The Bigamist

By Peter A Stankovic

Harry Boulton, a successful consultant for a global corporation, finds himself in a downward spiral after losing a substantial sum of money gambling and being fired from his job in Brussels. The added pressure of receiving a letter from his wife in New York asking for a child only compounds his stress. With mounting debts to a dangerous loan shark known as Spider and the weight of two marriages to navigate, Harry reaches the brink of despair and makes a devastating decision.

But just as he is about to pull the trigger, fate intervenes and gives him a second chance. Determined to turn his life around, Harry takes on a new job and sets out to make amends with the two women in his life. However, when his wives unexpectedly meet in Sydney, where he has found a fresh start, the stage is set for a heart-pounding confrontation that could determine the rest of Harry’s days.

Harry’s journey is a thrilling roller coaster ride of personal redemption, filled with twists and turns that will leave readers on the edge of their seats. With a gripping plot, dynamic characters, and intense action, this book explores the limits of love, loyalty, and the human spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398498693

Peter A Stankovic

Peter A Stankovic started his career as a chartered accountant and over the years became an independent finance professional. Writing was something he did occasionally until he retired from his finance career. In 2012, he took up full-time writing and to date has had 9 books published. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

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About the Author

Peter A Stankovic started his career as a chartered accountant and over the years became an independent finance professional.

Writing was something he did occasionally until he retired from his finance career.

In 2012, he took up full-time writing and to date has had 9 books published.

He lives in Sydney, Australia.

Dedication

For my love, Celia.

Copyright Information ©

Peter A Stankovic 2023

The right of Peter A Stankovic to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398498686 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398498693 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank members of the Writers Circle who provided useful feedback on parts of the story read out to them.

One

It was one of those grim, overcast days that Harry loathed, a day which seemed unable to make up its mind. It was both dark and foreboding but without the energy to spit, let alone rain. It was the kind of day which forced sensible people indoors. It was the kind of day which matched Harry’s mood perfectly. As he wandered down the grey street, passing grey figures bundled up in overcoats and scarves, Harry wondered whether what he had in mind would take much courage.

He’d just bought a gun from a friend of a friend. The man who had passed the gun to him, had done so in an underground tunnel, graffiti covering every possible space along the concrete walls. Once Harry had handed over the paper bag which held the cash, the man confirmed that the gun was untraceable.

Trudging up the steps to his hotel room, a third-rate Brussels place at that, Harry despaired that the end would be so ignominious. As an executive who flew from city to city, he would be gone from the earth before enjoying the spoils of his rewards. His dreams of triumphing over humankind in one field or another were now not only fanciful but, sadly, a sick joke. He still couldn’t believe it—the sudden crashing downfall of Harold Bernard Boulton. His mind tortured him again, insisting on replaying the day’s events, starting some seven hours ago.

David Bowie blasted him awake, with the prophetic words ‘I’ve nothing further to offer’; Harry glanced at the insistent clock radio. It was seven twenty-six. He cursed. It was the beginning of yet another day of office drudgery. He wanted to travel again. Worse still was waking up alone, in a king-size bed, in a foreign country.

No matter how often he’d done it, Harry couldn’t get used to rousing from sleep without the scent of a warm woman beside him. It was his single great regret that he had no permanent female in each of the places he ventured, something he had to attend to.

He drew the covers aside, struggled to his feet and for a moment considered calling in sick. The hot shower opened his eyes a little more but not enough to prevent him from nicking his skin while shaving. He stabbed the cut with toilet paper then examined himself critically in the mirror.

For forty-one full years on the planet, he could have looked worse. He likened himself in looks to Laurence Harvey, the British actor who was born in Lithuania, with a conservative modern haircut. Harvey died aged forty-five. So, Harry surmised, he had four years to go, possibly. He remembered seeing Harvey playing a womaniser in ‘Room at the Top’, sporting a flat-top.

Harry’s hair was short but the front, brushed back, and looked smoother than a crew cut. Yes, he was very much like Harvey—tall, dark and handsome but not in quite the same pretty-boy fashion as his film-star counterpart. But like Harvey’s character, Harry might be considered by some to be a womaniser. Yet, Harry possessed an appearance of someone who had seen too much and who was world-weary. He guessed it was too early in the morning for mirrors to be kind.

Braving the cold outside, Harry finally managed to hail a taxi which took him to the office. He over-tipped the driver before scampering through the office building’s rotating doors. As he held a generous expense account which dissipated at the end of the financial year, he had no reason to appear tight-fisted.

Striding across the lobby’s marble floor, he tried to think what was in store for him today. All that kept resurfacing in his mind however, waiting at the bank of elevators with the other dozen drowsy-looking and frozen office workers, was the disastrous night before.

It would have been a fantastic evening except for the last few hours, between one and three in the morning, when he’d lost all of his winnings and more. Harry considered himself a risk-taker, not a gambler, and he believed he had good risk-management strategies in place. He had a system for playing blackjack which rarely failed him and he never wagered more than a few hundred dollars on roulette, even when testing his lucky number-two.

