One Week in May

I then ring Diane to bounce this one around. I am extremely wary of Saks. Diane has never met him so doesn't have the same vibe about him. She thinks it could be worth a crack. May be a divide and rule strategy. I can't think what Saks could offer but as he is willing to pay for my airfare and accommodation I think at least I will learn a bit about what really has been going on. I also tell Diane about the options I had discussed with KLCON. Her reaction was an electric 'yes!' She has obviously been worried about her own future.

I send her a copy of my report to KLCON and asked her to tell the others that I was working on options and that I am very optimistic we can get a positive result.

I ring back to Saks and say I will come but I will have to go via Auckland as I have an appointment there. Saks agrees. He seems to be excited about the prospect of me coming over but this still does not fill me with confidence about a good outcome.

I sit back with wonder after these phone calls and what one could achieve from a kitchen table.

After a while my plane and accommodation reservations arrive by E-mail. I ring Alex as I do not have a huge amount of time in Auckland and getting in and out of the city can be notoriously time consuming. He calls me back after a half an hour with the news that they have booked a small conference room at an airport hotel and I can meet the group there.

This night I will have dinner with Bridget's Parents. It is to be an all Lily affair.

********

Wednesday 8^th May 11:00 a.m.

An anxious day for me with little tangible happening. After an intensive morning at the kitchen table collating furher information for KLCON I receive the draft of the separation agreement from Alex. I read through it. I can hardly concentrate on it but I endorse it and send it back.

********

Wednesday 8^th May 02:00 p.m.

Still sitting at my kitchen table I dial Zikri on my phone. He thanks me for some information I have sent him that morning. He informs me that a deputation from KLCON, are planning to come to New Zealand. The earliest they could meet would be Saturday and could I make it to Auckland. They are awaiting a reply from the CEO of GCON that he could meet the deputation at the Auckland office of GCON. They said the meeting would not include Revecon.

He asks me to concentrate on the option of KLCON taking over the New Zealand operation. I am not to divulge any this to anyone else. I am to E-mail him later that day any further thoughts to the feasibility of this option including any conditions I feel important to such a takeover.

I then tell him about the meeting with Saks. I need time and the meeting now seems superfluous. Zikri disagrees;" Go" he says, "Find out what you can. We need information about the Australian arm. You find out what you can and how they have been tied in with Schaefer."

"They seem have some kind of proposal outside of Schaefer they want to put to me."

Zikri ponders this. "Maybe it is something we can use. I don't think it will be a wasted trip. Be cautious, do not commit to anything."

"I can't help thinking they are up to something; so it is a given I will be highly Cautious."

I continue the rest of the day at the kitchen table preparing for what is to become and intensive few days. And of course I am spending the night with Lily and Bridget's parents.

********

Thursday 9^th May 6:00 a.m.

I am having breakfast with Lily and she is loving it. She is a true morning girl and today her cuteness is at her best. Claudija is up early as well so when the taxi toots, I grab my carryon and wheel outside as Claudija takes over Lily duties.

I am approaching the great white arches to the airport when my phone rings, it is Bridget.

"Hello Stranger!"

"Alwyn, you have to help me."

"Hang on is this business?"

"Yes."

"You are a Kiwi. When Kiwi's start business over the phone we usually exchange pleasantries like, 'Hi Alwyn how's things. How's that daughter of yours. Wasn't she called Lily?' "

"Stop being silly Alwyn. This is an emergency."

"Sorry Bridget you sacked me. I can't help you I no longer work for you."

There is a silence. I am hearing a male voice in the background but I can't make out what is being said.

"Can you come into the office? We can perhaps work something out."

"Are you in Christchurch?"

"Yes, here all day."

"Unfortunately I am about to catch a flight to Auckland."

"Can you cancel?"

"I can't and I won't. Listen, this whole shemozzle is in the hands of lawyers. If you want to talk to me contact my lawyer. You know him, he is Alex. And take my advice; you should get your own lawyer." I stress the last sentence hoping that will get the message across.

