Unhappily Ever After Bk. 01 Ch. 02-03

The stupid young cop tore off the top copy of the receipt and handed it to me. I checked his and her signatures before folding it and placing it in my shirt pocket. I now had hard evidence of his corruption and her complicity in that corruption.

'Hopefully,' I thought, 'the video and voice recordings will support that evidence.'

"Now," I said, "I've got places to be and people to see. I've lost a day's work because of this bullshit."

I let Sam lead the young policeman out of the house while I lagged behind them. I watched as she veered to her left, deliberately knocking one of the two Chinese vases that stood in the entry foyer off its pedestal. She had never liked them but had learned to live with them when I'd told her they were rare examples of their kind and were quite valuable.

And that would have been true had they been the real thing. But they weren't. They were merely cheap imitations of the real thing. The original Ching dynasty vases from which they had been copied were sitting in the Melbourne Museum of Fine Arts, down in Victoria.

The cop ignored her blatant destruction of my property and kept walking, once again acknowledging their collusion in the unfolding drama.

'You fucking bitch!' I screamed silently as I heard it shatter on the marble floor. 'You pair will pay for that.'

Still carrying my camera, I shot off a series of images as they continued towards the door. It wasn't proof of who did it, but it showed they were in the same room and had witnessed the damage. If nothing else, it would support my insurance claim.

While they drove up to the front gate, I returned to the master bedroom and checked to see if they'd planted a surveillance device. It took me less than a minute to spot it. Keeping its discovery to myself, I returned to the kitchen, where I observed their progress through the video feed.

They were sitting in their cars, waiting for me to open the gate. I'm sure Sam was grinning like a village idiot, thinking she'd put one over me. She would also be happy that she'd destroyed one of the few material possessions she thought I valued.

I'm equally sure that Constable Leadbottom was looking forward to receiving the thirty pieces of silver - in whatever form that might take - he'd been promised for compromising his ethical standards. My guess is that he'd been promised a night with Sam.

---oooBJSooo---

With my soon-to-be ex-wife and her pet policeman gone, I loaded everything I needed into my car and headed into town to keep my appointment with my lawyer.

Stopping at the gate on the way out, I wrapped a length of high-tensile chain around the gate and the post to which it latched and another around the hinge end of the gate. Each chain was secured with an equally strong padlock containing an electronic sensor. They and the gate lock itself were synchronised and, when in place, made up a single lock unit. It wouldn't stop someone from cutting a fence to gain access to my property. But they wouldn't be able to do so without leaving evidence of their trespass. They'd then still have to get past the electrified inner fences and other security measures I'd installed in the house and outbuildings.

On the way into town, I called Tommy Jones and asked him to run a check on Constable Geoffery Leadbottom. I also asked him to identify and run checks on all the senior and junior partners at Moreton City Law.

"Things are beginning to heat up," I told him. "I'll pick up a burner phone to use for future contact. It might pay for you to do the same; just in case they start conducting electronic surveillance on me.

"It might pay to have a sweep done on my house. Sam and Constable Leadbottom visited me today. There's no telling what they got up to when they were out of my sight."

"I'll arrange for someone to come out to do a sweep for you tonight. What time would suit you?"

"I'll be tied up in town for a while," I answered, "and it looks like I'm going to be there for some time. Let's say ten o'clock."

"Okay. Ten o'clock, it is. Give me a call if that changes."

"Roger that," I responded.

"We'll talk more once I've picked up my burner," I said before ending the conversation.

---oooBJSooo---

It was a little after four-thirty when I entered my lawyer's office. After a few minutes of greeting and chit-chat, we got down to business.

"What the fuck is going on?" Brad asked. He was a bit 'earthy', was Brad. "Why am I receiving calls from people I know are associated with Moreton City Law suggesting that, if I had you as a client, I should drop you like a hot potato? The other suggestion was that if I didn't already have you as a client, I should refuse to take you on. It appears your balls have been painted black.

