Breaking Down Barriers

"I may be stepping out on a very flimsy limb here, but I believe that you genuinely want to see this through, and I want to help you." My first thought, when the alarm bells died down was 'why is she really doing this?' She leaned over and laid a hand on my arm, my nostrils taking in the musk tones of her perfume. She moved in for the kill. Sliding closer to me she took my face and turned to her lips. My many thoughts clamoured for attention, each explaining to me the reason that she was doing this.

I waited until my lips were free to move. "What would your husband think if he could see us now?"

"Him? He will think what I want him to think. He knows his place in the overall scheme of things, and that is marginally above the carpet beetles."

"Some life he has." I commented.

"Don't get me wrong, he is well paid for his compliance, very well paid. Now, why don't we go up to your room and discuss this in greater detail?"

"I don't think so."

"Is not what I am offering you not worth the price?"

"Oh it's worth it, but you see, I can't afford the price."

"I'll make you an offer, the price to you is nothing that he is not willing to give." She pointed to my tented trousers.

"I am not responsible for what he thinks. I cannot and will not take you up on your generous offer, and you can tell your father that."

"Bastard!! You'll pay for this." She swept out of the hotel. I turned off the voice recorder app on my mobile phone. I went up to my room and uploaded the recording on the voice to text app and saved the file.

Sergeant Radcliffe arrived within the hour, just as I was packing the last of my clothes into my bag for a quick getaway. I would be leaving before the day was over.

"What's going on with you? I've just had Roderick Forrester on the phone demanding your removal from this case, something to do with you attempting to seduce Jacinta into perjuring herself so that you can get a conviction."

I took my phone and opened the voice recorder app. The conversation had played out before he said anything.

"The will stoop to anything to stop you."

"Nothing has changed. I need to tell you a story." Again he stayed silent until the story played out.

"Fuck. I get it now, this is a revenge thing."

"No, the revenge will be a bonus. I want convictions on the rape charges. I want those DNA samples, and once I have them, who knows."

I didn't wait until the end of the day. I chose instead to force his hand. I caught up with him as he left the hotel after his usual two-hour lunch. "Roderick Forrester, I am arresting you for obstruction of justice and attempted witness tampering."

"My lawyer will crucify you in court." His smug look confirmed to me that he thought that he was invincible.

"You are lucky that I don't charge you with the responsibility for the deaths of three people. I know that you were responsible but I may not be able to prove it. I have to seek comfort in the knowledge that you now know that I know of your role in these deaths. I do not expect that you will show any remorse and admit your guilt. I just hope that you will, from time to time, think about this."

"I don't know what the fuck you are talking about, what three people?"

"The first was an Anglican priest, Father Rogers. He was accused of the sexual assault of a young girl, your sister. You came out in support of Jacinta, claiming that you had witnessed the assault. He could not live with the stigma that had been cast over his reputation and took his own life. His wife moved away from this town and tried, unsuccessfully, to get on with her life. She suffered from mental health issues that saw her eventually placed in a facility where she died. Following Father Roger's suicide, Jacinta admitted that she had made up the whole story, at your suggestion. Father Rogers was my father."

"You can't prove any of that."

"I won't have to. After this trial, where your involvement will be established beyond a reasonable doubt, a rumour will start that will make the good people of this town aware of your part in the suicide of Father Rogers, and the deaths of Maddie and Ted Smithson. You put pressure on Sergeant Radcliffe not to breath test the driver of the car that Maddie was in, Jacinta again I believe." The look on his face confirmed my assumption. "Jacinta wanted to confess to having been drunk at the wheel, but you would have none of that. What you didn't know was that in a fit of remorse she confessed as much to Ted. He spoke to Sergeant Radcliffe who told him that there was no evidence that Jacinta was driving while drunk or that she was even driving, and that there was nothing that could be done about it. Ted took some time to recover from this and think about his future. He had memories of the close physical relationship he had with Maddie and wanted that again, but not with any women in this town. He still blamed them collectively for Maddie's death, so he sought a partner elsewhere and found it in Simone."

"All of this is conjecture and has nothing to do with me."

"I didn't expect you to accept responsibility, but, in a moment of candour, Jacinta has confessed to me that she was drunk, and that you arranged for the investigation to go away. This brings me to Ted's hit and run death. There were apparently no witnesses, and the vehicle was never found, resulting in no investigation, and no trial. I bet that if I were to go to the yard where wrecked and impounded vehicles are crushed and checked their record of VINs, I would find that a vehicle belonging to you was crushed within weeks of the hit and run. You bought a new car around that time, didn't you?"

"So what? I frequently buy new cars."

"While it will be impossible to prove that you were the driver of that car, word will get around that we have evidence that it was your car that was involved in that hit and run."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"To show the rest of the world that you are not above the law. She also revealed the reason that you did this. Then there is the suicide death of Father Rogers. That came about because your father had expressed the feeling that Father Roger's increasing popularity was undermining his power in this town. He ran the show and any threat to his control he chose to remove. He was discussing this situation with your mother, who found my father's message of God's unconditional love for all, most compelling. She had come to realise that your control over this town was based on fear. She demonstrated a change in attitude, first with her friends and then with the townspeople in general. Her popularity was on the ascendance, and yours began to fall as more and more people overcame their fear of you. It was you that first raised the topic of my father's guilt of sexual assault. It was you, wanting to curry favour with your father, who decided that a rumour should be spread about that Father Rogers was sexually assaulting a young girl, and that Jacinta should be identified as the victim. Jacinta's revelation of the assault had a dramatic effect on your mother. At first, she chose not to believe the story, but as more lurid details emerged she had no option but to believe in his guilt."

