An Unhealthy Fixation

“So, this is the boy that’s responsible for my wife taking her life?” I asked Sergeant Robinson as I stared at the photograph on the desk in front of me. It had been three days since Jaime had taken an overdose of sleeping medication to end her life. “Going on his looks I find that hard to believe. I can’t understand how he could have such an effect on someone as mentally stable as she was.”

“It appears as if he had an unhealthy fixation on her, one where he saw himself as her only sexual partner.” He said.

“Despite the fact that she was five years older than him and happily married to me?”

“He envisaged her leaving you for him.”

“I knew that she was having problems with one of her students. She mentioned having to explain to him that she had taken an interest in him because of the bullying by other students.”

“Justin, the situation is this, unless you, or your parents, lodge a complaint of bullying, there is little I can do to help. That is the reason that I have done all that I can to help you. You mustn’t read anything other than that into my interest. There could be nothing other than a teacher/student relationship between them.”

“I thought that would be the end of it.”

“That would probably have been the end of it except for what happened next. A strong part of his fixation was that she was a pure person, virginal even, and that he would be the first to have sex with her. Then he found out that she had been having sex with another student. That knowledge became the catalyst for his actions that would eventually lead to her taking her own life.”

“She was not having sex with another student, with anyone other than me. Was there a suicide note explaining the reason for her actions?” I asked. “If there were none then I would have doubts that she did take her life.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because, if there was one thing that she was, it was that she was meticulous in everything that she did. She wrote herself notes about every little thing, even notes to write notes. If there was no note left, she never wrote one, and if she never wrote one she never committed suicide.”

“You seem so sure of her.”

“I knew her better than anyone, we had been together for seven years, married for three and in that time, we discussed anything and everything that happened to us. She told me of her concern for this kid, about how he was bullied by some of the other students because he didn’t have an interest in girls, and how he was always looking at her. She suggested that he speak with the student counsellor, but he wouldn’t, he told her that he was fine. She discussed him with the counsellor who tried to speak to him about that. Justin was angry with Jaime for a while, and the bullies had a field day, taunting him about the lover’s spat that he had with her.”

“I’ll make a note of your concerns.” Robinson said. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I rang the school and arranged to speak with the student counsellor.

“Come in,” Amanda Simpson, the counsellor said as she held the door open for me. “I wondered when you would want to speak with me. I was shocked when I heard what had happened. Jaime was the last person that I thought would take such a drastic action.”

“I don’t believe that she did. It was completely out of character.” I took a few seconds to get my mind around what I needed to ask her. “I understand that she spoke with you about this Justin kid and his fixation on her?”

“Yes, and I tried to speak with Justin Sampson but he got angry that she had raised it with me.”

“The police told me that something triggered his reactions, he was told that she was having sex with another student, were you aware of that?”

“There was a whisper doing the rounds that Dean Jankovic had been boasting about having sex with a teacher, I didn’t take it seriously, I have heard of his sexual conquests, few if any were true. Sure he has been having sex with other students, the girls were quite proud of being his for the short time that he was with them, but his boasting was usually about sex outside the school environment. He would brag that MILFs were much better than girls, they had more experience and that turned him on. There was one thing that set this apart from his other conquests, I didn’t place any credibility on its truth, but he was heard to mention that he had vision that proved his story.”

“Vision, what sort of vision, was it a photo?”

“No, a video.”

“Fuck. I need to get a copy of that, I’ll soon be able to tell whether it was her.”

“I’ll see what I can do. I’ll ask around among the girls, one might be able to get a copy for us.”

“Thank you. I’m going home now to try to get my hand around this debacle.”

What a fucking head-spin! Here was the woman that I loved, the woman that I wanted to live and love for the rest of my life, who I believed wanted to live and love me for the rest of her life, who, I now find out, has been having sex with the least likely boy in her class and was the object of another student’s unhealthy fixation. How wrong could a person be?

The more I thought about it, the more that I realised that there was something not quite right about this. Determination set in. I was to get to the bottom of this, to clear Jaime’s name of having acted inappropriately with not one but two male students.

Question: What could I do? Answer: How the fuck do I know!

