Three Days Ch. 03

We arrived at the hospital to find that my mothers stroke had been quite serious, but they didn't think it was life threatening. The doctor's told me that she would have to be under medical care for some considerable time. But the long-term prognosis was reasonably good; if mother could only get over the guilt she was feeling over my father's death.

Just after four in the afternoon Sheila and her family arrived from Manchester, quickly followed by my sister Marie turning up with her husband from Cornwall. I didn't mention my problems with June to any of them. They were there for my mother, not to get involved in my problems.

By the late evening it was becoming clear that mother was feeling a little better. having all of her children together seemed to cheer her up. No one had discussed it but it became apparent to me that they were all planning on camping out at my house. Marie and Peter had apparently informed Sheila about Saturday nights fiasco over the phone. She had already left for London hoping she could help sort out the mess that June had made when she heard about mum and dad.

Later in the day they all drifted off to my house taking my daughter Marie with them. I stayed at mother's bedside, until well after she had fallen asleep for the night. I had no stomach to go home and it was past midnight when I arrived there; I found all the adults plus Peter and Marie sitting in the lounge waiting for me. As I walked in I noticed a very sheepish looking June almost hiding in the corner.

"I thought I had made it clear, that you were to leave this house!"

Sheila jumped up and said

"Paul! You have to talk to June I know she did a silly -- -- --."

But I'm afraid I wasn't listening, I had already turned and walked out of the room. Sheila followed me.

"Where are you going we need to sort this out?"

"Its sorted Sheila, June sorted everything; my whole life, last night. All I need now is for her to get the hell out of what is left of my life. Then maybe I can start thinking about my tomorrows!"

"You can't throw twenty years away like that?"

"Jesus Sheila! Where the hell did you get the idea that it's me who's throwing twenty years away? Talk to that. THAT! Talk to June! She's the one that started all of this. NOT ME!"

I got in my car to drive back to the motel where I had spent the previous night. As I went up the road, I could see a little group of my family collecting outside my house to watch me go, in the rear view mirror

As I arrived in my room my mobile started ringing again. I didn't even look to see who was calling; I just switched the bloody thing off again. Then I broke the seal on the mini-bar!

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I awoke just before lunchtime on the Monday and rang the hospital; they told me mother was as good as can be expected and that most of my family was there.

Now I had to start getting some things sorted out. First I had better go to my firm and hand in my notice. I wasn't looking forward to facing everyone but it had to be done. I had a shower then drove to the office. I felt very self-conscious and thought everyone was looking at me as I walked in. It was the second most embarrassing moment of my life; the first being Saturday night.

When I got to my office my secretary Gail rushed up to me and gave me a hug. Then she informed me that the Big Cheese had told her to ask me to go to his office the moment I arrived. 'Fuck the pompous old bugger was going to fire me.' I thought, 'No he fucking isn't; I had come in to resign and resign was what I was bleeding well going to do.' I went into my office and typed out a letter of resignation, then e-mailed it to him; that way I had got in first. Then I went up to his office.

"Come in Paul! I say you appear to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick here, what is this dammed e-mail about resigning for?"

This was a surprise, he was sounding quite consolatory. Normally he's a pompous old bugger.

"Well sir, I can't very well work in the same office as my wife's lover can I. Besides the embarrassment, I could well loose my rag and wallop the Prick!"

"If you're talking about Roger Johnson; you be pleased to hear he doesn't work here anymore. I had him in here first thing this morning. Everyone knows the rules here; no fraternisation between the staff. Alright, we don't adhere to the rules very closely except, were married staff are concerned and we do include all the staff members wives in that. Roger Johnson has been in breach of his contract and was dismissed at nine-fifteen this morning. You can no doubt guess that I have had some reports about what happened on Saturday evening from other members of the staff. I must congratulate you on your self-control. If I'd been in your position, I think I would have murdered the blighter and my wife on the spot. But I am told you walked away defusing a very nasty situation. Now I must ask you again are you sure you want to resign; I really don't want to loose you. If you don't feel you can work here; I can get you transferred to one of the other offices. We need people who can make the right decisions when they are under pressure!"

