Chapter 50 Jacob

50 JACOB

NOW

The doorbell rings. Before answering, he glances at his reflection in the hall mirror, fixing his silvered hair, then checking his shirt. An old habit. There are no lipstick marks this time. Even so, he’s nervous, and with good reason—Dembe is coming to meet his children. She’s also here to help with the software issue, which remains very much an issue. But he finds his main source of nerves is his sons. Charlie, mostly, given how obstinate he’s been of late.

Though what Charlie told him today about Darcy, about the kind of mother she has been to their sons behind Jacob’s back… He feels like he’s woken up in a maze, drunk and with a head injury. Nothing makes sense anymore. Charlie is twelve, and clearly the divorce has messed him up. Jacob is struggling to work out what’s true and what is lies.

“Good evening, handsome,” Dembe says at the door, kissing him on both cheeks before pecking him lightly on the lips. She’s still in work clothes, looks delicious in a white silk shirt and beige slacks, thick gold hoop earrings, and sheepskin mules. She notices how nervous he looks and touches his face.

“It’s dinner, not a trial,” she says.

“I know.” He tries to look unbothered, sweat gathering between his shoulder blades.

Dembe gives him the same smile that reeled him in at the Tech Entrepreneurs summer party in June and he takes her hand. “Come on in.”

Upstairs, Ben and Ed are fighting, their voices spilling down the stairway.

“Boys!” he calls. “Come down, please!”

Dembe’s eyes fall on the row of framed photographs on the hall table. “That your ex-wife?” she asks, clocking the photo of the five of them in Disney World, posing in front of the pink castle. Shit, he forgot about that one. He let the boys have a hand in decorating, especially when it came to photos.

“Sorry,” he says, placing it face down.

“No, I want to see,” she says, lifting it up and inspecting it while Jacob squirms. “Oh, she’s pretty. Different than I expected.”

“What did you expect?” he asks, not knowing what else to say.

Dembe squints at it. “I feel like I recognize her.”

“Boys!” he calls. “Our guest has arrived!”

Ben and Ed thunder down the stairs and race into the room. “Hello, Our Guest,” Ben says, appraising Dembe.

“This is Dembe,” Jacob says. “Dembe, this is—”

“But you said Our Guest has arrived,” Ed interjects saucily.

“Oh, I prefer Dembe,” Dembe says with a wink. “Which one are you, then? Ben or Ed?”

“Ben,” Ben says, at the same time that Ed announces his own.

“This is Charlie,” Jacob says, nodding at the sullen figure lurking behind his brothers.

“Hello, Charlie,” Dembe says, leaning forward and extending a hand. Charlie takes it, blushing, and mumbles a “Hello.”

“Charlie’s twelve,” Jacob says, explaining his embarrassment.

“You’ve mentioned,” Dembe says with a bright smile. She notices something on Charlie’s T-shirt. “Is that a FNaF badge?”

“A what badge?” Jacob asks.

“It is.” Charlie beams.

Dembe grins at Jacob. “Jasmine’s into FNaF , too, so I recognized it.”

“What’s FNaF ?” Jacob says.

“I’ve got all the books,” Charlie says, opening up, to Jacob’s amazement. “Does Jasmine like Freddy Fazbear? He’s my favorite.”

“I think so…,” Dembe says with a smile.

“We can continue this over dinner,” Jacob says, glancing at Dembe. “Dembe needs to help me with an urgent work matter and then we’ll order takeout. OK?”

“Pizza?” Ed asks.

“Indian?” Ben pitches.

“Pizza and Indian,” Jacob says. “Only if you’re quiet.”

IN THE STUDY, DEMBE SITS at his desk while he turns on the computer.

“I owe you,” he tells her.

“No you don’t,” she says. “I haven’t found anything yet.”

She clicks through to the review log of the Shelley program, and he explains all over again how his assistant, Sam, was able to find three usernames of people who had accessed the program. He emailed two of them, but a third, a man named Adrian Clifton, remains outstanding. He doesn’t want word of this to get to Kabir, but the investment meeting is in two days’ time and he still can’t find the hole.