There is some stuttering on the other end of the phone. I cut her off saying. "Listen I have to go I am late for the plane." A little white lie as I speed dialed Alex. "Bridget is in Christchurch all day. See if you can catch her at the office."

Thursday 9^th May 10:30 a.m.

I am ushered into an already crowded small conference room. I am introduced to a tall red haired woman, Schaefer's wife, Emily. Next to her, in a suit, is a business man that I have been told about. It turns about he is a corporate lawyer. There are two reps from the PI firm, a woman and a man. There is another lawyer from Alex's Auckland office.

The lawyer companion of Emily's is a Matt Watson. It turns out I have met him somewhere before as much of his work is in construction and property. There is a brief introduction from Suzanne, the PI woman. She is quite severe, Blonde hair tightly pulled back, black specs and dressed in pinstriped corporate jacket and skirt. She is humorless and direct.

"I have to be frank Mr. Gallimore, Mr. Watson is here because he had sex with your wife but she asked for his help and this is where this whole affair was busted open. I will let Mr. Watson explain."

"First of all, may I call you Alwyn, just call me Matt. I regret what has come to past. It was not any kind of affair. I am single and it came about at a conference I was attending in Melbourne just over a couple of months ago."

I butted in. Matt was obviously nervous and was talking nine to the dozen. "Don't worry Matt; I'll give you the benefit of any doubt. I am aware that this will probably go a lot wider than your involvement."

"Yes, well I was approached by an Anthony Schaefer at the bar after dinner. He had with him your wife. He started talking to me. First it was general and about the conference then he started talking about a possible business proposition that he had. He was talking about our firm being a go between, as our firm does a lot of business in the Philippines.

Now, as it happens one of the senior directors has the same name as me but he gets called Matthew while I get called Matt. He must have mistaken me for the senior Partner. I didn't twig to this at the time. Being ambitious I naively saw this as an opportunity that I could somehow bring in.

Well after a few drinks. Your wife visited the toilet and while she was gone Schaefer mentioned that your wife had the hots for me and if I played my cards right I could have a good time. I had no idea that she was married; she was not wearing a ring. I didn't even know her real name as she was introduced as Pauline."

"Well, I won't go into detail but the drinks flowed and she seemed to come onto me. Schaefer eventually went to bed and your wife invited me up to her room, where I spent the night.

In the morning I went back to back to my room and we three met up in the lounge before going into breakfast. There, I got a bit of a shock because when I arrived they were on a sofa both cuddling as though she was his girlfriend.

Neither said anything. We just chatted and then Schaefer's phone rang. He left us for five minutes. When he did this Pauline leaned across and gave me her card. She said 'help me I am in deep trouble.'

She said Schaefer had filmed us having sex; he was going to use it against me and threaten to send it to my wife. I laughed saying I wasn't married.

She then buried her head in her hands. She recovered herself and told me to be very afraid because he will try something. On the other side of the card she had printed Emily's name and contact number. She told me to contact Emily and tell her about his infidelity and his depravity. Schaefer came back so I did not get what the depravity bit was all about."

"I was a bit afraid of both of them so I skipped breakfast. I went to see the real Matthew Watson when I got back to Auckland and he insisted we contact Emily. Matthew did know a little about what was going on and was rather relieved that Schaefer had made his mistake as he had not considered the correspondence he had at that point as being anything dangerous."

The PI's come back into the conversation at that point. "We were commissioned by Emily. At this stage we were only commissioned in terms of the marriage. They had a pre-nup arrangement so evidence of adultery was going to be pertinent. We have a sister firm in Melbourne. We discovered that when in Melbourne they usually based themselves out of a serviced apartment with the exception of the night we just discussed. Our Melbourne associates managed to bug the bedroom of the apartment. It is better that we do not tell you how, especially now that the police and other agencies have become involved. We were not aware of any other investigations at that time."

Suzanne pulled out of her brief case a blue plastic folder. We have extensive video from the two cameras. One was mounted high up and shows the room the other was low and was directed across the bed. I don't want to upset you with too much detail but these imaged are representative. We would also like you to identify any of the participants if you can. These were taken on two separate occasions, one with Schaefer and Bridget alone, the other with a group.

