Chapter 2: Curiosity Kills the Cat

Tuesday lunchtime had come around before I got a chance to look at the files that I'd recovered from the memory card on the Saturday, and what I discovered was to be one hell of a shock to the old system.

The program had put the recovered files into several folders. One of Jpeg's, one of mpegs and one of bits and pieces of recovered files; at first sight, I somehow doubted that I'd be able to make much out of them.

I opened the Jpeg folder first and from the thumbnails it soon became pretty obvious that Jamie had little to do with the memory card's short disappearing act.

The first six thumbs that I could see were of Vivian, and she had taken them herself; her arm stretched out holding the camera was plainly visible. After getting over my initial shock, I switched the window to slide show view and slowly began to scroll through the recovered files.

I found the pictures confusing at first though, I couldn't figure out why Vivian would want to take self-images?

Then as I scrolled through the images I got a real shock, the first shots had been of Vivian's face smiling at the camera. A couple of images further on and the camera had been inexpertly tilted down and her ample cleavage appeared to be the highlight of the picture. In the following shots Vivian had slowly undone the buttons of her blouse and eventually her bra was the centre of attention and Vivian had pulled a cup back to display one of her nipples. I honestly couldn't understand what she was playing at, or why.

The sequence began again almost back to repeats of the first pictures. Only the shots had obviously been taken on a separate occasion, because Vivian was wearing a different blouse and bra; this time one of several she had that fastened at the front. By the end of the sequence, her naked breasts were displayed in their full glory. And what's more, she was playing with one of her nipples with her free hand.

Quite suddenly my brain went into overdrive and I began to put a few things together. Charlie Crum had pictures like these plastered all over the inside of his locker door at the gym and at the golf club. Jesus he was always telling anyone and everyone who'd listen - and who might believe him - that they were of the women he had cyber-sex with on the Internet.

"Jesus F Christ," I said to myself out loud "Vivian has found herself an Internet lover!"

I quickly scrolled through a lot more of the pictures at high speed, remembering — with hindsight — as I did so that when Jamie had asked that we get a web-cam some months back, Vivian - who usually showed little interest in the computer - had taken his corner when I'd said I didn't want the associated software clogging up and slowing down the system. There's always a penalty of some kind to be paid for adding all that unnecessary junk.

Shit, further along the list of files were some images of Vivian's legs and then bugger me, if there weren't some — what are euphemistically termed - up-skirt shots where the gusset of her ... Shit, she was wearing that bloody thong I'd bought her; she would only ever put that on for me, in our bedroom.

Then, Holy cow! She had her knickers completely off in some of the shots ... and she was playing with some of her toys.

There must have been over a hundred self-taken images of Vivian — mostly sitting in the study at the computer desk, well on the computer chair anyway — in various stages of undress and playing with herself.

Then finally and quite suddenly there were several images of Vivian - dressed in her lowest cut blouse — sitting at a table in a restaurant somewhere. These last three shots were not self-taken and I couldn't recognise the restaurant in question either. Vivian was smiling at the camera provocatively. I knew that expression I'd seen it on her face many times over the years.

There were three more pictures, but they were indistinct and at first I was a little confused as to what they were supposed to be of. But then I realised that whoever had taken those pictures of Vivian smiling at him — I was assuming it was a him, I somehow doubted that Vivian would smile at a woman that way — had tried to take an up-skirt picture of Vivian's privates, under the restaurant table. Vivian had her knees just about as far apart as she could get away with in a public place like that, and her skirt pulled up someway to display that bleeding thong!

By that time, I was beside myself with anger. I had to slam the screen of my laptop down and I stormed out of my office. My destination was the tobacconist on the corner at the end of the road. I'd stopped smoking - at Vivian's insistence - three years before; but it had always been a battle to keep off of the bleeding things; suddenly that battle was suddenly lost.

