“What! No that wont’ be necessary. I was just being stupid Kevin. Please tell Peter not to bother.”
“Okay kiddo, I just thought you’d like to see them, that’s all.”
Yeah well, double bluff or what? Why should Trudy not want to see them, could it be that John Ryan would be in most of them with her and she didn’t want me to spot that. Maybe there was something in Mark’s original conclusion; perhaps I was too late.
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Just after Friday lunchtime I received a call from Trudy at my office.
“Kevin, I’ve decided I am going to go to out with Sandra and the girls to celebrate her birthday this evening; do you mind?”
I did, but I couldn’t very well tell Trudy that, could I?
“No Kiddo, just don’t go overdoing the booze. Do you want me to pick you up later?”
“Well, it would be better than waiting for a cab. But Kevin, if we go on to a club later we might not want to come home until chucking-out time; you wouldn’t want to sit up until gone two in the morning.”
“What else am I supposed to do babe, go to bed and lie there worrying; it’s a dangerous world out there you know!”
“Oh don’t be silly there’s always plenty of police around outside the club and all the bouncers. There’s even a couple of security men at the taxi office at that time of night. I’ll be fine, you go to bed and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay, if you insist babe, see you when you get home and don’t go doing anything your grandmother wouldn’t like you doing.”
“You never did get to meet my grandmother, did you Kevin?”
“No, but I hear your mother was quite a girl in her time, you just behave yourself.”
“As if I wouldn’t! See you later darling.”
Yeah well, I weren’t happy, but there was sod all I really could do about it. I’d have to rely on Peter’s students and their cameras to let me know what happened that night and hopefully their presence would stop things from getting out of hand.
I was sure they’d be around town, that cash prize was too much for them to miss. And in the club, well two of Peter’s students moonlighted there every Friday and Saturday night; they wandered around snapping pictures of the clubbers, which could be bought for inordinate prices.
Although that wasn’t the real reason they were there or that the club set up the printing room for them. They got far better pictures of the clubbers than the security cameras did, and anyone who got themselves banned from the club would find their picture displayed on the wall beside the doorman.
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It was with some surprise that I heard the front door open at around half ten that evening and shortly Trudy came into the lounge.
“You’re early love, nothing wrong I hope?” I asked.
“No I’m fine, I just wasn’t enjoying myself, so I decided to come home to my husband and keep him from feeling lonely.”
“That’s kind of you, but I hope that doesn’t mean I have to cut my evenings short when I’m out with the lads?”
“Do I ever curtail your fun?”
“No, but I wouldn’t like to think that you cut your evening short on my behalf.”
“Well to be honest there was someone there who was getting on my nerves, so I decided to come home early.”
“Now we get to the truth of the matter. Who was it; one of the girls you’ve fell-out with at the office?”
“Oh, no one important, I can handle it. Anyway is Cassie in bed?”
“Yeah, sound asleep.”
“How about you and me having an early night then?”
“Sounds like a plan, but I wouldn’t exactly call it early.”
“Oh give over stupid, come on you know what I’m after.”
“Hmm, perhaps you should go drinking with the girls more often?”
That was one long night I can assure you. But I was curious as to what had happened, but I’m afraid Trudy was keeping very tight-lipped about the evening.
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Monday morning I received a call from Mark Willoughby around eleven o’clock.
“Hey Kev, I’ve just had the satisfying task of suspending John Ryan!”
“You have, why; what’s the bugger been up to?”
“Jesus, didn’t she tell you? I would have thought Trudy would have told you by now!”
“No, she hasn’t said a word.”
“Well, would you believe sexual harassment of a fellow employee and because she hasn’t told you, I’ll only give you only one guess as to who’s the complainant.”
“Trudy?”
“Yes, she’s stitched the bugger up good and proper, got evidence, several witnesses and everything. He ain’t going to walk on this one.”
“Strange, I wonder why she never told me about it?”
“She didn’t?”
“No, Trudy went out with the girls from her office Friday but she came home early and said something about someone getting on her nerves. But she wouldn’t enlarge on who.”
“Whoa, she didn’t tell you about Friday night at the club then?”
“No, why, what happened?”
“Well according to this statement I’ve got here. Friday night John Ryan invited himself along on a girl’s night out, one of the girl’s in the office birthday or something. Anyway apparently, as I suspected, he’s been giving Trudy the old sob story for some weeks now; she tried to be nice about it but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think he probably mistook Trudy being polite, as a kind of come on. Anyway Friday night he overstepped the mark and your Trudy laid him out in the Starlight Club.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No, got it all on a video tape from the club’s security camera right here as well, showing how Ryan got a little too familiar with her on the dance floor.”
“What did he do?”
“I’m not too sure, the floor looked pretty crowded, but Trudy and Sandra referred to it as kissing. I think that saved Trudy from saying that the bugger tried to grope her.
“Apparently Trudy took him right out with an uppercut and then she kicked him in the short-an’-curlies. The bouncers had to pull her off the bugger or she might have done him some real permanent damage.”
“Oh my, what happens now?”
“Ryan’s suspended as of this morning and this lot goes up-stairs after lunch. I should imagine Ryan will be out of a job within the week. Them up-stairs are paranoid about sexual harassment in the work place.”
“But if this happened in the nightclub…?”
“Yeah, but Ryan’s been trying to chat Trudy up in the office, I’ve got a whole collection of explicit emails he’s sent her. And remember, he’s a supervisor in sales, that means that technically he’s Trudy’s superior; consequently he’s guaranteed to get his marching orders.”
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This was an interesting turn of events, but for the life of me I couldn’t understand why Trudy had said nothing to me about the situation. Surely she should have confided in me. I resolved that sometime very soon I’d have to challenge her on the subject.
I thought that that evening was out because we were having dinner with a group of friends. Cassie came along because they all had children about the same age. It was nothing formal or anything just a meal in one of the local pubs; something we’d got into the habit of doing once every two or three weeks or so.
But well, sometimes life goes it’s own sweet way and there’s sod-all we can do about it. After eating we’d gone out to drink coffee etc. in the garden and the children went off to play on the swings and things they had out there. We hadn’t been seated in the garden for more than a couple of minutes when one of the wives said to Trudy.