"Well I think it would prove too embarrassing to work here now. What with all the staff knowing that my wife had sex with one of my colleagues; even if he has left!"

"Oh! You don't know then? Has she not told you? But then, maybe you wouldn't have believed her if she did tell you? What with her little show and all."

"Sorry Sir you seem to have lost me somewhere?"

"Well Paul. When our Mr Johnson was snivelling about losing his job this morning, he told me in front of witnesses, that he did not have any sexual relations with your wife on Saturday evening. That apparently had been they're plan; but he claims your wife chickened out. At first I assumed it was just a story he was telling to keep his job. But later Tony Mackie came to see me. He apparently has been trying to locate you all day yesterday; but it would appear you have not been answering your mobile. You know those things cost me a packet, you really should keep it turned on. Anyway, I'll let Tony tell you what he told me. He should be in your office waiting for you by now. Look I'll tell you what. Have the week off, go home and talk things over with your wife. If you wish to leave after that, you have my blessing!"

"Thank you sir, some time to stop and think would be handy. What with the funeral and things."

"What funeral, whose died?"

"My father had a heart attack yesterday!"

"Oh my God Paul! I'm so Sorry. Christ you have had a weekend of it. Forget the week, take a bloody fortnight. And that's not from your holiday allowance. Please accept my condolences on your loss. How's your mother taking it?"

"Not good I'm afraid, she had a stroke shortly after father died. The stress of it all I suppose."

"God Man. Get the bloody hell out of here; this is the last place you need to be today. God with the load you've been under, and I'm surprised you haven't had a dammed breakdown yourself. Now Go! Go get yourself sorted out. If you need more than two weeks? Just call me. Oh, and if you feel you need any legal advice? Call the firms Solicitors; there will be no charge. I pay those buggers a big enough retainer, let them earn they're bloody money for once."

On returning to my office I found a small delegation of my colleagues waiting by Gail's desk. Mack followed me into my office and closed the door.

"Fuck me Paul, where the hell have you been? I've been chasing about like blue asre'd fly looking for you since Saturday night."

"I've been busy Mack. My father died yesterday, now mothers had a stroke!"

"Oh Shit!" Mack opened the door.

"Gail. Nip down to my office and get the bottle of Scotch out my desk, will you? Bottom draw on the left. I think Paul needs a kick in that coffee you're making."

He sat down again, and looked at me for a few moments then said,

"Shit, where am I going to start now? OK, lets get Saturday over with. I know what June said on Saturday. But I can assure you she never shagged Johnson that night and to be honest, I don't believe she has ever shagged him!

"You Heard her! She told everyone --.--.--!

"I don't give a Toss what she said she did. I know she never shagged him on Saturday night and it wasn't for the want of Johnson's trying either. June chickened out. She loves you too much, to fuck any other guy. Believe me, I know!"

"So how can you know what June did or didn't do?"

"Well to be honest. I don't know, but the wife does and you can believe her. She can't stand Roger. Look my Mary had a little too much to drink at last years award diner; if you remember I was tied up with that bloody German crowd that were there and I had to leave Mary behind whilst I took them back to they're hotel. While I was gone Roger tried to take advantage of Mary."

"You remember that big shiner he had? The one he told everyone some angry husband gave it to him. Well that angry husband turns out to have been my Mary. She only told me about it, after you had gone on Saturday."

"Anyway Saturday, Mary knew there had been something amiss all evening; so she was watching Roger and June like a hawk. When June went upstairs Mary ostensibly went up to the loo. But she really went up to keep an eye on June. We had all noticed that you and June were, shall we say, not on the best of terms. So Mary figured that with June and Roger dancing together all night, something might be cooking. Especially as June had been overdoing the source at bit. Mary thought June could well do something she would have cause to regret later."

