Cyber Cinderella (7 page)

“I’m still surprised to see you so changed. Camilla hasn’t changed so much.”

“We haven’t changed at all,” giggled Becksy.

Alice continued. “You were so impassioned. Are you passionate about the politics of heel sizes now?”

If we were still at school, I’d be whopping her in detention at this point. Well, I would be had I been a prefect, but I was seen as too anti-establishment for such giddy responsibilities. Who were these horrid little girls coming in here to sneer at me and my life?

“I do a lot of voluntary work outside of the office,” I lied. It really mattered to me not to disillusion my own remembered schoolgirl self nor anyone else who might recall me from that time. I did not want anybody at all to think the worst of me; that was my prerogative.

“Really.” Alice was wide-eyed behind those distorting lenses. “Like what?”

I was saved by Camilla, something I never thought would happen. “Is this really relevant? We’re discussing our product, not the halcyon days of St. Tree’s. Are you going to get us into one of the monthlies, then?”

Becksy giggled at the use of the word “monthlies” in a non-menstrual context and I got back to drawing up a battle plan that could be used in the phony war of PR. I showed them out into the reception area, womanned by a temp in an inappropriate piece of nightwear that fell off one shoulder. She was showing the sort of flesh normally sported by soap starlets on red carpets, to the indifference of the IT systems administrator who was asking her about server room temperatures.

“Who’s he?” whispered Alice, pointing at the departing figure of the technical guy, who was only ever flirted with in the disastrous situation of our e-mail network going down.

“He’s scrummy,” said Becksy.

“Him?” I queried. “He’s just the systems bloke. Dan the IT man.”

“He’s very attractive-looking,” said Alice.

“A bit gorgeous,” said Becksy.

I grimaced. “But he’s a techie.”

Chapter Five

T
echie, technical, tech, detective, de-
tech
-tive.

That’s it. I needed someone technical to help me in my search for cyber-stalker. Maggie was all very well with her in-depth knowledge of the conventions of TV thrillers, but there had to be a more robustly mechanical approach to finding out who was behind the site. For all I knew there was a great big telephone book listing who owns every site in the whole wide world.

I thought about Dan the IT man. I didn’t know him; I couldn’t ask him. Far too embarrassing. I flipped through my e-mail contacts list. Most of them hadn’t yet worked out how to use Video Plus, let alone anything about computer systems. Java for us was old-fashioned slang for coffee, rather than a script for making Web sites; wireless was something that blared out Radio Four. Microsoft Office was as high-tech as it got. Camilla was the only person I’d ever met with a Palm Pilot.

When we were at school, computers were just coming onto the curriculum. Unwieldy monsters with the memory of an Alzheimer’s victim and funny green screens that flickered into life by the typing of dyslexic command languages with lots of full stops. How we laughed at the people who were into them, the boys in the next-door grammar who had started their own computer club in a bid to meet girls. The only girls at school who were into computers were super-spods with boys’ haircuts, shapeless cords and Guernsey sweaters. We picked our boys’ school counterparts via the debating and drama clubs.

The laugh was on us now, I had to concede, as those spods and boffins had made a mint with their software companies and contract work at a thousand pounds a day. Oh to have been that square, I thought.

Oh to have at least one friend among them, I also thought, now that I needed a geek with the first idea about how the Internet worked. Alice, perhaps; hadn’t she just said she was “back-end”? What did that mean, apart from sounding rude? No, not Alice, she’d tell Camilla and Camilla would tell Frank and one of my suspects would be tipped off. Too embarrassing, that Camilla should know about the site. I could imagine her having a real laugh about it. Her and Frank in bed together, giggling at my hubristic reaction to the site, speculating that I might be behind it myself.

And lo, my mobile went and Frank’s name flashed up on the screen. I did that mobile telephone walk, the one where you slink away from the desk or restaurant table, with a lopsided gait and your phone glued to one ear, speaking in an exaggeratedly hushing voice as you shuffle toward privacy in the most public of fashions. I would eliminate Frank from Maggie’s list, there and then, but I didn’t want my colleagues to hear of it.

“Just phoning to check that you and Camilla are making good progress.” He never used to speak like a lecturer, but now he always seemed to be orating.

“And Becksy and Alice, they came too,” I said.

