Jigsaw Lovers (24 page)

Looking at the videos Hamilton remembered what he went through at the time of Victoria’s death. How he couldn’t sleep for more than an hour or two a night for the first three months; how he would dream that she was with him, that she was alive and full of fun, and then for a brief moment as he awoke he would think her death was just a terrible nightmare. It was as he awoke that the real nightmare began and an unpleasant and cruel reality had to be faced with each new dawn.

Hamilton could see from the tapes that he had been successful in replicating and harnessing the power of love to inflict a wound on John Smith that would never heal.

The first part of his planned scheme of revenge was progressing as he had envisaged.

Smith was now an emotional weakling.

Time to apply more pressure.

There had been no follow-up to the photograph for over a month now and Smith was beginning to relax. That was until Carol brought him the morning post. He saw the large brown envelope marked ‘Private, Personal and Confidential’ and the blood drained from his face.

The postmark was from Cape Town like all the others. Slowly, with his heart beating quickly, he slit the top of the envelope open. Inside was an audio CD. There was no indication as to what the CD contained, or who had sent it, but he felt a sense of trepidation when he remembered what the other brown envelopes had contained. He tried not to think about what might be on the disk.

There was no CD player in the office to listen to it on, and he had a full morning of appointments. He would have to wait until lunchtime.

The morning had been a terrible ordeal for him. He found it difficult to concentrate on his customers’ problems, as his mind kept returning to his own. Every one of his meetings had gone on far longer than anticipated and it was after one before the last client left. Picking up the CD he left the Bank and headed for his car which was parked across the street in a municipal park.

He climbed into the driver’s seat, put the key in the ignition and turned on the radio. He inserted the disk into the player. A few seconds of hissing and then Diana’s voice came through the speakers loud and clear.

‘Ooh, that’s lovely … . ah harder, harder … don’t stop …. oh John you’re so good. I’ve never had a bank manager before, Mr Smith. Perhaps I should call you my bonk manager.’
Then his own voice saying
, ‘That’s very funny, I like it.
’ He remembered the episode clearly. It was at the beginning of their relationship. How he missed her. Just hearing her voice again after all this time brought back all sorts of pleasant memories, which were lurking just below the surface of his consciousness. Where had she gone?

There was nothing more on the disk. He played it again, with his eyes closed, reliving the moment, which only a few months ago had brought him such enormous happiness.

He sat in the car for a while wondering what to do. He knew for certain now that Diana’s flat had been deliberately bugged. The camera hadn’t been left behind from the aunt’s days. He assumed the same people who sent him this disk also sent him the photograph.

But why? He was still no closer to coming up with any reason as to why somebody should be doing this to him. What did they hope to gain by it? Why hadn’t they communicated their demands to him yet?

Then another thought struck him. Was Diana a party to the bugging and the photograph? No. He had already dismissed that idea weeks ago. She was genuinely in love with him as much as he was with her. More so, in fact. Of her innocence he was convinced. She would have had to maintain a facade everyday for three months, and he felt sure that he would have noticed if she had been doing so. If she wasn’t involved, then could this possibly have anything to do with her disappearance?

He walked slowly back to the Bank. The last thing he wanted to contend with this afternoon was begging clients.

By the time he arrived home he thought it impossible that the day could become any worse.

‘Hello darling,’ his wife shouted from the kitchen as she heard him come in through the front door. He mumbled a reply, as he went over to the cupboard where the drinks were kept. Without offering his wife one he poured himself a large whisky and took a big gulp. He shivered momentarily and then drained the glass. Refilling it he relaxed a little and turned to look at his wife.

‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked.

‘Not at the moment, thank you, perhaps later.’ She tried to keep the sound of worry out of her voice, and not to come over as being disapproving.

Recently she had noticed that John had started drinking quite heavily. Ever since they had been married he had only been an occasional social drinker, the odd beer or glass of wine with friends. But now he always drank when he returned from work and invariably opened a bottle of wine with their supper, sometimes two, the majority of which he drunk.

‘How was your day, John? You look tired out. Are you sure you’re not working too hard?’

‘The usual. People begging for money, with pathetic excuses as to why they’re late with their repayments. You wouldn’t believe some of the stories they come up with to try and wangle money out of me. They must think I’m gullible or born yesterday.’

‘Don’t let it worry you too much. Once you get your promotion you’ll be able to put all those clients behind you. You’ll have an assistant who will have to put up with them,’ she said reassuringly.

‘Its not a hundred percent certain that I’ll get it, you know.’ He didn’t like to tempt fate.

‘But you’ve worked so hard, John. Until recently I hardly ever saw you before midnight, what with all those extra meetings you were attending. And then you were leaving really early in the morning. You deserve the promotion. I’m so proud of you.’ She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

‘Thank you, Catherine. It’s good to know I can always count on you.’

‘Let’s have Stephanus and his wife over for Sunday lunch. We haven’t seen them for a while, and it might help your promotion prospects.’

‘Yes, that’s probably a good idea. I’ll invite him for next week.’

It was at times like this that he felt a twinge of guilt for having cheated on her with Diana. She was a wonderful wife and mother and it made him wonder about his behaviour. He considered whether he should confess to Catherine and beg her forgiveness, but that was probably not a good idea. He didn’t want to upset her unnecessarily, and he was also too scared should her reaction not be forgiving.

They chatted away as she carried on cooking. She told him about how well the girls were doing at school, and that they were making cakes for the church fete on Saturday. They wanted him, as he was a bank manager, to organise a cashbox and take money at the entrance.