I rang work and requested time off. “I can’t function while my world collapses in a screaming heap around me.” I told my boss.

“I understand, take all the time that you need. I’m not the heartless beast of lunchroom legend.”

“I know that.” The legend was something of a joke with the staff, he was well-loved by all of us.

“You are important to us, so get yourself sorted and come back when you’re ready.”

Just when I was despairing of finding some avenue of investigation there was a breakthrough of sorts. I was seated quietly on the toilet when I heard the front doorbell. Hastily wiping my arse, I pulled up my jocks and trousers and headed for the door. There was no one there. On the ground, there was a package addressed to me with a note, from a friend. I tore off the wrapping paper and stared at the contents. I knew of no friend who would send me a porn video.

The title intrigued me; ‘Teacher’s Pet – creaming an ‘A’.

What the hell, I have seen a few videos that purported to tell the story of a teacher/student relationship, but this was the first I’d seen where the teacher was a woman. I recognised that woman, her name was Jaime Peters, my wife.

Fearing the worst I inserted it into my player and sat back to watch my world disappear.

I’ll give them this, it was very well done and, for a while had me believing that it was Jaime, my Jaime. The introduction was of Jaime in front of her class. The lesson had finished and the class were filing out. “Dean, I want a word with you.” She was facing away from the camera.

He turned and walked over to her, a smug expression on his face. “Yes, Ms Peters, what do you want?”

She pulled him to her and kissed him with a passion that I could not believe. Following several minutes of tongue involved kissing she dropped to the floor, hastily unzipping his pants as if her life depended on it, she engulfed his rampant cock with her mouth.

The action progressed to the point where she had stripped out of her clothes and lay on the desk in an invitation for him to fuck her. I could not believe that Jaime would ever get involved in anything like this, that was until the POV closeup of his cock sliding into her pussy. This woman was not Jaime.

I watched it until the end. I had to admit that it was extremely well edited. Apart from the opening shot of her facing the class, her face was hidden, in the long shots her hair hung down obscuring her features and during the close-ups, her face was out of shot. The producers had obviously used a double and spliced the action onto the opening sequence.

How far had this gone? The DVD sleeve indicated that it was distributed by a channel that specialised in this genre, usually featuring a fictitious school called ‘Innocent High’. I cranked up the web and logged into a pawn site that featured this channel and scrolling through the most recent additions until I came upon this video. Scrolling down to the comments section there were a dozen or more, some asking who the woman was, others identifying her as Jaime Peters. Others were stating that they’d shove their dicks into her any day. I was disgusted and shut it down.

I had work to do.

I took the DVD to the police. Sergeant Robinson was called to the front desk. “Mister Peters, what can I do for you?”

“I have something for you.” I handed him the DVD. “This has been circulated worldwide and shows someone who is supposed to be my wife, having sex with a student who, I believe is Dean Jankovic, who was in one of her classes.”

“You say supposed to be your wife, you don’t believe that to be the case?”

“No, it most definitely is not her.”

“Let me have a look at it.”

“I need to be there as you watch it so that I can point out why I know that it isn’t Jaime.”

“Suit yourself.” We went into a room where he placed the DVD into a computer. As the opening sequence played, he commented, “That looks very much like her.”

‘”Keep going, this is the only time that you will see her face.” I waited until it reached the shot of him shoving his cock into a pussy. “Stop!” He hit the pause button. “That is not Jaime.”

“How can you tell? You’ve seen one pussy you’ve seen them all.”

“It’s not her pussy that gives it away, it’s her pubes.”

“What pubes, she’s shaven.”

“That’s the point. Jaime’s pubes were groomed in a distinctive manner. If you were to look at the autopsy photos of her genitalia you will spot the difference immediately. While you’re at it, if you look closely, just above her pubes you’ll see, in five mil high script the words ‘Je t’aime’, I have the same, if you like I’ll show you, it is, was, our way of continually telling each other of our love.”

He left the room and came back a few minutes later with a smile on his face. “Whose idea was this?” Pointing to the photo.

“Her idea, but my work. She said that I might need directions.” The pubes had been trimmed in the shape of a downward pointing arrow, in no way resembling the clean-shaven pussy of the woman in the DVD.

“Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble in producing this video, someone who has not seen her up close and naked, but to what end?”

“It could have been a part of Dean’s ongoing bullying campaign against young Justin. He shows Justin the video, “See, that’s me and that’s her, and that’s me fucking her.” Or it could have been revenge on Jaime for rejecting his advances. I have heard a rumour being circulated where he has claimed to have had sex with her. I know that did not happen.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told me that, it would have been six months ago, that Justin was upset because Dean told him that he had been having sex with her. At first, he was devastated, because his dreams of being the first to have her had been destroyed, then, when she told him that it was not true he became angry with Dean.”

“This Justin, will he verify that?”

“I don’t know. He’s in a fragile state at the moment, according to Amanda, the student counsellor, he’s been fluctuating between blaming himself for her death and anger at Dean for lying to him.”

“Would you say that his anger could lead him to kill her?”

“I doubt it, I could be wrong.”

“If you don’t mind me saying this but, there is something else bothering me.”

“And what is that?”

“There were no empty medication containers anywhere near the body. That seems odd to me. We initially thought that her death might have been assisted in some way.”

“Like euthanasia?”

“That thought did cross my mind, hence the interest in you as a viable suspect. It now appears as if we might have two others.”

“You don’t think that Justin could have done this, do you?”

“An unstable mind can lead to a person doing things that are totally out of character.”

“If it were me, I would place Dean at the top of the list. From experience, when bullies are challenged they tend to either go to water or over-react. Even if he’d only starred in that video, the fact that it is now out there with no hope of shutting it down seems to me to be an over-reaction.”

“We’ll bear that in mind, in the meantime I have to ask that you don’t leave town.”

So, I’m a suspect.

Just when I thought that I was coping with my loss, I realised that this was just the beginning. My physical loss was great, no more lovely warm body next to mine in bed, her arms around me, her hands seeking him and re-energising him into another expression of our love for each other. Now replaced by a cold and lonely bed, each night a reminder of my loss. Great as my physical loss is, it pales to insignificance when compared to my spiritual loss. Gone forever was the woman who knew my feelings instinctively, who could ease my concerns with nothing more than a hug or a kiss. Gone too was the woman who was so appreciating of my shoulder in times of need, my lips to calm her and my tears that joined hers when a release of tension was required. All of this has been replaced by an emptiness that echoed in my mind and there was nothing I could do to shake free of it.

I needed outside help from someone who was not close to this situation. Scrolling through the list of Psychologists I came across a vaguely familiar name. I rang for an appointment thinking that I would have to wait forever for a slot, but no.

I pushed the door open just before three, I am a stickler for punctuality. “Hi, I’m Jim Peters, I have a three o’clock appointment.”

“Have you been here before?”

“No.”

“Strange, I recognised the name and was certain you had been here before. I guess that explains why I couldn’t find a file on you. We are going to have to get details if you would fill out this form before Doctor Wilcox will see you.”

There was a pen on the reception counter so I stood and completed the form. Trudi, at least that’s what the name tag told me, glanced at it. “You work for Kenneally and Associates I see.”

“Yes.”

“That explains why I remembered your name, it was on an evaluation request.”

“That’s why your name, not yours personally, was familiar. It must have been, what, two years ago?”

“Something like that.” She pushed the intercom button. “Mister Peters is here for his appointment.” Looking at me. “You may go in, it’s the first on the right.”

I pushed open the door. “Come in James. or do you prefer Jim”

“Jim’s fine.” I sat.

“Now, You’ve been having a rough time of late, haven’t you?”

“You could say that.”

“I know something of the situation that you are in, but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

“Where do I begin? You’ve probably read that my wife took her life a few days ago, at least that’s what the media has told the world.”

“But that isn’t the case, is it?” She was looking, not at me, but into me.