“Yes, Camilla’s gang. Of course, I’m pleased that she has so many friends, but they seem to multiply like fruit flies. Becksy, Megsy…”

“Mopsy, Topsy and Turvy.”

Frank laughed, but these days it was as if he was practicing the function and tape-recording it to play back to examine its effect. “Are you going to get them and their venture into the
Observer
this Sunday, then?”

I tried a tinkly laugh of my own to deflect him. “It’s interesting, this Internet stuff,” I said. “Do you use the Internet much? For research and things?”

“Too unreliable most of the time. I’ve got subscriptions to periodicals that I can get online. That’s quite useful.” He ricocheted back to Camilla’s godawful venture once again. “Tell me what you’ve got planned for my baby’s baby? I’m rather hoping she’ll make millions and I can retire to a book-lined study on the proceeds.”

“I haven’t got a concrete plan, yet,” I said with an effort at sagacity. “With PR we like to start at first principles and really analyze the proposition.”

He laughed once more. Ha, ha, I thought, Mr. Clever Clogs Academic, have a good old guffaw at my fluffy little profession. “No, really,” I continued. “We need to think about how people use the Internet and how best to get them to think about dating online. To do this I’m going to do some informal focus-grouping on how people view the Internet. A bit of brainstorming on the emotional resonance of computers. For instance, the television is seen as the friend in the corner of the living room, but what about the connected PC? Is it malevolent, a place of kiddie porn? Or is it something associated with work and so unfriendly? What do you think, Frank?”

“It’s just a tool. It’s not the medium that counts but the information it conveys. That’s true throughout history. Is the radio responsible for Lord Haw-Haw’s addresses? Can we blame Gutenberg for
Mein Kampf
?”

“No, you’re right, yes absolutely, interesting point.” Lord, but he was pompous these days. “But you’re referring to a passive user experience, what you find on the Internet. How would you use it to create something? You know, to engage with it more actively. Because, when you think about it, that’s what Camilla’s lonely hearts will have to do. They’re not just looking at a Web site, they’ll also be creating their profiles, doing quizzes and getting in touch with other, what do you call them?”

“OnLovers. That’s what the site’s users will be called. Clever, isn’t it?”

“Very. So these OnLovers will have to be willing to use the Web both passively and actively. Have you ever created a site or contributed to a message board, Frank? Would you, for example, ever create a tribute site to a writer or person you found particularly inspiring?”

“Theoretically yes. But, practically? That would be a no.” He paused and whistled. “Izobel, I can tell when you’re bullshitting. You must be a crap PR person.”

“Thanks Frank, you’re really making me feel good about my career.”

“What. Do. You. Want. To. Know. And. Why. Are. You. Asking?”

I opted for partial revelation. In the striptease of honesty, I was going down to my bra and pants. “I’ve found a Web site, it’s nothing important, but it just says some things about, well, about me and I’m trying to find out who could possibly be behind them.”

I might as well have accused him of online bestiality. “What, and you think it could be me?”

“No, of course not. I’m just eliminating you from my inquiries.”

“I am eliminated. I should never have been a part of them,” he harrumphed. “What on earth are you suggesting, Izobel, that I’m libeling you online?”

“No, of course not. I know it’s silly, it’s just that Maggie has drawn up a list of suspects and it has to include all boyfriends and exes. She’s daft, must be preg-head or something, but I said I’d talk to everyone on it, just to make sure.”

“Funnily enough, Izobel, it’s not the first way I define myself. As one of your exes. I think of myself as many things, but not as that.” His voice was flat but aggressive, the voice I use only with strangers at call centers when I’m trying to get a refund on a train ticket. “I find it somewhat disconcerting that you should do. I’m sorry, Izobel”—stop using my name, I thought—“but it was a long time ago for a very short while. Let it go, Izobel.”

“Piss off, Frank. I don’t think of myself as one of your exes either.”

“Doesn’t seem so. Izobel, I’ve got a girlfriend now, I love Camilla very much. I’m sorry that you don’t seem to feel the same way about George.”

“Yes, I do, I love him very much. We’re terribly in love. Totally in love. We have an amazing sex life actually. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Better than anyone I’ve ever been out with.”

“Stop accusing me of obsessing over you then.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t say you were my stalker or anything.”