From the tobacconist, I headed to the pub over the road; avoiding the lounge bar that the guys from the office would be in, I hit the public bar and sat there in a corner brooding. Just what the hell was I going to do?

You know it was a real shock to the system to find your wife stepping out on you after nearly seventeen years. After all that time it's not like you can kid yourself that you got married too young or anything; although we had been forced to move the marriage up a year or so because Vivian had been expecting Jamie. But it wasn't like a shotgun wedding or anything; Vivian and I had planned to get married, just not quite as soon as we did.

And it wasn't like our marriage could be described as iffy either. There never had been any arguments, well not big ones anyway. There'd never been any extended periods of being uppity with each other either, sending each other to Coventry or anything like that.

Vivian didn't get all out of shape about the time I spent doing my own thing, like golf and she came to the gym with me most of the time. And - not that I went that often - she'd always been enthusiastic about coming to the odd test match with me, as well. The same as I was suitably enthusiastic when I took her to Badminton for the horse trials every year, and all the other horse shows that she and Katie liked to go to.

So, had I missed something completely; what the hell was so wrong with our marriage that Vivian would find herself a boyfriend? Come to that who the hell was he, and exactly when was she meeting him?

I'd downed half a dozen whiskies before I came to my senses — well, to be honest, they rang the last orders bell — and I thought I'd better make my way — a little unsteadily on the old feet - back to my office.

"Jesus wept Jim, what the hell have you been getting up to?" Grace -my secretary come PA - demanded the moment she clapped eyes on me.

I was over an hour late back from lunch and it was pretty obvious that Grace had been worried. Grace followed me into my office and stood there staring at me as I slumped into my chair.

"I do believe you've been drinking Jim! Is something wrong, what's brought this on? You don't drink like that."

"I don't find that my wife's been running round behind my back with some tosser everyday either, Grace."

"Oh my god Jim. Are you sure?"

I didn't have to tell her that I was, my facial expression must have said all that Grace needed to know. She disappeared out of the office and said something that I couldn't hear clearly to one of the other girls — I assume she told them that we weren't to be disturbed "By anyone!" Then she returned, locking the door behind her; poured out a couple coffees and placing one of them on my desk, took the seat opposite me.

"Right let's have it all, chapter and verse. What makes you think that Vivian would run around on you?"

"I don't think Gracie, I know! Look at this?" I lifted the screen on my laptop and punched in my password. By chance the picture that I'd left showing in the window was of Vivian smiling across the restaurant table at the camera.

"But she's just having a meal with a friend Jim, what does that prove ... Oh shit!" Grace exclaimed. I'd scrolled the pictures through to the under table shots as she spoke. "Oh my, what's the silly cow been up to?"

"Doesn't take a genius to work that out Grace, take a gander at these." I scrolled back through the image files.

"Crike's where did you get these. The silly cow didn't leave them on your home computer, did she?"

"You know what they are?"

"Oh my, unfortunately I do, I'd say they are evidence that Vivian's been having cyber sex with someone. Well, I'm assuming that's what she's doing there; I have no personal knowledge of how you go about having cyber sex with anyone. Always thought it sounded a bit ... pointless, to me anyway. Mind, she could have just been chatting to someone on line and got carried away, isn't that what those paedophiles do to the kids, chat them up and then get them to send mucky pictures?"

"Except for those pictures in that restaurant!"

"Except for those yes, they sort of put the kybosh on the idea that Vivian just got carried away one day, don't they. But then again Vivian might well have been buggering about with an old girlfriend from school or something, what has Vivian got to say for herself?"

"Dunno, I haven't challenged her. I haven't had a chance to work out what I'm going to do about any of this yet. Anyway I very much doubt that it was a female, Vivian would never behave like that with another woman."

"Why-ever not? My school friends and I got really out of hand sometimes, when we were young. Especially when our figures began to develop. Dowdy old gymslips they might have been, but if you knew how to strut your thing you could drive the boys wild, in them."

"Too much information Grace, you're supposed to be everyone's mother around here, remember?"

