know those grabby mechanical hands in amusement arcades, which you use to try and pick up some shitty teddy bear? It’s like me, feebly trying to latch on to a memory or an idea. And if I do manage to grab it, it’s just cheap tat .
Furthermore, there were lots of blank periods to fill in, the times when she wasn’t communicating with anyone at all, when – as I know now – she was seriously depressed and couldn’t even summon the energy to wipe the hair off her face, let alone write an email.
Alongside all this, I was making a note of the non-personal emails Tess received. There were receipts for theatre and cinema tickets and Amazon purchases, all of which I catalogued in a file about her tastes. She did a lot of online shopping and the things she bought tended to be either bafflingly expensive – a single pair of knickers that cost £230 – or cheap, like a 20p ‘vintage coaster’ from eBay. There were days when she spent vast amounts of money, thousands of pounds, on things that it didn’t seem like she could possibly need or in bewildering bulk. One receipt, I remember, was for twenty white tea towels, each costing £12.
With each of these, I recorded the date and details of the transaction in a separate spreadsheet. How could she afford a £120 pot of moisturizer when she was working as an artist’s model, earning £60 a week? I would then cross-reference her online bank statements, to see whether she had taken out a loan or gone overdrawn.
My initial trawl through her inbox left me with a lengthy list of questions to ask Tess, and the large holes in her biography took first priority. Her replies were more often than not unsatisfactory. I would ask a perfectly simple question, such as what TV shows she watched when she was thirteen, and she either wouldn’t reply for days, or get angry and say she couldn’t remember, or name a programme that, when I checked, turned out to have been first transmitted when she was fifteen.
I tried hard to remain professional in our emails, but sometimes firmness was required. I would remind her of the seriousness of the undertaking and my requirements for the job. In reply, she’d write Oh god, don’t have a go at me, I can’t fucking remember! Or, if she was in a sadder, more reflective mood she’d apologize repeatedly, saying what a terrible person she was and that she didn’t deserve my help.
After a few weeks, I became quite frustrated. I was still doing my testing work, but increasingly I found myself sidelining the reports and instead just waiting for her emails. Tess kept going on about how quickly she wanted it all to be done, how desperate she was to ‘check out’ – that was the phrase that we used. But it had become apparent that if we kept going at this current rate, with her taking days to respond to an email and then not even answering my questions properly, it would be months before we were anywhere near ready.
So, I had an idea. We had agreed not to meet in person, but there seemed to be no reason why we couldn’t talk. It would speed things up considerably, and if we used Skype, it wouldn’t cost anything. I considered asking Adrian first, but decided the matter wasn’t worth bothering him about. However, I recalled that, on the Heath, he had stressed the importance of ‘limited emotional engagement’ between Tess and myself, and so decided it would be best if we left the cameras off when we spoke.
I messaged Tess to suggest this, and she agreed. We arranged a time for me to call, at 11 p.m. one evening.
I composed a list of questions that had arisen so far:
1. In an email dated 27/12/08, Nicholas wrote, ‘Thank you for ruining lunch’. What did you do to ruin lunch? And why is he thanking you?
2. Did you ever meet up with ‘Pete the Provider’ on Valentine’s Day 2006 in St Wenceslas Square, as promised in an email sent 02/10/05?
3. Was the nickname ‘Sugartits’ widely used, or just by Steven Gateman?
4. What is your
Furthermore, there were lots of blank periods to fill in, the times when she wasn’t communicating with anyone at all, when – as I know now – she was seriously depressed and couldn’t even summon the energy to wipe the hair off her face, let alone write an email.
Alongside all this, I was making a note of the non-personal emails Tess received. There were receipts for theatre and cinema tickets and Amazon purchases, all of which I catalogued in a file about her tastes. She did a lot of online shopping and the things she bought tended to be either bafflingly expensive – a single pair of knickers that cost £230 – or cheap, like a 20p ‘vintage coaster’ from eBay. There were days when she spent vast amounts of money, thousands of pounds, on things that it didn’t seem like she could possibly need or in bewildering bulk. One receipt, I remember, was for twenty white tea towels, each costing £12.
With each of these, I recorded the date and details of the transaction in a separate spreadsheet. How could she afford a £120 pot of moisturizer when she was working as an artist’s model, earning £60 a week? I would then cross-reference her online bank statements, to see whether she had taken out a loan or gone overdrawn.
My initial trawl through her inbox left me with a lengthy list of questions to ask Tess, and the large holes in her biography took first priority. Her replies were more often than not unsatisfactory. I would ask a perfectly simple question, such as what TV shows she watched when she was thirteen, and she either wouldn’t reply for days, or get angry and say she couldn’t remember, or name a programme that, when I checked, turned out to have been first transmitted when she was fifteen.
I tried hard to remain professional in our emails, but sometimes firmness was required. I would remind her of the seriousness of the undertaking and my requirements for the job. In reply, she’d write Oh god, don’t have a go at me, I can’t fucking remember! Or, if she was in a sadder, more reflective mood she’d apologize repeatedly, saying what a terrible person she was and that she didn’t deserve my help.
After a few weeks, I became quite frustrated. I was still doing my testing work, but increasingly I found myself sidelining the reports and instead just waiting for her emails. Tess kept going on about how quickly she wanted it all to be done, how desperate she was to ‘check out’ – that was the phrase that we used. But it had become apparent that if we kept going at this current rate, with her taking days to respond to an email and then not even answering my questions properly, it would be months before we were anywhere near ready.
So, I had an idea. We had agreed not to meet in person, but there seemed to be no reason why we couldn’t talk. It would speed things up considerably, and if we used Skype, it wouldn’t cost anything. I considered asking Adrian first, but decided the matter wasn’t worth bothering him about. However, I recalled that, on the Heath, he had stressed the importance of ‘limited emotional engagement’ between Tess and myself, and so decided it would be best if we left the cameras off when we spoke.
I messaged Tess to suggest this, and she agreed. We arranged a time for me to call, at 11 p.m. one evening.
I composed a list of questions that had arisen so far:
1. In an email dated 27/12/08, Nicholas wrote, ‘Thank you for ruining lunch’. What did you do to ruin lunch? And why is he thanking you?
2. Did you ever meet up with ‘Pete the Provider’ on Valentine’s Day 2006 in St Wenceslas Square, as promised in an email sent 02/10/05?
3. Was the nickname ‘Sugartits’ widely used, or just by Steven Gateman?
4. What is your
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