Where had he gone wrong, he mused as he stood watching the floor numbers above the elevator’s door. Had the buxom brunette with the strapless black dress, if one could call it a dress, watching him from across the table, been responsible?

At first, her close attention and plastic smile had brought him luck. So, it was all the more puzzling to realise, in the cold light of dim morning that he had reversed his good fortune to the tune of over a hundred thousand US dollars. Unbelievable! Who would believe him if he told his story?

Elevator doors opening interrupted his pondering. He waited patiently for the exodus of office workers getting off at the ground level. The on-going crowd was soon swallowed up as everyone, like him, must be running late, he surmised. Eventually, all other elevator riders had departed leaving him alone to climb to level twenty-five. Once there, he walked out into the brightly lit reception area casually, as though he had just returned from an important meeting.

Wandering down the long corridor to his corner office, Harry nodded to two of the more senior executives but spoke to no one. He was not noted for his communicativeness before the day’s first coffee, nor his friendliness, at any time. Today, he was grateful for having established this perception. As he passed his secretary’s desk, he nodded hello which also meant he was ready for his coffee. Removing his overcoat and hanging it neatly in the cupboard on the right side of his spacious office, Harry couldn’t help thinking of the vast amount of money he owed to the notorious loan-shark.

A cool hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He had no notion of how to get such an amount together in just one week, a mere seven days. He was in deep shit. Somehow, he had to come up with a plan to pay it back over the required timeline or to concoct a way to embezzle it. The method would have to be more elaborate than the one he used to pad his expenses.

Miss Dorhof brought in his coffee. Setting the fine china cup down carefully, she said, You’re not feeling well, Mr Boulton?

She was very perceptive, he thought but he said, I’m fine Eunice. Any mail?

Only one letter from New York, She placed the envelope on his desk.

Harry was beginning to feel a little better. The coffee was good. It had done the trick-getting him to forget the night before. Now, he needed to concentrate on developing a strategy for winning the new beverages’ account. The company’s major competitor currently held the account but it was well-known around town that Anheuser-Bush InBev were putting the account out for tender. The landline phone buzzed suddenly, jerking Harry out of his train of thought.

Mumbling profanities, Harry strode down the corridor to another corner office. The Managing Director’s secretary, a slim woman in her thirties with recently cut and styled hair, nodded hello and told him to go straight through to the boss’s office. Although Harry was a senior member of the firm, he wasn’t of the same status as Michael Gordon Taylor who sat on the New York board of directors and ruled the Brussels’ operation like some banana republic dictator.

Harry pushed the door open and stepped into an office, which some employees were still afraid to enter voluntarily.

Taylor stood at the window, peering down onto Rue Simons. His hands were behind him, clutched together in a prince’s pose. Harry coughed to alert his presence but Taylor did not stir, his short pear-shaped frame out of place in this elegantly decorated and immense room. The office was twice the size of the deputy managing directors and compared to Harry’s modest-sized office, it felt like a football arena. Original paintings hung on the MD’s walls, including ‘The Card Players’ by Cezanne.

One long white leather sofa tucked against one wall did not diminish the impression that the office was sparsely furnished.

Harry waited. He observed the vast area once again. Everything had its place, it seemed. No stray papers, no desktop computer and no personal ornaments, save the obligatory framed photo of wife and two children were in sight. The wife looked to be in her sixties with straight black hair and an angular face. The kids, a young man and woman were adults in their mid to late twenties. There was only one sign on the desk, large enough to comfortably have two adults lie side by side, which revealed something about the man’s personality. It read: ‘Thank you for not smoking.’

The guy didn’t even have a sense of humour, Harry noted. He’d been in this office before but hadn’t taken much notice of its design.

Eventually, after having surveyed the streets to his satisfaction, Taylor turned and said in his precise British accent, What is it that makes people so impatient?

Harry shrugged. Taylor was such a pompous old boor, he realised not for the first time. How the hell did he ever get to be head of advertising and CEO?

Taylor smoothed his wavy grey hair, which was brushed back, giving his round face an almost boyish appearance. It was obvious too that his belly strained against his belt, no doubt due to daily business lunches. Settling into the big leather chair, Taylor rasped, Sit down. He cleared his throat. Sitting on his chair which was higher than the visitor’s chair, Taylor appeared imposing.

Harry guessed that Taylor’s chair was screwed up as high as it would go and wondered why it was necessary, given that he had the corner office and the title. Irritated by the games Taylor seemed intent on playing, Harry demanded, What can I do for you Gordon? Harry fiddled with Taylor’s smoking sign, wondering what in hell was so important for him to be summoned so swiftly. After all, Taylor held meetings with senior staff mid-morning. It was barely nine-thirty now.

Harry, as you know, our profits this quarter are down and the next quarter’s forecast is just as gloomy, Taylor paused, eyeing Harry to ensure he was paying attention.

