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Chapter 4 - Life begins with “S”

The card reader connected to the PC without the slightest complaints and I even managed to open the little trap-door on the camera, just like my relationship-guidance counsellor had done at PC World.

We looked at the slide-sorter on the screen and I double-clicked the last thumbnail in the sequence. We waited. I needed a new computer. The “80s Hour” was in full-swing on the radio and a bad Yazz and her Plastic Population were making the three us even more irritable. Then, the image appeared, and there he was – mega pixels of bastard - squinting up at me at the very moment that he thought he had been blinded. His agony pleased me, but it wasn't a very good picture; it was under-exposed and slightly out of focus. Danielle would have been critical. Sod Danielle. My mystery man would be recognisable to anybody that knew him - especially if they’d ever seen his face early in the morning when the curtains are first drawn back. Skinner looked. Passmore leaned over. Skinner raised his eyebrows.

“That’s good enough,” he said, and he took out his mobile and scrolled through his contacts. While he did this I returned to the set of thumbnails. There were more than I’d expected and I clicked “Slideshow”. There were my pictures of the bed, and the shot of the fence. Each had the correct date and time of capture displayed underneath. Then came pictures from the Christmas Karaoke evening. It was so long ago. You could tell this because I was enjoying myself.

After six or seven of these, there was a change of subject and a change of date, and I didn’t like what I saw. I watched them scroll before me. They had been taken in our living room and they were of Danielle pulling faces at the camera – just as we’d done in our early days. I recognised the expressions – scary, surprised, scared, shocked and sad.  They should have brought back happy memories, but they didn’t. The date on them was November 28th - my birthday. The time was 21:15.