this tape is a copy. It is for your eyes only.
August stood up and crossed to the TV and video-player in the corner of his office. He inserted the cassette and waited apprehensively for the picture to appear.
Initially the screen was a lined grey haze.
Then an image came on. Very sharp. Very clear. Very professional.
A man and a woman. Naked. Kneeling, face to face. The woman was working his erect penis with deft fingers. The man moaned: the video had a soundtrack. His face was screwed up tight in the agony of sexual ecstasy. He came, ejaculating across the woman’s lower belly. The sperm dribbled down to her pubic hair. The man sagged exhaustedly and the couple embraced. He laid his head on her shoulder and turned his face towards the camera. The screen faded to blackness. The whole thing was less than ninety seconds long.
The face of the woman had been erased from the video.
But the face of the man was very clear and identifiable.
The screen flickered back to life after a pause. This time it showed the same couple kneeling side by side over the bedside cabinet, apparently snorting cocaine.
This was a thirty-second clip. Then it all went black again.
August pressed the rewind button and played the tape once again. He held the last frame of the masturbation sequence for a few seconds and found himself staring helplessly into his own eyes.
He ejected the cassette and strode back to his desk, dazed and confused. He picked up the phone and dialled Janine’s number. Unobtainable.
August stood holding the phone to his ear, his eyes gazing out unseeingly across his beloved rugby pitch.
All he could see was his sperm splashing across Janine’s stomach and the end of his career.
Henry Christie drew his story to a close. Karen and Donaldson had been good listeners.
‘ So who was the guy?’ Donaldson enquired.
‘ Don’t know yet, maybe never will. Fingerprints haven’t thrown anyone up, so it’s possible he may have no previous convictions.’
‘ Henry — you did good,’ said Donaldson with a smile. He punched Henry on the shoulder.
Henry looked at them. They were grinning from ear to ear, continually exchanging sidelong glances. They were obviously very happy together. Karen’s eyes were shining. She was a completely different person from the strung-out individual Henry had encountered all those months ago. The ruthless career woman who gave no quarter had been replaced by a relaxed person with no edge whatsoever.
Henry liked the change. He had never felt comfortable with her until now.
‘ So what’s your news, Kar1? What’s happening on your side of the water?’
‘ Aww,’ he said dismissively, ‘Corelli’s still givin’ us the runaround and we don’t seem any closer to catching him. I’ll fill you in later. There’s something much more important to tell you.’
‘ We’re engaged to be married,’ blurted out Karen. She reached for Donaldson’s hand.
‘ Yep,’ said Donaldson. ‘You’re the first to know.’
Henry was pleased for them. They were two nice people. In fact, he felt a twinge of jealousy. ‘That’s good news,’ he said warmly. ‘You’re good for each other, but isn’t there a slight logistical problem with all this?’
‘ Well, yeah,’ admitted Donaldson. ‘We haven’t quite worked that one out yet, but we will. As the saying goes, love will find a way.’
After lunch with a visiting ACC from North Wales, Dave August returned to his office trying to believe that the tape was all a practical joke, that Janine would phone and explain it all away.
But once behind closed doors again, dark despair began to creep over him like a shroud of mist. Carefully, he removed the envelope he’d received that morning. Now it was in a clear plastic bag. He unfastened it, shook out the video and the photographs and gazed at them on his desk. They offended his eyes, made him feel sick.
He again slotted the video into the player and watched the action, mesmerised. He worked out where the camera had been situated. Now he saw why it had all been so easy and what a fool he’d made of himself.
‘ Shit,’ he said. ‘Sex, drugs and a Chief Constable.’
Presumably there was going to be a blackmail threat somewhere along the line. He would be ruined if the compromising material reached the people who were now considering his application for promotion to the Inspectorate. And what if members of the Lancashire police committee got hold of it? Or the press? August’s heart sank. And what about his wife? Or the kids?
Career, marriage, lifestyle — down the tubes.
He had everything to lose.
He began to sweat.
But what do I have to offer a blackmailer? he asked himself.
I’m not rich, so it can’t be money.
The only thing I possess is information…
He thought about it further, but nothing specifically interesting came to mind.
He locked his top drawer when he heard his office door open. In stepped his new staff officer — Chief Inspector Jenny Cornwall, — and announced that the discipline hearing was ready to kick off.
‘ Wheel ‘em in,’ he said. Some poor bastard of a PC was going to get hell this afternoon.
Henry found himself confronted by one of the most stunning-looking women he had ever met in his life when he left court that afternoon. It was the combination of gorgeous long legs, short skirt, silky blonde hair, upturned cheeky nose, bright eyes and a haughty, confident, no-nonsense look which did it, plus a subtle perfume which assaulted Henry’s nostrils like an aphrodisiac.
She had the particularly American way of speaking in short, punchy sentences.
‘ Hi, I’m Lisa Want. I’m from the Crime Bureau of the Miami Herald and I’m covering this here trial for that particular newspaper. I’d just love to do a piece about you, Sergeant Christie. Y’know the sort of thing — hero cop, dig a little into your background, et cetera. The American public just love reading about English cops, especially when they’re as good-lookin’ as you are…’
‘ Say no,’ said Donaldson, who had walked up behind him. ‘Don’t trust her — Joe Kovaks did and it nearly cost him his job.’
‘ Now don’t you go listening to that bitter an’ twisted ole FBI man,’ she purred to Henry with a pout. She flashed her eyelashes and he could have sworn he felt the draught. Her eyes moved momentarily to Donaldson and the look in them, just for a nanosecond, was pure hatred. Henry noticed it.
‘ It’s up to you,’ said Donaldson, ‘but I’d avoid her like the plague, scheming bitch.’
‘ I’m sorry,’ said Henry, and he truly was because the prospect of spending time with her was very appealing, ‘but I tend not to have a very good relationship with the media anyway.’ He shrugged sadly, and he and Donaldson walked out of the court.
Lisa clenched her teeth and stamped a foot on the floor, muttering ‘Karl Donaldson, you are a first-class cunt.’
Over in Dave August’s office, the discipline hearing was drawing to a close. The officer concerned had lost. August fined him heavily for discreditable conduct, severely reprimanded him and transferred him to another station. That would teach him to fuck the cleaner on the snooker table, even if he was now living with her. There was a time and a place for everything.
Forty minutes later August was driving through the streets of south Manchester, desperately trying to locate the house Janine had taken him to that night. But he couldn’t even begin to find it, even though he had driven there and back himself.
He pulled into the side of the road and parked, attempting to relive the journey in his mind. It was all a sexual haze — as no doubt it had been intended to be. He’d been driving the Jag, blindly following her directions while she masturbated him; at the same time his left hand was fumbling rather inexpertly with her clitoris. Both had been in moaning ecstasy. It was a miracle they hadn’t crashed.
When he’d left the house the morning after it’d been much the same scenario, except he couldn’t get a full