Go on, said Harry, knowing what was coming. Another lecture to get Harry to cut his staff. In times of crisis, ‘Development’ always copped shit.

We’ve had to make some hard decisions, continued Taylor, steepling his fingers and moving forward.

Harry waited, feigning a bored expression. It was plain that Taylor was enjoying this. He’d obviously got the green light from New York for whatever he was about to announce. Autocratic as he was, Taylor was not a rash man and he wouldn’t make a big decision without backing from the top brass.

And one of those decisions, he explained, is to rationalise our development programme. In future, development will be controlled from London.

Where’s that leave my people? For Harry, working in London might prove awkward but not impossible. His staff, however, were all locals, living in the suburbs of Brussels.

Taylor took out reading glasses from the top drawer and placed them behind his ears. He also took a piece of paper and spread it on his desk. He wet his lips, his fat tongue wriggling like a skinned toad. Let’s see, he said, perusing the information in front of him. Most of them will be absorbed by Sales.

Most?

Yes, he said. Some will work for London but not all will be retained.

Who doesn’t get absorbed?

I was hoping I didn’t need to spell it out. Taylor stared blankly at some point to the right of Harry.

Harry suddenly felt blood drain from his face and he imagined he looked like a pale version of his ghost. His body also seemed in danger of collapsing. The enormity of the message penetrated his skull, more savagely than any summary dismissal. He had not expected this. He hadn’t even considered this.

The corporation was a solid multi-national with a vast network of offices throughout the globe. At worst, he expected to be transferred to South America and he expected to be with the organisation until retirement in twenty-odd years from now. As it was, he had already served twelve years, most of them happily in the field, not desk bound as in the last two years.

And here he was facing a man who didn’t have the decency to say in plain language that he was no longer wanted. Position terminated, person dismissed. Thanks for the good times.

Harry tried to make eye contact with Taylor but the man looked elsewhere. Was this it? Just like that, after so many years? He’d read about these situations, even knew of people who’d been retrenched. But he never expected it would happen to him. Not now. He owed too much money to unscrupulous creditors.

There was also Wendy to consider and Michelle. He wanted desperately to hear Taylor say it was a joke, a mistake, anything but what he’d just heard. Yet, he had to remain calm. He wouldn’t give this spineless little back-stabber the pleasure of seeing him break down. How he despised the man. For years, Taylor had tried to reduce Harry’s influence and cut numbers in his department. He’d called them impotent hotshots. Taylor was a marketing man and felt that was the only viable area of power.

Spell it out, Harry said, looking directly at Taylor.

Goodbye Harry. Leave the keys to the office and company car with Mrs Pembroke and be out of here by eleven o’clock. Taylor swivelled around, gazing out the window once more.

Harry too stared out the window, in his own office. Now, after an hour slumped in his chair, he was no wiser. He had tried to figure out where he had gone wrong in his years with the company. His career had been upwardly mobile throughout. He hadn’t made any big or expensive mistakes, as far as he could recall. He hadn’t embarrassed any of the big brass.

Sure, he had trodden on a few toes but none belonged to powerful men. The reason for his sudden fall from grace had to do with Gordon Taylor. The chemistry between them was wrong. That’s all it came down to. It wasn’t fair but then life wasn’t particularly fair.

He swung round. What was done was done. He emptied his drawers, stuffing personal items into a bag. The few company files he was working on, he dumped into the wastepaper bin. Standing erect, he tried to recall what he’d kept in the company car, parked in the basement garage. He’d rarely used it for business, only on weekends when he might trek to France or Germany. Then, he noticed a letter from New York, wondering why he had ignored it. He tore the envelope open and began to read the familiar scrawl.

"Darling Harry, hope you are well. Rang your number over the last few days but failed to get you and my email wasn’t working. I didn’t want to leave a message, so I decided an old-fashioned letter would be best. I know how you need your privacy. I’ll be in California when you read this—on magazine business. Should be back home in a week. I miss you. When do you expect to be home again?

Please write or email (you know how I like the written word) and tell me everything. It seems we’ve been out of touch for countless months. I know that’s not the case, but it feels like it. We have got to work out a better way to live. I need support and love and I want a child. My parents want us to stay with them in the Hamptons over Christmas this year. I promised we would and hope you can see your way clear this time. Much love, Michelle.

Ironic, Harry thought, balling the note and tossing it into the wastepaper basket. If his wife knew his impressive overseas post had just been terminated, she would have felt ecstatic but he could never tell her. She wouldn’t understand he needed his job to be situated outside America.

Eunice Dorhof burst into his office. Mr Boulton, I just heard. I’m so sorry. She sniffled, touching her small nose with a tiny handkerchief.

News travelled a lot faster when it was unpleasant, Harry observed. Who could have leaked it already?

There, there, Eunice, no need to get all thing, Harry said, not really knowing how to express himself to stop the weeping. "I’ll be all right. I’ll get another