Chapter 9

‘There, see him?’

Hugh was with the club member Susie had secretly thought a bit effeminate, and he most certainly could see ‘him’ as he studied the pictures of Susie spread-eagled on the settee.

All of his transparencies - like everyone else’s - were green and blurred, which was just the way Hugh intended them to be. But all these pictures showed something on film that had most definitely not been present in the room at the time.

Hugh bent over the light box again, and applied the magnifying glass to eye and transparency. It was dark and corrupted, unusable to all practical intent, but still good enough for basic outlines to be discernible, though most of the detail was lost in the green fog Hugh’s lighting had produced.

A group of men clustered around the settee, taking photographs of Susie who had one hand between her legs. All of that was okay, nothing untoward there. However, at one end of the settee stood the figure of a man who was not taking pictures, but apparently observing, and apparently watching Susie as closely as everyone else. Hugh knew there was no way in the world that this person had been in the room at the time, or he would have noticed him, not least because he was stark naked. And a magnifying glass was utterly unnecessary to know this, since he sported a substantial erection, far and away the longest, thickest and stiffest appendage Hugh had ever seen.

It was impossible to make out what he looked like; his features were distorted and blurred, though Hugh was sure he could see teeth, which suggested he was smiling. Sometimes he seemed to be wearing a hat of some sort, and sometimes Hugh concluded he was just the unlucky owner of a very pointed head.

It was all extremely vague, hardly more than a trick of the light, and Hugh probably would not have noticed the shape at all if it had not been pointed out to him. Indeed, he’d seen a few other pictures from the evening - just held them up to the light when other members had shown him their appalling misfortune with the green smears - and he hadn’t noticed anything on them, although he hadn’t been looking for details. In fact, he’d hardly glanced at them at all, just enough to make it look convincing. After all, he knew what was wrong with them, and none of the others had mentioned a shadowy figure.

In fact, Susie’s effeminate one even said the others had strenuously denied the existence of such an apparition on their pictures. But no one would come round and show him, or let him visit with his pictures so they could compare.

‘I’m sure they know something,’ he said carefully, as if wondering whether Hugh was part of the conspiracy as well, or if he was an outsider too. ‘I’m sure they all have the same thing and are just pretending they haven’t,’ he declared.

‘Why would they do a thing like that?’ asked Hugh.

‘Money,’ he whispered mysteriously, refusing to be drawn on quite how a series of spoiled pictures could have any kind of value.

‘May I keep one for testing?’ Hugh asked casually, but the sheets were snatched quickly away from him. ‘Tell you what,’ he said brightly, trying to appear nonchalant. ‘Let me re-photograph them,’ he offered, and was grudgingly given permission to re-shoot three pictures on his digital camera.

Once his sulking visitor had gone, muttering darkly about unseen forces and conspiracies, Hugh sat down at the computer and started work. Knowing why the pictures were green and cloudy was a help, but not a cure. Detail not recorded on the film at the time of exposure could not be restored or recovered because it just wasn’t there. Dissolving the cloudiness and revealing information that was there could be done, but only if one knew what Hugh did about how the pictures had been spoilt. But uncovering that information, though it once again revealed enough of Susie and what was being done to her to interest a casual viewer, also removed all traces of the shadowy figure.

Any other pictures and Hugh would have expected the strange presence to be a product of the emulsion or the developing agent. But he’d carefully chosen three pictures from the start, middle and end of the roll just given him. So that was a no-no. And he knew that because of the way the discoloration had been produced it could not be a trick of the light, or a result of deliberate fogging. Likewise, extraneous shadows were ruled out as well.

Sitting back with a frustrated sigh, Hugh was baffled and angry. Being baffled by things photographic and technical was neither normal nor acceptable and he was not happy. Nor was his investigation over. Not by a long way.

Carefully considering his next course of action he decided that openness was his best ally, and he reached for the phone. Go straight to the top, he told himself as he dialled, straight to the very top.

Upstairs Susie stirred and rolled over; it was the first time she’d moved since climbing into bed some time around two in the morning, and if she’d been aware that it was now almost midday she would have understood why she felt so completely relaxed and rested after the strenuous activities of the previous evening.

Hugh didn’t know if Susie was asleep or not, but he did not want to be overheard, so he kept his voice low.

‘I expect you know about the pictures,’ he said carefully into the telephone. ‘My pictures are also green.’

He knew he could easily make that so to a few dupes if he needed examples of his disappointment. And disappointment was the emotion he tried to project, rather successfully, he thought. He wanted the leader of the club, the one who’d hosted the evening, to think of him as the upset husband who wanted a photographic record of the evening his wife was screwed by a group of strangers, but didn’t get one.

It seemed to work; the leader shared his baffled sense of loss as best he could, even suggesting they should all get together and do it again.

‘It won’t be the same,’ said Hugh. ‘Nothing’s ever going to be like that first shoot.’

‘No, I do sympathise,’ agreed the voice on the telephone. ‘Why don’t you pop over for a drink later, and we’ll have a chat, see if we can’t think of something that, um, restores the freshness of a first time.’

Susie was in the bath when Hugh slipped into the driving seat of his car, turning it towards the house on the outskirts of the city. Skirting the cathedral, through the narrow lanes that had survived the bloody history of the medieval town, leaving by the straight riverside road the Romans had laid two thousand years before, overlooked by the steep hill on which the rebels had fought, died and been executed hundreds of years ago, Hugh tried to cast himself in his appointed role, bravely trying to conceal his disappointment that he had no clear pictures of his wife being screwed.

‘We can arrange another evening,’ offered the club leader sympathetically, once they were sitting in his gloomy study, ‘but as you say; it’s never the same. I think all our members would agree that there’s nothing quite like the first time they saw their wife with another man. Or men, as in your case.’

Hugh was not sure if there was a small jibe in there somewhere. Had he noticed Susie enjoyed being used rather more than even the most ardent and understanding husband would have liked?

‘Oh, I think we all guessed,’ the leader smiled archly, answering Hugh’s concerns, enjoying his own astuteness. ‘And her real name...?’

‘Susie.’ Hugh smiled, trying not to smirk. He still had the power to reveal her any time he wanted.

‘It never loses its appeal, of course, but the first time is something special. We may not be able to replace that, but we can perhaps offer something different to make up for it.’

Hugh raised an eyebrow, trying not to appear too eager, his cover story, his professional self and the real Hugh all in perfect synch on this one.

‘I want to explain something to you, but first, before that, I would really like you to meet someone.’

He stood, opening a door, not the one through which they’d entered the study. He motioned and Hugh stepped through into a darkened room, with no windows, no lights, but a faintly pungent odour, rather like joss sticks.