Chapter 27: Dead Man Walking

Argus Investigations had a viewing room where the video and audio recordings collected during surveillances were shown and studied. Rowena, in a smart business suit, with a skirt much shorter than most sixty year olds would dare wear, shook my hand when I joined her in the room. She cleared her throat, a shade nervously I thought.

"I should explain that this first recording, which consists of a short video and a slightly longer audio, was unearthed after we trawled thorough all our data which featured Colonel Ledbetter." She sat down in a chair alongside mine, and pointed a remote control at the DVD recorder siting on a shelf below a 32 inch TV. The video, obviously filmed through a car window by a hand held camera, showed a taxi drawing up outside a house, which I recognised as the building in Belgravia where Harry Ledbetter had his pied-à-terre. A young, blond haired, big bosomed, female alighted from the taxi and strode purposefully towards the front door, which she opened with a key taken from her handbag.

"That's not Suzannah." I said, relieved.

"Wait," said Rowena. A few moments later another taxi pulled up outside the building, and this time the woman who got out was definitely Suzannah, although her hair was worn slightly different to her current style. She also let herself into the flat with a key. The video tape flickered to a stop.

"Is that it? Doesn't prove anything. Harry is a long-time friend, and Suzannah probably visited him several times a month."

"I agree," Rowena said, "however the person we had under surveillance was the first arrival, Davina Marcross, who has been a friend of your wife since university. Davina had recently become engaged to the Earl of Gabalfa, and the earl's mother engaged Argus Investigations to check her credentials, so to speak."

"She also could be a friend of Harry. He has a wide circle of female friends. It doesn't mean he fu ... has sexual relationships with them." Although in my heart I knew he fucked most of them, other than Suzannah of course.

Rowena nodded, and pointed the remote control at the TV. "Although we couldn't get a camera into Ledbetter's apartment we do have an audio recording of what was going on inside." She looked at me sympathetically. "Listen."

What I heard next was unmistakably people having sex; noisy sex, with grunts and shrieks and moans. Harry was instantly recognisable when he climaxed loudly, swearing equally loudly. The girls' vocalisations were limited to muffled moaning, gasping cries, and shrill shrieking, and I couldn't distinguish Suzannah's voice with any certainty.

I tried making the best of it. "So, there may be sexual intercourse taking place, and Harry Ledbetter is the man, but without a video of the scene who can say exactly what is going on, or who is doing what to who? There may not have been any sexual action between Harry and Suzannah; she may have been at the flat merely as a voyeur." However, my heart sank as I remembered what sexual gymnastics I had shared with the two Belfast cousins, Francine and Rita, and I assumed Harry would have plugged all available holes on both available females, as had I.

"Quite so," Rowena agreed. "In any case the tape was recorded before you and Suzannah Weston were married. I showed it to prepare you for something more ... err ... revealing." With that she pressed the remote control again, and then the pause button.

"I should explain; the Earl of Gabalfa's mother showed the tape you've just seen to her son, and tried to dissuade him from marrying a girl who was obviously a tart. However, the earl was so aroused by his fiancée's depraved behaviour he took her off to Las Vegas the following week and married her." Rowena gave a rueful smile. "The earl is somewhat older than Davina, and requires a deal of stimulation to gain an erection. Davina's sexual excesses are the spark to his ignition, so to speak. Six months after their wedding the earl employed us to continue surveillance on Davina, not to gather evidence for a divorce but to gather a visual record of her ... activity ... in order to further stimulate his ardour." She gave a mischievous grin. "It was becoming harder for him to get 'arder. We explained to him the difficulty of fitting cameras at short notice, and the limitations in capturing images in badly lit rooms clear enough to provide stimulus."

I fidgeted in my seat. What was all this to do with Suzannah?

Rowena noticed my apathy. "It may interest you to know the Earl of Gabalfa persuaded a friend, an equally depraved and dissolute man as himself, to allow us to fit cameras and recording devices in his large mansion in Surrey. The earl's friend, whose name I can't recall, but it will be in our files, holds regular orgies at the mansion, and had no objection to them being filmed, although Argus Investigations only recorded those attended by Davina, Countess of Gabalfa."

"I still don't see..."

Rowena didn't allow me to finish. "Your wife and Davina were frequent guest at these orgies. What you will now see was filmed on August the twelfth, two thousand and six. I could show you several others, but this will be the least distressing for you to view, and stills from this disc could be attached to your divorce petition to show evidence of your wife's adultery with Harry Ledbetter."

I thought back to where I had been on the 12th August 2006, the Glorious Twelfth. I had been on a NATO exercise in Germany, running about like a blue arsed fly with the rest of Bravo Company, 8th Wessex, TA.

Rowena glanced at me, concern showing on her face. "I'm really sorry to have to put you through this ordeal, David." With that she released the pause button, and on the screen, in close up and in glorious Technicolor, I watched my wife committing adultery with Harry Ledbetter. It was a balls to the walls, all out orgy, with the camera focussed mainly on Davina, who had two men shagging her, fore and aft, as matelots would describe the fornicating threesome.