During these moments he was able to ignore the worries he had concerning the photograph and the
CD, and he could even almost not think about Diana.

Later as they were eating the dinner she had prepared Catherine remembered something else she had to tell John. ‘The woman from the DVD-hire shop phoned this afternoon. Said something about the DVD you ordered being ready.’

‘Really? I haven’t ordered anything for months.’

‘She said it was “Love Story”. I said that sounded most unlike your choice of movie, but she had your name and membership number. I said I’d get you to phone her later.’

‘I haven’t ordered a movie, and you’re right I certainly wouldn’t go for something like that. Who was it that called?’

‘I wrote it down.’ Catherine went over to the note pad by the side of the telephone. ‘She said her name was Diana. That’s right, Diana Johnston. Sounded very English.’

He dropped his knife and fork with a crash onto his plate and begun choking on his last mouthful, spitting chunks of food across the table.

The impossible had just occurred. His day had become worse.

Carol, John Smith’s secretary, was opening the mail as she did every morning. There was the usual assortment of correspondence as one would expect for the day-to-day running of a high-street bank. The last envelope she picked up was A4 in size, brown and stiffened. A sticker across the front said ‘
PHOTOGRAPHS DO NOT BEND
’. She carefully sliced across the top and removed the contents. When she saw what she had in her hands she gave a startled cry and then began to giggle uncontrollably.

There were half a dozen full colour prints of a man and women engaged in sex in various positions. To her astonishment she realised that the man who featured prominently in the photos was none other than her boss.

But what really surprised her, apart from the fact that she couldn’t imagine Mr Smith ever having sex, was that he was doing it with one of the Bank’s clients, Diana Johnston. What on earth was such a beautiful, pleasant and sophisticated woman as Miss Johnston doing in bed with boorish, fat, middle-aged, married, father of two, Mr Smith. Surely she would have no trouble in finding numerous other men far more handsome and fun than the old windbag.

She wondered what she should do with the pictures. They were addressed to John Smith. The other girls in admin would love to see them. What a laugh they would have. No one would ever imagine or believe that Smith was capable
of this. But then he would be bound to find out and probably have her fired. Better just give them to him with the rest of the post and pretend it was nothing out of the ordinary. If he wanted to say anything then that was up to him, but from now on she would view him in a totally different light.

She was having one final glance through the photographs when she realised that Mr Smith was approaching her desk.

‘Where’s this morning’s mail?’ he snapped, ‘its almost nine. Why’s it late?’

‘I was just about to bring it through, Mr Smith,’ she mumbled as she hastily put the photos back in the envelope, and handed him the pile of letters.

‘You know I like to go through my mail before the bank opens. It can be very important as to how I conduct my day. Make more of an effort in future.’ With that he snatched up the envelopes and returned to his office. What a rude bastard. Not to worry. She allowed herself a chuckle as she thought of the shock Smith was going to get when he saw the contents of the brown envelope, and how he conducted his day in the light of that. No wonder he had always been in such a good mood whenever Miss Johnston telephoned or had an appointment. It all began to make sense now.

A few minutes later she heard a muffled scream from Smith’s office.

‘Carol, come in here! Carol.’

She rose from her chair, straightened her skirt and walked through to Smith’s office. He was looking very pale, his head in his hands, with the photographs spread out on his desk. Pushing himself back in his chair he turned to her,

‘Why did you open this? I’ve told you not to open my personal mail. How dare you open it.’ He glared at her, trying to frighten her in an attempt to cover his own fear and foreboding.

‘But sir, it wasn’t marked personal. Look at the envelope, if you don’t believe me,’ she said indignantly. ‘I didn’t know what was in it.’

‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I’ve been under a lot of strain recently.’ He was trying to explain the situation.

She was not going to be easily pacified. ‘If you don’t like the way I open your mail, I won’t do it in future. You can open your own letters.’

‘Carol, I’m sorry. Please sit down.’

She sat on the edge of the chair in front of his desk and found it difficult to view him in the same light as she had done before she had opened that envelope ten minutes ago. A trace of a smile began to appear on her face, as she realised the new position of power she was now in.

‘Have you shown these to anybody else?’ He wasn’t quite so bullying.

‘Of course not, sir. How could you think I’d do such a thing? I wouldn’t dream of it.’ It looked as though she might cry.

‘No, of course you wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Carol. Please don’t tell anyone.’ He tried to think of some way of explaining the photographs. ‘I’m convinced someone is trying to blackmail me and until we find out who it is, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone else.’

This didn’t seem very likely to her. The old pervert had probably taken them himself. She’d always thought he was a bit kinky. Boring people like Mr Smith weren’t the type who got blackmailed. Rich interesting people were blackmailed.

‘I won’t say a word, sir.’

‘Thank you, Carol. I’ll call you if I need you.’

She was about to leave when a thought struck her. Time to put her theory about the new balance of power to the test. ‘Have you had a chance to consider my application for re-grading, sir?’ A month ago she had submitted the forms and a request for promotion to senior secretary based on her responsibilities and duties as she saw them, and so far there had been no response from Mr Smith.

Smith was about to tell her to get out when he suddenly realised the predicament he was in.

‘It’s on my list of things to do today,’ he said lamely.

‘Thank you, sir. I was just wondering, that’s all.’ She was going to leave it at that but then couldn’t resist adding, ‘Miss Johnston is very photogenic, isn’t she? And they’re quite flattering of you too, sir.’ With that she turned and left the room.