Dead Scared by S. J. Bolton Page B

goes on in some people’s heads,’ she said. ‘What have I ever done to anyone?’
    ‘Nothing,’ said Evi firmly. ‘We both know that what’s happening is not your fault. Some people see gentleness and sensitivity and they don’t have the intelligence to understand what they’re looking at. So they register it as weakness and they prey upon it. Those people have a serious problem and I can’t help them with it. I can help you, though.’
    ‘Do you know what they did this time?’ A hint of anger there now, which was good. Anger was better than acceptance. Evi waited.
    ‘They came on to our corridor, where the airing cupboards are, and found my clothes. They took my underwear.’
    ‘They stole your underwear?’
    ‘Yeah, but that wasn’t the worst. They replaced it with enormous stuff. Granny pants and massive great support bras. Like they were saying, who are you kidding, this is what you really need to wear.’
    Evi took a moment to hide her annoyance. Most people would dismiss such a prank as a laugh. Jessica, who’d suffered from eating disorders since she was twelve and who had been hospitalized twice as a teenager when her weight had dropped to under six stone, would find it anything but amusing.
    ‘Did you report the theft?’ Evi asked.
    ‘I did. One of the other girls told me I should and went with me to the police. They said they couldn’t get involved in a student prank.’
    ‘Anywhere else it would be burglary and intimidation,’ said Evi. ‘In a Cambridge college, it’s a prank.’
    ‘Do you remember that website I told you about? The one that had the photographs of me?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Evi. ‘I tried to find it. None of the search engines I used could locate it.’
    Jessica bent down and pulled a laptop from her bag. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said. She opened the computer and switched it on. After a few seconds she tapped her fingers over the keys, waited a while longer, then turned the screen to face Evi.
    Evi reached forward and picked it up, tilting the angle so that she could see it clearly. It was a Facebook spoof. Facefeeders, it was called.
Who’s been eating the pies this week
? ran the subheading, directly above several photographs of Jessica herself.
    Except they weren’t Jessica. Jessica was an exceptionally lovely girl whose size ranged from model slim when she was well and happy to painfully thin when she wasn’t. In the photographs someone had digitally altered Jessica’s tiny frame to make it enormous. All the photographs were nude. All were Rubenesque in their proportions, with swollen bellies, rounded dimpled buttocks and great pendulous breasts. They’d even managed to make Jessica’s face look fatter.
    Oddly, the photographs weren’t unattractive, but to Jessica it would be like seeing herself turned into a monster. And these were on a website, for the world to see.
    ‘Remind me how you found this site?’ Evi asked. ‘Did someone tell you about it?’
    ‘It popped up when I was working one night,’ said Jessica. ‘I clicked on it without thinking.’
    Evi made a note on her pad to alert the detective to the website. ‘Do you have any idea who might be doing it?’ she asked.
    Jessica shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Everyone I’ve told thinks they’re appalling.’
    ‘I agree,’ said Evi. ‘Not that the photographs are appalling in themselves, because even if you were as large as the girl in these pictures is supposed to be you would still be beautiful – I know you don’t believe that, but you would. They are appalling because they’ve been created to cause you distress.’
    Tears were running down Jessica’s cheeks.
    ‘I feel like everybody’s seen them,’ she said. ‘If I go to a lecture or a tutorial, even a bar or the dining room, I feel like everybody’s whispering about how fat I am. I can even hear them in my sleep.’
    ‘You’re still not sleeping well?’
    Jessica shook her head. ‘You remember I told you about that