The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

I see him out, shut the front door, then lean my forehead against it for a minute, my mind racing.

How? How can there be nothing? This is … this is ludicrous.

He’d turned up a couple of hours earlier and I’d shown him up to the bedroom. It had been tempting to have the entire house swept for bugs and cameras but the cost would have been eye-watering, and after yesterday, and my paranoia that this ‘sick leave’ I’m now on might end up being something more permanent, I’m too scared to deplete my bank account any further than is absolutely necessary.

‘I think it’s just my room and the ensuite,’ I explained. ‘Video cameras of some sort. I took both rooms apart, but I couldn’t find anything. I know they can be really tiny these days though, and I didn’t really know what I was looking for, so …’

He nodded. He was a small, wiry man in a short-sleeved black shirt with Bugsweepers in yellow embroidery on the breast pocket.

‘Don’t worry, Mrs Holland. If there’s anything here, I’ll find it. Don’t you worry about that.’

He hadn’t asked any more questions, for which I was grateful. Discretion’s probably a big part of a job like his, I thought, tuning out as he started talking about radiofrequency detectors and infrared scanners. I didn’t care how he was going to do it, I just wanted it done, and so I went back downstairs and left him to it. But when he finally emerged, he told me the room was clean.

‘All safe, you’ll be glad to hear,’ he said, and I thought I heard a note of disappointment in his voice.

Now I feel more confused than ever.

How could he have found nothing? There were, very obviously, cameras in my bedroom at some point. And now there aren’t. So what does that mean? That someone fitted them, then took them away again?

I jump as my mobile phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s the solicitor I called as soon as I got home yesterday to ask for advice on how to get the porn site to remove the video. It’s not straightforward, apparently. Obviously, the first step is to contact the site and ask, nicely, if they can take it down, but they don’t have to oblige.

‘They probably get a lot of takedown requests, and if a video’s popular they may well ignore them,’ she said. ‘But if you can actually speak to a human being and make an eloquent case, well, you never know. Humanise it. Make them empathise with you. They may well have a partner and children themselves, so try to make them see how embarrassing it all is for you, how the video was made without your consent, how it may even affect your job, that sort of thing. You need to make that contact yourself. If that doesn’t work, come back to me and we’ll see what else we can do.’

I’d forced myself to go back to the website immediately but found no contact phone number, just an email address. I’d spent the next hour composing a heartfelt email, but when by this morning there was still no reply I was too anxious to wait any longer. I left a message with Anna Reid, the solicitor, begging her to do something, anything. It was going to be more money I couldn’t afford to spend, but there was no way I could live with knowing that video was still out there. We had to get it taken down; we simply had to.

‘I’d wait a bit longer before giving up, Beth,’ she says now. She has a lovely voice, calm, warm, reassuring. I’ve never met her – I found her on Google yesterday – but I’m picturing a soft bun, tendrils falling around her face, and a crisp white shirt.

‘It’s been less than a day and they may not check their emails regularly. But if we don’t hear anything after, say, a week, then I’ll put the pressure on a bit. If they still ignore us, or point-blank refuse to remove the footage, we can suggest some alternatives. We can ask them to blur your face, maybe. That might be a good compromise. It’s a tricky one, but don’t despair, all right?’

I thank her and end the call, but I am close to despair. Mum’s gone to a yoga class in the local W.I. Hall, and the children are, of course, still at Jacob’s. The house seems so quiet, so sad, that I almost can’t bear it. I know I need to keep busy or I’m just going to collapse in a messy sobbing heap, and so I try to focus on some housework. I flick a duster around the living room and wipe down the kitchen surfaces. But there’s a buzzing in my head, a fuzziness, and I can’t seem to organise my thoughts. Images of tiny vanishing video cameras flash through my mind; I know I barely slept last night and wonder if I’m starting to hallucinate. I go upstairs and lie down on Eloise’s bed, then remember my room is safe again so get up and go to my own bed instead. I’m just drifting off when I get a text from Mum telling me she’s nipping to the shop on the way home and asking if I need anything.

Cameras all gone now, I assume?

she adds, and I tap out a reply.

No cameras to be found! I’m so confused. Not sure what’s going on. Robin (if it was her) removed them again, maybe? Having a little nap. See you later xx

I do fall asleep then, too exhausted to even crawl under the duvet. I wake with a start an hour or so later, feeling cold and woozy. It’s lunchtime and I’m thirsty, my lips cracked and dry, so I make myself get up and walk stiffly down the stairs. But when I get to the hall I pause. I can hear voices in the kitchen.