goings or inane drivel, but the occasional interesting piece of gossip or notable item did show up from time to time. The important thing was that he was slowly building up a picture of the habits and movements of the villagers. The Black n’ Red notepad by the laptop already had pages filled with detailed notes on most of Haydon’s residents. A dab here, a brushstroke there; the masterpiece was slowly taking shape.
He was tapping a Doctor Who pen against his teeth as the play bar slowly crept from left to right on each sound file. Loretta Fairbank and Sally Bryce were playing in his earpiece, chatting on the Green with neighbourly concern about poor Carol Belmont. His mind wandering, as it sometimes did, he wondered how Jumanji was getting on with Perry. His faithful mutt would be pining something chronic for him no doubt. He made a note to make a quick phone call later to see how they were both getting on. Mobile phone reception was nonexistent, so he’d have to remember to withhold the number on his room landline so that the area code wouldn’t give anything away. Perry would never notice such things of course (unless he had been smoking some weed while watching a few rerun episodes of The Lone Gunmen !), but little details …
As his Labrador drifted away from centre stage, Whitman found himself thinking of his past girlfriend; something he hadn’t done for quite some time. She had loved Ju. He and Vanessa, his one and only adult long term relationship, had parted company nearly two years ago after six years together. She had wanted the whole package – marriage, kids, PTA meetings … he had said he wasn’t ready for that, that he wanted to do some travelling, see the world, experience more of life, before ending it. Strangely enough, she hadn’t taken too kindly to that final comment. After a few weeks of bickering, arguing, then some crying, she packed her bags and went back to her parents in Derby. They spoke a few times in the weeks that followed, him telling her that he missed her and what they had together, and her telling him that she needed more and that she wasn’t getting any younger. But then the calls became less frequent, and then in one final phone call, she had awkwardly informed him that she had met someone else. Those words had felt so final, like being nailed to the ground and looking up to see a bomb whistling its way down toward you. He had wanted to beg her to come back and tell her that he would do anything she wanted, but all he managed to force out was a murmured ‘congratulations’. He could have sworn that he had heard a stifled sob before she thanked him and hung up. A year later he found out by chance that they were already married with a newborn baby boy. Close call there … yeah.
While browsing through one of the SPAR recordings, a curious sound caught his attention, immediately causing his ears to prick up and to snap him back to the present. It was soft and barely above a whisper, so he cranked up the volume to full and pressed the earpiece tighter into his ear, straining to listen. It only took a moment to recognise the soft sounds of someone crying quietly to themselves. He listened for several minutes more before he caught the odd audible word.
“How … used a condom.”
“Ah, the plot thickens,” Whitman said to himself, thankful to be distracted from the unsettling memories of Vanessa. He now recognised the voice. It was that pretty part-time assistant. Flicking through the notepad, he located the name, Mandy Foster, and wrote ‘pregnant’ beside it.
A thought occurred to him. There was a public phone next door at the Post Office. He had also bugged that just in case – sometimes, for dirty little secrets, people didn’t feel comfortable using their home phone or mobile (several residents did still own mobiles, despite rarely having the opportunity to use them).
He located the sound file for the public phone and started it from the time when the crying
He was tapping a Doctor Who pen against his teeth as the play bar slowly crept from left to right on each sound file. Loretta Fairbank and Sally Bryce were playing in his earpiece, chatting on the Green with neighbourly concern about poor Carol Belmont. His mind wandering, as it sometimes did, he wondered how Jumanji was getting on with Perry. His faithful mutt would be pining something chronic for him no doubt. He made a note to make a quick phone call later to see how they were both getting on. Mobile phone reception was nonexistent, so he’d have to remember to withhold the number on his room landline so that the area code wouldn’t give anything away. Perry would never notice such things of course (unless he had been smoking some weed while watching a few rerun episodes of The Lone Gunmen !), but little details …
As his Labrador drifted away from centre stage, Whitman found himself thinking of his past girlfriend; something he hadn’t done for quite some time. She had loved Ju. He and Vanessa, his one and only adult long term relationship, had parted company nearly two years ago after six years together. She had wanted the whole package – marriage, kids, PTA meetings … he had said he wasn’t ready for that, that he wanted to do some travelling, see the world, experience more of life, before ending it. Strangely enough, she hadn’t taken too kindly to that final comment. After a few weeks of bickering, arguing, then some crying, she packed her bags and went back to her parents in Derby. They spoke a few times in the weeks that followed, him telling her that he missed her and what they had together, and her telling him that she needed more and that she wasn’t getting any younger. But then the calls became less frequent, and then in one final phone call, she had awkwardly informed him that she had met someone else. Those words had felt so final, like being nailed to the ground and looking up to see a bomb whistling its way down toward you. He had wanted to beg her to come back and tell her that he would do anything she wanted, but all he managed to force out was a murmured ‘congratulations’. He could have sworn that he had heard a stifled sob before she thanked him and hung up. A year later he found out by chance that they were already married with a newborn baby boy. Close call there … yeah.
While browsing through one of the SPAR recordings, a curious sound caught his attention, immediately causing his ears to prick up and to snap him back to the present. It was soft and barely above a whisper, so he cranked up the volume to full and pressed the earpiece tighter into his ear, straining to listen. It only took a moment to recognise the soft sounds of someone crying quietly to themselves. He listened for several minutes more before he caught the odd audible word.
“How … used a condom.”
“Ah, the plot thickens,” Whitman said to himself, thankful to be distracted from the unsettling memories of Vanessa. He now recognised the voice. It was that pretty part-time assistant. Flicking through the notepad, he located the name, Mandy Foster, and wrote ‘pregnant’ beside it.
A thought occurred to him. There was a public phone next door at the Post Office. He had also bugged that just in case – sometimes, for dirty little secrets, people didn’t feel comfortable using their home phone or mobile (several residents did still own mobiles, despite rarely having the opportunity to use them).
He located the sound file for the public phone and started it from the time when the crying
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