The lady pushed her hair behind her
ears and then slipped the incriminating photos back into the envelope. She knew
of, but did not agree with the back-handers Jason had taken over the years; it
was his infidelity and devious lies that cut her right to her core.
“Damn you,” she muttered, and sitting
forward looked from keyboard to screen as she attached the scanned images to
the E. mail. Momentarily her manicured finger hovered over the mouse; she
paused, took a deep breath and clicked send.
*
Councillor Jason Hood placed his
Audi keys on the glass topped desk and took the post-it his P.A had stuck to
the monitor. Don’t forget Robyn’s wedding anniversary present, table’s booked
at Pierre’s 7.30 pm.
Coffee in one hand and mouse in the
other Jason navigated the cursor to the E. mail with, URGENT, in the subject
bar.
“What the …” he said, as he stared in
disbelief at the images of himself and the wife of a prominent businessman in a
compromising embrace, he read the text. Tomorrow,
7am usual routine, health suite, leave £10,000
in used notes in locker, swim, go to work, deviate from instructions your wife
and newspapers will receive copies of images. Jason’s usual coolness of
character left him as beads of cold sweat soaked his armpits. He felt sick to his
stomach at the realisation that his rising political career was about to take a
huge nose dive into oblivion if he did not act wisely. Robyn, well, he had to
admit she still looked a charm on his arm, but he was starting to get quite
bored of their marriage.
*
Robyn put down her glass of Chablis
and picked up her mobile from the table.
“Jason?” Cheryl asked.
“Yeah,” she said, then pressed reject.
Cheryl
reached across and gave her friends hand a reassuring squeeze.
“I’ll be fine, Cheryl, honestly”.
Robyn sat back feeling relieved that
she felt no guilt about the package containing ten thousand pounds she’d shoved
through, ‘Night Shelter for the Homeless’ letter box earlier that morning.
As they left the wine bar and
crossed the road Cheryl heard her friend drop something, it hit the gutter with
a clink before disappearing down the drain.
“Robyn, you’ve just dropped something down
the …”
“Oh, it’s nothing, just a meaningless key I
should have thrown out ages ago”.
Julian Clarke © 2017
