Chapter 3

I had a proper council of war with inspector Morris a couple of days later, after he'd had time to dig out and go over the original files.

"Damn, those bastards were bloody cute," he said as he signalled for me to take a chair opposite him in his office. "You know they counted on the fact that Emily was going to name all five of the men who were in the office that day. Then when we went looking for them, do you know where they were?"

"Yes, they were on a yacht that was sailing the Caribbean. They were all interviewed by the American police when the boat got to Miami or somewhere," I replied. I'd heard this report so many times before when Emily's claims were first being investigated.

"Made a good job of convincing the officers in charge of the case that Emily was lying right from the beginning. It was all down to the timing and quite honestly the whole damned set-up must have cost a bomb. That yacht was at sea when Emily claimed those guys were trying to blackmail her.

"They were all on the yacht when it left port; there just happened to be film footage taken by a local TV company of them leaving the harbour, and they were still on the thing when it arrived in Port Charlotte in Florida. Somewhere they must have gotten off the yacht, flown all the way to England, had that interview with Emily and then all flown back and gotten back onto the yacht before it arrived at Port Charlotte."

"The boat must have stopped off somewhere," I said.

"No chance. From what it says here, there just wasn't enough sailing time. It takes a long time to fly to England and then fly back again. That yacht needed every hour it had at sea to make the run. No, they must have got off just after it sailed and re-boarded somewhere off the Florida coast."

"But surely it must have cost them thousands to set that kind of thing up. Was it worth it to blackmail one woman for sex? It just doesn't make any sense," I commented.

"Think about what you've just said. That's exactly what the officers in charge of the original investigation must have thought at the time. But then think about it again. How much money you would spend to keep yourself from having to serve a long jail term at Her Majesty's pleasure for blackmail? We've got no idea what their long term plans for Emily were if she'd gone along with them, so we have no way of knowing how much money was involved.

"What we do know is somehow those five men got off that boat. Probably a speedboat or something picked them up and took them back to the shore. Then I would suggest a private jet flew them to England. Look, those guys have plenty of money; they fly around the world all the time. Anyway they tried to blackmail your wife and she wouldn't play ball; so they send the tape to you and are on their on their way back to the yacht probably before you have even seen the damn thing.

"By the time we go looking for them, they are sailing into Port Charlotte after a nice week's cruise. Who's going to believe Emily's story after that? Now if it had been just one man out of the five, well, it might have looked a little bit suspicious, but as it was all five of the buggers, there was even less chance that Emily would ever be believed."

Inspector Morris shuffled around the papers that he'd been looking at as he spoke.

"So how are we going to prove that they were in the country?"

"At the moment I haven't got the slightest idea. But looking through the file, there are some avenues that weren't looked into at the time. Mainly I assume because I don't think Emily was ever believed from the beginning. To me it looks as if they just went through the motions. I've made a few friends in the FBI and with some American drug guys over the years. You know there's a lot of drug smuggling on around that area, besides the people who escape from Cuba who get into the States through Florida. I'm wondering how long the authorities over there keep records of the surveillance they do on off-shore shipping. It could be that someone saw something and has a record of it tucked away, but it's a pretty long shot. I'll have to see who owes me some favours.

"Thanks, inspector. I'm not sure what I would have done without your help. Have you by any chance found out where Emily is yet?"

"I'm sorry, no, nothing so far. But it's early days on that one yet. Give it a week or so to get right around the system."

I had to wait almost another two weeks before Inspector Morris called to tell me he had managed to discover where Emily was working and, from there, where she was living. It turned out she was living in a rather less than affluent part of the city that the developers hadn't got their mucky little hands on yet.

After some discussion, he had kindly asked me whether I would like to make the first approach to Emily. I'm not a hundred percent sure that he was doing me a favour there.

On the early morning drive across the city, the inspector told me that the laboratory had come back with a report that the original tape had definitely been faked. It was a combination of two different recordings, possibly made easier to manufacture by the fact that the fixed nanny cam of questionable quality had been used to take both the original recordings. Apparently the poorer the original recording, the less obvious the tampering is.