"Where did you get this bullshit? I never thought that the police would sink so low as to fabricate lies to obtain a conviction against perfectly innocent people."

"We have evidence to support these facts and the Public Prosecutor is confident of gaining convictions."

"That still won't help you in this case."

"We are about to offer Sergeant Radcliffe a deal, he will tell us what he knows and he can retire on his full entitlements, or face trial and risk summary dismissal. I think I know what he will choose."

He looked closely at me. "I remember you. You didn't stick around for very long, just long enough for me to realise what a miserable little shit you were. You're still a miserable shit. You think that you have won, don't you? I can't wait to see the expression on your face when you realise that the people of this town will fully support my innocence of obstruction and witness tampering. They will never believe your story about my involvement in those deaths. They know what's good for them."

"We shall see what we shall see. Will they still hold that opinion when they hear that we will be also charging you with having an incestuous relationship with your own sister, you and your father?"

On what evidence?"

"Although he is now no longer with us, When he found out that Jacinta was pregnant and that the pregnancy would be terminated, he sought and got a court order to extra foetal DNA to establish paternity. Two almost identical DNA strands were consistent with a father/son relationship. This evidence will show just what kind of men you are, were. Now turn around with your hands behind your back."

"I will not have you place me in cuffs. I will walk with you to the police station, and to anyone that we meet, I am assisting you with your inquiries."

"Hands behind your back, now!"

As we walked across the street Sergeant Radcliffe approached me. "Allow me." He took Forrester's arm and directed him across the road and to the police station. The closer that we got to the police station the lower Forrester's confidence became. By the time he was placed in his cell the realisation had hit him that maybe, just maybe, he would no longer have any power over the people of this town.

I had broken down the barriers that had repressed this town for so long, too long.

The news preceded me. Simone had been told about the investigation by the police as soon as the news broke. She met me at the front door. "Please don't take this the wrong way." She kissed me. If I were to take it the wrong way I would believe that there was more to that kiss than gratitude, but I let it slide. The celebratory dinner was to die for, and the mood around the table was better than I could remember. Simone had slipped away to have a shower and I was alone with Felicity. "Sergeant, I feel funny calling you that, do you know that I'm in love with you." I was about to tell her not to be so stupid. "But not as much in love with you as my mother is."

"Wait a minute. How can you know how you feel when we have known each other for such a short time? How do you know that this, whatever you feel, is love and not just gratitude?"

"I know how I feel about you and yes, gratitude might play some part in how I feel, but I have seen the way that Mother looks at you. We have discussed this while you were away and I asked her if she was in love with you, and do you know what she said?"

"I hate to think."

"She said that the feelings that she has when you are here with us are not like anything that she has felt in the past. She said that what she felt with Ted was great, and that she thought that she loved him, but with you, it's completely different, with you she not only feels all warm and huggy, but she feels protected. I told her that while she was having her shower I would tell you how she feels, and when I thought it safe for her to come out, I would go to the bathroom and tell her so. I have a better idea, why don't you go and tell her how you feel about her yourself. I know how you feel, because you have lost all of your inhibitions when you are with us. Now go."

The shower was still running when I entered the bathroom. She heard the door open and opened the shower door. I stepped into the shower cubicle fully clothed and held her to me. Our lips touched and stayed touched for some time until we heard Felicity come into the room. "Was I right or was I right?"

We didn't answer her, we couldn't answer her, for some time. We stood apart far enough for her to join us, fully clothed, in the cubicle. Felicity got out first and wrapped a towel around her and raced off to dry herself and get changed. Simone turned off the shower and began removing my clothes. I had to take off my shoes so that she could remove my trousers, and no, she did not suck him, instead she towelled me dry before I returned the favour. When thoroughly dry we went to my room and explored our feelings for each other.

It was some time and a very satisfactory lovemaking later. "Do you know, the feelings that I'm having right now are much better than those I had all those years ago when my wife convinced me that I was in love with her. This is something that I can't explain, so I won't. Do you mind if I just hold you like this?" She was lying next to me, her head on my shoulder and an arm draped across my body, her hand dangerously close to my still erect cock.

"I don't mind, but if that thing of yours keeps staring at me like that, I'll not be held responsible for my actions."

"Okay you guys, it's time that you got decent, dinner is served." Felicity called through the door.

"Damn." Simone said, removing her hand from its resting place, but not before giving him a squeeze that left me in no doubt as to her future intentions.

Another barrier had been broken down.

Life after that had its moments. Felicity, understandably enough was pregnant, and after some discussion, it was decided to terminate.

The trial went ahead, and following Sergeant Radcliffe getting saliva samples from those on the list, several convictions were obtained.

Roderick Forrester's hold over the town proved difficult to maintain from his prison cell, and the town seemed to come to life. Brenton was one of those convicted of rape and he received a five-year custodial sentence. Jacinta avoided gaol time over her attempted obstruction, but could not avoid the fallout, her husband divorced her and found love elsewhere in town with a speed that suggested that he may have already been 'involved'.

While I would have loved to rub their nose in all of this by moving with my new wife Simone and our daughter Felicity back into town, we decided better of it. With the money that she had inherited from Ted and the insurance payout on the house, we had enough to make the final mortgage payments on my house and have us a cruise holiday to New Zealand. Oh, and I got a promotion as a result of my efforts.