unease. What kind of mother spied on her child? She knew it was something many people would disagree with – Bruce, for one, would be horrified, and Hamish's reaction to the very idea had been negative. But she knew she was doing it out of love and concern. It was because she cared so much. She knew what it felt like to do without that concern, and even if Serena didn't seem to want it, she was sure it was for the best.

It took a few days, but she started to get a few friends. The boys she had requested were the first to accept. She decided Lauren was a big cat fan, so she added some images of cats with funny slogans and a few statuses about maths homework and the weather. She found a couple of mass
party pictures with loads of people from the local area tagged in them and tagged herself. She even found a free image on Google of a blonde girl running on a beach. You couldn't really see her face, so it could easily be the same girl as the one in her profile pic. The whole profile was slightly patchy, but beginning to look believable. Mel presumed that most teenagers weren't all that interested in the details of each other's lives; they were too busy obsessing about themselves. Certainly, no one seemed suspicious. She kept adding friends, and when she reached fifty, she risked sending a friend request to Serena.

She sent it late one evening, when Serena was already asleep. She checked Facebook sporadically during the following day, but Serena hadn't responded. That evening, Mel said barely anything over dinner. After they'd eaten, unusually Serena settled on the sofa to watch some US show on television. Mel went into the kitchen to wash up. She was jumpy as a cat, and kept glancing into the living room to see if Serena was still there. She made tea, and went through just as the show finished. She handed Serena a mug and sat down beside her on the sofa. ‘How was your day?' she said chummily. ‘Tell me about school. How is it?'