I was surprised and, admittedly, rather impressed by this sudden decisive act, but managed to hold back an unfriendly remark. “Splendid, thank you.” Something came to my mind. “There’s one thing I haven’t told you yet. When we were prowling Mason & McGant last night, I happened to notice a few DVDs in Oliver’s old office. Just as I wanted to bring it up, we were startled by security.”
Sandra chewed loudly before she spoke. “Alright, so you saw a bunch of old DVDs. So what?”
“They weren’t movies or anything like that – I noticed ascending dates on the side. When I took the one marked ‘2006’ off the shelf, I saw the title: ‘paralegals’ with a number of names, including Oliver’s. In 2006 he started working for Mason & McGant.” I remembered how happy he was when he heard he’d been hired to work at the largest illustrious law firm in Amsterdam. At that time we’d just moved in together in a tiny, one-bedroom flat in the south of the city.
I seemed to have caught Sandra’s attention. “So what do you think these DVDs are about?”
“I really don’t know. But the very fact that there’s no simple and benign explanation for them makes me think that they contain something that’s worth viewing. A clue that may help propel our search for answers.”
“It’s a possibility. So what are you suggesting? Do you want to go back to Mason & McGant?” Her decisive attitude from before had given way to a vibe of nervousness. “The last time we were lucky the security guards didn’t find us. I’m not sure if I want to take the risk again.”
I heard Tim starting to toss and turn in his bed, through the baby monitor. It wouldn’t be long before he’d wake up and call out for me. I hated being dependent on this woman, who had turned my life upside down, but I swallowed my pride and pleaded with her. “I have to do this, Sandra. I need to find answers – I simply can’t just let it rest. Would you please go with me one last time?”
She released her breath with a long, weary sigh. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking of me? You know my husband is a partner at Mason & McGant. If you and I get caught, he’ll find out all about it and my marriage will be on the line.” Even though she’d been quite gloomy about the relationship with her husband up until now, she seemed adamant to save it and obviously cared for her spouse. Or perhaps, on reflection, the comfortable life she appeared to lead might depend too heavily on her marriage.
I was desperate and felt forced to play the trump card I’d kept in reserve for a time like this. “I understand what you’re saying. Honestly.” I winced. “But in all fairness, Sandra, you owe me.”
It seemed to work. “Wow, that’s really below the belt, Jennifer,” she scoffed. She gave another sigh. “Fine, I’ll help you out. Just know I’m really putting my neck on the line here – it’s the final thing I can do for you. After this, you’ll need to stop badgering me.”
“Thank you. I genuinely appreciate it,” I said, trying to placate her.
“I have a party at the Club tonight,” Sandra said and I had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m available tomorrow night,” she added.
“Let’s meet earlier this time, four in the morning. Who knows we might just avoid the surveillance rounds,” I said.
After we hung up, I intended to call my mother to ask her to take care of Tim for another night, but changed my mind. I knew I’d be able to make someone else tickled pink with a sleepover. I searched my contacts and pressed the green button.
“Bernadette Smits,” my mother-in-law said formally, even though she could have seen my name flash up on her display.
“Hi, it’s Jennifer. How are you doing?”
“Hello Jennifer. I’m alright, thank you. Just keeping myself occupied with playing golf, tennis and bridge, but the days sometimes seem endless.” She paused for a moment. “In the evening I’m relieved I made it through another day and that I can go back to bed.” I felt a stab in my heart when I thought about how I’d feel if I’d have lost my son. My husband had been taken away from me, but Bernadette had been bereaved of her oldest child, her only son, forever.
“I was wondering how you’d feel if Tim comes to sleep over at your place tomorrow evening? He’d really enjoy it,” I tried to charm her.
Her voice softened. “You have no idea how delighted we would be. Darling,” she called out, presumably to her husband. “Timothy is coming to stay with us tomorrow.”
I agreed with Bernadette that I’d bring him over tomorrow afternoon and hung up.
15
This time I arrived at our destination earlier than Sandra. I looked around, a feeling of uneasiness and apprehension in my throat. In the distance I could make out a couple of vagrants lying curled up together in the moonless night. I clutched my handbag, containing my laptop, tightly under my arm. Snow had been forecast for tonight, but luckily as yet I’d failed to notice any precipitation.
I glanced at my watch – it was five past four. What was taking her so long? Surely, she wouldn’t stand me up, would she? A shudder ran through my body. I was just about to ring her, until, to my great relief, I saw a familiar figure from afar running towards me.
Moments later Sandra stood next to me, catching her breath. “So sorry,” she panted. “My husband woke up out of the blue. I had no alternative but to wait until he was fast asleep again.”
“No problem.” I said and frowned. “What if he’ll wake again and notice you’re not in bed anymore?”
A sad look appeared on her face. “He’ll probably assume I’ve gone to the guest room. Happens more often than not.”
I shrugged my shoulders. I had a hard time keeping up with the ups and downs of her marriage. “Quick, let’s go.”
We scurried towards the entrance of the stately building, held Sandra’s key card against the reader and entered the lobby. After waving as casually as possible to security, we took the lift to Mason & McGant on the fifth floor.
