Simon Beckett - Owning Jacob - SA

She examined her palm, then began sucking it. The fit seemed to have exhausted itself. She looked listlessly at what she had done and passed her injured hand tiredly across her eyes, leaving a smear of blood. She took a last, defeated drag of the cigarette which she’d held throughout. Flicking it away in a trail of sparks, she turned and went back into the house.

The darkroom was full of wet eight-by-ten prints. In the dim red light they hung from the drying line like surrealist washing.

His darkroom at home wasn’t as well air-conditioned as the one at the studio, and he could taste the pungency of the developing chemicals at the back of his throat. Ben clipped the last print up and turned the fan higher as he studied the results. He was pleased with how well the new lens was working with the Nikon. Although the photographs of the bedroom were grainy, that was only to be expected. Even with the filter he could hardly expect good definition shooting from light to dark through glass.

It was good enough, though.

He examined one of the dryer prints. In it Sandra Kale sat on the bed, the man’s penis disappearing into her mouth. His lips were pursed in concentration, her face distorted as if she were mid-yawn. Both she and the bedroom were easily recognisable.

Ben moved to another print. It showed the man putting the money on the dressing table, his wallet frozen on its way back to his pocket. Next to it was one of him leaving the house. His features were much clearer on that. Ben considered it for a moment, then unclipped it and went over to a filing cabinet. He opened a drawer and flicked through the index tabs until he came to the photographs he had taken weeks earlier, as Sandra’s visitor hurried away from the garden. Ben compared them with the still-wet print he had just developed and gave an incredulous laugh. He hadn’t been sure before, but there wasn’t any doubt.

It was two different men.

“You can answer me any time today if you feel like it.”

Ben looked up from the reflector and stand he was dismantling. Zoe was waiting in front of him, a heavy tripod clutched in her arms, her face patiently exasperated.

“What?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I said shall I put this in the car?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, please.”

Zoe continued to look expectantly at him. “And do I get the car keys as well?” she said in answer to his obvious incomprehension. “Or am I supposed to smash a window?”

He fished in his pocket and gave them to her. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Tell me about it,” she grumbled, walking away.

Ben rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt gritty and tired. The shoot had been for an advertising campaign for a new range of jeans ‘to wear anywhere’, as the ad would claim. They had been trying to find the right location for it since after Sarah had died, and had only recently settled on a ninth-century chapel in Sussex with beautiful stained-glass windows behind the altar. A mock wedding had been set up, everyone in formal dress except the bride, who wore jeans and T-shirt with her veil. It should have been straightforward enough, except that he’d left a box of filters he needed back at the house. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he could have sent Zoe, but the box was in the darkroom, and the darkroom was full of prints of Sandra Kale. So he’d had to make the trip himself, leaving behind a chapel full of waiting models, make-up people and an apoplectic art director.

By the time he got back the man — who Ben usually got on well with — was almost cross-eyed with frustration and Zoe was seething because she’d had to stay and bear the brunt of it.

The shoot had run on till late at night. Ben had silently blessed the fact that they were using artificial lights to simulate the sun shining through the stained-glass windows, and so could continue when it was dark. Afterwards he and Zoe had stayed to clear up, but when Zoe had only just managed to catch the tripod and camera he’d knocked over, he decided enough was enough and called it a day. Only the rector had another set of keys, so Ben had broken his usual rule of not leaving equipment untended, locked the big wooden doors on the mess and driven back to the hotel.

Now he regretted not finishing the previous night. The hire firm had taken away the big Kliegs they’d used to illuminate the chapel, and without them the air inside was cold and damp.

The two of them worked with their coats on, breath steaming like ectoplasm within the dark stone walls. He knew he’d been unprofessional, and would have to come up with spectacular results if he wanted to work for the ad agency again.

More than anything, though, he resented the lost time.

He took the reflector out to the car. Zoe had the boot open and was moving the overnight bags to make room.

Her latest hair colour was a blond that made her dark eyebrows stand out to startling effect. As he approached, she straightened.

“What’s this?” She was holding the telephoto lens. It was in its carrying case, but there was no escaping what it was.

“It’s a lens,” Ben said.

Zoe snorted. “Yeah, I think I guessed that. Bit big, though, isn’t it? Can I have a look?” She was unzipping the case as she spoke, used to handling all his cameras and equipment without thinking. “God, what is it, four hundred millimetre?”

He felt caught. “Six hundred.”

“Six! Fucking hell, you taking up astronomy, or what?” She looked up from the lens, grinning. “What do you need a long lens for? Not turned into a paparazzo, have you?”

Ben’s face was burning. “I just felt like getting it.” He knew it sounded feeble, that it would have been better to have laughed with her. Instead he took the lens from her and put it back in its case. “Come on, stop wasting time. We’ve got a lot to do.”

She stared at him. “Well, excuse me! It wasn’t me who forgot the fucking filters yesterday, was it?” She stomped off into the chapel.

Well, you handled that beautifully, he thought, closing the car boot.

The drive back to London passed in a constrained silence.

He knew he should apologise but couldn’t bring himself to mention it. He told himself he had nothing to be embarrassed about, that it was only a lens, for fuck’s sake, and that in any case he was using it in a good cause. But his rationalisations had the feel of sophistry. He pulled up outside Zoe’s flat. She got out of the car without a word. Her expression was stony as she jerked her bag from the back seat.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

She slammed the car door without answering.

Shit. He was on the verge of going after her, but something was tugging at his mind, distracting him as he watched her go into the house. He looked at her bleached hair, the eyebrows that appeared almost black in contrast, and an image of Sandra Kale naked in the bedroom came to him. The sound of the front door banging shut registered, but only peripherally.

As he pulled out into the traffic, he’d already forgotten about Zoe.

It was after lunch when he arrived in Tunford. He’d made no conscious decision to go, but neither did he ever really question where he was heading. He just avoided thinking about the reason. When he reached the turnoff that brought him to the woods, he slowed, then drove past. The house would be empty, so there was no point in watching it. Jacob would be at school, Kale at the scrapyard and Sandra at the pub. His mouth dried at that last thought, and finally he had to admit to himself where he knew he’d been going all along.

He pulled into the pub carpark.

He turned off the car engine but made no move to get out. The Cannon stood on the street corner, a few hundred yards from where the Kales lived. It was a squat block of dun brick, newer than the rest of the estate but still the worst sort of 60s architecture. A badly painted sign hung above the door. Ben looked at it and wondered what the fuck he was doing. His heart was thudding. He knew the sensible thing would be to drive off before anyone noticed him. But now he was there that would have seemed like cowardice. Not giving himself time to think about it, he climbed out, locked the car and went inside.