“I don’t believe that she committed suicide, it was against her principles for a start. She had discussed a problem she was having with, at first, it was one student, it now appears that it was with two students. We had discussed both of them and she believed that the matters had been resolved. It appears not. One of the students was bullying the other about his fixation with Jaime, accusing him of being in love with her. Jaime had discussed this with Justin in the context of his being bullied by Dean. She told him that there was little she could do unless either he or his parents, was prepared to stand up and report the matter to the Principal. She reinforced that their relationship could never be more than the parent/teacher relationship proscribed by the school authorities. She said that he understood this.”

“What about the other student, what was the situation there?”

“Dean, now that’s a different matter entirely. Around six months ago he began to put it about that he and Jaime had been having an affair. This caused Justin a few problems because part of his fixation was that Jaime was still a virgin and that he would be the one that would ‘pop her cherry’. He had expressed his disappointment with her and he wasn’t sure that her denial was truthful. When Dean showed him a video of him and Jaime having sex in the classroom, complete with the obligatory creampie oozing from her pussy. Justin lost the plot.”

“This video, could it be real?”

“No. It was well done, but her only involvement was the opening scene of her standing in front of the class as they filed from the room. That sequence was probably filmed without her knowledge. Everything that followed had been staged to look like Dean was having sex with her. It was a good piece of editing.”

“So, you’ve seen it then?”

“Yes. It’s not my cup of tea, but it has been released on DVD to adult stores and uploaded to one porn website, probably more. As of yesterday, there have been some nine hundred thousand views of that video. It is now out there and there’s no way of getting it back.”

“So, you now have to wear the horns of a cuckold.”

“I hadn’t got around to that, but yes, I’m the guy whose wife was fucking a school student and breaking several laws without any thought of what her husband would think. Fuck, pardon the language, something else for me to dwell upon.”

“I would probably have used that word If I was in your situation, so there’s no need to apologise. So, what are we going to do about this?”

“That’s why I’m here, what am I going to do about it?”

“On a professional level, I can support you while you cope with the emotional traumas of this episode, with the death of the woman that you loved, and of the trauma of having her good reputation dragged through the mire of public opinion. On a personal level, we need to find a way of restoring her reputation and that’s the hard part. The more you protest her innocence, the more public opinion will convict her.”

“What if there is some way to prosecute those responsible for the production of that video. I could sue for payment of the artiste’s fees. The only way that they can avoid payment is to deny that Jaime was the female star.” I was thinking out loud and not expecting a response.

“You have a devious mind, that’s why your boss is willing to let you sort your problems out. If he’d demanded you continue work, you would probably not cope and either resign or get fired.”

“I don’t know how long he’s prepared to wait for that to happen.”

“I’ll have a word with him, reassure him that you will, with my support, be ready to return to the salt mine in no time at all. While talking with him I’ll run some of your ideas past him and see if I can interest him in pursuing the line of inquiry into the production and distribution of that DVD.” She handed me a business card, but not before writing down her mobile number. “Call me anytime, I’ll call you if I find out anything. In the meantime ask Trudi to make an appointment for this time next week.”

“Okay, thank you for today, I don’t feel quite so bad. I didn’t want to burden family or friends with my problems but… ”

“I know, I’m being paid to listen and help, so you don’t feel so bad about burdening me.”

“That’s not what I was going to say at all, What I was about to say was, thank you for listening to me, I didn’t feel as if I was burdening you, it was almost like you had been a friend of long-standing encouraging me to let my emotions out and to get my head around my problems.”

Two days later I had an unexpected visitor, Roderick Spencer, my boss and father-in-law. “Jim,” I knew that this was not a visit to tell me that I had been fired, “I had an interesting conversation with Janine, Doctor Wilcox, yesterday, she told me about your line of thinking, I know that contravenes doctor/patient confidentiality, but seeing as how I’m footing the bill for this and that I have a vested interest in discovering why Jaime did this if indeed, she did do it. I have given it some thought. I have an appointment, later today, with the Coroner at which I will express our conviction that this is not a case of suicide, but a homicide. I will explain our reasoning and request that I be given a position as counsel assisting him in this investigation. I already have my people liaising with the video distribution company to ascertain the mechanics of its production. I have informed them that we would be proceeding with a claim for participation fees on behalf of Jaime.”

“That’s a little callous, don’t you think?”