"Yeah sorry, but what I'm trying to say is that there could be an ... Well ... maybe not an entirely innocent explanation. But ... Oh God you know what I mean. Don't declare Vivian guilty until you know all the facts. And don't go off half bloody cocked either, make sure you know as much as you can before you challenge her; remember what happened to Martin Banks. He accused his wife of cheating on him and when it came down to brass tacks, he couldn't prove a bloody thing."

"Oh shit, yeah!"

"Yeah, in the end, she divorced him for what she claimed was his unreasonable behaviour and took him to the bloody cleaners in the process. Then the next thing you know, the bitch marries her fancy man and they are living the high life on Martin's dough. Banksie should have made sure he had all his ducks lined up in a row before he opened fire. Just make sure that you are completely sure of your facts, before you say anything about this to Vivian. Oh and make sure that you are sober as well, how much have you drunk by the way; you smell like a damned distillery?"

"Too much Gracie, and I've started smoking again."

"Yeah I know; I can smell the cigarettes as well. For now, we'd better do a little damage control; we don't need every bugger in the place to know that you've tied-one-on, they will want to know why. You stay in here for the rest of the afternoon; get your head down and try to sleep it off and I'll head off any visitors at the pass. We'll wait until they've all gone home this evening and then I'll drive you back to my place; you can stay there tonight. I'll call Vivian and tell her you've been called down to the factory in Eastleigh at short notice to sort out some problem or the other."

"What's the point in doing that Grace?"

"Jesus Jim, Vivian is going to smell that booze on you the moment you walk in the door; and those damned fags as well. She'd go bleeding loopy and want to know why you were drinking. And that would probably lead to the pair of you going at it like hammer and tongs. How long do you reckon it would be before you lost it and let fly with the only ammunition you've got?"

"Good point Grace, what would I do without you to watch my arse for me?"

"Probably enjoy having one of those silly little girls out there sitting on your knee, taking dictation. Funny isn't it, how when you guys get a pretty young secretary or PA, suddenly you don't seem to be able to type very fast anymore. Now, keep quiet and lock this door behind me."

Grace woke me from my drunken stupor after everyone else had left the office that evening and led me down to my car, in which she drove me to her place; declaring that I was still too drunk to risk driving myself. She'd added that her little Honda parked in the company car park wouldn't raise any eyebrows, because she often left it there when one of her dates picked her up from the office. But if anyone saw my car parked there and it got back to Vivian, it would be pretty obvious that I wasn't down in Eastleigh.

She stashed my car in her block's underground car park and then we went up to her flat where after throwing me a pair of her ex husband's jeans and a tee shirt she told me to get showered and changed whilst she fixed us something to eat. She'd wash my shirt and get the smell of cigarettes out of my suit later.

I suppose I'd better tell you something about Grace, or Gracie as she was often called. Of indeterminate age, probably her late forties or early fifties, she was still a fine looking woman. I have no idea why her marriage had broken up just before she became my secretary; rumour has it that her husband had a cute little assistant. But anyway after working for me for a year or so, Grace had made some very drastic changes to her own lifestyle and appearance. She had taken to going to the gym several times a week and going out dancing with some of the younger girls from the office in the evenings.

Although playing the matronly part with the other females around the office - because she was the eldest by a good few years - I'd gathered that Grace had let her hair down a bit and turned into quite a girl on the quiet. She'd found herself a whole string of handsome and I believe very rich suitors; but for some reason she didn't hook up permanently with any of them, well not at that time anyway.

Gracie even reconciled with her ex-husband for a little while at one time, but I heard rumours — and reading between the lines — that he no longer cut the mustard in the bed department. The word was that the poor bugger found he couldn't keep up with Gracie anymore and she kicked him out again. I have to wonder whether Gracie reconciled with the bugger in the first place just so's she could take the piss. Maybe he should have taken that old saying about a woman scorned, a little more seriously.

