As the Clock Struck Ten

by Gill Mather

  “Wasn't that rather an extreme thing to do, to go fishing about in your daughter’s bedroom for condom packets?”

  “I’d have to agree. I was very ashamed of myself afterwards. I wished I hadn't done it. But it was completely innocent.”

  “Mr. Morrison, the forensic examination of the sheets taken from Emma’s bed found your semen on them. How do you account for that?”

  Don went white. He felt unable to say anything. When faced with the impossible the mind will cast about to make some rational sense of it nonetheless. The most outlandish scenarios paraded through his mind. Somnambulism, teleportation, astral projection. Other more realistic but totally unacceptable possibilities involving members of the household also floated in and out of his consciousness. He had to give an answer. He answered honestly:

  “I don't know.”

  “Did you ever have sex in Emma’s bed with your partner Mrs. Bennett?”

  “No.”

  “Did you or your partner change the bed clothes on Emma’s bed after she left to go to France?”

  “Er. No.”

  “What make of fabric detergent do you use at your house?”

  “I don't know. Grace does the washing and buys the shopping. I don't understand. What’s that got to do with what you’re accusing me of?”

  “I’ll have to ask you to just answer the questions for the time being please.”

  Martin spoke. “I'd like to have some time to speak to my client alone please.”

  “Well, I’m sure we’d all like to get this wrapped up as soon as possible. So if we could just continue….”

  “It wasn’t a question. I want to talk to my client on his own. Now.”

  “Very well. Interview suspended at twenty twenty hours.”

  BACK IN THE LITTLE room, Martin was laying out his thoughts.

  “Something’s not right. It’d be my guess that the forensic results have chucked up a can of worms the police can't interpret. I’m afraid to my mind it goes back to what I was saying earlier, that someone made a false allegation to the police and it now appears to me too that someone somehow messed up the bed so that your semen would be on it. I reckon that in fact they, forensics I mean, found your semen and your partner’s vaginal fluid on it and not Emma’s.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. So someone put it there. Or rather put them there. You’re going to have to think hard who that could have been and how.”

  Don swallowed. “Yes.”

  “But right now, I think we should at this point call their bluff.”

  “You mean….?”

  “I mean we tell them to arrest and charge you or let you leave.”

  “But I don't want to be arrested or charged!”

  “Don. Think about it. There's the coincidence as you mentioned of another person coming forward about now. And they were asking you some strange questions in there. Why ask you about washing the bed clothes since Emma left? Why ask you if you and Grace went and had sex in Emma’s bed? And for heaven’s sake why ask you about the make of detergent you use? It might be relevant at some point but right now it looks to me as though the sheets were changed and the bed doctored to include your semen and your hair. We don't know what other anomalies the forensic results might have thrown up. We’ll have to demand the forensic report. But for now we get you out of here as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes. Please do.”

  DON WAS DRIVEN home by Martin. He texted Grace on the way. He wasn't sure why he didn't just call her, but he had a lot to think about. It was dark by the time he got home. Exhausted he thanked Martin and let himself in. Grace was waiting in the sitting room and rushed up to him, throwing her arms round his neck.

  “I’m so glad you’re home,” she said

  “You’re not kidding.”

  He refused tea or a drink. He couldn't be bothered with a “nice warm bath”. He didn't want to hear about her efforts to contact Luke and Emma or read the email saying Emma was OK. Smiling weakly at her, he said he’d take a couple of paracetamol and go straight to bed. Nothing she said could induce him to relate to her his experiences of the last several hours.

  017 The Meeting

  GREG AND RYAN sat clutching pints on opposite sides of the small table. Greg moaned that the tables were far too small, apparently to make room for the new restaurant area since the place had had a makeover. But at least it meant they were closer to each other and didn’t have to bawl at the tops of their voices over the loud repetitive music, another innovation since the so-called "upgrade" by the new owners. Ryan wholly approved of the changes and would have preferred to go to an even more modern bar since this place, near to a station on the main line so that Greg could drink to excess and then hop on a train home and take a taxi the last couple of miles, still seemed out of place and had about it the feel of a nineteen sixties estate pub. But it was close to Ryan's home and he could walk back. Greg might conveniently have been asked to stay the night but Ryan's wife Cheryl couldn't stand Greg. One visit a year at Christmas or Easter was quite enough for her and totally exhausted her Greg meter.

  Father and son tried to meet up like this at least once a month usually on a Monday as this evening. Luke had been persuaded to go with his dad a couple of times but found Greg's self-congratulatory tone and Ryan's mild sucking up totally nauseating. Luke himself had always tended to go head to head with his father. Ryan on the other hand always towed the line, always had since they were children. Ryan however was seven years older than Luke and so their childhoods hadn't overlapped for very many years.