“The last thing that this distributor wants is to be drawn into a court case where they could be accused of misrepresentation when it came to the participants. That is why they have all of those disclaimers about all of the participants being consenting adults., looks sometimes to the contrary.”

“You seem to know a lot about this industry.”

“One has to keep abreast of all things,” He chuckled, “getting back to the reason why I’m here, Doctor Wilcox has expressed the opinion that your free time could be better spent preparing the case that I will put to the Coroner, to assist his inquiry.”

“But won’t that appear to be a conflict of interest?”

“Not if you’re on leave, it then becomes a private matter. I will provide all the necessary assistance for you, under the counter.”

“Thank you. My first step is to have another talk with the student counsellor to see if she can provide more information.”

“Well, get to it man, I can’t have you lollygagging around doing nothing,” He got serious again, “You and I are going to get to the bottom of this, we need to get to the bottom of this, for Jaime.”

I arranged to meet with Amanda after school had finished for the day. I didn’t get a chance to sit before she did something unexpected, she hugged me.

“Do you think that’s appropriate?” I asked.

“Under the circumstances, yes I do. I am a woman who had a connection and love for the woman that you loved. While my love should not be construed in a physical way, I believe that Jaime and I had the same commitment to seeing the kids in this school get the nest education and guidance that we could give them. Having said that, let me tell you one thing, Jaime’s love for you made me jealous, you see, I have a poor track record when it comes to relationships.”

“I’m sure that the right guy is out there.”

“That’s what she kept telling me but my search was doomed to fail, none of them lived up to the picture that she painted of you and her relationship with you.”

“While I’m flattered, I don’t think that we should be even thinking about this, not while I’m focused on clearing her name and getting some sort of emotional closure.”

“Okay, back burner it is then. I’ve been asking around among the students in that class and, how can I put this, it’s interesting. The common thread is that they all, well nearly all, loved her as a teacher and none of them believes in the suicide theory.”

“The exceptions being Justin, who loved her too much and had an unhealthy fixation on her and Dean, who hated her guts and could quite easily be fitted into the frame of someone who hated her enough to kill her.”

“So you don’t believe she took her own life then?”

“No, she did not. Did any of them mention a DVD that she allegedly starred in?” I asked.

“How did you know about that? Kimberly Falzon told me about it. It would appear as if Dean gave it to her as an indication that he was having a sexual relationship with her, and that she wasn’t the saint that everyone thought she was.”

“It must have been her that left it on my front doorstep.” I said.

“So you’ve seen it then?”

“Yes, and it proves the opposite, she was not in a relationship of any sort with Dean. The worst part of this is that this DVD is out there, in adult stores and featured on several porn sites.”

“Fuck. How devastating for you. Something has to be done.” She was genuinely astonished.

“What I would like you to do is to gather as many kids as you can and arrange for them to submit Stat Dec’s to that effect to Sergeant Robinson, he’s in charge of the investigation. The more people that express doubts about her taking her own life, there more seriously they will explore the alternatives to that hypothesis.” I told her.

“I’ll get onto it tomorrow, I’m sure that he will be flooded with Stat Dec’s. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but I would like you to have dinner with me tonight, at a restaurant, my treat. I want the opportunity to unburden myself of the conflicting emotions that I have and I can’t think of a better person to allow this than the one that I know has been having the same emotional conflicts. Well, what do you say?” She took a pile of files and dropped them into her in-tray.

“I’ll do it on one condition. If you so much as hint that you have feelings for me that I am not ready to accept you’ll find yourself coughing over exhaust fumes and tyre smoke.”

“I’ll try.” She didn’t sound confident.

“Okay, let’s go.” I stood to leave. We left.

Dinner began well enough, we discussed Jaime and her commitment to her work and her kids, our feelings for her. That one hurt and I was close to tears until Amanda very subtly changed the subject. I asked her about her life and background, why she chose to be a student counsellor and her views on the futures for the kids of today.

“That’s a difficult one. When I was growing up I was taught that we should respect adults and learn from them. When I look at the adults of today I don’t think that the examples given are the proper guidance for kids and, as educators, we have been limited in what guidance we are allowed to give, something to do with infringing on the civil liberties of parents to give no guidance to their children.”

