Under Duress

The policemen in charge muttered, "Shit," and the search of our flat continued with even greater determination. They were emptying drawers, tapping walls and scanning everything with hand held ultra-violet gadgets. Emily was crying quietly so I hugged her and said," They'll have to pay - we are bound to get lots of compensation for all this." My confidence was misplaced because when they had finished I was told that I was being arrested on suspicion of dealing in stolen property and that I had to accompany them to the police station to answer questions.

After being left to stew for an hour in the cells I was taken to an interview room and had a piece of paper put in front of me. I half expected it to be a confession for me to sign but it was a list of all the stuff that I had been given from the lockup, including the wide screen TV. "These items have been removed from your flat," the main interrogator said. "If you can tell us how they came into your possession then you will be free to leave."

I had already made one bad mistake by refusing the services of a solicitor and was determined not to make another. Time after time I had heard Chuck repeating the mantra, 'Never tell the filth a thing then if they've got nothing on you, they will have let you go'. Even so I could not avoid the hope that a simple answer would do the trick so muttered that I had bought them at car boot sales. I was then barraged with a load of 'When and where and how much did you pay' until I was glad to resort to silence and shaking my head - but I could not quite make myself say 'No comment'.

After about half an hour of this, the CID man in charge got up and deliberately switched off the tape recorder. Then he pulled his chair near to mine, gave me a cigarette and said sympathetically, "You don't know anything about it do you - it's nothing at all to do with you?"

"No," I agreed, relieved that he had recognised the truth.

"Course you don't. It's pretty obvious to me that you are still wet behind the ears and we have at least six big burglaries tied up here. You're not a burglar are you Peter?"

"No'" I said again with a small laugh. "I wouldn't even know how to start."

"We know exactly who nicked the stuff but we haven't got any evidence against them. Even worse than that, we've got bags of evidence against you," he went on with pretended sadness. "Your dabs are all over the stuff that's being brought from that lock-up and God know how many other jobs we are going to tie into that lot. You see Peter, you know that you didn't do it and I know that you didn't do it but someone has got to go down for this lot. Everything has to be accounted for, the overtime, the surveillance and the cost of these raids and we do that by clearing crime figures with a conviction. I know it's not fair but your name is the only one that we've got in the frame." He let this prospect hang in the air for a moment and then went on, "Of course, even if we had the real villains you couldn't expect to get off Scott free. We would have to do you for receiving the gear we took from your flat but that shouldn't bother you. With your clean record it would be no more than probation - little more than a slap on the wrists really. As it is you are looking at five years."

I had to fight myself to stop blurting out the truth and he realised this. "You do know who we want - don't you Peter?"

He would have done better to remain silent because the intervention allowed me to get a grip. "No'" I said.

The policeman heaved a long sigh and removed his chair round to the correct side of the table. "How well do you know the Reynolds brothers - Chuck and Wayne."

"I know them they live in a flat on the floor above mine but they're more my wife's friends than mine."

"I'll bet they are," he said with a coarse laugh and the other cop joined in the mirth.

The tape was switched back on and I faced a stream of questions about the brothers, 'Exactly how well did I know them?' How well did Emily know them?' and 'How much time did I/she spend in their company?' I resorted to silence, mutely shaking my head after each question and in the end they gave up. "They are pure shit, the pair of them. I can't understand why you are prepared to go down to protect them," the main interrogator snarled in frustration.

With the interview over I was looking forward to some solitude in my cell having abandoned hope of being released when someone came in and there was a whispered conversation between the three representatives of the law. I was left alone where I was for some twenty minutes before the main cop returned and beckoned for me to follow him. We went up to the top of the building, which seemed to be a hive of activity. There were many policemen, uniformed and plain clothes, male and female, either going in the same direction or coming away from where we were heading. All of them were smiling and when they saw me their grins widened. I was taken into a semi-darkened room - it was packed but two seats had been reserved at the front. When I was seated, a picture flashed onto the large screen in front of me. It depicted Emily bent over with Chuck shagging her from behind and Wayne's big prick stuck down her throat. Sheila was sitting naked in the background but was not involved in the scenario and I recognised that this was part of the practice video we had made before starting the blackmail scam. "When you said that your wife was friends with the brothers, I didn't realise that you meant this friendly," the cop beside me said loudly and the room behind me collapsed in laughter."

When the hilarity had died down, my tormentor said, "Knowing Chuck, I bet he made you watch while the pair of them fucked your wife - or did he just let you be the cameraman." Once more the room was filled with laughter and crude comments.

