Chapter 1

“Hello, is that Mr Hammer?”

“What?” I looked at the clock since it’s a little after 2am and my brain is kinda still fast asleep.

“Are you Mr Hammer?” the voice took on a more irritated tone.

A phone call at 2am, my fraud alert senses are powering up and I’m ready to hang up. I looked on the other side of the bed to find it empty. ‘Hasn’t she come back yet?’ I asked myself. I cleared my throat and shuffled onto my elbow in bed, still on fraud alert “It may be, why?”

“Mr Hammer, my name is Sargent Josh Smith, are you able to come and collect your wife from Carlton Police Station?”

That woke me right up. “Police Station, why what’s happened? Is Emily...” he cut me off

“Mr Hammer, your wife is fine, we just need you to come and pick her up as soon as you can please.” he paused waiting for me to answer, I had questions, but he wanted to move on “Is that ok? Are you coming to pick your wife up Mr Hammer or?”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll be there as quickly as I can. Is she ok?”

“You can find that out for yourself...” irritated, he blurted out. Understanding his mistake, he then told me, “She’s fine. Come to the Carlton Police Station. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes, I need to get dressed and it’ll take me...” I started working out the best route and how long it would take at this time of the morning.

“There’s no hurry, she’s fine, see you soon.” he’s hung up.

It was now 2.07am on Friday night, now a Saturday morning. My wife had been out with her friend Michelle on a very rare evening out and I was being called to pick her up from a local cop shop. I’ve never had so much of a speeding ticket, or ever spoken to a law official before in my life.

As I got dressed my mind was racing as to what I was diving into.

Upon entering the police station I quickly identified myself, was shown to a room and a few minutes later a police woman appeared and sat at the other side of the table. She popped a tablet down on the table in front of her, checking some details before looking up at me.

“Mr Hammer, I’m Claudia. Firstly, your wife is fine, I expect you’ll be able to leave her within an hour tops.” She smiled at me, trying to reassure me that things were under control.

Agitated, I asked her, “What’s happened, I mean, why am I, I mean why are we here?”

She looked at me, took a breath “Your wife’s been arrested for prostitution.”.

I almost burst out laughing “Hah, what the...” then I realised she was watching me intently, taking in my reaction. “That can’t be.” I paused and looked at her, wiping the smug off my face. “Where, how?” were my next questions. “Where’s Michelle?” being my last.

She looked down at her tablet, and scrolled “There is no Michelle.” looking back up at me “Why should there be a Michelle?”

“Michelle and Emily went out tonight.” I very quickly added “For a girls night out, drinks and dancing.”

She picked the tablet up and leaned back in her chair “So not to get paid for sex?”

“God no.” my heart was racing hard. What the hell was she talking about?

“So your wife and her friend aren’t local whores?” she almost spat that whore word out, clearly showing that she had great dislike for that type of person.

“No, for crying out loud, no!” this time, I tried to reassure her.

“Some of the officers here say they recognise your wife as a known prostitute.” She waited for a reaction and got none.”She was seen talking with Casba, a known manager.”

“Manager?”

“Casba is a pimp. He manages, looks out for his” she paused, “property. Like your wife.” again watching me intently.

“My wife is no one’s property.” this time, I drove my bargain hard, but she didn’t seem convinced. This time, I yelled out, “Ok clearly, there’s been some mix up here. Trust me my wife is not some prostitute and I very much doubt she knows what a pimp means!” I sigh “She’s the flipping opposite of a bloody prostitute if you must know.” and I slump in my chair defeated. “I’m not sure what proof you have or need but I really doubt all of this.”

“Sir, you better calm down there. No need to get agitated...” She tried cooling me down a notch. “There are areas of the city where prostitutes hang out. We discourage that by arresting them regularly. Tonight your wife was picked up by one of our own.”

I stared at her in disbelief, trying to figure out whether this was some sort of a practical joke or something. Understanding my confusion, she leaned forward and told me “We have 5 women in the cells, one of them is your wife. They were all picked up together on the same street.”

To add further, she said “Look, she was dressed appropriately and fit right in.” she smirked at me “even has a purse, full of condoms.”

Now I’ve caught her in a lie. We’ve never bought condoms, not for over 20 years, so there’s no way she had condoms on her. “You have clearly mistaken. Not a chance she had condoms on her. We don’t use them, all right? There has been some sort of a mixup here.”

Now, she did something on the screen and turned the tablet to face me. Showing me an open purse with stuff in it, there were clearly a few condoms. However, that wasn’t her purse, it was Michelle’s. “That’s not her purse.” I declared triumphantly.

“Of course not, she’s just carrying around someone else’s purse?” She raised an eyebrow at me.

“I guess so” I was properly awake now and not about to walk into some trap or drop Michelle into it. Well at least not yet if I could help it. She twisted the tablet and swiped the screen twice, before turning it back to me.

Now this shocked me and I leaned forward. On the screen was Emily. It was a split screen with her standing in front of those height wall things. Left was her front on, right was her side profile. Both with her arms at her side and her legs tightly together. I almost expected her to be holding one of those perp card, clapper board things that you see on the tv cop shows. But her details were instead stamped on the bottom of the screen. Her name, DOB, timestamp etc. But what shocked me was Emily looked so different, not the Emily I knew.

I took it all in, my eyes darting from left to right. In front of me was my wifes face and body, but it was being showcased. Almost displayed like I’d never seen her before. These were not the clothes she went out in. She didn’t own these clothes. She didn’t own anything like it.

When she left last night, she was wearing a black blazer over favourite white blouse. It was a rare find that fit her boobs and didn’t look like a tent on her as it was tapered in at the waist nicely. She’d also worn some nice black trousers and some simple 1” heeled sandals. She looked sexy, sophisticated, and smart. However, in these pictures she looked like a complete whore. God she looked like a smoking hot one.