Next to a dark red pool of what looked like blood.

8

My throat was dry. I felt helpless, like I was toppling over and couldn’t reach out to break my fall.

A message implicating me in an assault, a fight, a crime – an incident that could mean swapping my job for a prison sentence – had been seen by other people on one of the biggest social media networks in the world. It had been read, acknowledged, responded to.

My Thursday night was out there, for the whole world to see and comment on.

And there was another one, another status update from me – but not from me. From my account.

Joe Lynch – 1 hour ago

I must say that the facilities at the Premier Inn NW2 are excellent. Particularly the underground car park. Always nice to bump into friends.

I read it, then read it again, trying to process the words. Eight likes and five comments. A message flagged to 251 people who knew me well enough to be in my extended circle of Facebook friends and acquaintances. Mates I had known since school. Colleagues at Haddon Park Academy, the school where I worked. People who knew me, respected me. Family too. My sister, cousins, uncles, aunts. Christ, my mother was my friend on Facebook.

And my profile was public. I had been meaning to sort out the privacy settings for a while but had never got around to it, so pretty much anyone could see what was posted from my account. I scrolled down so the first comments appeared.

Tom Parish

What is this Joe, TripAdvisor for car parks? Tell me more

1 hour ago

Karen Clarke

Eh?? Not sure what to make of this!!! You OK? xx

54 minutes ago

Andy Stamford

A bit more tonic, a bit less gin, old bean

41 minutes ago

Paul Coffey

Mel finally thrown you out mate? Knew she’d see sense lol

39 minutes ago

Tanya Payne

Who’d you bump into then? Very cryptic!! x

15 minutes ago

Now they all knew. They had seen my post, they knew where I’d been. Damn. It was like suddenly realising you lived in a goldfish bowl.

Think.

Both updates had been posted this evening. I had driven out of the Premier Inn around 5.10 p.m., and both Facebook posts had followed inside the next ninety minutes. The replies had come in the hour following that. I selected ‘Settings’ from the Facebook menu, saying a silent prayer as I typed.

Please let my password work. Please don’t lock me out of my account.

I held my breath.

It worked. I was in. The password was unchanged. I breathed out, and went straight to my timeline, deleted the posts from earlier in the evening and changed my password. Maybe the smart thing to do here was delete my account altogether. You couldn’t hack an account that didn’t exist, right? But what if posts started to appear on other accounts – about me, or Mel, or both of us?