Liar Liar

126

Naomie Jackson had a rich internet history. Hunched over her laptop, Helen was climbing inside her other life now and was pretty depressed by what she saw. There were the usual celebrity and reality TV websites, Amazon, Netflix, but darker elements too – suicide websites, the Samaritans, ChildLine and posted pictures of her injuries, shared with teenagers in similar predicaments.

It was the latter that interested Helen the most and she had zeroed in on Naomie’s online ‘friends’, starting with those she had chatted to most recently. There were scores of acquaintances – people she’d never actually met but seemed happy to converse with about matters trivial or grave – but their conversations were sporadic at best, there was no stand-out friend or confessor.

There was, however, one unusual pattern: a cyberfriend whom she had chatted to repeatedly over the last six months, before suddenly dropping them three weeks ago.

Helen looked at the username. Naomie’s correspondent went by the handle of ‘firstpersonsingular’ – no first name or surname was ever referred to in their chats. It was an intriguing choice – implying a sense of difference, a unique quality perhaps but also showcasing a high level of education and exhibiting a degree of wit and sophistication in choosing a grammatical pun as their user name. This immediately concerned Helen – Naomie was not educated, not massively bright per se, whereas this person clearly was – given their vocabulary and the considered, acerbic style of their insults and character assassinations.

As a disturbing thought took hold, Helen searched for other sites or postings linked to firstpersonsingular. There were a few to choose from, but Helen homed in on a blogsite that had been recently added to.

‘When people come to judge me, they will see that none of this is my fault.’

‘Whatever, it’s important that you know I’m not mad, or bad. I’m just reacting to circumstances. Actions have consequences, my friends…’

‘They told him he was a worm, a germ, a piece of shit who should never have existed. But he did more than any of them.’

‘I saw what people said about the fire at the Millbrook – they said it was hideous, ugly, an abomination. But not to me. I thought it was beautiful.’

The posts had all been written in the last four days – after the spate of arson attacks had begun. Firstpersonsingular’s interest in the fires was telling, as was the fact that there had been no formal break-off in their online friendship with Naomie Jackson. What had happened? Had they met at some point? Decided face to face to drop online communication to attempt to conceal their connection?

Suddenly it all made sense. The reason why they couldn’t find a motive for the Simms and Harris fires. And why they couldn’t place their prime suspect at the Roberts and Blayne fires. She had hidden it pretty well, but now it was as plain as day.

Naomie Jackson had a partner in crime.