"From what I gather, that message is circulating throughout the whole of the legal community. It looks very much like - assuming MCL gets its way - the only people who might defend you against any pending legal action will be either incompetent, altruistic, or so recently minted that they wouldn't have the experience needed to defend you. Defend you against what, I don't know. I'm hoping that's what you're here to tell me."

"Before I tell you anything," I said, "I need to know which group you consider yourself to be in. Are you incompetent or altruistic? I know you're not freshly minted. So, where do you stand concerning MCL's instruction?

"You're here, aren't you?" he responded angrily. "You and I have been friends for a long time, Aaron - the whole of my thirty-four years, in fact. When have you ever known me to bow to bullies? How many fucking schoolyard brawls did we face together, standing back to back. The only time we haven't been there for each other was when you joined the Army to go off to fight bigger bullies, and I went to university to study for my law degree so I could fight them in a different way.

"If you are here to question my loyalty to you, you might as well pack up your shit and get the fuck out of my office - and my life, for that matter." He was really getting hot under the collar.

I wouldn't have put it past him to try to physically eject me from his building; through a window, if possible.

Our parents had been next-door neighbours, and Brad was right. I had known him from the time he was born. In fact, our parents would plonk the two of us into the same cot when they got together. We'd sit in that cot chatting for hours. Our parents had no idea what we said to each other. They only knew that we understood each and every word.

In our later years, we didn't need to talk. Whether in a fight or playing rugby or cricket, we instinctively knew what the other was thinking and planning. We were a winning combination; a quality recognised by our coaches in whatever sports we played.

Brad and I were closer than I was to my younger brother. The relationship became complicated - incestuous, even - when he married my younger sister. But complicated, only in the fact that I then had to share my best friend with my second best friend.

I was hoping that he and I still had our earlier connection. It appeared we did. I always knew how to get his blood up.

"So, altruistic, then," I said calmly. "Settle down, My Little Brother. You're the one who taught me to think things through and get everything out into the open - that was great advice when I was working as a long-range assassin, by the way. I'm sorry if I offended you, but I had to put the possibility of you becoming a pussy onto the table. Now I know you're as ready for a fight as you ever were, we can get down to business."

His face still red, Brad rose from his leather-covered executive chair, walked over to the bookshelves that lined one of his walls, and reached for one of the books as if retrieving it to bring it back to his desk. That wasn't his intention, however. As he pulled on the book, that whole section of the shelf swung away to display a fully-stocked bar. He lifted two crystal whisky glasses down, loading each of them with ice from the small fridge, and filled them with a large measure of The Balvenie fifteen-year-old, single malt Scotch.

When he brought the glasses back to his desk, he was smiling.

"I see you're still the same old bastard you always were," he said, handing me a glass and raising his.

"To hard-fought battles, past, present and future," he said in salutation. It was our old toast after we'd won another battle, either on the playing field or against a schoolyard enemy. It had evolved into a tradition to toast each other on the night before a football or cricket game.

"To battles," I responded.

"Mind you," I added, "I'll forgive you if you want to bail out of this fight once you hear the details. I'll think less of you, but I'll forgive you."

We both laughed as he resumed his seat.

It took me an hour to bring Brad up to date with the whole story, starting with our marriage - which he knew about as he had been my best man - and ending with my confrontation with Sam and her pet policemen earlier that day.

I let him download copies of the DVDs stored on my flash drive and the video file from the mini-cam I'd set up in the master bedroom. I also let him make copies of the audio files I'd collected on my phone while interacting with the young constable and transferred copies of the photos I'd taken to record the contents of Sam's safe.

Of course, one of the photos I'd taken of the DVD collection while copying them showed that the box contained not just the one disc noted on the police officer's receipt but fifteen. It also showed that not one of those disc cases carried the label, 'Happy Snaps - Holiday Videos'.

