The Video Tape Ch. 02

As usual I thank my LadyCibelle and Techsan for their patience, proof reading, editing skills and of course encouragement. As always I'll also add that we don't always see eye to eye with each other, and often play around with a story after they have read it. Consequently I take full responsibility for the content and any cock-ups in this story.

Clarification:

Beak. British, slang. = A Judge or magistrate.

Tout-de-suite. From the French. = Immediately or at once.

Tart. (As used in this story) British slang (offensive). = A girl or woman.

*

Chapter 2

Stella came back into my office. She didn't speak as she locked the door behind her; then she walked over to my desk and picked up the tape cassette and the rubbish bin from beside my desk. Placing the bin beside the sofa, she put the tape in the player and then stood there looking at me.

"Well, I suppose we'd better get this over with, or are you going to drink that coffee first, before you grind a hole in the bottom of the cup?"

I looked down and realised I'd been stirring the coffee since Stella had given it to me. The saucer was half full with coffee I'd splashed out of the cup. Pouring the spilt coffee back in to the cup, I crossed the room and sat on the sofa. Stella sat on the other end of it with the remote control in her hand.

"Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be!" I replied and Stella pressed the remote control start button.

For a few moments the screen was blank again and there the screen flashed into life showing a view of an office somewhere. There was an empty chair and you could see the side of a television but not the screen. Hushed voices could be heard but it was impossible to make out what was being said. Then suddenly there was the sound of someone knocking on a door.

"Come in, Mrs Bartholomew," a disembodied male voice, said. Then a few seconds later, "sit down please?"

Emily appeared on the screen and sat in the chair. She looked confident but just slightly nervous. Her head turning from side to side, obviously looking at several different people who were also in the room, but out of the camera's field of vision.

"Emily - you don't mind if I call you Emily, do you?"

"No, of course not, Mr Harcourt."

"Please call me Mike, Emily. We're all one big happy family here, aren't we, gentlemen?"

There were several grunts and noises from the other occupants of the room.

"Now, Emily, have you considered my proposition yet?"

Emily suddenly looked very concerned.

"I didn't think you were serious, Mr Harcourt."

"Mike, Emily. Must I keep on reminding you? Of course I was serious. We need a woman of your qualities on the team."

Emily's face now looked extremely angry.

"You must be insane. I would never contemplate such an idea. What kind of a woman do you take me for?"

"Well, a very beautiful and happily married one, I thought. Who exudes sex appeal!"

Emily stood up. "How dare you even suggest such a thing! I thought it was the drink talking the other day and I gave you the benefit of the doubt. You will have my letter of resignation as soon as I get back to my office and I'll be reporting this to the authorities."

"Sit down, Emily, before you do anything you'll be sorry for."

This was a new voice and a very commanding one. Emily stopped, looking at someone obviously standing beside the camera. A man's back appeared on the screen as he moved towards her. He took Emily by the arm and pushed her quite firmly back down into the chair.

"We have a little film for you to watch, Emily. Look at the television please." He said.

Emily's gaze moved to the screen and from her reactions I gather she was watching the first video that had been sent to me. This was no act. I could see that Emily was having trouble understanding or believing what she was seeing.

"But that's impossible. How did you... where did you get this?" Emily demanded.

"Its very good, isn't it, Emily? We've got some people who know how to knock this sort of stuff up for us. Do you like the tattoo and your birthmark?"

"But I, I don't understand, how did you know about my birthmark?"

"Silly girl, remember that massage you had at that conference in Germany. A company perk, you thought. We've got some very nice film of you changing for it as well, or should I say giving us a strip show. You know, several of our customers have said that they'd like you to entertain them, on the strength of seeing that film."

Emily's face showed an expression of horror and a lot of unintelligible words were coming from her mouth. It was plain to understand that she just didn't know what to say.

"It was very handy of you and your husband to have the baby camera in your bedroom, the child adds some authenticity, don't you think? Our people just hooked a recorder up to the circuit for a few days. Actually you were sitting on the bed reading in the original version. And then when you and hubby went off for that weekend trip to Paris we gave you, well, our little film crew slipped into your flat for a few hours and recorded the action.

"She's good, isn't she? That blond wig and a little bit of body painting. You have trouble believing that it wasn't really you yourself, don't you? We had some trouble with her voice though, so we can't use a lot of the film that was taken, but this should be enough. Luckily the young woman got a little excited; she wasn't expecting to take that monster up the backside. But I think anyone would have difficulty in believing that it isn't you screaming and moaning, under the circumstances.

"I hope you do like it up the arse, because some of our clients like to take our whores that way. But it doesn't matter if you don't. You'll soon get the hang of it."

"You're all insane. I'm not sleeping with anyone for you or anybody else."

"Oh, but you are, Emily. If you don't, your husband will receive a copy of that tape in the mail."

"He'll never believe it's me."

"Oh, I believe he will. Are you really willing to take that chance?"

"I'll tell him you are trying to blackmail me. I'll tell the police as well. You will all finish up in prison."

"I don't think so, Emily. You see, we aren't even in the country. Officially, everybody in this room except you, is out of the country today and has been all week. As far as anyone else knows, this interview has never happened; well, you can't prove it happened anyway. Now I'll tell you what you are going to do. You'll go back to your office and then you will ask your secretary to call hubby and tell him your going to be late home this evening. Then you will go to the Hilton Hotel where you will meet and entertain a client of ours who is waiting there for you. That way we will know that you're on board.