The experts thought that some quite common techniques that the film industry uses had been employed in its manufacture. The inspector didn't go into the technical details, so I'm not sure that he understood then himself. He did add that the experts had said it was very high quality work and that it would probably fool most people. You have to remember that the video was made before the digital revolution had become commonplace.

The inspector finally stopped the car outside a small 24-hour café and looked at his watch.

"Emily serves the night shift and her relief should have just taken over from her. The local beat bobby tells me she normally has her breakfast right after she goes off duty, and then she walks home. She's apparently living in a bed-sit about half a mile down that way." The inspector pointed down the road. "With any luck, you should find her sitting on her own at the rear of the café. By the kitchen door, the beat man said. I'll wait here and give you some time to break the ice, before I come in and have a word with her. Good luck!"

I thanked the officer, then getting out of his car walked up to the café's door. Through the window that was misted with condensation, I could just about make out a woman that I assumed was Emily sitting with her back to me at the rear of the café.

"Come on, you Prat, get your act together. Time to eat some humble pie!" I said to myself. For an instant I wished I'd brought my daughter or even Stella along for moral support. But there comes a time when a man has to stand on his own feet and take what's coming to him.

I entered the café without Emily noticing me. For a few moments I stood watching her. I could see that she still had her fine figure, but maybe she wasn't looking after it as she had done in the past. Her hair was much shorter and didn't show any sign of the hairdresser's skills that had always been her trademark whilst we had been married. And her clothes - they looked like hand-me-downs or something. Definitely fitted where they touched, if you understand me.

I purchased a cup of tea from the lady behind the counter; then I carried it to Emily's table.

"Would you mind if I joined you?" I asked when I got there.

"There's plenty of empty..." Emily stopped speaking when she looked-up to reply and realised who it was standing there.

"Well, may I sit down, Emily?"

"Why?"

"Because I need to speak to you?"

"Why?"

"Damn, you're making this hard, Emily. Look, we could keep this up all day. Now may I sit down? I have something I need to talk to you about."

I took the nod of Emily's head to have given me permission to sit with her. As I turned to sit down, I noted that several of the early morning patrons were looking in our direction.

"What do you want?" Emily asked, without taking her eyes off of her breakfast.

"To apologise to you."

"What for?" Emily sure had turned into a conversationalist.

"Everything. Calling you a cheat. Divorcing you and for taking our daughter away from you. And for not having the faith to believe you."

Emily had stopped eating, but she still did not look up at me.

"What are you trying to pull this time?" she demanded in a quite loud voice.

"You all right back there, Emily?" An Irish accented voice called from somewhere in the café.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Pat. It's just my husband popped in for a visit. I don't expect he'll be staying long," Emily called back

"Now don't you be upsetting our Emily there, mister, or we'll be having something to say about it!" the disembodied voice called back.

I glanced over and saw several rather large men sitting at a table near the front of the café. If those guys got nasty, I was going to be in real trouble.

"When I need your help, Patrick, I'll ask for it. Thank you. In the mean time, I'll be asking you to mind your own business please," Emily called out to him, then in a quieter voice to me. "So what are you after, Tony?"

"I'm not after anything, Emily. I'm trying to tell you that I was completely wrong. I know now that that videotape was a fake and I'm damned sure it was your boss Harcourt who had it made. I know that he was trying to blackmail you into having sex with the company's clients. In a nutshell, I know you didn't lie, you didn't cheat and that I was a bleeding arsehole to you, for which I am truly sorry."

Emily now looked me in the eye. "So what brought about this sudden change of heart?"

"Another videotape, Emily. Someone sent me a tape of that meeting where Harcourt propositioned you and you told him to stick it up his own arse."

Emily blushed. I knew that she was no stranger to strong language, but I had forgotten for the moment what Harcourt had said to her at that meeting.

"So you believe that I wasn't lying now?"

"Yes, I do."

"And now, what's supposed to happen? Am I supposed to fall at your feet and be grateful?"

"No, I wasn't expecting you to do anything like that. If anything it should be me falling at your feet and begging you to forgive me. But for a start, if you haven't got anyone special to go home to, I'd like you to come home with me and live at our house with our daughter," then as an after-thought I added, "and me."

