Web of Lies

Chapter 7

ALAN MATHEWS had been sitting in the living room with his feet up watching Bargain Hunt and whatever else came on the television as he was working away on the website. He had actually made some progress. The website had come back up and was allowing MPortal to connect to it now, however, when they did connect it would crash either the user portal or the MPortal server itself.

His back was starting to feel tight and sore. He'd been sitting in this slouched position for far too long, maybe he should get himself up and move around a little. The screen of his MacBook came slapping down shut. Even when you put a bit too much pressure on the screen when pressing down the MacBook it always seemed to close with a gentleness.

He would have shouted for Lisa to see if she wanted a coffee or tea. If she had he would have tried to convince her to make one however she wasn't here. She'd gone out to the shops to get more sugar, along with the rest of the normal weekly shopping products.

Alan stretched himself before heaving himself up—on the second attempt—off of the sofa, sliding his MacBook onto the coffee table. He grabbed his empty cup and walked through the door and into the kitchen. He tried to release some of the tension from his neck by rubbing his neck and shoulders as he moved his head around. It didn't help, he felt stiff. Maybe some fresh air.

He walked to the back door and unlocked it with the large iron grey-coloured key. He swung the door inwards and step himself outside. Deep breaths. The fresh air was good, but he needed to loosen up. He flicked his feet around and bent his legs. His arms stretched upwards, standing on tiptoes.

Stopping his stretching he began to stroll down through his garden. The narrow slab paving trailed down the length of the long stretch of lawn. As he walked down he was able to see the beautiful flowers that were growing, some with great growth. Truthfully he didn't go in the garden all that much, this was all Lisa's doing. Luke too on occasion. Lisa loved all this stuff, plants, flowers and the like. Alan, not so much. Firstly, he suffered from hay fever so plants weren't all that nice to be around. Secondly, it was too dirty. He hated getting the dirt in between his fingernails.

Ugh.

It made him shudder just thinking about it. Then his phone buzzed. It wasn't the noise of his text messages, but his emails. He looked down at the notification.

Bryan Fish.

The notification was for a new email from Bryan Fish. It wasn't directed to his work email anymore, this time they had sent the message directly to him. How had they gotten his personal email? He hadn't shared that with anyone publicly.

He clicked on the notification waiting for the white screen to load with text and display the message.

My dear friend, Alan.

I told you that you shouldn't have clicked on my email. But here we are.

How is your Faithful Lisa? Have you asked her about her faithfulness?

If you don't believe me...click on the attachment.

Did he really want to click on that attachment? He knew he wanted to, just like he had wanted to open and read the first email and now this one. He wanted to know, needed to. What were these attachments? He looked at the link to the first attachment, which was labelled: FaithfulLisa-01.jpg. Then the second: FaithfulLisa-02.jpg.

So they were photos. He knew he was going to click on them. He wouldn't be able to stop himself now. Were they actually photos of Lisa? He clicked to download both of the image attachments, making sure to run them through his anti-virus software before completing the download. Safe.

The computer window notified: Attachments have been downloaded.

"Here goes..." He says to himself as he clicks on the image titled: FaithfulLisa-01.jpg. It takes a little bit of time for the image to fully load up as the application took some time to complete booting. Then he saw it. He saw all of the image now and it was her. It was definitely, one hundred per cent her.

The image was a photo of Lisa opening their backdoor as a man was standing outside waiting to be let inside. Alan couldn't see the man's face. Just the back of his head. Who was he? He studied the image for some time trying to find every piece of information he could. Who was this guy?

He clicked over to the second image, waiting for it to load just as the first had. This image was a photo of Lisa and this man in their bedroom. It was taken from outside of the property. You could see the slight reflections of the sky in the bedroom window. This man was in his bedroom. In his bedroom with his wife.

Why was she doing this to them? Alan couldn't understand what had happened. What had gone wrong? Her and this man? It made him feel sick. The fact this had been done in their bedroom was even more fucking sickening. He closed down the images and was brought back to the email. He finished reading through its content.

I told you. I warned you.

You should be grateful. Do you thank me, Alan?

I think it's time you had a talk with your wife, don't you?

Faithful Lisa?

With love, yours faithfully,

Bryan Fish

Who the hell was this Bryan Fish and why was he doing this? How did he know and why did he care so much? He couldn't think straight. What was going on?

Both of the images were now saved on his phone, he planned to show them to Lisa at some point but he needed to think. He needed more air. How could he get fresher air than this? He was already outside.

Alan tried to calm himself down, there was no time for him to be getting riled up. To be getting angry with himself. He needed to pick Luke up from school in a couple of hours so he could bring him into this. He needed to push this down until later on tonight. When they can both speak when Luke is asleep in bed. Don't need him to overhear this.

What would it do to him? Alan couldn't, didn't, want to think about it now. He needed to stop. He needed to get back to work. Work would take his mind off things. God only knows that he had his hands full there too.