Who Are You?: With one click she found her perfect man. And he found his perfect victim. A true story of the ultimate deception.. Megan Henley
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and making him look like he was in a scene from a film. He threw back his head and laughed.
‘I ordered that,’ he said, ‘and the sunshine!’
He had an infectious smile and we got on immediately. He was no Brad Pitt – actually, he must have taken about 800 pictures of himself before he got the one on his dating profile – but he had a twinkle in his eye and a lovely, soft voice. We sat on the edge of the harbour for a couple of hours, our legs dangling over the side, and felt the unseasonal sun beating down on our backs. We laughed and joked over a couple of glasses of wine, and the conversation flowed freely. I decided that he was a genuinely nice guy, and I didn’t resist when he leaned in to kiss me.
Our relationship was like a dream come true. It was a novel experience to have a boyfriend who wasn’t completely skint and who washed on a regular basis. Christopher often whisked me off for weekends, if my mum was available to look after Ruby, and we started to spend as much time as possible together, which meant that he was usually at my house if he was not working. I missed him terribly while he was away but I would frequently find the postman knocking on the door to deliver surprise presents from him. It was a fairytale romance and such a contrast to the struggles of the last few years.
Finally, in every way, things seemed to be coming right for me. Life was picture perfect and I was happy to be a good girl at last.
Chapter 2
December 2008–September 2009
It’s said that when a butterfly flaps its wings it can start a chain of events leading to a hurricane somewhere else in the world. I’m not sure how true that is, or how anyone could even begin to try and prove it, but what I do know is that, sometimes, the smallest, most innocuous action can kick-start a life-changing sequence of events.
It did for me.
As night settled one winter’s night, the wood burner in my cottage was blazing. Maxie was sprawled in front of it, his paws twitching as he dreamed of chasing rabbits. Upstairs, Ruby, now four years old, was asleep in her Winnie the Pooh bedroom, her tiny school uniform folded and ready for the next day in Reception class. She’d been tossing and turning for hours that night and I was exhausted. I was living quite a lonely life, the cottage was isolated and I wanted a secure life for Ruby, so I was hesitant about having friends around all the time. Christopher visited sometimes, but I was also wary of bringing anyone into Ruby’s life who might not be there for ever. Being a single parent sometimes felt like fighting a losing battle. I loved my little girl dearly, but the demands were relentless and, tonight, just like every evening, I desperately needed to switch off. The difference was, tonight I thought I might actually manage thirty minutes or so to myself. I made a quick cup of coffee and switched my laptop on, planning to answer a few emails and catch up with friends. I was curled up in the armchair with my computer, half watching telly and half looking at other people’s posts on Facebook, when a friend request appeared on my screen.
I didn’t recognise the name at all and wasn’t in the habit of just accepting strangers, so I had a quick look at their profile.
Vic Morana.
The name showed that the link was music-based. I actually had a number of friends in common with Vic and very similar interests, such as festivals and bands. I still adored music and the life I led with Ruby meant that I had to forge links with people where I could, really – if it meant just chatting to them online, so be it, as I wasn’t exactly in a position where I could go out to gigs every night. Lucas and I had worked through our differences and were now good friends, and he was consistent about having Ruby every other weekend. I thought Vic might be someone I had met at Glastonbury or a gig – I had a terrible memory for names – so I accepted the request.
That was it.
That was the moment my life changed for ever.
With that one, quick, innocent click, I had let him in.
Looking back on it, it was as if I had opened my front door to a stranger, as if I had thrown away every precaution I’d ever put in place, as if I had freely given access to my whole world – all because of some naïve belief that it was ‘just’ a friend request on a social media site. The butterfly had flapped its wings and my life would never be the same again.
I had a closer look at his page to see if I could work out how I knew him. Vic was popular, with over 1,300 other Facebook contacts, which was many, many more than I had, but that wasn’t surprising as he did seem to be doing really well in his field. I was impressed by everything he had on his page but didn’t really expect to have any proper contact with him. I thought I would just see status updates from him every so often, maybe some links to gigs I would be interested in and new music coming out. Nothing happened that night. I chatted to friends, tidied the house a little, and went to bed, thinking that the most noteworthy thing to have occurred was Ruby’s sleeping.
Life continued as usual for a couple of weeks and I thought no more about my new ‘friend’ Vic, but after a while he sent me a message on chat one night, thanking me for accepting his request and saying that he hoped I could support the charity work he was involved in. It wasn’t a terribly personal message and it certainly didn’t set off any alarm bells. I looked into Vic’s page a bit further than I had originally. I learned that he was part of a collective of four DJs, who called themselves StreetBeats. They toured the world doing gigs, and then donated the money they made from their shows back into StreetBeats, which they had set up themselves. The aim was to help street and orphaned kids in Zimbabwe. The charity didn’t have any religious or political affiliation, it was just there to help kids who were either existing in shanty towns or who had nowhere to stay and lived rough. Their stories were awful – about 40 per cent lived below the poverty line, and one in ten children didn’t go to school. There was a huge problem with sexual exploitation of kids, and trafficking was a growing issue. There were so many other problems. I read that the police were often violent, even to children on the streets, that torture was used by some groups, that minority children faced even more discrimination and abuse. It seemed such a worthy cause. As I thought of Ruby, my heart went out to those other children who had none of the love or privileges she had. We might not be rich, but she would never face a life like that.
The DJs did session work, production, and all sorts of other music-based professional work with well-known singers and bands. It seemed like they really put their hearts into it and raised a great deal of money. Vic was obviously enthusiastic about it. There were no pictures of any of the DJs on the site, and Vic explained that they had a strict rule of no media coverage, saying that they were in the game to raise money for the charity and they weren’t interested in any of the ‘celebrity’ stuff. He was a funny guy and often made me laugh when we were talking online.
He called me ‘Miss Henley’ a lot and joked about everything and anything. Frequently, awards the collective had won were announced on their Facebook page – MTV awards and things like that – but I respected the way that he didn’t play the fame game. When Vic wasn’t on tour, he lived in a truck in South Wales. He told me he had Romany gypsy roots and had never lived in a house; it all sounded sublime – I would have loved a life of music and being on the road, but it wasn’t likely now that I had responsibilities. He was a bit evasive about some of his family history, but that was fair enough – I was almost a complete stranger to him after all.
Some things best left unsaid, he told me. Families can be funny things.
Vic got in touch a few times to tell me more of the work he was doing. One night, I casually mentioned – quite truthfully – that it was a great cause and asked him how he had decided to start it all up. It was as if I’d opened up a flood of memories for him. In previous messages Vic had been chatty and friendly, but it had all been fairly superficial, which was understandable given that we didn’t know each other; now, I seemed to have asked the question which went to the very heart of him.
I find this hard to talk about.
Don’t