“I think Darcy has hired this guy,” he says. “I think she’s trying to fuck me over.”

Dembe glances at him. “Why?”

He grimaces. “She’s like that.”

“So you reckon she hired a tech specialist to hack into it, but you’ve managed to get the email addresses of her mates?” Dembe gives him a look. “Not a very good specialist, then.”

He runs a hand through his hair, exhausted from trying to work it out. “Can you find anything?”

“Not yet.” She clicks out of the review log and enters the program with a sigh. “I’m not really the one you should be asking. Kabir would be able to find it.”

“I’d prefer not to freak him out just yet,” he says. “Let’s give it a go ourselves. And if we can’t find anything, I’ll ring him. OK?”

She nods. Then, spotting an old family photograph on the bookcase opposite, she looks at him, puzzled.

“What?” he says.

She rises from her chair and crosses the room to the photograph. Shit , he thinks. Another one with Darcy in it. Dembe pulls out her phone and taps on the photograph app. “Jasmine’s birthday party,” she says.

He blinks, not following. “What about it?”

Dembe begins swiping through images of her daughter’s eighteenth birthday party on the HMS Belfast .

He’s exasperated. “We’re running out of time—”

Dembe shushes him, continuing to scroll through. “I have this weird thing for faces,” she says. “And I swear I saw her….”

“Saw who?”

She stops and holds up her phone. “There,” she says, triumphant.

He starts to complain, seeing only Jasmine and her friends smiling at a dinner table. But then, behind Jasmine, he sees her, lit up by the flash. It’s Darcy. He zooms in until the image is pixelated. Either it’s a doppelg?nger or it’s his ex-wife.

“I saw her,” Dembe says. “I remember wondering what she was doing at the party. It was invite-only.”

“How did she get in, then?”

Dembe shrugs. “I’ve no idea. I thought she was a teacher.”

Jacob stares again, noticing the necklace at Darcy’s throat. It’s the one he bought her years ago. And the dress—he recognizes it, too. It’s her .

“Fucking creepy,” Dembe says. “Is your ex-wife stalking me?”

“I haven’t even told her about you,” he says quietly. He’s trying to work it out, the gap between what he sees and what he knows. Her presence at Jasmine’s party can’t be an accident. He recalls the date of it, two weeks ago…. Darcy had asked him to have the boys a day early. He can’t make any sense of it.

Just then, there’s a noise from the doorway. He turns, spotting Charlie there.

“Are you talking about Mum?” he says.

“For fuck’s sake,” Jacob says. He catches the pained look on Charlie’s face, his words hanging in the air like knives, the disgust in Dembe’s expression.

Charlie turns on his heel and storms out of the room. A beat. Jacob glances at Dembe before striding after him. On the stairs, he grips Charlie’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he says, suddenly mortified by his own behavior, his own callousness. “I didn’t mean… I should haven’t said that. OK?”

Charlie stares, his blue eyes wide, questioning. “Did Mum do something bad?”

Jacob falters. “What?” He studies Charlie’s face. It’s been a long while since he was this close to his oldest boy, but now he can see the slight twitch at the corner of Charlie’s mouth, a repetitive tug. A tic. When did it start? He can’t think.

He lets go of Charlie’s shoulders and sits down with him on the stairs. His impulse is to barrage him with questions, but instead he sits quietly, an arm around his son’s shoulders. He forces himself to listen. Not to question, just listen .

After a couple of minutes, Charlie says, “There’s something else I need to tell you. About Mum.”

Jacob nods, tries to stay calm. “OK.”

“Our shed, back at Mum’s,” Charlie says. “I found something there.”

“What did you find?” he asks gently. He feels sick as he turns to his son and watches as Charlie’s eyes seem to roll slightly back in his head as he closes them tight, scrunching up his face. He waits, panicked, until Charlie opens his mouth and whispers:

“You’re not going to like it.”