“Yeah, back in the day, schools would have Career Counsellors who would help the kids to decide on a career. That was back in a time when there were entry-level jobs. Now kids have to have qualifications to get even the most basic of jobs, qualifications that they can only get if they have had a job, sort of Catch 22.”

“Enough of this maudlin conversation! I think it’s time for coffee and home.”

I didn’t like the look she gave me, no, scratch that, I liked the look, another time, another place and I would think seriously about chancing my luck.

We went back to the school where she had left her car. “Thank you for this evening,” she said before she got out of my car. “I feel better now.” She leaned across and kissed me, it was a borderline non-platonic kiss. “Keep me in the loop.”

“Sure, see you.”

“You will.” She stood and shut the door.

I looked into the rear-view mirror to see her waving. I wound down my window and waved back.

What was I to make of this? If I hadn’t just lost the woman that I loved, I might have been having lustful thoughts, but then if I hadn’t been married to Jaime, I never would have met her unless by chance.

I had a message on my desk to go to Roderick’s office.

“James. I am going to enjoy shafting this Dean Jankovic and his father.”

“His father, what does he have to do with this?”

“His father, among many sometimes dodgy enterprises, runs a company that produce training and motivational videos for companies. An offshoot of this business, and one that he has hidden well, but not well enough, provides videos for the porn industry, and would you believe that to groom his son to take over this side of his business, he has had Dean star in several videos using the name Dick Thrust. The video you saw could be seen as a training video. Dean was given artistic control of its production.”

“What can we do about that?”

“A lot as it turns out. He had the wherewithal to edit and produce this video, and I am going to introduce that into the Coronial enquiry. I have discussed this with the Coroner and he agrees. If the police investigation has not looked at this very important aspect, then we will bring it up. He is going to call on Dean and Justin to provide a background to Jaime’s mood at the time of her suspected suicide. He has not dismissed the possibility that she was murdered.”

“Have you discussed this with the police?”

“Yes, they have followed this line as far as they can,”

“I’ll have a chat with Sergeant Robinson.”

I went back to my office and called the sergeant. “Sergeant Robinson, I would like to discuss this case and how far you have got with your investigation. Would it be possible for me to meet with you, say at the police station?”

“I was just heading to your place.”

“Turn around, I’m at work.”

“You didn’t stay away long, did you?”

“I’ll explain it all when you get here.”

He must have been close because it was no more than five minutes before he was seated opposite me. “We, that’s my boss who just happens to be my father-in-law and Jaime’s father, and we have followed a different line and delved a little deeper than you have been able. We are going to raise the issue of the production and distribution of that DVD, it is germane to the inquiry and may lead to you having to arrest Dean Jankovic. I am telling you this because I, we, don’t want to spring this on you.” “How are you going to do that?”

“My boss, and father-in-law, has been appointed as counsel assisting the Coroner. I know, it could be construed as a conflict of interest, but we’re hoping that no one will recognise this, after all no mention will be made of Jaime’s maiden name.”

“Officially I don’t like this, but privately, I say go for it, I will not stop you.”

“Mister Sampson, Justin.” Roderick began in a gentle tone. “You were in Mrs Peter’s English class, were you not?”

“Yes, I mean yes I was, not yes I was not.”

“You liked her as a teacher, yes?”

“Yes, she was special.”

“In what way?”

“She helped me. I was falling behind in my work because I was being bullied. She took the time to help me gain more confidence in myself so that the bullying didn’t upset me as much.”

“But you saw it as something more than that, didn’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You saw her attention as something more than a relationship between a teacher and a student, didn’t you?”

“I loved her and thought that she loved me.”

“Did you discuss your feelings with her?”

“Yes, she told me that she could not love me because she would get into trouble.”

“Did she tell you that she loved her husband?”

“Yes, but I thought, I hoped that it would not last and she could be mine.”

“Did she ever do anything to encourage these thoughts?”

“No.”

“Were the other students aware of your feelings towards Mr Peters?”

“Yes, Dean Jankovic was always teasing me about it.”

“How did you feel about that?”

“He made what I had seen so, dirty.”