Over the months I had become inured to my situation and had even begun to get pleasure from it but suddenly seeing it through other men's eyes, I realised how very sordid it was. More than that, with a tearing inner pain, I knew how completely I had been humiliated. Tears sprang unbidden to my eyes and seeing this, my interrogator held up his hand to stop the film. Sobbing I was led back downstairs. On the way, the man in charge put his arm comfortingly round me and said gently, "Come on lad - get it all off your chest. Have your revenge on that pair of evil bastards. Do you want me to get someone to come and take your statement?"

Despite the tears, which continued to pour unchecked down my face, I shook my head. Even with the risk of his eventual anger, I would have liked to see Chuck put safely out of the way but I didn't want to grass on Wayne.

There were more interrogation sessions during one of which a small jewellery box was produced that I had never seen before. It contained two nice necklaces, four joints and a locket that I recognised as belonging to my wife. Again I refused to say anything but was told that 'Possession with intent to supply' had been added to my list of charges.

At the final session, after the tape recorder had been switched off I was left alone with the cop who had mainly handled the questioning throughout. "That's it - you are going to be charged and bailed but before you go I want to float an intriguing little thought past your shell like ears. On all that stuff in the lock-up there were absolutely no fingerprints and that is very strange. Think about it - no original owners, no repairmen, nothing - it was as if everything had been polished clean. When I say 'no fingerprints', I mean none except yours and you managed to get your mitts on just about everything. Now I ask myself - were you deliberately trying to incriminate yourself or did perhaps someone arrange it that way?"

I think if he had mentioned this earlier I might have cracked but when back in Emily's arms I was able to push it to the back of my mind. She also convinced me that when the brothers returned they would do something to help. Coincidentally, the next morning a letter arrived from Spain addressed to her. In it Chuck told her to go up to his flat at a certain time two days later to receive a phone call. When they spoke he asked if anything had happened and she told him about me. Unperturbed, he gave her the name of his solicitor with the assurance that it would be sorted. During the month before the brothers did return, in further phone calls she was closely questioned on the development of events. The solicitor did set my mind at ease by saying that I was very unlikely to be given more than twelve months. He said that if I was prepared to plead guilty he could more or less guarantee that would be the sentence and I got the strong impression he would prefer me to take that course of action. When I asked what my chances were of getting off altogether if I denied everything he only laughed.

The first fortnight after my arrest Emily and I were very loving with each other but then she began to get increasingly on edge. Early one evening, when she seemed to find it impossible to keep still, I suggested that she go round to Sheila's place and she accepted with alacrity. Returning shortly after midnight with the stress lines gone from her face she told me that Sheila was not at home but that she had tracked her down at Sue's. "We had a real girl's night - it was lovely," she said happily.

When the brothers eventually turned up, Chuck began berating me for leading the police to his lockup and threatening to make me pay for the stuff that had been confiscated. I told him that the police knew about it before he left for Spain. "They had a photograph of me working in the lockup with you standing watching - you were just lucky that they only had a back view of you. They asked me to say who the other person was. I told them that I had forgotten so they said if I did manage to remember, it could make a difference to my sentence."

"Christ - that was close," Chuck said and from then on, for most of the time, he went out of his way to be nice to me. Chuck said that he would pick up the tab for the solicitor and Wayne promised me that they would give Emily money every week until I was released. Neither of them made any sexual demands and neither did they bring any men for her to entertain. I was pleased about this but at the same time regretted that I was unable to see Wayne on his own.

A week before my court case they threw me a goodbye party for me, attended by all three females, the brothers and myself. It was a no-sex, drink and chat party with joints being passed round. We had never gathered under such circumstances and I think everybody found it a bit of a strain. Chuck was drinking far more than usual and in the end the restraint got too much. Pulling my wife towards him he leered at me and said, "You've no need to worry about the lovely Emily, between the four of us she is going to get all that she needs - believe me, she is going to be a very busy girl." Then when his remark did not cause me the expected distress he went on, "Mind you, you'll hardly be going short yourself. I should have had your cherry before now but by the time you get out I don't think I'll fancy it after a line of big hairy convicts have all had a turn."

These words depressed me but I could still view the prospect with far less terror than I would have done less than a year before.

[Peter's trial was due to take place two days after I last spoke to him. I never heard how it turned out and of all the cuckolded husbands that I interviewed, this case was the one where I would most liked to receive an update.]