Six years down the line from a marriage that had been given six months to live by the most optimistic forecasters, it was beginning to look very much as if it had simply been an error of calculation on the part of the latter, for early signs of structural failure were very much in evidence in the household. David’s work required increasing periods of absence from home, whilst Juliette’s professional life was opening up very appealing new opportunities in all areas of her life. At first, she had dismissed these as the normal process of temptation after a few years of very contented and fulfilling – albeit childless – marriage. She and David had maintained the flame that had ignited between them, following their first encounter when he had been arranging a business visit to the Far East in connection with a major transport engineering scheme. They both enjoyed the good life as well, although this was one area in which the differences in temperament did manifest themselves, since David’s inclination tended, unsurprisingly, to be towards caution, whereas Juliette was often seduced by the appeal of flamboyance. In fact, it had been the fifth anniversary dinner, at an extremely expensive Spanish restaurant, that had caused the first major confrontation between them, an event that had left Juliette, egged on by Rioja-induced anæsthesia of her inhibitions, to create what could have been an embarrassing scene in public, had it not been for quick-thinking David’s sharpness of mind.

From that point on, hairline cracks had begun to appear and Juliette’s social life had begun to include other avenues for stimulation. She had no difficulty whatsoever in making acquaintances – although, like David, she was also careful in choosing friends. When she started tapping the keyboard of the family computer during the evenings whilst David was away, to chat with him in various parts of the world, it was not long before she started to leave the machine switched on at the end of her Messenger chat and went on to surf her way into new waters. In this medium, despite her sharpness in the 3-dimensional world, she had been somewhat out of her depth. There had been nothing sinister about her contacts, as she had seen the perverts and morons off very promptly. What she had not prepared herself for was the way in which she would respond to the people whom she came to like – one in particular.

Mark Warner was 15 years older than Juliette and was a freelance software engineer who was doing very nicely for himself in the South-West of England. He was happily married and was father to three children. Like many other people who had discovered the Internet, he had not set out with the specific aim of finding new social territories to explore and the thought of infidelity had been totally alien to him. However, neither he nor Juliette had foreseen how events would develop. Had either of both of them taken the time to look ahead, they would have heard the roar of the cascades ahead of the boat that was carrying their friendship along deceptively still and bewitchingly calm and pleasant waters. Unfortunately, they became so engrossed with each other that neither of them noticed, or even tried to see, that they were drifting at an alarming rate towards marital catastrophe. In truth, whilst the excitement of ‘Net flirtation was intensely enjoyable, neither of them really wanted the situation to get out of control, but neither of them felt the need to test the brakes. It was, therefore, obvious, that this responsibility would fall to somebody else.

As it turned out, it was on David’s shoulders that this landed, in a manner that was really too bizarre to believe.

Late in the evening, on one very cold February day, on the eve of David’s return from Southern Germany, Juliette was reading carefully through an e-mail she had written to Mark when the telephone rang. It was Joline, anxious to find out if her older sister could babysit for her 12-month old daughter on the following day, so that the harassed parents could get out for a few hours for some ‘quality time’ together. As with many a conversation between sisters, the agenda was self-extending and the conversation moved on to other topics. Having acquired a degree of multitasking skill, Juliette was filling in the e-mail address as she spoke to her sister. The address book appeared in the usual two columns on the screen and Juliette highlighted ‘Warner, Mark’. She was about to click on it when Joline came to a particularly hilarious point in the diary of her daughter’s activities, in which she had managed to re-programme Grandad’s video recorder with acutely embarrassing consequences. Juliette howled with laughter and her finger just caught the ‘shift column’ button via the mouse, moving the highlight to ‘Malence, David’. Unfortunately, such was the laughter that Juliette had been unaware of this and the e-mail was duly despatched and, in the custoJuliette mechanical manner, deleted unchecked from the ‘Sent items’ box in the email window.

When Joe had announced to Bob and Juliette, his incredulous parents, that he and Juliette were to be married, the virtually unprecedented response had, initially, been mute, open-mouthed disbelief. It had taken quite a while before his Mother had summoned up the courage to cobble together an unconvincing smile and his Father had, in his custoJuliette manner, decided that the best place to reflect on this news – or any other matter requiring the engagement of more than one brain cell – was the Fiddler’s Arms, a few hundred yards away, down the quiet, leafy terraced street that had been home for 26 years to this quiet, mild-mannered – some would even have said ‘timid’ – young man.

The Pain Files

It was very easy indeed totally to mis-read David – as most people had done, failing to take time to look beyond the ‘nothing out of the ordinary’, yet nonetheless quite presentable, exterior to the remarkable man inside. His well-groomed short black hair and steel blue eyes had brought the attention of more than one girl to this recently-qualified engineer and his sartorial tastes had done nothing to deflect that interest. In fact, there was nothing visual – nor even social – that would have caused offence to anyone, for David had always been a quiet and well-mannered child, boy, teenager and man. He was not gifted to excess in any particular area of life, but he was a competent, hard-working plodder and, as those who had played a part in his education and training would have told any interested party, he had an uncanny knack when it came to setting and achieving his objectives. What marked him out from his more boisterous and vociferous peers – some of whom had, however, learned at an early stage, sometimes to their cost, that David was not good bullying material – was that he did not wear his heart or display his plans on his sleeve.

Perhaps it had been this quiet and systematic approach to life that had prompted his form teacher in year seven at school to steer him towards engineering-related subjects. He had needed little encouragement, since his aptitude for work that required the application of careful deliberation, logic, soundly-based science and a hint of creativity was soon very much in evidence. His reward had been a first class honours degree in structural engineering and he was now settling well into a junior managerial post as part of a design team for a leading multi-national transport engineering company.

One very obvious characteristic of David was his ability to command the loyalty of his friends, yet friends were few and far between, for David’s cautious approach to his professional life was reflected in his social sphere. There were several acquaintances, mostly at his workplace, with whom he was able to socialise quite easily, but the list of friends in the ‘Addresses and Telephone Numbers’ section of his thick and well-thumbed diary was short.

The only difference between the response from David’s family and that from Peter and Helen Carrington to news of the impending marriage of their daughter, Juliette, was that the silence in the latter household was short-lived. In all other respects, the response was identical, to the point that even the prospective father of the bride had felt the need to see whether or not the news still sounded the same after a little mild anæsthesia of the mind at ‘The Green Man’ public house, set in a location not designed to further contemplation, being bounded on both sides by busy dual carriageways that crossed the sprawling 1970s ‘little boxes’ estate where the family lived. In fact, the only people who had demonstrated spontaneous enthusiasm had been Joline and Jemma, Juliette’s younger siblings. Their motives, however, had more to do with the prospect of their role in the ceremonials than with the longer-term prospects for the couple.

Juliette had been an athletic-looking 22-year old at the time. She stood 5′ 5″ tall and was a comfortable size 10 who, unlike most of her peers, was more than happy with her appearance and exuded confidence in enviable proportions. She did not dress to dazzle -she had no need to – but she knew how to use the contents of her carefully-selected wardrobe to good effect. For most people meeting her for the first time, it was her intense gaze, from feline green eyes framed by fine, shoulder length straight honey-blonde hair – usually kept tied neatly at the nape of her neck -that created the powerful first impression that had earned her a well-paid position as personal assistant to the manager of a well-established business travel company. This was not a job without its perks, but it had not been this, nor indeed Juliette’s impressive appearance, that had first attracted David’s attention. It had been her laughter, something that had kindled a light deep in the mind of a young man to whom this had not been a sound commonly heard at home.