We tiptoed down the corridor, which was only lit by a few night lamps, and entered Oliver’s former office where we immediately closed the door behind us. I had no desire for another surprise visit from a security guard.
The rack with the DVDs was still located in the corner of the room. Sandra seemed to follow my gaze and spotted it. I felt sweat forming in my palms. Something was drawing me towards them, I had to watch those DVDs.
I opened my laptop, which was on standby, while Sandra pulled a DVD from the shelf. She held the disk, labelled ‘2006’, questioningly up in the air and whispered. “This one first?”
I nodded and nerved myself to insert the disk into the reader. I felt sick with apprehension about what we were going to watch. I’d driven myself crazy the past few days trying to find a sensible explanation for what could be on those DVDs.
A menu appeared on the screen, displaying various names. We clicked on Oliver’s and a film started playing.
A dark room with a cocktail bar was the first thing that was visible. Red leather benches were arranged in a U-shape on which scantily clad ladies draped themselves over a bunch of willing men, a look of lust glistening in their eyes. Deafening dance music boomed out of the speakers and drowned out the conversations. The cameraman was moving slowly through the room, but the image remained stable as he recorded everything meticulously. We had to be dealing with a professional here, not someone taking a random video with a mobile phone.
Men with unbuttoned smart shirts and loose ties casually hung over their shoulders staggered to their feet, swaying in and out of the footage, while the brightly coloured disco lights illuminated the sweaty faces of hollering party people on the dance floor. I recognised a number of Oliver’s former lawyer colleagues.
“That’s up here,” Sandra muttered, a look of horror slowly spreading across her face. “It’s Mason & McGant’s private bar, on the top floor of this building.”
I felt lost for words and merely nodded.
The cameraman suddenly swung to the right and then headed for the cocktail bar. He zoomed in on a young woman with a perfect fi
gure lying on the bar, wearing nothing but purple lace knickers. She arched her back, making her artificial looking breasts stand proudly and daringly upright. The lawyers were whooping with arousal at the young woman.
I cursed. “What the hell is this?”
The cheers of the men intensified. “Do it, do it,” they chanted with glasses of transparent liquor in their raised hands. The camera zoomed in on the girl’s bosom. A line of white powder lay perfectly straight in between her two breasts, waiting to be snorted. And then, out of nowhere, a man appeared in view.
Something snapped in my head. I could hear my blood rhythmically whooshing in my ears and for a brief moment, it drowned out the noise of the film. Stupefied, I swayed slightly and for a moment I thought I was going to pass out.
A much younger Oliver turned his head and looked dazed at the camera. He held a straw up for the camera to see and shouted with drunken bravado, “This girl wakes a mighty tiger behind my fly.”
He gesticulated wildly at the bunch of men to stimulate their clamour and placed the straw between the breasts of the girl, who was smiling sensually into the camera. Then he leaned over and snorted with all his might while the roars of the men rose to a crescendo and transitioned into a noisy applause. The man, who seemed like a stranger to me, staggered for a moment, but picked himself up again and started licking the young woman’s breasts. Oliver moved his tongue over this unfamiliar, yet intimate area as if his life depended on it, while his colleagues hailed his triumph.
I couldn’t stand to look at it for one more second and slammed the laptop shut, suddenly silencing the hubbub of laughter and shouting.
A sudden nausea took hold of me. I looked desperately around me for a bin or something that could pass for one. I already felt the first wave coming when I hurled myself toward one standing next to the desk. My stomach was emptying itself and pumping out acid so violently that I fell to my knees.
When it was all over, I was slumped over the waste bin, panting as if I’d just run a marathon.
Suddenly I felt Sandra’s warm hand on my back. “Are you okay?”
I took a moment to catch my breath and then nodded.
I slowly rose to my feet, rifling through my handbag, looking for a handkerchief and wiped my mouth in embarrassment. Sandra offered me some chewing gum that I gratefully accepted. I found my hand was shaking when I brought the piece of gum to my mouth.
She looked apologetically at her watch. “We shouldn’t linger. I think we need to examine the other recordings.”
She was right. We had no time to waste. I was unable to make a copy with my laptop, nor could we smuggle them out as someone might notice them missing. We had to inspect them now, although I dreaded to imagine what other disturbing content we would come across.
As we played the 2006 recordings one by one, I recognised some of the men. They were all Oliver’s former colleagues and each one of the videos was compromising to the paralegals involved, making my blood run cold. Various interactions with young, promiscuous ladies all with one common denominator – they should never be seen by anyone outside the firm.
I noticed the time on my phone. “We need to leave. It won’t be long before one of the guards comes along.” I thought back at how their appearance last time had made our teeth chatter, and shivered. The films we’d discovered had made me realise that the firm wanted to keep any anomaly a secret, at all costs.
Sandra nodded. “Let’s put the DVDs back on the rack. We’re no longer in need of them.”
We made sure to position them in the exact same way as we’d found them and hurried down to the exit.
As we raced across the corridor, my head was a jungle. Why were recordings made of so many paralegals? Who was the person behind the camera and who had scrupulously preserved the imagery? Was there a simple explanation of a colleague with a twisted sense of humour, or was there more to it? I looked at Sandra, but she looked straight ahead.