  Nevertheless the brothers were close and got along well together. A ten year old Ryan had tried to shield little Luke from his father's worst excesses. Gay bashing; tempers over work-related problems and the sorts of things their father did to protect his position; Greg's views on the state of the world; Greg's insecurities about marriage, their mother, his job; the atmospheres created when their mother tried to enquire about Greg's absences or other discrepancies or evidence of philandering. Ryan was aware of all the tensions and tried to divert his little brother's attention so that Luke would grow up, he hoped, never knowing what a complete shit his father actually was.

  It had worked up to a point. Luke wasn’t aware of the likely infidelities so far as Ryan knew, though the dirty tricks Greg boasted about playing on his colleagues and the various insecurities couldn't really be hidden within the household. And Ryan couldn't protect Luke from Greg's adverse reactions to his younger son's growing artistic leanings, and enmity had inevitably emerged and had spread into most areas as Luke progressed through his teens.

  But Ryan still felt close to his father who had survived in industry all these years and given them a good living. By the time there was enough money, Ryan was too old to be sent away to boarding school and he wasn’t at all academic anyway which he knew quite well therefore his father rubbing it in hadn't made much difference to him. Luke could have pursued the high-flying engineering, business or science career that Greg wanted for his sons. Luke would have none of it. He just wanted to paint and it drove their father mad!

  So, being the thicker son who had somehow regardless of his limitations made good in the world of commerce, Ryan now basked in his father's approval. He had started at the bottom and, by dint of hard graft, worked his way up to a reasonable position in management, something incidentally which had eluded his father due quite possibly to the dirty tricks he was so proud of.

  Father and son sat and exchanged anecdotes about work, the various intrigues going on, industrial secrets which they both loved to disclose to each other and any hinted mergers or takeovers they had heard about and got drunker and drunker together.

  Greg knew that Ryan was hoping for a big promotion within his company. He had been with the company three years and, to Greg's mind, this meant that he should either have moved on by now as he had urged Ryan to do, or get this promotion. Ryan was fairly confident of the promotion but he had a rival who was just as likely to get the
coveted position as he was.

  "So," Greg said, "what advantages has this Dean got over you?"

  "Well, he's been with the company for longer. In fact he actually got me the job in the first place more or less. He's got better qualifications than me. But our sales results are actually about the same and I reckon the boss favours me actually, more so than Dean."

  "Oh? Why do you think that is then?"

  "I'm not sure. Not really."

  "What do you mean, not really?"

  "It’s nothing much."

  "There's no such thing as nothing much in business. Have you got something on him because it sounds like it?" Greg hadn't survived in the cut-throat world he felt he inhabited all these years without being able to sense a chink in someone's armour, even that of someone whom he'd rarely met such as this Dean. Ryan, like Luke, had tended to keep his friends away from the home where his father might not be trusted to behave in a seemly manner or not say things that would embarrass.

  "We've known each other for years. We know practically everything about each other," said Ryan.

  "So you know what he's done then."

  "Well. This and that."

  "Look Ryan. There's obviously something. You just tell me and then I'll tell you whether I think it's worth using in relation to this promotion."

  "It happened years ago. Before I even got that job with the company. It doesn’t mean anything now."

  "So what is it then?"

  “Well,” Ryan hesitated, “he, Dean, slept with the boss's wife and I reckon the boss suspects something. But it was before he got me the job with the company. I couldn't use it now. It'd be totally underhand. He's my friend."

  "Hmm. Have you got any proof of it?" Greg tried not to sound too interested. He knew what his older son, both his sons, were like. Complete wimps when it came to anything even slightly unscrupulous.

  "Well he sent me a selfie at the time."

  "What do you mean a selfie?"

  "Him and her. In bed together. Although she was totally out of it by the look of it."

  "Well you haven't any choice do you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "You have to send it to the boss don’t you. If you've still got it of course. You have haven't you?"

  "Probably somewhere. I download everything to my laptop and transfer everything when I buy a new one. But I can't do it. He was only twenty three or four at the time. We were mates having a laugh. He hadn't got a girlfriend then. And I wasn’t even working for the company."

  "So how far gone is Cheryl?" said Greg.

  "Six months. You know that!"

  "And what's the pay rise?"

  "I've told you," Ryan sighed, "forty, maybe fifty."

  "Look it's a no-brainer. I bet this Dean hasn't got a baby on the way. And you haven't slept with the boss's wife. You have to use it! He’d do the same if the positions were reversed. Anybody would."

  "I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right."

  "Look. If you don’t want to do it yourself, email the picture to me and give me the boss's email address and I'll do it. I'll do it so that it never has to be traced back to you."

  "But Dean'll know."

  "Perhaps. But he might have sent it to lots of mates at the time. You know, bragging about bedding the boss's wife."

  "I suppose he might."

  "`Course he did. Let me have it and I'll sort it out." To appear casual he added, "If you've still got it."

  "OK."

  "So you'll look for it and email it to me."

  "I'll try."