If it is any consolation there was very little activity over a month except for these two occasions. We pulled out six weeks ago once we found out that there was interest from other agencies so we do not know what they have done in the last weeks and we would not know what they have done elsewhere although we do have some verbal testimony but it is largely hearsay."

"We do have an edited video which you can watch if you want to but this would have to be tomorrow if you can make it."

"Ok'" I said. "I will consider that, so what have you here."

Suzanne spreads the A4 images out along the table.

There are four taken with just Schaefer and Bridget. Suzanne continues. "These look like Schaefer is trying to teach her low level BDSM. One showed Bridget tied to the bed with her stomach humped over a pillow. She had on a blindfold and some kind of gag in her mouth. He was totally naked. Schaefer was standing beside her hold a huge dildo. He was naked but his rather over large, uncircumcised dick was flaccid. "The interesting thing about Schaefer," remarked Suzanne ,"is that he does not appear remarkably turned on by all this. Although he does penetrate Bridget in the group session it is hardly with the gusto of his partners in crime."

In all this I was fixated on the dildo, "Where did he put that?"

"Oh sorry, she was penetrated in both the vagina and the anus with that. She showed a great deal of discomfort in the anus but I suspect she had been stretched from previous insertions or she would not have tolerated that without serious injury. Schaefer had liberally lubricated her but I must say we were all taken aback by the size and the length of penetration."

I am not sure I was comfortable with the phrase, "We were all." There had obviously been an audience to all this.

"This image here is her in a local private school uniform. He has her with her dress lifted and pants at her knees. Does she normally shave her genitals? As you can see she is completely hairless." I shake my head; Suzanne continues, "In the video he inspects he vulva. He rubs his hand over it and penetrates her, fingering her a little.

Here is another where she is bent over the bed with her dress up exposing her naked buttocks. He fingers her for some time but fails to actually penetrate her with his penis. In this image, they are fully clothed, she in her school uniform. They are deep kissing and he is fondling her breast. This last image is of her totally naked with her legs spread masturbating while he watches."

"These other four stills is the group activity. In the video they spend a lot of time each taking turns taking your wife from behind both anally and via the vagina. There is a brief attempt at double penetration but you must understand that throughout this video Bridget is resisting.

In fact what audio we have with the video appears to indicate that she is being raped. There are three men here and two women. Although the two women do not have sex with Bridget they do assist. They seemed to be there pleasuring the men as well. The men seemed to show unusual stamina apart from Schaefer himself. I suspect that they have taken Viagra or suchlike."

The two other males I clearly recognize as Julian Saks and another GCON senior leader Bruce Westfield. One of the women was small and had quite a voluptuous hour glass figure with large hanging breasts that seemed to be receiving close attention from the men. I recognize her as the blonde curly haired receptionist from GCON in Melbourne. The other black haired Italian looking Woman I do not recognize but I assume her to be an employee or perhaps a wife. She was wearing rings.

How do I feel looking at these pictures? I feel calm and strangely detached. I do not feel I am looking at my wife. It could be one of those amateur pictures you see on porn sites; some stranger or some other naked body from somewhere around the globe.

Suzanne says that it would be a good idea that I see the video to fully understand what they meant about her being raped. I say I would like to, but ask if a psychologist could sit with me. Suzanne said that she has a friend who works with victim support, who would be really good. Logistically though, since I was just about to go to a meeting in Australia I figure that I might not make it for Friday. I make a tentative arrangement for a late meeting at 5pm at their office without knowing quite how I was going to make it on my itinerary.

*****************

Thursday 9^th May 01:30 p.m.

Arriving in the airport lounge, I take an easy chair, roll my carry-on to one side and dial Zikri on my phone. He confirms the meeting at GCON's offices on Saturday morning. They have a team coming to New Zealand for two weeks and they wanted to begin with a round table including the CEO of GCON and me. I ask about Revecon. Zikri said that there is an investigation going on but their lawyers had enough information to make any contractual arrangements made so far null in void. They already had a teleconference with the Revecon team and they had agreed on a pause at present.