There was only one DVD for each of the first two years Sam worked for MCL, hinting at only one event each year starting in 2010. That indicated she had been participating in whatever she was up to for two years before we married.

Married or not, however, we were involved in an exclusive relationship during the eighteen months leading up to our marriage; or at least I thought we were. So far as I knew, her only trips away during that period were her mystery team-building seminars during the first trimester of each year.

The switch to more than one filmed event started in 2012, which was when she began accompanying partners on their out-of-town cases. That coincided with the introduction of a second disc into the collection. As these were generally shorter trips, I had to assume that each year's second disc was a compilation of the activities undertaken during those trips; including the one she took with Kingston in May-June of the current year to prevent us from celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary together.

The three-disc years started in 2016. That was the year Sam first started working under Kingston's direct control and the year of her first cruise conference. It was also the year that marked the beginning of the end of our faux marriage.

The current year, twenty-seventeen, was a repeat of the previous year. But, by the time Sam and Kingston returned from what I now refer to as their anniversary trip, our marriage was a bonfire awaiting a spark. That spark was provided on the night she offered me her lover's creampie and had become a blazing inferno by the time they publicly announced my cuckold status on Friday, December 15; just three days before my current meeting with Brad.

---oooBJSooo---

"Okay?" Brad asked. "Where do I fit in? And what miracles do you want me to perform?"

"First up," I said, "I want you to get me out of this sham of a marriage. But I want you to do it in such a way that the bitch never gets to see a single cent of my money or gets her hands on any of my assets.

"You've helped me set things up to prevent that from happening, I know. But I want you to double-check everything to ensure there are no loopholes.

"Once we've got those firewalls in place, I want you to help me to go after Moreton City Law and its partners. I've got someone digging into the life and times of every member of the legal hierarchy linked to the organisation. They are also looking into the firm's activities. It has been hinted that some of the senior partners - including Nathan-fucking-Kingston - may not be as squeaky clean as they would have everyone believe.

"I have it on good authority that he was the bastard who commissioned the attack on me last Friday night. While I've been able to prevent another attack from the same people, I have no doubt he hasn't done trying. After spitting in his face by throwing Sam out of the house, he might try for something a bit more adventurous next time.

"Just in case he's successful, I'd like you to change my will, so any assets not already covered under our previous arrangement revert to the trust. It'll then be up to Mum, Lisa and Jeremy whether they keep things going or dissolve the trust. It won't matter to me either way.

"I'll instruct the person doing the digging to let you have whatever he's collected should anything happen to me."

Brad was writing as I was talking.

"Are you just taking a breath?" he asked when I stopped speaking. "Or can I get a word in?"

"Speak, my son," I responded. "Just make it relevant. I don't want you prattling on with one of your courtroom sermons."

He had a habit of doing that while questioning a difficult witness. He'd bore them stupid and then hit them with the question he wanted answered. It was usually so far away from what he'd been talking about that they'd respond without thinking. Quite often, the result would be that the person in the witness box had admitted to something they had been vehemently denying for hours, days or months; years, in some cases.

"No sermons," he said, "although a couple come to mind like, 'I wish you'd come to me earlier'."

"Why is it that everyone I talk to about this keeps saying that?" I asked.

"Probably because it's true," he answered.

"But sermons aside, I have a couple of things to contribute to the discussion. The first is a suggestion that, as part of the rewriting of your will, you provide me with your enduring power of attorney. That way, I can get things moving on the transfer of your estate before anyone - namely, Sam - can lodge any claim on it. Under your current will, she holds that power of attorney.

"That's item one. Item two is a question about your intentions regarding your marriage to Sam. Do you intend to attempt a reconciliation with her if you can sort through this mess?"

"There is no way known that I want to have anything to do with her again. Ever!" I responded.

"Okay," he said. "I thought that was probably the case. But I had to get it onto the table; as you pointed out earlier.