  "Listen Ryan. I've never cheated on your mother. No matter what you might think or what your mother's accused me of, I haven't. And it's your mother who's gone off with another bloke isn't it. Not me with another woman. Just email the picture to me with any caption he used. Or if there's more than one send me all of them and I'll sort it. No-one'll ever know it was anything to do with you." Ryan still didn’t seem convinced. And the alleged fidelity on his father's part had of course to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

  "Look Ryan. You deserve that job. You've worked for it. And just think what a nice house you could buy for you and Cheryl and the baby with an extra fifty grand a year. It's a no-brainer son. You know it is."

  "But Dean might lose his job!"

  "And he hasn’t ever told you he was looking for other jobs? Got job offers and then gone to the boss and asked for more money? If he's after promotion he's probably doing it now too isn't he?" Seeing Ryan's face he new this was true. "He is isn't he! Listen Ryan, where money and jobs are concerned, all's fair. It's dog eat dog. If you sit back and wait for great things to happen, someone else'll just overtake you while you're waiting. That's how it is! Send me the selfies and I'll sort it out. Leave it to me and you’ll get the job!"

  "Well OK. Er, I suppose there’s no sign of mum coming back?”

  "Not quite yet. But I’m hopeful.” Torching the man's house, Greg thought darkly, was too good for the smug bastard. He hoped he'd delivered a blow that would cause far more mayhem and anguish for far longer than a mere physical catastrophe. And in truth a fire wasn’t something even he would seriously contemplate. Good for a threat and it certainly put the wind up people but he couldn't risk people being killed, especially not Grace.

  “Oh yeah?” Ryan knew his dad’s motto was “spread enough shit and something’s bound to grow”. Ryan didn't ask any more. He didn't want to know. “And Luke?” he asked instead.

  “Oh, he’s buggered off to France with the daughter.”

  “Really? What you mean…. The jammy little sod!”

  “Too right. But I’d rather you didn't say anything to anyone about that, or that I told you. Not even your mum. It’s not common knowledge and I expect your mum’d prefer to keep it that way. And I’m not supposed to know. I just know someone who does know.”

  “Yeah, `course.”

  This conversation had spanned several trips to the bar to fill up by both of them. The loud music seemed to have dulled and when they both got up, Ryan felt unsteady and Greg swayed a little. Father and son giggled and supported each other to the door. There was no-one, Ryan thought, like your family, those who especially had your best interests at heart, most specifically in his case his father who had always supported him, not necessarily uncritically but without rancour in his eyes.

  Ryan and Greg parted at the end of the road and Ryan walked unsteadily the half mile or so to his home. He let himself in, went up and kissed Cheryl who was asleep, went back down and got a can from the fridge which he took to their small study off the hall. He dug out his laptop from its case and fired it up. It took twenty minutes and another can of lager before he found the old folder with the photos and attached them to an email to his father. Just in case however, he used an email address that had no obvious connection to him and included no message, apart from the boss’s email address, nor any heading.

  GREG PAID OFF THE taxi and let himself into the house. It was late but before going upstairs, he grabbed his laptop and went and sat in the lounge, started it up and checked his emails. If he knew anything about Ryan, his son would have emailed him as soon as he got home. He always followed his dad’s advice. Amongst all the rubbish and spams, he nearly missed the email from Ryan. It was from an odd address but the “No subject” gave it away. Greg rubbed his hands together. Like father, like son, he thought. Or at least Ryan was learning. He chuckled as he opened and scrolled through the photos. You couldn't help but admire the bloke really, this Dean. He half wished either of his own sons had the gall to go and screw the boss’s wife, though of course it didn't look like Luke was ever going to have a boss, the rate he was going.

  Satisfied he closed down his laptop and took himself upstairs hoping that Alex wouldn't be lying up there completely starkers. She’d been quite a buxom little thing at the time he’d been playing around with her mother. He’d been sorely tempted to take a pop at her too at the time but the fall-out from being found to have had it away with a mi
nor was too terrible to contemplate. Apparently according to her others hadn't been so restrained and that rather put him off anyway, the thought of all those others having been through her when she wasn’t even yet thirteen years old.

  Now Alex was anything but buxom. However when she’d found out in July that Grace wasn't living with him any longer, she’d been round like a shot offering herself to him on a plate. Who could refuse? And no under-age problems either now. It had been a bit of a shock though when she’d first taken her clothes off. He’d honestly never seen such a scragend of a girl. That had kind of turned him off; that was until he’d climbed into bed with her and discovered that it was like copulating with a child, a little girl. Something about it, about her bony little body, gave him a hell of a buzz. He’d experienced considerable guilt at feeling like that but he found he couldn't stop. And like a child, she didn't expect anything in return. She just let him do it. He didn't want to get her pregnant but if that did happen, she’d have to get it sorted out. She would it appeared do anything for him. And she was emotionally very needy which enabled Greg to feel he was in complete control.

  She told him about her conversations with Emma Morrison, where Emma lived and everything. That, and what it felt like to have sex with someone who looked and often behaved like a child and who had been abused as a child herself, was what gave him the idea.