I ask if Schaefer was included in the conference. I got a sharp no in reply. I ask what I need to bring to the table. Zikri just said any further thoughts but particularly my sharp intellect and business acumen. I laughed and said I don't know about that. He replies, telling me not to sell myself short.

He says he would be interested in any information on Sak's intentions but he expresses some concerns about the risks of the meeting and asks me to be discrete and to not enter any kind of commitment. I am not to mention the meeting on Saturday.

********

Thursday 9^th May 06:00 p.m. Australia time.

I am met by Julian Saks and Bruce Westfield. Just seeing them there, all smiles, gives me a flash back to those photographs of them fucking my wife. It is the first real emotional response I have to my wife's predicament. It gives me deep visceral pain and I find myself nauseous.

Their smiles drop. "Are you OK?"

I lean on a nearby seat. "Sorry it will pass, give me a moment."

There is a moment's silence as the wave of nausea passes.

Saks is first to speak. We have got you a room in an airport hotel. We can relax tonight. We will have the meeting at the hotel tomorrow morning. There will be Bruce, a couple of legal people and myself. We should have it all dusted by noon. Tonight we will take you over to the hotel; we'll stick around for a couple for drinks then leave you to your own devices for the evening.

On arriving at my hotel, I check in and drop my carry-on in my room. I feel absolutely shattered with a deep weariness settling over me. The last thing I feel like is a social drink in the bar; especially with these two.

I make my way despondently along the musty dowdy hotel corridor to the bar. I now wish I had not come. It was just simply a bad idea. I hated these guys. I don't know why, but it did not dawn on me, until I actually saw them, the absolute absurdity of the situation.

These guys had raped my wife and were now trying to do some sort of deal with me.

Up until now I was mission focused. Now I seem to feel the confidence sapping out of me. I have to compose myself. I am determined to be civil. I will have the drinks with them and contemplate the next move back in my room.

They wave to me as I enter the bar. "Drinks are on us," Julian calls. The whole experience begins to enter the realm of the bizarre.

Both are upbeat and full of false bonhomie. I just think 'who are you kidding?' They are acting as though we were all old friends, when in actual fact I had rarely been in contact with them and when I had, it was hardly enjoyable. I wonder whether they suspect I know what they had done to my wife. I assume they do not. I cope with the thought by not looking at them.

We are drinking spirits. It is a bit of a whiskey tasting as they work their way along the top shelf. Not having had any dinner, I am starting to feel the effects. Not out of control, I am a big man so it takes a few drinks to get me going.

At a point the conversation takes an awkward twist. Because we had so little contact in the past we could not exactly reminisce about the good times but there was one event not long after I joined GCON.

I had come across to Melbourne on a training program. Bruce must have been on the same program. On the last night some of us younger ones got on the piss, big time and wound up in some club. I remember I had a hooker all over me.

Eventually we broke up. Bruce assumed that I had taken the hooker back to my hotel room. In actual fact, it had been another kiwi, Keith Hadfield. Bruce is effusive about the night and how impressed he was with me and this hooker. He seems to have got the impression that this is somehow my scene and I am still up for it. I wonder what would give him that idea.

I try to dampen the conversation down a bit. By this stage they are a bit worse for wear themselves. I mention I should be getting dinner. They tell me not to worry as they have arranged a little something in the room for me. It's about then that we break up. Julian is on his phone and Bruce is shaking my hand saying he's getting a taxi home but they would meet me here in the morning say 8:00 a.m.

I extricate myself from the pair and with some relief strike for my room. Unfortunately I discover that my night is not over. All is quiet when I swipe my card at the door. Pushing the door I find lights ablaze and two naked women holding up glasses of bubbly calling, "surprise!"

I am struck dumb; before me is what looks like a banquet and these two naked women. One is an emo type, pale, big breasted and an array of creative tattoos. Her black hair is streaked in purple and blue and she has piercings in just about everything, Nipples, navel, and something glinting at her clit. The other is a typical allover tanned Aussie blonde bimbo all teeth with a huge horsey grin. Hookers I guess.