"If you don't do as I instruct you, your husband will receive a copy of this tape, tout-de-suite. And then, hey, presto, your nice little world will fall apart and your marriage will be over. And of course you won't have a job either. Just to top things off nicely, I should think hubby would get custody of the child as well. What judge is going to give custody to a mother who would put on a show like that in front of an infant?"

"Never in a million years." Emily shouted and in an instant, she was out of the chair and the door could be heard slamming closed behind her. Several voices could be heard talking at once almost in panic, then the commanding voice called for calm.

"Now, don't panic gentlemen. We all knew this might happen one day. Have her telephone switched off and someone watch her to see what she's doing. When she leaves the building, if she doesn't go straight to the Hilton, get that tape delivered to her husband immediately. We'll meet at the airport later and be back in the good old US of A before anyone knows we were here. If she tries to call our bluff, that silly little tart's going to be in real trouble. Every body hold your nerve and she can prove nothing."

The screen went black.

Stella and I sat there looking at each other.

"Tony, you don't think Emily was telling the truth, do you?"

"I really can't think what to make of it. But if this is an elaborate hoax, she must have managed to take a few years off somehow. The last time I saw Emily she looked ... well, she looked like a broken woman. I haven't seen her looking like that since...."

"Oh, god, how could anybody be so cruel?"

"You think this is genuine then, Stella?"

"Yes Tony, I believe I do. If Stella had set this up, she would have had to have filmed this video years ago. So why would she wait until now to send it to you? No, I think someone in Emily's old company has suddenly found himself a conscience.

"Oh, shit, what have I done?"

"You didn't do anything, Tony. You acted on the evidence available to you at the time. The same as the police did."

"But I could have trusted her."

"And what if the first tape had been genuine. Tony, you made a decision based on the evidence you had at your disposal at the time. No one is going to blame you for doing that."

"No one! What about Emily?"

"Ah well, now there you are going to have to speak to her. But before you go off half cocked, I think that you'd better have the police take a look at this tape first and perhaps they can have another look at the original as well. Things have moved on a bit in the last ten years. They may be able to see how it was put together now. That's assuming that it isn't genuine."

++++++++++++++++

I was lucky. Or rather Stella was. She managed to track down a police officer who had been a junior member of the team that carried out the investigation of Emily's claim that her bosses had tried to blackmail her. The officer had been promoted to inspector Morris in the ensuing years. Stella somehow persuaded him to come to my office the following morning.

He watched the new tape through twice and then turned to me.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you sir, but I believe that this new tape is genuine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm damned sure, sir. I recognise that voice and the office this tape was made in as well, from when we did original interviews."

"What does that prove? This tape could have been made recently."

"No, I'm afraid that it couldn't, Mr Bartholomew. That whole office building was pulled down about seven years ago now."

"Jesus Christ!"

"You can say that again, sir. Now just how did this tape come into your possession."

"Delivered to the front desk early yesterday morning, about four AM. We have a surveillance tape here of the man who delivered it. But if he was a courier, there's no badges or insignia to recognise where he came from."

"Four AM. Doubtful it was a courier then. More likely a taxi I'd say. That's assuming it isn't our informant who's suddenly got himself a conscience who delivered it personally. Now that would make life easy. Let me take a look at the film of him you've got and see if his face rings any bells."

Stella put the video of the man delivering the package to the front desk into the player.

"No, his face doesn't ring any bells with me," the inspector said. "But I'll show it to some of the night lads. With any luck, one of them might know him. If not, the labs will try to get a decent still of him off of it. Now I'd like to take both this new tape and the original with me if I can. If nothing else comes of it, there should be someone up before the Beak for trying to pervert the course of justice, it nothing else. You never know. We might be able to get the attempted blackmail case reinstated, if we're lucky and can find enough evidence. This tape must have been stored somewhere and how many other tapes are in the same place.

"Now can you tell me where I can find Mrs Bartholomew nowadays?"

I looked at Stella and she shook her head. "I'm afraid I can't inspector. I feel very foolish now but I've been a little bit, vindictive. Emily is only allowed to see my... our child on her birthday and at Christmas. I haven't kept track of where she's living I'm afraid."

"Do you know where she works?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you there either."

"Old friends or relatives?"

"I'm sorry to say she was disowned by just about everyone, including her family."

"Oh, dear, what a bloody mess. I promise you, someone is going down for this. Do you have her National Insurance number by any chance?"

Stella this time looked positive and headed out of the office. Two minutes later she was back and gave the inspector Emily's insurance number and a copy of a photograph that had been taken at Christmas about three years before.

The officer looked at the picture of a once beautiful Emily. "Bastards," he muttered under his breath.

"Inspector, when you find her, could you please let me know where she is?" I said to him as he went to leave the office.

"Of course I will, sir, just as soon as we can locate her. I don't suppose she's actually in hiding, so it shouldn't prove too difficult."

"Assuming you're right and that tape is genuine, I've got a lot of making up to do. That's assuming Emily is going to let me.

"I'm sorry, sir. If you don't mind me saying, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes, for all the tea in China."

End of chapter two.