“Did he tell you that he and Mrs Peters had been having a sexual relationship?”

“Yes, but I didn’t believe him.”

“How did you feel about this revelation?”

“I knew that it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true. She was pure and would never have sex with someone like him. I told him so.”

“You told him so,” Roderick softened his voice further. “You were angry, weren’t you? You yelled at him to take it all back, that she would never have sex with him, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I was angry, very angry, I went to hit him, but he pushed me over.”

“Then what did he do?”

“He told me that he would prove to me that he had been having sex with her.”

“And did he?”

“The next day he gave me a DVD and told me to have a look at it.”

“Did you look at it?”

“No, not all of it. I looked at the first ten minutes, it was so disgusting, him having sex with her.”

“What did you do next?”

“I asked Jaime if I could have a word with her after school.”

“What did you say to her?”

“I confronted her, asked her how she could stoop so low as to have sex with Dean Jankovic. She denied it.”

“What did you do then?”

“I called her a liar and threw the DVD at her and ran from the room.”

“That will be all, thank you.”

Dean Jankovic was called to the witness stand. “Mister Jankovic, you have heard the evidence that you told Justin Sampson that you had been having sex with Jaime Peters, is this true?”

“Yeah, it’s true.”

“Can you prove that this is true?”

“Yeah, it’s out on DVD.”

“So you filmed this sexual act, why?”

“He,” pointing to Justin, “didn’t believe me, I had to prove it to him.”

“Why did you distribute the DVD?”

“I figured that I should make some money out of this.”

“So this DVD has been released worldwide with the title, ‘Teacher’s Pet – creaming an A’, I presume to adult stores as well as on porn web sites, would that be true?”

“That’s a decision the distributors made to increase sales. I’ve made a bit of money from it, yeah.”

“Were you under any obligation to pay Mrs Peters for her participation?”

“Nah, she did it for free, she didn’t want money from the distribution and sales.”

“We have spoken to the distributors and they have informed us that you told them that you would pay her performance fees and that they adjusted the payments to you accordingly. You never honoured that commitment, did you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“But not to Jaime Peters, the lady identified as the other participant in this sexual encounter.

Why was that? Was it because she was not the woman with whom you were having sex?”

“Yes, she was.”

“Then why wasn’t she paid? Her husband has asked for the payments that should have come to her from the distribution and sales of this DVD. Do you deny that she should receive that payment?”

Dean did not reply. He looked to his father who shook his head.

“Tell me, Mister Jankovic, you videoed your assignation with Mrs Peters, You would have been close to her genitalia during this encounter, is that true?”

“Sure, I was very close to the action.”

“Were there any features of that part of her body that would distinguish her from any other woman?”

“Not that I remember, no.”

“Was she shaved or did she sport pubic hair?”

“You’ve obviously seen the DVD, she was shaven.”

“And there were no tattoos there?”

“Nah, I don’t like girls with tattoos.”

“I am going to show this court the DVD in question.” The DVD was projected onto a screen set up to one side of the courtroom. As the opening sequence scrolled through, Roderick pointed out that the woman was indeed Jaime Peters. The action moved to the woman having oral sex for several minutes before stripping and laying on the desk. He paused the DVD. “You will notice that, except for the opening sequence, the face of the female participant is covered by her hair. Why would that be Mister Jankovic?”

“That’s the way it’s done.”

“You will also note that there is a lack of pubic hair and no tattoos, correct?”

“Like I said, I don’t go for inked or hairy chicks.”

Roderick turned the display off. “Now, Mister Jankovic, I want you to look at this photo taken during Jaime Peters autopsy, what do you see/”

He did not reply.

“You see that she has pubic hair, hair that has been trimmed in a distinctive pattern, it was trimmed by Mister Peters as part of their sexual pleasure, not clean-shaven as it appears in your DVD.”

“She could have grown it back.”

Roderick ignored the suggestion. “And, if you look closely you will notice a tattoo, it is small granted, positioned so that he could read it while he was ‘down there’ during love-making. It reads ‘Je t’aime.’ which is French for I love you. Mister Peters has an identical tattoo. They had them done just after they got married three years ago. So you see Mister Jankovic, the woman that you are having sex with was not Jaime Peters, was it?”

