Page 53 of The Work Husband

Of course, very few women in Zahra’s position would enter happily into an arranged marriage with a much older man – I knew I wouldn’t. But what if there was more to it than that? What if the boyfriend I’d speculated about did exist and was the real reason – or yet another reason – for her distress?

I wanted to ask her. If I knew the full facts of her situation, I’d be better placed to support her. But she was in this mess partly because of me – because of the photos I’d taken on my phone, which had somehow got into the wrong hands. She had no reason at all to trust me with even more sensitive details about her life.

Abruptly, Zahra stopped walking. I’d been trailing slightly behind her, and I almost cannoned into the back of her. She turned to face me, and her eyes were fierce.

‘Georgia. Did you share those pictures with anyone? Maybe you didn’t think it would be a problem. I guess I didn’t explain. But if you did, I want to know who it was. I need to know who has them because this could get really bad for me.’

‘Of course I didn’t. I would never do that – whether I knew they could cause problems for you or not. You’re a client, and they’re confidential.’

‘Are they still on your phone?’

My phone. My phone that was snatched out of my hand in the street. After the initial lost-a-limb helplessness of being without one for twenty-four hours and the hassle of claiming on insurance and getting a replacement, I’d barely given the incident another thought.

I’d checked my online banking every few hours for the first couple of days afterwards, but when no fraudulent transactions had gone through, I’d stopped checking. Everything had been backed up to the cloud, and once I’d done the initial set-up, my new phone functioned exactly the same as the old one, so much so that it had only taken about a week before I forgot it was new at all.

‘I… yes, I suppose so. I didn’t delete them after I sent them to you, and I haven’t looked at them since.’

‘Delete them now,’ she said. ‘It’s too late, but do it anyway.’

‘Of course I will. And, Zahra – please, stay in touch. Let me know you’re safe.’

‘I will. I must go.’ She turned and headed off, gliding along the path at a speed I could never have matched.

I followed more slowly, taking out my phone and looking at the pictures one more time before wiping them from my phone. They were innocent enough – unless you knew what the implications for Zahra could be. But someone had accessed them – either from her social media or phone or from mine. They’d known what destructive power they had, and they’d used it.

Whoever had stolen the phone wouldn’t have been interested in my photos, surely? They’d have sold the handset on – or fenced it, or whatever word they used – within hours if not minutes of it coming into their possession.

Unless they hadn’t.

There was only one other person I could think of who could have accessed the phone or its contents. One other person who could have sent the photos to Zahra’s uncle Ahmet, Devereaux Partners’ valuable client.

And I couldn’t think of a single reason why.

TWENTY-SIX

When I returned to the office after seeing Zahra, Jamie was at his desk. It would be a massive understatement to say he didn’t look his best. Although he’d clearly been home and changed his clothes, he hadn’t got as far as shaving. His hair hung lankly over his forehead, his shirt was unironed and his normally glossy shoes were scuffed. Over the smell of the Chicken McNuggets he was picking at listlessly, I could detect stale booze.

‘Christ, I’m hanging,’ he muttered when he saw me. ‘I feel worse than I did when Arsenal got knocked out of the Champions League, and that was bad.’

I gave him a hard stare. ‘I’d say I feel sorry for you, but… nah. Sorry, I don’t.’

‘What happened last night anyway? I can only remember bits. I went on a Tinder date, but she was a total moose, so I tried to drink her pretty, but it didn’t work. Then I had a brainwave.’

‘Some brainwave. You turned up shitfaced at my flat with a bunch of roses!’

His jaw dropped slightly and he shoved a chicken nugget in it. ‘Oh my God. So I did. Bottle of Perrier-Jouët too, if memory serves.’

‘It does not. You’d mislaid that somewhere along the way.’

‘Fucking hell. That must’ve set me back sixty quid. I must’ve put it down when I checked the map on my phone and forgotten about it. Guess it will have made some homeless person’s day. And I fell over, right? My knees are bruised to crap.’

‘Right outside my front door.’

He grinned sheepishly. ‘So I did. And your fellow wasn’t best pleased.’

‘He was not. Jamie – what the hell were you thinking? If you were even thinking, which from where I’m sitting it doesn’t look like you were.’

‘All part of my great master plan, innit? Sending texts and stuff didn’t work, so I had to raise my game.’