Anyway Mary watched Roger go into your bedroom, then Angela come out and go down stairs. Mary presumed to keep you out of the way. Mary went to the bedroom door and listened; luckily they hadn't closed it properly. She intended to disturb them if things got out of hand. She heard Roger saying that June had to shag him, as that was the plan. But June kept saying she couldn't do it as she loved you and although she was angry with you for shagging this girl in Manchester. She said that shagging Roger wasn't going to put that right."

"Mary pushed the door open a little to see if she could see what was going on. But just then she heard you shouting at Angela. June and Roger heard you as well and the next thing Mary new was June and Roger rushed past her to go down the stairs. Apparently when June saw you and started her bloody stupid speech. You know what happened after that. But Mary swears that June and Roger never had sex. You know June still had her bra, tights and panties on under that housecoat. Don't you?"

"Then why the stupid speech? What was the point of it?"

"Fucked if I know Paul? Who the hell can understand why women do half the things they do? Come to that, why didn't Mary tell me that Johnson had tried it on with her and she had decked him? Women, you can't understand them but we sure can't live without them!"

"Well I'm certainly going to live without June, from now on. She's killed my old man even if she didn't mean too. Fuck me, if my heart hadn't been strong she could have wound up killing me Saturday night as well."

"Now calm down a minute Paul, this wasn't all June's doing. Dave Cartlidge has got some very interesting stuff outside for you. I think you'll be surprised when you read it. It puts the blame for Saturday's little fiasco in a completely different court. I would say there has been some very spiteful plotting going on, and your June was the fall guy. We just can't figure out what the bloody motive was!"

He got up and opened the door again

"Dave lets show Paul what you've got and Gail, where's that bloody coffee? I could do with a belt myself."

Dave Cartlidge came in with Gail following carrying the coffees and a bottle of Scotch.

"Gail, it might be a good idea if you heard this; you don't mind do you Paul? I think a woman's perspective might give us some idea as to the motive behind all this."

I'll admit I had no idea what Mack was talking about. But it appeared he had some theory as to what had caused June to create the scene she had the other night. So I let him carry on, we all sat down and started drinking our laced coffees the Dave cleared his throat and started.

"Well, you know that I'm supposed to be chef of security around here. Well the old man reckons that means I get to do all the dirty jobs. I don't like to tell you this, but it means I do all the internal stuff as well. Well to cut to the chase, I have to check what you guys are doing on your computers. I'm Sorry! But that's my job. If this ever gets out of this room no bugger in the place will talk to me again, so please keep mum about it!

He looked at me and I nodded.

"I'm sorry I can't see that what I do with my computer here, has anything to do with my wife's actions on Saturday!"

"Well it doesn't. But it does when it comes to what someone else does. You see I don't only have to check the sights that people go on. I have to keep and eye on everyone's e-mails and downloads. We've got a program that checks all kind of things that appear in e-mails and all attachments are scanned for viruses. Well one of the thousands of things this program does is to look for names. Christ knows why. Maybe it's to make sure you're not writing nasty little notes about the bosses. Anyway the name list, is one of the papers that come across my desk every Monday morning. God, I haven't got the hours in the day to go through all that crap. But the one thing I do look for, is my own name. I might be paranoid, but come on, if you were in my position you would do the same."

"Anyway, I rarely find my name, but some months back the name Carter kept on cropping up. There's no Carter's on the firm or on the customer data-base. The name appeared in a couple of people's outlook address books. But not the persons that these e-mails were addressed too. I don't know, a cynical ex-policeman's hunch I suppose. Or perhaps I'm just nosy. I pulled up copies of everything were Carter was mentioned. Yes, I can do that. Christ, I'm giving away the family secretes here. If you guys tell anyone. I'm out on my bloody ear!"

"No worries Dave, nothing you tell us about how you got this information will go out of this room." Mack reassured him.

"Well the first time Carter was mentioned was when a member of staff; if you don't mind I'll call them X for the time being. Asked a manager in the Salford office who the hell Gregory Carter was. The reply came back that he had no idea. No Gregory Carter has every worked there. A couple of messages went back and forth on the subject and then things went quite, for a time. Then a message came through look read it yourself I've marked the relevant passage."