“No.” He said quietly.

“On a side note, this video appears on a porn site as your casting video, which means that you desire a career in the porn industry, would that be correct?”

“Yeah, I guess, I mean if you’ve got it you might as well make money from it, right?”

‘”But Dick Thrust, surely you could have chosen a better professional name than that? Getting back to this enquiry, Mrs Peters asked to meet with you after class and confronted you with this, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“She had already found out that the DVD was in distribution and she was angry, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Especially as this DVD had identified her as a teacher having sex with a student, that is illegal. Her teaching career had been ruined all because of your continued bullying of Justin Sampson, isn’t that right Mister Jankovic?”

“Yes.”

“She was what is known in military circles as collateral damage, an expendable victim. You destroyed the two most important things in her life, her teaching job and her marriage, isn’t that true Mister Jankovic?”

“Yes.”

“But it didn’t end there, did it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Mrs Peters was a much stronger person than you realised. She told you that she was going to go to the police to see what charges could be laid, and she would also reveal all to the media, your bullying of Justin Sampson and what you had done to her. She was prepared to go public, even though, to do so would tarnish her reputation as a person in the eyes of the public at large, and probably be the end of her teaching career. While she knew that her husband would love and support her, she wasn’t prepared to put him through the trauma of innuendo. She was determined to sacrifice herself for the good of others, wasn’t she Mister Jankovic?”

“She said she was going to the media.”

“And you could not have that, could you?”

“No.”

“So, to calm herself down with the hope of being able to reason with you, she went outside for a few minutes.

“Yes.”

“And, while she was gone you drugged her water glass with Rohypnol didn’t you Mister Jankovic?”

Dean did not respond.

“Didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He looked at his father who glared back at him, this wasn’t going as he’d hoped.

“Why did you happen to have this drug with you?”

“I don’t know, I just did.”

“You knew that she was angry with you, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I knew she was pissed.”

“So, you took the opportunity to slip some of this highly dangerous drug into her water.”

“Yes.”

“And while she was affected by this drug you smothered her, didn’t you?” Again no response.

“Didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And you left her there, in the classroom where she lived her dream as a teacher, dead, hoping that her death would be taken as suicide.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take that as a confession.”

Sergeant Robinson walked slowly to the witness stand, “Dean Jankovic, I’m arresting you on the charge of murdering Jaime Peters, you do not have to say anything but what you do say will be taken down and may be used as evidence in a court of law.”

“Dad.” Dean called out to his father.

“Sit!” Sergeant Robinson pointed to Dean’s father. “I’ll get to you in a minute.” He led Dean to the door and handed him over to a Constable. Returning to the body of the court he addressed Dean’s father. “Mister Jankovic, were you aware of the reason why your son wanted to produce this video?”

“He said something about a school project.”

“Were you aware that he would be using images taken, without her knowledge, of Mrs Peters?”

“I figured that, once he realised how much work went into the production of a video, he would give up on the idea just as he’d given up on previous ideas.”

“Did you watch the video before its release?”

“Yes, I thought that it was well done.”

“So you had no hesitation in releasing it through your very own video production and distribution network?”

“No.”

“Are you then prepared for the repercussions of that release, the death of an innocent woman, the loss to Mister Peters of a loving wife, the traumatic effect it would have on a vulnerable young man?”

“I am not responsible for those outcomes.”

“But you are quite happy to receive the earnings from this video, aren’t you?”

“If there’s a demand for the product then I will fill that demand.”

“I imagine that the publicity will boost sales. You take no responsibility for this video, even if it means that you have thrown your son under the bus?”

“I didn’t ask him to kill that woman, that was his idea.” He saw the look on the Coroner’s face. “I, in no way condone his actions.”

“I bet he’ll be overjoyed to hear that his father has abandoned him. That will be all.”

As I stood to leave I noticed Amanda at the rear of the courtroom talking to a man. She saw my glance and signalled me to join her. “James, this is my brother Simon, he’s a journalist. I asked him to come here with me to hear what was going to happen.”