“Writing things about you on Web sites? It appears that you do. If anyone’s doing any stalking around here, it would be you, Izobel. I could accuse you of stalking me.”

“All right, you’re right, absolutely, yes, totally, sorry. By the way,” I gabbled, sensing that he was on the verge of de-mobbing the mobile. I looked around for inspiration and found it in the restaurant across the street. “I’m learning Chinese. Yes, I’m learning Chinese. Did I tell you? I’m really good at it, actually. My teacher says I’m up to intermediate standard already.”

“What are you on?”

“Book three of the course already.”

“No, not that. Why are you telling me?”

“Just thought you’d want to know.”

“I’m very pleased for you, Izobel.”

With that, my phone fell into silence. It was then it struck me as strange that he never asked me what things about me were said on the Web or which site I was talking about.

I made use of the fact that I was outside to phone Maggie. Really, it’s a wonder I manage to get any work done.

“I can’t go on,” I wailed.

“Neither can I. Blooming my arse, blooming horrible pregnancy. Although actually my arse is blooming, expanding at the rate of a bun in the oven, all yeasty and doughy and mottled. Looks like a cauliflower. Why don’t I have one of those neat forward bumps like a model with a football up her sweater? That’s what I’m used to whenever a pregnancy storyline is called for.”

Of course, this was all rubbish. Maggie looked like a snake that had swallowed a small rodent, all skinny with a slight tummy protrusion. I could swear her stomach was still flatter than mine. Some reassurance later and I got back onto the topic of me, me and my site.

“It’s hopeless, this isn’t working. If I ask men straight out whether they’re behind it they accuse me of stalking them. The guilty one is just going to deny it, assuming that it is one of my exes at all, which I doubt, given that none of them seemed to give a monkey’s about me even then and certainly not now.”

“How many have you investigated?” she asked, putting on TV tec voice once again.

“Two, George and Frank.”

“Well?”

“We can categorically rule George out. I hacked into his computer.” The use of the verb “to hack” was clearly erroneous but I liked the sound of it. Made me sound like Matthew Broderick in
War Games.
“And the site’s not even in his favorites. There’s nothing about it in his e-mails and he hasn’t even viewed it for ten days.”

“Hmm, that would be a good decoy though, wouldn’t it?” said Maggie.

“I can’t win. If there’s absolutely no evidence, you say it’s a good decoy. Can’t we take people at face value? Does there always have to be a plot twist? By your reckoning, the only way we can eliminate is by actually finding proof positive. It’s like when I suspect George is sleeping around. His denials are meaningless. I almost think to find out that he’s definitely unfaithful would be a relief as then at least I’d know for sure. And you only feel you know for sure if it’s bad news.”

“Has George been unfaithful to you, Iz?”

Shit, I’d forgotten that was another of the secrets of my relationship I kept from my friends. “The point is, the only answer to my interrogations that is going to mean anything as far as your plot goes is for them to crumble and say, ‘Yes, yes, it was me.’”

“No,” she interjected. “Because that person would probably turn out to be covering for the real culprit.”

“Either way, I’m stuck because the person responsible is the very last person who’d just come out and admit to it. We know that the whole MO of the person behind the site is one of subterfuge, isn’t it?”

“True,” she replied. “I am only trying to help you.”

“I know. Thank you.” At that moment I saw Dan the IT man emerge from the front door of the office. “Maggie, we’ve got to try a different tack.” I said to her. “A simultaneous tack. I’m getting a technical detective to work on this too.”

“Good thinking,” she said with an aggrieved tone.

I cut through the swaths of huddled smokers crouched around the entrance of our office building, like the supplicant poor man at the biblical gate, to get to my man.

“Dan, Dan,” I shouted. He was ignoring me. Arse. I caught up with him and tapped his shoulder.

“Hello, Dan, I’m sorry to bother you, but may I have a minute of your time?”

“Of course you may, but my name’s not Dan. Does that make a difference to your request, Izobel?”

“Oh gosh I’m so sorry, how very silly of me.” I slapped my head and then segued the gesture into the twiddling of a lock of hair. From what I’d seen of the office manager’s dealings with the IT support staff, technical people required some outrageously mechanical flirtation. “Gosh, what an airhead I am. One day I’ll forget to get dressed in the morning and come into work completely naked.”