Chapter 1

This was bloody uncanny. It was just like the last time it happened some ten years before. The post girl had just dropped a pile of letters into my in-tray and straight away the thick package in the brown envelope had caught my eye. Just like it did the first time!

Slowly and with a trembling hand I extracted the package fearing its contents this time, not with the curiosity I'd had, of why anyone would want to send me a video that I'd had the last time. Yes, it was a video I discovered as I tore the packet open and I extracted the black plastic tape cassette from inside. A piece of paper came out with it and fell onto the desk. Picking it up, I discovered there was just two short sentences of text printed on it.

I'm sorry, some of us do have a conscience. You need to see this."

Well, that was one sentence longer than the note that came with the original tape had been. That note - that I still had in my possession - just had the words "You need to see this." printed on it.

My hand was still trembling when I dropped the cassette onto the desk and picked up the envelope again. Turning it over in my hand, I noticed that, like the original one, it didn't bear a stamp or frank mark.

"Stella!" I called out, pushing the intercom on my desk; "Can you come in here please." There was no reply but the door swung open and my secretary of the last fifteen years strode into my office.

"Yes, Tony, do you want a cup of... Oh, my god, not again!"

Stella had spotted the tape cassette lying on my desk. She had seen the original tape ten years before and had been with me all through the repercussions that its contents had had on my life.

"Can you get on to the post room and try to find out where this came from, please, Stella?"

Stella didn't even leave the room. She picked up my phone and called the post room. I picked up the cassette and turned it over in my hands, willing it to tell me where it had come from and what sick arsehole had sent it to me, whilst Stella talked on the phone.

"It was hand delivered to the front security desk during the night," Stella said as she disconnected the call to the post room and dialled another internal number.

"Security, Stella Helligon here, Mr Bartholomew's secretary. Mr Bartholomew wants the tapes from the foyer's security cameras of the last twenty-four hours sent up to his office the moment they are changed."

There was a couple of minutes' silence as someone in security answered her.

"I don't give a damn. Copy them first if you have to, but get those original tapes up here as quickly as possible and don't make me have to come down and find them, or someone will be for the high jump." Stella slammed the telephone back down, then stood there watching me.

"Are you going to watch it now, Tony?" She asked, in a very controlled and somewhat calming voice.

"In a minute. Let's have coffee first and will you stay whilst I do, please?"

"If that's what you want, Tony."

Stella went over and turned the television on and then poured out coffee for both of us. Having done that she left my office, most likely to tell those outside that we weren't to be disturbed. I sat there and remembered watching the first tape in this same office all those years ago.

For a few moments after I'd hit the play button, the screen had remained blank. Then suddenly the picture of my bedroom at home had come on the screen. The first thing that had caught my eye was my eighteen-month-old daughter standing in her cot. Staring at the two people lying on the bed. Or should I say two naked figures lying on the bed.

The camera angle didn't give a good picture of who it was on the bed whilst they were lying down. Why should it? It had been set up to cover the cot as a nanny-cam. But you could plainly see that the man was coloured. His fingers were buried in the woman's pussy and her hand was wrapped around his penis. The woman's moans of pleasure could be plainly heard.