He looked through the file he had with him and offered me a sheet of paper. I gestured to Gail and she took it and read it out.

"You were right babe. Your man meets up with the wife of Gregory Carter whenever he's out of the office. Do you want my friend to find out what he is up too. It'll cost a bit; but I might be able to book some of his time to the firm if you like."

Dave continued

"Now that got my interest really going. It sounded to me as if the manager was going to do a little fiddling. So I really had cause to keep my eye on him from then on. All correspondence between him and X now past across my desk. Most of it was legit, but it soon became clear that they had quite some 'thing' going on between them and some interesting photos passed back and forth as well. After about a month or so, an attachment came down on one of his e-mails!"

Dave went back into his file and pulled out a couple more pages that he gave to Gail.

"I have followed the subject on his last two visits to Salford. He spends most of his off duty time in the company of the Carter's. Mrs Carter meets him most days at lunch time and Mr Carter normally collects him from the office and takes him to their house. I have observed that the Carter Children refer to the subject as uncle. There doesn't appear to be any illicit liaisons going on between the subject and either of the Carter's that I can detect. I will try to look into the Carter's background and see if I can come up with anything. If you wish?"

Gail moved on to the next page.

"As you requested, I have taken a closer look at the Carter's. They were married fifteen years ago. From what I have learned Gregory Carter is of no interest to you. But his wife Sheila could well be. Sheila Carter was adopted at the age of two. The family that adopted her moved from London to Salford sometime in the fifties. From talking to her neighbours I have discovered that some time ago she managed to locate her natural mother, and that her half-brother visits her on a regular basis. I think that it is obvious that the subject is Mrs Carter's half-brother and your friend has no need to worry. As there is nothing untoward going on up here that she should be concerned about. As to why the subject hasn't informed his wife of his half-sisters existence, I can offer no explanation. Any skeletons must be in the cupboard at your end!"

Dave said

"Well there it is! I took no action as far as I was concerned it was it was just some spouse checking up on what she believed was a wayward husband. I knew that X wasn't the wife but she was most likely doing someone a favour, so I let it drop."

"But then Saturday at your party, when your wife said you were having an affair with Sheila Carter it just didn't make sense. Until I saw your wife and Angela together I hadn't realised they new each other. June's out-burst told me who the subject in those reports was. But why hadn't Angela told June? I can tell you now, I was bloody confused. So after we left your place, I dropped my Misses home and came into the office and I went through all this stuff again. Then I went through Angela's computer, those reports were there but nothing else. The last thing I did was check the printouts. Christ, there were thousands of the bloody things, do you know everything that is printed on the lasers in this place is stored on hard-drives for a year. Anyway it was gone ten last night when I found this."

Dave handed another sheet to Gail.

"I have followed the subject on his last two visits to Salford. He spends most of his off duty time in the company of one Sheila Marie Carter. Mrs Carter meets him most lunch times. They normally go off in her car. Mostly they go to a wooded area not far from the office. Where it is my belief they indulge in sexual activity. Most evenings Sheila Carter joins the subject for diner and then they go to his hotel room. I cannot ascertain what goes on in the room but Sheila Cater rarely leaves before midnight!"

"What the fuck? Oh! Sorry Gail."

"Don't mind me, I was thinking the same thing. I assume that came from Angela Mores computer."

Dave nodded.

"Yea, eight weeks ago, three days after she got that second report. But why the hell did she change it?"

"To fuck up my marriage, that's why!"

"That's obvious Paul. But why should she want too? What's bloody her motive? What does she gain?" Mack asked

"Fucked if I know? But she's certainly buggered my life up. Big time!

"You haven't had an affair with her sometime in the past, have you? You know some women can get real nasty when an affair ends." Mack asked

"You have got to be kidding; I can't stand the bitch. I've had to pretend to like her, ever since I got married because she's June's best friend. But if she was the last woman on earth, I think I'd drown myself!"

"Um! I think you might be barking up the wrong tree there."

Gail's comment caused all three at us to look at her.

End of part three.

Part Four will be posted as part Three, Christ i can't take the pressure!