Chapter 22

Pembroke’s IT equipment gathered dust. A bored detective started to run over suspicious deaths, and months after Pembroke had died, noticed that Pembroke had some “surveillance sex videos” on his hard drives. The detective would probably have ignored it were it not for the urge to have something to masturbate over in the evidence room.

He went over the tapes. Pembroke had hidden cameras in his bedroom. There were numerous videos of him having sex with prostitute. The young detective, Manuel Suarez, noticed one recorded on the date of his death.

He watched a perfectly high definition video of Pembroke having sex with two women, one looking like a teenager, and the other an older woman. Lucky bugger, he thought, at least he died happy. He was then astonished to see Pembroke in bed tied up, with the older woman now in red panties and bra, screaming at him first in Spanish, and then in English. He called in an English speaking detective and they saw how Pembroke died, with the drugs being forced up his nostrils and the woman beating his chest after tying him up and threatening him. Both made mental notes to watch the video in private later on.

The woman clearly shouted her name “Angela Candelema” and effectively outlined her reasons for wanting to kill Pembroke. They could both see that perhaps she had not fully intended for him to die, but she had tied him up, left him to die. She was clearly very, very angry.

A week later, Angela/Maria drove home in a brand new Ferrari. She now wore an expensive coat and jewelry, unable to contain herself with the initial funds from the estate. She felt no guilt and enjoyed lording it over her shocked neighbours, who had no inkling of the source of her newfound wealth. This was just payment for her, she thought. This was how she should have been living, as a wealthy corporate woman, or a wealthy man’s wife. She had just taken thirteen years of purgatory to get there.

Her mother knew and had thanked God for the good fortune. She had no idea that Pembroke’s death had anything to do with Angela. She only cursed the wretched man who had tormented her daughter and left her husband to die an early death. She was looking forward to a new life with Angela and Yasmin, to a new life. Where, they had yet to decide. Their only worry was to keep news of her good fortune away from her ex-husband, who was now living in Turkey but had shown no interest in Yasmin or Angela for years.

She had heard nothing from the police and so assumed she was in the clear. It was with shock and dread, therefore, that she noted the police cars around her house as she drove up her driveway.