"I don't know whether you know it, but Australian family law is federally controlled. Even if those DVDs show Sam gang-banging the whole crew of a cruise ship or fucking farm animals, they will carry no weight in your divorce case. The only grounds for the dissolution of a marriage under the currently applicable Family Law is 'Irreconcilable Differences'.

"And for that to be valid, the two parties must have been separated for at least twelve months. Even then, the parties have a further twelve months to lodge a claim on each other's assets unless an agreement has been reached at the time of the final divorce decree.

"Where those DVDs might come in handy, however, is if we were to use them as evidence in an application for the annulment of your marriage.

"Personally, I believe that if those videos show that Sam was spreading herself about - pardon my pun - before you and she were married, she had misrepresented herself and her commitment to fidelity. If we can then show that, unbeknown to you, she continued that behaviour after the marriage ceremony - during which she contracted to remain faithful to you - we should have a winning hand.

"My only reservation is that the group controlling Sam may have penetrated the Family Court system. We already know they've got a foothold in the police service, so we should also expect they've also found a few corrupt judges and magistrates.

"What are your thoughts?"

"I think we should go for an annulment," I said. "But I don't want to show our hand too early. Let's put it at the end of the queue for now. I think we can do a hell of a lot more damage with those DVDs before we use them for what is a relatively minor element in our campaign.

"If I have to wait another twelve or eighteen months before getting shot of her, so be it. But I don't want to waste valuable ammunition on such a minor target. I intend to go nuclear on these bastards. Who knows? A burning desire to bring me to heel and take everything I own might be the furthest thing from Sam's mind when this is all over and the dust finally settles.

"Speaking of burning," I said, digging into my laptop bag and sliding a cheap smartphone across the desk. It might be wise for us to limit our phone communications - as they relate to this project, at least - to burner phones.

"There's only one number in your contacts. That's mine. I'll give your number to my researcher so he can share anything he might find directly with you. Once you've got his number, you can communicate by text.

"Just one last thing, Brad," I said. I want your promise that If anything happens to me, you'll continue with the project and vaporise these people. I want to see or feel the explosion when the bomb goes off; regardless of where I might end up."

"You've got it," my lifelong friend said.

"Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night will stay me from the completion of my appointed task," he said, mashing up the Greek historian Herodotus' original quote.

Brad and I were leaving his office when my work phone vibrated, telling me I had received a text message. With so much happening so quickly, I thought it would be wise to check it.

"Watch your back," the message said. "The contract has been re-issued. This time, they have ordered a permanent solution." The message was unsigned, but I was in no doubt who had sent it.

I didn't recognise the number, so I assumed it had been sent from a burner phone. I entered the number into my own burner and sent a text back.

"Thanks for HU, Bro," I said. "IOU."

"It appears that the game is afoot, Horatio," I said to Brad as we waited for the elevator to come up from his building's basement carpark. "I think it might be wise for us to take the stairs down to the ground level and leave through the back door. We can come back to collect our cars tomorrow.

We stopped in at the King Alfred pub after leaving the building. While Brad organised a couple of beers, I called Tommy Jones, burner to burner.

"It didn't take you long to break with protocol," he said as soon as he'd answered. "I thought these things were supposed to be text only."

"They were," I said. "And, hopefully, they will be from here on in. But this is a bit too urgent to waste time texting.

"I've just received word that the bastard has put a hit order out on me. He apparently wants me out of the picture at the earliest opportunity. It appears he's not accustomed to having his orders challenged. We're going to have to move everything up.

"Have you managed to get a few members of the old team together?"

"What do you think I am?" Tommy asked. "A one-legged, three-toed sloth or something. You've been subject to an overwatch order since this morning. I loved the way you handled Sam and the cop, by the way.

"The two men who were waiting for you in your lawyer's carpark have been neutralised and will never be seen or heard from again. We know who they are - sorry, were - working for, and they, too, will receive a visit during the night. Their future will depend upon their willingness to abandon the contract. I'm not sure how tractable they will be.