After an uneventful exit past security we left the building, and I noticed that everyday life on the square of the financial district was beginning to unfold for another day.
“Let’s have breakfast somewhere,” Sandra proposed. “My husband is starting work a bit later today so there’s no rush.”
I nodded, although I had no appetite – my stomach was still in knots.
Sandra looked around and then pointed in the direction of a coffee shop across the square. “What about over there?”
I shook my head. I wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible. All I wanted now was to go home, although I had no desire to take Sandra with me nor, paradoxically, did I feel like being alone at the moment. “I know a nice place just around the corner from my house.”
I had deliberately said ‘my’, instead of ‘our’ house. There was no more our or us – this much had just become apparent.
We decided to leave my car – I was in no condition to drive now – and take the tram.
We spent the tram ride in silence. My eyes strayed outside, to the cyclists racing through the streets, in lashing rain. I felt intensely sad.
When we reached my stop, I gestured to Sandra, who was sitting on the opposite side of the aisle, that we had to get off. There were hardly any tourists around, this early. I put up my hood for cover and without saying a word, I started walking over to the coffee shop. Slowly, here in my own, familiar environment, I could feel myself start to relax.
Sandra followed me inside and ordered some food for herself and two coffees, while I settled back in a seat next to a Japanese-looking businessman. I was freezing cold and cuddled up against the radiator.
“I don’t know what to say,” Sandra declared after she’d joined me.
I took a sip of my coffee and stared into the distance. “There’s nothing to say. My marriage didn’t mean a thing. It’s safe to say it was a farce. A show in which all players apparently knew it was a performance, except for me.”
Sandra touched my arm. “There, there. Don’t jump to conclusions now.”
I withdrew my arm and exploded. “Jump to conclusions?” I shot her a glare. “Do you not have eyes in your head? These videos leave little to the imagination.”
The Japanese businessman looked up curiously from his phone. I gave him a defying look – bite me.
She frowned. “Calm down. I’m not the one who did this to you.”
“That’s quite a flippant response. Try to imagine seeing your husband in that footage,” I said, but the sudden flurry of anger had already made way for a feeling of defeat. I wrapped my hands around the hot coffee mug, but still felt chilled to the bone.
Sandra stayed quiet, removed the wrapper from her cream cheese and started spreading it over her bagel.
I looked outside where dawn was breaking, resulting in a beautiful pallet of pink and blue hues. Who else would be in the know about the existence of those films, I wondered.
A queue had formed at the counter consisting of people in a rush to get breakfast to go, before their working day would start. I decided to apologise for my sudden outburst, which had become quite a common occurrence lately. “I’m sorry. It’s very hard to watch your husband with someone else like that. I’m sure you can imagine.”
She nodded and took a bite from her bagel.
I gave her a piercing look. “I never expected to dig up yet another surprise,” I said with air quotes.
She lowered her brown eyes. “I understand.”
“No, you don’t. Not really,” I responded and checked my tears. “You have no idea what it’s like to discover your marriage was a complete sham. Finding out your husband was involved in all kinds of deceitful exploits behind your back and you had no idea what was going on inside his twisted head. The worst thing is that I’ll never have the chance to confront him.”
Sandra paused and seemed to think for a moment. “Fair enough. I don’t know what it’s like to see images like that and find out that your husband has been cheating on you,” she admitted. “But I do know what
it’s like to be in a failing marriage.”
“Is your relationship so rocky?” I asked, forcing myself to sound sympathetic.
All of a sudden Sandra looked dewy-eyed and regretful. Blinking rapidly, she looked away, her lips twitching. “Our marriage has been in dire straits for years, but lately it’s tearing me up inside. Long story short – I’ve decided I’m leaving him. We won’t be able to patch things up anymore.”
I didn’t know how to respond and wondered if the affair with Oliver had played a role in this. “Are you sure? Maybe you should stick it out for a bit longer? Give it one last chance.”
She shook her head decisively. “No. I’m certain. You don’t just decide these things overnight. I’ve been thinking about it for months. We’ve been together since we were sixteen – high school sweethearts.” She snickered without mirth.
“Party’s over,” she concluded in an attempt to sound witty, but there was a profound look of sadness on her face.
She seemed to dither for a moment, but then carried on frankly. “Things went downhill between us when, after years of trying to conceive and going through cycles of IVF, we found out I’m infertile. We each dealt with this tragedy in our own way. My husband wanted to try and find a surrogate mother, but the prospect didn’t appeal to me at all.” She shook her head. “It would always feel like someone else’s child.”
I nodded and tried to think about what Oliver and I would have done if we’d been faced with this dilemma. Surely it would have taken its toll on us as well.
“I believe he’s always harboured resentment over it, although he’s never admitted it,” Sandra continued and shrugged.
“Why don’t you try going to therapy?” I asked. “I’m sure it could be helpful to address these open wounds with an outsider who has a fresh take on things.” I thought about Frederique who had once confided in me during one of our drinks. “I have a friend who told me it saved her marriage.”
Double Deceit Page 12
