Chapter 15
ELLIE
Ellie’s face felt rigid as if it’d been caked in concrete. She couldn’t wait to return to her home and start removing the thickly applied make-up, layer by layer.
After a morning in front of cameras for various international TV news channels, a journalist from the Economist had tried to encourage her to discuss personal matters rather than just the launch of her company’s updated app. But enough bullets had hit Ellie over the years to know when a writer was about to take aim. She’d dodged him by giving a polite smile and reminding him of what she was there to discuss.
As her head of security, Andrei, drove her from central London to her townhouse in Belgravia, she opened the secure internal company messaging system on her tablet and discovered a file that’d been sent by her PA.
‘Timothy Hunt’ read the folder, and Ellie realised it must contain the details she’d requested of her DNA Match. As her finger hovered above the icon she was more nervous than she thought she’d be. She was anxious about what the folder might contain and just how much detail Ula had unearthed. She assumed Ula had taken her advice on subcontracting it out to the team her firm employed to carry out background checks on potential staff as well as investigate the threatening emails she often received.
She took a deep breath and opened it. There was a handful of documents: a photograph from a local newspaper of Timothy’s provincial football team, his LinkedIn CV, his Internet browser history from the last six months, a bank statement and some miscellaneous images. She didn’t want to know by what dubious methods this information had been gathered.
Ellie clicked on the photograph of the football team first and read the caption below it, eventually locating the name Tim Hunt. She found him in the back row of the picture: a man of average build, with dark, short, receding hair, a beard and a big grin spread across his face. She immediately noted that physically he was not her usual type.
She scanned his CV and learned he’d worked his way through a succession of employers, chiefly in computing, since leaving university. His Internet history was typical for a man of his age: YouTube links to 1990s music videos and Family Guy clips, football and Grand Prix results, the occasional pornographic site – but nothing freakish, she was relieved to discover – and regular visits to Amazon and Spotify for his films and music. He liked Coldplay, the Foo Fighters, Stereophonics and watching anything with Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio in, none of which were to her taste. His bank statement divulged his supermarkets of choice were Tesco and Aldi; he bought most of his clothes from Burton’s and Next; he donated by direct debit to Alzheimer’s and stray dogs’ charities and put some money away towards his pension each month.
There was nothing in the file to suggest he was or had been married, that he had a current partner or any children. He had no criminal record, no bankruptcies nor any notable money concerns. His mortgage was modest, he repaid his credit card on time and he had no student loan left. His social media presence was almost zero, with the exception of some comments on a Cambridge United FC message board.
In short, it appeared Timothy Hunt was an unremarkable man, though one with whom she shared an extraordinary link.
‘Can we take a diversion to the King’s Road?’ Ellie asked Andrei, and within a few minutes, on her instruction, he’d purchased her a brand-new, no frills, pay-as-you-go mobile phone so she wouldn’t have to give out her actual number. She hadn’t used one of these since she’d been an impoverished student, and she caught herself smiling as she recalled a much less complicated time in her life.
She typed in Timothy’s number and began to write a text. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘My name is Ellie and we have been Matched up!’ She then paused, deleting the message. Too chirpy, she thought. ‘Hello, I’m your Match on Match Your DNA. Would you like to meet me?’ Too slutty. ‘Hi Timothy, I believe we’re supposed to be spending the rest of our lives together,’ she typed, and then added a smiley face.
Ellie paused before hitting the send button, then remained still with the phone in her hand, staring at it, scared of what the Pandora’s box she’d just opened might contain. She didn’t have long to wait – the phone’s loud alert made her jump.
‘Ahh, the future Mrs Hunt, what took you so long?’ Timothy responded and added a winking face. ‘And please call me Tim.’
He has a sense of humour, she thought, and immediately relaxed her tensed shoulders. ‘Sorry, I was busy choosing my wedding dress,’ she typed and sent an emoji of a woman wearing a veil.
‘What a coincidence, so was I. So tell me a little about my wife-to-be, as I only know the basics. It’d be nice to find some common ground before I book the register office.’
‘No church then?’
‘No, satanists like me aren’t welcome there.’
‘Something we have in common,’ she replied and included a smiling devil icon?
‘What do you do for a living?’
‘Steal their souls.’
‘No, I said what do you do FOR a living, not WITH the living.’
‘Sorry. Aside from worshipping Lucifer, I work in a boring office job. You?’
‘Computer nerd.’
Over the next thirty minutes, Ellie failed to notice the queue of traffic that was keeping her car stationary or the pouring rain that lashed against the window. When Andrei finally pulled up outside her house, she was glued to her phone like a schoolgirl as she and Tim continued messaging back and forth. Andrei opened the car door and then opened an umbrella.
‘Can I take my wife-to-be for a drink some time?’ Tim texted.
‘I’m not sure …’ she replied.
‘I won’t bite, honest. Sometimes we all need to take a punt.’
Ellie bit her bottom lip and slipped the phone into her handbag, as Andrei escorted her into the house. She paused for a few minutes, weighing up the pros and cons of allowing a stranger into her life before making her decision. The very reason she took the Match Your DNA test had now formed into a living, breathing person. He had a name and a face and he was waiting to learn if she wanted to meet him. But she was scared. She removed the phone from her bag, then read and re-read his text again before replying.
‘OK, I’d like that,’ she typed apprehensively.
‘Are you free on Friday night?’
Chapter 16
MANDY
Mandy learned much more about her DNA Match from his remembrance service than from her online research.
She felt like an impostor, sitting alone at the back of St Peter and All Saints Church, listening to Richard’s friends regale the congregation with anecdotes about his life, what inspired him and how he acted as their confidant. She discovered he was a team player both in and out of the sporting arena, a loyal pal and a shoulder to cry on. She learned that he’d played hockey and badminton for the county; he’d become a vegetarian at the age of twelve; and he’d overcome cancer when he was seventeen, his positive attitude getting him through chemotherapy. Mandy thought back to the photos of his global travels on his Facebook and wondered if it’d been his experience with the disease that had inspired him to see the world.
Richard had also run two marathons to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and had organised for local people with learning difficulties to take part in assault courses and exercise programmes. In comparison, Mandy felt like the laziest and most selfish person, and she knew that, when her time came, she wouldn’t be remembered in the same way as Richard for his philanthropy.