I'd better point out that Grace must have been at least ten or maybe fifteen — damned hard to judge some women's age sometimes - years older than me, and besides the fact that plenty of innuendos flew around in our conversations; neither of us had any intention of buggering up our fantastic working relationship. I hope that's understood, so nothing untoward should be read into my spending the night at Gracie's flat.

After we'd eaten we went through the images again, and Grace was the first to spot that whatever had been going on it had lasted at least four months and probably longer. Grace had thought to check the dates on the files, buggered if I know why I never thought of doing that.

Eventually we got around to the other folder, the one containing mpegs. Well actually there was only one file in there, it had been made about two months previous. When clicked upon it opened in Media player.

The picture started very dark and at first, neither of us could make out what it was of.

"Oh god he's tried to film under the table." Grace suddenly realised, "look there's the table leg and that whiter area must be the table cloth hanging down."

Then the screen went very bright as the camera was pulled up into the light above the table. The auto focus and iris controls, doing their utmost to get the exposure correct. Then the image stabilised and all that could be seen was a cruet set on the table. But on turning up the volume Vivian could be heard ordering her meal.

"Oh shit, that bloody camera!" I exclaimed, "The silly buggers gone to take another photograph under the table and hit the wrong button; he's set it to video mode by accident. It'll record until the card fills up, or the battery goes flat."

"Quiet, I can't hear what he's saying." Grace admonished me. "Turn the volume right up?"

Grace was right we could only just hear his voice; the microphone on that camera was directional and had a very narrow beam of sensitivity. Although we couldn't see her, the camera was obviously pointing in Vivian's general direction. However the guy's voice must have been bouncing back off the glass containers of the cruet set. I turned the volume as high as it would go so we could make out almost everything that was being said.

"About time you showed me a bit of the high life, do you bring Stacie here?" Vivian asked.

"What do you think I am, bloody mad! No one we know comes to this place, too damned expensive." A man's voice replied.

I'm not sure what expression came over my face, but Grace's hand shot out, grabbed the mouse and hit the pause button.

"You know who he is?"

"Jesus Christ that's William, her bloody brother in law. Her sister Stacie's husband."

"What, the one who's just had the baby?"

"Yeah!"

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm bloody sure, I'd know that little tosspot's voice anywhere. Fuck, they are always sodding around together, but never in a million years did I think that they'd ever..." my voice must have faded to nothing as I remembered Vivian and the little shit flirting together so many times over the previous few years. Funny how you always think that kind of behaviour is innocent fun when it's with a family member.

"Hold on Jimmy, don't go jumping the gun; lets see what they say to each other?" Grace hit the play button.

Generally the conversation was pretty unintelligible. There was a lot of background noise from the restaurant and often Vivian and Bill were lowering their voices so they wouldn't be overheard by the other dinners.

Eventually Grace went off and found some earphones; she was adept at taking shorthand notes at meetings and although we hadn't used them at our office for years, she was used to transcribing Dictaphone recordings as well. Grace sat there and listened to the recording several times taking shorthand notes as she went. Then she was going to type them up so that I could read them.

I made copious cups of coffee for us both and sat and brooded.

Right from the first time I'd met him, I'd never been a fan of Bill Banks. Well, he was an Estate Agent so that should tell most folks that he was a slime ball; or maybe that's my personal opinion of the profession. He was a dapper looking bloke, always smart and with a pretty smart mouth on him as well. But he had been Vivian's sister's intended (and later her husband), so I'd cut the bugger some slack and tried not to show my natural dislike of the guy.

The few times that I saw him at family dos and the like — I tended to avoid the bugger and the do's, if I could get away with it - he was pleasant enough; maybe a little on the loud side. And he had the annoying habit of flirting with Vivian and her other sister Janice most of the time. But then again, I flirted with both Janice and Stacie at those family do's as well, so I'd never read anything into it. Maybe I just hadn't been cynical enough?