"What, just like that! Forget all that's happened?"

"No, no, good god, girl...

"Don't go calling me girl, Tony! I'm not a child, I'm nearly forty years old," Emily snapped back at me, her sudden outburst taking me by surprise. Funny how you forget things. Emily never did like me calling her girl.

"Sorry, sorry. No, Emily. I'd like for you to move into our spare room. Bridget has been without her mother for a long time. I'd like you to move to our house and... Damn it, Emily, cut me some slack here. Bridget needs you and, Christ, I need you to at least try to forgive me."

"Bring me another tea will you please, Martha?" Emily shouted over her shoulder. "Okay, your forgiven! Happy now?" she added and went back to eating her breakfast.

"What, just like that!"

"I said forgiven. I haven't said anything about forgetting that you didn't trust me or that you've kept me away from Bridget."

"I'm sorry, Emily!"

Yes, yes. I'm sorry too. But being sorry won't give me back ten years of not being with my daughter as she grew up. Being sorry won't wipe out ten years of loneliness and being sorry will never make up for my so-called loving husband, not believing in me.

As Emily was saying that, I was relieved to see Inspector Morris entering the café. As he walked up to the counter, several of the customers must have recognised him as a policeman; they suddenly decided there was somewhere they needed to be, very urgently, and left.

The inspector got himself a cup of tea from Martha and came back to join us, taking a chair on the next table. Having become aware of his presence as he sat down, Emily glanced in his direction.

"Mr Morris. Oh, I am a popular woman today!"

"Hello, Emily. I'm going to need your help."

"And why should I help the police. They didn't help me when I needed them. They just tried to put me in prison."

"Emily, there's nothing I can do or say that's going to change how you were treated back then. But with your husband's help, I can get that conviction reversed and with any luck we can put the people who really did this to you behind bars. But without your co-operation I doubt if I can do anything."

Emily was back to eating her breakfast and didn't even appear to be listening to him. But it was apparent the inspector wasn't put off by that.

"Believe me, Emily, I'm sorry for all that has happened. You know I always thought something didn't add up. But as policemen, we have to go on the evidence, not on personal feelings."

"Somehow I always thought you might have believed me, Mr Morris," Emily said but still without looking in his direction.

"I didn't know what to believe, Emily. This might not make sense to you, but I just couldn't get my head around what I thought you believed. I'll admit I thought you must have been delusional or something. I never did believe that you were the type to intentionally lie.

"The one thing that has always played on my mind was your little girl. In that tape the woman was in obvious distress some of the time, but the little girl didn't react in any way at all. I mentioned it at the time to the senior officer on the case; he thought that it was probably not the first time the child had witnessed the same scene and she had grown accustomed to it. I still don't know why I never bought into that idea, but now I've been proved right."

Emily showed no emotion as she picked up the tea that Martha had brought her. "So where do we start?" she asked looking at the inspector and now apparently ignoring me.

"I need you to come into the station and make a new statement, or at least go over the statements you made all those years ago. I want you to think of the names of everyone you saw or spoke to in that building that day, when Harcourt propositioned you. Someone who knew what happened has had a bad attack of conscience and sent a tape of it to Tony.

"There must be other tapes. Other women that they have tricked or blackmailed into doing what they wanted you to do. One of the men in that room said, 'We knew this could happen someday, ' after you turned them down and left the room. So they must have done the same thing before, and they are probably still doing it to some poor woman now. You knew the other women working for the company. Is there anyone who you think they might have tried the same trick on?"

Emily looked thoughtful. "There were a couple of girls who were working there when I first started; they just kind of disappeared from the office after a while. But now I come to think of it, I believe I saw them a few times at conferences and things. I just thought they were working for the competition. But I get the feeling I saw them talking to a couple of the directors. It was a long time ago and they held no interest for me at the time, so I could be mistaken."

"Emily, I know Tony wants you to go home with him."

News to me. How the hell did Morris know that I was planning to ask Emily to move back home? Don't tell me, a copper's nose, I suppose.