To one side of the trio the camera had caught Suzannah astride Harry Ledbetter, who was lying on his back on a brightly patterned Wilton carpet. Suzannah was bouncing up and down on his prick as if on a trampoline, panting and gasping, while Ledbetter grunted with the effort of his thrusts, and I gathered they were approaching their climax. In fact I saw the grimace of esctasy sweep across her face as Suzannah reached hers, then flopped exhausted onto the hairy chest of Harry, who was still ramming his cock into my wife. He came with a great shout, and I heard him say, between gasps of regaining breath, "You're still the best fuck I've ever had, Suzy."

Silent tears poured down my cheeks as I watched the two people who I once loved the most in my life, and who I thought loved me, grunting and gasping and fucking their way to orgasm. But the cruellest cut of all was hearing Harry Ledbetter addressing my wife as 'Suzy'. Nobody, not even her father, was allowed to call her anything but Suzannah. My pet name of Suki was reserved for private moments, and yet here was Harry Ledbetter calling her Suzy. That wounded me more grievously than him fucking her. Is that strange or what?

The screen went blank, and I became aware that Rowena was speaking. "We will extract a still or two from the disc and send them to your solicitors as evidence of adultery. I assume you will continue with the petition?"

I nodded numbly, and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. She handed me a tissue. "Have a good cry, David, and then have those two treacherous bastards' names dragged through the divorce court. You will be well rid of her; some of the scenes she appears in with that slut Davina, Countess of Gabalfa, or Cuntess of Gabalfa as I call her, would make you sick to your stomach."

I don't remember how I got back to my apartment in Iver. I rang the office and told them I was sick, which was true as my heart had been broken, no, it had been shattered. But already I could feel my heart renewing itself, creating an impervious rock like shell, and fashioning a harder and colder me.

And a rock does feel pain, and an island does cry.

A week after my petition for divorce, with accompanying photographs showing Harry Ledbetter and Suzannah's adulterous behaviour, had been dispatched to the divorce court the switchboard of Military Systems PLC HQ put through an outside call to my office.

"I warned what would happen if you continued with the divorce, Desmond. I keep my promises. You are dead meat." Bertram Weston's voice was full of venom and hatred. Before I could reply he put, slammed, down the phone.

With Weston's implied threat to my health ringing in my ears my first thought was to arm myself. Had I still been in the Territorial Army I could have obtained a hand gun and ammunition from the Unit's armoury, as I had access to both the ammo' store and the weapons when in the post of Company Quartermaster Sergeant. It was ironic to think I had resigned from Bravo Company, 8th Wessex in September of 2006 because Suzannah had complained of not seeing enough of me due to my commitment to the TA. She made her comment after my return from attending a two week NATO training exercise in Germany. While I had been sweating, and getting filthy dirty, on the North German Plain, Suzannah had been doing likewise at an orgy in Surrey.

On reflection carrying a handgun, even if I could source one from Baz Butcher, the man to go to when wanting something slightly dodgy, was a no no. Being found in possession of a firearm, even a replica, could get you 5 years in the pokey; using one got you 15, minimum. Anyway I would expect Weston would hire someone to break my legs rather than have me killed, although I was quite attached to my legs, and any other parts of my anatomy which might be put in harm's way by Bernard Weston's threat. Consequently over the next few days I was extremely careful when travelling between Iver and the office, and varied my times of departure and the route I took between the two locations, making sure I was not followed.

I still had to attend meetings at MoD, and hoped and prayed I wouldn't run into Harry in one of the corridors or at one of the meetings. Thankfully, I never caught a sight of him during the times I visited, although I did bump into Robert Westminster. He grabbed my arm as we came face to face in one of the many corridors which grid the huge MoD building.

"Meet me in the Slug and Lettuce at lunch time."

I nodded. "OK; is there anything wrong?"

"I'll explain it all then, Dave."

He came straight to the point in the Slug and Lettuce, well after sinking half of his vodka and tonic and I had swallowed most of my pint of Bombardier.

"Is it true you've cited Harry Ledbetter as co-respondent in your divorce?"

I nodded. "Yes, how do you know?"

"If MI5 or MI6 operated as efficiently as the grapevine in MoD we would have no problem with spies or terrorists." He finished the rest of his drink and indicated a refill to the barman. "I can't believe Harry Ledbetter would do such a thing, although I know he porks any tasty female who crosses his path. I'm terribly sorry, Dave, it must have been horrendous to find your best friend..."

"It was. He was more like a brother than a friend, but now he is neither, and I think I would kill him if I see him again. I was dreading coming here in case I bumped into him."

"Well, he's in Iraq, or maybe Afghanistan, at the moment. He was hoping for promotion to brigadier, but he can say goodbye to that if your divorce is made absolute and he is shown to be an adulterer."

"I caught the bastards at it when I got back from a trip to Catterick." I saw again the pair of them shagging; heard their moans and grunts, and if Harry had walked into the bar at that moment I know I would have killed him. "Fucking up his promotion prospects is small reward for him fucking my wife."